The German Emperor feels keenly the general disapproval of his
action in renewing the passport system in Alsace- Lorraine because the Parisian journalists were so rude to the Empress Frederick. The Paris correspondent of the Times has accordingly been requested to explain his Majesty's reasons to, Europe. The Emperor was neither in anger nor in haste, nor did he believe that his mother had been insulted; but he had endeavoured through her means to re-establish courtesy between the two nations, and when he failed, through the exertions of the " howling dervishes " who made France giddy and ruled the rulers, he felt that his " concilia- tory attitude was represented as a humility." This he was bound on behalf of Germany to repudiate, and he accordingly " restored the barriers between two nations which cannot look at one another without frowning," He is convinced that the good sense of the French nation will soon show it the necessity of self-control ; and when it does, " when the French nation shall pass judgment on these useless incitations," he will again " remove the barriers." He is "ready to relax his rigour as soon as the French people have shaken off their pernicious tutelage." That is all very well, and not undignified as an essay, but it does not alter the facts that the Emperor paid far too much attention to the antics of "howling dervishes," and that because such persons made a noise in Paris, he imposed restrictions on the business of Alsace-Lorraine. He sent, as it were, a message
of conciliation to his neighbour ; that neighbour's footman spit ; consequently, as a warning, he cuffed his own page-boy. Surely the greater the dignity of the suffer, the greater the mistake.
