The Times of Tuesday declared that it had reason to
believe that Prince Bismarck has intimated to the new Government of Spain that the German Government will delay its recognition of Alphonso XII tall the decree suspending the two Protestant papers and shutting up the Protestant Church at Cadiz is can- celled. That is the oddest bit of pure self-will in Prince Bismarck of which we have yet had evidence. It was a very foolish and very illiberal thing to suspend the two poor little Protestant sheets and to shut up the Protestant Church at Cadiz, but is it possible to rule Spain from Berlin or not? In these days of weak revolutions and weaker restorations, it is a very difficult matter to know when to recognise a new Govern- ment. If you wait for a long time, you only get less and less reason to hope for any stability ; and if you recognise promptly, you have to recognise a feebler successor the next day. But it is the worst of all principles to make conditions of policy which practically divide the responsibility of government, and weaken both the authority of the State and the moral responsibility of the people. Oddly enough, in the very same paper, the Times prints a letter from the Duke of Norfolk, containing a list of bishops, priests, &c., imprisoned or fined, or both imprisoned and fined, for their religion in Germany. Spain might fairly reply that she will deny herself her little slice of bigotry as soon as Germany denies herself her much bigger slice off the same loaf.
Previous page
