PRINCE BISMARCK'S POSITION.
THE extraordinary separateness of Prince Bismarck's posi- tion among European Premiers comes out more strongly month by month. We can remember nothing in modern history in the least like it. The man is the Government of Germany, wields the whole force of the strongest of military Empires, and is the one figure to be always reckoned with by the diplomacy of Europe. If viewed from one side alone, no one can hold a prouder position ; and it is, to use the terms of theology, almost self-existent. The people could not remove him, even if they wished, for the Hohenzollems would not give him up. The Hohenzollerns could not remove him, even if they wished, for fear lest the people should lay any subsequent disaster, such as the coalition which the Prince said on Wednes- day he had only just succeeded in averting, to their charge. He even ventures to make his remaining in power a favour to his master, and declared on Tuesday that when he saw the Emperor wounded by the assassin, Nobiling, he resolved never to resign without his master's consent, as if that were an act of self-renunciation extorted from him by loyalty and pity. He makes his influence felt in every Continental capital, and even if we distrust the rumours which attribute to him a large share in the fall of M. Gambetta, he has quite recently been gratified by two remarkable successes. It is reported on all hands that he has obtained a preponderating position in the councils of the Sultan. The very remarkable person who now rules Turkey, and who proves every day that if force has departed from the House of Othman, mental capacity has not, has decided in his own mind, quite accurately from his point of view, that of all the Powers of Europe, Germany can protect him best, and has least to ask at his hands. He therefore courts Prince Bismarck assiduously, and affects to grant to the German
Ambassador, at once and without haggling, concessions which other European representatives may demand in vain.
Obstacles which appeared insuperable have, it is said, vanished at the first intimation from the German Embassy that they had better go, and delay has been exchanged for promptitude when he has suggested urgency. At this moment it is said to be due to German representations that the Sultan has recon- sidered the proposition for a Conference on the affairs of Egypt.
This submissiveness is, in part, unreal, as Prince Bismarck will find when he asks the Sultan for any great concession ; but for the present it enables him to conciliate or annoy every Power represented in Constantinople—a position which he greatly enjoys—as well as to keep up in Paris a belief that if a signal is given from Berlin, all Northern Africa will rise in insurrec- tion. Then, whether the fall of General Ignatieff is due to representations from Berlin or not, it is certain that it clears Prince Bismarck's position. It is most probable that the Czar, half-frenzied as he is by the incessant and real menaces addressed to him, raises and depresses Ministers according to their success in dealing with the Revolutionary
Committee, and considers their appreciation abroad a secondary concern. He considers that Loris Melikoff failed because the assassination of Alexander II. occurred under his regime, and that General Ignatieff has failed because he could neither pre-
vent nor punish the plots prepared to interrupt the coronation • at Moscow. He has, therefore, replaced General Ignatieff by . Count Tolstoy, an old official full of traditions, who believes • in " strong " government and the secret police, and who is - known in Russia as the deadly enemy of education and en- lightenment. If students, he thinks, learn Latin, and nothing else, they will be faithful subjects ; but mathematics, and, above all, physics, are full of revolution. The Czar's annoyance at his own imprisonment is ample reason for
General Ignatieff's fall ; but that fall inflicts incidentally a
terrible blow upon the warlike party. General Ignatieff was known to be antagonistic to Austria, and favour- able to France ; and Prince Bismarck, who dreams as well as thinks of coalitions, regarded him as a dangerous foe, who was, at all events, protecting Pan- Slavist intrigues. With Count Tolstoy in power, an active Russian policy is not to be feared, and Prince Bismarck finds himself, therefore, with Russia temporarily disarmed, with France in a spasm either of timidity or selfishness, and with Austria his humble ally, praying only that she may have Bosnia-Herzegovina by a better tenure. He must feel like the master of Europe, or, at least, of the Continent ; and it is while he so feels that he receives from his Parliament a rebuff so savage that it would in any other country, even if only half constitutional, overthrow the strongest Minister. Viewed from the side of internal politics, the Prince is a defeated Minister, with no prestige at all.
The Tobacco Monopoly Bill has been again thrown out. This • Bill, as our readers are aware, would increase the revenue of the Empire, as distinguished from the States of Germany, by nearly £6,000,000 a year, and make the Imperial Treasury ..independent of all supplementary grants. These grants are abhorrent to Prince Bismarck, not only because they bring home to the different peoples of Germany the cost of their military system, but because they enable Parliaments and peoples to criticise his government, and even to insist on military reductions which the Prince declares would be fatal to the Ger- man position in Europe. How, he asks, is he to succeed in diplomacy, " without our good bayonets behind me "; and how is Germany to be powerful with " the millions of bayonets pointed, as by magnetic attraction, at the centre of Europe ?" He . believes in force, and force alone ; he recognises that a full Treasury is essential to force, and the Bill, therefore, is very dear to him, so dear that he twice appeared in the tribune, and delivered two of those strange, jerky, disconnected, and yet powerful speeches which possess for Germans every charm except persuasion. He threatened a dissolution. He refused to resign. He declared that it was' impossible to govern with such Members. He professed to have lost all confidence in Parliaments, " which even my colleague, Gladstone," he said, " cannot now manage " since a third party arose in the House of Commons, and he looked for the future of Germany and . safety from the " marasmus " of faction only to her dynasties,— • a singular phrase, which may contain a veiled threat of dispens- ing in Imperial affairs with a Parliament altogether. The Emperor would then govern with no further check than he might receive from the Imperial Council, leaving the local Parliaments to debate only over local affairs. The Chan- cellor, moreover, as usual when strongly excited, be- . gan talking about himself. He has always an idea that not only did he make Germany—which is in a way true, though he was materially helped by the quarter- - million of Germans who fill unrecorded graves—but that his • making it was an act of self-sacrifice, entitling him to ask for obedience as his reward, which is a curiously characteristic • and separate way of putting his undoubted claims. It is as if Mr. Gladstone should ask for a great Bill because he had risen to be Premier. He asked his opponents, therefore, if any one of them had "staked himself " as he did when he declared a war which he personally 'could not conduct, evidently thinking that in that appeal, that reminiscence of his own audacity, was something almost pathetic. The good Germans were quite unaffected. They have not yet • been able to make their House of Commons the pivot of power, or to turn their iron master from any of his purposes ; but they are as stubborn as he is, and they do not intend either to smoke bad tobacco at an exorbitant price, or to emancipate the Imperial Treasury entirely from their own control. They might, if they did, find Germany committed not only to her • present military system, which weighs upon them heavily, but to a policy of obtaining " final and permanent security," which would involve a great war either with Russia or with France. - They are as much afraid of Prince Bismarck's audacity, as they are proud of it. They, therefore, in spite of Prince Bismarck's arguments and pleadings, and half-veiled threats, and predic- tion that " a cloud was rising over Europe," which was felt on the Bourse, voted down the Tobacco Bill by 276 to 45, a majority of more than six to one, probably the most smashing Parliament- ary defeat ever sustained by a European Minister.
What will the Chancellor do now ? Probably, just what he has always done,—prorogue Parliament, govern Germany, and wait till, in some great emergency, the nation either gives him his way, or supplies him with resources which make his own way comparatively indifferent to him. He has threatened a dissolution ; but what is the use of dissolving, when it is quite certain that six-sevenths of the new representatives will vote exactly as their predecessors have done ? He might, if he could obtain the Emperor's signature, strike a coup d'itat, and dismiss the Parliament ; but what would be the immediate use of that? He could not monopolise tobacco after the coup d'itat, any more than before. " We can do anything with bayonets," said Prince Schwartzenberg, " except sit on them ;" and he might have added, "except use them to levy indirect taxes." Prince Bismarck himself, only two years ago, acknowledged that in modern Europe Parliamentary sanc- tion was necessary for fresh taxation ; and he is not likely to annoy the Federal Princes, and irritate the people, and give all popular discontent a new argument, merely to get a little money which he can well do without. The States have never refused the supplementary grants. We believe that he will wait, avenging himself by bitter remarks upon the atrophy of faction, and by making life intolerable to all sub- ordinates ; and the strangeness of the position is that he can wait, if he likes. A defeat which would send Mr.. Glad- stone into the wilderness has no effect upon Prince Bismarck, who is just as clearly the representative of Germany abroad and in all Executive Departments as if he could carry his favourite Bills through Parliament. He is President as it were for life, and his Parliament, though it possesses an effective veto on his proposals, can no more remove him than a hostile majority in Congress can remove the President of the United States. They must let him go on governing and proposing.
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