TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GERMAN EMPEROR'S FORECAST.
THE German Emperor does not seem to overrate the sort of influence which is all that even the ruler of a great and most powerful country has it in his power to exert for the maintenance of peace. Though he darts about Europe with a swift and punctual alacrity that might seem to imply a deep sense of his own influence, he seldom opens his mouth without conveying his own sense of the limited character of the authority wielded even by the most powerful monarchs, and suggesting that, after all, it is their best function to make men see the full difficulty of the problems with which modern States have to grapple, and the impracticability of even approaching the solution of them without offering a steady resistance to the out- break of strife between the ruling Powers. He told the Lord Mayor yesterday week :—" My aim is, above all, the maintenance of peace. For peace alone can give the confidence which is necessary for the healthy develop- ment of science, of art, and of trade. Only so long as peace reigns are we at liberty to bestow our earnest thoughts on the great problems the solution of which in fairness and equity I consider the most prominent duty of our time." It is obvious there that it was not chiefly " of science, of art, and of trade " that the Emperor was thinking, but rather of the adjustment of social forces which science, art, and trade have as yet left in bitter con- flict, but which the prudence, and still more the forbearance and Christianity, of our times are now, not, indeed, for the first time, though for the first time since science and trade were full-fledged, attempting to control. The Emperor does not propose to suppress these unruly social forces in order that we may have peace ; he proposes to keep the peace in order that we may have a chance of understanding and controlling them. It is far easier, he suggests, to keep Europe internationally at peace than it is to give it true social peace ; and instead of having recourse to international war in order that the social conflict may be postponed till after the rivalry of the races has had its fight out, he intimates that the rivalry of the races must be kept under, in order that the social struggle may not be postponed, but may be seriously studied, and, so far as possible, appeased.
And here, we think, the German Emperor strikes the same note which he struck when he dismissed Prince Bismarck. Then, too, he was intent on dealing, so far as it was possible, with the causes which had driven so great a section of the peoples of Europe into Socialism ; for it was clear that in Prince Bismarck he did not find the guidance and counsels he desired. The Prince had, indeed, been called to a quite different task,—the sup- pression of the mutual jealousies of the various German States, and the prosecution of the only great race-struggle which was necessary in order that those mutual jealousies might not be secretly stimulated and fomented. That was a great task in itself, which, as the Prince believed, could only be fulfilled by a liberal expenditure of " blood and iron." Of course the man who created Germany anew was very naturally beset by prejudices and prepossessions which were but ill-suited for the task of taking up a set of pro- blems of a very different nature,—problems in which the mutual repulsions of particularist States, and the mutual suspicions and distrusts of rival nations count for very little, while the mutual suspicions of different classes of society count for very much. Prince Bismarck did not believe that these urgent class problems are in any sense soluble ; indeed, he may be so far right that they are at least so difficult as to be quite insoluble except under conditions with which he had never learned to familiarise himself,—con- ditions which perhaps are more fully satisfied in England than in any other European State, though for that very reason England had incurred Prince Bismarck's scorn, or something very like it, on the ground that she was not con- centrating all her energies on conquest or resistance to conquest, but rather on the task which the German Emperor regards as "the most prominent duty of our time." Naturally enough, the Emperor William, taking his own view of the most urgent duty of modern Governments, did not find in Piince Bismarck the counsellor he needed, and fol- lowed his grandfather's advice to exchange him for one who, less deeply versed perhaps in the international sympathies and discords of our day, had a keener insight into its social troubles, and a deeper conviction that it might be possible to allay the fever and soften the pangs which make the poor smart so keenly under the indifference of the rich, while the rich look on so frigidly at the shiftlessness and envy of the poor. Perhaps the Emperor William has noticed that it is partly in consequence of her comparative freedom from war and the fear of war, that England has been able to approach this difficult problem with rather more hope than the other States of Europe, and that the classes here are not so completely given up to mutual dread and mutual defiance as they are on the Continent of Europe,—that they can even, on occasions, meet to deliberate without passion, and not mainly to taunt each other and challenge each other to battle. In England, peace with other nations is tolerably secure, and in England the war of classes is certainly less. envenomed thau in any other quarter of Europe. Perhaps that is the reason why the Emperor lays it down that peace is the first step towards an amelioration of the natural animosities of class, for this cannot easily be brought about when war is always threatening to merge the issues on which the citizens of one and the same State vehemently disagree, in a more urgent issue on which, as bare existence is at stake, they are all of one mind. It has not hitherto been usual for the ruler of a great military Monarchy,—the greatest military Monarchy perhaps at present to be found on the face of the earth,—to prize his power, as the Emperor William appears to do, rather because it enables him to promote the mutual understanding of divided classes, than because it enables him to recast the external order of Europe and to humiliate or aggrandise neighbouring Powers at his own will and pleasure. It is unusual to find a great monarch treating his power as a mere instrument for furthering better relations between rich and poor, instead of insisting on a suppression of the strife between rich and poor in order that his power may be recognised as paramount and complete.
The Emperor's promise, " so far as it is in his power, to maintain the historical friendship between the two nations," —namely, the Germans and the English,—is not the most noteworthy part of the speech, because no one ever doubted either his wish or his ability to maintain that peace under ordinary circumstances ; and under extraordinary circum- stances, in which peace between the two nations would really be endangered, it is not likely that very much would be in the power of any individual ruler, however genial and however powerful. The only political interest of the mention of England is that it serves to indicate whence the Emperor has derived those somewhat remarkable political prepossessions which have qualified and re- strained his unquestionable military enthusiasm, and grafted a somewhat new stock on the massive stem of Prus- sian peremptoriness and discipline. The great feature of the day is that everywhere alike, whether in great Monarchies or great Republics, whether in semi-republican Monarchies like the United Kingdom or semi-monarchical Republics like the United States, the key-note seems to be deference to popular aspirations for the recast of society, aspirations so powerful that even mighty armies are kept well in hand till it can be seen how much it is safe to concede to these dominant impulses of the people's mind. The German Emperor is the very mouthpiece needed for these popular aspirations, both because he represents a Power which can effectually check anything like anarchy, and because he cordially shares the -desire which these popular aspirations express.
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