versteht"). "Disagreements of a kind to give occasion he can
choose his own agents, and on any matter of importance to my resignation," he said, "absolutely never occurred. can say "this I will not have, and I can make specific demands In regard to all Cabinet questions brought to decision which have to be complied with." Having a very strong by a vote, I have, I believe, on every occasion been in conviction that "far more than half his work arose out of the majority ; and it is not the ground of my action that I his duties of Prime Minister of Prussia," and evidently, in was ever outvoted, that resolutions were arrived at which his own estimation, far less than half his influence,—assuredly were utterly unpalatable to me, but perhaps it rather was, far less than half of all such influence as he had not to earn that I cannot carry through all I wish,—I am perhaps in daily, as it were, by the sweat of his brow,—Prince Bismarck these respects too sanguine and too hasty,—or at least that I very naturally gave up the office of much work and small cannot do so with such expenditure of energy as alone remains influence, to retain that of comparatively little work and great at my disposal when my other work is done." And this very influence. And he did it evidently with the less concern, remarkable admission that the Prince had not sufficient because in handing over the office of Prussian Prime Minister power as Prime Minister of the Prussian Cabinet to carry to so aged a statesman as Herr Von Roon, he knew,— through his own views on matters of the greatest importance and this he expressly hints,—that the Prime Minister- without an amount of wear and tear, of discussion, of note- ship would become nothing more than a nominal office, writing, and of minute urgency which was far too much for —i.e., would not be turned into a powerful lever in his failing strength, runs through the speech. He was never the hands of another which might one day be used out-voted perhaps because he never was able to propose against himself. The conviction running through the whole of what be wished in the way of internal reforms with a Prince Bismarck's speech is this,—that as regards not merely chance of success. He had not the time and strength to foreign affairs, properly so called, but the relation of Prussia get through the enormous preliminary conditions of per- to the rest of the German Empire, he has in his present double suasion, which he describes with the graphic force of a office,—that of German Chancellor and that of Prussian Minister man of strong will who half despised and half enjoyed the for Foreign Affairs,—ample security for complete control, and work so long as he had vital energy enough left for it, but for complete control without the " unfruitful" toil, as he who felt when the time came that he had no longer spare himself calls it, of persuading, arguing, entreating, and over- energy for such a task, that it must be given up, and his work bearing the opposition of departmental colleagues conserva- limited to fields of labour in which his authority was final. tively inclined. As regards, however, internal Prussian He complains that the Prime Minister of Prussia has no power, reforms, he indicates not obscurely that he never had near as like the Prime Minister of England, of bringing to his aid much of power as he was supposed to have of responsibility ; and colleagues who may really take their cue from him, by that what power he had, he obtained not chiefly by his official appointing them to nominal offices, like the Privy Seal or the position as Prime Minister, but by moving heaven and earth Duchy of Lancaster, and who by the very fact that they have to gain personal influence. He did not see his way to get no heavy departmentarlabours have a much larger amount of greater control by leaning on the support of the popular disposable energy for the work of converting their colleagues majority in the Chamber,—first because he did not think any than the departmental Ministers. Prince Bismarck evidently party had enough of a permanent and clear majority to greatly envies the English Prime Minister this constitutional lean upon absolutely,—next because he did not suffi- resource, and would be glad to see some such offices in- ciently trust the disinterested feeling of all parties for the vented in Prussia if the Prussian Prime Minister might good of the Empire, to rely on combinations intended to have the nomination to them, so as to reduplicate in sustain national as distinguished from party interests. He some degree his own influence. "It is the peculiarity of thought the internal strength of ourBritish Governmenthad been our case," he said despondently, "that the President of the seriously weakened by the necessity of playing for the adhesion Cabinet has no greater influence on the collective action of of several conflicting sections of Parliament, and he was not the Administration than any other of his colleagues, unless he disposed to run the same risk for Prussia. He was persuaded in any sense contemplated now,—and we well know how much wins it for himself by hard fighting ; our constitutional law oftener the unexpected happens than the expected,—we believe gives him none. If he would win this influence for himself, he that its issue will turn on the reception of Mr. Gladstone's must do it by requests, by persuasion, by efforts .made at the first considerable measure,—the Irish University Bill,—and Cabinet meetings,—in short, by fighting for it in a way that that the Dissenters will probably turn the scale as to its taxes to the utmost his powers of work. The means at his success. No questions are more critical than religious ques- disposal are small, the task is great, and the weight to be tions. And especially at the present moment, when all moved, if you have to bring over a colleague to your own Europe seems to have a nervous desire to flagellate Roman mind, will often not yield to request and persuasion alone." Catholics, the fate of the measure may depend on some in- What Prince Bismarck has had to encounter in the way of conceivably small hair's-breadth distinction between one passive departmental opposition to his views he describes with mode of teaching Roman Catholics, and another hardly per- dolorous vivacity. " If," he said, " within any special office, a ceptibly different mode. But it is at present difficult to passive resistance against the Prime Minister's views develops imagine that the measure can be less satisfactory to the itself,—a resistance in which the subordinates of that office reasonable and logical Nonconformists than the Irish Church participate,—it is my experience that one simply wears one- measure, for which they were even enthusiastic,—resting, as it self out in the effort, and comes to recognise one's impotence. must, on the same principle. And in that case we should When, then, I had to elect in what method I would diminish expect the Government to weather the storm and the Session, my responsibilities, I could not, after my ten years experi- and to find it easy to select its own issue on which to dissolve ence, doubt that the post of Prussian Prime Minister was the
in the autumn of this or the spring of next year. one which made the greatest drain on my power of work. On the whole, it is not the work which wears us by the corporeal friction in the midst of which we, in Parliamentary States, PRINCE BISMARCK'S JEREMIAD. live, but it is the continuous pressure of great affairs and
THE very curious and interesting speech delivered last interests which touch us as intimately as our own, and which Saturday by Prince Bismarck, on the Prussian Pre- are also the interests of 25 or 40 millions of men. If one may miership, its heavy responsibilities and its exceedingly compare small and insignificant things with great, a reepon- limited powers, with his incidental remarks on the British sible statesman at the head of a State is in the same kind of Parliamentary system, has excited exceedingly little notice situation as he who on the Exchange is always making him- in England, perhaps because a good deal of the speech was self responsible for transactions far beyond his means, the delivered in a style of considerable involution, and frank as it losses in which, if he loses, he could never replace, and in regard was in many respects, was at first not a little *sunder_ to which he hazards on the cast of a die not only the chance of stood in the Chamber, and is certainly in parts, except to direct material loss, but honour, fame, and the independence of accomplished German scholars, not very easy reading. Either his country." This the Prince would not face, when he felt that the Prince was under some embarrassment as to what he the powers annexed to such vast responsibilities were so in- should say and what he should suppress, or his recent illness adequate, and he chose therefore the office where his authority has made his never very fluent style rather more halting than was more commensurate with his responsibility,—that of usual. We do not doubt that the first cause had more or less Chancellor of the Empire. In relation to his duties as influence. He denied, indeed, in the second instalment of Chancellor, he says that he has far more really direct power his speech, when replying to Herr Virchow, that there in that capacity than he ever had as Prussian Prime Minister had been any disagreements in the Cabinet "in the to remove obstacles out of the way of any policy he considers usual sense of the term" (" was man darunter gewohnlich essential. In the conduct of the foreign policy of the Empire versteht"). "Disagreements of a kind to give occasion he can choose his own agents, and on any matter of importance to my resignation," he said, "absolutely never occurred. can say "this I will not have, and I can make specific demands In regard to all Cabinet questions brought to decision which have to be complied with." Having a very strong by a vote, I have, I believe, on every occasion been in conviction that "far more than half his work arose out of the majority ; and it is not the ground of my action that I his duties of Prime Minister of Prussia," and evidently, in was ever outvoted, that resolutions were arrived at which his own estimation, far less than half his influence,—assuredly were utterly unpalatable to me, but perhaps it rather was, far less than half of all such influence as he had not to earn that I cannot carry through all I wish,—I am perhaps in daily, as it were, by the sweat of his brow,—Prince Bismarck these respects too sanguine and too hasty,—or at least that I very naturally gave up the office of much work and small cannot do so with such expenditure of energy as alone remains influence, to retain that of comparatively little work and great at my disposal when my other work is done." And this very influence. And he did it evidently with the less concern, remarkable admission that the Prince had not sufficient because in handing over the office of Prussian Prime Minister power as Prime Minister of the Prussian Cabinet to carry to so aged a statesman as Herr Von Roon, he knew,— through his own views on matters of the greatest importance and this he expressly hints,—that the Prime Minister- without an amount of wear and tear, of discussion, of note- ship would become nothing more than a nominal office, writing, and of minute urgency which was far too much for —i.e., would not be turned into a powerful lever in his failing strength, runs through the speech. He was never the hands of another which might one day be used out-voted perhaps because he never was able to propose against himself. The conviction running through the whole of what be wished in the way of internal reforms with a Prince Bismarck's speech is this,—that as regards not merely chance of success. He had not the time and strength to foreign affairs, properly so called, but the relation of Prussia get through the enormous preliminary conditions of per- to the rest of the German Empire, he has in his present double suasion, which he describes with the graphic force of a office,—that of German Chancellor and that of Prussian Minister that the Emperor-King must remain the true centre of influ- ence for the Administration, since he alone stands above all parties. There is nothing in the speech which is not in perfect accordance with the assumption that Prince Bismarck earnestly wished for a complete reconstitution of the Upper House, but found that, partly owing to his Majesty's disinclination for it, partly owing to the enormous effort it would cost him to get such a measure accepted by the Cabinet, it was quite useless to propose it formally to his colleagues. No speech ever confessed more candidly the density of the resisting medium against the steady pressure of which all changes disapproved by the existing departments, and not warmly supported by the King, would have to be carried. That the policy of the Ministry is likely to be quite in sympathy with his own in all that he has achieved Prince Bismarck asserts. But he -not only does not deny, but really affirms that there was much in the way of internal reform which he wished to do, and could not do for the effort it would have cost him to get it accepted by his colleagues and the very conservative departments they controlled. In foreign affairs and in those affairs which connect Prussia with the rest of the German Empire, he can have his own way with- out all this dust and trouble. To that, therefore, he limits his energies for the future, only assuring the Lower Chamber that there is no danger of any reversal of the policy of the past, —that all they have to fear is that any difficult undertakings to which he himself personally may be inclined will not be at- tempted byhis successor. The anti-Romanist policy,—or rather, the subjugation of all religion by the State,—is to be earnestly pursued. But other changes to which he might be favourable, changes less closely connected with the external relations of Prussia and of Germany, will be allowed to drop.
This confession of Prince Bismarck's is remarkable. It is the confession that as yet a reforming Prime Minister in Prussia,— with anything like what we regard as a Prime Minister's influence, —is impossible in relation to purely internal affairs. It is impos- sible, because the King, who is the centre of the Administration, gives the Prussian Prime Minister no real advantage over his colleagues. He must convince them, talk them over, if he is to do anything ; and even then the King may and probably will disapprove, and it will be all wasted labour. It is quite impos- sible, in the Prince's estimation, to lean on a Liberal majority in Parliament for such a task. The time may come when Prussia will be able to send up such a Parliament, but it is as yet far distant. Internal reform in Prussia has but one chance,—the 'conversion of the King, and the free use of the royal influence. Were a King without the old Conservative leanings to ascend the throne, we might see Prince Bismarck resuming his old place, and trying to gain for the Crown that reputation of enlighten- ment and progressiveness which he is so reluctant to let the chiefs of any Parliamentary majority earn for themselves. Prince Bismarck is still a royalist reformer. He wishes for reform, but he wishes the King to be the medium by whose -agency it is granted to the people.
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