21 FEBRUARY 1891, Page 2

Prince Bismarck grows irritable in his seclusion, and laving opened

relations with the Hamburger Nachriehten and the Miinicher Allgemeine Zeitung, he keeps on criticising his master's. policy in Africa and Russia. The drift of his thought is, that the German Emperor is growing cold to Russia and friendly to. England, and that this is a diplomatic mistake. The articles have, as was natural, excited great attention in Gatschina,. and some letters or messages thence have so irritated William II., that he has uttered severe remarks upon the conduct of an ex-Chancellor and present officer in the Army in so commenting upon State policy. The Berlin Radicals,, who would greatly like to see their Sovereign and their old oppressor at loggerheads, have made much of this, and have intimated, to the ecstatic delight of the Paris Press, that the Emperor would either prosecute the Prince or send him before. a court-martial. We give reasons elsewhere for considering this rumour absurd ; but it is true that the Cabinet has been asked to consider whether Prince Bismarck cannot be controlled, and that not only in Berlin, but in other Courts, the appearance. of his memoirs is expected with some trepidation. He knows a great deal, he fears nothing, and he has had all his life it. trick of blurting out premeditated indiscretions, through which he created the precise impression he was seeking to produce. There must have been a good deal of curious secret history in the formation of the Triple Alliance.