THE CONFLICT IN GERMANY.
ENGLISHMEN, when discussing the situation in Germany, are in danger of forgetting some of their own first prin- ciples. They are so unwilling that Germany should be defeated, so full of admiration for Prince Bismarck's resolute- ness—which they feel the more because they are themselves passing through a spasm of irresolution—and so prejudiced against any party calling itself "Clerical," that they blind themselves to the true nature of the quarrel now being fought out. They do not see that the German people are being asked, almost in so many words, to surrender Parliamentary govern- ment. The contest is not between patriots and traitors, or even between Conservatives and Radicals, but between the friends of free government and the supporters of autocratic rule. We entirely agree, and have always agreed, that Germany must be fully armed, and that, as regards the extent of her armaments, she is right in relying to a degree which might be injudicious elsewhere upon the advice of her great experts. These experts are the ablest and most successful soldiers in Europe, they have little interest in multi- plying corps—a process which compels the War Department to maintain a skinflint economy in allowances—and they are controlled by a dynasty sensitive to eccentricity upon the subject of waste. We also agree, and for months past have been steadily urging, that the situation in Europe is most dangerous, and that for once, the Powers which arm as if war were immediately at hand are the Powers which see the truth most clearly. So entirely, in especial, do we recognise the insecurity of Germany, placed as she is between her two millstones, France and Russia, that if her Parliamentary party had refused supplies, or declined to grant the men demanded by the Government, or hesitated to take any defensive precaution whatever recommended by Count von Moltke, we should have doubted their political sanity, and have held that cause had arisen sufficient to justify a coup d'etat or a temporary dictatorship. But the Parliamentary party have done none of these things. Their representatives in the Select Committee committed many tactical errors, and some foolish blunders—such as voting the new cadres without the men to fill them—but in the Reichstag itself the Opposition rose to the height of the situation, and voted everything asked for by the Chancellor or the military chiefs, demanding only that the period fixed for the Military Bill—that is the period during which Parliament resigned its rights—should be limited to three years. If Constitutional life is to exist at all in Germany, there never was a more reasonable demand. The Bill is asked for avowedly to meet an emergency, and three years covers the entire period of service for the new men. No additional time can make them more available or more efficient ; for if the Military Bill were voted for twenty-one years, or for ever, the men would be still relieved of active service at the conclusion of three. Moreover, the emergency is expected to arise speedily, this spring or next ; and if by any good fortune it is postponed till 1890, the danger will still be visible, and the German Parliament, while it is visible, will cer- tainly not reduce armaments which will then be in full working order. There is absolutely no reason for voting the men for seven years instead of three, except to make the Army chiefs feel more independent of Parliament ; and Prince Bismarck avows that this is the motive for his obstinacy. He sees quite clearly that if Parliament selects three years as a military period, it may select one year ; and that if it votes the Army annually, it will control the Army ; and he is determined that this shall never happen. The German Army, he declares in so many words, shall
be an Imperial Army, and not a Parliamentary one ; and, therefore, though all his demands are granted .save one, he rejects the vote, dissolves Parliament, and appeals to the people with a well understood threat, that he will not con- sider even their decision final. We say nothing of his raising
extra men at once, for he has possibly, under the Constitution of the Empire, legal authority for that, and he can pay them out of Prussian resources ; while, as Parliament consented to vote them for three years, he is' in any case, only breaking the letter of the law. But we wish to point out clearly that the German majority were not unpatriotic, and that, whatever their various motives—such as Catholicism, Particularism, or hostility to the present Government—they are defending the very existence of Parliamentary life in Germany. To vote soldiers is to vote taxes ; and if the German Parliament is to have no voice in settling either the amount of the taxes or the period for which they are to be voted, it is not a Parliament
at all, but only a Deliberative Assembly allowed to talk, but specially liable to authoritative snubbings, and even punishment—for a dissolution is a fine—when it talks too openly. That is not a position any Parliament can be bound to accept, except in an hour of extreme necessity, which, as the men were voted for three years, has, on Prince Bismarck's own showing, never arisen. He says he wants more men for a coming war, and Parliament votes them for the whole term of their statutory service. The emergency is met, therefore, in the way which the Government pronounces sufficient, and yet the Parliament is dissolved.
A great many Englishmen will, we fear, say that even if Prince Bismarck is only asserting the Royal authority, he is still in the right. They have been so sickened with the Par- liamentary ineptitude and confusion produced by the Irish struggle, and by the outburst of hysteria sentimentality among some English Radicals, they long with such a longing for a little energy, a little decision, a little success in the govern- ment of Great Britain, that they are at heart half-pleased to sae that successful government without representation is possible, and applaud the strong man who thrusts Parlia- ment aside. We quite understand their feeling, which has been entertained occasionally by every observer of Par- liamentary proceedings for the last three years ; but we warn them that it is born mainly of impatience. Repre- sentative government is not bad because, like every other institution, it has its hours of weakness or irresolution. The strong man whom they admire is only a passing phenomenon —he says himself he shall be gone in seven years—while the nation has to govern itself, well or ill, for centuries. As to the Royal or Imperial Government which they are disposed to reverence, Royalty guided Prussia to Jena, as well as to Sedan ; and when France fell prostrate in 1870, it was not because her Parliament was too strong. Germany has to live, as well as to defend herself ; and man has not discovered an instrument for securing happy life, so far as such life is dependent on the organisation of States, equal to representation. Englishmen who think will have little sympathy with the Chancellor, who, rather than allow to the representatives of his country even a share in carrying out his own plan—for, remember, the Reichstag accepted the Government Bill—risks a return to absolutism ; and we question if the German people will have either. It is useless for a foreigner to predict the action of eight millions of German voters ; but the pro- babilities, so far as they are visible, are not with Prince Bismarck. The Liberal leaders of Germany, who know their constituents, evidently did not shrink from a dissolution ; and though we should have said that, the Culturkampf being over, thousands of Catholics would turn Royalist, that is not the conviction of experienced Herr Windthorst. The people, how- ever patriotic, will hardly doubt themselves so far as to believe that they will three years hence refuse a needful Military Bill, and will doubt whether, if taxes are increased for seven years, they will ever be able to abolish them again. The citizens of the towns are not usually enamoured of the Royal authority, and those peasants of the interior who are, will not see that it is shaken by the acceptance of the Bill for a shorter period than the Emperor had asked. It is quite possible that the people, who, though deeply patriotic, are neither prosperous nor contented, will support their representatives ; and in that case, the Chancellor must either yield, com- promise, or break up the Constitution which he himself devised, and under which the younger generation, the men from twenty to thirty-six, have seen the German Empire growing strong. It is a most difficult position for Prince Bismarck, and it certainly does not increase the chance of an early pacification. One strong rumour of war arising about mid-February would give him scores of thousands of votes, opponents thinking it no moment to resist the necessary man ; and the Chancellor all his life has shown a readiness to accept risks. The voting may, therefore, take place at a moment when nations do not reason ; but unless it does, we see nothing in the situation, or in Prince Bismarck's attitude, which should induce the people of Germany to reverse their decision, which is to give the Emperor all the strength he sake, but not to surrender the first principles of representative government.
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