TOPICS OF THE DAY.
COUNT VON BISMARCK'S LAST SPEECH. THE debate of the 16th inst. in the North German Parliament is one of the most important which has yet occurred in that body. It revealed at once the growing impatience of the German Liberals at the slowness with which their double movement towards unity and towards liberty seems to advance, and the views with which Count Bismarck regards that movement, his own position, and the future constitutional life of the German "Nation." The words of Herr Twesten's motion give little idea of the change he intended to suggest. He proposed in form that there should be a responsible Ministry for the Confederation ; but he saw, and the House saw, and, above all, the Chancellor saw, that his proposal would, if accepted, transmute the existing Federal organization into a single powerful and constitutional State. Supposing the proposal accepted and acted on, the existing Constitution, still only two years old, would fall to pieces, or rather be so radically modified as to be irrecognizable. Under that Constitution the President-King is chief of the Executive ; the Bundesrath, or " Council " of Ambassadors, has a real authority, executing as it does the Treaties on which the Constitution rests ; and the Lower House exercises certain limited powers, the greatest being that of providing revenue. With a responsible Ministry, the House would nominate the actual President, the President-King becoming a mere standardbearer ; the Council would be powerless, and the Assembly would claim a full control over every department of the Administration. In a few months, perhaps a few weeks, the German Parliament would reduce the particular Parliaments, including that of Prussia, to nullities, and North Germany would become a single homogeneous and thoroughly united State. Count Munster, the Hanoverian, a strong monarchist, and once a strong "particularist," or, as Americans say, defender of State Sovereignty, strongly urged this view, and approved it; and it was to this, rather than the mere words of the motion, that Count von Bismarck, in an eloquent speech of nearly an hour, addressed himself in reply. In words which could hardly have been stronger without becoming weak, he denied the charge of forgetting, or neglecting, or despising the great task which lay before him and the Chamber, the unification of Germany. "Do not think," he said, "that I am a particularist, or that I would use the Confederation for any purpose save that of securing the fullest and most perfect development of German power and prosperity I am marching to your end, though by a different road." Their road was the logical one, his the road which he had discerned through his careful study of the Germanic people. Their specialty, like that of the English, of the Americans, of all Teutonic peoples, was capacity for limited as well as for extended patriotism, for patriotism towards the village, the town, the State, the party, or even the "department." Germans are " comfortable only in small districts," and the essential for the statesman who would found a Teutonic Empire is to impair that comfort only to the degree indispensable for State strength and development. In North Germany one might go far towards unity, but in South Germany local feeling was still so strong that men who, in its defence, would call in the foreigner "are not stamped and branded as traitors to their country," but used, treated with, consulted, invoked for aid in the elections. Every rush towards unity deepens this sentiment, or, to put its political effect in a phrase, "deepens and broadens the Main." The Southerner is asking to be received into a Confederation indulgent towards his particular notions, but the Liberals, by insisting on premature unity, shut the door in his face. Let us, says the Count, give the Confederation time, and it will do the work which in principle it does already,—abolish the true evils of localism, "weakness abroad, discord at home, and obstacles in the way of traffic," and we "shall all* work harmoniously together to a positive end, which, when once attained, will be acceptable to the Germanic nation." That end, it is clear, in Count von Bismarck's opinion, is not yet' attained. It is a unity of Germany he seeks, of some kind, but it is through the attraction, not the compulsion, of the Southern States. And this attraction he seeks to create by respecting localism, by strengthening rather than weakening those municipal privileges which he says he is trying not unsuccessfully to introduce even into Prussia. Of course, the German statesman may be speaking diplomatically, but his speech has a ring of conviction about it, and seems to us to indicate that his mind is widening ; that the influence of his German position is slowly modifying his Prussian fanaticism; that to secure unity, hearty, cordial, working unity, he may let the Empire be German, not merge it finally in Prussia, may consent to let men walk about without setting sentries in spiked helmets to see that they kept the path, and did not tread on the grass or pluck the flowers.
But this Germany of the future, if it is formed, what is it to be like,—England or France ? The Count spoke out upon this subject with a force which shows that he has really thought out many of the elements of his problem, and is prepared when the time arrives with an original solution. His view of a strong and yet free government is neither the English nor the American. He dreams of a monarchy in which the conduct of affairs shall be entrusted to a Minister, a responsible Minister,—he repeated that word many times,—who, and who alone, shall be responsible to Parliament. He denounced the institution of a Cabinet in its English form, or " Colleginm of Ministers," with unequivocal disgust, as one which compelled the real master to waste himself in persuading colleagues, who, after all, "take a decision on a sort of pitch-and-toss principle ; or else some one, not necessarily the wisest, at last declares that it must be so and not otherwise, and so the matter is settled." The "abler those who discuss, the more protracted is the discussion." A "collegial ministerial constitution is an error from which every state," he thought, should free itself. "The man who has once been a Minister no longer shrinks from the idea of responsibility, but he fears the difficulty of convincing seven persons that what he desires is right and seasonable." "That is less easy than to govern a State." To convince a man is the most arduous of tasks, though you may outtalk him ; and for me, thundered the Chancellor, with not unbecoming haughtiness, "rely on this,—when this House gives me a colleague, it gives me a successor."
It is a strange outburst that, and worth studying, even if Count von Bismarck were not, as he is, the leading figure in Central Europe. If we do not misunderstand the thoughts which we have summarized, the Prussian Premier seeks a form of administration which should reconcile Parliamentary Government, the life of modern free states, with individual genius,—which should allow the nation to rule, yet give the strong man scope,—and he finds it in the system which we might name, from its first exponent, rather than himself, Cavourism, the government of an individual elected by Parliament and not by the masses, removable by a vote, but wielding almost royal authority, the other Ministers being but highlyplaced and trusted subordinates, whom, if Parliament dislikes them, he can can remove, without himself resigning power. That isasystem not yet tried in Europe, though an approach to it has been witnessed of late in England, four successive Ministers, Lord Palmerston, Lord Derby, Mr. Disraeli, and Mr. Gladstone, having for widely different reasons and in widely different ways exercised a distinct mastery in their Cabinets. The scheme has never been, however, formulized, and is subject to at least two great drawbacks. It requires a constant succession of first-rate men, not always to be obtained, and it introduces some of the evils of personal government, especially the master evil of all, which we now see in France, the closing up of careers to the men who will not be mere subordinates. This evil is modified in Prussia by the power of the King and by the newness of the government, which retains the great men of another period ; but it began to develop itself even under Cavour, and reaches its full height in France, where, except M. Rouher, the Emperor has not a man with the capacity to comprehend his own ideas. It m however, a form well suited for exceptional eras, when muelk must be done that cannot be previously discussed,—when the will of the individual, however ill-advised, will effect more than that of an assembly, however competent,—when above all, an individual really represents, as Cavour represented, the mind of an entire people. It is a compromise between free government and Cresarism, of which the world, we suspect, will, as time goes on, hear more.
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