APOLOGIA IMPERATORIS, W E said last week that the German Emperor
was a disappointed man. This week his Majesty acknowledges the fact, and takes some pains to explain, and explain away, the reasons. In an Edict countersigned by his Chancellor he declares that the plans of his grand- father for the benefit of the artisans have not yet realised their highest aims because of the "continued opposition of those very persons who believe they can claim to be pre-eminently the representatives of the interests of the working classes." The "domestic peace" which is the' first of those aims has not been secured. Nevertheless, he hopes that it will be secured in the end, and in any case lie "will see that social legislation for the benefit of the weak and needy shall he further developed." The Emperor has, moreover, permitted the publication of a conversation between himself and Dr. Ludwig Ganghofer, the Bavarian novelist, which enables him to describe his position with colloquial freedom and energy. "I am an optimist," says his Majesty, "and believe in work," and he intends to go on being an optimist and working to the end of his days. He "wants to get on," but he feels deeply the need of more support from his people, and the distrust with which everything he does or omits to do is regarded. He deplores the Iteichsver- drossenheit—or shall we say political depression ?—that he encounters everywhere. He even condescends to defend his incessant journeyings—which, it is said, cost him a hundred thousand pounds a year—as beneficial to the Empire and essential to his own health, though he is care- ful to add that he does not enjoy the burdensome ceremonial by which he is often hampered, and would much rather go running about incognito in a motor-car,—a remark possibly directed to the address of Madrid. He is chiefly hurt, however, by the failure of his efforts to fix all eyes upon himself. "I am not credited," he says with a certain naivete, "with any independence." If he succeeds, the world asks, "Who advised him ? " and if he fails, the world says, " Ah ! he didn't know how to do that." Altogether, he is disappointed, and obliged to fall back upon his own consciousness of good intentions, or, as he puts it, his sense of always intending to secure the interests of Germany and Germans. The Emperor is evidently moved by the shower of criticism which has recently fallen upon him, and we think it by no means certain that the impression made on him will be to the benefit either of Germany or Europe. He is clearly pining for a great success which will once more replace him at the summit of opinion ; and as he usually seeks no advice, but relies upon his self-generated thoughts —thoughts which in highly-strung moods he attributes to the favour of the Higher Powers—he may in the end do something a little rash which will have other results than he has hoped for. Fortunately, at present he is not con- templating another visit to Tangier, or another clutch at influence in Asia, Minor, but has fallen back on the idea of his earlier years, that he can reconcile the aspirations of the masses with his own supremacy. We entirely believe that his first objects are the welfare' and the happiness of Germany, and that for thehe objects he will make any sacrifice—save one. A man Can alter anything except his own essential character, and if the Emperor gave up his claim to be the driving-power of the State machine, he would not only cease to be the William II. whom his subjects have known, but he would cease to be the man God made him,—or, if you will, the man that the sum of his environments has produced.
It is difficult in reading such an Edict as appeared on Monday to avoid considering whether in modern days and under modem conditions a really absolute Sovereign could be produced by an alliance between the man with heredi- tary rights and the masses of a population. The despots themselves think so, and many speculative reasoners, and even many of those conservatives who regard the people as possessing the character of a wild and dangerous animal rushing eagerly forward in search of food. The idea, moreover, is not prilaci facie unreasonable, for the proletariat always retains the ultimate physical force ; and if the Monarch can harness that force, his will must of necessity be irresistible. Even in Russia at this moment if the peasantry and the artisans said with one voice, "We will have an absolute Czar," resistance must disappear, or be changed, as it was changed in the early days of Christianity, into a willingness to accept martyrdom rather than obey. It is their conviction of this which has induced liberals in so many countries to condemn Monarchy in the abstract as containing in itself the seed of an enormous danger to liberty. Even Mr. Bagehot, the philosopher of Constitutionalism, believed, and has, we think, somewhere said, that with a man of genius on the throne even British Constitutionalism could not be maintained. We are inclined for ourselves, however, to think that, at least under present conditions, this fear is a little dreamy. The peoples have awakened not only to a sense of their own power, but to a sense of their own capacity for using it. Even if they thought that the hereditary Sovereign governed well, they would still think that the man of their own election might govern better ; would wish to try their own powers, as children do when they are fairly grown up ; and would, in short, seek the grand pleasure—for it is a pleasure as well as an advantage —of feeling free. That, and not luxury, is the first pleasure even of wealth. The Sovereign will always be hampered by this as well as by the wide differences of object and ideal amongst the proletariat, which is not so much a sea as a vast plain where the products differ with every quality of the soil. And, moreover, to state a truth which is too often forgotten, the mass of the people, though it feels terribly the impact of physical necessities, and of that vague pessimism as to the obtaining of food which has in all ages been the whip that made industry, however painful, nevertheless continuous, is hardly to be bought. The Roman populace was ; but that populace never once after the Empire was founded elected the Emperor. The Mass is ruled in the last resort by ideas rather than by the hope of comfort, and there can be no security that its dominant ideas and those of the Sovereign shall be the same. For how much a week per household would Englishmen tolerate with pleasure a foreign conqueror ? Or for what promises of gain would' they endure a ruler who had proclaimed himself a Mussulman In modern Europe one soldier of genius has been permitted to be a tyrant ; but it was with glory, rather than comfort, that he paid his subjects, and during his reign, though political freedom did not exist, every career was open to the humblest who had the strength to follow it. This idea of establishing absolutism by securing physical comfort to the most numerous section of the people would only be well founded if the ambition of the majority of mankind were always to grow fat. It is not true that the god of the proletariat is their belly any more than it is true that the god of the poets is applause. This is nevertheless the secret idea which makes so many people on the Continent, when con- sidering the future of politics,, dread possible alliances between the _majority and their Monarchs.
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