The Guardian publishes the teat of much of Prince Bismarck's
speech of Thursday week in favqnr of the repeal of the May
Laws, which is full of curious matter. The Chancellor denied altogether that the Pope was a foreigner. "He is for German Catholics a German institution." " My business as a diplo- matist is to get friends abroad, and I should think myself injuring the interests of my country from pure national arro- gance if I declined the help of so mighty a lord as the Pope, because he was a foreigner." "Herr Richter says I strive for a subservient majority. Well, am I to strive for a majority which wants the contrary of what I hold to be useful " "I should be ashamed if, in my position, I were a doctrinaire." " I am far from holding members of the Centre responsible for a conflict which I regard as a piece of historical evolution. I think the Empire owes much gratitude to the Centre." As to the Evangelical Church, which complains of these concessions, " I cannot give it equality with the Catholic Church," for Protestant Churohes are lay. "Their centre is the congregation, not the priest." As to the future, "the history of the world cannot be made ; but the ship of the State can be steered in mid. stream." How is it that a speech literally bristling with sentences of this kind, and ending with a solemn threat to resign, has not been published in full in any London daily 11 Could no one suppress a column or two of obstructive platitudes on Ireland P
