TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GERMAN EMPEROR'S SPEECH. THE German Emperor has evidently become restive under the self-denying ordinance which he was persuaded to lay upon himself after the "Chancellor Crisis" of 1908. The voice which has spoken at Konigs- berg might have been the voice with which we were familiar some years ago. When one watches the Emperor returning to methods which one would have thought were past and done with, one is at first inclined to exclaim that, like the Bourbons, he forgets nothing and learns nothing. But it would really be extremely unjust to compare him with any of the Bourbons, for he has nothing in his composition of obstinate selfishness. He believes himself to have a great mission of governance, and he never spares himself in his application to his tasks. His people—except the right political wing—may not relish the fixity of his principles of Sovereignty, but at all events no one can say that his intentions in trying to advance the interests of his country are not high. What we desire to draw atten- tion to now is the manner in which the Emperor's speech illustrates the extraordinary changeability of the whole aspect of German politics. Yon never quite know where you are in estimating the political forces at work in Germany ; there is no standard of political conduct, no continuity of policy (except a general and potent tradition which is derived from Bismarck), and no one person or department demonstrably responsible for anything which may happen. Now if these words do not misrepresent the state of affairs—and we are sure they do not—it is obviously foolish to make our relations with Germany dependent on what we conceive to be her foreign policy at any particular moment, for that policy may be given an entirely new direction within a few weeks, days, or even hours. Of course, the policy of any country is liable to sudden turns and twists ; they are inevitable and natural- when a new party comes into power ; but in Germany these things are frequent—we had almost said normal. Germany, for instance, pursues a particular policy against France in Morocco. The policy fails. The official held responsible quietly disappears. Another policy is substituted without any apparent embarrassment, and with a happy-go-luckiness which is astonishing to any one who knows and admires the German genius for organisation. Then one hears that the powerful official who had disappeared is back at work, and one is left to speculate as to what might have come of these con- tradictions if a more powerful hand than the Emperor's had not removed him for ever. The Emperor's speech was in itself a surprise. The resentment in the German news- papers at a reassertion of the doctrine of divine right shows how little it had been expected. Now compare the sense of this speech—of this eloquent and feeling speech manifestly spoken out of genuine conviction—with what WU judged by many Englishmen to be the drift of German feeling only a few weeks before. Then it seemed that Germany was feeling her way towards an understand- ing with us. Many Liberals believed that there was a distinct desire even to effect a naval agreement for the reduction of armaments. On August 6th the Nation wrote :— " Meanwhile, the German movement for a naval agreement with us steadily develops. This week has seen an important accession in the person of the military expert, Colonel Giidke, who suggests as a basis that Germany should pledge herself not to exceed the limits of the Naval Law either by laying down more ships or by accelerating the rate of building. British superiority at sea must be taken for granted; all that Germany wanted to modify was our absolute supremacy' at sea, and this, like Germany's absolute supremacy on land, time was always modify- ing, through the growing power of the smaller maritime nations. This is precisely the point at which the naval ambitions of the two Powers, as we have contended times out of number, are recon- cilable. We see that the Kolnisehe Zeitung takes the same line as Colonel Wake, and says that Germany has reached her standard of naval power, and should not seek to climb 'the highest spoke of the ladder.' " Surely if there were any reality in these supposed wishes of the German people—any real determination which had a chance of being translated into policy—it would be reflected in the speech of the Emperor, without whose consent the people of themselves could do absolutely noth- ing. Do we find any reflection in the Emperor's speech ? We find nothing even faintly resembling it_ A new facet, or rather an old facet which had been for some time hidden, flashes on our gaze ; a large part of the speech was in praise of the military virtues and of making the ultimate sacrifice for one's country, and once again the Emperor applied to himself the significant title of "Wan Lord." Only one lesson can be drawn from this ; it is that our naval policy, as we have begged our countrymen times without number to remember, must be dictated by what we judge to be our requirements for absolute security, and not by some amiable interpretation of what we suppose to be the sentiments of the German people. We like and admire the German people, and hope they may never have cause to think of us as unfriendly, but they .have no more influence on the acts of their auto- cratic bureaucracy than the pen with which these words are being written.
It is the chief proof of the Emperor's earnestness, mis- directed though we think it, that he should. shut his eyes to all that has happened in Germany in the last ten years. In 1861 William I. at Konigsberg spoke of Parliaments with some disparagement. On fire with the memories of the place, the present Emperor repeated his grandfather's words as though they might be applied to-day as in- offensively as fifty years ago. This was not tactful. Earnest people are not always tactful. Accordingly Germans have been much more • angered by the re- assertion of obsolete claims than they have been moved by the admirable homily on self-sacrifice, the practice of simple virtues, and the cultivation of character. This part of the speech was as direct and genuine as anything Mr. Roosevelt could have said, but Mr. Roosevelt would not have ruined it with the inadmissible other part. One sees by what food Socialism in Germany is nourished, and why it is likely to grow even more. The Vorwarts (as we learn from the Westminster Gazette) has recently analysed the successes Socialism has won since the Elections of 1907, when it was temporarily smothered,—smothered at least in the Reichstag, for the voting power of the Socialists was considerable, although they failed. to return many Deputies. According to the returns of the by-elections since 1907, they have increased. their voting power from twenty-eight to thirty-eight per cent., and have won no fewer than eight seats. If these results are not misleading, we must look for a very great increase of the Socialist Party at the next General Election. It is to be remembered that the National Liberal Party in Germany does not advocate anything which in this country comes under the head of Liberalism. Every one, therefore, who seriously wants democratic reform is under a strong temptation to vote for the Socialists. There are thousands of German voters who use the Socialists as a means of arriving at what they desire without in the least approving of their final aims. The bure,aucraey, however, fears all so-called Socialists as though they were of the true revolutionary brand. Men who are afraid are apt to do incalculable, rash, or desperate things. We do not doubt that if the Emperor continues to make speeches like that at Konigsberg he will greatly increase the Socialist vote ; for very few Germans still believe in the divine right of Kings, even in that form of it which can be explained away in inspired paragraphs. If the Socialist vote is increased the bureaucracy must somehow meet the challenge. It is important to know how it would be likely to meet it. Experience does not leave us in very much doubt. It has been the almost invariable practice of Prussian rulers and German bureau- crats to distract attention from awkward. matters at home by counterblasts in their foreign policy. Precedent would probably be followed. It seems paradoxical, but we are only too sure of what we say: that if the Socialists, who ardently profess a policy of peace, dominated the Reichstag, one of the first things that would happen would be a stirring up of interest abroad. When a bureaucracy which has at its back a wonderful Army and a powerful and growing Navy begins to engage the attention of its people in some glowing enterprise abroad, or some heroic veto on the movements of another nation, we know what to expect. We are far from sympathising, therefore, with those who hope to see the German bureaucracy, and the doctrine of divine right, suddenly submerged by the advance of Socialism. The triumph of Socialism in the Reichstag would be more likely to cause a European war than the triumph of any political principle which is now discernible in Germany.
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