The German Emperor must be greatly worried just now. His
Chinese policy, whatever it is, is not getting on any more than ours is, and while our people do not care, being pre- occupied with South Africa, his do care, having a fancy that they may have to pay an outrageous bill. There is, at the same time, a considerable fall in the industrial securities in• Berlin, so that everybody of the classes interested in politics feels poor and nervous, while the management of the Chamber in the Royalist sense is becoming nearly impossible. The Emperor's heart is fixed on his great canal projects, and the Agrarians say he shall not have them unless his Government consents to duties on corn which will raise the food of the people almost to famine prices. It is said that his Majesty is so exasperated that he may, to punish the Agrarians, renew the old treaties which limit taxa- tion on grain, but if he does that, what prevents their punishing him by voting down the next big proposals ? Alto- gether he may yet repent of saying, as he has now done twice, that a dominion to be strong should have clearly defined limits, and that patriotism should not squander itself away in cosmopolitan dreams. A well-narrowed patriotism like that of the Agrarians is sometimes mightily inconvenient.
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