TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE RESTLESSNESS OF GERMANY.
WHATEVER else may result from the consolidation of German unity,—a consolidation, to some extent at least, as desirable and inevitable as it was rapid and complete, —it is probably certain that the repose which was promised to Europe as the result of that event will not be its immediate consequence. It never was really reasonable to expect that a people devoid of the sobriety which results from political experience, and not at all devoid of political ambition,—a people more governed by ideas and less governed by .slow sagacities than any other in Europe,—would suddenly gam an overwhelming ascendancy in Europe and yet use it with un- exampled moderation and good sense. We do not in the least feel disposed to bear hardly on the German people for as yet showing exceedingly little disposition to enforce on their rulers that calmness and moderation of feeling which we were so often told that a great Teutonic Power would secure to us. The Germans are new to the sense of national self- importance, and it undoubtedly gratifies them to find their chief statesman filling their ears with new evidence of that importance almost every day. This habit of making new power felt, was to be expected quite as much from a sudden German as from a sudden French supremacy, though in a different and, no doubt, in a less vain-glorious sense. Assuredly, whether it was to be expected or not, Europe is now suffering from the results, and suffering something more than might even have been anticipated, owing perhaps to the excitable and imperious character of the powerful statesman who has fairly won the idolatry of Germany and the confidence of his master. One day we are informed, by a rumour which may be false, but which, if mythical, is certainly the product of fear, that Germany is concentrating troops on the Duteh border, and proposing to the Netherlands to restrain the Catholic priests who have taken refuge there from exciting religious discontent in the territories of their neighbours ; another day we hear, on authority admitted to be good, that the German repre- sentative at the Court of Rome has been drawing the at- tention of the Italian Government to the inconvenience resulting from harbouring a Pope whose international utter- ances are unrestricted by any moral guarantees, and yet liable to produce very mischievous results on the loyalty of foreign peoples ; on a third day we are told that the editor of a Bavarian paper which had attacked Prince Bis- marck, and who had been sentenced for that offence, has escaped into Austria, and that Austria is required to give up the poli- tical fugitive ; only yesterday an official or semi-official Berlin paper seriously declared that a new war with France was all but inevitable, and that France is intriguing for an Austro- Italian alliance ; and in some respects most serious of all, we find that a correspondence of an unpleasant character is going on between Germany and Belgium as to the duty incumbent on an independent and neutral State of taking active measures to put down unpleasant criticisms on the policy of its neigh- bours. In fact we have evidence of all the sensitiveness which Imperial France exhibited towards the Republican critics who took refuge in Belgium, now displayed by Germany towards the Ultramontane critics of the same little State, and unfortu- nately, in addition to this, an intolerance of Catholic criticism in various other regions, in Holland, in France, in Italy, nay, even of Liberal criticism in England, which makes anything like European repose, even if the condition of France would allow it, absolutely impossible. Germany is perhaps unconsciously deter- mined, but still none the less resolute, that her personal feelings shall count for something big in the equilibrium of Europe ; and Germany's feelings are unfortunately not even left without extra disturbance in that condition of excessive sensibility,—of hyper- sthesia, as the pkysicians call it,—which inevitably follows a great moral tumult, a sudden national growth. They are artificially excited by the irritability or political dexterity of Prince Bismarck, who either really thinks that nobody in Europe should presume to criticise his policy, or else affects to think so, seeing the enthusiasm that every burst of this imperi- ous temper excites in the Prussian Diet and the Reichstag. A little girl of three years old once expressed the deep sense of aristocratic pride which she had inherited from a very ordi- nary middle-class family, by saying to a small plebeian, " atle girl, ou no look at Miss —." The German Empire is just five years old, but its attitude towards the lower orders of European Powers is much the same. If they so much as look at Germany without respect, nay, if they do not immediately and stringently prohibit the private practice of looking at Germany without respect, Prince Bismarck makes his dis- pleasure felt either in some direct or in some indirect form. It is not a pleasant prospect for the inferior orders of European States, amongst which, we suppose, Italy, France, Austria, and even England are now to be numbered.
The controversial correspondence of Germany with Belgium, of which we have heard so much this week, seems to be a pecu- liarly striking instance of this German disposition to expect ob- sequiousness from both the Press and the Governments of in- dependent States. The complaint of Germany is founded on three heads,—the addresses of sympathy written by the Roman Catholic Bishops of Belgium to the German Bishops, on the occasion of the first outbreak of the struggle between Germany and Rome ; on the alleged Duchesne plot to assassinate Prince Bismarck, which in all probability was a mere mare's-nest; and on a recent address to the Roman Catholic Bishop of Paderborn, purporting to be by a Belgian Committee of Ponti- fical Works, which is, however, disavowed by that Committee. Germany maintains that if the existing Belgian laws do not enable the Government to put down such attempts as these to disturb the peace of a neighbouring kingdom, those laws should be at once strengthened. Clearly that complaint applies, as regards the first and third heads of it, as much to England as to Belgium. We have not yet been charged with har- bouring any one who even in his cups talked of intending to kill Prince Bismarck ; but Belgium, who has, really did take up and inquire into the matter, and the prosecution dropped for want of evidence. We believe the investigation has now been resumed, though it is pretty certain that the Duchesne plot consisted merely of the ravings of a drunken artisan, ravings which never grew into any sort of true conspiracy. Still, the complaint that the investigation into a criminal plot was not sufficiently energetic and serious, is reasonable compared with the complaint that Belgian bishops were allowed to publish their sympathy with the German bishops on the oppressive character of the Falck laws, and that a Society (which, how- ever, denies the authorship) had put forth an address of sympathy to the Bishop of Paderborn on his persecution by the State. - Similar expressions of sympathy by the Roman Catho- lics of England,—by the Roman Catholic Union, for instance,— and by plenty of individual prelates, have been published over and over again ; and if Germany conceives she has a right to complain of Belgium for allowing these things, she has on every ground but one just as much right to complain of England. The sole difference is that Belgium is a "neutral" State, her neutrality being guaranteed by Europe, and Germany argues that neutral States ought to be even more careful not to allow offence to the feelings of their neighbours than States which receive no guarantee from Europe of their inviolability in time of war. Now that is a difference which does not seem to us to tell against a neutral State. The neutrality of Belgium is guaranteed, not chiefly for the sake of Belgium, but for the sake of Europe. It is Europe quite as much as Belgium which benefits by it, Germany even more than France. We do not see, therefore, why neutrality is to diminish the rights of a State to secure liberty of opinion and of expression to its sub- jects ; or why it is any excuse for making a complaint against Belgium which would not be made against England, that England must defend her own liberty of action at the cost of her own people, if necessary, while Belgium relies on the pledges of other Powers even more than on her own intrinsic strength. If any strong Power is to dictate to a neutral State, how it is to legislate in order to avoid giving offence to its powerful neighbours, neutrality is not a boon, but a curse. And the language in which Belgium has vindicated her own independence against the German critioism, seems to show that it is thus that the Belgian Minister under- stands the position.
There has been no worse omen for the tranquillity of Europe since the war closed than the temper displayed in this raking-up of old scores against a weak little neutral State like Belgium, on the express ground that neutrals owe more precautions, which means more subservience, to their powerful neighbours, than States which must fight their own battles. That Germany does not hanker after the annexation of Belgium as France did, is, we suppose, certain. The Germans would be annoyed instead of pleased by the extension of their Empire to so many aliens in blood, language, and religion. Prince Bismarck will never let France get Belgium, but he will never desire to conquer it for his own master. But not the less this irritable impulse to make the feeble neutrals tremble at the nod of the master of Europe is a symptom of danger which no statesman will see without real anxiety. In truth, there has been too much homage paid,—a great deal of it, no doubt, perfectly honest,— to the genius of the great people and great statesman who are now displaying the domineering spirit of sudden success. No State in Europe should fail to mark, indirectly at least, its disapproval of this sort of high-handed statesmanship, and to indicate its determination to stand by "the independence " no less than " the neutrality " of Belgium,—an independence which is inconsistent with any attempt to govern it by notes from Berlin. Germany must be taught that the influence she has fairly earned in Europe will not be increased, but diminished, by this universal troubling of the waters, and that unless she really means a new war—which is not likely—she cannot do better, as far as regards her European ascendancy, than keep herself to herself. If Prussia must persecute the Roman Catholics of Prussia, let her at least wash her dirty linen at home, and not ask every second-rate Power in Europe to assist her in that ignominious task. It is not thus that the characteristic ascendancy of the great Teutonic Empire,—which ought to incorporate as its first principle that intellectual liberty of which in its former weak and divided state it was the favourite abode, but of which it is the abode no longer,—is to be won.
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