TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GERMAN EMPEROR'S EXAMPLE.
THE recent action of the German Emperor, as described in his own speech of Tuesday to the Reichstag, may have most important effects, not only within his own dominion, but throughout Europe. It is becoming pretty clear that he has, for the moment at all events, succeeded in one of his plans. He has drawn the mass of the German people much nearer to the Throne. His governing idea, as we pointed out some weeks since, is that it is possible, under the conditions of modern Europe, in which every man not an Englishman is a trained soldier, and therefore accustomed to discipline, for Kings to retain much direct and avowed authority in the State, if only they will be modern. To be modern means, in his Majesty's mind, to accept the dominant ideas of the day, which are undoubtedly that the conditions of associated labour have become needlessly hard, that handicraftsmen should lead more comfortable lives, and that their women and children in particular should be protected from what is very often severe oppression. The Emperor has accepted them, and is pushing them from his high place; in the Empire with characteristic vehemence, and some measure of success. He summoned, managed, and dis- missed within a fortnight an International Conference which, at all events, resolved on three definite suggestions, —that the English factory laws should be imitated for the protection of women and children ; that work ought to cease on Sunday ; and that a shorter day of labour was a thing to be sought, if only competition would allow it. The Emperor ordered the first two of these suggestions to be carried out at once in all State factories and mines, and has now promised from the throne to exert the whole power of the Government, obviously and notoriously the greatest force in Germany, to convert them into laws, with an addition which has escaped atten- tion, but is most important in principle, that an employer shall not dismiss a workman except for specific offence. The position he takes up, in fact, is that of a Lord Shaftesbury on the throne, and the workmen are attracted by it beyond expectation. They attach, be it remembered, immense importance to the personality of the Emperor, who is also their Commander-in-Chief—they being all soldiers—they know that his sway towards their side brings over the whole official class, and accustomed as they are to regard the State as at best a sort of pedagogue with rod always raised, they expect a sort of millennium for labour. They abstained, therefore, almost universally from demonstrating on -the First of May, and, they are now plainly signifying to their representatives that the Emperor is to be supported, not only in his labour Bills, but in his military Bills too. These Bills are very serious additions to the demands already made on the German people for the Army. They are not Bills, as some of our contemporaries say, for "increasing the Army," which would be physically impossible, as the Army is already the nation, but for increasing the Army in time of peace by 10 per cent. Fifty thousand more peasants and artisans are to be taken from their work and kept round the colours, so as to increase the mass of soldiers which can be mobilised at once by a telegraphic order. That is a heavy additional burden, and would under other circumstances have called forth loud complaints in Parliament ; but as it is, Radicals vie with Conservatives in promising to abstain from criticism, and to make all sacrifices "necessary for the defence of the Fatherland." The Emperor has caught the masses, who, grateful for his sympathy with their labour troubles, approve his claim to the initiative even when his proposals will cost them time, money, and all the sufferings which flow from an increased dislocation of industry. The lowest electors, in fact, instead of suspecting and criticising and opposing the Imperial Government, are ranging themselves for the time being on its side. The Emperor shall govern, they say,— a most momentous change.
This success, which will greatly increase the young Emperor's self-confidence, is of course accompanied by a danger. There will he no labour millennium, wealth being no more producible without painful toil than any other crop is. The Emperor can no more alter the per- manent conditions of associated industry, which are all hard, than he can make a field grow wheat without ploughing it ; and by-and-by, when that is perceived, there.' will be a reaction, and probably an outburst of the anger always born of disillusion. But this will not come just yet. The reforms to be now embodied in law, which we detail elsewhere, are good and sensible reforms, flost of them already accepted by opinion ; and, they will be taken. by a population astonished to find sympathy in its rulers., as earnest of better things to come. Moreover, the working classes in all countries, without exception, display one mental weakness, from which we think freeholding peasants are comparatively exempt. They are unreasonably solicitous of sympathy from above, are moved by it as by nothing else, and when it is displayed, are as credulous as children.. Mr. Gladstone achieved more popularity by his remark about "flesh and blood," uttered in the heat of debate and intended only as an argument, than by all his splendid improvements in the economic condition of the poor. Rogue after rogue has attained great influence by making promises which those who heard them did not wholly believe, being in some ways hard-headed and practical men,. but which the working voters delighted in as indicating sympathy with them and with their views. To find an Emperor sympathetic will enchant all German artisans, and they will for a long time, possibly even for half his life, acquit the Emperor of any failures in performance because of the feeling he has expressed, urging that, if left to himself, he would have fulfilled all pledges, but that he had been stopped by other men. For the time,. therefore, the Emperor will be all-powerful, for the three solid, forces of Germany, the Throne, the Army, and the Mass-vote, will all be acting together ; and we may be sure the example will not be lost on the other Kings of Europe. It is said, indeed, that already the Austrian Government, which means in the long-run the Emperor Francis Joseph, is considering whether a policy like that of the German Emperor cannot be adopted in all the States of the Hapsburg dominion ; and if it is, which is exceedingly probable, the upper class being frightened to death by the epidemic of strikes, it will be imitated both in Italy, where the grievance of overwork is real, and in Spain, where, in the great cities, a kind of angry Socialism has made immense progress. The tendency of the Kings, in fact, will be to pose as Cmsars,—that is, rulers actually reigning by the support of the armed force, but with the consent also of the populace. They will have no difficulty in assuming this attitude. They like ruling; they have plenty of men near them to suggest measures of reform, whether well considered or only plausible ; and they really feel, as a rule, much more for the masses than for the middle class, and this not from the ungenerous motive usually assigned. Their responsibility for such numbers of poor men is really greater, no King, and especially no King possessed. of actual power, ever ridding himself of the idea that he stands in some special manner between God and his people. They can express sympathy for hardship just as sincerely as Henry IV. of France did, and if they do, they will for a time earn the same reward. Whether they will be able to do much, we do not know, economic conditions being often unalterable ; but they have, on the Continent, one field open to them. They can override the resistance offered by mere timidity to reforms known to be beneficial —take, for instance, the abolition of truck—and induce the official class to carry good measures which from any cause are unpopular with employers. They will not, we fear, favour the great relieving measure, the total abolition of all taxes on food, fearing to excite disloyalty among the peasants ; but they may suggest, and even carry, equivalents of a Poor-Law.
If the current of events sets for a time in this way—and our readers can judge for themselves of the probabilities— there will be a great increase in the want of confidence already felt in representative bodies. The democracy does not believe in them greatly at any time, and in America and Switzerland, where it is free to act, is binding them in constitutional chains, of which the Referendum is only the strongest ; and it may well think for a time that it has found in the Kings a better weapon. The people hardly read the Parliamentary talk, and they are tired of the sterility which from one cause or another—their preposterous size, perhaps, being the first— has lately stricken all European representative bodies. We hardly ever read a labour speech in any country without finding in it some protest against Parliament,,— taking in England the form of a demand for working Members ; and in France and Germany, of denunciations against the Deputies as "steeped in the spirit of the bourgeoisie." The way is a good deal prepared for the Kings, if they like to imitate the German Emperor ; and this generation may yet witness a singular recrudescence of Royal power, probably temporary, but possibly lasting till a good many social questions are settled. Lord Beaconsfield, who had flashes of insight, made up his mind while he was writing " Coningsby " that this was probable; and certainly the course of events for the hour is unexpectedly in favour of his view. Many kinds of Emperors seemed possible when the soldier-Emperor passed away, but who would have thought of a German Sovereign with all the artisans on his side ?
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