THE COXING GERMAN ELECTIONS.
DEMOCRACY always keeps its secret, more especially from its rulers, and this among the free-speaking races as much as among those which habitually appear reserved. Americans speak freely enough, heaven knows, but American party managers, whose organisation extends even to minute sections of voters, confess that a surprise vote is always possible, and that they expect many pledges to be broken at the polls. The Roman Catholic Church, with devoted agents in every commune, and an intense wish to know the truth, almost invariably mistakes the temper of the electors of France. It is probable that no British Government ever dissolves Parliament without a secret hope that the country will reseat it by a majority ; and the strong and patient Government of Austria, with an army of officials to give it information, acknowledges that it is not certain of the first results of conceding universal suffrage. It will, therefore, not be surprising if the German Emperor should be found to have made a mistake in the present Dissolution. The submissiveness of his people of itself helps to impede the efforts of their Emperor to forecast the ultimate result of an appeal to their inner sentiments. Though obstinate enough in their convictions, German electors are so much accustomed to defer to authority and so afraid of the law of lese-maiette that they keep silence until legally sheltered by the secrecy of the ballot. The greatest among their governing men are evidently perplexed, and are acting in a way which may prove to have 'been most unwise. The Emperor himself, who has a strong hold on the imagination of his people, declines any personal intervention in the present contest, a course which, though we in this country admire it as highly Constitutional, involves the sacrifice of the multitude of votes which an exertion of his personal charm might have brought to his side. His Chancellor, Prince Billow, does not even understand the question at issue. He tries to placate each group of the Reichstag in turn, telling the Roman Catholics of the Centre that they ought to be Conservative, and the Socialists that they may in the end provoke an appeal to the sword, and the old " Juuker " Conservatives that as the treaties protect the prices of their produce for the next ten years they have nothing to fear from support- ing the Government by which those treaties were ratified,— a pleasant assurance for the city masses, who are compelled by those very treaties to go without meat and pay too much for their bread. The broad fact that the contest, if it means anything at all, involves the right of the whole people to a larger share of self-government, and especially to a more final control of their own taxation, does not seem to occur to the Prince. General Trotha, upon whose' energy and eloquence the Government greatly relies, makes speeches which indicate that the only question at issue is the expediency of keeping colonies, forgetting that if the people rule they can decide to found and to keep colonies just as resolutely as the Emperor. Finally, the ablest body of rulers in the Empire, the bureaucracy of Prussia, offer their underlings, who are notoriously discontented, increases of salary to the total extent of one million a year. With prices rising, that proposal is both sound and icindly ; but Parliaments when they govern do not usually skin the lower classes of the Executive, and you cannot raise salaries in Prussia without provoking envy in all the smaller States, where salaries will not be raised. The temptation of men chosen by election is to make everybody comfortable. Nothing, therefore, has been dque' which is likely to change the opinions of the average voter ; and ae the German people is a very firm one, the best the Government can hope for, after all its efforts, is a new Parliament very like the one just dissolved.
The great change, if it comes at all, will come from a larger motive than any to which an appeal has hitherto been addressed. If the people wish to be governed directly by the Emperor• and his representatives— and we do not for a moment deny that this ie possible, for a large section of the German people is still thirsting for a grand position in the world— the elections will give to the Government a heavy majority, and the Emperor may propose and obtain the new taxation without which his dreams of a Weltpolitik cannot be realised in any rapid or impressive way. If, on the other hand, the body of the German people wish first of all for a controlling influence over their own destiny, they will return a Reichstag which will demand full control of their own finances, and the Emperor will have to consider whether it is better worth his while to enter on the uncertain path of coups d'itat, or by wise and moderate concessions to obtain that popularity amidst his people which will make his special policy attractive in their eyes. To prophesy which result will come out of the ballot-boxes is—well, is to prophesy, and 'prophetic politics rarely correspond precisely with the event. All we can say is that the symptoms are as yet unfavourable to the autocratic side. Each group appears to remain stubborn, and one—the Polish—is more than stubborn, so angry that every Pole throughout the Empire may be relied on for a vote against the existing regime. We hear nothing of any new force called up by the Chancellor's appeals, unless it be that of the few Professors who seem inclined to believe that the grandeur of their country is at stake. Professors have shown themselves powerful in Germany before now, but the unity of Germany is a very different war-cry from the necessity of colonies, and France a very different enemy from the Hottentots, who, by the way, have just surrendered. The Pro- fessors have to deal with a people whose consciousness of power has recently been strengthened, and who do not see why they cannot direct 'the policy of their own' country just as well' ati the British or the French;
or, for that matter, the Austrians, who have just been invited by their own Emperor to assume power. General Troths makes a point of the vast expenditure of Great Britain in defending her South African Colonies, and says that that expenditure was cheerfully voted by the people,—to which the German elector may very possibly reply : " Good ! but then give us the power of the British people to say ' Yes' or No' to their Government." It is, of course, quite possible that they have not as yet advanced to this point in their political education, though the enormous Socialist vote looks rather like it ; but it is on this advance, and not on the result of coquetting with the different groups, that the great issue must depend. It is a great issue, for in any case the German people must have a great future in the world, the only real doubt being whether the Hohenzollerns are to dictate the method of attaining that future without asking popular advice, or whether dynasty and people are to move together towards a brilliant, even if a far-off, end. " Hasten slowly" is a very good motto in Imperial politics.
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