THE GERMAN EMPEROR AND THE REICHSTAG. T HE German Emperor has
probably made a mistake, but the British public hardly realises the motives of his impulsive action, or at any rate the motives which he asserts governed that action. He has always pleaded, with the general assent of his people, that he is the War- Lord, and it is plain that the last vote of the Reichstag directly impairs the prerogative which that title implies. He ceases through it to be able to keep sufficient troops at a point in his South-West African possessions where war is actually raging. Naturally this irritates him greatly ; and the bitterness of the rebuff is increased by another circumstance. It is the policy of every healthy State when not completely successful in war to display its reserves of stubbornness and cow its opponents by threatening what is substantially endless campaigning. The whole history of Great Britain is full of instances of successful obstinacy : take, for example, our recent struggle in South Africa. The Kaiser thought it necessary to go on in his contest with the Hereros, and half the statesmen of Europe at least would acknowledge that that was the usual and the wise method. of procedure. The Emperor, therefore, in his own opinion, had hardly an alternative to the course he has pursued,—that of asking his people whether they really meant him to give way before the opposition of his dark subjects in South-West Africa.
So far we can understand the action of William II.; but nevertheless we deem him unwise. He has chosen, even accepting his view of the conflict as the true one—a view, how- ever, which we do not accept—the wrong time for protest, and the wrong methodof protesting. He should, to begin with, have sent a message to the Reichstag asking the Deputies to reconsider their vote, and clearly explaining the solid reasons for his request. Instead of that, he flings a bolt from the-blue, and so creates throughout his Empire an impression that he wishes to diminish, or even disallow, the authority of the representative body, which, as Bismarck himself publicly admitted, has absolute control of finance. The time selected was as ill-judged as the method. The German people are just awaking to self-consciousness, and with it to an intense desire for a larger share in the control of administration. They think, if colonial policy costs money, they ought to have an equal vote with their Sovereign in colonial policy. The English people thought just the same thing in the time of George Ill., and ultimately forced the Government to surrender the greatest body of colonial possessions that has ever been owned by a European State. The Emperor is supposed to tell his people—it is not clear that he has told them, for at present he has only asked their opinion—that they shall have no vote at all in the matter, that they must simply obey, and give him, the means which he thinks his military policy requires. Great masses of them, of course, will disobey, more especially as they have other causes of vexation. A large section of them in all divisions of the Empire think the Colonial Department mismanaged, that it has made a bad choice of colonies, that it has allowed a degree of corruption to prevail most unusual in Germany, and that it has con- doned abuses of precisely that character which respectable Germany most strongly disapproves. To grant the latest demand for money is to pardon the Colonial Department for everything it has done amiss, and they will not do it. Whether they form a majority of the whole body of electors we do not know ; but many of the symptoms must be considered, from the Kaiser's point of view, most ominous. The really popular party, which calls itself Socialist and is Radical, disbelieves in colonies alto- gether, holding that far better conditions of life can be attained through internal reforms. Moreover, the people of the Southern States of the Empire—and on this subject and within those States upper classes and lower classes are fairly in harmony—though not exactly opposed to colonies, expect nothing from them, and care nothing about them. Efforts in that direction, even if beneficial to the North, will be without benefit to them, their interest lying, as they think, in expansion beyond their immediate territorial boundaries. The Bavarians, for example, would like a bit of Austria a great deal better than millions of square miles in Africa. If, indeed, the Kaiser could secure for them a great unoccupied land where they could build villages like those of Bavaria, yet hold their farms in free- hold, they would submit to considerable sacrifices for so enticing an end; but though the Emperor probably agrees with their wish, looking as he does on the numbers of the people with a certain apprehension, he has taken as yet no steps to realise their idea. It is quite possible, there- fore, that while the Emperor's " enemies ' among the electors—the people whom he scolds as pessimists— will vote against him to a man, those who are, on the whole, friendly to his absolutism, as being only a form of energy, will this time abstain from going to the poll. They are by no means, it must be remem- bered, contented with his recent action. They think he hurries on his fleet too much, and so piles on the taxes before they have earned the money which lighter assess- ments would suffer to accumulate in their pockets ; they are exasperated by the rise in the price of food, which they think has been caused by his treaties made in the interests of the landlords; and they look with gloomy eyes on a general dearness which is due in part at least to the new prosperity of Germany. This is not, therefore, a good time to ask them for fresh sacrifices, or to assert the superiority of the Throne in wisdom over the representa- tives of the people. The Emperor, in fact, to put it plainly, is making his habitual mistake of being too much in a hurry, and may find that the new Parliament to be elected on January 25th is as refractory as the Parliament just dispersed. What the Emperor will do if that happens is, of course, matter of conjecture. The idea that he will try a coup d'etat, and declare himself in some form dictator of Germany, rests on a thin foundation. He would like to be absolute, no doubt, as every other Sovereign would, or for that matter every other statesman conscious of internal strength ; but he would have to persuade or to conquer all the little Governments in Germany, which are not so fond of the central power, and to break up a system that has lasted thirty-five years, yet left him the enormous influence in politics which he now possesses. One does not throw away a great instrument till another is ready. It is rumoured, again, that he will pile up Dissolution on Dissolution until he has worn down resistance; but we fancy that much of that is what Disraeli called " coffee- house babble." You cannot bore a great people into submission. It is much more likely that he will shift his point of view, select some object on which his people agree with him, and so regain at a stroke his independence of action. The Emperor is an impulsive man, not a malig- nant one.
Our people must remember, when they consider this situation, that the German desire for expansion has reason for its basis. The population is going up by leaps and bounds ; the competition with the world as regards manufactures is very severe ; and the soil of Ger- many, though splendidly fertile in patches, consists over long stretches of rather unfertile sand. The struggle for life, as some economists call it, is very sharp indeed, and the rush of emigrants, which in part keeps it down, is naturally very galling to the rulers. That rush diminishes the. strength of their armies and the yield of those taxes—on beer, for example—which fall on everybody, and disturbs the action of the bureaucracy. The desire is to find a land which can be turned into a replica of Germany, but what with England and the United States and the Monroe doctrine, something seems always in the way. The thinly populated lands of temperate climate have either been occupied by Great. Britain, or are protected by an immensely powerful State which, regarding them as its future heritage, refuses to permit any repopulation of them under an organised or ambitious scheme. The German Emperor, it is evident, does not quite know how to meet this complex state of affairs, and keeps on making little tentatives which do not advance his dominions one yard. He would like, and his people would like, a large slice of the thinly populated section of Austria ; but unless Austria breaks up, how is he to get it ? The world would be the better if he could get Asia Minor.; but there are the Turks, and though the Turks are becoming few, they fight with desperation. The Kaiser looks, longs, and sometimes clutches a bit here and there ; but he has not finally made up his mind as to the territory he ought to seek, and until he does, the bits he acquires will continue to produce for him new difficulties. The expansion of Germany would not necessarily prove an injury to the world, provided only that Germany were ruled on those Parliamentary principles which just now so irritate her Emperor.
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