THE ANARCHIST PLOT AGAINST THE GERMAN EMPEROR.
THE vague uneasiness which has infected all Germany as to the personal safety of the Emperor during his tour in Palestine is, we think, well justified, and we trust his Majesty will not allow his soldierlike feeling to induce any neglect of the most careful precautions. He will not be misunderstood by the European world, even if they should be unusually visible, for they will be directed against foes who are really dangerous. The root idea of the cosmopolitan Anarchists who have declared war on Western society, so far as they can be said to have an idea appreciable by ordinary minds, is that the killing or terrifying of great persons, and especially of Kings, Presi- dents, and Premiers, helps to dissolve the bonds of that society, and thus to increase the chance of that " anarchy " or suspension of law out of which, as they imagine, a new order is destined to arise, an order in which each in- dividual will be his own law. It is a mistaken idea, as well as an utterly evil one, for civil order would only be replaced, if dissolved, by military order, which is much harder and protects itself by more terrible and efficacious sanctions ; but still the idea exists, and naturally its whole energy is just now directed against the German Emperor. He is not only a great Sovereign, but for the moment the most conspicuous figure in the world. His journey to Palestine excites not only the political imagination, but the Christian imagination, especially in Russia and Turkey, and the Jewish imagination, thus fixing upon himself millions of usually inattentive eyes. His death, it is patent to all mankind, would be a shock to the whole world. Naturally the Anarchists think that if they can strike at him they will do a great thing for their "cause," which is the production of anarchy, and naturally also they think their chance improved by the journey itself. The Emperor passes out of a region where he is surrounded, so to speak, by a wall of steel, into a region where from the necessity of the case there must be chinks in that wall ; he passes from the protection of a people who, loyal or otherwise, are not assassins, to the midst of a people amongst whom are imbedded and hidden hundreds of the fiercest cutthroats in the world. The adventurous scum of the world throng to the cities of the Eastern Mediterranean, and among them must be many utterly hostile to all who are great, utterly careless of life, and as nearly insane in concealed opinions as is com- patible with ability to keep out of restraint. The possible agents of crime are there, and the possible opportunities, for the Emperor, besides being a brave man, is an eagerly curious one, will see everything, will in particular inspect all those buildings, temples, churches, and mosques for which other men have reverence and Anarchists have none. No man not in actual battle could be more exposed to the bullet and the bomb. We believe, therefore, the whole of the story telegraphed from Alexandria, including what is a new feature in such incidents, the great number of the potentially guilty. The energy and acumen of Harington Bey saved, we believe, the Emperor's life, and though so many are under arrest, and their most dangerous weapons, explosive bonds, have been seized, we distrust the idea that the danger has wholly passed, and would ask the British Government, whose arm is very long, to urge on every recognised and unrecognised agent the necessity of !leant watchfulness over the illustrious traveller. He is well guarded by his own riders ; he can command the whole police of Turkey ; he has sent, it is said, for his own detectives from Berlin ; and all these are sensible precautions, but they would all have been at least com- paratively valueless if Hariugton Bey, aided, we do not doubt, by the special confidence of the East in the British word, had not detected the plot. Detection is far more Useful than any guard, which, however faithful or devoted, cannot so surround the Emperor as to place him perma- nently and in every situation out of the reach of danger. The faintest rumour that reaches a Consul in the Levant should be forwarded to Jerusalem.
The incident seems to us to throw a flood of light upon the most effective method of dealing with Anarchism, as a system which menaces the lives of the great. We do not believe in executions without fair trial, for, like need- less slaughter in the streets such as discredited the " re- pression " at Milan, they only destroy the last relics of conscience, by giving to crime the appearance of the "wild justice" of revenge. We do not believe in preven- tive arrests, for the net, however widely thrown, usually permits the most dangerous, because least suspected, criminals to escape. We do not believe in the suppression of Anarchist literature, for literature, though it may make- shoals of discontented men more discontented still, doer not of itself give them the impulse to murder men who- clearly are not oppressing them. And we believe least of all in that combination to expel Anarchists from all countries which is now recommended by all Governments of the Continent, for its only effect is to herd the guilty together in out-of-the-way places in which they infect each other, as they are believed to have done in Alexandria, with a new ferocity. No supervision that it is possible in modern times to employ will keep resolute men out of a country which they have determined at any risk to enter. The true precaution is to keep up an in- tense watchfulness in all threatened countries and upon all seriously suspected persons, to gather know- ledge from all cities, to receive and communicate from centre to centre all information even if it seems improb- able, and then, when the plots approach completion, to- act as we should act if the plots were for ordinary murder. That is the course which has in the present instance preserved the Emperor's life, and which will, we hope and believe, keep him in safety until he once more regains Berlin.
There are two special operations of their own minds which greatly increase the risk from assassination run by modern Sovereigns. One of these is their impatience of the precautions taken by police, by Aides-de-Camp, even by Ministers. They fret excessively under what they feel to be perpetual threatening, mentally they accuse their own officers of making it a business to excite their fears, and occasionally they spoil careful measures of pre- caution by the issue of counter orders. The Emperor Alexander II., it was said at the time, fretted in this way, ordering that if precautions were taken he should not be told of them, and, as a matter of fact, he was at the moment when he was killed as unprotected as any private gentleman might have been. The other danger arises from the sentiment of the uniform. The Sovereign who is a soldier does not like to seem afraid of the bullet or the dagger. That is a natural feeling, but it is one which ought to be repressed. The Sovereign is guarded, not for himself, but because he represents the State, and he ought to aid his officers, not to make their duty inexpressibly trying. Suppose he does drive fast when abroad, what is that but the conduct of the sea captain who when he has to encounter the fire of a fort keeps his ship in incessant motion ? It was said of Napoleon III. that it was nearly impossible when he drove in the Bois de Boulogne to see him clearly, the Corsicans who protected him managing always to be between him and any assassin's probable line of fire, and if the story was true- it was creditable, not discreditable, to his character. His clear duty was to keep his life, at all events as against any assassin's blow. No precautions not involving cruelty are discreditable to a Sovereign who is threatened, even if it be only by the mad, nor do we believe that European opinion, cynical as it often is, will interpret such pre- , cautions to the discredit of the Sovereign who takes them. Rather they will consider that he is avoiding by a wise care that necessity for seclusion which interrupts his per- formance of his functions, and which would be the only effectual alternative. The assassins who are really danger- ous must be very few in number, and the police of Europe all pulling together, as far as watchfulness is concerned, ought to be more than a match for those few.
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