GERMANY AND ENGLAND.
IT is not easy to assign a clear reason for the bitterness with which the military party in Germany is reported at this moment to regard Great Britain. The report may be an exaggeration, but it comes from a great many quarters, and is evidently believed by men who hear some- thing of the ideas prevailing at Charlottenburg. The popular notion that Germans of military opinions wished to see the present Crown Prince succeed his grandfather at once, and are irritated with the "English influences" which, as they think, prevented his being appointed Regent, does not commend itself to ordinary judgment. That the military party dislikes the Empress Victoria, and thinks her "much too English" for her high position, is, we dare say, true enough, for a great party in England disliked the Prince Consort, and thought him "much too German" to be so near the Throne ; but they do not dislike her for protecting either her husband's life, or his right to his own succession. German thought is not cynical, nor is it the German way to contemn the natural affections, or those instinctive emotions which spring from mingled affection and caste pride. Nor is it customary with persons so well informed and so accustomed to reflect as the leaders of the German military party, to exaggerate dislike for an individual into dislike for a great country because that individual represents it. They have, no doubt, an antecedent prejudice against England, as a State whose institutions are liberalised until its Government is in fetters, and a country which presumes to possess in- fluence throughout the world, yet avoids the burden to which every other nation of Europe has been compelled to • aubmit ; but between a prejudice of that sort and active dislike there is a world of difference. All experience shows that nations in their normal condition are acquaint- ances rather than friends or enemies; that their love for each other is skin-deep ; and that they rarely hate each other until they are attacked, or their interests obviously en- dangered. The anti-English feeling in Germany must, therefore, have some adequate basis, real or imaginary ; and we wish the correspondents, instead of sending us columns of gossip fit only for a Court Oircular, would tell us on respectable evidence what they conceive it to be. It cannot be mere disappointment that we do not enter the League of Peace; for if we did, there could be no war, and the whole theory of the situation is that the party angry with Great Britain is impatient for war as the only final solution of the grand German difficulty,—her geographical position between two equally dangerous military Powers. If the German military party desire war, they do not want the League of Peace made irresistible ; and if they do not desire war, what are they fretted with Great Britain about ? We are certainly not seeking war, or in- triguing in order that the nations may upset commerce and impede civilisation by cutting each other's throats. Nor can the cause of the dislike be an impression that we are in any way hostile to any great German wish. The interests of the two nations do not clash in any quarter of the world, unless it be New Guinea or Zanzibar; and we have, both in Africa and Australasia, frankly accepted the Germans as amicable neighbours. We prefer them greatly to either the French or the Portuguese, and only wish there was an unoccupied land beyond seas where a new German people could grow up to the strength and the stature of their mother-land. Nor, to do them full justice, is colonial policy a question on which German soldiers are likely to grow either irritable or unfair. They are thinking of the Army, not of the Navy, and long for safety and dignity in Europe, not under the Southern Cross. And, finally, we cannot believe the explanation that England is supporting the German Liberal Party. The Empress Victoria may be, though we suspect that events have modified early Liberalism both in her and her husband's mind, and that the Royal prerogative now appears to both a source of stability for Germany ; but England, in German politics, is certainly not Liberal,—is, in fact, rather absurdly the reverse. The disposition here is to praise Prince Bismarck, even when he is in the wrong, and to quote his successes as proofs that personal govern- ment may attain results superior to any secured. by public deliberation. The Liberal Party here has practically no relation with any party in Berlin, and the country at large intervenes no more in Germany than it does in Austria, and much less than it does in France.
Nevertheless, the military party is supposed to be anti- English ; there must be some truth, however little, in the supposition; and no kind of explanation is vouchsafed. It will be observed, however, as a fact affording some clue, that Prince Bismarck and the soldiers are on this occasion pulling together. That has by no means always been the case, was not the case, for example, in 18Th; but in this instance the spokesmen of the military parties are also the advocates of the Chancellor against all foes. The English, and the Empress as their representative, are nominally hated because they are resisting him. May not the explana- tion be, therefore, that both expect a war with France ; that both intend to " square " Russia, so that the war may be a duel ; and that both anticipate opposition in England to the necessary arrangements ? England is powerful by herself when heartily moved ; and England plus Italy, plus official Austria-Hungary, is very powerful indeed, and might even make it impossible for the Czar to accept the offered terms. He wants Constantinople without a great war of very dubious issue, and with his road to his new capital made permanently secure. That is impossible without other consents than that of Germany, and England may be accepted in Berlin as the centre of probable resistance. The whole division of parties about the Battenberg marriage looked very much like that, for the essence of Russian opposition to that marriage is desire for Bulgaria ; and so does the constantly repeated accusa- tion that England wants Germany to fight Russia, mstead of performing that great task herself. The German theory, in fact, may be that England does not like an arrangement between Russia and Germany on the only possible terms, and might even, in certain contingencies, intervene to prevent its being carried out. The extraordinary and hitherto unexplained outburst against Sir Robert Morier, who was quietly performing his duties in St. Petersburg, must have had some such origin, the notion being that he was thwarting some great project favoured by the Chan- cellor. If that is the case, the irritation expressed is so far intelligible that it has an adequate, if imaginary cause ; but a more premature irritation it would be diffi- cult to imagine. Great Britain has not only not made up its mind as to its course in the event supposed, but has never even considered it as probable. The Foreign Office has never hinted at such a danger, no question upon it has ever been asked in Parliament, and the electors would hardly understand what it all meant. Even the Foreign Office knows nothing of it, at least, if Lord Salis- bury was sincere in his prediction of peace at Carnarvon ; and in the newspapers it is treated only as a suspicion pre- valent in Vienna. The military party of Berlin are, in fact, attributing to this country a far-sightedness which does not belong to her, and expect from her measures of precaution such as a Continental Power would take if suddenly alarmed. England is not alarmed in the least, not even warned, though the report is this week confirmed that the Russian Court has peremptorily forbidden, in a way well understood to be sincere, the smallest hostile comment upon the Crown Prince,—that is, upon the supposed head of the German military party. Russia, therefore, expects something from the Crown Prince.
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