Yesterday week the Alsace-Lorraine Deputies pleaded in the Reichstag at
Berlin for an independent administration of their provinces, and against the abuses caused by the Central Government at Berlin, and one of them even went so far as to suggest that Alsace-Lorraine should be neutralised, and allowed to become the independent mediator between France and Germany, in which case the Deputy promised that she- would reconcile those two great States. Prince Bismarck's reply was singularly temperate and conciliatory. Of course,. he treated the last suggestion as a mere theatrical "aside," addressed to Paris, and not intended for Berlin at all. But while insisting that Germany must keep complete military con- trol of the province, in order to be safe in less peaceful times than the present, he professed himself willing to grant a very large measure of home-rule to Alsace-Lorraine, and indeed, to place it in a condition which would enable it to secure for itself a great prosperity, and to gain the mastery of the Parisians still left in Alsace-Lorraine, for between Parisians and French- men, the Prince said, experience had taught him to draw a very broad distinction. That reads very much like a hint to France in relation to the proposal for removing the Legislature back to Paris. But if Prince Bismarck so meant it, he must certainly have known that his hint would operate not as a warning, but as a spur, when received upon the inflammable material of French Republican feeling. Compliments from Prince Bismarck to Frenchmen at the expense of Paris, will make Paris more than ever the focus of French patriotism.
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