Professor Adolf Wagner made a remarkable speech on Tuesday at
a dinner of the German Verein fur Sozialpolitik, which is holding its meetings at Vienna. The burden of the speech, according to the Times correspondent, was the import- ance of the Germans in Austria-Hungary and the meaning of German friendship. He said that the Verein was able to hold its meetings outside Germany because for German thought there were no frontiers. "A new German Empire has been created." The poet Arndt had said that Germany extends as far as the sound of the German tongue. "The German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy of to- day represent a power of more than a hundred and ten million souls and of millions of armed men. Was it ever so in the put? Each country- now covers the shoulders of the other, and, just as we recently guarded the shoulders of Austria-Hungary, so do we Germans reckon not less that if great dangers and great moments come upon us, which are not at all improbable and are not so far off, we also shall have our shoulders covered by the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy." Professor Wagner's speech gives a kind of Pan-German glorification of recent events. We do not wonder that it has been received with mixed feelings in Austria-Hungary. Slays, Magyars, and
Italians are scarcely mentioned when Professor Wagner graciously disposes of the future of Austria-Hungary.
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