The visit of the German Emperor to Posen has not
been altogether a success. The police precautions taken were of the most elaborate character, and, taken together with the corps d'armie which accompanied the Emperor-King, amount to an assertion that he regards Posen as a hostile and a conquered country. Yet his Majesty intended, it seems clear, to be gracious ; and on September 2nd, in a speech to the municipal authorities who received him, he conferred an important benefit on the city by abolishing the Military Radius Law. This allows the citizens to build without reference to the fortifications, and will not only allow the city to grow, but will make houses cheaper. This conciliatory spirit was even more conspicuous in the very striking speech which he delivered at the unveiling of the memorial to his father on Thursday. After appealing to the Germans to lay aside their " hereditary failing of party contention," he ex- pressed his deep regret that some of his Polish subjects seemed to have difficulty " in accommodating themselves to our social conditions." He attributed this, first, to their anxiety lest their religious beliefs should be tampered with; second, to the apprehension lest racial pecUliarities and traditions should be extinguished. Both of these apprehensions he declaxed to be unfounded. While it was his unshaken resolve to secure the indissoluble connection of the province with the
Prussian Monarchy, so that it should always remain truly Prussian and truly German, traditions and memories might continue to exist undisturbed, "only they are history, they belong to the past."
