328 





GERMANY. 



cause the Guelphs would not unite with the 

 Socialists and Freisinnige, to defeat him, but 

 even then his vote fell 2,000 short of that cast 

 for his National Liberal predecessor. 

 Kaiser Wilhelm. The dread of military ag- 



fression and martial ambition that the young 

 Imperor aroused by dismissing Prince Bis- 

 marck and directly intervening in politics was in 

 a great measure dispelled by his subsequent pa- 

 cific utterances, and by his turning his attention 

 mainly to domestic matters. The "new era" 

 that was signalized by his choosing such coun- 

 selors as Dr. Miquel, and engaging the co-opera- 

 tion of parties and classes that Bismarck had 

 excluded from participation in the direction of 

 affairs, reassured and satisfied the country. The 

 official manifestions in acts and proclamations 

 of his ideas of personal government gave little 

 offense, even to those who condemned the ob- 

 jects that he inaugurated or sought to further, 

 for the royal initiative is approved by the greater 

 part of the Prussian people, and they like a king 

 who gives his whole attention to matters of 

 state. His Labor Conference, his active further- 

 ance of colonial enterprises, his intervention in 

 the miners' strike, his initiation of temperance 

 legislation, and edicts against vice and luxury 

 were in conformity with Hohenzollern traditions 

 and the Prussian Constitution. His unofficial 

 utterances at mess dinners and in private inter- 

 course revealed autocratic conceptions that were 

 strange and disquieting, and though they were 

 toned down when reported in the Government 

 organs, the actual words were the subject of free 

 comments in the German press. When he was 

 reported to have said, " It is the nature of the 

 monarchy that there is only one master in the 

 country, and it is I," the words were declared to 

 be not authenticated, but it was not denied that 

 they were spoken. A reputed statement that 

 the peace of Europe lay in his hand was offi- 

 cially declared to have been simply an expres- 

 sion of the wish that it did. " Hoc voio, sic 

 fubeo" he is said to have inscribed on a photo- 

 graph of himself when presenting it to Minis- 

 ter von Gossler, and on visiting Munich he is 

 alleged to have written in the visitors' book of 

 the municipality, " Supremo, lex regis voluntas," 

 a principle foreign to the present constitutions 

 both of Bavaria and of Prussia. His description 

 of Napoleon I as a " Corsican parvenu," in ad- 

 dressing a convivial assembly of officers in a 

 province once devastated by the armies of the 

 great Corsican, gave such apparent offense in 

 France that it was altered in the official version. 

 The interpretation that he gave to the soldier's 

 oath in addressing a regiment, to the effect that 

 the soldier should feel that he belonged " body 

 and soul " to the Kaiser, awakened among the 

 German people a more genuine indignation. 

 When a workman who refused at a public din- 

 ner to rise and drink the Kaiser's health was 

 tried for lese-majesty, his acquittal by a Prussian 

 court delighted the liberty-loving section of the 

 people. 



Besides his advocacy of the bill for the sup- 

 pression of drunkenness, the most significant 

 public act was a rescript published in the 

 " Reichsanzeiger " on Oct. 27. The murder by 

 a couple named Heinze of a night watchman, 

 following a succession of startling crimes com- 



mitted by the vicious class in Berlin, caused him 

 to telegraph an imperative order to the Minister 

 of Justice to purge the city of such ruffians and 

 to issue this proclamation, which was not counter- 

 signed by any minister. In it he said that he felt 

 the responsibility for the decision that would be 

 taken in the existing state of affairs because it 

 would be given in his name, and he was the sover- 

 eign defender of law and order. Degraded men 

 who profit by female prostitution were a menace 

 to Berlin and other cities, and he called on the 

 police and the courts to punish every offense 

 with the utmost rigor of the law, and suggested 

 that the penalties should be made more severe, 

 that lawyers who hinder the course of justice by 

 frivolous and technical devices should be dis- 

 ciplined, and that in trials for immorality the 

 public should be excluded from the court room. 

 International Relations, The triple alli- 

 ance, originally a secret treaty between Germany 

 and Austria, made in 1879, in which Italy joined, 

 was renewed in 1885 for six years more, and in 

 the summer of 1891 the league was continued 

 for six years more. The accession of England 

 for certain purposes, that is of the present Tory 

 Government in England was revealed in a 

 speech of the Italian Premier on June 29, when 

 he said that Italy and Great Britain had agreed 

 some years before to co-operate for the mainte- 

 nance of the status quo in the Mediterranean. The 

 visit of the Emperor Wilhelm in England in 

 July, 1891, was regarded as a confirmation of 

 this understanding. The relations with France 

 were disturbed by the more stringent execution 

 of the passport regulations in the earlier part of 

 the year, but the relaxation of the regulations 

 on account of the railroad disaster stopping com- 

 munications between France and Switzerland 

 repaired the mistake, and this source of constant 

 friction between the two countries was in a great 

 measure removed by the new regulations by 

 which passports viseed by the German minister 

 in Paris would only be required after Oct. 1, 



1891, from persons under forty-five years of age 

 who have opted for French nationality and from 

 military officers, though foreigners sojourning 

 in Alsace-Lorraine are required to report them- 

 selves to the local police. 



A commercial alliance that was a result of the 

 tariff war between France and Italy and a re- 

 sponse to the new protective duties of France 

 was concluded at Munich in October between 

 Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, and was 

 joined by Switzerland. The new treaty with 

 Austria, which goes into effect in February, 



1892, provides for a reduction in the duties on 

 rye and wheat. The short crop of grain in Ger- 

 many, as well as in other parts of Europe, ex- 

 cited fears that the dearth of bread already felt 

 by the poorer classes in Germany would reach 

 the point of actual famine. The Radicals and 

 the Socialists in the Reichstag, by picturing this 

 danger, sought to compel Chancellor von Capri vi 

 to consent to a relaxation or suspension of the 

 grain duties. He was pledged to the agricult- 

 ural class, and declared that they would be main- 

 tained till the following February. The scar- 

 "city of grain was so great that the Government 

 decided to mix Indian meal with rye in the bread 

 prepared for the army. After the ukase forbid- 

 ding the exportation of rye from Russia, the 



