270 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



Kladdcradatsch.^ rRerlin 



FBANOO-GERMAN AFFAIRS. 



Marianne: " Sacre bleu, is he already pn-jiar- 

 iiig to get up?" 

 Michel: " Donnerwetter, is she waking up?" 



of public opinion, even at the risk of losing 

 th?.t popularity for wliich they so eiigerly 

 strive. 



Arguments, like statistics, are pos- 

 sessed of plastic jDroperties, which with 

 little manipulation may suggest the 

 thing: desired, and where the wish is so 



often father to the thought it is neces- 

 sary to go warily between the statement 

 general and the fact particular. 



M. Ferrero has an eye for the melo- 

 dramatic when he writes : — 



This belligerent state of mind now agitat- 

 ing Europe is the last phase of that great 

 struggle which began with the French Re- 

 volution, between Conservatives and Liberals, 

 between the principle ot authority and the 

 idea of liberty, between tiie State and Deino- 

 cracv. What the outcome will he is hard to 

 say. If the time should come wlien or- 

 ganised armies should be no more, but when 

 whole peoples armed with fearful instruments 

 of destruction should hurl themselves upon 

 one .xnotlier — the very thought of it would be 

 appalling to us. 



The prophet of old was occasionally 

 given to soothsaying, and w'e trust the 

 modern school is not so fierce as it 

 paints itself, for crises may sometimes 

 e.xist in the imagination only. 



Our writer closes with full conhdence 

 that the great need is " more " govern- 

 ment : — 



Standing between the alternatives of war 

 on tho one hind, and of hiwhssn«'.ss on the 

 other, the European nations are all eijually 

 bewildered, in doiibt which way t-o turn, 

 while the approaching crisis is p.ll the more 

 .serious because thinking men are giving up 

 politics for business. Tliis neglect of public 

 hities by the c!ass which once bore tlie en- 

 lire responsil)ility is one of the most regret- 

 taiblo results of industrial development and 

 universal wealth. I trust the day may never 

 come when Europe will be force<l to realise 

 that it would have been lu-tter for her if she 

 were hss rich but more wise, if she were 

 endowed witli less machinery and c.'.pital but 

 with more powerful, mor<' st;ib1.' in 1 imir.- 

 enlightened Governments 



THE "YOUTH" OF EUROPE. 



Alterations in the map of Europe are 

 the subject of a paper in the F'^ah'/ri^h 

 Revieiv : — 



Lord Salisbury once recommended 

 the study of " large maps " as a useful 

 exercise to those who would master the 

 realities of foreign policy. Even more 

 salutary might be the examination of a 

 good historical atlas — a work too rarely 

 met with on English bookshelves. To 

 turn to the map of Europe as it was in 

 1 815, or in 1840, or even in i860, is to 

 be reminded with almost startling force 

 of the extreme rawness of the present 

 political nr-nngement of the Cor'^-rcnt 



A i)erso:i born in the first year of Queen 

 X'ictoria's reign has lived through kalei- 

 doscopic variations in the political 

 geography and history of Europe. A 

 man, no older than NIr. Asquith, is yet 

 older than the German Empire ; he is 

 older than the Austro-Hungarian Mon- 

 archy in its present form ; than the Re- 

 public of France, and the Republic of 

 Portugal ; than the Kingdoms of Italy, 

 Roumania, .Servia, Bulgaria and Nor- 

 way A veteran like Lord Strathcona 

 was born before the Kingdom of Greece 

 and the Kingdom of Belgium ; before 

 th° " Ten j-ress Kinijdom " of Poland 



