Rffiew of Rcvri'irs, IjCjO'j. 



Leading Articles. 



477 



THE GREATEST OF THE HOHEN = 

 ZOLLERNS. 



This is the liigh position to which Mr. A. Maurice 

 Low, in the Atlantic Monthly, suggests tlie present 

 Gemian Emperor may be found to be entitled. His 

 sketch is one long eulogy of William the Second. 

 He says that — 



This Emperor is a serious man, a m.in fully impressed 

 with tl:e respoDfibilities of kingly station, to whom the 

 crown is more than a symbol and the sceptre less the sign 

 •of power than the vow of duty. 



But " it is the penalty genius pays to mediocrity 

 to be misunderstood." His dismissal of Bismarck 

 is explained not merely by the Kaiser's desire to be 

 master in his own household. But — 



the Emperor was sagacious enough to know that if Bismarck 

 rema.ined in power he would again so manipulate affairs as 

 to force Germany into war, precisely as he had made the 

 first William take the field against Prance. The Emperor, 

 in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, is essen- 

 tially a man of jjeace, and while he is not afraid to fight. 

 lie knows the cost of war, and that the nation Tictorious 

 pays a price almost as heavy as the nation defeated. 



QUEEN VICTOHIAS GRANDSON. 



He points to the fact, which Englishmen need 

 often to remember, that the Kaiser is the grandson 

 of Queen Victoria : — 



The Emperor inherits the dominant mental characteristics 

 of his grandmother, which made her one of the gre;U figures 

 of history. These salient traits are a tremendous grasp 

 and intense love of detail, and a capacity to get at the 

 bottom of every subject. Queen Victoria would never con- 

 sent perftxnctorily to sign a paper that her Ministers might 

 lay before her, but insisted upon knowing its full signifi- 

 cance. She h.ad a passion for hearing about things and 

 great events at first hand. In mucli the same way the 

 Emperor has liis hand upon the pulse of affairs. 



HIS FEMININE INSIGHT. 



Of his formidable power as orator Mr. Low 

 says : — 



The Emperor is an extemporaneous speaker. It is only on 

 rare occasions that he prepares a speech. Anyone who 

 reads carefully the Emiieror's speeches will not fail to 

 notice that the Kaiser bidding God-speed to his sailors and 

 the commander-in-chief of the army addressing a group of 

 educated noblemen are different men. In each case he has 

 so accurately gauged the comprehension of his listeners, 

 and. varied accordingly his language and the very process 

 of thought, that the two speeches give the impression of a 

 dual personality in their author. 



Another secret of his hold over men is a iieculiar quality 

 of mind, the iiower of instinctive judgment and knowledge. 

 For William II. combines with the logical and strong 

 masculine mind the distinguishing feminine characteristics 

 of reaching without conscious reasoning quick decisions 

 which are often superior to a man's most careful deduc- 

 tions. 



A MANAGEE OP MEN. 



Of his power of manipulating men Mr. Low 



says : — 



During the winter, when the Reichstag is in session, the 

 Emperor regularly attends the receptions given by the Minis- 

 ters of the Crown to which the members of the Reichstag 

 are invited. Meeting there men who may not be so friendlv 

 to his policy as he would like to have them, he attempts 

 to convert tlicm by argument, by appeal, by the subtlest of 

 flattery, asking them with most engaging frankness to show 

 him the fallacy or weakness of bis policy. In this way he 

 has won over more than one rebellious member. 



The way in which he made the navy, from being 

 least popular into the most popular thing in Ger- 



many, is ajiother proof. Vet anotlier is suggested 

 by the way in which he weakened the Social 

 Democratic Party by instituting a new order and 

 decorating every man, officers as well as privates, 

 who served in the Franco-Prussian war, and this by 

 way of the looth anniversar\- of his grandfather's 

 birth. So " he disarmed a political party with the 

 gift of a toy." 



GREATNESS MI8UNT)EEST00D. 



In conclusion Mr. Low says : — ■ 



This is William II.. the man who has been termed badly 

 balanced, vain, impetuous. Badly balanced he is not, be- 

 cause no man not equably poised could have escaped the 

 pitfalls which have surrounded him for the past seventeen 

 years. A vain man is usually a foolish man. The Emperor 

 is not. Impetuous he is, and yet it is vehemence tempered 

 by reason and restraint: he knows when to strike and when 

 to hold himself in leasii. When the history of this period 

 of the German Empire is written, it may be discovered that 

 William the Second was a man who spoke for the future to 

 hear. Then it may bo understood tliat his influence was 

 for peace and not for war; that he spoke with a jiurpose; 

 that he heard the voice of linmanity: that he was one of 

 the positive forces of his time. The Hohenzollerns have 

 given to history a great elector and .t great king, and 

 William the First has been called a great emperor. History 

 may yet find that greater than the greatest of his race is 

 tlie reigning sovereign: because while the claims of his 

 ancestors are written in war, his title to greatness is the 

 dower of peace. 



THE HEAD=HUNTERS OF FORMOSA. 



Mr. Norman Shaw describes in Macmillans 

 a very risky visit which he paid to the country of 

 the head-hunters in Formosa, which, off the beaten 

 track, and with a bad climate, remains one of the 

 few places unknown to Western men, " Hence its 

 great fascination, which is increased by the fact that 

 the mountainous interior is inhabited by a race of 

 blood-thirsty savages, whose chief delight is to sally 

 forth on head-hunting raids.'' 



Few strangers, except some Japanese, have ven- 

 tured near the head-hunters' territory, and for hun- 

 dreds of jears these tribes, eight in number, and 

 akin to the Dyaks of Borneo, have withstood the 

 world. They have never known a master, never 

 felt the yoke of any man. Not long ago they raided 

 Taipeh, the Formosan capital, creeping down upon 

 it unexpectedly at dead of night, and sparing 

 neither age nor sex in their hunt for heads. More 

 commonly, however, they confine themselves to 

 stalking the Chinese of either sex engaged in tea- 

 picking. They are a small, but athletic and supple, 

 race, and their women are not secluded after the 

 usual fashion of Asiatic women. The Japanese, re- 

 cognising that systematic warfare against these head- 

 hunters is impossible, for 100,000 men would be as 

 nothing in the dense jungles and virgin forests where 

 thev dwell, are trying a policy of conciliation and 

 confidence-winning. They encourage the men to 

 bring articles for barter, and in time the writer 

 thinks they will achieve their purpose, though he 

 admits that that achifvni<-nt i.s highly difficult and 

 dangerous. 



