30 THE FUTURE OF OUR AGRICULTURE. 



not a patch of the faintest sort upon the sturdy Constitu- 

 tionahsm of the 'sixties. It was not pleasant at that time 

 to be an Enghshman in Germany and to find oneself taunted 

 with references to Earl Russell's " Notes." The " Fratri- 

 cidal " war of 1866 — so called in protest in Germany — by 

 its successful ending finally won over the Nation and made 

 military rule absolute. Scarcely was the ink dry on the 

 Nikolsburg treaty but I heard my junker neighbours " in 

 the know " — there were great political magnates among 

 them, from Princes downward— significantly hinting at a 

 " coming " war with France. Since then, by the time that 

 1894 came about, the army had been further strengthened, 

 by a good deal. And after 1894, when the lines were 

 cast for 1914, and the preparations, military and financial — 

 to which the President of the Imperial Bank, Dr. Haven- 

 stein, confessed, at the sitting of his Board on Septem- 

 ber 29, 1914, as dating back from " many years ago " {seit 

 langen Jahren^) — was begun ; increases of the army followed 

 in rapid and calculated succession. In 1871 Germans had 

 written to me boastingly about their " two millions of 

 men in the field." In 1914 there were ten millions. 



For such a war as that proposed the Emperor wanted 

 two things. In the first place he must make sure of his 

 Commissariat. In the second, he must make sure of adequate 

 political support at home. That support he had not got 

 in 1894. The commercial classes were up still against 

 his excessive protectionist policy. They did not ask for 

 Free Trade. But they wanted Tariffs regulated by Trea- 

 ties ; and on that point they put up a brave fight even in 

 1903. And the working classes were most discontented. 

 That pretentious " Labour Conference " of 1890, which 

 Prince Bismarck strongly objected to, had proved a dead 

 failure. And that Social Insurance Legislation, from which 

 so much had been expected, and which we have come so 

 warmly to admire and to imitate, had set the working 

 classes altogether against the Government— all the more 



^ Dr. Havenstein's words were as follows : " Die seit langen 

 Jahren von alien beteiligten Instanzen diirchdaclite imd bis 7.\\v 

 letzten Ausfiihrung vorbereitete finanzielle Mobilmachmig." 



