The New York herald., 1874-11-27
Prince Bismarck.


with more than usual ability, sums up the
attitude of Bismarck toward the present pub
lie sentiment in Germany This journal rec
ognizes that Prince Bismarck has enjoyed q
high reputation for the intellectual as we'll as
the moral qualities Of craftsmanship whicn il
would be almost heresy to question. ''Ihe
prestige of . splendid success has won
for him the almost supsrstitious con-
hdence of large numbers Of his country
men" ssHs Is in the position OF an
actor whose every word is sure Of the plaudits
of the maiority Of his audience, and who at
the same time can and does silence any one
who ventures to hiss" At the same time the
writer questions whether the policy Of the
Prince has always met the approval of Ger
many. 1.-THE arrest" says the editor, ''of
highly placed and respected official, with
every attendant circumstance of harshness
and indigniE; the forcible entry of his house
and the ransacking of his private bureaus, as
a policeman rummages the trunk of sus-
pected footboy; his subsection to confne-
ment Of needless rigor, and his final reap
pearance in public palpably aged by the phys
ical and mental distress he had suffered-all
these go to make up spectacle which peo-
pie pretending to civilization could hardly in
any case have regarded with approval
The editor refuses to doubt-it would be
an insult to the Germans to doubt-that the
arrest Of Count Arnim, with the circumstances
attending it. has excited aversion and resent
ment among the majority of the people, and
if there were any doubts to remove they
would have been efectually dissipated by the
weak and half hearted defence OF Prince Bis
marck in the so-called liberal papers-a de-
fence which ''shows on its face either the
special pleading of halfashamed partisans. or
the caution naturally instilled by the strict
supervision of q watchful government.
In addition to this mistake we have what is
called the 'Treves affair, the arrest of Father
Schneider before the altar of his church. As
is Justly remarked it is absurd to suppose that
the police could not have taken Father Schnei-
der into custody without waiting until he was
before the altar In the performance of the
sacred Offices of his faith 1t seemed as if the
process had been ingeniously selected, not
merely to annoy a stubborn priest, but to
insult the faith of Rome. There is also what is
called s'the case of Father Helfrich," clergy
man who was seized by the police in similar
fashion. It is said that the circumstances of
this arrest were designed to show the '.futility
of the popular belief encouraged by the clergy
that priest at the altar is above the law"
Such defence, the PaA Mall Gazette well
says, is practically equivalent to an admis-
sion that the Treves business was Of piece
with the Arnim affair, as subsequently inter-
preted by events. The statesman who could
90 out Of his way to answer every idle boast,
or accept every insidious challenge that is
thrown out to him, in defiance of what is
almost an axiom with all orderly govern
ments-the enforcement of law in the way
least likely to provoke breach of the peace
seems to show the Same characteristics as the
statesman who arrested Count Arnim and
in both cases the characteristics are those of
man whose policy is governed by temper, and
who prefers to incur gratuitous odium and
provoke unnecessary hostility rather than
forego the qualification of mastertul spirit"
All this confirms what we have SO often said
since the beginning of the Arnim contro-
versy-that Bismarck felt he was making a
desperate contest for power. He would never
have invited the severe struggle that now
menaces him if he had not felt that his power
rested upon an uncertain tenure. 1t is diff
cult to understand the exact relations of Bis
marck to the German nation, for in our sys-
tenn there is no political analogy to that of
" Acx IL lxxo
American writer's like Mr. Medill and Mr..
Bancroft that Germany now resembles the
United States in it's form Of government and
in the personal security which every citizen
possesses. Yet we find that under this very
liberal and free government it is possible for
great noblemen to be thrown without warrant
into dungeons, for priests to be dragged from
the altar and for whole communities to be
banished from the land Of their birth and their
ancestors. These are the developments of the
recent German system, and we have waited
with anxiety for some of those defenders of
German freedom and nationality whose pens
were SO busy during the war to come to the
front and explain it all; but no such
defence is made and it is becoming
more and more evident that the
German Chancellor has resolved to defy the
public sentiment of Europe in the furtherance
of his purpose Even as cautious statesman
as Mr.. Disraeli, in his Mansion House speech,
did not hesitate to express an impression that
no doubt, rests in the mind Of every English
man. What" he asked, sis land without
liberty? And what is capital without justice?
The working classes Of this country have in
herited personal rights which the nobility of
other nations do not yet possess. Their per-
sons and their homesere sacred. They have
no fear Of arbitrary arrests or domiciliary
visits. They know, as the Lord Chancellor