Year: 1875

Bisinarck's Plan for Strengthening the


Empire.


When, last May, the German papers
began to thunder against France, it was
difficult to believe that the real Jupiter
was not the great Prince Bismarck him
self. At any rate these shifts of the
| German press, its sudden animations and
| Its sudden collapses, are quite in keeping
with the character of Prince Bismarck,
as it is being gradually revealed to his
contemporaries. Feebly conscious of
the greatness of his ability, and of the
eminence of the position which he has
won, violent by nature, bitter hater,
indifferent to the claims of friends or de-
pendents, contemptuous Of the rules by
which ordinary people restrain mind and
BODY, and haunted by the thought that
assassination or disease may cut short
an astonishing career, he leads, and
loves to lead, tempestuous life. He
has always thousand schemes on hand
"a thousand irons in the fire. He longs
to use for great purposes the enormous
machinery at his disposal, and finds in
the quiet routine of German politics in
sufficient room for It's action. Like Alex
ander, he does not feel quite himself un-
less he has new world to conquer. On
the other hand, he has a singular width
of political grasp. He sees European
politics as a whole, and forbears from
running great corporations in order to
CRAFTY temporary and trivial freaks. He
has also a curious readiness to- accept
compromise, and is perfectly willing to
get what he can rather than get nothing.
When he is beaten he does not trouble
himself. He merely sets himself to work
at something else. He has only taken
one of his thousand irons out of the fire
and found it colder than he expected.
Last May he thought the iron of a new
French war was hot but he found he
was mistaken, and put it back again
He has too much confidence in himself
not to believe that the next time he
tries an iron he may be more lucky. 1t
is not surprising that a press which has to
reflect the changing sentiments and pro-
ducts of such a mind should be somewhat
hazy, a speckled and uncomfortable sort
of mirror.


Since the close of the French war
Germany has been going on, in some
respects, well, and in some respects not
50 well. Its military power has been
much increased and consolidated. Its
strength, as compared with that of Aus
tria or France, is far greater than in 1866
or 1870. 1t has done what its former
rivals merely proposed to do. Enormous
sums and unrivaled military skill have
been freely expended on the pertecting of
fortresses Metz, Strasburg and Ulm
bristle with new works on the most mag
nificent and extensive scale. The Ger
man artillery is now as much superior to
the German artillery of 1870 as the Ger
man artillery of that date was superior to
the artillery of France. The reserves of
the army have been largely augmented
and made more easily available, and the
army is really more popular with the
people. The army and the people are felt
to be one, and the men present at the
Silesian maneuvres have been treated as
the guests, not the membranes, of those
on whom they were quartered. Great
progress, too, has been made in the ex-
tinction of separatist feeling. An election
in Wurtemberg in the last few days has
shown that, there at least, candidate to
be successful must be national. Even in
Bavaria, which OF all parts of Germany is
least within the national fold, there is
growing feeling that it is Of no use to
think of resisting Germany and Bis
marck. and that the lot which has fallen
to Bavaria must be accepted. In Alsace
itself. time and despair are working for
Germany. The population is rapidly
getting over the pang of separation from
France. 1t is the acquiescing in the nc
cessity of being German, and to retain
French sympathies is beginning to be
regarded by the mass of people as one of
the luxurious fancies of the rich. Last
ly, the church question has not produced
SO much internal discord as might have
been expected. 1t has, no doubt, excited
much painful feeling. In some districts
the power of the priests is unbroken, and
many Germans who approve of the gen
eral tenor of the ecclesiastical laws think
that they have been shaped and executed
with needless and imprudent rigOr. But;
on the whole, the German notion of the
state, and a passion for united Ger
many, have stronger control over the
general mind than ecclesiastical sympa-
thies. The Germans of the present day
have not, indeed, many of the qualities
which make ecclesiastical martyrs. They
think it unnatural to resist the state as a
red Indian would think it to wear even
ing clothes. They have been tortured
into acquiescence from their cradles, and
what the law orders and the police en-
force they accept.-LOndOn Saturday Re
7;e1D