how great and genuine his mistrust of the present Board. Nor can any such indictment be drawn, except by taking all that it is said that foreign nations say they are going to do as done or nearly done, and crediting our own administrators with every quality which they have fully demonstrated they do not possess. There is no case, and they know there is none. Hence the sporadic cry for 'inquiries.' In the Temple they know the device well as an attorney's trick to extract facts on which to found a case. They call them 'fishing interrogatories.' It is a sport which judges severely repress. Let public opinion severely do the same. Such inquiries, even when well founded on a decent prima facie case, are serious evils, in that they interrupt work, distract the office concerned, and end, if they end in anything, in our overworked administrators consenting to some compromise, wholly indefensible on any theory, in order to rid themselves of the annoyance and get to honest work again. In the present case it could only end, as it did in Lord St. Vincent's case, by proving that the very points on which he was most acrimoniously attacked were just those on which he had deserved best of his country and the Service.

For all of us there are points in the present policy with which we do not agree, or, to put it more modestly, of which we do not understand the meaning. But which of us has so much confidence in his judgment upon such matters as in self-communing solitude to assure himself such doubts are grounds for an inquiry? Of course there are many whose deep interest in the Navy fills them with a craving to know, but are they really ready to answer to the country for stopping the machine at this moment and inevitably revealing matters of priceless value to our competitors, gratuitously, which nothing could bribe them to disclose? For this-and let there be no mistakethis is what inquiry means. Seriously, is it not time to stop, as a high national duty, before further harm is done, and we become a laughing-stock to the world?

JULIAN S. CORBETT.

GERMANY AT THE PARTING OF

THE WAYS

Up to the year 1866 we pursued a Prusso-German policy. From 1866 to 1870 we pursued a German-European policy. Since then we have pursued a world policy. . . . The war of the future will be the economic war, the struggle for life on the largest scale. May my successors always bear this in mind, and always take care that Germany will be prepared when this battle has to be fought.-Bismarck to Bucher, Bismarck-Portefeuille, iv. 127.

The German Empire has become a world-empire. Our countrymen in their thousands have spread all over the earth. German science, German industry, German productions, cross the ocean. The German property afloat on the seas is worth thousands of millions. It is your duty, gentlemen, to assist me in my task of organically connecting the Greater Germany with our Fatherland.-William the Second's Speech, the 18th of January, 1896.

With profound anxiety have I observed the slow progress of political interest and understanding with regard to world-political problems among us Germans. If we look around us we find that in a few years the aspect of the world has changed. Old world-empires are decaying and new ones arising. In consequence of these changes the tasks of Germany have mightily grown and require on my part and on that of my Government unusually heavy exertion-exertions which can be successful only if they are supported by a united nation free from divisions, and by a people ready to make sacrifices.William the Second's Speech, the 18th of October, 1899 (nine days after Mr. Kruger's Ultimatum).

A GENERAL ELECTION is usually a long expected, rather dull and purely domestic event, which is of serious interest only to the citizens of that State in which it takes place. The impending General Election in Germany forms an exception to the rule. Instinctively recognising the world-wide importance of the crisis which seems to be developing in Berlin, the whole world has, since the sudden dissolution of the Reichstag on the 13th of December, watched the development of affairs in Germany with the keenest attention. This is not to be wondered at, for even now people in Germany are vainly trying to solve the enigma why, without sufficient cause and apparently for no intelligible purpose, the Reichstag was dissolved, and they are asking themselves whether that step emanated from the Emperor or Prince Bülow. In the following pages an attempt will be made to penetrate the mystery which surrounds the dissolution of the

Reichstag and to investigate the political position of Germany both in its present aspects and its vast future possibilities.

According to Article 18 of the German Constitution the Emperor appoints and may dismiss the Imperial officials.' In other words the German Government, the Imperial Chancellor and his Secretaries of State, are appointed by, and solely responsible to, the Emperor, not to Parliament. They are the Emperor's servants. Whilst the Emperor may at will appoint and dismiss the Chancellor and the other Ministers, and therefore absolutely directs the Executive, the Reichstag holds as absolutely the purse strings of the nation. Therefore no measure brought forward by the German Imperial Government -one might almost say the German Emperor's Government-which involves the spending of money can be carried through unless the Government is supported by a Parliamentary majority. Hence the German Government is compelled by some means or other to secure a Parliamentary majority for those measures which it wishes to carry through.

For a long time the Government has relied for support mainly upon the Conservative party, and upon the conservatively inclined and purely Roman Catholic Centre party. The former party, representing mainly the agricultural interest in Eastern Prussia, where the large landed proprietors sit, was gained by the imposition of high protective duties upon agricultural produce; the latter was won over by various measures favourable to the Roman Catholic Church, and to the Roman Catholic section of the community. It may be said that during the last few years Germany has been ruled principally in the Conservative interest. Therefore it was only natural that the Conservative party followed blindly the lead of the Government, whilst the Centre party acted merely as auxiliaries. The Centre party being rather secretly than openly favoured by the Government, and seeing many of its wishes remain unfulfilled, used every governmental request for support as an opportunity for exacting some adequate return. Hence the governmental measures could be carried through the Reichstag only by bargaining and negotiating with the Centre, and by giving way inch by inch before its demands. Whilst the Conservative party formed a solid phalanx which was always at the beck and call of the Government, the Centre party habitually criticised and carefully examined all governmental proposals, and found difficulties and raised objections until its conscience was appeased by an adequate quid pro quo. In this manner, rather more than less bona fide, had the Centre party lately examined the ever-mounting expenditure for the very unpopular war in the SouthWest African colony, and had objected to a sum of 400,000l. am credibly informed that a few friendly words spoken behind the scenes would have caused some Centre members to absent themselves during voting and to give a majority to the Government.

I

However, these words were not spoken, and the governmental demand for this trifling sum was rejected by a small majority.

A defeat of the Government in the Reichstag is by no means a serious matter. Numerous important national measures proposed by the Imperial Government have been defeated by the Reichstag and have been quietly dropped by the authorities. A Parliamentary defeat does not lead to the resignation of the Government in Germany, as it does in England, but may, in cases of exceptional gravity, lead to the dissolution of the Reichstag at the hands of the Government; for, according to Article 24 of the German Constitution, 'The Reichstag may be dissolved by a resolution of the German Governments represented in the Federal Council with the consent of its president, the Emperor.' Constitutional theory and constitutional practice are two different things. In view of the great preponderance of Prussia in Germany, one may almost say that, as a rule, the Reichstag may be dissolved at will by the German Emperor.

So far the extreme step of dissolution has been resorted to only if measures of the greatest national importance were rejected by the Reichstag-measures which gave to the Government a good case in appealing to the people for a Parliamentary majority more favourable to its policy. Therefore the German people received with a feeling of astonishment bordering upon amazement and con sternation the news that the Government had dissolved the Reichstag and appealed to the people because the Centre party wished to examine a sum of 400,000l. to be spent in the South-West African colony, a waterless wilderness, which has never brought in anything, which will probably never bring in anything, but which so far has cost Germany the lives of 2,000 soldiers and more than 20,000,000l. in money.

German politicians and journalists have propounded numerous widely different theories as to the reasons which caused the Government to dissolve the Reichstag, but so far they have not solved the puzzle because they have searched for profound political combinations and deeply hidden wisdom and have overlooked the obvious. To put the matter plainly: A statesman who, with the worst of cases, appeals to the people, acts as recklessly as a private man who, with the worst of cases, appeals to the law. Prince Bülow has made a grave tactical mistake in appealing to the people with the worst and the weakest of causes, and has lost the last shred of credit which he used to possess in Germany, rather owing to his high office than to his ability. People in Germany used to call Prince Bülow a gambler. Now they call him a 'Hasard-Spieler,' a plunger. His supporters in the Press treat him with discourtesy, his enemies treat him with open contempt, and whatever the result of the election will be it seems certain that his prestige is shaken.

In fairness to Prince Bülow it must be doubted that he deliberately appealed to the people for a majority upon the most conspicuous

and the most discreditable example of mismanagement which occurred during his whole Chancellorship. Therefore we are bound to assume that the dissolution of the Reichstag was resolved upon in a fit of temper by one greater than the Imperial Chancellor whose actions are habitually as dramatic as they are unexpected. It is true that Prince Bülow has publicly and privately asserted that he was solely responsible for the dissolution, but that assertion must be treated with considerable caution. Prince Bülow is a gallant man, and he is rather a skilful courtier than a statesman. In his official oath Prince Bülow had to swear to be a faithful and obedient servant to the Emperor, and observe the Constitution and laws of the Empire,' and he no doubt considers it his duty as a loyal servant to the Crown to shield his master even if he has to sacrifice himself. Convincing internal evidence, which it would be tedious to give here at length, justifies us in concluding that the Reichstag was dissolved on the spur of the moment by the German Emperor, and against the opinion of his responsible Minister.

The question now arises: What was the object of the German Emperor in dissolving the Reichstag, and what will be the consequences of that ill-timed step upon the composition of the new Reichstag and upon Germany's policy?

The German Emperor has much cause to be dissatisfied not only with the late Reichstag, but with the Reichstag as an institution, for it has crossed the Emperor's intentions in numerous instances. It has rejected many measures dear to his heart and some which he had solemnly pledged himself in public speeches to carry through. such as the celebrated Anti-Strike Bill (Zuchthausvorlage), the great Canal Bill and others. The policy of the Reichstag is totally at variance with the Emperor's personal policy, and the Emperor cannot help seeing in the Reichstag the principal obstacle to that policy which he and many other patriotic and far-sighted Germans consider to be of the very greatest importance to their country.

Modern Germany has become great and prosperous, not through natural development and through chance, but through the ability, the activity and the ambitions of the Emperor's ancestors. By the foresight and the wise and energetic action of the Hohenzollerns and by their forceful, and often violent, policy the poor little territory of Prussia, which 200 years ago had about 1,500,000 inhabitants, has become Modern Germany, the mightiest and the wealthiest State on the Continent. Therefore the policy of laisser faire and non-interference, the policy of folded hands and neglect, has few champions in the leading circles of Germany and none among the Hohenzollerns. Since the position of Germany in Europe has become secure a new problem has arisen for that country. The most important problem of Modern Germany is how to find room for her rapidly increasing population. In 1871 Germany had 41,000,000