HATRED OF PRUSSIA.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 9989, 19 March 1898, Page 6

HATRED OF PRUSSIA.

The " mailed fist" of Prussia causes her 4k> be hated in the rest of the German Empire. It was the devotion of the Prussian gentry to their royal house that made Prussia, and. enabled her to make Germany. This class ___? undoubtedly laid Germany under great obligations, but not under greater than it is inclined to toko credit for.

No Norman of old, or French noble of the last century, exceeded in arrogance and in insufferable pride the Prussian landed gentry of to-day. It is an axiom with them that ** _a-___nity begins with the baron," all below that grade being less than human. Even to their own boors titu' Atfcitade must involve an in-

tolerable yoke. But that is nothing to . what is felt outside Prussia, and especially in North Germany. The , enlargement of the empire ripened Prussian pride and also brought it in its most swolleu condition into contact with freer people. In the first flush ot victory, and under the rule of the great men who really built the empire the insulting swagger of the Prussian . Junker was not greatly resented. But when the young Emperor, the very incarnation of the Junker spirit, ascended the throne and began to assert his divine right aud the gospel of his sacred person, resent- -. merit gref? *p_«SB. He began to encourage the gentry who ■ were of the party of absolutism to assert themselves, and fchey and their Kaiser are now objects of hatred and '] ridioule, especially among the trading ' and manufacturing classes. This feeling is reflected in the popular riddle —" What is the difference be. tween the Kaiser and God Almighty ?'• To which the answer is— l< God knows everything ; but the Kaiser knows a great deal better." To the outside world the Kaiser is an isolated example of superlative conceit and self-import-ance. But, as a matter of fact, he is the sympathetic leader and mouthpiece of the landed class in Prussia. The struggle for liberty against absolutism is going on daily, and daily becomes more acute. The feeling that divides parties appears not to be very different from that which formerly existed between the Cavaliers of Charles I. and the Roundheads. The Prussianising of Prussian Poland is a significant movement. It proposes to create new feudatories in the interests of the Crown, and it naturally raises the deadly resentment of the Poles. . A Bill is before the Lower House of the Prussian Diet for increasing by a , hundred million marks the fund for settling German proprietors in Posen and West. Prussia. The Chancellor, Prince Hohenlohe, explained that they would always live in peace with the Poles if they would become and remain honest Prussians. But as they showed a want of affection and attachment it was necessary to place people o£ the right colour on the land. This speech suggested to an Austrian paper the following story:—" One day while out " riding Frederick I. met two men, " who, on perceiving him, ran away. " The King rode after them, and " asked why they were making off, to " which they replied, ' We were afraid, " your Majesty.' Thereupon the "King began to thrash them " soundly with his cane, exolaim- " ing as he did so, * You shall not fear "mc; you shall love mc; I insist " upon being loved.' " If we could : imagine the British nation voting vast sums of money to place English settlers on the soil of Ireland, as anew order of feudatories; if we could imagine a national effort to render the Cape Dutch or the French Canadians landless because they do not love us with sufficient tenderness, we should gather some idea of the spirit whioh animates the " mailed fist. 1 '