"The Line of the Main."

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 16361, 5 November 1918, Page 6

"The Line of the Main."

Among the possibilities of the ■ future for Germany is the revival of the ! separatist spirit which found expression in the political phrase, "the line of the '•Main," the rive-: which politically divides Northern from Southern Germany. The German Empire, as has been pointed out frequently, is not in itself a unity; "it ia a federation, a "close political coalition for certain " purposes, chief of which is that of " defence." the North German Confederation preceded by years the creation of the present Empire, in which the southern kingdoms of Bavaria' and Wiirtcmberg are partners, with a strong leaning towards independent action, a fixed determination not to concede to Prussia, or to the King of Prussia as German Emperor, more than what is exactly due to each, and nowadays an apparently violent feeling of resentment against Prussia for drag, ging them with her into the inferno of a fruitless war. For in the matter of defence, one of the chief purposes, as we have said, of the coalition of the German States into an Empire, Prussia, through the Kaiser, has utterly failed, and her failure in this important respect has not unnaturally intensified the traditional racial and religious antagonism to the Prussians which has always survived in Bavaria, and which up to the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, when Bavaria took the side of Austria, made Bavaria and Prussia enemies for many years. It is easily credible that the captured German officer mentioned in to-day's cable messages stated no more than the bare truth when he informed his captors that the order of the day throughout Southern Germany ' is "Break away from Prussia." The political union of the two kingdoms expressed first by Bavaria's entry into treaty relations with the North German Confederation and subsequently by her action in becoming an integral part of the new German Empire, has never grown into a closer relationship and has never quite obliterated "tho " line of the Main." There have been many indications during the war that the bond between Bavaria and other southern States on the one hand, and Prussia on the other, have been severely strained. There have been complaints that tho Prussians were privileged in the matter of rations, and protests against the Imperial Government's infringement oil the rights of Bavaria and Saxony. Baden by her Parliament carried a resolution denouncing the military convention with Prussia. That resolution has not been carried into effect. If it had been, the assertion by a recent Slav publicist, that it would have put the Grand Duchy outside the Empire and endangered the very existence of the latter, is not too farfetched. The action of Bavaria and Saxony in deciding—before the collapse of Bulgaria—to establish their! 'own legations at Sofia wag also sigoi-!

ficant. They have the right under the Constitution of the Empire to maintain their own diplomatic missions, but in practice they have only been represented individually at Vienna, St. Petersburg, and the Vatican. The decision to establish separate Legations at another Court was therefore naturally disliked in Berlin as tending co strengthen the belief abroad that the German Empire is not in reality the firm and unified State that it claimed to be. The bitter reproaches hurled at Ludendorff by the King of Bavaria at the Crown Council when the reply to President Wilson's first Note was discussed, gave further proof of the growing antagonism of Southern Germany towards the Prussian domination. The end of the war may not see the break-up of the German confederal tion, but it can hardly fail to bring about great changes in the relationship of the other States with Prussia which may have far-reaching results.