THE KAISER’S HEIR.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2712, 27 April 1914, Page 8

THE KAISER’S HEIR.

CHARACTER STUDY OF CROWN PRINCE.

A very frank and penetrating character study of the German Crown Prince is contributed to the Daily News by a writer signing himself A.A.G. In tiie course of it ho says:— The latest escapade of the Crown Prince Wilhelm is, next to the Reichstag episode, quite the most significant incident in a career which has provided German with abundant gossip speculation for half a dozen years past. It is .significant, first, because the Crown Prince is no longer a boy. Ho is a man of thirty-three, lint it is significant chiefly because it defines more clearly than anything that has gone before his on the relations of the civil and military powers in Germany. It is those relations which will locus the struggles in the future. Is Germany—in many respects the most intellectual and most civilised country in ibe world —to remain under a military despotism, or is it to win the place that belongs to it in dm forefront of democratic communities. Is Colonel Von Renter, rattling his sword in the market-place oi Zaho.ru, instructing his raw officer hoys to arivst judges and other distinguished civilians if they suspect them of laughing, to be the symbol of the sovereign power of Germany, or are we to look for it in five millions of Socialists who, on election day, march regimented to tiie polls to assort tlvo viiblu of Mio people to govern themselves;' I hat is 1 fie onlv issue that matters in Germany. We talk of the "mailed fist as if it wert 1 clenched in our face. It lias become the most useful “property of our Panic Press. But the mailed fist of Germany is only a nightmare to us; it is a grim reality to the German people. And when the Crown Prince wired his “Bravos’’ to the grotesque Von Renter, rattling bis sword in the mark, t place at Zabern. he proclaimed to Germany that the heir to the throne threw in his lot with the mailed fist against the people. • AN ENCHANTING SMILE.”

This fact is much more important than •’the enchanting smile” _ about T iiich we road so much in the

popular descriptions of the Crown Prince. lie certainly ha> that. Ills liright. debonair carriage wonki arrest attention in any company. The eye dwells with pleasure on this youthful figure, straight ami slim, with the lair hair ami blue eyes of the Saxon, and the vivacious manner ot one who is intoxicated with the wine ot life. It is not difficult to believe the pleasant stories that are told ot his good nature, Oi the “lifts" he gives to workmen in his motor-ear. ot his passion ioi his abundant children, ot bis enthusiasm for pretty laces, oi bis lot e of dancing and music hall-, ot bis wild 11 iirht excursions I mill Daii/.’g to Berlin to sec >ome favorite of the stage, and ail the rest ot the small legends with which the industrious journalist appeals to the popular taste lor gossip. * FATHER AND SON.

It wins this personal popularity which used 10 be offered as the explanation of ihe notorious conflict between the K.n>er ami bis eldest >mi. When the Ciown Bid nee and his wife were .sent off on a tour of the East T was said the Kaiser wanted to get : id ot a dangerous rival is the affections ot tin' people of Berlin. “There is oiilv one ruler,’’ In' told tlm citizens oi Frankfurl in one of bis bursts oi splendid egotism, “and it is I. And he would certainly not tolerate a challenge from his son. But we need not suspect (he Kaiser ol a petty jealousy in his treatment- ol the Crown Prince. It is explicable on the less discreditable ground of a family tradition. Kings rarelv get. on well with their eldest sons. The 1 lohen/.ollcrns have not ony dragooned tlmir people; they hate dragooned their children from the time when old I: redorieK William clapped Frederick the Great in pi isoii onwards. Thev have been martinets m their own family, and tlm tyranny ol the martinet always leads to done so in the present ease. \ util bis son’s marriage, the Kaiser held him in with the tiglitc'l of reins, and the bid. curbed and regarded then as rather sullen by comparison with his popular brother." File! Fritz, seemed to give little promise of trouble. But with bis marriage to the daughter oi the Duke of Meeklenbui g-Scliwerin he took the hit in his teeth and ho led. The union made him at least as rich as hj - father, and with riches he asserted his independence of the paternal leading strings.

Hence the six years’ war between the two. Iu theory there i- nothing more beautifully simple than the management, of 'children. .Even experienced parent, i suppose, recalls those happy and innocent days when he planned out the tut uee development ol hit- oflspring—thus and thus would he stimulate. advise, encourage them ; thus am! thus would they go: and then in due time h : s own failure would lie eaiiccl'ed and his ideal would live in the flesh. If he is wi-e he comes later to the philosophy of the sensible man who once said to me. “I have come to the conclusion that it is not possible to w.arrv children into being what they want To be, but Hiai it is possible to preserve their affection—if you take trouble.” it is a humble, disillusioned conclusion: hut it is a wise mm. J\Vith all his brill,aney. however, ih ■ Rarer is not a wise parent, and, never having been conspicuous lor filial obedience himself, he naturally could rot tolerate its absence in liis own son. For we dislike nothing si much as the reflection of our own failings in those about ns. The Hohenzollerns, in short, believe in discipline lor everybody except themselves. EPISODES. Between the martinet father and the insubordinate son the feud has been open and flagrant. The more the Kaiser has punished the Crown Prince the more lie lias been the satin —impulsive defiant, wayward. He was "exiled with his regiment long ago to Danzig: but exile has not suppressed him. It was from Danzig that he came down to Berlin to make that amazing scene in tin’ Reichstag which set all Europe talking. His behavior _ was an outrage to the Chancellor, but it was still more an outrage to the Kaiser, for the Chau eellor -is the personal .Minister of Ids Sovereign, and the Crown Prince’s open repudiation of the policy of Herr Beth-maini-TTollweg in regard 1 to Morocco was equivalent to slapping his fathers face before the whole world. It was said that he was confined as a punishment on his return to Danzig; but. if so, the lesson was as futile as those that had gone before, for the "Bravos” to Von Reuter bear the same significance as the Reichstag episode. Whatever the original attitude of the Kaiser was to the incidents at Zahern. he had the good sense to make a scapegoat of the Chancellor when he saw that the Reichstag would stand no nonsense. In these circumstances, his sou’s telegrams, though they anticipated his action, can have only one meaning. They were, if not an attack on his father, an attempt to dictate his policy to him. A REACTIONARY REBEL.

Now in considering the bearing of all these and similar instances upon the character of the Crown Prince, it is difficult to say how far they represent the determination of a high-spirited young man to have that “plrm 6 in the sun” which his father denies him, and

• t how far they express his real sentiments. He may be simply kicking over the traces to remind his father that he can kick. On the other hand, it is to be observed, that he is kicking not only his father, but the public, and that is a very unusual proceeding for heirs’ apparent. It is is customary for them to pose as the friends of thepeople. In this case the Grown Prince is deliberately anti-popular. He is shaking the mailed fist in the face of his own people. . If this really represents the attitude of the Crown Prince he will find his enchanting smile a small asset in the days to come. Kings before him have relied on the mailed fist ; but if they have been wise, they have not proclaimed the fact. Frederick the Great clothed it under an amiable guise ol good-natured tolerance. When he was lampooned in the public streets, be had the lampoons placed l in a. more conspicuous position. “My people I have an excellent understanding, he said. “They say what they like, and I do what 1 like.” The Kaiser has not the wit of his great ancestor; hut he lias something of his wisdom. Ho has been trimming his sail to the changed breeze that blows over Germany. Hp still proclaims the Divine right with his old Siniatic authority. But in bis heart he knows it is false —ho knows that there is no resting place tor a King except upon the sanction of his people. Again and again he has bowed to the storm —over the Billow budget, over the famous interview, over Zahern. In each case, the action of the Reichstag as the mouthpiece of the people has been accepted as the sovereign authority of the State. The Kaiser, in a word, is coming down, cautiously, undemonstratively, bin irrevocably. He knows that the old game of absolutism is up. A FATAL ELYSIUM.

He cannot fail to he concerned at the evident inability of in’s son to realise the perilous tenure of the throne. The Crown Prince still dwells in that fatal elysium which most doomed monarchs have inhabited —that elysium in which the temporary arangomeiits of men arc supposed to have a divine and eternal sanction. The exit Irom the elysium is usually a painful one. In the midst of the French Revolution Catherine 11. oi Russia wrote to Marie Antionette at the Tuileries a letter in which she sad;—“ Kings ought to pierced in their career, undisturbed by the cries ot the people, as the moon pursues her course unimpeded by the howling of dogs." It- was a brave sentiment. History soon made its comment on it in Franco. One day it_ will make its comment on it in Catherine s own land.

H is nut supposed that, whatever ihe Reichstag insolence meant, it was directed against England. for it is characteristic of this erratic young man that he has a great enthusiasm tor that country. The tact is a little unintelligible—as unintelligible, let Us say. as the late King Edward’s love tor Republican France. England, with i s free institutions and its ron-milifnrism. represents everything which the Crown Prince may be supposed to detest. But the affections of Kings, like the affections of commoners, are not governed by policies, and the Crown Prince lias been seduced hv our games and our customs, our clothes, and even ourselves. LONG LIFE TO THE KAISRR. Love for our games ami for the customs of our country houses, however, would be a poor base o.i wh ch to build confidence in regaid to mi incalculable a personality. Moreover, it would b ■ unsafe to place trust in a prince who was not on good terms with his own people, if you cannot get on at home von are not to be trusted out ot doors. If may be, of course, that wisdom and sobriety of judgment will come with responsibility, and that the Crown Prince will falsify all expectation. But, all the same, we may w sh long lilt' to the Kaiser very sincerely. He has given the world'ample asurance of his good intentions. He has kept the peace of Europe for a quarter of a century, and, internally, he has yielded wiselv to the slow incoming of the great tide of democracy. Let him live to a normal age, and Germany will have completed its emancipation. Then the (Town Prince may come to the throne without the power of doing mischief. But then he too will lie growing old. and will have ceased to do mischief. The alternative Is a collision between the throne and the people. Collisions of that sort only end in one wav.