BOGUS DEMOCRACY.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 19 November 1927, Page 7

BOGUS DEMOCRACY.

GERMAN EX-CROWN PRINCE, A REMARKABLE LETTER. BERLIN, Nov 5. It is well known that masses of documentary material about the ex-Ivaiser are being held in reserve by the German Republicans for publication whenever the restoration movement becomes specially active or looks dangerous. Apparently it was the- Lord ol Doom’s Tanneburg manifesto which has drawn from these stores a remarkable letter, written on July 18, 191 v, by the then Crown Prince to the “Hundred Day Chancellor” to secure the dismissal of three chefs de Cabinet who, •be declared, were holding the Ivaisei in isolation from the outside world. He writes:

“The complaints which for yeans past have been reaching me from all classes of the population as to the isolation of ms Majesty the Kaiser —the so-aallod Chinese Wall —were absolutely, justified and all my efofrts to bring, the Kaiser once more into close touch with the leading men of the nation broke down on the resistance of the chefs de Cabinet. . . . The continual presence of these gentlemen in the enenormous influence, and in cases oi pei soiialitieis of not absolutely unchaltourage of his Majesty assures them an enormous influence, and in cases ol personalities of not absolutely unchallange integrity there is the danger that in order to increase their own power they will jealously keep all other influences' at a distance from the monarch. The personality of my father is unfortunately very favourable to developments in this direction. It is veiy much more comfortable for him to work with bis chefs de Cabinet than to listen to the reports of his Ministers. I could not believe it when the former Minister of the Interior told me that he had reported to his Majesty only once in three months. Such a development must unquestionably lead' to the isolalation of the sovereign. The many disappointments land failures which no have experienced during the reign oi my father have .in the last resort their roots in this false situation.”

The Prince describes the three chiefs collectively as “hardened pessimists and croakers” who “depress his Majesty's spirits in the most disadvantageous maner.’’ He asserts that Admiral Muller, chief of the naval Cabinet, was “detested throughout the fleet” where he was called the “German Rlasputin,” and regarded as a faith-healer.

Unfrtu,irately for the Prince the letter also contains a reference to the “monstrous policy of Herr vor: Betli-mann-Hollweg, which had its culmination in the democratic franchise in Prussia exhorted from the King of Prussia by the Germqn Reichstag.” Since . the revolution the ex-Orown Prince has recommended himself to the German nation as a believer of long standing in the British constitutional system. Here, however, lie is found as -recently as 1917 bewailing the grotesque throe-class franchise which left masses of the population with practically no- representation in the Prussian Parliament. • .