Why the "King Business" Has Slumped

Maoriland Worker, Volume 12, Issue 303, 20 December 1922, Page 10

Why the "King Business" Has Slumped

The feeling- wbich the memoirs of .William HohenzoUern ("My Memoirs, ;SB7B-1918: Ex-Kaiser William 11, , '- JOassel, 25/-) leave upon one la a feelJkg of pity. Pity fox a man bom to a (preat position, and born without the Kpialities wliicli t&at position demanded. Pity for the n&&on mrMch was taoght to believe Mm as a su&eiaaan. JWty for tfie ■■■•world in T!fftic!i such men as this have power cwerHuman lives end Iratnan liapplneas. TJiej'e is a<*thias Jn I3ie Dook wliicih eoul«3 be called "rGveSaSSahJ , We see Che cx-Etaperoa , as tt© hare long fcftOTfn him to lie: % weak maa, a vain Bum, a we'il-Hieaflißgr man. His comSnents on politics -and ineteirnaiioiial afflkli's aro like those Trclfich are uttered %y countless clerks and oommerdai Itoveliers in -siibHrffflaa TJdJwaj oarr!sges.- • \ ■ - x tXfhe wav seesoß tolMWe ltad e» Wseona wijateyer for 13m.. H was said of tbo Boprfetms tStat came to grief- " s ttiey ftaeaiS aotbing ttnd fozgot nothing. TStetseiana likely to "be the ep*tapli also ot the X£o£«rWmi«m ie sfia,, after ail lits «fLperieuoe, ttte Prussian mDiUtiist He speaks of a coSipany of jouus recruits, and ccmao«i*e on "tb« ]p»ld air which brought Joy to the l|Hut of ev'ei-y soldier -who sizes upon Sißkv- a ol J^atvoc triackeoed and . dis&c agonies ox .violent

.Whenever he mentions Mk youth, he Writes not "when I was a young ia£.n>'i but "when I was a Prince." He ! says of Max of Baden, not that he was > a; man incapable of self-seeking, but I that, "such a train of thought is hni possible in a man belonging to an "old , German princely family.'- The Em- : peror surely had enough acquaihtan- ' ces of a shady kind to know that ■ scoundrels and scallywags are just as i common in old German princely fanii- ; lies as in any other. Ho calls himself a constitutional i monarch, but he reveals in every ! chapter his inability to understand ! what this means. He,talks contimi- ' ally of "my" army and "my" navy. He tells how he gave . this or that i order to statesmen, this or that pro ■ . mise to foreign rulers. He cannot ; help representing himself as an auio- ; crat. It was this which helped largely :to bring his country to its present disastrous condition. / IMPRISONED IGNORANCE. In his account of his pusillanimous flight from Germany;—the act which makes it quite impossible that the German people should ever have any respect for him again—lie shows that he was quite unconscious of ,the sufferings almost all Germans had gone through, whether they were in the ■ fighting line or at home in the rear. There is a priceless passage in which he remarks with surprise that in the last stages of the war "a general desire to end the fighting and get peace Avas noticeable even among some of the troops front itself." He had evidently jio idea of what they had been through? I He was kept in ignorance all his J life. Snobbish and stupid people did all they could to persuade him that he was an altogether unusual liuman being. He was unusual, but not in the I way lie thought. I The other rulers of whom we get glimpses make one*feel, just as much as does the Emperor's portrait drawn Iby himself, that until the character jof governing- men is changed entirely [ the world is bound to go from bad to j worse. i We have the last Tsar but one i shown to us as a boor and almost an [ idiot. He_ is the man who said: "If I I wish, to have Constantinople, I shall I take it whenever-I feel like it." It I was he, also, who told the Emperor : that Bismarck "was, after all, nothing but your servant or employee. As ®pooii as lie declined to carry out your j orders, you were right. to discharge I him." That from, one who was noted [ for stupidity, even among sovereigns, J does not seem to have aroused any I feeling in William's mind except one of gratitude to the Tsar for his approval. Bismarck, of course, for all his granite-like personality and large j ideas in some directions, was a curse Ito his country and. mankind. Yet, I when one compares him with the man who thus spoke of him, one can un--1 derstand why the Russian Empire fell t to pieces. " BISMARCK'S LIMITATIONS. } We get Bismarck in various lights. He is seen to have had a very restricted vision. : "He was far too great a statesi man to underrate the importance of I the labour question to the State; J but he considered the whole matter i from the standpoint cf pure expediency for the State. The State, ! he believed, should care for the labourer as much and. in whatever manner it deemed proper; he would j not admit of any co-operation- of I the workers in this." ! He was capable also of such a childl ish generalisation as this: "In the I East, all those who wear their shirts |outsl<le-4heir trousers are decent peo- .{ pie, but, as soon as they tuck their [shirts inside their trousers, and hang fa medal around their necks .they bei oome pig-dogs." j Yet, in the company or emperors, ne j stands out-almost as an intellectual j giant, ' "'■ -j*.,-Everybody who can should read [this book. It explains why "the king Ibusiness," as Americans call it, has • suffered so severe a slump.—Ex- | cHafige.