THE The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1886.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7827, 22 December 1886, Page 4

THE The New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1886.

We wonder is war really meant by all the row, or has the sound and fury signified nothing, or at any rate nothing very near at hand ? Certainly if hostilities were expected, no countries would be more concerned than France and Germany, but the public in both appear to look at the situation rather composedly, for the French Legislature has voted the Minister of Marine, Admiral Aube, only a portion of the millions of francs he has demanded for the navy, while the German Legislature have only accorded with a certain curtailment the addition to the standing army demanded by Her Yon Burchard, the Treasurer, and General Yon Moltke. There would hardly be any demur to the utmost preparation if they believed the thunder cloud were to burst at once. But they are accustomed to warlike preparation, like the lobsters to being boiled, and are so familiar with periodical spasms in their international relations, that they are by no means convinced but that things may go on as they have gone on for the last dozen years. It may be doubted, however, if the prospect is at all less bellicose because of this comparative moderation at such a time of the two Legislatures. To be sure, both Germany and France are Constitutional countries, and the Reichstag has often checked and crossed Prince Bismarck, despite his potent influence within the Chambers as well as outside. The Parliament believes in him, but is by no means his utterly obedient servant. None the less, on any matter he has strongly at heart, he knows how to have his own way. Thus, if he should really desire war with France now, and even if the Reichstag were to oppose him, he would contrive to precipitate it, as he did in 1870, by adroitly provoking the French—the most excitable of nations, to begin. In 1870 there was a certain resemblance to the situation now, in the fact that war eventually between the two Powers was looked forward to. France was not then prepared, though her ruler thought she was, and Bismarck, with an accurate knowledge of the situation, precipitated the struggle. The mere report of negotiations to place a nominee of Prussia on the Spanish throne sufficed to set France in a flame, and the sword was drawn. War eventually between the two Powers is again looked for; and, from whrt is said of General Boulanger's

disposition on the subject, the German , Chancellorif he should desire the I conflict to now pome onwould have no difficulty in making France begin if he found the Reichstag were unwilling. It is not too much to say that at present the decision of peace or war in Europe rests with one man. For illustration of his policy, look at Austria and Russia, almost at daggers drawn ; but neither knows whether to regard him as a friend or an enemy. That was an enigmatical telegram the other morning, which informed us that General Von Schellendorff, the Minister of War in Berlin, refused to explain the foreign . policy of his Government, " as he thinks it would imperil the general peace." It is impossible that the Minister— a soldier, and in a country where the spirit of military discipline pervades even- civic officialism—would have so expressed himself without the sanction of his chief, and the latter is much too big a man to condescend to idle threats or boasting. The statement may have been blundered in the transmission; but there is no doubt that the great Chancellor now, directly or indirectly, exercises much of that dictatorial influence which had been already aimed at, and in degree also exercised by two other personages in what may be called our day, though with different objects in each case. The first was the Emperor Nicholas. His purpose was to carry out the principal object of the Treaty of Vienna—namely, to restore Europe, in the political sense, to what she was before the French Revolution. He was the champion of the right divine of kings, and to uphold or restore it he established the iS Holy Alliance." There was not an absolute or would-be absolute Sovereign in Europe, down to the little princes and grand dukes of the many petty States of Italy and Germany, but looked to St. Petersburg for countenance and at need help from the Czar as their liege lord. Russia has more territory now, but she had a more formidable shadow in those days, for she could cast it nearly all over Europe. Some of Beranger's finest lyrics were written to warn the nations that the Cossack would again water his charger in the rivers of the West, and stable him in the temples of civilisation. The baseless fabric of a vision, We see that now ; it did not seem so then. Absolutism fell in Europe with the series of revolutions in 1848. The necessary spread of the conscription had left it no chance of permanence. In modern Europe it was plainly impossible for monarchs to long do as they liked after their subjects, or the greater proportion, had been trained to arms. Revolution ran like an epide mic through the Continental capitals. Almost every day a crown fell. True, the revolutions speedily collapsed. Theorists and experimentalists got the direction of affairs, and the country people, . many of whom, and in some countries most, were peasant proprietors, refused to be dictated to by the towns so the Monarchy was everywhere restored, but constitutional Monarchy. Russia remained an exception to all this—but Russia is not yet in modern Europe. Louis Napoleon made the revolution of 1848 the stepping-stone to a throne, as his uncle had done with the first revolution. He inherited the spell of a great name, and he coo gave France much of what she most liked—glory. , He found France in an inferior position after Louis Philippe, and he raised her to a commanding one. It was a wonderfully difficult task to rule for so long a restless people like the French, and steer a successful foreign policy, and in his declining years, like the Emperor Nicholas, he made mistakes that ruined him. Prince Bismarck then stepped to the front. He represents a change, in a day when a Minister may be more openly powerful than a monarch. The ambition of Czar Nicholas was for his order, that of Napoleon 111. was for his dynasty, that of Chancellor Bismarck is for his country. Therein his leading motive is higher. But he, too, is unscrupulous ; for, to aggrandise his country, he seizes, and continues to seize, what does not belong to her with seemingly ever unsatisfied hand. No doubt he has the excuse for it that political burglary has always been, and continues to be, the practice of the world so far.