Caprivi and Bismarck.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXIV, Issue 7494, 18 April 1899, Page 4

Caprivi and Bismarck.

Another series of letters from Count G'aprivi has been published in Berlin. They show above everything else the patience with which the Count bore all the attacks and insults of his enemies, but they show also that they greatly pained him. In one of these letters, after thank- | inz lin correspondent for a desire expressed by hire that the Count's honor be vindicated, he goe3 on: "I | must, however, decline to comply with yonr wish, and give you the motives which guided me. A not inconsiderable part of my motives concerned Prince Bismarck, and to you I may say that, with all due recognition of the brilliancy of his person, and onr great times, I think I saw even before I became Chancellor what a great drawback the reverse of that brilliant medal showed. Prince Bismarck, as has often been stated, managed home policy with the same means he employed in foreign policy, and thus the nation was in dancer of seeing her moral standard lowered. But to enter into more detailed particulars about this now I should not think right." The melancholy which followed his resignation comes to expression in the following brief lines :—" It is hard to be obliged in one's work to dispense with the acquiescence of thi3e for whom one acts ; still harder is it iu old age to be separated from the circles with whom one lived through a long life : but it is hardest of al! to be exposed with tied hands to public disregard, and to be obliged to look on aud see what one believed one had created for the good of the Stat6 demolished again. I had to abandon many very dear relations in order to be able to remain faithful to my convictions. I conld not foresee that this would be my fate, thongh on the last evening which I spent with my comrades at Hanover before goins to Berlin I fully realised that I'shoold finally retain nothing of all that splendor and Instre but troubles and pains, and what we think of ourselves in our hearts. I remained faithful to my king, and to myself. This belief nobody can take away from me, and for the rest people may think and say what they like.'"