Our Paris Letter.

Manawatu Herald, 21 June 1894, Page 3

Our Paris Letter.

— « (PROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) Paeis, 16th April, 1894. Political parties in the German Reichstag have evidently got somewhat dislocated, owing to the successful passage through the House of the Russo-German Commercial Treaty. The Centre Party, known also as the Catholic or Ultramontane party, was on that occasion split in twain, one halt supporting, and the other half opposing the Government Bill. In old Windthorst's time the Centre party acted and voted as a unit, and by doing so, compelled Prince Bismarck to relinquish the Culturkampf and repeal the May Laws. But with the removal of these laws and the subsubsidence of anti-clerical legislation, the grand principle of union among the Centralists no longer exists, and the party, like the Conservatives, is now divided into Agrarians and an ti- Agrarians. On the other hand, the Liberal parties are ju3t as much divided as the I and the Conservatives. Some of thsm voted for the Government Bill, and some of them against it, but the preponderance was rather in favour of the former than the latter. German politicians evidently on the eve of a new grouping of parties, as the old issues have completely vanished. The disarmament question is one still without the range of practical politics, and there are even those who think, that the present state of military preparation in the various European countries is more favour able to peace, than a partial disarmament, which would make war a possibility, whereas it is now nearly impossible, owing to the exhaustion of the European Budgets. Plainly speaking, until Germany in some way modifies her present territorial pretensions, and on the other hand, France, theoretically as well as practically, renounces the hope of regaining Alsace-Lorraine, a European partial disarmament ia well nigh an impossibility. Under the circumstances therefore, the wisest course is to accept the present position and to make the best of it. Moreover it becomes more apparent every day, that the present state of military preparation is not incompatible with a long period of peace. There is not a single European nation, that would take upon itself the responsibility of war, and the very constitution of modern European armies make it almost impossible for war to take place, unless under the influence of a strong current of national feeling, which it would be extremely difficult to provoke.