BISMARCK IN A RACE

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1140, 6 September 1882, Page 2

BISMARCK IN A RACE

• The correspondent of a contcinpoiary writes : —“Knowing, as I do, that the paroxysm of fury and disgust superinduced in Prince Bismarck by his successive parliamentary defeats tends to shorten his life, I cannot help wishing that he would put into execution the threat implied in his celebrated onslaught upon the Reichstag, delivered early last January: — ‘ You parliamentary gentlemen appear to think that this country cannot be governed without your aid ami concurrence. If that be your opinion, allow me to assure you that

it is an altogether erroneous one. We have got on very well without a Parliament before now, and I feel confident that we can do so again, whenever it may suit us to dispense with your services. Do not, I advise you, gentlemen, cherish the delusion that you are indispensable. Take my word for it, you are nothing of the sort.’ I was in the House when Bismarck imparted this gentle warning to the representatives of the German people, and shall not readily forget the effect produced upon the Assembly by his words, delivery, and aspect—for he was in a towering passion, and looked as if nothing short of a miracle could save him from an apoplectic stroke. Had he fulfilled his menace much subsequent suffering would have been spared him, and Germany would have been no loser by the interruption of the Reichstag’s functions. Parliamentary institutions are peculiarly unsuitable to the German people, and by suspending them from time to time Bismarck would do his countrymen good service.”