KAISER WILHELM.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 14 July 1917, Page 3

KAISER WILHELM.

WHAT WILL HIS FUTURE BE? THE HAGUE. There has again been a flutter of rumours in neutral couni.vies about the outbreak of a German revolution. The Amsterdam Bourse, where people ought to have known better, sent the mark down to unknown depths on the mere assumption that the news was true. It is naturally untrue. That a revolution may come in Germany, and sooner than the Kaiser thinks, is more than probable, but it is a long way off. It can only be hastended by a decisive German defeat in the field. In addition to other reasons' that might cause the Germans to try to shake off the yoke of Kaiserism—the ruinous results of thirty months' "victories," the threat of famine, and the sinister tale ,6f woe and misery—events in Russia have popularised the idea of a revolution in Germany. The peaceful revolution of Petrograd has been something like a bombshell throughout Germany, and has deeply affected the German mind. It has giv■en hope to many Germans and fear to 'many more.

Of course, one need not be surprised to read in the Vorwaerts such bombastic lies as that "Germany gave France her republican system of government in 1871 and freed her from the Second Empire." Likewise, that "Germany is by the present war freeing Russia from the clutches of Czarism."

Behind this lie of a freedom-bring-ing Germany, however, it is easy to detect a colossal piece of German "funk." Germany is terribly afraid of a free Russia, because she knows that freedom in Russia —as everywhere else —means anti-Germanism. A free Russia must necessarily pursue the present war to the complete defeat of Germany.

Now that Czarism exists no longer the Kaiser and his junkers have discovered they have lost their only excuse for livng and ruling. Nicholas's disappearance from the stage of world events is considered by the superstitious Kaiser a very unsavoury foreboding, and he must wonder how it will be possible to keep his "free" Germans loyal, now the Russian "slaves" —as they have been called in B'erlin since 1914 —have shaken off the old

regime. Germans always loved argument and discussion, and they are now discussing to their hearts' content the "coming German revolution." Let there be no mistake, however, about that revolution, once it does come. Only incurably foolhardy optimists can believe that it can succeed in Germany as it did in Russia, and that the Kaiser and his family can be bundled into a well-guarded chateau, while a provisional government, consisting .of a handful of Reichstag leaders, will make it their business to see the Imperial Chancellor and his fellow blunderers speedily locked up in a cell of Spandau Prison, where Karl Liebkneeht is being kept at present. Things will not go so simply and so thoroughly. Germany has yet to learn the gentle art of breaking up empires and chaining Kaisers, and only military disaster will teach her the great lesson.

The wholesale destruction of Germany's barnacle fleet by Admiral Beatty, the hundred-fold increase of the present food panic, the joining of the few remaining neutrals to the great coalition —all that together even would not help the prospects of German revolution as much as a sound defeat of Hindenburg's armies. Germany's State system rests on the myth of the invincibility of the Kaiser's army. The day that myth is dispelled, and not before, will Germany's tuition in revolution making be complete.

The Hohenzollern throne may tremble and totter, but it will in all probabiity not colapse. Nothing could be more foolish than to believe that the day Germany finally wishes to put her house in order she will begin the great work of cleansing by the destruction of the House of Hohenzollern. The Hohenzollerns are powerful in the* whole empire and they have no rivals. No German prince seriously "pretends" to the Kaiser's crown. The foresight of Bismarck eliminated that possibility long ago.

Then, the optimists may say, why not a republic. Germany, however, has no taste for a republic, and even Haase and Liebknecht never seriously made it a point of their agitation that henceforth the Teutons should have a "mere president" at their head. Germany needs a sovereign in shining armour, even if the armour is of zinc. In a famous French play a Socialist Minister, in explaining his "military programme" to a general, says: "We will suppress the army, but we shall maintain the uniforms." That may be the German way w"' the Kaiser.

The Kaiser's rights, prerogatives, and powers will certainly be curtailed and reduced to constitutional measurements, bu not the Kaiser's word-

robe. It is unthinkable, even to Germany's most "advanced" Socialists, that the country could be ruled by a gentleman in a frock coat and silk hat. A uniform is necessary, a uniform, a sword, and spurs. The Kaiser wears all these splendidly, and he will therefore retain his job.