THE THEATRICAL KAISER.

Taihape Daily Times, 17 October 1919, Page 2

THE THEATRICAL KAISER.

____o_______ _ y , BERNE, June 13. A letter wriitten on May 13, 1906, by thc late |Herr Von Holstein, the famous permanent official of the German Foreign. Office has just been published by a South German journalist, to whom it Was addressed. It: was writ~ ten_during the first Morocco crisis. and was sent to the South German journalist for the deliberate purpose of persuading him to criticise William. 11. in lthe Press. Herr Von Holstein wrote:——“There is only one way of avoiding, the certain dangers "of the futurc—— namely, we must oppose and critise all useless provocations of other Powers, whether committed by Word :or deed, and We mllst show that sue llprovoca—tions indicate political unwisdom on the part of the man who commits them. It is precisely the loyal, constil'.utio_na.l, and conservative Press which must do this. If the Vorwaerits criticises, the effect produced works only on the masses, and not on the‘K-aiser, who: needs to be curbed. “All provocations are either committed by the Kaiser hemself, or are committed by oithers to please the Kaiser. I will give an important instance. Bvallin, who does all sorts of mischief to make himself interesting to the Kaiser, is going to run a few steamships between Basra and ‘the Persian Gulf. In this case it would be a good thing to discuss publicly, in the Press, Whether P the slight -advantages gained by this enterprise are worth ‘the the disadvantages accruing =to to C‘rerm~any by reason of the fact that by intruding herself as a buffer State. between Russia and England in the zone in which there is friction between these two ~Powers, she inevitably

promotes a rapproachemeirt between. London and St. Petersburg. (The ‘Anglo-Russian agreinent in regard to Persia was, in fact, concluded in 1907, a little more than a. year after Herr von Holstein rvrote the letter.) “To be e-ifective, ‘this criticism must be aimed directly -at the Kaiser. Of course, every word must beiweighed, but the Kaiser must be made to feel that his prestige suffers ‘if he allows himself ‘to be swayed by every impulse The Kaiser systematically puts a stop to criticism by thbse who are in personal touch wiih him. . “I warn you, therefio-re, that without criticism of the Kaiser we shall get into serious iditficulties. The criticism must be u‘itered by Press and Parliament. The Press must begin, because there are very few independentqnen in the RCiCllS=ilfig‘; the members of =thte Reichstag will be emboldened to criticise if the Press leads them. Not only in other countries, but also here in Germany, the fear of absolute monarchism is growing. "' “The Kaiser has dréimatic instincts, but no political ‘instincts. He thinks of sihe drzunatic effect of his words, and not of the real consequences. ‘lndeed, he is generally unpleasantly surprised by the consequences, When they blecome .evident.’”