KAISER OR PEOPLE.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43075, 30 March 1907, Page 4

KAISER OR PEOPLE.

Aj singularly lucad' :‘o - 0 f the, German ‘ situation- is don-' ■ted under the above title, ’by Mr* v Garvin, an English, journalist a knowledge of the Gertnan lan-j gtrage and the politicalVUteratiire.of ' •the day in "'Germany is evidently ;L thorough and accurate. The questions C-Which* the people .of that Empire' are Eport to solve he finds to be the; g: “Is it possible to replace in | y the personal and semi-abso--jime of the Hohenzollern, sovby an effective Parliamntary j:;. : supremacy ” And, if not, “will it be; /-raoticable .tjy maintain personal Gov-h feVeim-rfient in Berlin upon a basis of SfUniversal- suffrage?’ Mr. Garvin believff-;: as not. It has been the consistent "pol-

icy of the Kaiser not only to hut to reverse, the development of constitutional principles, and democratic! institutions' in Germany. He has become, as a German pamphleteer has pointed; out, ‘his own Chancellor, > Chief of the General -Staff,; and highest bishop of the Evangelical Church.” He has established an autocracy more absolute than that of the Czar of Rus-

sia* “has asserted and! exercised; a poi*' vernal 'supervision,” such as Bismarck, 1 With all his audacity and genius, never dared to attempt;'and with nothing but a certain brilliancy of intellect toj justify Ms prehensions to divine wis-‘ % dom and authority, he has abandoned fiimself- to “the erratic guidance of an unfortned will’. Meanwhile his’last ut-' teranc© at Breslau, in September last, • tin which hie told all pessimists t<j dear out of the country, is described' having “put the match to the whole com- ' bulstible mass of discontent which has been accumulating during the last few yeaire.” A)nd this discontent! lias been largely aggravated 1 b- the. utter failure of the Kaiser’s foreign l policy, 'Especially as contrasted “with the methods of King Edward', a constitutional Sovereign backed 1 bar the. unanimous support of a people_ under the freest possible form of Parliamentary government.” Mr Garvin considers it to be unlikely that the Kaiser will ever Consent to part with one jot of his personal power; and inasmuch ais the vast majority of his subjects are of opinion that “tfie influence of. the Crown hto increased, • is increasing and ought to be diminished!,” h© may have to choose between , the suppression of universal suffrage and the mo- ; bSlisation of his army. In the long run, observes the writer, “he may . be • driven .tio either. The more prosaic alternative, in the immediate future, will be chaos or Canossa.”