The Ominiscient Kaiser.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 207, 5 September 1904, Page 4

The Ominiscient Kaiser.

A JUPITER PAUL PHY, An unsigned article in the Contemporary Review presents us with a caustic exposure of the system of absolutism which the Herman Emperor has succeeded in imposing upon well nigh 60,000,000 of people, who seem to acqtdesce in it with the sltolid'ity and tjuiet submission of so many "dumb driven cattle." That, tobevdng. himself to be omniscient, he should claim some of the attributes of omnipotence is not to be wondered at perhaps ; but that in the exercise of his absolute authority he sboiuld take a 'delight in becoming a sort of Jupiter Paul Pry betrays a certain incompleteness in his character, because it shows him to be deastitute of a sense of hunour. Fur what other monarch would " poke his nose"—to use an apt expression —into such small things as the Kaiser does, &nd intermeddle with people who wear red neckties, and prescribe what spats, straps, buttons, buckles or tassels his soldiery, should wear ? As to the military and official classes, they must either become tihe obsequious instruments of his will or submit to be cashiered. It is the same in civil lite. "Those who rqbel the Emperor crushes, and the passive resistors he keeps a firm eye upon. The result is the triumph of mediocrity. Powerful intellects, genius, cannot exist by the side ol an Emperor who will be all in all." And the reason is obvious enough. They would dwarf himself. "All who strive for individuality in art, in literature, in set ion or in thought, are weeded out." And, of course, it is only the sycophants aridi time servers who find favour in, the Kaiser's 3yes. "His Majesty objects personally to the so-called impressionist school of painting, to the morbid tendency of Hauntinann's dramas, to Su<ler mantra pi - oletar,ianjsm, to this book or that 'book, to this picture or that artist—and book and artist are proscribed." Ministers ure responsible to the Chancellor alone, who rules with and for the army. But it is some consolation to learn from the book entitled "The Kaiser," and written by Dr. Liman, a Prussian journalist," that the Germans are growing tired of "Imperial patriarchism," 'because they feel such a ruler as the Kaiser Wilhelm the Second to be an anachronism in the twentieth century.