KAISER VERSUS CROWN PRINCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 93, 15 May 1909, Page 4

KAISER VERSUS CROWN PRINCE.

QUARRELS THAT MAY LEAD TO FURTHER INDISCRETIONS.

There Mists « latent hostility between the German Emperor and |" 3 I oldest son, the Crown Prince Frederick William, that is one of the most remarkable features of the present cntical, situation in the fatherland. Not that; the rivalry and even hostility between, the Kaiser and his heir tire anything new; on the contrary, they have been noticeable for ninny long years; but. iust at present they arc attracting ino:e attention than usual because they have an important political bearing on the crisis through which (iermany is passing. It is one of the unhappy traditions of the House of Hohenzollern that bitter hostility should prevail between the reigning father and son waiting for tliel Royal succession, In a certain degree this enmity exist* in almost all monarchical countries between the occupant of the throne and the man who is waiting for his death to step into Ins malted position. Hut the rivalry between father and son lias been more marked in the LShviil House of Prussia Ulan m anv other existing dynasty. The late Kn'iPeror Fn'de:>k, when Crown Prince, was frequently in open opposition to his father. Wi'llUm 1., and all the progressive elements ol tliv country based "heir hopes of future reform on the succession of a man who «-.i» known to detest .vith all his heart the reactionary, policy countenanced and maintained by| his imperial father. , I Similarly, a deep latent hostility at-, wavs existed between the present Kaivv and his father. It is notorious that the Kaiser, although he indulges in the worship of ancestry almost to the same extent as the Chinese, never glorifies his father, Emperor Frederick, but only his grandfather, Emperor William 1., in his public speeches. During the earlier years' of his reign there were as many visible indications of his rigid feeling towards his father as there were manifestations of his unbounded reverence of bis grandfather. It is recorded, and is, indeed, a public secret, that a certain noted Herman painter fell into deep disfavor in the eyes of William 11. because he created' a picture glorifying his father. Emperor Frederick, with a kind of halo round his head. A CLASHU\t! til' TEMPERAMENTS.- ( There is thus, primarily, a hereditary ■ reason for the serious differences that ' have arisen at various times and still • exist between the KnU'er and his pre- ■ sumptive successor. But there are many i. other reasons. Father and son are as ;' unlik e as two men possibly can be. The ' Kaiser is an excitable, tempestuous, pns- ! sinuate man; the Crown Prince is evenly balanced and reasonable. The Kaiser ' is- u dreamer and ah idealist; the Crown ; Prince is eminently practical and has a ; profound contempt lor all manifestai tions of a fantastic imagination. The - Kaiser is deeply religious and as devolioual as a monk; the Crown (Prince, without any tendency towards infidelity, : is distinctly poorer in piety than his. I imperial father. The Kaiser isolates; I himself as a species of divinity; the; : Crown Prince lus'es no opportunity of ' mixing with the common, people. The Kaiser entertains, a deep dislike fo r any routine occupation, and is anv ■ bilious to gain fame as a versatile an-. , lliority on all subjects under the sun;! ' the Crown Prince, far from being it! ■ genins, is content modestly to perform ' his duties, lirslly, as' an oliicer in the; ■ army, and secondly, as an apprentice; E to his future trade of governing by' ; taking systematic lessons in the dif- ' ferent departments of State. Tlie striking difference between father > and son runs through all phases of their ■ respective lives. In their thoughts and in their tastes', in their likes and (lis-, likes, in their pastimes and studies, they j ■ are as far apart as the poles. I

Those who have an insight into the inner life of the German Imperial Court state that the radical difference between the Kaiser and th c Crown Prince liecame evident to all onlookers when the latter was still a boy. At an early age th,. father's words and deeds seemed to jar on the Crown Prince. When he went to school lie wished to pursue, a different course of studies from that mapped out for him by his father. When the Kaiser tried to arouse his youthful interest in battleships" and in Assyrian theology young Frederick William showed no responsive desire to concern himself with these matters.

The Kais'er, on the other hand, who is an extremely stern parent, had no comprehension for tlic'youthful follies of his eldest boy. The Kaiser judged his childish failings with a lack of charity which implanted a certain bitterness in Frederick William's heart.

This lack of harmony between father and son, remarkable as it was. was unknown to wider circles until the CrowTi Prince Frederick William became a student at the famous I'nivcisily of lionn. 'l'll,. Kaiser, like all other Princes of the House or Hohcnzolleni, had been a student at lionn during his transition from youth to manhood, and ho hail entered into tierinan university life, and particularly into the drinking habits of the students, with unbounded enthusiasm.

Sot so Crown Prince Frederick WM-' liam. Among the students who belong to the predominant corps at the German universities, and particularly at Komi, there is a drinking code of which all oi them, and especially newcomers, must conform with rigid obedience. The. students' drinking bouts take place at regular intervals with a kind of military discipline that is characteristic'of the race. There is a drinking captain, and his orders have to be obeyed with implicit subordination. One of the drinking customs consists in emptying a huge llagon of beer at one draught. The Kaiser, in bis student days', conformed lo this rule without question and poured this alarming quantity of beer down his throat with a total disregard of the innate vulgarity of the custom. Crown Prince William rose in rebellion against this foolish student tradition. He declared thai he liked to drink beer anil that he enjoyed the revelries in the company of liis fellow-students, but be strongly protested against being compelled to poo.' M the contents' of a higo jug down his throat at one distasteful gulp. He was willing to conform to ail the nobler traditions of.student life, but! not lo this one ■objectionable feature, j The students, in their wrath, appealed! direct to the Kaiser, and William If., much perturbed in his mind by the revolutionary tendencies of his eldest soul revealed in this rebellion against a tru-| . ditinn of centuries', journeyed to Bonn to enforce obedience to the'cuslom that! had been hallowed by long observance.] A sharp quarrel between Kaiser a-nl j Crown Prince ensued, and the Kaiser' gained bis point. Crown Prince Fred-j crick William consented to swallow liis flagon 01 l>m at one draught, but Ihe wrong rankled in his mind and tended to widen the rift between him and his despotic father.

Subsequently more differences of opi.i. ion developed between the Kni|ieror and his future successor on account of tins hitter's liking for. horse-racing. The Kais'cr enlertnins a strung dislike for horse-racing, iimi appears on the racccourse only twice a year—once in Hcrlin anil once at Hamburg. His appcaranee on the-,, occasions is only due to the observance of 11 custom loii<r e s tah. lisheil and owing to (he fact that one ni the races each day is to compete for n prizp jriven liy himself. Till-: I'UIXC'H A I'HISOXKR.

'"'<> "«' "Irate his dislike for horseracing, the Kaisc r dashes up to the coins,, in a iiiiitor-ear. enters the Uov.il box just before the race for his own prize starN. ivaiclies the race, congratulate, the winner, and departs with the same speed. Tl„. Crown Prince not only delights in horse-racing, hut at an oarl'v age insisted in taking part in 'wild military steeplechases in which lie risked '""' own k with a complete disregard for the value of his august person." J'his pastime was intensely annoying to 111,. ICinpcror. not onlv "on its own merits. but because it seemed to him to violate that ,pedes of divinity j„ which his own offspring should be'enshrined. 1 1" William ir.'s estimation it brought the future Herman Knipcro,. down' to I he level of jockeys and grooms, and was', in addition, a kind of slight, on the I jKaiser's own taste. He rode up lhe ; steep flight of stone steps leadimr to th"i Icastl,, of Sans Souci, at Potsdam, and by way of punishment was sentenced by I he kaiser t„ three .lavs' detention ,n his own apartments. I . Th Kaiser, whose favorite pastime | is yachting, wa.-' unable to excite any |i-iithusi,isiii in his ~1,1,-st son's ibreast for his nautical form of sport. However.! ■''<■ 'lrove lh„ Crow,, Prince |„ !,„ v - ~ I .yacht in which he could lake part in' "i" races ai the Kiel Hcratta. with the '■'"<»lt flint th„ Crown hince, unable to I'ceusioin hii„„.|,- ,„ i| ll7 „lli„g his craft. having neither interest nor' inclination f"i' Hie occuuti,,,,, ~,„„, i„ last in every 'nee „xecpt tli„ one in which he capsized "«■'■'!! to n total disregard of all the u"'* » seania.is'hip. The Kaiser, who i» Keenly desirous of raising vachtin"

to the siiiii t . high level in Germany aB it is in England, was chagrined beyond measure by llis eldest sou's land-lubberly exhibition.

Similar discrepancies arose in the respective dramatic tastes of the Kuis'er and the Crown Prince. The Emperor admires the serious drama and delights in seeing plays with a moral, Heavy operas and solemn plays, as respectable as they are tedious, attract him to such an extent that lie is capable of going to see them time after lime.

The Crown 'Prince, by way of contrast, delights in light comedy, musical pantomime, and melodrama. His visits are to the liveliest and most frivolous theatres in Berlin season. On one famous occasion he dared to go and see an anti-military play entitled "Jena of Sedan," in wnich all the abuses and manifold corruptions and revolting features of contemporary German military life were portrayed by the author, Bejerlin. with relentless realism. ' Next morning all the newspapers of the Empire were full of the story that tb<. Crown Prince, sitting in tin. most conspicuous box in the theatre, had wil- ' nessed this seditious revolutionary drama. A royal courtier, mounted on Urn swiftest horse in the Kaiser's stables, dashed up to the Crown Prince's residence an hour later bearing an hn- . perial decree ill which was recorded the supreme War bird's sentence that Fredcrick William should lie detained in his own apartments for fourteen days and visit no theatre whatever for the rest of the year. i After his release from incarceration I in his own rooms, which he could not 1 evade without perpetrating an act of ■ military insubordination, the Crown Prince was seen in another frivolous theatre, for he claimed that any further interference in his choice of amusements was unjustifiable and intolerable.

THE .KAISER DEFIED.

The Crown Prince Frederick William married his wife. Cecilia, against the Kaiser's wishes. There were both political and personal objections to the mulch. Primarily the Emperor and Empress objected to Princess Cecilia not on her own merits, for she stands above reproach, but because they had conceived a dislike for her mother, the Grand Ditches* Auastiisia of MeeklenburgSchwerin, who had been involved in a more or less public scandal in the course of .which grave doubts were cast upon, her morality. After the Crown Prince had received commands to abandon the idea of eoneluding a matrimonial alliance with Princess Cecilia he took the hit between his teeth and acted in defiance of his father's wishes. The Kaiser was away at Kiel when he took the decisive steps. Travelling to Cecilia's residence, he took her for a walk in the woods and proposed marriage to her with all the impetuosity of youthful passion. Their engagement having become an accomplished fact, he coolly telegraphed the

announcement to his father, and made it clear that he intended to carry out his resolution in the face of all obstacles. Simultaneously, the Crown I'riuce gave the announcement of his betrothal to the newspapers, and the Kaiser, unable to face the scandal of a breach of promise, was to surrender and acquiesce in the match. William It. revenged himself on the unfortunate Grand Duchess' Anastasia,! who. as a matter of etiquette, had to be invited to the wedding festivities in Merlin. Moreover, «s a matter of etiquette she had to lie placed next to the Kaiser at the Court banquets and entertainments held to celebrate the wedding. On very single occasion the Kaiser half-turned his back on her in ;\ ostentatious way and refrained from addressing a single word to her. It was a terrible humiliation for the bride's mother, and she suffered keenly, but bore it for the sake of her (laughter. Whe fler tile wedding, the Crown Prjncc and Princess left shortly before midnight on their honeymoon trip, the Grand Duchess Anastasia's patience had cmne to an ~nd. Summoning her maids, she packed her trunks, left the palace iu the middle of the night, and took up her quarters at the Hotel Bristol at the other ~nd of I'iite,. den Linden. She got even with the Kaiser, but the. Crown I'riuce never forgave his father tli,. slight indicted on his wife's mother. In the recent political crises iu Germany tlie Crown Prince has made no secret of his sympathy with all the forces working against his imperial father. When' Maximilian Harden, the brilliant cilito-- of the "inikunft." published his lirst revelation of the predominance at Court of a group of perversely immoral men. headed by Prince

Philip Eulciibui'g. it was the. Crownl Prince who thrust this particular number of the "Zukunft" before the Kaiser's eyes. It was tin- Crown Prince who, by thus setting the hall in mntion, led up lo all those scandals which have now resulted in tile Kaiser's public renunciation of some of his übsolutcst privileges.

More recently, when all the newspapers of Germany were publishing article after article ridiculing the Kaiser's indiscretions and mistake?, and denouncing his' personal regime, the Crown 'Prince had all these hostile expressions

of opinion carefully collected for his own amusement, lie just gloated over them, and it may be safely said that no one in Germany rejoiced so much Over the

Kaiser's discomfiture as liis sou. On numerous occasions the Crown l'rince has been heard to remark with an ironical s'niile: ''l never make speeches, and I never grant interviews." Underlying these personal differences

and discords between the Kaiser and his

presumptive successor there is a deep political significance. Judging from the fundamental contradictions between the

characters of the two men, there is every reason to believe that the accession to the throne of the Crown Prince Frederick William will bring about farreaching changes that cannot fail to .affect not only Germany herself but all those countries affected by Gcmnn foreign policy. If. a> appcai-s .certain, (he Kaiser withholds a larger measure of constitutional liberties from his subjects, the Crown Prince Frederick William' will probably concede them when he holds th ( , reins of government. If the Kaiser intimidates his French -neighbors, the Crown Prince will endeavor to conciliate them. If the Kaiser looks' upon England with suspicion and hostility, the Crown Prince may be expected to extend the hand of friendship across the North. Sea.

I'll,, same political changes may be anlicinaleil in all phases of domestic and foreign policy. For these reasons

the Crown Prince Frederick William's accession to the throne and his early

years of imperial power will be full of surpassing interest to all students of the world's progress. They may, indeed, stand out prominently in the hislory of the constitutional'development of the German Empire.