KAISER WILLIAM.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 157, 9 December 1914, Page 7

KAISER WILLIAM.

SEEN THROUGH FRENCH EYES. A correspondent, E.K.C., sends the fol lowing, a translation from Les lAnnalcs: "It is eighteen years since, with some of my brethren of the Paris Press, I was present at the solemn festivities which celebrated the opening of the Kiel Canal. ■The Kaiser, glad of the opportunity of displaying the dread machinery of hi 3 power, had invited to the ceremonies representatives of every newspaper in the world. He dragged them, in a friendly sense, at his chariot wheels; overwhelmed them with supercilious and somewhat humiliating civilities; put at their disposal boxes of Havanas (Hamburg brand) and bottle of (Frankfurt) champagne ; but, with that delicate Teutonic courtesy one knows so well, renuired each guest to write on a leaf from a perforated notebook what he wished to consume. We Frenchmen declined the despot's gilts, but gazed with the utmost curiosity at the man" himself. .

SEEING lIDI FED. ; In tin; evening he invited to dinner all the Princes and dignitaries of the empire, and we were privileged to see him feed, lie occupied the centre seat at the immense table in the Stateroom in the Hamburg Town Hall, round which his 1 guests were gathered. We, stacked on benches in a gallery, our every look and gesture watched by a dozen or so haughty police officials, who brutally snatched from our hands the opera glasses we endeavored to level at their master, could not but admire the art displayed in his setting of the scene, and his dramatic talent. Now he seemed to wish to inspire confidence, and now to create terror. He would become very animated, harangue the company, converse with his neighbors, and launch from time to time some witticism which he would emphasise with a noisy laugh. Then all of a sudden he would stop, become silent, motionless and grave, with thoughtful brow and absent look, as if above earth and its concerns, he were listening to the voice of God.

j ALONE ON THE BRIDGE. The following .day we were treated to a still more extraordinary spectacle. William had thought this a fitting occasion to offer his august person for the worship of the crowd, and had arranged to sail down the Elster on his yacht and receive the acclamations which could not fail to greet his passage. At nightfall, accordingly, the Hohenzollern got under way, the journalists following in their humble craft, for it was important that they should miss no smallest detail of liis pompous apotheosis. The Imperial boat sailed slowly along.. Not an officer, not officer .not a sailor, "was visj- | ble on board her. They, unimportant and invisible supers, were on guard in the shadows. Caesar alone was to be seen • standing on the bridge, garbed in the nniform of the White Cuirassiers, with winged helmet and sword in his hand, his heail raised high towards the stars. As. he passed, on both sides of the river the dazzling glare of Bengal lights, suddenly lit and suddenly extinguished, created the illusion that his progress _ was accompanied by a vast conflagration. We seemed to be reading a forgotten chapter of Suetonius, of sdtae monstrous invention of 'Nero. We saw before us, not William of Hohenzollern, a eivilised monarch, but a tyrant of aneient Egypt or Byzantium, or the later Roman Empire.

THE REAL MAN. \ Tlow often and with what force has this scene recurred to our memory when the Kaiser has been indulging in his pretensions to art or inflicting on us his arrogant bluster? More than ever is it present with us to-day. William 11., like a mouthing actor, liid liv assurance and fluency the mediocrity of his mind. We have been mistaken in him as he in us. 'We thought him humane, intelligent and wise; he was only hypocritical and cunning. His so-called pride had all the smallness of vanity. A bail son, impatient for the Crown, and ungrateful to Bismarck (the founder of his fortune), he would follow no ''light or leading" but-his own, and it has been insufficient to guide him, or even to warn him of the peril towards which the blindness of a stupid and infatuated military caste was dragging him. A secret instinct, however, the instinct of selfpreservation, prevented him from yielding to the urging of his military advisers. He elected to play the part of bogey, while at the same time resolved to run 110 risk, and could not see that his deeds of. aggression, his insolences were rousing national feeling ,in the heart of the French, and turning even the most pacific citizens into soldiers. He is paying for his mistaken psychology.It will 'cost him his crown. Besides, since the opening of the campaign he has been piling up his mistakes. By his useless cruelties, by his clumsy blunders, he seems to take pleasure in alienating from himself all sympathy and goodwill. He is behaving like a madman. The gods condemn him. j