A FRENCH VIEW.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2450, 24 March 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A FRENCH VIEW.

A French journal, Le Paris, thus sums up the situation in Germany : —The Emperor is 90 years old. All his friends are dead; he can still understand what is said to him, but cannot give expression to his thoughts, for his strength is waning, and he must husband it. The comiug winter will soon confine him to the house : will the return of the spring still find him alive? The Empress is 76, and her health is drooping. The Crown Prince is at San Renio ; the question is whether his disease will only destroy his organs] of speech for the time being, or kill him at once. He is 56, his son Prince William, will soon be 29 ; he is the chief of the German military party. He hates France, and loses no opportunity to pose as a partisan of war. For all that he is seriously ill. With us this man-eater could not serve as a private, as every medical board would reject him as unfit for service. He may do for an emperor, but not for a soldier. Marshall Moltke is said to have educated pupils—"Waldersee, Schellendorf, and others. He is 87. If the present lying paace were ended, what horse would be gentle enough, what carriage comfortable enough, to carry in the wake of his armies this calculator without genius, this desk strategist, who has fancied himself a Bonaparte because he had only incapables before him ? Prince Bismarck is 73. His glory is immense, his genius is vivacious, but his star is growing pale. As he has deceived all those whom he has not conquered, he can only gather around him doubtful allies whom he strives to eutangle in his nets. The farce now enacted on the Galician frontier, as well as at Sofia, has no other object. Nevertheless Russia remains impassive and allows the Chancellor to wear out in impossible combinations the remnant of his strength and audacity and is preparing to resist but will not attack. Thus the whole fabric of German policy men, ideas, laws, and things—is crumbling away. The army is still powerful, but its strength is that of a consumptive athlete. The German Empire is dying.—Vive la Franco !"