Part 18 (2/2)

How bitterly did he deplore party spirit, the bane of German life, which seemed each year to gain ground!

”It has,” he said, ”transferred itself to our modern public life and the Parliaments; the Governments, indeed, stand together, but in the German Reichstag I do not find that guardian of liberty for which I had hoped.

Party spirit has overrun us. This it is which I accuse before G.o.d and history, if the great work of our people achieved between 1866 and 1870 fall into decay, and in this House we destroy by the pen what has been created by the sword.”

In future years it will perhaps be regarded as one of his chief claims that he refused to become a party leader. He saved Germany from a serious danger to which almost every other country in Europe which has attempted to adopt English inst.i.tutions has fallen a victim--the sacrifice of national welfare to the integrity and power of a Parliamentary fraction. His desire was a strong and determined Government, zealously working for the benefit of all cla.s.ses, quick to see and foresee present and future evil; he regarded not the personal wishes of individuals, but looked only in each matter he undertook to its effect on the nation as a whole. ”I will accept help,” he said, ”wherever I may get it. I care not to what party any man belongs. I have no intention of following a party policy; I used to do so when I was a young and angry member of a party, but it is impossible for a Prussian or German Minister.” Though the Const.i.tution had been granted, he did not wish to surrender the oldest and best traditions of the Prussian Monarchy; and even if the power of the King and Emperor was limited and checked by two Parliaments it was still his duty, standing above all parties, to watch over the country as a hundred years before his ancestors had done.

His power, however, was checked by the Parliaments. Bismarck often sighed for a free hand; he longed to be able to carry out his reforms complete and rounded as they lay clear before him in his own brain; how often did he groan under all the delay, the compromise, the surrender, which was imposed upon him when, conscious as he was that he was only striving for the welfare of his country, he had to win over not only the King, not only his colleagues in the Prussian Ministry, his subordinates, who had much power to check and impede his actions, but, above all, the Parliaments. It was inevitable that his relation to them should often be one of conflict; it was their duty to submit to a searching criticism the proposals of the Government and to amend or reject them, and let us confess that it was better they were there. The modifications they introduced in the bills he proposed were often improvements; those they rejected were not always wise. The drafting of Government bills was often badly done; the first proposals for the Socialistic law, the original drafts of many of his economic reforms, were all the better when they had been once rejected and were again brought forward in a modified form. More than this, we must confess that Bismarck did not possess that temperament which would make it wise to entrust him with absolute dictatorial power in internal matters. He attempted to apply to legislation habits he had learnt in diplomacy. And it is curious to notice Bismarck's extreme caution in diplomacy, where he was a recognised master, and his rashness in legislation, where the ground was often new to him. In foreign affairs a false move may easily be withdrawn, a change of alliance quickly made; it often happens that speed is more important than wisdom. In internal affairs it is different; there, delay is in itself of value; moreover, false legislation cannot be imposed with impunity, laws cannot be imposed and repealed.

Bismarck often complained of the conduct of the Reichstag. There were in it two parties, the Socialists and the Centre, closely organised, admirably disciplined, obedient to leaders who were in opposition by principle; they looked on the Parliamentary campaign as a struggle for power, and they maintained the struggle with a persistency and success which had not been surpa.s.sed by any Parliamentary Opposition in any other country. Apart from them the att.i.tude of all the parties was normally that of moderate criticism directed to the matter of the Government proposals. There were, of course, often angry scenes; Bismarck himself did not spare his enemies, but we find no events which shew violence beyond what is, if not legitimate, at least inevitable in all Parliamentary a.s.semblies. The main objects of the Government were always attained; the military Budgets were always pa.s.sed, though once not until after a dissolution. In the contest with the Clerical party and the Socialists the Government had the full support of a large majority. Even in the hostile Reichstag of 1884, in which the Socialists, Clericals, and Progressives together commanded a majority, a series of important laws were pa.s.sed. Once, indeed, the majority in opposition to the Government went beyond the limits of reason and honour when they refused a vote of 1000 for an additional director in the Foreign Office. It was the expression of a jealousy which had no justification in facts; at the time the German Foreign Office was the best managed department in Europe; the labour imposed on the secretaries was excessive, and the nation could not help contrasting this vote with the fact that shortly before a large number of the members had voted that payments should be made to themselves. The nation could not help asking whether it would not gain more benefit from another 1000 a year expended on the Foreign Office than from 50,000 a year for payment of members. Even this unfortunate action was remedied a few months later, when the vote was pa.s.sed in the same Parliament by a majority of twenty.

Notwithstanding all their internal differences and the extreme party spirit which often prevailed, the Reichstag always shewed determination in defending its own privileges. More than once Bismarck attacked them in the most tender points. At one time it was on the privileges of members and their freedom from arrest; both during the struggle with the Clericals and with the Socialists the claim was made to arrest members during the session for political utterances. When Berlin was subject to a state of siege, the President of the Police claimed the right of expelling from the capital obnoxious Socialist members. On these occasions the Government found itself confronted by the unanimous opposition of the whole House. In 1884, Bismarck proposed that the meetings of the Reichstag should be biennial and the Budget voted for two years; the proposal was supported on the reasonable grounds that thereby inconvenience and press of work would be averted, which arose from the meeting of the Prussian and German Parliaments every winter.

Few votes, however, could be obtained for a suggestion which seemed to cut away the most important privileges of Parliament.

Another of the great causes of friction between Bismarck and the Parliament arose from the question as to freedom of debate. Both before 1866, and since that year, he made several attempts to introduce laws that members should be to some extent held responsible, and under certain circ.u.mstances be brought before a court of law, in consequence of what they had said from their places in Parliament. This was represented as an interference with freedom of speech, and was bitterly resented. Bismarck, however, always professed, and I think truly, that he did not wish to control the members in their opposition to the Government, but to place some check on their personal attacks on individuals. A letter to one of his colleagues, written in 1883, is interesting:

”I have,” he says, ”long learned the difficulties which educated people, who have been well brought up, have to overcome in order to meet the coa.r.s.eness of our Parliamentary _Klopfechter_ [pugilists] with the necessary amount of indifference, and to refuse them in one's own consciousness the undeserved honour of moral equality. The repeated and bitter struggles in which you have had to fight alone will have strengthened you in your feeling of contempt for opponents who are neither honourable enough nor deserve sufficient respect to be able to injure you.”

There was indeed a serious evil arising from the want of the feeling of responsibility in a Parliamentary a.s.sembly which had no great and honourable traditions. He attempted to meet it by strengthening the authority of the House over its own members; the Chairman did not possess any power of punis.h.i.+ng breaches of decorum. Bismarck often contrasted this with the very great powers over their own members possessed by the British Houses of Parliament. He drew attention to the procedure by which, for instance, Mr. Plimsoll could be compelled to apologise for hasty words spoken in a moment of pa.s.sion. It is strange that neither the Prussian nor the German Parliament consented to adopt rules which are really the necessary complement for the privileges of Parliament.

The Germans were much disappointed by the constant quarrels and disputes which were so frequent in public life; they had hoped that with the unity of their country a new period would begin; they found that, as before, the management of public affairs was disfigured by constant personal enmities and the struggle of parties. We must not, however, look on this as a bad sign; it is rather more profitable to observe that the new inst.i.tutions were not affected or weakened by this friction. It was a good sign for the future that the new State held together as firmly as any old-established monarchy, and that the most important questions of policy could be discussed and decided without even raising any point which might be a danger to the permanence of the Empire.

Bismarck himself did much to put his relations with the Parliament on a new and better footing. Acting according to his general principle, he felt that the first thing to be done was to induce mutual confidence by unrestrained personal intercourse. The fact that he himself was not a member of the Parliament deprived him of those opportunities which an English Minister enjoys. He therefore inst.i.tuted, in 1868, a Parliamentary reception. During the session, generally one day each week, his house was opened to all members of the House. The invitations were largely accepted, especially by the members of the National Liberal and Conservative parties. Those who were opponents on principle, the Centre, the Progressives, and the Socialists, generally stayed away.

These receptions became the most marked feature in the political life of the capital, and they enabled many members to come under the personal charm of the Chancellor. What an event was it in the life of the young and unknown Deputy from some obscure provincial town, when he found himself sitting, perhaps, at the same table as the Chancellor, drinking the beer which Bismarck had brought into honour at Berlin, and for which his house was celebrated, and listening while, with complete freedom from all arrogance or pomposity, his host talked as only he could!

The weakest side of his administration lay in the readiness with which he had recourse to the criminal law to defend himself against political adversaries. He was, indeed, constantly subjected to attacks in the Press, which were often unjust and sometimes unmeasured, but no man who takes part in public life is exempt from calumny. He was himself never slow to attack his opponents, both personally in the Parliament, and still more by the hired writers of the Press. None the less, to defend himself from attacks, he too often brought his opponents into the police court, and _Bismarckbeleidigung_ became a common offence. Even the editor of _Kladderadatsch_ was once imprisoned. He must be held personally responsible, for no action could be inst.i.tuted without his own signature to the charge. We see the same want of generosity in the use which he made of attempts, or reputed attempts, at a.s.sa.s.sination. In 1875, while he was at Kissingen, a young man shot at him; he stated that he had been led to do so owing to the attacks made on the Chancellor by the Catholic party. No attempt, however, was made to prove that he had any accomplices; it was not even suggested that he was carrying out the wishes of the party. It was one of those cases which will always occur in political struggles, when a young and inexperienced man will be excited by political speeches to actions which no one would foresee, and which would not be the natural result of the words to which he had listened. Nevertheless, Bismarck was not ashamed publicly in the Reichstag to taunt his opponents with the action, and to declare that whether they would or not their party was Kuhlmann's party; ”he clings to your coat-tails,” he said. A similar event had happened a few years before, when a young man had been arrested on the charge that he intended to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Chancellor. No evidence in support of the charge was forthcoming, but the excuse was taken by the police for searching the house of one of the Catholic leaders with whom the accused had lived. No incriminating doc.u.ments of any kind were found, but among the private papers was the correspondence between the leaders in the party of the Centre dealing with questions of party organisation and political tactics. The Government used these private papers for political purposes, and published one of them. The constant use of the police in political warfare belonged, of course, to the system he had inherited, but none the less it was to have been hoped that he would have been strong enough to put it aside. The Government was now firmly established; it could afford to be generous. Had he definitely cut himself off from these bad traditions he would have conferred on his country a blessing scarcely less than all the others.

The opposition of the parties in the Reichstag to his policy and person did not represent the feelings of the country. As the years pa.s.sed by and the new generation grew up, the admiration for his past achievements and for his character only increased. His seventieth birthday, which he celebrated in 1885, was made the occasion for a great demonstration of regard, in which the whole nation joined. A national subscription was opened and a present of two million marks was made to him. More than half of this was devoted to repurchasing that part of the estate at Schoenhausen which had been sold when he was a young man. The rest he devoted to forming an inst.i.tution for the help of teachers in higher schools. A few years before, the Emperor had presented to him the Sachsen Wald, a large portion of the royal domains in the Duchy of Lauenburg. He now purchased the neighbouring estate of Friedrichsruh, so that he had a third country residence to which he could retire. It had a double advantage: its proximity to the great forest in which he loved to wander, and also to a railway, making it little more than an hour distant from Berlin. He was able, therefore, at Friedrichsruh, to continue his management of affairs more easily than he could at Varzin.

CHAPTER XVII.

RETIREMENT AND DEATH.

1887-1898.

Well was it for Germany that Bismarck had not allowed her to fall into the weak and vacillating hands of a Parliamentary government. Peace has its dangers as well as war, and the rivalry of nations lays upon them a burden beneath which all but the strongest must succ.u.mb. The future was dark; threatening clouds were gathering in the East and West; the hostility of Russia increased, and in France the Republic was wavering; a military adventurer had appeared, who threatened to use the desire for revenge as a means for his personal advancement. Germany could no longer disregard French threats; year by year the French army had been increased, and in 1886 General Boulanger introduced a new law by which in time of peace over 500,000 men would be under arms. Russia had nearly 550,000 soldiers on her peace establishment, and, against this, Germany only 430,000. They were no longer safe; the duty of the Government was clear; in December, 1886, they brought forward a law to raise the army to 470,000 men and keep it at that figure for seven years. ”We have no desire for war,” said Bismarck, in defending the proposal; ”we belong (to use an expression of Prince Metternich's) to the States whose appet.i.te is satisfied; under no circ.u.mstances shall we attack France; the stronger we are, the more improbable is war; but if France has any reason to believe that she is more powerful than we, then war is certain.” It was, he said, no good for the House to a.s.sure the Government of their patriotism and their readiness for sacrifice when the hour of danger arrived; they must be prepared beforehand. ”Words are not soldiers and speeches not battalions.”

The House (there was a majority of Catholics, Socialists, and Progressives) threw out the bill, the Government dissolved, and the country showed its confidence in Bismarck and Moltke; Conservatives and National Liberals made a coalition, the Pope himself ordered the Catholics not to oppose the Government (his support had been purchased by the partial repeal of a law expelling religious orders from Prussia), and the Emperor could celebrate his ninetieth birthday, which fell in March, 1887, hopeful that the beneficent work of peaceful reform would continue. And yet never was Bismarck's resource so needed as during the last year in which he was to serve his old master.

First, a French spy was arrested on German soil; the French demanded his release, maintaining that German officers had violated the frontier.

Unless one side gave way, war was inevitable; the French Government, insecure as it was, could not venture to do so; Bismarck was strong enough to be lenient: the spy was released and peace was preserved.

Then, on the other side, the pa.s.sionate enmity of Russia burst out in language of unaccustomed violence; the national Press demanded the dismissal of Bismarck or war; the Czar pa.s.sed through Germany on his way to Copenhagen, but ostentatiously avoided meeting the Emperor; the slight was so open that the worst predictions were justified. In November, on his return, he spent a few hours in Berlin. Bismarck asked for an audience, and then he found that despatches had been laid before the Czar which seemed to shew that he, while avowedly supporting Russia in Bulgarian affairs, had really been undermining her influence. The despatches were forged; we do not yet know who it was that hoped to profit by stirring up a war between the two great nations. We can well believe that Bismarck, in the excitement of the moment, spoke with an openness to which the Czar was not accustomed; he succeeded, however, in bringing about a tolerable understanding. The Czar a.s.sured him that he had no intention of going to war, he only desired peace; Bismarck did all that human ingenuity could to preserve it. By the Triple Alliance he had secured Germany against the attack of Russia. He now entered into a fresh and secret agreement with Russia by which Germany agreed to protect her against an attack from Austria; he thereby hoped to be able to prevent the Czar from looking to France for support against the Triple Alliance. It was a policy of singular daring to enter into a defensive alliance with Russia against Austria, at the same time that he had another defensive alliance with Austria against Russia.[13] To shew that he had no intention of deserting his older ally, he caused the text of the treaty with Austria to be published. This need no longer be interpreted as a threat to Russia. Then, that Germany, if all else failed, might be able to stand on her own resources, another increase of the army was asked for. By the reorganisation of the reserve, 500,000 men could be added to the army in time of war. This proposal was brought before the Reichstag, together with one for a loan of twenty-eight million marks to purchase the munitions of war which would be required, and in defence of this, Bismarck made the last of his great speeches.

It was not necessary to plead for the bill. He was confident of the patriotism of the House; his duty was to curb the nervous anxiety which recent events had produced. These proposals were not for war, but for peace; but they must indeed be prepared for war, for that was a danger that was never absent, and by a review of the last forty years he shewed that scarcely a single year had gone by in which there had not been the probability of a great European conflict, a war of coalitions in which all the great States of Europe would be ranged on one side or the other.

This danger was still present, it would never cease; Germany, now, as before, must always be prepared; for the strength of Germany was the security of Europe.

”We must make greater exertions than other Powers on account of our geographical position. We lie in the middle of Europe; we can be attacked on all sides. G.o.d has put us in a situation in which our neighbours will not allow us to fall into indolence or apathy. The pike in the European fish-pond prevent us from becoming carp.”

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