THE • FRUITS OF BISMARCK'S POLICY
Sia,—Future historians will probaby agree that the Third German Reich was the direct outcome of -Bismarck's policy, which first led to war on the part of Germany in i866, and finally involved France in her later war in 1870. It is interesting, therefore, to recall the Chancellor's estimate of his policy when he looked back upon it on his eightieth birthday. His son records this event in the biography of his father. He writes: " After having sat silent for a while. gazing straight before him and feeding the fire, now and anon, with fircones, he suddenly began to complain that his political activity had brought him but little satisfaction and few friends. Nobody loved him for what he-had done. He had never made himself happy thereby, he said; not himself not his family, nor anyone else. Some of those present would not admit this, and suggested that he had made a great nation happy. But, he continued, how many have I made unhappy! But for me three great wars would not have been fought, eighty thousand men would not have perished, parents, brothers, sisters and widows would not be bereaved and plunged into mourning. . . That matter, however, I have settled with God. But I have had little are no joy from all my achievements—nothing but vexation, care and tr6nble."
Bismarck, having " sown the wind," has kft the united. German station, of which he was the architect, and who accepted his ideals, to " reap the
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