PRINCE BISMARCK ON THE PRESS.
WE have often pointed out before, but it is difficult to point out too often, the grand imperfection of Prince Bismarck's otherwise very powerful intellect. He never can estimate the exact strength and weakness of spiritual, or rather of non-material forces. He understands perfectly well what religious feeling and liberal feeling, and patriotism and litera- ture, and the like abstract entities are, and can occasionally make use of any one of them with effect, but he is always puzzled when called upon to estimate their exact force. He exaggerates them as men exaggerate the unknown, or rather as they exaggerate figures perceptible, yet immeasurable, in the dark. He can measure comets, and is not afraid of them, but if he is interested in comets, a Bull against them is a portent in his eyes. He becomes frightened or indignant, and calls in the secular arm to aid him in an impossible repres- sion of Bulls. Odd as the illustration may seem, there is a good deal of the old theologic temperament about Prince Bismarck,—the temperament of the man who did not know how to bear to remain quiescent in presence of " dangerous " views, but wanted to stamp them out, if necessary by fire. If the Roman Catholic Church decrees infallibility, and a Pope so declared infallible has issued a Syllabus condemning modern ideas, the Prince fancies immediately that the State is in danger, and proceeds to strengthen it by the Falk laws—a • series of stabs with a bayonet against a ghost. If a few Socialists develope views intended some day to remodel the institution of property, views which in a country of peasant • proprietors are more like theological "counsels of perfection" than operative opinions, he sends Socialist leaders to prison and asks for laws of Public Safety. If his Bureaus get a little out of hand, and his Ambassadors display too much indivi- dualism, he adds clauses to the Penal Code which, if strictly applied, make it a penal offence for an Ambassador, when • asked if the Chancellor is sincere, to shrug his shoulders as he replies emphatically in the affirmative. And if he finds the newspapers not quite 118 accurate as he de- sires—given to promulgate sensational news, for example— he immediately demands power to put the Editors under lock and key. It never seems to strike him that tranquillity is sometimes force, that it is possible to exaggerate non-material as well as material dangers ; that courage is useful against Bulls as well as bullets, and that chain-armour is, in the nature of things, an imperfect defence against lightning. He knows that the best men seldom act fully up to their own convictions, yet seems incapable of believing that Prussian Catholics may be excellent subjects, even though an old Italian gentleman whom they think infallible on faith and morals would rather they were not. He knows the bitter adhesiveness of Germans to property, an adhesiveness as great as that of Scotchmen, yet he cannot endure to allow ideas subversive of property to be produced in the open air. He knows that Governments are splendidly served every day by agents who think their departmental chiefs idiots compared with themselves, who would libel them if they dared, and who do caricature them when they can ; yet because a Count Arnim thinks his policy wiser than the Chancellor's, the Chancellor asks for power to lock up all diplomatic agents, the essence of whose utility is their adroitness. He knows perfectly well—and, indeed, says in this new speech of his—that the German journalists do not lead the German people ; that in Germany, as elsewhere, the broad sense of the masses constantly refuses to believe in slanders; that with half the Press white with fury, electors will persist in believ- ing that Palmerston, or Grant, or Bismarck is the man to lead them, and yet he asks permission to lock up editors for pro- moting "scares," and says he shall prosecute every paper that insults him, because such prosecutions tend to produce amenity of discussion. "You rascal," said Frederick, as he caught the soldier by the throat, "but you ought to love me!" The Irishmen who "hate one another for conciliation, and hate one another for the love of God," seem to Prince Bismarck in these moods models of statesmanlike logicians. There is an intel- lectual weakness in this temper which is so unusual, that men. dazzled by the Prince's success, scarcely perceive how im- portant it is, or how easily it might lead to a catastophe,— how quickly, for instance, he might, on some unfortunate day. inspire in the German mind a belief that he wanted some- thing, say, the suppression of some form of intellectual freedom which even for his services they would not give ? As it is, they have refused his Press laws, and though he need not resign upon that, and can even proudly say that though he sees the danger he can face it as well as the representatives. the next occasion may be one on which no such option will be left him. Nothing would surprise us less than his discovering some day that Rationalism was dangerous to the State, and bringing forward a Bill for putting that down, as Sir Peter Laurie tried to put down suicide, by short terms of imprison- ment, and so being blown from power, amid the maledictions of those who now welcome his autocracy.
The whole of Prince Bismarck's speech on the Press, de- livered when he knew his Bill could not peas, is full of illustrations of his peculiar foible. He is very angry, for instance, that German journalists should discuss speeches made at Carcassonne, and neglect interesting doings at Breslau and Konigsberg, and evidently thinks that new penalties on false news will cure this neglect of home affairs, quite forgetting that the flint cause of this peculiarity is too much repression. The unlucky German Editors cannot discuss doings at Breslau and Konigsberg, because they know that if they do they will be fined for bringing authority into contempt, or imprisoned for insulting officials, or cast in damages for misreporting, or challenged for saying that an officer has deserved a trial. They are only decently safe at Carcassonne, and so they stop there, though perfectly aware, through the medium of their pockets, if in no other way, that sharp discus- sion of home affairs brings them a permanent audience much more surely than any amount of rather bitter talk about other nations. They would much rather say their say about the Falk laws than about M. Buffet's orders to his Prefects, but they not only cannot say their se', but are cast into prison if they translate our entirely impartial sayings. It is the absence of restriction, not the increase of it, which drives the journalist to study the subjects of real interest to his readers. Then the Chancellor is very angry because, as he says, so mueh attention is paid to semi-official papers, papers which once were inspired by himself, but now gather information from officials, and especially from foreign diplomatists, and which attract attention because there are so many small truths embedded in the articles. He wants to put down that sort of thing, and cannot see that the way to put it down is to leave it alone. Either the articles are true, or they are false. If they are true, the public is instructed ; and if they are false, it finds out with astonishing quick- ness which newspaper is likely to publish inventions for the sake of a sensation. The public may be as stupid generally as the Prince evidently thinks it, but on this subject it is not stupid. It has the instinctive keenness of a customer who wants sound wares, and not damaged wares, and no more buys inventive papers for their inven- tions than it buys inaccurate almanacs because they mis- state the time of high water. It may buy inventive papers for other reasons, but if it does, it quietly discounts the inventions down to their proper value. We doubt if the most inventive free Press in the world—the American— has ever done the nation one day's serious harm by inventions. People do not believe them until they are confirmed, or look in two or three more journals, and not finding them there, relapse into placidity. A combination of journals, no doubt, could do frightful mischief for a morning, by simultaneously descanting on invented news, but nobody ever objected to any law against a conspiracy of that sort, and we believe in the whole records of journalism there has never been a case of the kind, unless the false information was circulated, as in the case of the insult to Benedetti, by a Minister. And finally, Prince Bismarck is very angry because the journals will " insult " him, particularly about his "sincerity," and says boldly he does right to be angry, and he would not live in a State where Ministers did not flush if their truthfulness was called in question. He likes Ministers who are human, and not leather-skinned and leaden- hearted. He is entirely in the right in that sentiment, but then who stops his flushing? He can flush at discretion, and is quite right in-flushing, and his anger, though possibly =philosophical —for after all, a certain tranquillity is as sure a mark of a lofty mind as a certain sensitiveness—is in no way morally blamable. But the right to flush, and the right to imprison those who have caused the flush by summary process before a magistrate, who thinks the fact of the prosecution sufficient evidence that the injury has been inflicted, are two different rights. Prince Bismarck -does not want to maintain his liberty either to flash or to prosecute, but to punish,—that is, to keep the Press in that servile and awestruck position which pro- duces ,of• itself all the other evils of which he complains. He places journals under all kinds of restrictions, condemns all well-informed persons who write in them, prosecutes everybody who says anything severe of him personally,—he being of necessity the man in Germany to whom most love or hatred attaches,—and then wonders because the gossip of the Press partakes of the sensational character of the gossip of a servants' hall. He poisons a vapour, and wonders it is poisonous. Sup- pose, to put the case with the utmost clearness, the Reichstag would.give him the power to flog every journalist whenever he liked,-does he think he would have the journalists he desires, men interested in affairs, but disposed to discuss with accuracy, moderation, and that amenity the want of which the Prince so bitterly laments? There is such a want, we may confess, in German journals, but journalists can 'hardly be expected to rise very high in tone above the leading statesmen of their age and country. And while demanding amenity and complaining of accusations of insincerity, Prince Bismarck used in the same speech this language of Windthorst, the able though over-bitter leader of the Centralists :—" I am glad to be atone with the last speaker on many points, especially with reaped to a more moderate tone on the part of the Press, and wish that he would make a beginning with the journals of his party, in order that I may seldomer be compelled to bring actions against them for personal insults, which I shall always do. because I regard it as a means of introducing a more decent tone in the Press. It pains me to hear thathe persists in the opinion
• that we wished war last year, and that he even though in moderate terms, caste suspicion on my veracity on a public occasion on which I spoke publicly and officially. He doubts my sincerity then. Well, perhaps I do not always believe every word that • he says either. (Loud laughter.) But I am not so unkind as to tell! lira so publicly. (Laughter)" The Minister tells his principal opponent that he habitually tells falsehoods, the House overflows with laughter, and the poor German journalist, who naturally looks to the great statesman as an exemplar, is sent to' prison on that statesman's demand, for want of amenity in doing precisely the same thing as the Chancellor has done. And Prince Bismarck thinks that is the way to make journalists truthful, and-self-respecting, and above all, polite !
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