MHE habit which is growing among us of ascribing AL.
independent and beneficial political action to the King is not one to be encouraged. It tends to break down that veil which under our Constitution shrouds the personality of the Monarch, and which is consistent, as we all saw during the late Queen's reign, with reverent loyalty, and with a great and useful, though usually hidden, influence in the throne. The right to praise involves the right to blame ; and it would be most dangerous in an era like our own to expose the Sovereign, if he chanced for a moment to become unpopular, to a flood of acrid comment. The practice is, moreover, a little unfair to Ministers, who have always to bear alone the burden of failure, and ought, therefore, to be allowed the credit of success. Neverthe- less, it is sometimes a little tiresome to keep up the most valuable of etiquettes, and one hardly knows how to criticise the recent proceedings at Kiel without saying that if the King, as is almost certain, spoke his own speech at the banquet on board the Imperial yacht Hohenzollern,' his Majesty deserves the abundant praise that has recently been lavished. upon his diplomatic skill. It must have been a difficult moment. Under cover of a yachting con- test King Edward had. been shown the magnificent Fleet which, said the German Emperor as he toasted his guest, bad greeted him with "the thunder of its guns," and which, though "the youngest in point of creation among the Navies of the world, is an expression of the renewal in strength of the sea-power of the German Empire as recon- structed by the great Emperor William I." William II. has reason to be proud of his achievement in creating a great Navy; but still, the pride was there, and could not be altogether acceptable to the "Heir of the Kings of the Sea," who have always had to watch carefully lest the base of their sea-power, which is also the base of their world-power, should be undermined. Moreover, Germany, which has difficulty in realising the constitutional kingship that as regards foreign and military affairs she has been unable to secure for herself, had been full of speculation as to the offers King Edward might make to ensure an entente cordials as warm as that which now binds us to France ; and the whole world was listening to the speech, prepared to read great meanings into the lightest, it might be the most accidental, of political expressions. To speak in such circumstances might have taxed the smoothing skill of Mr. Balfour' • and it is therefore no slight thing to say that King Edward's speech, while heartily cordial, and acknow- ledging to the full all ties as between guest and host, and all those claims which among dynasties arise from intimate kinship, did not contain one word which could set the world agog with speculation, or excite in his own country the smallest suspicion that he had been beguiled to assent to purposes other than those which have been avowed. The speech, which has produced a kind of silence in Germany itself, a silence, perhaps, such as attends among the courteous a slight disappointment, will be read with as much pleasure in St. Petersburg and Tokio as in London. Nothing is altered by it in the political position of Great Britain.
We hope nothing will be ; but to understand fully the disappointment visible in Germany one must understand the attitude of German and Austrian statesmen towards Russia and this war in the Far East. They probably dis- like the idea of Japanese success very acutely. They must perceive, to begin with, that it will be a great blow to conservative prepossessions and conservative ideals. Russia is to these statesmen the ultimate buttress of the principle of authority, and to see the authoritative character of its organisation discredited, and even quoted as a cause of ill-success in war, is secretly most painful. We doubt if they care much whether the successful State is yellow- or white, Christian or undefinable in beliefs ; but they do not like to see mind, and an organisation in which mind has been the special and the amazing factor, so steadily winning the game against mere force. Japan, too, is a new Power ; and the rise of any new Power to a front position, whether that Power be American or Asiatic, frets and disturbs, or perhaps even a little bewilders, them. They have calculated without it for two hundred years, and. do not want to be plagued with anything to them so unaccountable as either Washington or Tokio. If, indeed, there were any chance that Japan would break Russia, as Prussia broke Austria in 1866, they might reconcile them- selves to the phenomenon, for a tremendous weight would be lifted from their shoulders ; but they regard this as practically impossible. Russia, they think, even if expelled from the Far East, will be as strong in Europe as ever, —nay, may, from the resulting concentration of her forces, be even stronger. The German Emperor, therefore, whose position is the worst because he has France upon his western frontier, desires as much as ever to conciliate Russia, and would exceedingly like to do the Romanoffs some considerable service. He cannot ally himself with them for this war, because that would compel Great Britain to defend her ally ; and he cannot intervene " diplomatically " without British consent, because Japan, though she may be afraid of "Europe," is not afraid of any single Power. He would like, therefore, an entente cordials with Great Britain for pacific purposes, and we do not doubt that, in spite of the "exclusion of politics," King Edward has been sounded as to the possibility of an arrange- ment in this direction. Failing thkt proposal, which in the present temper of Englishmen must of necessity fail, the Emperor will be driven to throw the blame upon the British, but for whom, he will allege, he might have rescued Russia, either from the further prosecution of a costly war, or from the signature of an "ignominious peace." The attitude of King Edward, however, with his calm disclaimer of any designs, or any wishes except for the peace of the world, which, of course, Russia can secure by independent action, has, we trust, baffled. even this plan, and has been known as accurately in St. Petersburg as in Berlin. It is a sufficiently natural plan, for the Emperor is bound to think first of the security of his own States, to which the friendship of Russia is indispensable ; but King Edward, it seems clear from his speech, and the insight it reveals into the general situation, will hardly have been taken in by it.
Neither, we suspect, will Russia. Russian statesmen, indeed, are not unwilling to spread abroad the idea that Great Britain originally instigated Japan• to war, because that softens to average Russians the humiliation of defeat ; but they know quite well that she did nothing of the kind, and they do not want intervention, which they know would neither give them Manchuria nor restore the credit of the autocracy for irresistibleness. They want Holy Russia to win for herself ; and if driven to make peace, would rather make it on their own terms and in their own way than accept it at the hands of Europe, which will be thinking all the time of its own economic interests in China and. Japan. Russia does not believe in the love of Europe, and has, therefore, a healthy dread of Conferences, and Congresses, and peace proposals suggested by many Powers. The autocracy has nothing to fear except from its own people, and their favour or disfavour will be dictated by the result of great battles, and not by any diplomatic arrangements of which the commonalty will never hear, or hearing, will never understand. We imagine, therefore, that owing, in part at least, to King Edward's clear insight, the festival at Kiel will be recorded in history as a very splendid scene which was not attended by any great political result, and which, in particular, did not increase either the friendship between the Russian and German Courts, or the tension always supposed to exist between Great Britain and. Russia.
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