THE DISMISSAL OF COUNT CAPRIVL T HIS time, we think, the
English Press is a little too unfavourable to the German Emperor. Sovereigns watch men more closely than they watch measures, and as choosing men is their first business, their opinions about them will generally be found to be tolerably accurate. Even Louis XV. was served for years by very able Ministers, and he chose them himself. Indeed, those who think the Emperor foolish in dismissing Count Caprivi—for no doubt it is a dismissal—admit this truth in their very denunciations. For if the Count is really so exceptionally competent, so nearly indis- pensable to a great nation, then the Emperor who picked out of a. hundred candidates one who was almost unknown, must have a great faculty of choice. We imagine that he has in the four years which have elapsed since Prince Bismarck's resignation, weighed Count Caprivi in fine scales, has decided that, though a competent statesman, he does not belong to the limited class of the indispensables ; and when a most difficult knot could be untied by letting him go, has suffered him, with every expression of personal esteem, to depart from office. The Emperor, perhaps, concealed his intentions too long, and was a little too full of politeness to be quite frank ; but in our day, Sovereigns, like Premiers—and indeed like most employers of labour—have to lubricate the wheels of business by a little craft of that sort, intended usually not to deceive, but to prevent the opinion of the ill- informed from interfering prematurely with their sound resolves.
That the knot was a difficult one, we have no doubt whatever. The Emperor William, as our contemporaries too often forget, is not only Emperor of Germany, but King of Prussia ; and since be divided the Chancellorship from the Premiership, has been subjected to a double set of influences. On the one side was Count Caprivi, a man in nature rather Austrian than Prussian, soothing in manner, pleasant in talk, inclined to conciliate rather than crush, and clear that as against a populace it is much wiser to be the sun than the storm, which the wise fabulist described as the only two alternatives. Count Caprivi, in order to defeat the Socialists, advised °mew alone to the workmen, and the Emperor not only listened, but found in his own mind impulses which induced him in the main to agree with his Chancellor. On the other side, however, stood Count Eulenberg, the Premier of Prussia, and the ablest representative of that iron bureaucracy which has ham- mered the Prussian nation, originally so divided, into a bar of steel. He pressed always the old ideas,—the necessity of governing, the certainty that opposition could be pulverised by blows, the fear that, as in all other countries, Revolution would rather follow than cause a relaxation of authority. The King, who, be it remembered, is himself a Prussian, full of the traditions of his dominant House, listened also to Count Eulenberg, and. swayed on points also to his advice. He would sanction " ameliorative " measures, but also sharpen the edge of the repressive laws, and meanwhile remain for a moment carefully silent. Naturally, the antagonism between the two Premiers became first bitter; then acrid, and then personal; and was reflected all through the services, to the momentary paralysis of their energy. Nobody quite knew to which side the Emperor would ultimately incline, a fact clearly perceptible in the attitude of the "agrarian" nobles, before the Kiinigsberg speech. At last the Emperor made up his mind for a mixture of conciliation and repression, and Count Caprivi accepting that, deter- mined to remain, while Count Eulenberg, demurring to that, decided to depart. Before departing, however, he played a great card, introducing to the Emperor, with- out Count Caprivi's consent—which, indeed, we do not see to have been necessary—a deputation of Prussian agrarians, who, to conciliate the King, apologised for the violent language of their party in terms -which are described as "almost abject." For some reason, which we confess we do not clearly comprehend, Count Caprivi regarded. this incident in the light of an affront personal to himself, and obtained the Emperor's permission to give an explana- tion to the public which, when published, took the form of a needlessly biting reprimand to Count Eulen- berg. The Prussian Premier believing, or imagining, that his Sovereign had consented to this course, at once resigned ; and the Emperor, blaming Count Caprivi as well as his antagonist, aware a little late in the day that the personal quarrel was injuring the public service, and fearing that the quarrel arose almost of necessity from the conflicting position of the two Premiers, resolved to recur to Prince Bismarck's wiser arrangement, and by allowing both disputants to depart, and ordering their successor to fill both offices, to put a final stop at all events to quarrelling within the two executives. He signified this decision to Count Caprivi, and on his resig- nation filled up both Chancellorship and Premiership by the appointment of Prince Hohenlohe, Stadtholder of "the Reichsland " known to us as Alsace-Lorraine. The Prince though seventy-five years of age, is no older than Mr. Gladstone when he produced his Home-rule scheme, is thoroughly experienced both in administration and diplomacy, and is in a rather curious way specially qualified for the special crisis. He believes, like his master, in a moderate or even conciliatory policy in internal govern- meat ; but is inclined, all the same, to press the actual laws with the old Prussian rigour. It is thus that he has governed the annexed provinces without, at all events, creating resistance ; and, it is thus that he proposes tO meet the Socialists within Germany itself. The Bills for ameliorating the position of workmen will be brought into the Imperial Parliament ; and at the same time Herr von Koller' strictest of disciplinarians, has been made Minister of the Interior in the Prussian Kingdom. A man of wide views, diplomatic manners and conciliatory habit of mind, will meet the Parliamentary Opposition ; while a man who intends to govern, and knows how to do it, will direct the bureaucracy which is really fighting all Anarchie forces in the interior. The Chancellor, too, who has to pass Bills by permission of the Catholic Centre party, is himself a Catholic, while the new Minister of the Interior, who will come chiefly into contact with the Protestant gentry, is supposed to have been a devotee of the Culturkampf, and friend to the anti-Semite agitation. We fail entirely to see where in this transaction the elements of caprice, or treachery, or personal vanity are to be discovered. The King has been no more capricious than, for instance, our own Parliament when, by a sudden vote, it dismisses a Premier whom it had previously seemed determined to support,—an incident which occurred to Lord Palmerston in 1858, and to Mr. Gladstone in 1886. The Emperor, no doubt, changed his mind quickly, and so did the Parliament, and both for the same reason, that they had. suddenly lost confidence in an agent whom formerly they had trusted. As to the treachery, the Emperor no doubt pushed politeness and silence very far in giving the Chancellor no intimation of his coming fall ; but then an Emperor can hardly speak harshly until he is resolved, and resolution comes to Monarchs, as to Parliaments, sometimes with startling suddenness. And finally, as to the charge of vanity, if the Emperor was really moved by the desire to show that he was still master, and no more needed Count Caprivi than he needed Prince Bismarck, he has certainly chosen a re- markable successor. Not only has he not chosen a fay. ourite like Count Waldersee, or even a man of his own, like Dr. Miguel, with no power of resistance *to his will, but he has selected for the double office a man of all others likely to be independent ; a Catholic who resisted the proclamation of the Dogma; a statesman who, next to the Kings, is highest in rank in the Empire ; a man who is not even his subject, being a mediatised Prince and a Bavarian noble ; who is one of the richest—perhaps if we count his wife's Russian inheritance the richest—of German landlords; and who is notoriously and avowedly anxious, whenever the State can spare him, to retire from office. The German Emperor intends to govern no doubt, but no one who wanted a slave would have selected Prince Hohenlohe. We know that many grave and thoughtful Germans witnessing the transaction shake their heads, and whisper that the Kaiser's foible is impulsiveness ; but we suspect that they are misled by their ingrained horror of theatrical effect. There is the true weakness of the German Emperor. He reflects carefully and. decides usually with judgment, but when he acts he cannot resist the temptation of giving his world a startling surprise. This is the secret of his reticence, of his extraordinary suddenness in action, and of the completeness with which, when he has decided on a change, he carries it out to the minutest detail, It is a, foible no doubt, and to Englishmen and Germans an annoying foible, because they are habitually rather slow ; but we must not forget that though it is the foible of the weak, it has also been the foible of the strong. The Pope who characterised Napoleon as "comedian," and immediately after as "tragedian," had a fine knowledge of character ; yet Napoleon was hardly more histrionic than Louis XIV. or our own Chatham, neither of whom, however they may be judged, can be classed among the weak.
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