The European Horizon by A Berliner-Resident; Dudley Marvin Canright

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 26, 1874

The European Horizon.

By A Berliner-Resident; Dudley Marvin Canright

NOTWITHSTANDING all the fine talk about peace and the abolition of war, the facts in the case are anything but flattering. Here are some facts about the present state of things in Germany:—

THE CONSOLIDATION OF GERMANY.

BY A BERLINER-RESIDENT.

One does not need to live long in any part of Germany to discover that in no one section is much love wasted upon any other. The unity of Germany is a poetic sentiment, a military necessity, and a political form; but it is yet far from being a practical reality in the thoughts, the affections, and the habits of the people, and a new generation must grow up before the German Empire can have the coherence of personal and domestic feeling, and the vitality of a true national organism. Old traditions, jealousies, rivalries, threaten to mar the unity which the momentary enthusiasm of the victory over France had pronounced to be the voice of princes and peoples alike. Hence it is the constant care of the Chancellor to secure that unity of institutions, of aims, and of ideas which will educate the rising generation to unity of feeling and of action. On the one hand, the smaller States have a dread of the overshadowing power of Prussia, and on the other hand, conservative Prussians fear to lose their proud, independent nationality in the overshadowing growth of the German Empire. The other day, for instance, I asked a member of the Prussian Parliament, the Landtag, whether Bismarck had been in the House. “Oh, no!” he answered, with a sneer, “he has his pet Reichstag (the German Parliament) here now, and he never deigns to look in upon us, except when he is personally attacked.” There is a good deal of jealousy between the two bodies, though many gentlemen are members of both, and the Imperial Government studies to avoid friction with the internal administration of Prussia, and of the other component States. But it is one thing for a number of States which are organized throughout upon the same principle of elective popular institutions, to work in harmony under one general government, to which all are subordinate alike, as in the United States, and another thing for kingdoms and duchies with hereditary rulers and parliaments variously constituted, with diversities of religion, of customs, of interests, and to some extent even of language—for these to coalesce without friction under a supreme government in which the imperial headship is to be hereditary in the royal line of the most powerful, the most ambitious, the most domineering member of the Empire. Apart from the personal jealousies of princes, and the rivalries of parliaments, there is an element of friction in the popular constitution of the Reichstag, through universal suffrage, which threatens the old-fashioned institutions and methods of individual States.

Here in Berlin the Landtag is a little disposed to look upon the Reichstag as a set of scalliwags, and the sorry lot of “clericals” and of “social democrats” sent up to this new Parliament gives warrant to this feeling. Said a Berlin professor the other day, “The Southern Germans hate Prussia, because they have to learn so much from her”—a remark which indicates no very amicable feeling on either side.

The hardest lesson which South Germany has learned from Prussia was the necessity of adopting her stringent, compulsory, universal military system. The Post-office, the Mint, the Navy, the Civil Code, have already been imperialized, and are in a fair way toward that smoothness and uniformity of action which are so important to the realization of unity.

Something has already been done toward imperializing the army, and the government now calls upon the Parliament of the Empire for a military law which shall increase the standing army in time of peace, and give greater strength and efficiency to the mobilized forces in time of war. It is proposed, as an offset, to reduce the term of obligatory service from three years to two, with a liability to be called out for twelve years; but at the same time, the yearly ratio of recruits to the standing army is to be increased by 40,000, with a corresponding increase in the number of officers; the salaries of non-commissioned officers are to be advanced, and indeed the whole scale of expenditure is to be raised in proportion to the general advance in cost of living—the total sum for extras being 14,000,000 thalers. It is estimated that the proposed change of organization will add about one-sixth to the permanent strength of the German army (170,000 recruits yearly), and will keep up its efficiency to the highest point which science and experience have attained—a war footing of 1,800,000; but the cost of the department of war, estimated at 113,000,000 thalers will be nearly one-half of the whole yearly budget of the empire. For philanthropists and taxpayers the prospect from such a bill is far from encouraging. Count Moltke argues that the measure is one of pressing necessity, and in the interest of peace. In his speech for the bill, he said that Germany may be called upon for half a century to defend, by force of arms, the unity she had won in half a year. He disclaimed any thought of aggression, or of annexation, on the part of Germany; yet recognized the fact that Belgium, Holland, and other neighbors are jealous of her and are fortifying themselves against her; that France, though held in check by her civil and military leaders, is burning with a popular fever of revenge, which may at any time kindle into a flame of war; and, moreover, that from her geographical position, Germany must be prepared to be attacked upon two sides at once. Count Moltke would place no dependence upon militia, and he strongly urged that a really formidable army, always prepared for war, is the surest guaranty of peace. But he overlooked the fact that the very existence of such an army may also be a provocative to war; by-and-by its officers grow restive under inaction, and the nation grows restive under taxes that yield no visible fruit. Count Moltke hopes that some future happier generation may be able to relax this armed vigilance over peace, “but no such prospect dawns upon us;” and so this enormous provision for war will pass. At one point, however, the Parliament may use its discretion. In the Bill of the government there is no limit of time;—this stupendous war-power is to be committed to the ministry indefinitely; but Parliament talks of a term of two or three years, and by that time the taxpayers may be heard from! Already one-half the army is furnished with the new Mauser weapon, said to be so much more formidable than the needle-gun.

The necessity for consolidating the Empire by military strength grows out of the untiring hostility of the Ultramontanes to German unity. They are constantly intriguing to separate Bavaria from the Empire, and to create complications with France and Austria which would result in war. It is rumored, indeed, that the Ultramontanes in Parliament have tried to make a compromise with the Government by offering to vote for the military law if Prussia will suspend her ecclesiastical laws. But on the issue between Prussia and the Ultramontanes there can be no compromise; and the King's letter to Earl Russell shows that he is fully committed to carry out the struggle till the Ultramontanes

shall declare their submission to the State.

That letter is the clearest and justest statement of the issue which has yet been put before the public.

The law making civil marriage obligatory has finally passed both Houses of the Prussian Parliament, and will take effect immediately. It might be styled an act of emancipation from clerical power.

The same paper contains the following ironical remarks about the evidences of peaceful arbitration of national quarrels:—

The latest English argument in favor of the settlement of international differences by peaceful means is called the Superb. She is an iron-built broadside ship, of 9,800 tons displacement, and 8,000 horse-power. To begin with, she costs £418,000, (multiply by 5 and add the gold premium to appreciate the figure), and to keep her will cost at least 20 per cent of the investment. This argument will be clinched this fall by another of like nature to be named the Fury. She is to cost a matter of £30,000 more than the Superb. She is to carry four “Woolwich Infants,” that is to say, thirty-ton guns, which throw projectiles, each of which is heavy enough to ballast an ordinary coasting sloop. Other European powers are by no means backward in preparing for the brotherhood of man, each after its own peculiar way. Germany, for instance, has just decided, after a long parliamentary debate, to keep up her military establishment; France estimates the army expenses for the year at about $100,000,000, not counting the navy, which is a third as much more. At least it is something to say that we are the only first-class power that dares to think seriously of reducing its military force.

(Concluded on Page 191.)

(Continued from page 187.)

D. M. CANRIGHT.