is going to the dogs.”  In political life such men are usually to be found professing conservatism, owners of land, dearer to them often than life itself, which they fear political change will damage or diminish.  In Germany the Conservative forces are the old agrarian aristocracy, the military nobility, and the official hierarchy, who make a worship of tradition, hold for the most part the tenets of orthodox Protestantism, dread the growing influence of industrialism, and are members of the Landlords’ Association:  types of a dying feudalism, disposed to believe nothing advantageous to the community if it conflicts with any privilege of their class.  Under the name of Junker, the Conservative landowners of the region of Prussia east of the Elbe, they have become everywhere a byword for pride, selfishness, in a word—­reaction.  They and men of their kidney are to be distinguished from the German “people” in the English sense, and hold themselves vastly superior to the burghertum, the vast middle class.  They dislike the “academic freedom” of the university professor, would limit the liberty of the press and restrain the right of public meeting, and increase rather than curtail the powers of the police.  On the other hand, if they are a powerful drag on the Emperor’s Liberal tendencies—­Liberal, that is, in the Prussian sense—­towards a comprehensive and well-organized social policy, they are at least reliable supporters of his Government for the military and naval budgets, since they believe as whole-heartedly in the rule of force as the Emperor himself.  The German Conservative would infinitely prefer a return to absolute government to the introduction of parliamentary government.  At the same time it should not be supposed that the Emperor or his Chancellor, or even his Court, are reactionary in the sense or measure in which the Socialist papers are wont to assert.  It is doubtful if nowadays the Emperor would venture to be reactionary in any despotic way.  Given that his monarchy and the spirit that informs it are secure, that Caesar gets all that is due to Caesar, and that he and his Government are left the direction of foreign policy, he is quite willing that the people should legislate for themselves, enjoy all the rights that belong to them under the Rechtsstaat established by Frederick the Great, and, in short, enjoy life as best they can.

VII.

“DROPPING THE PILOT”

Heinrich von Treitschke, the German historian, writing to a friend, speaks of the dismissal of Prince Bismarck as “an indelible stain on Prussian history and a tragic stroke of fate the like of which the world has never seen since the days of Themistocles.”

Opinions may differ as to the indelibility of the stain—­which must be taken as a reflection on the conduct of the Emperor; and parallels might perhaps be found, at least by students of English history, in the dismissal of Cardinal Wolsey by Henry VIII, or that of the elder Pitt by George III.  But there may well be general agreement as to the tragic nature of the fall, for it was a struggle between a strong personality and the unknown, but irresistible, laws of fate.