than that given to the German element.  Since then we have surely been able to register progress in our politics.  Now I must ask your indulgence for a moment on account of my lumbago. (Voices:  Sit down, Your Highness.) Sitting down does not help me.  I know this visitor from years of experience.  I was speaking of the possibility of having the two races living peacefully side by side.  This is not impossible, for in Switzerland we see three different nationalities—­the German, Italian, and French Swiss—­deliberate quietly and without bitterness on matters of joint interest.  In Belgium we see the Germanic Flemish form a united State with the Gallic Walloons, and we perceive that it is possible under circumstances to live peacefully together even with the Poles, when we remember East Prussia, where the Polish Masures, the Lithuanians, and the Germans work together harmoniously.  Because nobody has incited the people there, no national ill feeling has appeared among them.  It is true, to be sure, that the Catholic priest, with his peculiar interests, is unknown there.  But look at your neighbors in Upper Silesia.  Have the two races not lived there in peaceful communion for centuries, although the religious differences exist there also?  What is it, then, that Silesia has not, and that has made it possible for us to live there, through centuries, in religious harmony?  I am sorry to have to say it, it is the Polish nobility and the clergy of the Polish propaganda.  The Polish nobles are, no doubt, very influential—­more so with the Poles than the Germans—­but the statistical figures are much larger than the actual number of our aggressive Polish opponents with whom we have to count.

The nobles are thinking of the time when they were all-powerful, and they cannot give up the memory of conditions when they ruled the king as well as the peasants.  The Polish nobles, however, are surely too highly educated to believe that the conditions of the old Polish republic of nobles could ever return, and I should be astonished if the Polish peasants knew the history of Poland so badly that they did not recoil from the possibility of a return to the old state of affairs.  The peasants must say to themselves that a “wet year,” as the farmers put it, would be their lot if the nobles regained their power.  Among the national-Polish representatives that are elected, you generally meet only noblemen.  At least I cannot remember having seen a Polish farmer as a representative in the Reichstag or in the diet.  Compare this with the election results in German districts.  I do not even know whether there are Polish burghers in our sense of the word.  The middle classes in the Polish cities are poorly developed.  Consequently, when we reduce our opponents to their proper size, we grow more courageous in our own determination; and I should be very glad if I could encourage those who on their part are adding to the encouragement of the Polish nobles.  I feel, gentlemen, that I am of one mind with you, who have traveled the hard road hither.  I have no influence with other elements, but we shall not give up hope in spite of all vicissitudes.