27th Feb.
Tue Reuter's telegrams that we publish this morning are of very grave importance, for anything that threatens the stability of Germany, threatens the stability of the whole of Europe. 'I'he most repressive laws have been unable to check the advance of the tide of socialism, even when these laws have been accompanied by the adoption of socialistic measures by the State. No one is better alive to the danger than the young Emperor himself, who is so determined to repress the fermentation in Berlin that he has established there almost a reign of terror; as we quoted recently from the correspondence of a home paper: "Court and State matters are less discussed than ever in social circles, for people are too afraid of getting into trouble, and think that, in this case, silence is the better part of valour." People in social circles—which means anything but the circles iv which sovialism flourishes—may be afraid to talk but in lower circles they not only talk but act, and their action takes the form of an increase at nearly every election in the number of socialists sent up to the Reichstag.
The German empire has a population of some 4Z millions living in what, generally speaking, is a poor country is certainly a poor country, compared with France or Italy. These 47 millions have to support, on a peace footing, an army of as nearly as possible half a million men at a cost of about 37 millions sterling a year. As military service is compulsory, the actual pay of the army is small, but it has been the policy of the last' thirty years to spare no expense in providing the army with the best obtainable material. There is no sign at present that this enormous load can be lifted altogether from the shoulders of the toilers in Germany, or reduced. he nation has borne it for twenty years, helped by the glory of the defeat of France, and the solid assistance of the indemnity; helped also by patriotism, which has decreed that what German arms acquired, German arms Will secure from attack. But patriotism, love of country, is like the gentler love in this, that when poverty comes in at
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.