about to enjoy a renewed lease of life. The 'fundamental questions' ahead of us to which the present Government are pledged, involving as they do some of the most important principles which can agitate civilised society, will find plenty of work for the party system for at least another generation, if not much longer. If we deduct from the present Ministerial following all the Socialists, all the Labour party, and all the Nonconformists who desire the disestablishment of the Church, how many will be left? Of these, there can hardly be a doubt that many who prefer reform to revolution would gradually draw towards the party of constitutional progress, following the example of the Whigs who, at an earlier period, transferred their allegiance from Lord Grey to Sir Robert Peel. The remainder, uniting with the extremists, would form a strong Opposition confronting a powerful Government, and the party system would once more be in working order.

We can only at the present time deal with tendencies. The party system is not as yet destroyed. Important measures have been passed in this Parliament; and would be again, no doubt, if the party method were abandoned. It is not pretended that this method is essential to all effective legislation, but only to the particular form of Government by which such legislation has hitherto been conducted. This distinction must be borne in mind, or we shall miss half the significance of the warnings here recorded. When Mr. Gladstone told Queen Victoria that in the absence of two well-defined parties she must be prepared for a long period of weakness and instability in the Executive, he was thinking of a transition period, at the end of which party, perhaps, would revive in its old shape. But Mr. Disraeli and others were thinking of what would follow on the complete abrogation of the old party system as a Parliamentary organ. Neither seems to have been alluding to any stoppage of the legislative machine. Mr. Gladstone was thinking of the perpetual changes of Government and the quarrels of rival connexions which would embarrass the sovereign in the one case, Mr. Disraeli on the personal government, the virtual dictatorship, which would follow in the other.

T. E. KEBBEL.

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE EMPEROR WILLIAM II.

THE German Emperor has returned to Germany. In London and Windsor he has been the most amiable of guests. At Highcliffe Castle he has been the most charming of hosts. We have seen the Emperor as a private gentleman, and in that capacity he has captured all hearts. There is so much that is intensely human about him. He is so open, so high-spirited, and so cordial in his manner. He has made friends with all whom he has met from the highest in the land to the humble school children whom he treated to tea. However, William the Second is not merely an amiable prince. He is before all a man of affairs and a statesman. In his private capacity he has shown himself to be the friend of private British individuals, but what is his attitude towards the British people? Is he friendly to the British nation? Can he, in his quality of German Emperor, be friendly to this country and wish for the wealth and prosperity of the British Empire? Had the Emperor's visit to England a political object, and what was that object? These are questions which many people are asking themselves, and which will find a reply in the following pages.

Many years ago it was reported in the Kölnische Zeitung, that a German manufacturer sent to William the Second, who had just come to the throne, a magnificent dressing-gown as a present, but it was immediately returned to the sender with the laconic remark: "The Hohenzollerns do not wear dressing-gowns.' The Hohenzollerns are a military race. Since 1713, the year when Frederick William the First, the father of Frederick the Great, came to the throne, all the Hohenzollern rulers have lived and died in their uniform. To them the uniform has a symbolical and a very practical meaning.

William the Second means to follow the footsteps of his ancestors. On the 15th of June, 1888, the day his father died, the Emperor sent to the army an address announcing the death, which closed with the words: 'I solemnly vow that I will ever remember that the eyes of my ancestors are looking down upon me from the other world, and that one day I shall have to give them an account of the glory

and honour of the army.' Only three days later, on the 18th of June, he sent a similar address to the German nation. The foregoing pronouncement is characteristic of the Emperor. He is a Hohenzollern of the old stock, and he means to maintain the family traditions. Only in one respect is William the Second different from his ancestors. He takes a much greater interest in the navy than in the army; he is rather an admiral than a general.

William the Second has ruled Germany almost twenty years. What is his political aim and record? The most characteristic feature of Germany's foreign policy during his reign may most briefly be expressed in two figures.

£

2,500,000

18,000,000

Frederick the Great taught in his Histoire de Mon Temps, that the policy of a nation can better be gauged by acts than by words, better by its warlike preparations and expenditure than by the declarations of its statesmen. The foregoing figures are very eloquent. They show more clearly the drift of Germany's foreign policy than do all the speeches and dispatches of Prince Bülow and his predecessors.

The policy of a sensible nation is directed by impersonal factors: its natural needs and business considerations. Necessity rather than ambition and other personal feelings direct it, and an intelligent constitutional monarch, like the German Emperor, gently guides the nation, enlightens it, and translates its justified reasonable and clearly pronounced wishes into action. Such has been the endeavour of William the Second.

Germany's economic position and development determines her political attitude and the Emperor's policy. Germany, which was an agricultural country, has become an industrial nation. She manufactures already considerably more iron and steel than does Great Britain, and in three or four years she should produce more coalinclusive of lignite, usually omitted in English statistics-than this country. The German industries nourish about as large a population as the British industries. Germany has become dependent on her foreign trade for the subsistence of a large part of her population. Receiving raw cotton, wool, iron, copper, &c., from abroad, and sending thence manufactured woollen and cotton goods, machinery, &c., Germany's foreign trade greatly resembles our own foreign trade.

Compared with Great Britain, Germany labours under very great natural difficulties. Industries engaged in over-sea trade require an easy access to the sea, but whilst the British industrial towns lie on or near the sea, the German coal centres, and near the coal centres the industrial towns, lie from 200 to 500 miles inland. More than three quarters of the German industries lie in and about the Rhine valley, between Crefeld near Cologne, and Mülhausen

near the Swiss frontier. Long distances mean heavy freight charges. Therefore the German industries work with but a slender margin of profit, and the existence of the German export trade will become very precarious as soon as Great Britain uses her great natural advantages to the full.

Modern industries strive to abolish unnecessary expenditure by the elimination of the middle-man, but the German industries cannot free themselves of a very expensive middleman. Carriage by rail being too expensive owing to the long distances separating the industrial centres from the coast, a large part of her exports and imports travel up and down the Rhine. Rotterdam and Antwerp are the most important harbours for Germany's trade. Manchester, wishing to eliminate Liverpool, built the Manchester ship canal which, though financially a failure, has proved industrially a success. Germany, wishing to eliminate the Dutch middleman, is at enormous expense completing the Rhine-Emden canal, which seems likely to prove both financially and industrially a failure. So far the young German industries have known only good times. When bad times come and prices fall, the presence of the Dutch middleman may reduce their slender profits to nothing and prove their ruin. Germany requires the control of the Rhine harbours, and will abolish the Dutch monopolist middleman if she can.

In order to save expenditure and to give employment to her people, Germany wishes to carry her exports and imports in her own ships, but, having practically no harbours-Hamburg lying on the wrong river-her maritime development is greatly impeded. Nevertheless, the German merchant marine has wonderfully increased. It has more than doubled during the last decade, and it is now the second largest in the world. On the 15th of December, 1907, the Frankfurter Zeitung drew attention to the significant fact that between 1897 and 1907 Great Britain's share of the world's steam tonnage has declined from 59 per cent. to 51 per cent., whilst at the same time Germany's share of the world's steam tonnage has increased from 9.05 per cent. to 11.30 per cent. Some Germans ask themselves: How large would be our export trade and our merchant marine if the Dutch harbours, which geographically and historically belong to Germany, were ours, and if we could manage our trade ourselves? Other Germans ask the more serious question: How will our export trade fare in bad times, when international competition reduces profits to a minimum, or if our industries should be crippled by a revival of the British industries and by the possible closing of the British Empire to our exports? Earlier or later the possession of the harbours at the mouth of the Rhine is likely to become a question of life or death to Germany. Germany must have Holland if she wishes to preserve her wealth and her industry, and to nobody is this clearer than to the director of her foreign policy, the German Emperor.

The German Emperor has made countless advances to the Dutch and to their Queen. Officially and semi-officially the advantages of a German-Dutch union have been pointed out to the Dutch during many years, and especially during the Boer War, when Dutch feeling was very hostile to Great Britain. Between 1899 and 1901 German and Dutch circles discussed freely a German-Dutch reunion. Many Dutchmen were in favour of a German-Dutch alliance. However, there were doubts as to Great Britain's attitude. Dutchmen recognised that this country was bound to oppose a German occupation of Rotterdam with the same energy with which she had opposed Napoleon's occupation of Antwerp, and they withdrew from Germany in alarm. Germany saw that she might incorporate Holland easily did not Great Britain bar the way.

The German population increases by 900,000 a year, whilst the British population increases by only about 300,000 a year. At present, immigration into Germany is greater than emigration from Germany. But the time may come, and it may come soon, when Germany will be unable to feed all her inhabitants. As she has no desire to follow the example of this country, and to strengthen foreign countries with her surplus population, Germany wishes to acquire colonies in a temperate zone, suitable for the settlement of white men, and it must be admitted that Germany has a greater need for colonies, and perhaps even a greater moral claim to colonies, than has Great Britain. As practically all colonies fulfilling these conditions are in British hands, Germany can become a colonial power only at Great Britain's cost. Here, again, Great Britain bars Germany's path, and she bars it not merely passively by the fact of possession, but actively, too. She frustrated Germany's attempts to gain a foothold in South Africa, and to join hands with the Boers. She opposed Germany's endeavours to colonise Asia Minor (Baghdad Railway). She has opposed her in the Far East and in South America, and has prevented her from acquiring coaling stations in various parts of the world.

Germany would like to acquire colonies in the tropical zone in order to be able to grow her own cotton, coffee, &c., but here again she has found her path crossed by Great Britain and various British colonies, especially Australia.

The protection of a large foreign trade and the acquisition and defence of colonies requires a strong fleet and a strong fleet requires arge, well-situated harbours. Denmark and Holland have excellent harbours, but they have neither a fleet nor a merchant marine. Germany is building a large fleet, and has a large merchant marine, but she has only one commercial and one naval harbour of adequate size, and both are badly situated. She might acquire the Dutch harbours and the Danish harbours, did not Great Britain bar the way. Fate has placed Great Britain and Germany in the same reciprocal position,