hing
is more worn out and useless than his pontifical socialism. This
species of abortion has lately resulted in advancing the parturition
of increased aspirations of the laborers, and as every kind of
abortion leaves the womb which bears it, has done so violently. His
law for the insurance of workmen, though dating only from '82, is
already tottering in almost decrepit decay. He even admitted himself
that it needed perfecting by means of a law that should establish
compulsory corporations, like the ancient guilds, which proposal was
objected to by the workmen themselves, more inclined to Saxon
individualism and revolutionary co-operation than to his socialism, in
which he saw salvation, and which they regarded as pedantic and
hybrid. Bismarck's system had no justification and derogated all laws
of ethics and justice. With his Utopian schemes the professors in
their lecture-rooms endeavored to excite the Socialists, who, if they
had listened and demanded their realization would have been exposed to
be shot down in the streets by the soldiery, without anyone being able
even to raise a protest against such indignities being possible in the
country. Even his foreign policy can scarcely be justified; however
skilful may have been the diplomatic and military preparations which
led to his first triumph, it has proved a perplexed and confused
policy since his final triumph. The Chancellor had no other
alternative than to come to an agreement either with France and
England against Russia, or else with Russia against France and
England. To come to an arrangement with France against Russia
necessitated the restitution of Alsace and Lorraine; to come to an
understanding with Russia, it was necessary to permit the Russians to
enter Constantinople. By these perplexities which shut out all hope of
retaliation from France, thus exciting its colonial appetite, and
which opened to Russia the path to the Bosphorus in a final eastern
war, detaining her for a time in St. Stephens and preparing the two
Bulgarias for an Austrian protectorate, Bismarck could have extricated
himself from danger from both Russia and France when the bonds of the
Triple Alliance were loosened at Rome by the fall of Crispi, and at
Vienna by the Treaty of Commerce. We have not spoken of the Chancellor
as an argonaut, of the Chancellor as a colonizer. All that he has been
able to do, after having given occasion for enormous difficulties with
Australia and England, w