ty. And this is the fellow who claims to be hardly second in
importance to his "dear old God"! In this connection it is only fair
to recall the very different behaviour of King Edward VII when an
Irish paper published not a mere criticism but an unquestionably
libellous article reflecting on his private character. The police
seized the copies of the paper and were prepared to take steps to
prosecute, when the late King interfered and stopped even the
confiscation of the paper. The least monarchical of us must, I think,
admit that here we have a good illustration of the distinction between
a man sure of his reputation and a cur nervously alarmed for his.

This severe law of _lese-majeste_ in Bismarck's Prusso-German Empire
is only an illustration of the way in which the German people have
been made to grovel before the Prussian jack-boot. The Prussification
of Germany in matters military and in matters bureaucratic has gone on
apace since 1870. Prussia, it is not too much to say, has hitherto
consisted in a nation of slaves and tyrants and nothing else. It is
the Prussian governing class which has everywhere and in all
departments "set the pace" since the empire was established. No man
known to hold opinions divergent from those agreeable to the interests
of the Prussian governing class can hope for employment, be it the
most humble, in any department of the public service. This is
particularly noticeable in its effects in the matter of education. The
inculcation of the brutal and blatant jingoism of Von Treitschke at
the universities by professors eager for approval in high places has
already been sufficiently animadverted upon in more than one work on
modern Germany. The defeat of Prusso-German militarism will be an
even greater gain to all that is best in Germany herself than it will
be to Europe as a whole.

_Delenda est Prussia_, understanding thereby not, of course, the
inhabitants of Prussian territory as such, but Prussia as a
State-system and as an independent Power in Europe, must be the
watchword in the present crisis of every well-wisher of Humanity,
Germany included. A united Germany, if that be insisted upon, by all
means let there be--a federation of all the German peoples with its
capital, for that matter, as of old, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, but
with no dominant State and, if possible, excluding Prussia altogether,
but certainly as constituted at present. Who knows but that a united
States of Germany m