Southwest Africa, their inconclusive war with the Herreros, and the
absolute break-down of Prussian methods with the natives, is scarcely
more typical than the failure in Alsace-Lorraine and Poland. The
Prussian belief in sand-paper as an emollient must be by now rudely
shaken.

At last a constitution has been given the two conquered provinces. The
governor is to be advised by a parliament, but the government is not
responsible to the parliament, which is composed of two houses. The
upper house has thirty-six members, eighteen of whom are nominees of
the Emperor and eighteen from the churches, universities, and
principal cities. The lower house is to be elected by popular
franchise. Three years' residence in the same place entitles a man to
a vote, but every voter over thirty-five years of age has two votes,
and every voter over forty-five has three votes.

This, as an American can appreciate, has not been received with
enthusiasm, and their conduct has been so provoking that the Emperor,
during a recent visit, scolded the people, in an interview with the
mayor of a certain town, and, what caused great amusement among the
enemies of Prussia, threatened to incorporate them into Prussia, as
had been done with Hanover, if they were not better behaved. This, of
course, was seized upon as an admission that to be taken into the
Prussian family was of all the hardships the most dreadful. The
socialist journal Vorwaerts spoke of Prussia as "that brutal country
which thus openly confesses its dishonor to all the world." Herr
Scheidemann asked in the Reichstag, if Prussia then acknowledged
herself to be a sort of house of correction, and "has Prussia, then,
become the German Siberia?" In 1911 the Reichstag gave the provinces
three votes in the Federal Council.

Metz, it is said, is more French than ever, and thousands troop across
the boundaries on the anniversary of the French national holiday, to
celebrate it on French soil. The conquered provinces are kept in
order, but the French language, French customs, French culture, are
still to the fore, and so far as loyalty, affection, or a change of
mind and heart is concerned the conversion is still incomplete. The
inhabitants have been baptized Germans, but very few of them have
taken voluntarily, their first communion of nationalization.

"On changerait plutot le coeur de place,
Que de changer la vieille Alsace."

The German, Karl Lamprecht, in his valuable history of contem