Kitabı oku: «The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 10», sayfa 14

The three-emperor-pact, if one wishes to call it such, while it is generally called a treaty, is not based on any written obligations, and no one of the three emperors can be voted down by the other two. It is based on the personal sympathy among the three rulers, on the personal confidence which they have in one another, and on the personal relations which for many years have existed among the leading ministers of all three empires.

We have always avoided forming a majority of two against one when there was a difference of opinion between Austria and Russia, and we have never definitely taken the part of one of them, even if our own desires drew us more strongly in that direction. We have refrained from this for fear that the tie might not be sufficiently strong after all. It surely cannot be so strong that it could induce one of these great powers to disregard its own incontestably national interests for the sake of being obliging. That is a sacrifice which no great power makes pour les beaux yeux of another. Such a sacrifice it makes only when arguments are replaced by hints of strength. Then it may happen that the great power will say: "I hate to make this concession, but I hate even worse to go to war with so strong a power as Germany. Still I will remember this and make a note of it." That is about the way in which such things are received. And this leads me to the necessity of vigorously opposing all exaggerated demands made on Germany's mediation. Let me declare that they are out of the question so long as I have the honor of being the adviser of His Majesty.

I know that in saying this I am disappointing a great many expectations raised in connection with today's disclosures, but I am not of the opinion that we should go the road of Napoleon and try to be, if not the arbiter, at least the schoolmaster of Europe.

I have here a clipping given me today from the Allgemeine Zeitung, which contains a noteworthy article entitled "The Policy of Germany in the Decisive Hour." This article demands as necessary the admission of a third power to the alliance of England and Austria. That means, we shall take part with England and Austria and deprive Russia of the credit of voluntarily making the concessions which she may be willing to grant in the interest of European peace. I do not doubt that Russia will sacrifice for the sake of peace in Europe whatever her sense of nationality and her own interests and those of eighty million Russians permit. It is really superfluous to say this. And now please assume that we took the advice of the gentlemen who think that we should play the part of an arbiter—I have here another article from a Berlin paper, called "Germany's Part as Arbiter"—and that we declared to Russia in some polite and amicable way: "We have been friends, it is true, for hundreds of years, Russia has ever been true-blue to us when we were in difficulties, but now things are different. In the interest of Europe, as the policemen of Europe, as a kind of a justice of the peace, we must do as we are requested, we can no longer resist the demands of Europe …," what would be the result?

There are considerable numbers of Russians who do not love Germany, and who fortunately are not at the helm now, but who would not be unhappy if they were called there. What would they say to their compatriots, they and perhaps other statesmen who at present are not yet avowedly hostile to us? They would say: "With what sacrifices of blood and men and money have we not won the position which for centuries has been the ideal of Russian ambition! We could have maintained it against those opponents who may have a real interest in combating it. It was not Austria, with whom we have lived on moderately intimate terms for some time, it was not England, who possesses openly acknowledged counter-interests to ours—no, it was our intimate friend Germany who drew, behind our back, not her sword but a dagger, although we might have expected from her services in return for services rendered, and although she has no interests in the Orient."

Those approximately would be the phrases, and this the theme which we should hear in Russia. This picture which I have drawn in exaggerated lines—but the Russian orators also exaggerate—corresponds with the truth. We, however, shall never assume the responsibility of sacrificing the certain friendship of a great nation, tested through generations, to the momentary temptation of playing the judge in Europe.

To jeopardize the friendship which fortunately binds us to most European states and at the present moment to all,—for the parties to whom it is an eyesore are not in power,—to jeopardize, I say, this friendship with one friend in order to oblige another, when we as Germans have no direct interests, and to buy the peace of others at the cost of our own, or, to speak with college boys, to substitute at a duel—such things one may do when one risks only one's own life, but I cannot do them when I have to counsel His Majesty the Emperor as regards the policy of a great State of forty million people in the heart of Europe. From this tribune I therefore take the liberty of saying a very definite "No" to all such imputations and suggestions. I shall under no condition do anything of the kind; and no government, none of those primarily interested, has made any such demands. Germany, as the last speaker remarked, has grown to new responsibilities as it has grown stronger. But even if we are able to throw a large armed force into the scales of European policies, I do not consider anybody justified in advising the emperor and the princes (who would have to discuss the matter in the Bundesrat if we wished to wage an offensive war) to make an appeal to the proven readiness of the nation to offer blood and money for a war. The only war which I am ready to counsel to the emperor is one to protect our independence abroad and our union at home, or to defend those of our interests which are so clear that we are supported, if we insist on them, not only by the unanimous vote of the Bundesrat, which is necessary, but also by the undivided enthusiasm of the whole German nation.

SALUS PUBLICA—BISMARCK'S ONLY LODE-STAR

February 24, 1881

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D

[On February 24, 1881, the budget of the empire for the ensuing year was under discussion. The representative, Mr. Richter, made use of this opportunity to attack the home-politics of the chancellor in their entirety. He felt great concern about the growing power of the chancellor, and called upon his liberal colleagues to stem the tide, and to curb the power of the chancellor. "Only if this is done will the great gifts which distinguish the chancellor continue to be fruitful for Germany. If this is not possible, and if we go on as we have been going, the chancellor will ruin himself, and he will ruin the country." Prince Bismarck replied:]

The remarks of the previous speaker have hardly touched on the subject under discussion, the budget, since I have been here. Consequently I am excused, I suppose, from adding anything to what the secretary of the treasury has said. The previous speaker has mainly concerned himself with a critique of my personality. The number of times the word "chancellor" appears in his speech in proportion to the total number of words sufficiently justifies my assertion. Well, I do not know what is the use of this critique, if not to instruct me and to educate me. But I am in my sixty-sixth year and in the twentieth of my tenure of office—there will not be much in me to improve. You will have to use me up as I am or push me aside. I, on my part, have never made the attempt to educate the Honorable Mr. Richter—I do not think I am called upon to do it; nor have I endeavored to force him from his sphere of activity—I should not have the means of doing this, nor do I wish it. But I believe he in his turn will lack the means of forcing me from my position. Whether he will be able to compress me and circumscribe me, as toward the end of his speech he said was desirable, I do not know. I am, however, truly grateful to him for the concern he expressed about my health. Unfortunately, if I wish to do my duty, I cannot take such care of myself as Mr. Richter deems desirable—I shall have to risk my health.

When he said that every evil troubling us, even the rate of interest and I know not what else, was based on the uncertainty of our conditions, and when he quoted the word of a colleague of a "hopeless confusion"—well, gentlemen, then I must repeat what I have said elsewhere and in the hearing of the Honorable Mr. Richter: Make a comparison and look about you in other countries! If our conditions with their ordered activities and their assured future at home and abroad constitute a "hopeless confusion," how shall we characterize the conditions of many another country? I can see in no European country a condition of safety and an assured outlook into the future similar to that prevailing in the German empire. I have already said on the former occasion that my position as minister of foreign affairs made it impossible for me to be specific. But everyone who will follow my remarks with a map in his hand, and a knowledge of history during the past twenty years, will have to say that I am right. I do not know what is the use of these exaggerations of a "hopeless confusion" and "a lack of assurance and uncertainty of the future." Nobody in the country believes it; and isn't that the chief thing? The people in the country know perfectly well how they are off, and all who do not fare as they wish are pleased to blame the government for it. When a candidate comes up for election, and says to them: "The government—or to quote the previous speaker—the chancellor is to blame for all this," he may find many credulous people, but in the majority he will find people who will say: "The chancellor surely has his faults and drawbacks"—but most people will not be convinced that I am to blame for everything. I am faring in this respect like Emperor Napoleon twelve years and more ago, who was accused, not in his own country but in Europe, as the cause of all evils, from Tartary to Spain, and he was not nearly so bad a creature as he was said to be—may I not also claim the benefit of this doubt with Mr. Richter? I, too, am not so bad as I am painted. His attack upon me, moreover, if he will stop to reflect, is largely directed not against me personally, or against that part of my activities in which I possess freedom of action, no—it is directed primarily against the constitution of the German empire. The constitution of the German empire knows no other responsible officer but the chancellor. I might assert that my constitutional responsibility does not go nearly so far as the one actually placed upon me; and I might take things a little easier and say: "I have nothing to do with the home policies of the empire, for I am only the emperor's executive officer." But I will not do this. From the beginning I have assumed the responsibility, and also the obligation, of defending the decisions of the Bundesrat, provided I can reconcile them with my responsibility, even if I find myself there in the minority. This responsibility I will take as public opinion understands it. Nobody, however, can be held responsible for acts and resolves not his own. No responsibility can be foisted on anybody—nor did the imperial constitution intend to do this—for acts which do not depend on his own free will, and into which he can be forced. The responsible person, therefore, must enjoy complete independence and freedom within the sphere of his responsibility. If he does not, all responsibility ceases; and I do not know on whose shoulders it will rest—so far as the empire is concerned it has disappeared completely.

As long, therefore, as Mr. Richter does not change the constitution, you yourselves must insist on having a chancellor who is absolutely free and independent in his decisions, for no man can hold him responsible for those things which he is unable to decide for himself, freely and independently. Mr. Richter has expressed the wish of limiting in several directions this constitutional independence of the chancellor. In the first place, in one direction where it is already limited and where he wishes to have it disappear entirely. This concerns his responsibility for those acts in our political life which the constitution assigns to the emperor in connection with the decisions of the Bundesrat and the Reichstag. There can be no doubt that these acts include also those which have to be performed, as the constitution says, in the name of the emperor; the submission, for instance, to the Reichstag of a resolve of the Bundesrat. Mr. Richter has correctly quoted an incident, mentioned in the North German Gazette, concerning the resolves on some collected cases of accidents, which I considered it incompatible with my responsibility to submit to you in the name of the emperor. I, therefore, did not do it. One may well ask: What has the constitutional law to say on this point? Was I justified in not acting? Was the emperor justified in not acting! Or was His Majesty the Emperor bound by the constitution to submit to you the resolve of the Bundesrat?

At the time when the constitution was being drawn I once discussed this point with an astute jurist, who had long been and still is with us in an important position—Mr. Pape. He said to me: "The emperor has no veto." I replied, "Constitutionally he has not, but suppose a measure is expected of him which he thinks he should not take, and against which his then chancellor warns him, saying: I cannot advocate it, and I shall not countersign it. Well, in this case is the emperor obliged to look for another chancellor, and to dismiss him who opposes the measure? Is he obliged to accept anyone as chancellor, suggested perhaps by the other party? Will he look for a second or third chancellor, both of whom may say: We cannot assume the responsibility for this bill by submitting it to the Reichstag?" Hereupon Mr. Pape replied: "You are right, the emperor possesses an indirect but actual veto."

I do not even go so far, for none of these cases are pressed to their logical conclusion. Let us, however, take a concrete case, which will make these matters perfectly clear. Suppose the majority of the Bundesrat had passed a bill with the approval of Prussia, but Prussia had made the mistake of not calling upon the Prussian minister designated to instruct the Prussian delegation in the Bundesrat; or even—Prussia had consented and the minister had been present, and had been in the minority also in the Prussian cabinet, and the emperor had directed him to submit the resolves of the Bundesrat to the Reichstag, to which the chancellor had replied: "I do not believe that I can answer for this, or that my responsibility permits me to do it." Then there results the possibility of the emperor's saying: "If that is so, I must look for another chancellor." This did not happen; another thing happened, namely—the resolve was not submitted. The ensuing situation is this, that the persons entitled to complain—if there are any—constitute the majority of the governments who passed this resolve in the Bundesrat.

This points the proper way, and I believe in weighty questions it would be taken to the end. In the present case if one were to make a test of what is really right, the majority of the Bundesrat would have to represent to His Majesty as follows: "We have passed a resolve, and our constitutional right demands that the emperor submit it to the Reichstag. We demand that this be done." The emperor might reply: "I will not investigate the law of the case to see whether I am obliged to act. I will assume that I am, and I do not refuse to act, but for the present I have no chancellor willing to countersign the order." In such a case can the chancellor be ordered to sign, because he shall and must do so? Can he be threatened with imprisonment as is done with recalcitrant witnesses? What would then become of his responsibility! If the chancellor continues to refuse, the majority of the Bundesrat may say to the emperor: "You must dismiss this chancellor and get another. We insist that our resolve be laid before the Reichstag. If this is not done, the constitution will be broken." Well, gentlemen, why not wait and see whether this will happen, and whether those entitled to complain will take this course, and if they do, whether His Majesty the Emperor will not be ready to say after all: "All right, I shall try to find a chancellor who is willing to submit the resolve."

I shall, of course, not enter here upon a discussion of the reasons which determined me in this concrete case. They were reasons not found in shut-in offices, but in God's open country, and they induced me to deem the enactment of this law undesirable. I did not possess the certainty that a majority of this house would have seen the impossibility of carrying out the law, but I did not wish to expose the country to the danger—it was a danger according to my way of thinking—of getting this law. The only moment when I could guard against this danger was when the law was to be submitted in the name of the emperor. The constitutional remedy against such a use of an opportunity is a change of chancellors. I can see no other remedy.

Mentioning the Reichstag brings me to my coöperation with it. Mr. Richter's ideal is, it seems to me, a bashful, cautious chancellor who throws out careful feelers whether he may offend here, if he does this, or offend there—one who does not wait for a final vote of the Reichstag, but rushes home excitedly, as I have often seen my colleagues do, exclaiming: "Oh God, the law is lost, this man and that man are opposed to it"—and three weeks later the law has Passed in spite of them. I cannot enter upon such a policy of conjecture and proof by inference of what may be determined in the Reichstag when the tendency of those who talk the loudest, but who are not always the most influential, happens to be against a bill; and if Mr. Richter should succeed in procuring such a timid chancellor anxiously listening for every hint, my advice to you, gentlemen, is to tolerate him in this position as briefly as possible. For if a leading minister—and such he is in the empire—has no opinion his own, and must hear from others what he should believe and do, then you do not need him at all. What Mr. Richter proposes is the government of the State by the Reichstag, the government of the State by itself, as it has been called in France, by its own chosen representatives. A chancellor, a minister who does not dare to submit a bill of the ultimate success of which he is not absolutely sure is no minister. He might as well move among you with the white sign (of a page) inquiring whether you will permit him to submit this or that. For such a part I am not made!

To what extent I am ready to submit to the Bundesrat I have already tried to explain, and I have closed with these words "sub judice lis est" (the case is still in court). I need not say now whether my constitutional conviction would make me yield to the majority of the Bundesrat, if they should demand it. This question has not yet arisen; the majority has not demanded it. Whether I shall maintain my opposition, if the demand is pressed, to this question I reply: non liquet (it is a moot-point); we shall see what happens. Such things are eventually decided by the old law which the Romans were astonished to find with the Germans, and of which they said, "They call it usage." Such a usage has not yet developed in connection with the interpretation of our constitution.

Finally, Mr. Richter has found in me too much independence in a third direction. He has been pleased to believe—if I understood him correctly—that the law concerning ministerial deputies would give me the welcome opportunity of withdrawing to a more ornamental position, to use his own expression, and to leave the duties and activities to those who are deputed to represent me, establishing thus also in the imperial government the famous arcanum of decisions by majorities. But here, too, I must say that Mr. Richter will have to change the constitution before I shall be able to subordinate myself to the highest officials of the empire. How can I appear before you saying: "Well, gentlemen, I am very doubtful whether I can advocate this measure, but the secretary in whose bureau it was worked out thinks so, and following Mr. Richter's advice I have yielded to his authority. If you do not adopt this measure you will gratify me, but not the secretary?" This, too, would be an altogether impossible position, although Mr. Richter is expecting it of me.

The chiefs of the bureaus are not responsible for me, except in so far as the law of deputies substitutes them for me but I am responsible for their actions. I have to guarantee that they are statesmen in general accord with the policy of the empire which I am willing to advocate. If I miss this accord in one of them, not once but continually and on principle, then it is my duty to tell him: "We cannot remain in office, both of us." This, too, is a task which I have never shirked when it has presented itself. It is simply my duty. I have never had need of such artful machinations and pyrotechnics as people claimed I instituted very wilfully last week. You need not think that ministers stick to their posts like many other high officials, whom not even the broadest hints can convince that their time has come. I have not yet found a minister in these days who had not to be persuaded every now and then to continue a little longer in office, and not to be discouraged by his hard and exhausting labor, due to the simultaneous friction with three parliamentary bodies—a House of Representatives, a House of Lords, and a Reichstag—where one relieves another, or two, without waiting to be relieved, are in session at the same time. And when the fight is over and the representatives have returned home well satisfied, then a bureau chief comes to the minister on the day after, saying: "It is time now to get the recommendations for the next session into shape."

The whole business, moreover, while very honorable, is scarcely pleasurable. Is any one obliged to submit to such public, sharp and impolite criticisms as a German minister? Is it true of anyone but him that the behavior customary among people of culture does not prevail when he addressed? Without the least scruple one says things to him publicly which one would be ashamed to say to him privately, if one were to meet him in a drawing-room, for instance. I should not say this here if the Reichstag did not hold an exceptional position in Germany in these matters as well as in everything else. Here I have never had to hear, so far as I remember, as sharp remarks as in other assemblies. At any rate I have a conciliatory memory. But on the whole you will agree with me that the tone of our public debates is less elevated than that of our social gatherings, especially when our ministers are addressed, but at times even among fellow members, although of this I am no competent critic. I do not even criticize the behavior toward the ministers, for I am hardened by an experience of many years and can stand it. I am merely describing the reasons why no minister clings to his post, and why you do me an injustice if you believe that it takes an artful effort to make a minister yield his place. Not many of them have been accustomed to see a totally ignorant correspondent tear an experienced minister to pieces in the press as if he were a stupid schoolboy. We see this in every newspaper every day, but we can stand it. We do not complain. But can anyone say that the members of the government—the bureau chiefs frequently fare even worse—meet in the parliamentary debates with that urbaneness of demeanor which characterizes our best society? I do not say "no," leaving it to you to answer this question. I only say that the business of being a minister is very arduous and cheerless, subject to vexations and decidedly exhausting. This brings it about that the ministers are habitually in a mood which makes them readily give up their places as soon as they have found another excuse than the simple: I have had enough, I do not care for more, I am tired of it.

The changes of ministers, however, have not been so many nor so quick with us as they are in other countries, and this I may mention to Mr. Richter as a proof of my amiability as a colleague. Count, if you will, the number of ministers who have crossed the public stage since I entered office in 1862, and sum up the resignations due to other than parliamentary reasons, and you will find a result exceedingly favorable to the accommodating spirit of the German minister when it is compared with that of any other country. I consider, therefore, the insinuating references to my quarrelsome disposition and fickleness distinctly wide of the mark.

In this connection I shall take the liberty of referring with one more word to the reproaches, often occurring in the press and also in the Reichstag, that I had frequently and abruptly changed my views. Well, I am not one of those who at any time of their life have believed, or believe today, that they can learn no more. If a man says to me: "Twenty years ago you held the same opinion as I; I still hold it, but you have changed your views," I reply: "You see, I was as clever twenty years ago as you are today. Today I know more, I have learned things in these twenty years." But, gentlemen, I will not even rely on the justice of the remark that the man who does not learn also fails to progress and cannot keep abreast of his time. People are falling behind when they remain rooted in the position they occupied years ago. However, I do not at all intend to excuse myself with such observations, for I have always had one compass only, one lode-star by which I have steered: Salus Publica, the welfare of the State. Possibly I have often acted rashly and hastily since I first began my career, but whenever I had time to think I have always acted according to the question, "What is useful, advantageous, and right for my fatherland, and—as long as this was only Prussia—for my dynasty, and today—for the German nation?" I have never been a theorist. The systems which bin and separate parties are for me of secondary importance. The nation comes first, its position in the world and its independence, and above all our organization along lines inch will make it possible for us to draw the free breath of a great nation.

Everything else, a liberal, reactionary, or conservative constitution—gentlemen, I freely confess, all this I consider in second place. It is the luxury of furnishing the house, when the house is firmly established. In the interest of the country I can parley now with one person, now with another in purely party questions. Theories I barter away cheaply. First let us build a structure secure on the outside and firmly knit on the inside, and protected by the ties of a national union. After that, when you ask my advice about furnishing the house with more or less liberal constitutional fittings, you may perhaps hear me say, "Ah well, I have no preconceived ideas. Make your suggestions, and, when the sovereign whom I serve agrees, you will find no objections on principle on my part." It can be done thus, and again thus. There are many roads leading to Rome. There are times when one should govern liberally, and times when one should govern autocratically. Everything changes. Nothing is eternal in these matters. But of the structure of the German empire and the union of the German nation I demand that they be free and unassailable, with not only a passing field fortification on one side. I have given to its creation and growth my entire strength from the very beginning. And if you point to a single moment when I have not steered by this direction of the compass-needle, you may perhaps prove that I have erred, but you cannot prove that I have for one moment lost sight of the national goal.

* * * * *

PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY

April 2, 1881

TRANSLATED BY EDMUND VON MACH, PH.D.

[Prince Bismarck was trying to fight the revolutionary parties, not only with such restrictive laws as had been passed against the Socialists, but also with constructive measures like the one which had been submitted to the Reichstag on March 8, 1881. It proposed the insurance of the workingman against accidents, and the founding of a governmental insurance company. The bill was severely criticized, notably by Eugen Richter, who did not miss the opportunity of attacking also the chancellor personally. Prince Bismarck's reply made a deep impression in the country at large. The bill itself, however, was so badly amended in the Reichstag, that Bismarck urged the Bundesrat to reject it, which it did. Several changes, thereupon, were made in the bill, and, after having been delayed in committee, it was again brought up for discussion in 1884, when another exhaustive speech by the chancellor, on March 15, brought about its acceptance.]

Before turning to the subject in hand, I wish to reply to some remarks of the previous speaker, lest I forget them—they are of so little weight. He finished by saying that my prestige was waning. If he were right, I should feel like saying "Thank God," for prestige is a very burdensome affair. One suffers under its weight, and quickly gets tired of it. I do not care a farthing for it. When I was very much younger, about as old as the previous speaker is now, and when I was possibly still more ambitious than he, I lived for years without prestige, and was actually disliked, if not hated, by the majority of my fellow-citizens. At that time I felt better and more contented, and was healthier than during the years when I was most popular.