kingdom the rigorous application of the existing laws against the Company of Jesus. Nor had Ministers neglected the task of constructive legislation. In the first days of the Session a Bill was laid before Parliament which not only unified the various branches connected with the present system of State control of Church discipline and the administration and liquidation of ecclesiastical property, thereby effecting a great economical reform, but attempted to put new limitations on mortmain, bringing under its operation the glebe lands which had been exempted from the action of the laws of 1866-67; other minor provisions embodied tentative efforts in the direction of the emancipation of the lower clergy, and the Bill as a whole might be considered a serious if very modest attempt to undermine the independence of the Church in Italy, and so may ultimately open the way to the much-to-bedesired revision of the old guarantee laws.

As the debate proceeded it became evident that the Government would triumph, and the Dissident groups, perceiving this, proposed the suspension of the debate, but Signor Cairoli would. not forego his advantage, rejected all offers of compromise, and demanded a vote of confidence, which was passed (November 30) by 221 to 188, the Cabinet thus obtaining a clear majority of 33.

For the moment the Chamber settled down again to the consideration of the estimates, which were disposed of in rapid succession, and on December 22 both Houses were prorogued until January 24, 1881. The estimates, with one exception, were passed without incident; a successful push was made by the Dissidents to dislodge the Minister of Public Instruction, Signor de Sanctis (December 20). Rumours of the intended resignation of this unpopular member of the Cabinet had been current during the whole Session; failing health disinclined him to make any struggle for the retention of office, but those who brought about his fall have not been equal to forcing Signor Cairoli to replace Signor de Sanctis by one of their own number. The nomination of Signor Bacelli to the vacant post shows that the Government has made so much way this year that it feels itself strong enough to continue to dispense with compromising allies. The prospect of a surplus, which seems uncontested, has redeemed their financial policy from the suspicion of foolhardiness which long attached to it, and the scheme of Signor Magliani for the abolition of the forced currency, when discussed (December 9) by the bureaux of the Chamber of Deputies, was received with general goodwill; it was, indeed, recognised that important modifications would be necessary, but Signor Minghetti, and other leading members of the Right, declared their intention of not raising any political point during the debate, all parties being held equally interested in a satisfactory solution of the question.

The attitude of the Right on this and on many other matters is seriously changed in the present Parliament by the formation within itself of what is called the "Young Right." The Young

Right are said to demand a stricter respect for the essential basis of the party-for the monarchy; for public order; for the rights of property; for the equal administration of the laws (even in the case of Garibaldi); on the other hand they are ready to make concessions on various points of economical and domestic policy— such as the abolition of the malt tax and of the forced currency, and are prepared even for a course of compromise in the matter of the Electoral Reform Bill, which, having been brought up from committee on December 21, stands on the order of the day for the first sitting after the Christmas recess. Signor Minghetti is, it is said, in essential agreement with these theories of the Young Right, who are sufficiently numerous, also, to exercise a certain influence on the councils of their party, and the consequently less hostile attitude of "his Majesty's Opposition " must considerably strengthen the hands of Ministers in dealing with the long-vexed questions of reform now before them.

The continued abstention of the clerical party from the poll still leaves a most important element of the national life unrepresented. At the municipal elections in July the Catholic Conservatives came forward again in greater numbers, and obtained by their compact discipline even more striking success than in 1879, but from the Chamber they hold aloof. We may, perhaps, in this abstention find the cause of that want of party cohesion which reduces parliamentary government in Italy to a state of almost perpetual crisis. Sooner or later it is to be hoped that the entry of the clerical party-which is more dangerous by its absence than it can ever become by its presence-into the Chamber may lead to a stricter definition of principles, involving more solid union in the ranks of all parties. In such a case, gathering to itself the more Conservative elements both of Left and Right, the clerical party may force the Liberals to sink personal and academical dissensions as to men and methods, and unite in the serious effort to educate and enfranchise the people; above all to educate and enfranchise the people of the South, for, as long as the interests of the South and North can be opposed as different or hostile the one to the other, so long must the kingdom of Italy carry within itself the germ of possible disruption.

CHAPTER II.

GERMANY.

Position of Prince Bismarck-Foreign Policy-The Russian Scare-The Austrian Alliance-The Prussian Landtag-The Reichsrath-The Army Bill-Extension of the Anti-Socialist Laws--Relaxation of the May Laws-Elbe Navigation and Freedom of Hamburg-Negotiations with the Vatican-The Chancellor's Resignation-Its outcome-The Bundesrath-Prince Bismarck Minister of Commerce-The Anti-Jewish Agitation or "Judenhetz."

THE history of the German Empire during the year has been marked by few important incidents. The too frequently repeated assertion that the history of Germany is that of her great Chancellor can scarcely be accepted as correct, for, whilst Berlin still retains its place as the centre of European politics, none but the blindest worshippers of Prince Bismarck will assert that the aims and means of his policy have not been canvassed more freely than ever, or will deny that the stream of hostile criticism has gathered strength in every political party in the country and in the Reichsrath. The cause of this decline in the hero-worship of which the German Chancellor for fifteen years has been the object is not far to seek. It was in diplomacy and foreign policy, even more than in his contempt for parliamentary forms, that Prince Bismarck earned his fame, and this field of ambition his fellow-countrymen were ready and eager to abandon to him without reserve. The successive and signal victories which he achieved over the enemies of German unity and Prussian supremacy, both within and without the Bund, entitled him to the confidence and gratitude which his fellow-countrymen lavished upon him. In the management of the external relations of the Empire, therefore, he was recognised by all parties as the sole possible leader; and had he been content to remain the director-in-chief of German affairs in Europe, his claims would have been undisputed, and his demands for the means necessary to enforce his policy would probably have been unhesitatingly obeyed. Unfortunately for his present prestige, and probably for his future fame, the German Chancellor seemed unable to limit the area of his activity to his dealings with foreign States. He wished to prove himself equally great in all spheres of political life; and successively upon all phases of religious and political opinions, as well as upon the complex questions of finance and commerce, he aimed at leaving the mark of his individual views. He seemed to forget that the stubbornness of purpose and fixity of resolve which were of the highest use and value when dealing with national enemies were scarcely the means by which national goodwill could be fostered or commercial prosperity called into existence. His countrymen began to discover that the facility with which he divested himself of all connection with one poli

tical party and allied himself with their opponents-only to forsake them again as his views of political expediency suggested— far from bringing men of all parties more closely together and helping forward the cause of constitutional government, was in reality only evidence of his contempt for Liberals and Conservatives alike, and that either party were by turns useful and to be used in restraining the legitimate expansion of Parliamentarism.

The foreign policy of Germany during the year aimed above. all things at maintaining the understanding which had been arrived at amongst the Powers at the time of the Congress of Berlin. The previous year had closed with a change of Ministry in France, rendering the resignation, or the recall of the French Ambassador, the Comte de St. Vallier, highly probable. Although no change ultimately occurred, the opportunity was offered to Prince Bismarck of letting it be known that neither the form of government dominant at Paris nor the colour of its opinions concerned him so long as the peace of Europe was not threatened. By the same ready recognition of the advent of a Radical Ministry in France the German Chancellor anticipated any rapprochement between that country and Russia, of which latter Power it suited Prince Bismarck's purpose to profess his distrust.

In the minor question of the differences which had arisen at Constantinople between Sir Henry Layard and the Porte, the German Government lost no time in intervening and identifying itself with the English demands, not only on the ground that the Turkish authorities had acted in disregard of the Treaty of Berlin and that Dr. Koeller was by birth a German subject, but also on account of the friendly relations between Germany and England, to which the treaty had in a great measure owed its existence and strength.

At the same time the relations with Russia seemed day by day to grow more strained. Official and semi-official organs united in pointing to Russia as the sole element of disturbance in Europe, and charges of ingratitude were made against her for taking no account of the good services rendered to her by Prussia during the Crimean War and during the Polish insurrection of 1863. The allusion to the course pursued by Prussia on the latter occasion provoked an amusing recrimination, in the course of which it was asserted that Prince Bismarck, who had then just been appointed Prussian Premier, whilst openly closing the frontiers, seizing arms on their way to Poland, and holding down the national party at Posen, had secretly sent a confidential agent to Dresden to confer with the Polish refugees there to see whether they could not induce their countrymen to make a demonstration in favour of Prussia.

The statement aroused a general hubbub, and was immediately contradicted in the Norddeutsche Zeitung, which asserted that Prince Bismarck had not only held no intercourse with the Poles, but, on the contrary, had been asked by the Russian authorities,

when hard pressed by the rebels, whether he would not assist them in curbing the Poles by accepting all the land west of the Vistula. This question being only a repetition of overtures repeatedly made by Nicholas I., and urgently repeated at the period of the Crimean War, took no one by surprise at Berlin. It was, however, declined in 1863, as it had been on all previous occasions.

After a short time the matter was allowed to drop, in order apparently to make way for a still stranger story of an insult given to some German officers stationed on the Russian frontier. It was stated in the German papers that the Russian officers in garrison at Kalisch had invited their German neighbours to dinner, and that after dinner a discussion on political questions arose, which speedily took the form of a quarrel, the disputants drawing their swords. The matter was happily settled without bloodshed, but not without the news reaching both Berlin and St. Petersburg. The strange part of the story is that although the quarrel and the subsequent confinement of the officers and men of the two armies within their respective frontiers were facts apparently authenticated by wholly independent witnesses, the whole matter was officially pronounced to be a fabrication by the Commander-inChief of the 5th German Army Corps, stationed at Posen.

Whether the incident actually occurred matters but little; the comments which it excited in the press of both Empires showed clearly the antagonism which existed, if not between the German and Russian peoples, at least between those who guided the policy, if they did not shape the destiny, of the two Empires. Prince Bismarck, at all events, was not sorry to have thus fashioned for his hands, if not by them, a lever by which he hoped to move the German Parliament to consent to the imposition of increased military burdens; and at the same time to prove to Prince Gortschakoff that no attempt to re-cement the Triple Alliance would come from Germany; and that, were it reconstituted, it must be upon the terms to which Austria had agreed-the undisputed supremacy of Germany.

Whether there was ever any real danger of an open rupture between Russia and Germany cannot be accurately ascertained. At any rate the scare was most successfully raised, and the peril, if any, promptly averted. Towards the close of January the first rumours crept abroad that Austria and Germany proposed to ask diplomatically for an explanation of the massing of Russian troops alleged to be going on in Poland and in the western provinces of the Czar's dominions. The simultaneous hoisting of the danger signal in Berlin and Vienna, whilst it alarmed the commercial and peaceful inhabitants of both capitals, elicited from the St. Petersburg journals no other sign than a general disclaimer of hostile intentions. At the same time no concealment was there made of the chagrin occasioned by the apparently fixed determination of German statesmen to seek their future alliances in Central Europe, and to abandon the traditional policy of union with Russia. The