domineering arrogance of officers and officials, the restraints upon the Press and the shameless manufacture of news and inspiration of opinion from official sources, the control of the Universities, the schools, and the public services by the State in the interest of “orthodox” political opinions, and the ridiculous laws which have sent editors and cartoonists to prison in scores for criticising the behaviour and utterances of the Emperor or the Crown Prince.  In England and in America underground attempts are sometimes made to injure the careers of men whose opinions are considered “dangerous” by those who employ them.  In Germany such interference with freedom of political thought is not the exception:  it has become the rule.  No man can make a successful career in the public service (and education is a public service) unless he is considered politically “orthodox” (gesinnungstuechtig); and orthodoxy does not simply mean abstention from damaging criticism or dangerous opinions:  it means, in practice, deference to the opinions of those who “know better,” that is, to the clique of Prussian generals and bureaucrats who, together with the Kaiser, control the policy of the country.

British readers who do not know Germany may think the foregoing indictment of German political incapacity severe.  It is not so severe as Prince Buellow’s.  The portion of the late Imperial Chancellor’s book which deals with domestic policy opens with these crushing sentences:  “The history of our home policy, with the exception of a few bright spots, is a history of political mistakes.  Despite the abundance of merits and great qualities with which the German nation is endowed, political talent has been denied it....  We are not a political people.”  A page or two later he goes even further and quotes with approval a dictum that the Germans are “political donkeys.”  That a modern statesman should think this of his fellow-countrymen is remarkable enough; that he should say it outright is a still more remarkable proof of his unshakeable belief in their submissiveness.  Therein lies the whole tragedy of the present situation.  The German people, so kindly and, alas! so docile, is suffering, not for its sins, but for its deficiencies; not for its own characteristic acts or natural ambitions, but for what it has too tamely allowed others, Prussian statesmen and soldiers, with alien ideals and an alien temper, to foist upon it, until it has become an integral part of its natural life and consciousness.  Germany has been indoctrinated and Prussianised not only into acquiescence, but into sympathy with the policy of its rulers.