injure the influence of the middle classes by the admission of undesirable elements (meaning the Socialists); that the electoral system for the Empire, with the latter’s national tasks, should be on a broader basis than in the case of the individual States, where the electors are chiefly concerned with administration, the school, and the Church; and that it would bring the Imperial and Prussian Parliaments into conflict to the injury of German unity.  The Emperor has made only one reference to electoral reform in Prussia, a promise, namely, he gave the Diet in October of this year, that the regulations concerning the voting should experience

“an organic further development, which should correspond to the economic progress, the spread of education and political understanding, and the strengthening of the feeling of State responsibility.”

No reform, however, has yet been effected by legislation.

As to disarmament, Germany’s position is simply negative, though it may be noticed by anticipation that she has recently (1913) expressed her disposition to accept the proportion of ten German to sixteen English first-class battleships suggested by Sir Edward Grey in 1912 as offering the basis of a possibly permanent arrangement.  At the time now dealt with, however, Chancellor von Buelow asserted that no proposal that could serve as a basis had ever been submitted to his Government, and added that even if such a proposal were made it was doubtful if it could be accepted.  It was not merely the number of ships, he said, that was involved; there were a host of technical questions—­standards, criteria of all sorts, which could not be expressed in figures, economic progress abroad and the possible effect of new scientific inventions—­to be considered.  Lastly there were the navy laws, which the Government was pledged to carry out.  As for military disarmament, the Emperor and his advisers regard it as impossible, considering the unfavourable strategic situation of Germany in the midst of Europe, with exposed frontiers on every side.

This year the Emperor and his family took up their quarters for the first time in their new Corfu spring residence “Achilleion.”  They were met by the Royal Family of Greece, who showed them over the Castle, and in the evening were welcomed by the mayor of Corfu, who, in a flight of metaphor, said his people desired to wreathe the Emperor’s “Olympic brow” with a crown of olive.  That the Emperor did not pass his days wholly in admiring the beauty of the scenery was shown by the fact that a few days after his arrival he delivered a lecture in the Castle on “Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar,” being prompted thereto by a book on the subject by Captain Mark Kerr, of H.M.S. Implacable.  The Emperor illustrated his lecture with sketches drawn by himself of the positions of the united French and Spanish fleets during the battle.