Bismarck himself put it in this way:  that the introduction of Free Trade in 1865 soon produced a state of atrophy in Germany; this was checked for a time by the French war indemnity; but Germany needed a permanent cure, namely, Protection.  It is true that his ideal of national life had always been strict and narrow—­in fact, that of the average German official; but we may doubt whether he had in view solely the shelter of the presumedly tender flora of German industry from the supposed deadly blasts of British, Austrian, and Russian competition.  He certainly hoped to strengthen the fabric of his Empire by extending the customs system and making its revenue depend more largely on that source and less on the contributions of the federated States.  But there was probably a still wider consideration.  He doubtless wished to bring prominently before the public gaze another great subject that would distract it from the religious feuds described above and bring about a rearrangement of political parties.  The British people has good reason to know that the discussion of fiscal questions that vitally touch every trade and every consumer, does act like the turning of a kaleidoscope upon party groupings; and we may fairly well assume that so far-seeing a statesman as Bismarck must have forecast the course of events.

Reasons of statecraft also warned him to build up the Empire four-square while yet there was time.  The rapid recovery of France, whose milliards had proved somewhat of a “Greek gift” to Germany, had led to threats on the part of the war party at Berlin, which brought from Queen Victoria, as also from the Czar Alexander, private but pressing intimations to Kaiser Wilhelm that no war of extermination must take place.  This affair and its results in Germany’s foreign policy will occupy us in Chapter XII.  Here we may note that Bismarck saw in it a reason for suspecting Russia, hating England, and jealously watching every movement in France.  Germany’s future, it seemed, would have to be safeguarded by all the peaceable means available.  How natural, then, to tone down her internal religious strifes by bringing forward another topic of still more absorbing interest, and to aim at building up a self-contained commercial life in the midst of uncertain, or possibly hostile, neighbours.  In truth, if we view the question in its broad issues in the life of nations, we must grant that Free Trade could scarcely be expected to thrive amidst the jealousies and fears entailed by the war of 1870.  That principle presupposes trust and good-will between nations; whereas the wars of 1859, 1864, and 1870 left behind bitter memories and rankling ills.  Viewed in this light, Germany’s abandonment of Free Trade in 1878 was but the natural result of that forceful policy by which she had cut the Gordian knot of her national problem.