In the position in which he finds himself, William II has therefore no alternative; he must vastly increase his forces, while assuming the pacifist role.  He must pretend to be severe with the aristocracy of his army—­the apple of his eye—­and to be full of sympathetic concern for the welfare of the working classes and peasantry, whom he fears or despises, and who are nothing but cannon fodder to him.  And he does these things in order to sow seeds of mutual distrust between France and Russia.

He will use every possible expedient of trickery and guile, and, even more confident than his teacher Bismarck in the eternal gullibility of human nature, he will exploit it for all it is worth.

Take this example of our gullibility, as displayed in the question of passports for Alsace-Lorraine.  A section of the European Press, well primed for the purpose (the Guelph funds not having been restored, so far as we know, to their proper owner), continues unceasingly to implore William II to consent to a relaxation of the regulations in regard to these passports.  The idea is, that when our credulous fools come to learn that this relaxation has been granted, there will be absolutely no limit to their enthusiasm for him.  Already they speak of him good-naturedly as “this young Emperor.”

(Is it not so, that, every day, old friends whose rugged patriotism we thought unshakable, meet us with the inquiry, “Well, and what have you got to say now of this young Emperor?”)

This young Emperor piles falsehood upon falsehood.  If he permits any relaxation of the passport regulations, you may be perfectly certain that he will give orders that the permis de sejour are to be more severely restricted than before.  Once a passport is issued, it is of some value; but the permis de sejour is a weapon in the hands of the lower ranks of German officialdom, which they use with Pomeranian cruelty.  Every German bureaucrat in Alsace-Lorraine aims at preventing Frenchmen from residing there, at getting them out of the country; and nothing earns them greater favour in the eyes of their chiefs.  Therefore, if this “young Emperor” is to be asked to grant anything, let it be a relaxation of the permis de sejour.

To be allowed to travel amongst the brothers from whom we are separated, can only serve to aggravate the grief we feel at not being allowed to live amongst them.

William’s socialism is all of the same brand.  His first display of affection for the tyrant lower down was due to the fact that he used him to overthrow a tyrant higher up:  it was the socialist voter who broke the power of Bismarck.  When we see William embarking upon so many schemes of social reform all at once, we may be sure that he has no serious intention of carrying out any one of them.  After having made all sorts of lavish promises to the industrial workers, he is now busy giving undertakings to make the welfare of the peasantry his special care!