e Law" frightened even a docile Reichstag, and the Catholic
party refused to vote it. Bismarck, who for ten years had fought the
Pope, and who had thundered against the interference of a foreign
ecclesiastical potentate in temporal matters, now asked the Pope to
interfere in favour of the Army Bill. To the discredit of the Papacy,
Leo XIII. fell into the trap. Leo XIII. exerted pressure on the
Catholic party. But they still were recalcitrant. Bismarck and the
Pope proved equally persistent. Finally, at the behest of the Iron
Chancellor and with the assistance of the Vicar of Christ, the
Reichstag passed that fatal military law, which was the beginning of
the colossal European armaments, which were to increase the political
tension of Europe until breaking-point, and which was to result in the
present catastrophe. Thus is Parliamentary Government carried on in
the Empire of the Hohenzollern!

Passive obedience and discipline are the cardinal virtues inculcated
by the Hohenzollern. "_Verboten_," "_Nicht raisonniren_," are their
watchwords. A Hohenzollern brooks no opposition. "_Wir bleiben doch
der Herr und Koenig und thun was wir wollen_," said the
Sergeant-King. And two hundred years after, the Kaiser expresses the
same imperial sentiments: "_Wer mir nicht gehorcht, den zerschmettere
ich_" (Whoever refuses to obey, I shall smash). Bismarck, who created
the German Empire, was dismissed like a lackey. Baron von Stein, who
reformed the Prussian State, and who stands out as the greatest
statesman of his age, was ignominiously dismissed. Ingratitude has
always formed part of the Hohenzollern code of royal ethics.

We are told by the apologists of the Hohenzollern that the same
discipline, the same obedience to duty, are practised by the rulers
themselves. "_Ich Dien_" is the Hohenzollern motto. Of all the
servants of the Prussian State, there is none who serves it more
loyally, more strenuously, than the King of Prussia. "I am the
Commander-in-Chief and the Minister of Finance of the King of
Prussia," said the Sergeant-King of himself. How often have the
Prussian Kings been held up as shining examples of devotion to duty!
Behold how hard a Hohenzollern King has to work for the State! In the
same way the business man who rules his staff with a rod of iron might
say to his discontented workmen: "See how strenuously I labour for the
success of the business!" The workmen would probably answer that the
ceaseless toil of the bus