ought two motives to
have been paramount in the chancellor's mind when he separated from the
liberals and became, not a convinced, but a thorough-going
protectionist. It is not said that these were his only motives.
Chess-players know that each important move affects not only the
figures primarily attacked, but changes the whole texture of the play.

First, then, and foremost, fresh sources of income were wanted to make
the finances of the empire independent from the several exchequers of
the states bound by statute to make up for any deficiency _pro rata
parte_ of their population. Two or three objects would have provided the
needful, viz., spirits and beetroot sugar, and (with due caution)
tobacco; or an "imperial" income tax, changing according to each year's
necessities; or both systems combined. Tobacco, it is true, was tried,
and the attempt failed. Spirits would bear almost any taxation, but the
chancellor does not choose to tread upon the tender toe of the great
owners of land who are potato-growers, and consequently distillers on a
large scale. And another important class of agriculturists, the beetroot
growers and sugar-producers, were not to be trifled with either. But how
about direct taxation, the manly sacrifice of free peoples, the plummet
by which to sound the enlightenment of a nation? The chancellor
instinctively felt, I believe, that there he would be going beyond his
depth; that under such a _regime_ the free will of citizens must have
the fullest swing; the "prerogative" would suffer, if not immediately,
yet as a necessary sequence. And so he deliberately abandoned free trade
and espoused indirect taxation and protection.

Success, let free traders say what they please on the subject, success
has accompanied Bismarck's genius on this novel field, as well as on the
older fields where all mankind acknowledges his superiority. For the
coffers of the empire are filling. A motley majority in the Reichstag
not only accepts, but improves upon his protectionist demands. He has
become the demigod of the bloated manufacturing, mining, and landlord
interests throughout the country. He is now about to win the last of the
great industries, and the one which withstood his blandishments the
longest, viz., the trans-oceanic carrying trade. He is credited with
having improved the state of certain trades, even by such as know
perfectly well that, like the former depression, the present improvement
in those has been