ich he belonged. Who was so
well suited to solve the difficulties of internal policy with which
Bismarck had struggled so long? Hopes never to be fulfilled! Absent from
his father's deathbed, he returned to Berlin a crippled and dying man,
and when a few weeks later his body was lowered into the grave, there
were buried with him the hopes and aspirations of a whole generation.

His early death was indeed a great misfortune for his country. Not that
he would have fulfilled all the hopes of the party that would have made
him their leader. It is never wise to depend on the liberalism of a
Crown Prince. When young and inexperienced he had been in opposition to
his father's government--but his father before him had, while heir to
the throne, also held a similar position to his own brother. As Crown
Prince, he had desired and had won popularity; he had been even too
sensitive to public opinion. His, however, was a character that required
only responsibility to strengthen it; with the burden of sovereignty he
would, we may suppose, have shewn a fixity of purpose which many of his
admirers would hardly have expected of him, nor would he have been
deficient in those qualities of a ruler which are the traditions of his
family. He was not a man to surrender any of the prerogatives or
authority of the Crown. He had a stronger will than his father, and he
would have made his will felt. His old enmity to Bismarck had almost
ceased. It is not probable that with the new Emperor the Chancellor
would long have held his position, but he would have been able to
transfer the Crown to a man who had learnt wisdom by prolonged
disappointment. How he would have governed is shewn by the only act of
authority which he had time to carry out. He would have done what was
more important than giving a little more power to the Parliament: he
would at once have stopped that old and bad system by which the Prussian
Government has always attempted to schoolmaster the people. During his
short reign he dismissed Herr von Puttkammer, the Minister of the
Interior, a relative of Bismarck's wife, for interfering with the
freedom of election; we may be sure that he would have allowed full
freedom of speech; and that he would not have consented to govern by aid
of the police. Under him there would not have been constant trials for
_Majestaetsbeleidigung_ or _Bismarckbeleidigung_. This he could have done
without weakening the power of the Crown or the authority of