I mean that France offers us no security for the success of our efforts, though I will not say that it does not help. We will never seek occasion to quarrel. We will never attack France. In the many small occasions for trouble which the disposition of our neighbors to spy and to bribe has given us, we have made pleasant and amicable settlements. I would hold it grossly criminal to allow such trifles either to occasion a great national war or to make it probable. There are occasions when it is true that the "more reasonable gives way." I name Russia especially, and I have the same confidence in the result I had a year ago, when my expression gave this "Liberal" paper here occasion for black type. But I have it without running after-or, as a German paper expressed it, "groveling before Russia." That time has gone by. We no longer sue for favor, either in France or in Russia. The Russian press and Russian public opinion have shown the door to an old, powerful, and attached friend, as we were. We will not force ourselves upon them. We have sought to regain the old confidential relationship, but we will run after no one. But that does not prevent us from observing-it rather spurs us on to observe with redoubled care-the treaty rights of Russia. Among these treaty rights are some which are not conceded by all our friends: I mean the rights which at the Berlin congress Russia won in the matter of Bulgaria.

In consequence of the resolution of the congress, Russia up to 1885 chose as prince a near relative of the czar, concerning whom no one asserted or could assert that he was anything else than a Russian dependent. It appointed the minister of war and a greater part of the officials. In short, it governed Bulgaria. There is no possible doubt of it. The Bulgarians, or a part of them, or their prince-I do not know which were not satisfied. There was a coup d'état, and there has been a defection from Russia. This has created a situation which we have no call to change by force of arms, though its existence does not change theoretically the rights which Russia gained from the conference. But if Russia should seek to establish its rights forcibly, I do not know what difficulties might arise, and it does not concern us to know. We will not support forcible measures and will not advise them. I do not believe there

is any disposition toward them. I am sure no such inclination exists. But if through diplomatic means, through the intervention of the sultan as the suzerain of Bulgaria, Russia seeks its rights, then I assume that it is the province of loyal German statesmanship to give an unmistakable support to the provisions of the Berlin treaty, and to stand by the interpretation which, without exception, we gave it -an interpretation on which the voice of the Bulgarians cannot make me err. Bulgaria, the little state between the Danube and the Balkans, is certainly not of sufficient importance to justify plunging Europe into war from Moscow to the Pyrenees, from the North Sea to Palermo-a war the issue of which no one could foresee, at the end of which no one could tell what the fighting had been about.

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So I can say openly that the position of the Russian press, the unfriendliness we have experienced from Russian public opinion, will not prevent us from supporting Russia in a diplomatic attempt to establish its rights as soon as it makes up its mind to assert them in Bulgaria. I say deliberately, as soon as Russia expresses the wish." We have put ourselves to some trouble heretofore to meet the views of Russia on the strength of reliable hints; but we have lived to see the Russian press attacking, as hostile to Russia, the very things in German politics which were prompted by a desire to anticipate Russia's wishes. We did that at the congress, but it will not happen again. If Russia officially asks us to support measures for the restoration in Bulgaria of the situation approved by the congress, with the sultan as suzerain, I would not hesitate to advise his majesty, the emperor, that it should be done. This is the demand which the treaties make on our loyalty to a neighbor with whom, be the mood what it will, we have to maintain neighborly relations and defend great common interests of monarchy, such as the interests of order against its antagonists in all Europe-with a neighbor, I say, whose sovereign has a perfect understanding in this regard with the allied sovereigns. I do not doubt that when the Czar of Russia finds that the interests of his great empire of a hundred million people require war, he will make war. But his interests cannot possibly prompt him to make war against us. I do not think it at all probable that such

a question of interest is likely to present itself. I do not believe that a disturbance of the peace is imminent—if I may recapitulate-and I beg that you will consider the pending measure without regard to that thought or that apprehension, looking on it rather as a full restoration of the mighty power which God has created in the German people-a power to be used if we need it. If we do not need it we will not use it, and we will seek to avoid the necessity for its use. This attempt is made somewhat more difficult by threatening articles in foreign newspapers, and I may give special admonition to the outside world against the continuance of such articles. They lead to nothing. The threats made against us-not by the government, but in the newspapers-are incredibly stupid, when it is remembered that they assume that a great and proud power such as the German empire is capable of being intimidated by an array of black spots made by a printer on paper, a mere marshaling of words. If they would give up that idea, we could reach a better understanding with both our neighbors. Every country is finally answerable for the wanton mischief done by its newspapers, and the reckoning is liable to be presented some day in the shape of a final decision from some other country. We can be bribed very easily-perhaps too easily-with love and good-will. But with threats, never!

We Germans fear God, and nothing else in the world. It is the fear of God which makes us love peace and keep it. He who breaks it against us ruthlessly will learn the meaning of the warlike love of the Fatherland which in 1813 rallied to the standard the entire population of the then small and weak kingdom of Prussia; he will learn, too, that this patriotism is now the common property of the entire German nation, so that whoever attacks Germany will find it unified in arms, every warrior having in his heart the steadfast faith that God will be with us.

JAMES GILLESPIE BLAINE

A CENTURY OF PROTECTION

[James G. Blaine, statesman and orator, was born at West Brownsville, Pa., January 31, 1830. At the close of his collegiate course he became a teacher in a military institute at Blue Lick Spring, Ky., which position he resigned to take up the study of law in Pennsylvania. At the age of twenty-four he settled in Augusta, Me., and took up journalism. As editor of the "Kennebec Journal" he exerted an influence in Whig politics, but adopted the principles of Republicanism on the organization of that party. He was later editor of the "Portland Daily Advertiser." In 1860, having laid the foundations of a fortune, he abandoned newspaper work for politics. In 1858 he had entered the state legislature, and remained a member of that body until he was transferred to the national Congress. In 1862 he went to the House of Representatives at Washington, and in 1869 was appointed speaker. During the Hayes administration Mr. Blaine was senator from Maine, and at its close came before the convention a second time for the nomination, which, however, went to James A. Garfield. Blaine became Secretary of State in Garfield's cabinet. Soon after President Garfield's death he resigned his office. Retiring to private life he produced his valuable work, "Twenty Years of Congress," an account of the political life of the capital in which he had figured so conspicuously. On February 27, 1882, he delivered his eulogy on Garfield before the President and both houses of Congress. In 1884 he was nominated for President by the Republican party, but lost the election to Grover Cleveland. He died in 1893. His views on protection are set forth in a clear and enlightening manner in the following speech, which was made in New York City, 1888.]

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R. CHAIRMAN and fellow citizens: General Harrison has shown remarkable ability in condensing a whole argument within the dimensions of a proverb. This is a great and rare talent. It was the striking feature in Franklin's mode of reasoning, and was practised by Lincoln with irresistible effect. When General Harrison, in his letter of acceptance, described the dogmatic free-traders as

"students of maxims, and not of markets," he exposed in one brief sentence the fallacy and the weakness of their economic creed. They are in truth simply theorists, perpetually arguing from arbitrary premises to an ideal conclusion, and blindly rejecting the teachings of a century's experience a century during which protective revenue tariffs have had an equal chance to exhibit the results of their operations and of their relative effect upon all the material interests of the country. Whoever deceives himself as to the facts of the history of this long period does so wilfully or ignorantly.

From the foundation of the government to the war of 1812 there was no embittered controversy on the question of the tariff. The first act passed for levying duties on "foreign goods, wares, and merchandise," was reported by Mr. Madison, afterward President of the United States, and was in its preamble declared to be "for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and for the encouragement and protection of manufactures." It was the second enactment placed on the statute book of the United States, and received President Washington's approval on an auspicious and prophetic anniversary—the Fourth of July, 1789. It affirmed both the power and the policy of protective duties-the affirmation being sealed by the unanimous vote of the Senate, and by a majority of more than five to one in the House of Representatives-both houses containing many of those who had taken a prominent part in framing the Constitution of the United States. Since that vote all arguments against the constitutional right and power of the government to levy protective duties have been as futile as a contradiction of Euclid's demonstrations.

Between the adoption of the first tariff act and the beginning of the war of 1812 twelve additional acts were passed, generally increasing the rate of duty and adding to their protective power. The indisputable effect of these protective acts had been to stimulate the growth of all the material interests of the country in a remarkable degree. The population increased in a greater ratio from 1790 to 1810 than in any subsequent twenty years in the life of the republic, and this was an index of the growth of agricul