whether it be in Galicia, Bohemia, Venetia, or Hungary. Now, though in the case of an individual, the fact of his kicking may convey to his friends the confidence that the person in question is in possession of an uncommon amount of vitality, yet in the case of an Empire these kicks convey rather the notion of the approaching death struggle.

Happily for her, it is only in the Grand Duchy of Posen that Prussia is reduced to the necessity of showing her vitality by kicking. Here alone she

finds herself face to face with a foreign element, and her strength as a German Power is so much weakened by the complications which arise from the luxury, which she persists in indulging in, of oppressing a nationality. The stranger who from the gallery of the Chamber of Deputies at Berlin looks down on the assembled representatives of the nation cannot fail to be struck with the compact harmony of the German element, marred only by those three benches of Polish members who sit immediately to the left of the tribune. Then let him go to Vienna, and consider the infinite diversity of nationalities which are ranged before him on the benches of the Reichsrath, and, by using his eyes alone, he will acquire a more correct idea of the respective strength and weakness of the so-called two great German Powers than any amount of reading would give him.

Having, then, but a single foreign element to deal with, Prussia has enjoyed a very confined sphere for developing the talent of playing off nationalities against each other, and setting the uneducated against the educated classes of the community, a science in which Austria has proved herself so proficient. If she

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has succeeded in Germanizing the towns of the Grand Duchy of Posen to a far greater extent than Austria has in robbing them of their Polish aspect in Galicia, on the other hand, her efforts to gain over the peasantry have been crowned with a very small measure of success compared with that of Austria. This result is attributable to a variety of circumstances. In the first place, it must be borne in mind that a deep-seated feud exists between the German and Polish nationalities, and that the two come into much more decided conflict in the Grand Duchy of Posen than in Galicia. A glance at the map will show at once the different circumstances of the two provinces. While the Duchy of Posen, on the one hand, is surrounded on three sides by German territory, Galicia, on the other hand, is not touched at any point by Germany, properly so called. The result of this diversity of position is that, whereas there can be no mistake about the matter in Posen, the Galician peasantry are barely aware that in Austria they have a German power to deal with. The Prussian employés in the Grand Duchy of Posen belong to the purest type of German red-tapeism, rarely take the trouble to learn Polish, and are thus debarred from all immediate intercourse with the peasantry. Austria, on the other hand, has a very limited number of purely German employés at her disposal to plant with their wives and families in the towns of Galicia, and so to Germanize the province. The result is, that she is driven to employ such a motley staff of State servants in Galicia, that the peasantry are driven to their wits' end to know exactly with what power they have to deal. In one town you find an Italian, in another a Bohemian, in a third an Hungarian, and as

they all speak Polish, the peasantry are much more open to their influence. Both in the Duchy of Posen and in Galicia, when a peasant wishes to use the most aggravating term he can think of in abusing his neighbour, he calls him a "German dog" (pies niemiecki), an expression which sufficiently proves that no very amiable understanding exists between the two nationalities. Nothing would induce a Polish peasant to admit that he was a German, but he has no objection to be styled Kaiserlich," a true liege of the Emperor. On the contrary, there is something in this phrase which takes his fancy, and he struts about his village, wearing with great satisfaction the Imperial arms on his cap. In the word "Königlich," which is all Prussia has to offer to the peasant, there is no such charm, especially where it entails the unmistakable adoption of a nationality so hated as the German is in all Sclavonic lands.

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Again, in considering the disadvantages under which Prussia labours in dealing with the peasantry as compared with Austria, the opposition between the religion of the Government and the people must not be left out of sight. Indeed, it would appear that the influence of a community of religion is even more potent with an uneducated peasantry than that of a common nationality. Towards the proof of this fact Galicia supplies a positive, and the Grand Duchy of Posen a negative instance. In Galicia you find a Catholic German Government gaining an extraordinary influence over a Catholic Polish peasantry, and in Posen, in the case of the Bamberger, you find a Protestant German Government losing its hold of a Catholic German peasantry. It is a fact, then, that Prussia, so far from winning

over the Polish peasantry in the Grand Duchy of Posen, actually finds one portion of those of German origin becoming more and more estranged from her.

The crucial years 1846 and 1848 will also throw light on the bearing of the Polish peasantry towards Austria and Prussia respectively. Whereas in Galicia you find the peasants cutting the throats of the proprietors, in Posen you find German officials and German troops flying for their lives before an infuriated peasantry. When, at the expiration of several months, Prussia could spare a sufficient force from other parts of the monarchy to put down the insurrection in Posen, she adopted measures by no means calculated to conciliate the peasantry. Instead of making political capital out of the opportunity by treating them leniently, she branded all her peasant prisoners on the neck and arm, and they naturally have acted ever since as so many living advertisements of the benevolent disposition of the Prussian Government. The remarkable contrast between the events of 1848 in Posen, and 1846 in Galicia-itself the effect of more deeplyseated causes-became in its turn one of the causes of the present diversity in the bearing of the peasantry towards the Austrian and Prussian Governments respectively.

In taking a comprehensive view of the whole question, the circumstance that the emancipation of the serfs took place in Prussia in 1823, and in Austria in 1848, must also be considered. In having the precious boon of giving the peasant his liberty still at her disposal, Austria here again, little as she deserved it, enjoyed a considerable advantage over Prussia. In the stormy year of 1848, Austria had still the valuable cargo of serfdom on board, which she lost no time in pitching into the sea to save the

ship, when the waves ran high. Prussia, on the other hand, had nothing immediately at her disposal wherewith to satisfy the hungry appetites of the peasantry, and in Posen she positively suffered for her enlightenment in bringing about the emancipation of the serfs twenty-five years earlier than Austria. In her case, if virtue was not its own reward, she had no other.