THE KAISER’S NEW CHANCELLOR.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2593, 30 August 1909, Page 7

THE KAISER’S NEW CHANCELLOR.

A PERSONAL SKETCH) (From the Berlin Correspondent of the “Daily Mail,”) The Kaiser’s new Chancellor is his boyhood’s friend find college “chum.” That and the circumstance that Dr Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg is of Jewish origin, like th© Colonial Secretary, Herr Dernhurg, are the facts standing out most prominently in connection with his elevation to .the office hallowed with the/ memories and traditions of Bismarck. The .appointment has not taken Germany: by surprise. As Prince Buelow’s Vice-Chancellor and a known intimate of the Emperor of many yearlf standing, Von BethmannHollweg has long been a logical candidate for the Chancellorship, and liis selection became a foregone conclusion from the moment Prince Buelow, in response to the Kaiser’s invitation, nominated him as his successor.

> Although the new steersman of Germany’s imperial destinies lias had a distinguished official career, arid has risen by legitimate steps to Prime Ministerial rank, he is a little-known personality. The type of a Prussian bureaucrat, who began as assessor, rose to county supervisor, became a provincial president, then a Prussian Minister, and later an Imperial Secretary of State, his advance through the stereotyped grades of German officialdom has been altogether characteristic. Modest of bearing and by temperament, he has never intruded himself into the glare of public notice. His administrative career has been marked by a studious restriction to official duties. WHEN THE KAISER INTERVENES. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg’s official career has lain far remote from the paths of diplomacy and foreign affairs. His have been the prosaic problems of local government and home administra-tion-fields in which he is almost without a peer among liis. country men. He approaches the task of directing Germany’s Weltpolitik, therefore, practically a novice. That is a circumstance which leads Germans to conclude that the Kaiser will be very much his own Chancellor —as Bismarck predicted—in so far, at least, as foreign affairs aro concerned. Either that, or the portfolio of Germfin Foreign Secretary will for the first time become something more than a titular position. Von Bethmann-Hollweg will lean heavily on Baron von Schon, who under the Buelow regime was hardly more than the Chancellor’s private secretary for foreign affairs. It was at Bonn, the celebrated university on the Rhine, where all the Hohenzollerns of later generations have studied, that Chancellor von BethmannHollweg met and became the friend of Emperor William 11. Their real intimacy springs from their membership of the famous Borussia student-corps. Many of the young noblemen who had the honor of being Prince William’s college comrades and “corps brothers” at v Bonn have risen to posts of eminence in the Fatherland’s service, for one of the Kaiser’s finest traits is a predilection'for “taking care of his friends.” After leaving the university young Von Bethmann-Hollweg took the State examination for the Civil Service, mounting the first 'rung on the bureaucratic ladder, that of an “Assessorship,” in 1885.

Before he was .thirty, in 1886, he had become Landrat of Oberbarnim, a post at which bo spent ten years .grounding himself thoroughly in the principles of Prussian local government. Oberbarnim elected him to" the Reichstag in 1890, but he resigned bis seat. In 1896 be was called to the executive department of the provincial presidency of Potsdam, where he served for three years and had many opportunities of renewing with his student-comrade of Bonn, now Kaiser, the ties of university days. In 1899 The Emperor promoted his college friend to the high post of President of the Government of Bromberg, and within three months had advanced him still another grade by making him President of the province of Brandenburg, with headquarters at where he was once again to enjoy the comradeship of his imperial patron. The Presidency of Brandenburg is a natural stepping-stone to Ministerial honors in Prussia,- and 1905 brought Von Bethmann-Hollweg the traditional distinction in the shape of appointment as Prussian Home Secretary. Two - years later the Kaiser promoted him from the Prussian Cabinet to a place in the Imperial Government as Secretary of the Imperial Home Office, the position which carries with it the additional rank of Vice-Chancel-lor and Vice-President of the Prussian Ministry. ’ DEVOTION TO PRINCE BUELOW. In all these offices Von BethmannHollweg distinguished himself by zeal, industry, and capacity. His cevotion to Prince von Buelow was a marked feature of his Ministerial career. The late Chancellor was accustomed frequently to entrust Von Betlimann-Holl-weg with his representation in critical parliamentary and political situations, and their personal relations were of the most intimate and confidential character. As a parliamentary figure Von Bethmann-Hollweg is not striking, but always impressive. He is less brilliant than Buelow, hut more convincing and thorough. The world will miss the raillery of the late Chancellor, but will get in its stead plain speaking and the wit that springs from brevity. / Prince Buelow has enjoyed the reputation of being able to sway the Kaiser and to check Iris impulses. Von Beth-mann-Hollweg has been privileged to he his Majesty’s intimate personal friend, and the assumption is reasonable that his influence in imperial quarters will be no less potent than Buelow’s. He enters office as the heir of a humiliating Government defeat at the hands of the Conservative-Catholic oligarchy,, which has seized the reins of parliamentary power in Germany. As yet there is no evidence that the Government will gird itself foe battle- with its conquerors. But Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg —Bethmann (pronounced Bateman), as he will! often be called—behind his amiable, philosophical mask, is an adept in the art of domestic politics; and the “black and blue” alliance, which drove Buelow from power, may find it has raised in his place another Chancellor of blood and'iron.