The Year in Germany

LOOKING back over events in Germany for a year and a half, the first impression made upon the mind is that it has not been a time of great achievement in the Fatherland. We have had the Morocco question, with the Algeciras Conference, it is true; but its outcome for Germany quite fails to meet any proper standard of great achievement. The people of Germany are largely in harmony with foreign opinion upon that point. That question has now happily dropped below the horizon; but it will be necessary, in subsequent paragraphs, to give some attention to it, since the present position of Germany in European politics has been strongly influenced by the prolonged diplomatic wrangle at Paris and Algeciras.

Any observer of recent tendencies in Germany must be impressed with the restlessness and discontent of the people. The country is immensely prosperous, its military strength by sea and land is greater than ever before, its position in the intellectual struggle for existence in the world is unimpaired, — and yet one can hardly touch a sphere of the national life where discontent with existing conditions is not the prevalent note. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, the new Prussian Minister of the Interior, recently confessed in the Chamber of Deputies, “A bitter feeling of discontent weighs to-day upon our public life.” Everywhere the complaining tone! Now it is the isolation of Germany, which is felt to be surrounded by enemies on all sides; now it is the fruitless waste of life and money in the colonies; many are disgusted beyond measure with internal political conditions, — the lack of constitutional forms adapted to the life of a modern state, the political impotence of the people in Prussia under its antiquated electoral system, the ever-present struggle with Socialism, the division and consequent helplessness of the Liberal parties, the predominance of the Clerical party, school legislation out of harmony with the modern spirit, pronounced tendencies toward a conservative orthodoxy in the administration of the universities and the State Church of Prussia, the growing hostility between labor and capital, new taxes, — all these matters have latterly marked the points of hottest conflict. These are all substantial problems; the friction here was no mere German querulousness.

The future trade relations between Germany and the United States are a subject of the utmost importance at this moment for the commercial people of both lands. That the present provisional arrangement, under which the United States gets the full advantages of Germany’s commercial treaties without giving any substantial equivalent, is untenable, is fully recognized in Germany. The arrangement is so obviously disadvantageous to Germany that Prince Büllow, in proposing its ratification by the Reichstag, particularly emphasized its temporary character. It was made only to extend to June, 1907, he said, so as not to create the impression that it was to be a permanent settlement. The sentiment of the majority speakers, too, was distinctly against its prolongation beyond that date, unless the American government should meanwhile make satisfactory concessions. Even so the Conservatives and some of the National Liberals voted against the measure.

The industrial and commercial classes, while fully admitting the unfavorable nature of the provisional arrangement, were willing to accept it; but they, too, are wholly averse to the idea of continuing it indefinitely. The Central Association of German Manufacturers, a great composite organization representing the entire industries of the country, explained its agreement upon the ground that Germany is not yet ready for a tariff-war with the United States. The Association insists, however, that a prolongation would not accord with either the interests or the dignity of the German Empire; and it warns German manufacturers to prepare in good time for a tariff war, which it declares to be unavoidable if we, on our side, continue our present policy.

“Give the United States time to reflect,” was the calming admonition of Count Posadowsky to impatient members of the Reichstag. Meanwhile Germans are watching eagerly for evidence that we are reflecting; but they have found little to convince them that we are preparing to approach the question in a fair give-and-take spirit. The failure of the Ways and Means Committee even to report Secretary Root’s bills, designed to carry out promises made to Germany in consideration of her extension to us of the most-favored-nation treatment, has made a most disappointing impression here. This ascendency of the “ stand-pat ” element at Washington has nearly dissipated all hopes among the German people that the dominant party in the United States will consent to give Germany a just equivalent for its treaty duties.

On this side government and people alike are anxious to make a fair arrangement with us; and the government in particular, I have good reason to believe, is willing to go considerably more than half-way to meet us. Its policy toward the United States remains one of completest friendliness. The existing temporary arrangement is the fruit of that policy. The general good-will with which Germany is ready to take up the question of reciprocity deserves a hearty response from our side. It is to our advantage to cultivate her friendship and promote harmonious trade relations with her; and every consideration of decent self-respect requires that we should do our full part toward putting those relations upon a basis satisfying to both peoples. It does not comport with the dignity or the interest of our country to place before Germany the hard alternatives, either of giving us her full treaty scale of duties without any fair return on our part, or else of imposing her maximum duties, which will be equivalent to a declaration of commercial warfare and can only lead to estrangement and bitterness between Germans and Americans.

The present anomalous adjustment of our trade relations is already doing much to prejudice the general attitude of the German public toward us. It intensifies German sensitiveness and multiplies points of friction. The feeling of being treated unfairly causes the Germans to discover rudeness and ingratitude toward their country in trifling incidents, and even to snatch up with avidity false reports of how we snub the Kaiser. The Brooklyn Library hung his portrait in a dark corridor; his splendid gifts to the Germanic Museum at Harvard were housed in a shed, — so German editors reiterated to the point of weariness. When it was shown that these statements were inventions they again touched the old and strident note of the impolite delay in setting up the Frederick monument; and, at any rate, the Americans are a thoroughly reckless and selfish people, quite incapable of appreciating the finer courtesies of international intercourse. A more substantial grievance is found in our reciprocity treaty with Cuba, which has practically shut German sugar out of the American market; and latterly the commercial press is complaining about the temporary reduction of duties conceded to us by Brazil. Needless to add, the Pan-American Congress is another manœuvre on our part to gobble up South American trade and narrow Germany’s market there.

The course of the American delegates at Algeciras in steadily supporting Germany’s demand for the “open door” in Morocco was a grateful assistance to German policy at a moment when it was most needed. That support was appreciated in the Wilhelm Strasse as an act of friendship, and as a chief factor in securing equality of treatment for the commerce of all nations in Morocco.

The Morocco controversy left with most other nations a distinctly disagreeable impression of the disturbing tendencies of German policy. That unfortunate struggle was opened by the Kaiser in his famous speech at Tangier, which astonished the German people not less than other nations. For the Germans had learned to acquiesce in the Anglo-French settlement, under which France was to have a free hand for its scheme of pénétration pacifique in Morocco. The utterances of the Imperial Chancellor in the Reichstag clearly indicated that the government accepted with good grace the general terms of that settlement. The people, too, had been schooled by the inspired press in the theory that Germany’s commercial interests in Morocco were so insignificant as not to warrant the inauguration of a large and energetic action to assert them; and this view had been generally accepted by them, barring the noisy little faction of Pan-Germans.

The chief fault of Germany’s Morocco policy was, accordingly, that it was sprung upon the German people themselves without warning, without any preparation of their minds for it; hence they imperfectly comprehended it and never had any great interest in it. They did not feel that it was a matter intimately affecting the nation’s interests; and while the German ambassador at Paris was asserting Germany’s solidarity with Morocco, the press at home was diligently occupied in convincing the outside world that Germany would never go to war on account of that remote and insignificant state.

Despite the abruptness and lack of skill in launching its new policy, however, the government’s position was logical and, within certain limits, reasonable. France and England had assumed to decide the fate of Morocco between themselves, whereas the Madrid Treaty of 1880, to which Germany was signatory, had explicitly given an international character to the Moroccan question. This was clearly an affront to Germany’s dignity and an attempt to isolate her, which ought to have been objected to at once. The German government’s claim that it had not been officially informed of the agreement between France and England may rest upon a difference of definitions; at any rate, it awaited France’s first decided step toward the “Tunisation” of Morocco before uttering its veto. This energy on the part of Germany compelled M. Delcassé to reveal to his colleagues of the Ministry his deliberate policy of bringing on a war with Germany. The French people recoiled indignantly from his plan, and the bellicose minister fell from lack of home support. He was not a tub thrown to the German whale, but the “victim” of his own devious designs, and only incidentally the waste-product of German policy.

And the result at Algeciras ? The Berlin government had to retreat from many of its contentions, undoubtedly; yet the total outcome was not unfavorable to Germany. The principle of the “open door” was maintained, and the international character of the Moroccan question placed beyond all dispute. The “Tunisation” of the country was prevented. It was therefore but an expression of malevolence when certain foreign newspapers represented the result as a complete failure of Germany’s case. She did not even get her coaling station on the Moroccan coast, wrote one American editor, although Germany had not even hinted at such a demand. Think of Germany calling an international conference as a step toward getting a coaling station!

Yet, in a larger way, Germany’s Morocco policy was a mistake, even from the standpoint of her own interests. It gave a great impetus to the existing antiGerman feeling abroad in the world, and impressed foreign cabinets with the conviction that Germany was ready, upon slight occasion, to create difficult and dangerous diplomatic situations. It was not shrewdly conceived on the part of Germany, since it laid bare her isolation in a way that cut deep into the national consciousness. German statesmen, indeed, consoled themselves with the reflection that the Fatherland is strong enough to stand alone, and that it were better in any case to know her true position and face it; but Algeciras did more than reveal a situation, — it created one.

The Conference proved the Triple Alliance to be practically at an end. While the directors of German policy fully accept Bismarck’s dictum that treaties and alliances have validity only so long as the circumstances for which they were created exist, and while they admit that circumstances have greatly changed for Italy, still they were justly incensed at the manner in which that country deserted her ally. Tittoni’s previous understanding with France, carefully kept secret from Germany, gave deep offense here to government and people alike. Italy was felt to be an untrustworthy ally, and the Kaiser’s failure to telegraph his sympathies to Victor Emmanuel upon the eruption of Vesuvius was rightly interpreted in and out of Germany as marking his displeasure. It was disappointing, too, to see that even Austria felt ill at ease at being left alone in Germany’s company. This was shown by the cold attitude of the Austrian press, and the distinctly hostile tone of the Hungarian parliament and press, when the Kaiser was about to make his visit to Franz Joseph. Happily, however, the German monarch succeeded in disarming the apprehensions of the Austrians and, to a great extent, of the Hungarians, by that visit; and the alliance remains to all appearances intact at that point.

Another keen disappointment at Algeciras was the course of Russia. Germany had gone to such great lengths to court that country’s friendship that Germans expected Russia, where it could not support Germany’s proposals, at least to vote against them in discreet silence. Lamsdorff’s publication of his instructions to Cassini to support France’s position therefore naturally called forth much bitter comment. It was felt to be a gratuitous blow at German sensibilities; and when the government a few weeks later debarred the Russian loan from Germany, the people accepted its decision as an act demanded by mere self-respect. The attempts of the St. Petersburg government to frighten the Poles, and of the Constitutional Democrats to frighten the government by raising the bogey of German interference, have been received in Germany at their true value as mere subterfuges to promote selfish ends. It is certain that not the slightest disposition exists in Germany, either with government or people, to become involved in the Russian muddle. Strong a personality as the Kaiser is, he would not venture to propose so unpopular a policy as a German invasion of Russia in behalf of the Romanoffs, or for setting up an orderly government of any kind. Why should he ? A weak or dismembered Russia would be equivalent to doubling Germany’s strength on her southwestern frontier.

It is pleasant to note that the relations between England and Germany have undergone a distinct improvement since the Conference. Demonstrations of sympathy directly between the two peoples, like the recent visit of fifty German editors to London, have undoubtedly had a good effect, and paved the way for a better understanding between the two governments. The unfortunate estrangement between the Kaiser and the King was ended at the recent Cronberg meeting, and a perfect reconciliation effected. Henceforth, it may be confidently hoped, a better feeling will prevail on both sides of the Channel.

Germany’s colonial policy has probably at no time been so trying to the patience of the people as to-day. They have grown so weary of their colonial disappointments that a new word, “Kolonialmüdigkeit,” — or “that tired feeling” about the colonies — has been coined to express their mental attitude. In southwest Africa the Herreros have been practically exterminated, indeed, but the tough remnants of the Witboi Hottentots still keep up the struggle from their mountain fastnesses. The hard campaigning over those thirsty wastes has kept the little German army busy for nearly three years; but the end of its struggle with disease, thirst, and human foes seems at last to be not far off. In east Africa repeated uprisings of the natives, far less warlike than those of southwest Africa, have occurred for above a year; but the handful of German troops there have been able to quell them with ease. Cameroons and Togo, the two other African colonies, are also sources of trouble in a different way. The governor of the former and the ex-governor of the latter have returned to Germany under serious charges, which are now under investigation. To add to all these unpleasant chapters in colonial history, a grave scandal has been unearthed in the Colonial Office at Berlin. There has apparently been some “graft;” officials inexperienced in business made disadvantageous contracts in behalf of the government; and the treasury has suffered loss.

The heavy expenditure of money in the colonies, and for the increase of army and navy, necessitated an enlargement of the public revenues. The treasury had been hampered for years with an annual deficit, and the national debt has been steadily increased for a long period through loans issued nearly every year. The government proposed taxes on beer and tobacco, which are more lightly taxed in Germany than in most other countries. The German taxpayer, however, is very sensitive precisely at those two points; and the Reichstag rejected the beer tax in favor of a less productive one on breweries, and it restricted the tobacco tax to cigarettes. Besides these it adopted taxes upon collateral inheritances, automobiles, bills of lading, bonuses of directors of stock companies, unissued shares of such companies, and, finally, an extremely unpopular tax upon railway tickets. Another unpopular revenue measure was the abolition of cheap local postal rates.

It has been highly interesting during the past year or two to parallel certain movements in Germany and in foreign countries. Interesting, but not edifying. England, for example, has splendidly repelled the attack upon its free-trade system; while Germany has just committed herself more completely than ever to protection. Standing where England stood at the time of the Corn Laws, Germany has taken the opposite course by imposing higher taxes upon the bread and meat of her growing industrial and urban population. The new commercial treaties put into force last March can only be considered a reactionary step in the economic history of the country. This view is very general among the industrial and commercial classes, which feel that their interests have been sacrificed to aid agriculture. According to the census of callings taken in 1895 — later figures are not yet available — over 64 per cent of the people are engaged in other occupations than farming, gardening, animal breeding, fishing, and forestry. The latest statistics from the army recruiting offices show that less than 31 per cent of the young recruits are from the farms. Agriculture has not kept pace with the growth of the country. The amount of land planted in wheat, rye, oats, and barley is now nearly 16 per cent less per capita than 28 years ago. The animal industry has been still more laggard in following the growth of the population; and the high price of meat amounts, at this moment, almost to a national calamity. In less than two years the amount of meat consumed per capita has decreased nearly 10 per cent.

But the above comparisons do not state the whole case. The one-sided agrarian character of the treaties is bad enough for the German people; but the other treaty countries have met them by raising their import duties on many manufactured products hitherto drawn from Germany. In other words, the essence of the German government’s action was that it traded off the interests of the urban population, the manufacturers and industrial workmen, who are many, in favor of her farmers, who are few. That is one cause of discontent in the Fatherland.

Another point at which tendencies in Germany present a sharp contrast with several neighboring countries is in the relations of church and state. France has disestablished the churches, and taken her schools out of clerical hands; and England is about to make public education national and reduce denominational influence over the schools to a minimum. Things are taking a wholly different course in Germany. Here the church as a political force is evidently growing stronger; and this applies to the Catholic as well as the Protestant church. The Prussian State is becoming more and more subservient to the influence of the rigidly orthodox party, and the political power of the Catholic Church is greater in Prussia to-day than at any time since the Reformation. The monastic orders are increasing in some parts of the country at a surprising pace; and the Minister of Culture has been sharply criticised for his readiness in sanctioning the establishment of new monasteries. Moreover, the Catholics and orthodox Protestants are visibly drawing together for political as well as ecclesiastical ends. The struggle over the Prussian school law, to be treated later, showed the Conservative and Clerical parties in alliance to extend denominational influence in the schools.

Still more disappointing has been the response, in northern Germany at least, to the democratic revival which, during the past year or two, has made itself felt in most European countries. England has returned to liberalism with unexpected force; and in France radical liberalism is triumphant over its twin foes of Clericalism and Nationalism. In Belgium the Liberals adopted a decidedly democratic programme, and gained considerable ground in the June elections. In Russia the principle of autocracy has been formally abandoned, and the first experiment with representative institutions made. In Hungary the monarch was about to institute universal suffrage by decree, as a remedy for the political deadlock of the country, when a coalition ministry was formed to establish it; and manhood suffrage will be adopted within a year. In the Austrian half of the Dual Monarchy, too, universal suffrage was about to be carried through the Reichsrath with the acquiescence of the crown, when the Gautsch Ministry fell; but this failure means only a postponement for a short period.

This movement has not been without a reflex in Germany. The agitation for the extension of popular rights is vigorous in many parts of the Empire. The Kingdom of Würtemberg has just reformed its antique constitution by eliminating from the Lower House the privileged members, “ knights ” and clergymen, and substituting members elected by popular vote. Baden has introduced universal suffrage, and Bavaria has changed from indirect to direct voting. In the Kingdom of Saxony, which a decade ago remodeled its election law in a plutocratic direction, the government is now trying to retrace its steps. The Oldenburg government has committed itself to universal suffrage; and in Saxe-Weimar the Liberal parties and the Socialists have formed a compact to establish it.

In the midst of this democratic movement Prussia has just carried through a slight revision of its election laws. The peculiarity of the Prussian system is that the voters of each precinct are divided into three classes according to their taxpaying ability. Each class pays one third of the taxes, and chooses one third of the electors who elect the officials and representatives in the Chamber. The result of such a division of the voters is that slightly above one sixth of them have twice as much power as the remaining five sixths. This system, put into force above fifty years ago by royal decree as a bulwark against the rising tide of democracy, has served the purpose of its authors remarkably well. It has so deadened popular interest that less that one fourth of the Prussian people take the trouble to vote in state elections, whereas above three fourths vote in national elections, where manhood suffrage prevails. In some districts less than three per cent of the voters of the third class go to the polls.

Moreover, the government has still further balked the natural political drift of the country by a steadfast refusal to make a general reapportionment of the election districts. The existing arrangement is above fifty years old. All the immense growth and shifting of the population during that time has been wholly ignored, and the system has thus acquired the additional vice of being a rottenborough arrangement of a most pronounced type. A painstaking statistician has made two groups of election districts having equal populations. The first of these, embracing approximately 96 districts, elects 164 members of the Chamber; while the other, of nearly 24 districts, elects only 41. The injustice to the urban and industrial population embodied in these figures appears still more intolerable when it is pointed out that the wealth per capita in the Prussian cities is $763, as against $360 in the rural regions; and it was precisely to the wealth of the country that the fathers of the Prussian system designed to give political power!

Prussia’s stout adherence to such a monstrous electoral system has a double purpose. The control of the State is now in the hands of the country squire element from the rotten-borough districts, and the government means to keep it there, while curtailing the political rights of the cities; and the three-class division of the voters is retained as an effectual barrier against Socialism. “ Only the most stupid calves select their own butchers,” was Count Posadowsky’s blunt reply to a Socialist resolution in the Reichstag demanding universal suffrage for all the German states. The success of the law in excluding the “butchers” is evident; the Socialists have never been able to elect a single member of the Chamber, whereas their strength would entitle them, under manhood suffrage, to at least eighty members.

The government came forward last spring with a scheme of election reform which was nothing short of comical in its bureaucratic narrowness. Several huge city districts were divided, and ten new seats in the Chamber created, — not, however, as a recognition of the rights of the urban population, but in order to facilitate the mere formalities of balloting. The number of electors in such districts had outgrown the capacity of any hall to hold them, and it became necessary to divide them in order to hold elections at all. Henceforth, too, the balloting of the electors will occur in sections of six hundred and at different hours of the day, where the districts are very large. Hereafter, therefore, no district can outgrow the election machinery; and a Prussian Minister announces with confidence that the government will never consent to a change in the fundamental principle of the electoral system.

The ruling classes, however, have grown restive under the attacks made upon this stronghold of their power. Last winter, when the Socialists appointed many great mass meetings in Berlin for a given day to protest against the suffrage system, the government took alarm at their wild, revolutionary talk beforehand; and houses adjacent to the meetingplaces were filled with policemen, while the soldiery was held in readiness at their barracks, prepared to move at a moment’s notice. The majority in the Chamber, too, has grown sensitive to criticism, and has latterly broken with its good old tradition of ignoring it. It has appealed to the courts to punish some ruthless Socialist editors for the new crime of insulting the Chamber.

The suffrage question, state and national, remains in the foreground of public interest. Deep concern is felt among the masses regarding the future of the Imperial manhood suffrage system. The voices raised against it are growing bolder and more numerous; and the position toward which the majority parties are steadily drifting is that any dangerous gain of power by the Socialists will require its abolition, — by law if possible, by coup-d’état if necessary. So slightly is Germany committed to the democratic principle ! The government, however, is giving no support to the talk about a reactionary reform of the electoral system. Several months ago Count Posadowsky formally declared in the Reichstag, in behalf of the Federated Governments, that they “stand firmly upon the basis of universal suffrage for the Empire, and will not be driven from it by any agitation from right or left.”

All sorts of electoral schemes for saving the country from the inrush of Socialism are brought forward. The National Liberals have proposed, for Prussia, a system of plural voting, additional votes being allowed for property, education, and age. Others, taking their cue from Russia, would assign a fixed number of seats in the Reichstag to the various classes of the population. Before leaving this subject it may be added that Hamburg and Lübeck, which already had highly plutocratic election laws, under which the Socialists were condemned to a hopeless minority position, have just revised them in a still more anti-democratic sense.

The dread of Socialism was also the impelling force in the Prussian school legislation already referred to. Conservatives in politics and religion have become alarmed at the visible weakening of the principle of authority in the minds of the people. Especially among the working classes is the embitterment against church and state becoming more pronounced. The Protestant and the Catholic clergy alike deplore the growing estrangement of those classes, as well as the intellectual élite of the nation, from the church. “Religion must be preserved to the people,” is a political dictum given out by the first German emperor; and the undemocratic Prussian state has no confidence in the ability of the people themselves to preserve their religion, — the arm of the law must compel its preservation. The government is dominated by a narrow fear of the modern spirit. The Minister of Culture recently amazed the country with an order banishing the writings of Ibsen, Hauptmann, and Sudermann from the seminaries in which public school teachers are trained. Especially must Socialism be placed under the ban of state and society; and a high-born nobleman in the Prussian House of Lords reflected the views of the dominant classes when he declared, “One of our sharpest weapons for subduing the Social Democracy is the denominational school.”

The school law just enacted seeks to forge such a weapon. It sets up the general principle that the schools must be denominational; and it contains provisions under which children already in mixed, or so-called “simultaneous,” schools can be withdrawn, and separate denominational schools organized for them. In addition to the regular boards special denominational commissions will supervise these newly created schools. The clergy, Catholic and Protestant, must be represented on the boards. The government also demanded far-reaching power to abolish home-rule in the selection of principals and teachers, but had to content itself with less sweeping changes.

The school bill called forth an exceedingly sharp controversy. About a thousand university professors, artists, and literary people signed a strong protest against its denominational features; but others favored a denominational division of the schools as making for harmony. The teachers of the country at their national convention rejected the denominational school with practical unanimity. Influential educators apprehend that the law will have just the opposite effect, religiously, from what was intended. They point out that very many of the teachers are already inwardly estranged from the church; and their disapproval of the system they are compelled to apply will now become still more intense. The estrangement of the industrial working classes, too, is expected to take on a still more aggressive form; for religion as an adjunct of the police authority of the state can no more bear good fruit in Prussia than in Massachusetts. Under a recent decision of the courts dissenting parents can be compelled by fines and imprisonment to make their children at school attend Protestant or Catholic denominational instruction. What would Americans think of compulsory Sunday schools, with the sheriff to compel attendance ?

The school law will carry religious politics into municipal affairs. Already the Catholic clergy and press are calling upon their people to organize for carrying city elections in order to seize all the denominational advantages held out to them by the law. It is evident, therefore, that the measure will foster the religious divisions of the people, and in particular perpetuate the spirit of apartness prevailing in the Catholic Church. Instead of unifying the people by giving them homogeneous ideals, it will tend to prevent the establishment of a common intellectual type.

The policy of the government in making appointments of theological professors is calling forth strong remonstrances. It was recently shown that the Ministry has been giving a steady preference to young theological teachers trained at Greifswald, the last stronghold of orthodoxy in Prussia. They are rapidly pushed into professorships, while abler men of the critical-historical school are passed over. That the universities, with their long established tradition of free investigation in every department of thought, have not remained silent, goes without saying. Their view of the ministerial policy was vigorously expressed the other day by Professor Paulsen, the well-known philosopher and pedagogist of the Berlin University, in these words: “This exclusion of the critical school means nothing less than the impoverishment of science in the theological faculties of Prussia.” Partly as the result of that policy, perhaps, the number of Protestant students of theology at the Prussian universities has fallen to considerably less than half of what it was eighteen years ago; but this decline has doubtless a larger cause in the changing attitude of the educated classes toward theology in general.

Recent developments in the Social Democratic party have been interesting enough to demand the entire space of this article; but only the briefest treatment is here possible. The worst faults of the party—its overconfident dogmatism, its narrow conception of its mission as the political organ of the proletariat, its repellent attitude toward other parties, its intolerance of intellectual differences within its own ranks, and its intransigent opposition to the existing social system — have been strongly in evidence of late; and they have determined developments within the party itself, as well as in its external relationships. Indeed, it is becoming clear that the movement has not been wisely steered. The bold declaration of its class-struggle character at Dresden three years ago, following immediately upon the prodigious gain of Socialist votes in the Reichstag elections, narrowed down its mission to representing the interests of the proletariat. That declaration gave reactionaries in all other parties a powerful argument for making common cause against Socialism, and it checked whatever disposition existed in the Radical and Liberal parties to coöperate with it. It thus did much to shatter the conviction—fully as strong outside the Socialist party as within it— that its leaders were endowed with an almost supernatural talent for shrewd party tactics.

That conviction has received a still severer blow. Revolutionary events in Russia have distorted the mental vision of the party leaders. At their national convention at Jena a year ago, Bebel, the idol of the party, impulsive, eloquent, but easily intoxicated with his own eloquence, made one of his great speeches and caused the convention to commit itself by an overwhelming vote to a foolish declaration favoring the political strike en masse. The result was naturally a great shock to the public, for everybody assumed that this declaration marked a line of policy to be acted upon, not a mere academic assertion of a principle. Prior to the Jena convention there was held at Cologne a congress of the Socialistic trades-unions, which, with their nearly 1,500,000 members, constitute the strong central phalanx of the party. The leaders of the unions, who have long been out of sympathy with the policy of the party, here declared against the political strike enmasse, which they believe would be a foolish and absurd undertaking on German soil. This lack of harmony between the unions and the party, while it did not take on a pronounced form at Jena, continued; and a conference was finally held at Berlin in February to try to effect an understanding between them.

The proceedings of that conference, just published by the party executive committee under stress of circumstances, will long remain a document of first-class importance in the history of German Socialism. Bebel here practically reversed his attitude by introducing resolutions to the effect that the executive committee does not propose to make propaganda for the political strike, but to use all its power to prevent one; and further conceded to the trades-unions the right of remaining neutral in case such a strike should break out. The proceedings showed that a sharp struggle has been in progress for years, behind the scenes, between the unions and the party management, in respect to cardinal points of policy. The leaders of the unions are fully aware that the activity of the party has been, in the main, a fruitless one, and that it has been made so by the ultra-radicalism of its leaders. The unions had kept silence hitherto, but they now announced their determination henceforth to express their views without reserve. This is significant of much, since the unions are devoted more to a policy of immediate and practical reforms than to fanciful visions of the transformed Socialistic state of the far-off future.

Bebel, accordingly, had mounted at Jena a cannon of painted wood upon the Socialist outworks. His empty show of radicalism only compromised the standing of the party with that considerable element of thoughtful men in the Liberal parties who would be glad to coöperate with the Socialists in bringing about practical, democratic reforms. Indeed, the leadership of the party has been at fault in many directions. Its policy has strongly tended to isolate and therefore weaken it. Equally strong has been its influence in driving the government into reactionary paths. Bebel was so shortsighted as to boast, in his great speech at Jena, that he had exorcised the Chancellor’s “semi-liberal principles.” Bernard Shaw recently said of the German Socialists: “ The tenacity with which they hold fast to their infallible, omniscient prophet, Carl Marx, and their faith in his book as the ‘Bible of the working classes,’ make them appear in our skeptical age as an example of childish faith and piety.” That sentence aptly characterizes the dominant section of the party and marks the difference between English and German Socialism, — the one occupied in bringing about immediate results and caring little for theories, able and proud to have its representative in the cabinet; the other wasting its strength in futile theoretical controversies within its own ranks, emphasizing upon every occasion its fierce dogmatic warfare with the existing order of society, utterly shut out from political positions of influence, and proud of being a sort of martyr to its exclusive principles. In England and France Socialists are wiser.

All this is finding recognition among German Socialists, some of whom have begun to feel and deplore the political impotence to which the policy of the leaders has condemned the movement. Why, they ask, has this “Three-million Party ” almost no influence upon the general policy of the country? The tradesunionists in particular are making good their promise to break their reserve, and their ablest leaders are now openly courting alliances with the Radical Liberals. Even the Socialist national newspaper organ, which had hitherto contemptuously rejected all such suggestions from the Radicals, has latterly changed its attitude and now invites their coöperation.

This subject of coöperation with the Socialists is a matter of serious discussion in the various Liberal parties. Dr. Barth, the leader of the Radical Union, has continued to argue with great force and unwearied zeal in favor of such a form of alliance as would give efficiency to the democratic and liberal principles common to Socialists and Liberals. He points to the obvious facts that the Socialists alone can accomplish nothing, despite their prodigious popular vote; and the Liberals, by reason of their divisions and weakness, are equally condemned to political impotence. What more natural therefore, he asks, than for Liberals to heal up their differences and form a compact with the Socialists to win elections and carry through reforms which both sides want. Hitherto, however, his voice has seemed but a cry in the wilderness. The National Liberals, a party of moribund liberalism, wholly reject the idea of coöperation; the Radical People’s Party, inheriting the late Eugen Richter’s irreconcilable hatred of Socialism, give no support to it; and even the leaders of the small Radical Union itself are mostly against it.

Several events, however, have happened within a year to show that the tactical policy of working with the Socialists is not without strong support with the Liberal voters. At a recent by-election in Westphalia, Radical and National Liberal voters disobeyed the call of their leaders, and elected a Socialist candidate for the Reichstag by a large majority over a Clerical; and at Darmstadt the Radical Union openly threw its strength in favor of a Socialist and elected him over a National Liberal of a reactionary type. A still more important event was the compact of the National Liberals, Radicals, and Socialists for mutual support in the elections of Baden, which succeeded in preventing the Clericals from securing a majority in the Chamber. These events have strengthened the conviction that there is much more vitality in the idea of Liberal and Socialist coöperation than the country had supposed.

The relations between capital and labor have latterly undergone a decided change for the worse. The number of strikes and lockouts has greatly increased. In 1901, 56,000 workmen struck; two years later 85,000, and last year 408,000. The number locked out rose from 10,000 in 1902 to 118,000 in 1905. The strike of coal miners in the Rhenish-Westphalian region in January, 1905, embraced about 200,000 persons and was the largest one that Germany has ever known. The labor organizations have grown rapidly in numbers since then, and have become more aggressive in asserting their demands. In response to this changed condition the Central Association of German Manufacturers has organized the great employers of the country into one compact body. This latter has already developed great energy in fighting organized labor; and the sympathetic lockout, its favorite weapon, has now become a more formidable disturber of social peace than the sympathetic strike. Several months ago the employers in the metalworking trades were threatening to lock out their entire force of above 300,000 workmen because strikes existed in several cities. An evil spirit of repression rules in the great Central Association. It conceives one of its chief tasks to be to fight the Social Democracy, and openly proclaims its reactionary, anti-democratic spirit. Most of its members want a law for repressing Socialism. Thus the antagonism between labor and capital has grown acute, and social peace seems to have withdrawn into the realm of illusions.