It was expected, when the new tariff law was passed, that some of the treaties could be laid before the Reichstag within a twelvemonth. Instead of this, however, one hears only of negotiations with Russia and Switzerland, with no indication as to their completion. Meanwhile, the Conservatives in the Reichstag are interpellating the Government about them, and demanding that the old treaties, at least, be denounced. How the negotiations are progressing nobody knows; but the impression prevails that the Russian treaty presents very grave difficulties.

Indeed, the whole question of the treaties is involved in the greatest uncertainty. What the Reichstag will do with them nobody can predict. The Socialists, by whose votes the existing arrangements were ratified, have announced in advance that they will support no treaties that increase the price of the necessaries of life. It is highly improbable, moreover, that any treaties that the Government can make will prove acceptable to the two Conservative parties and the Agrarian element among the Clericals and National Liberals; for they can only be ratified by conceding heavy reductions from the maximum scale of duties, a thing which the Agrarians would bitterly resist. It may easily occur, therefore, that the most reactionary elements in German politics and the most radical, the Socialists, will unite to reject the Government's treaties.

could it refuse to enforce the law and take the political risks involved? Constitutionally, indeed, the Cabinet is responsible, not to the Reichstag, but to the Emperor; and the latter can nega tive a law by refusing to promulgate it. This theoretical independence of the Cabinet, however, would hardly embolden it to break with its own supporters in a matter where they and their constituents have such large private interests at stake; for, after all, a German Cabinet cannot govern long without a majority.

Germany continues to round out her social reform legislation. Hitherto the various sick funds gave assistance for only thirteen weeks, while the invalid pension could be drawn only after twenty-six weeks of continuous sickness. A new measure passed last year closes the gap, so that the working classes are now completely insured against sickness. Another measure worthy of mention was the introduction of secret balloting at the Reichstag elections, which the country squires cannot quite forgive the Government for carrying through at the repeated demand of the Radicals and Socialists.

The Reichstag elections showing the prodigious growth of the Social Democracy was the largest event of the year in the national life. Indeed, this gain of 900,000 Socialist votes in five years is a most stupendous fact. It marks a significant milestone in the country's history, and the national consciousness has been busy for a half-year in contemplating and trying to explain it, a milestone to which Germans will long revert as the starting-point of new conditions in the Empire. Those 3,000,000 votes weigh heavily upon the minds of men who fancy themselves the appointees of Providence to keep this mad world in its social orbit. Something must be done, they are saying; we are on an express train that is rolling with the wind's velocity into the Zukunfts-Staat, and only the Government can save us; let it put on the brakes!"

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How was this Socialist victory possible? Was it, in fact, a Socialist victory? In my letter of a year ago I said that the cry of "Bread-usury" would be raised by the party, and its speakers would everywhere attack the new tariff law as designed to enhance the price of the laboring man's necessary food. Such, indeed, was the case; the burden of the Socialists' speeches was everywhere the tariff; they and their enemies are agreed as to that. Apart from this they made some political capital out of their treatment by the courts and the Government, the restrictions upon the liberties of the working population in the matter of their organizations, and the association of these for common action; out of army conditions, maltreatment of privates, and the sentences inflicted by military courts; finally, out of the Emperor's speeches against the Socialists, which they regarded as an unwarrantable interference by the Crown in the political controversies of the people. All live, present-day matters, nothing anywhere about the Utopia of the Socialists, a state with all industries nationalized and everybody made happy under a system of collectivism. Thus their surprising success was hardly a victory of Socialism, but rather of radical Liberalism. Somebody has aptly characterized it by paraphrasing Disraeli's well-remembered bon mot: the Socialists caught the Liberals bathing and stole their clothes.

Under this view the election affords a sort of bitter-sweet solace for the three little radical parties, which are being ground to powder between the upper and nether millstones of the Reaction and Socialism. Indeed, it is recognized on all sides that the Socialist vote was

swollen to its huge volume partly through the assistance of electors who do not dream of adopting the creed of that party. Large numbers of citizens were deeply disgusted with political conditions in the Empire, and wanted to give the strongest

possible expression to their protest. They found the Socialists ploughing with the Liberal heifer, cutting a much wider furrow, too, than the rightful owner, and so holding out the promise of exterminating the weeds more speedily and effectively. Hence, a vote for Socialist candidates would be the heaviest body blow against the Government that they could deliver; and so they voted. That party was thus the only one that came out of the election with a marked accession of strength. They gained twenty-one seats, raising their force in the Reichstag to eightyone members; and they would have one hundred and twenty-five if the districts were apportioned according to population.

The election then demonstrated anew and with overwhelming force that Socialism is a great elementary movement in the life of the German people. What will come out of it? Did June Sixteenth register its high-water mark, or was it the point at which the dike began to crumble before the inrushing flood? Can the rising tide be stemmed in time to save the State? Where and how are the resisting walls to be built? Such are the anxious questions that people began to ask themselves last June.

While this perturbed state of the public mind was at its height an event occurred which partly relieved its tension. The yearly convention of the Social Democracy was held in Dresden in September, and presented such a repulsive picture of dissension and distrust in the party as to restore in a measure the equanimity of over-anxious souls. The Socialist leaders, the laurels of their June victory still fresh upon their brows, greeted one another there with such ejaculations as "lies!" "perfidy unparalleled!" One" comrade" was denounced as "deeply degraded morally;" and Herr Bebel, the fiery Boanerges of the party, was forced openly to admit, "We were never more divided than now." Then, too, the stringency of party discipline, brought

out in the debates where it was shown that Socialist writers had to apply to the National Committee for permission to print articles in bourgeois newspapers, was pointed to by the foes of Socialism as a tyranny that must ultimately grow intolerable and disrupt the party.

However, while the Dresden Convention reassured some minds, it was a distinct disappointment to others. Some progressive politicians and university professors had hoped that the Socialists, in view of their accession of new followers from various sections of the urban and rural population, would depart from their old policy of narrowly representing the interests of the proletariat and put their movement upon a broader basis. That hope was dashed at Dresden. The Revisionists were again voted down by an overwhelming majority; Bebel, who again proved himself the soul of the party, swept the Convention away with his declaration of undying hostility to the existing order of society; and his resolutions, reiterating that the Socialist movement is a class conflict, were emphatically indorsed. Hermann Sudermann, always a pronounced Liberal, thus confessed his disappointment over the outcome at Dresden: "Since the Dresden Convention the middle-class bourgeoisie is without hope, without a future.”

The strife in the party as exhibited at Dresden was regarded in some quarters as foreshadowing its speedy dissolution; but the united front presented by it a few weeks later in the elections for the Prussian Diet demonstrated anew the ability of the Socialists to bury their theoretical differences and go to work. The Revisionists, under the leadership of Bernstein, continue to pound away at the Marxist groundwork of the party's creed, and perhaps they will crumble it in time -after Bebel is gone; but their faith in State collectivism remains intact, and harmony at this cardinal point will doubtless keep the party united and on a war footing for all practical tasks.

As to the final issue of the Socialist movement nobody at present can form an authoritative judgment; but conditions undoubtedly point to its ultimate success. The party has now shown its ability to win support from the peasantry; it has swept into its ranks vast numbers of petty tradesmen and independent artisans. It is spreading among the smaller Government officials; and many retired army officers, fretting over what they regard as the premature termination of their careers, quietly embrace Socialism. The crowded state of the professions, too, makes for the spread of that doctrine; and the Universities, with their 37,000 students, are yearly swelling the ranks of the discontented intellectual proletariat which lightly takes to Socialist views. A recent inquiry brought out the fact that thirty-one per cent of the physicians of Berlin have incomes of less than $750 from their practice and all other sources. Now, a man living under these hard conditions is sure to think earnestly upon the social problem, and it is almost certain that he will think radically. Thus the crowded professions supply the material from which Socialism continually recruits its intellectual leaders.

Moreover, the foes of Socialism have apparently learned nothing from June Sixteenth, and continue to turn water upon its wheels. In the Reichstag a Conservative leader suggested a law for the disfranchisement of all Socialists professing to be republicans and revolutionists. The Chancellor, indeed, rejected the idea of special measures of repression, and announced his intention to enforce existing laws against open attack, and to extend social reform legislation; but he thought it necessary to give the following warning to Socialists: "The State will defend itself. Who is the State? If you once resort to action you will soon find out." In other words, the final argument is the sword. Also, the Chancellor's announcement that no Government official

who is a Socialist would be retained in the service of the State will prove but a blow in the water; for a discreet silence can be practiced by the official, as well as by the soldier. The latter is forbidden by the regulations to confess himself a Socialist; indeed, a perturbed Conservative leader reminded the Chancellor that the time was coming when the army could no longer be relied upon to act unitedly against that party in an emergency.

The election has started a remarkable agitation in the four Liberal parties of the Empire. The impotence of German Liberalism, through its unhappy divisions, was never more apparent than now; and the outcome of the elections has forced it to serious questionings as to its future. There is something exceedingly pathetic in the disappointment of many of the best minds of Germany, like that of the late Professor Mommsen, over the decline of Liberalism and the apathy of the masses. In answer to an editor who asked for an expression of his views upon the result of the elections, the old historian wrote: "To me it seems that the battle is definitively lost.

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I am too old and weary to give expression publicly in the press to absolute hopelessness."

Decimated by the advance of Socialism, and weakened by their own factional quarrels, the Radical Liberals see their modicum of political influence slipping from them; whereas the National Liberal Party, the controller of the Empire's destinies a generation ago, has more and more lost its Liberal principles, and succeeded in checking its numerical decline only by meekly voting for the measures of the Government. The three radical groups the Radical People's Party, the Radical Union, and the South German People's Party were nearly as strong as the Socialists in the old Reichstag; now they are not half so strong; and even including the National Liberals they only slightly outnumber the Socialists. The weakening of Liberalism and

the advance of Socialism have both tended in the same direction, so far as their influence upon the Government is concerned; the latter, namely, has been forced to ally itself more closely with the Conservatives and the powerful Clericals; and these latter parties have grown more disposed to bury their differences of religious creed, in order to interpose a common front against the rising tide of Socialism on the one hand, and intellectual freedom on the other. That the spirit of the age must be resisted and the principle of authority upheld are common articles of political faith with these parties; and they are known to cherish designs against the common schools, as well as against those bulwarks of Germany's intellectual liberty, the Universities.

Threatened thus from right and left, the Liberals are beginning to ask themselves what they can do to bring their principles again into favor. The idea of reuniting their scattered fragments is abroad in the land; the watchword of a Great Liberal Party has been spontaneously given out in many quarters; even in the ranks of the National Liberals the idea of union has taken hold, and is fermenting vigorously. When, however, the attempt is made to formulate a common creed for the new party, the enormous difficulties in the way of union become painfully apparent. The National Liberals, for example, are mostly high protectionists, being the party of the great manufacturers; the radical groups, on the other hand, are freetraders. On other important matters, like appropriations for the army and navy, the parties are equally at variance. However, a modest beginning toward reunion was made last autumn, when Pastor Naumann's little National Social Party was absorbed by the Radical Union. This move has deeply offended Eugen Richter, the leader of the Radical People's Party, who is a stiff Liberal of the old school, and who boasts that

he has not changed his opinions for forty years. Dr. Barth, the leader of the Union, realizes that no party can make headway in Germany which stands in the way of the national defense, and which opposes social reform legislation; while Richter, with his group, opposes all increases of army and navy, and still occupies toward social reform the old standpoint of laisser-faire. Barth, too, enthusiastically espouses the idea of reuniting the Liberals, while Richter regards this as a visionary plan, and coldly says, "Perhaps a great Liberal party will be possible after some decades." All things considered, therefore, it seems certain that the Great Liberal Party will remain a pious wish.

Dr. Barth has also started a new movement in the radical groups in favor of an alliance with the Social Democracy, and has argued his case with great force. His own party indorsed the idea in a modified form, and so did the South German Radicals; but the Richter group will none of it, and evidently the voters are averse to an alliance with the Socialists. The latter, on their part, have given the plan a cold reception; and apparently there is no encouragement for German Liberalism in this direction.

hensive lest conditions in the army are even worse than revealed by these sensational cases. It was but natural that this public concern should be reflected in the recent Reichstag debates, and the speakers of all parties except the Conservatives tried a tilt at the army administration, which, of course, gave earnest assurances that the evils complained of would be rooted out.

It is interesting to note that literature has already seized upon this new aspect of the army for treatment. Hitherto the officer had figured in fiction and on the stage mainly as an agreeable social figure, irresistible to young maidens' hearts; now the more tragical note is caught. Baron von Schlicht has recently printed nine novelettes under the collective title, Ein Ehrenwort, with the following bill of fatalities: five officers resign under compulsion, five shoot themselves, and one is killed in a duel. The most widely read book of the year was Beyerlein's Jena oder Sedan? which casts doubt upon the efficiency of the army because of the spread of immorality and luxury therein. It is significant, too, that active corps commanders are writing in the magazines against luxury in the army, and urging the return to the good old simple ways. Another book, far less important as literature, but hardly less sensational than the one just mentioned, was Lieutenant Bilse's Aus einer Kleinen Garnison. It would scarcely have attracted any attention if it had not been made the basis of a court-martial for the author, at which the astonishing fact was brought out that his realistic descriptions of moral decay in the social life of a small garrison battalion were largely photographic copies from real life.

William C. Dreher.