The morning call., 1893-06-18
NO MAN CAN TELL
What Will Be the Fate
of the Army Bill.
AN END OF HERR RICHTER.
The Young Kaiser Is Not Happy and
There Is Grave UneasinesS
in Austria.
Special to THE MORNING CALL.

| NEW YORK, June 17.-Harold Frederic
cables the Times from London: The cleo
tions may be said to have worked nothing
short of q political revolution, but it is not
at all on the lines which the great bulk of
prophets have been arranging in their own
minds. There will be no furious contest
between the Crown and Parliament, no
exalted and excited constitutional struggle
wagsd for the admiration of mankisd.
What will happen will be extremely i'm
portant in European history no doubt. but
ii is calculated to impress the coutempo-
rary observer as humdrum TO a degree.
Undoubtedly the bold and powerful
dem onstration of the Social Democrats at
the polls on Thursday is highly spectac-
ular. Their remarkable organization,
which is by far the most spirited and sys-
tematic existing anywhere in continental
politics, got out tremendous vote and
seem to have captured large wing of the
broken and disorganized Freisinnige vote
as we'll. All this has been discounted for
a long time. But the very perfection of
their organization puts limit now to
their career. So far as the present cleo
tion goes they have cast all their votes ana
have got no reserve strength to draw on
for aid in the second ballOtings.
Heretofore it has been the case that all
other parties combined against them on
these second ballots and prevented them
from ever winning any of them. There
will probably be thi. time a number of
exceptions to the rule, for class and agra
rian passions have reached a point where
one set Of politicians who belong to the
regular German parties are quite capable
of preferring the Social Democrats TO their
rivals, but in any case it is improbable that
the Socialists will rise to the position of
more than one-seventh of the whole
Reichstag.
What is really more important Is the
way that Eugene Richter ana the Freisen-
nige party have been smashed ou. of
shape. No popular leader of our time has
even ever got such thorough and re-
morseless thrashlng at the polling booths.
1t is no good now to repeat that he was
almost entirelp to blame for this. Both
the Emperor and the Chancellor went out
of their way in their efforts to associate
him and German liberalism with their
policy of administration.
Instead of availing himself of this, which
was in itself an unheard-of nodeSpizatiae
OF Prussia's historic despotic traditions,
he treated the imperial oyertures as mere
signs of weakness and cowardice, and
thought he could bully William and Cap
rivi into further surrender and abase-
ment. By this time he has found out his
mistake.
The woeful element in the thing is that
the disaster is not confined to himself. 1t
envelopes the whole Liberal party in Ger
many and wipes out at one blow the fruits
of twenty years of the labors of Dasker,
Bamberger, Sonnemburg. Viochow and
other sound sensible German Radicals.
Except for the gentleman Wings called
National Liberals, who come out better
than was expected, there is nothing be-
tween the anarchist extreme of social
Democracy and the opposite pole of thick
headed, intoleIent Toryism. In other
words we shall see this weak an end of
Williams attempt to govern by the aid and
in the interests of moderate Liberalism.
Avoiding kites on one side and wolves
| on the other Germany enters now upon a
strictly carniyerous stage. 1t was always
aa error to suppose that the army bill, as
such. was a source of fatal deadlock in the
late Reichstag. Every group of politicians
maneuvering for position in the impending
al CUB DdISl uSSu tHtS Ill uc cD-lleDaCeu
measure largely as a pretext for its line of
action.
When the battle has ended next week
we will probably find a majority quite
ready to pass the army bill upon certain
conditions, and these conditions Will be
the return to protection, the re-
establishing of lot of aristocratic and
general privileges and monopolies. aug
mented facilities for clerical meddling
with the life of the people and dead set
against the Jews.
The only possible majority In the new
Reichstag will be majority of the tax
eaters and the Government will be COM
PEELED at once TO make terms with them.
These terms will involve the turning of
the political cleck back by generation or
two, and this in turn will inevitably breed
vast number of the now army of recruits
to the Social Democracy.
Williams final compulsory return to
Tory methods will naturally bind him
closer in sympathy with the Car, who
was deeply disguised when the young man
set out on his chiyalrous, though fantastic
pursuit of that will-o'-the-wisp. liberality.
We may expect 10 hear now of amiabIe
visits between the Gar and the Kaiser.
and also probably of a commercial treaty
between Russia and Germany, which will
put fresh burden on the Prussian land serf
and the Muscovite mouiik alike.