The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1895-03-31
A Fight ON The SUFFRAGE.
GERMAN TORIES OUTsPoKEN IN
FAVOR OF RESTRICTION.

chise.
Berlin, March sO-The Reichstag has
been watching for two days the struggle
between the ministers and the high tariff
conservatives of the farmers league.
The debates have been animated and often
bitter, for the agrarian leaders have gone
at the government with all the energy
that they displayed in their attack upon
Count Caprivi.
The peg on which the debate was hung
was Count Kanitzs famous proposal that
the government raise grain prices by
monopolizing the grain trade. The mere
announcement of the subject drew an un-
usual number of deputies and a crowd OF
visitors who filled the galleries to the last
seat. Most of the visitors were agrarian
sympathizers who ignored the rules of the
house and murmured audibly their ap-
proval Of the big conservative speakers.
They ought to have been rebuked by the
president. but in the excitement of the de-
bate their offense was overlooked.
The strain brought upon the political
world by the demonstration against Prince
Bismarck has been increased steadily this
week by reports of dissolution and re-
organization of the cabinet in the interest
of the Bismarckians. At the same time
rumors that restriction of the suffrage
was contemplated by the emperor and his
ministers have been revived by the social
democrats and Richter radicals who
evidently believe them and are CORES
pondingly trueulent.
The agrarians are using every instru-
ment Of agitation to keep up the popular
ferment. Meetings of peasant farmers
are held in all the rural districts to voice
the protectionist demand for a new Reich
stag and higher tariff on grain. Agrar-
ian literature is clogging the mails There
is hardly a hamlet or cross roads where
the people are not being stirred with ag-
rarian leaflets and by agrarian speakers.
The Prussian Landtag and other provin-
cial diets have been impressed into the
agrarian service. They have rung all
the week with the landowners denunci-
ations Of the commercial treaties and the
governments indifference to agrarian
claims. The conservatives and their al
lies in the high tariff movement are
determined to win at any cost. Defeated
in the council of state, they came at
once before the Prussian Landtag with
arguments in its favor. During the debate
in this tory stronghold, Count Mierbach
disclosed the dearest wish of his party
by urging the necessity of a coup a.
etat. He argued that universal Suffrage
had put the government at the mercy of
the ignorant and incendiary element of
the empire. The only way out was to
deprive these elements of their misused
power. The federal council would have
the approval of all thinking Germans if
they should dissolve the Reichstag, sus-
pend the constitution and hold the cleo
tions on a basis of a limited right of
81, 4
be difficult to devise a new electoral sys-
tenn off hand, but he insisted upon the
necessity of it if Germany were to be
saved from ruin and revolution.
Count Mierbach is one Of the few pol
iticians who had the courage to main
tain openly his friendly relations with
Prince Bismarck when the old chancel-
lor was under the imperial taboo. He
still follows closely every turn. in the pol
icy of Friedrichshruhe, and in this case
ne undoubtedly expresses Prince Bis
marck's views, for in recent years Prince
Bismarck has hardly concealed his opin-
ion that he made a mistake in giving the
empire manhood suffrage. But few news
papers venture now to advocats either a
dissolution or a restriction of the suffrage.
The free conservative Post has come out
boldly with the declaration that Count
Mierbach has suggested the one possible
way out of the present crisis There
can be no real security for the nation and
society,"" it says, until universal suf-
frage and the secrecy of the ballot shall
be abolished"
Even the feudaI Kreuz Zeltung hesi-
tates to speak as frankly, although its
editor, Herr Won Hammerstein, is not less
extreme than Count Meirbach in his
agrarian loyalty
The Reichstag ended to-day the debate
on Count KanitZ's grain monopoly pro-
special committee of twenty-eight. The
deputies then adjourned for the Easter
recess, which will last until April %.
Eugene Richter's Freissinge Zeitung
says in reply to these friends of Count.
Mierbaeh's policy that a revolution from
above would be followed by one from be-
low.
The Vossische Zeitung, liberal, says:
"The overthrow of manhood suffrage
would weaken the empire. The federal
sovereigns, headed by the emperor, are
surely incapable of abrogating and thus
undermining the foundations of state.
Certainly nobody win assert that the heads
Of the federal states have consented to
a conspiracy against the suffrage; vet
with impulsive daring the emperor, who,
is the chief executive is Venturing to so
forward without an effort to keep in
touch with democratic methods. 1t will
be no surprise II the suffrage be attacked
any day.
Meantime, during the debates on Count
KanEtz's proposal, the ministers have
evinced no disposition ito satisfy the agra
rian demands. Fre.herr Won Hammer
steing-Loxton, the minister of agriculture,
promised reforms of the taxes ON sugar
and spirits, but these are small remedies
for the agricultural depression and the
agrarians scorn them openly Freiherr
Won Marschall, secretary of the foreign
Office, answered coldly yesterday the
heated arguments from the conservative
members. "The government has just fixed
for ten years." he said, ''the duties on
grain. 1t has done this under treaty
and has obtained concessions in return.
With what excuses and requests can we
now go TO the powers?'
The committee on the anti-sociallst bin
passed the last six paragraphs yesterday,
including the clerical amendments and to-
day adopted the whole measure by a vote
of II to s.
The Frc.ssinge zeitung says the bin
will come back to the House in more
drastic form than the original.
II IS said IN the parliamentary lobbies
to-day that the clericals viii vote in solid
phalanx for the bin 10 please the emperor
IL has been arranged after much nego-
tiation that the emperor will receive the