The San Francisco call., 1895-11-17

was personally in favor of system Of
public trials by. military jury, excepting
only in certain cases where the discipline
or the interests of the army would clearly
suffer by public trial. A perfectly free
talk among The guests at Herr Nieberding' s
dinner upon the subject of the business
certain or likely to be considered at the
coming session of the Reichstag showed
the consensus of opinion to be that the
session will be quiet and uneventful.
The popular indignation against the
Government at the prosecution OF Pro-
fessor Hans Delbrueck, editor OF the
Preussiche Jahroucher, a Conservative
publication, for attacking the action of
Her Won Koeller, the Prussian Minister of
the Interior, in instituting wholesale
prosecutions against socialists, in the Oc-
tober number of that magazine, is greatly
increased by the demand for disciplinary
action against Professor Jastrow of the
Berlin University for presuming to criti-
cize certain orders of the Minister of Com
merce relating to minors. Professor Jas
trow was fined 100 marks last year for
making the same criticism, and now a
tardy demand is made upon the University
of Berlin to discipline the professor. This
demand is connected in public belief with
the Delbrueck affair as proof that the
Government intends to punish the express
sions of every philosophic thought if the
Ministers happen to conceive the idea that
such expressions are in any way tainted
with socialism.
Professor Delbrueck's article was we'll
hoI 70 81 of
fects of police repression of socialist meet
ings, and the newspapers generally have
reproached the police authorities for hav-
ing put wrong Interpretation upon the
Emperor's appeal to the people to fight
Socialism by entering upon pettifogging
campaign against socialists.
When newspapers of high standing, like
the Cologne Gazette and the conservative
Berlin Post, concur in declaring that the
prosecution of Herr Delbrueck menaces
the freedom of speech and the freedom of
thought Of the country, it is time that the
Government should pause in the policy it
is pursuing. If the trial of Delbrueck pro-
ceeds to an issue it will create great pub
lie sensation, which will be dangerous to
the Ministry.
At the trial of Herr William Liebknecht,
the socialist leader, upon charge of lese
maieste in having insulted the Emperor in
his speech opening the Social-Democratic
Congress recently held at Breslau, it was
admitted that Herr Liebknecht was espe-
cially careful to select words with a view of
avoiding a charge of Iese majeste, but
he was condemned because he ough to have
considered the possibility that some per-
sons among his audience would find in
them meaning constituting lese maieste.
off," says the Vorwaerts, the socialist
organ, ''an offense no longer depends upon
the nature of the words used, or upon the
intention of the speaker, but upon how
third parties may choose to interpret them,
the most harmless expression may render
the speaker liable to imprisonment"
Vice-Admiral Karcher of the German
navy has received leave of absence, at
the expiration of which he will resign,
owing to a difference with Commanding
Admiral Knorr over the recent naval
evolution in the Baltic Sea. The German
admiralty are at loggerheads with the ad-
mlnistration of the Baltic-N orth Sea canal.
The Nordostsee Zeitung published no
tlce last Monday that ships of over seven
and half meters draught could not ven
ture through the canal owing TO the fact
that huge stone had been found in the
bed OF the canal covered only by eight
meters of water. The president of the
canal administration, Herr Loewe, denied
this statement, but on Wednesday the
canal officers announced that passage
through the canal was closed to vessels