The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1912-02-09
HERvE ON GERMAN ELECTIONS.

on Wrong aud one ut the most pro
nompcd radicals of the European rc,o
muouary movement. gives the following
view ut the German elections. llcry'
was sentenced TO q long term of impris
onmcut for the authorship of his book
"Eycn though an exaggerated import
ance is attached to votes and porliamen
tary action as Is the case everywhere
in France it is hard not to become cN.
cited over the great electoral struggle
which is now shaking Germany TO its
foundations.
-Four great parties are now engaged
in battle ON the other side of the Rhine.
They are, from right to left the conser-
vative party, the centrum, the national
liberal and the social democratic party.
The conservative party represents the
interests of the great land proprictors
who own all the Prussian soil included
between the Elbc and the Russian from
tier, except that part occupied by the
lords and peasants of Prussian Poland.
The prussian lords are good Lutherans,
soaked in devotion, who call upon the
god of Luther to preserve to them and
their noble descendants the right in per
petuity TO treat their peasants as beasts
of the field, and above all to preserve
to them the monopoly of rank in the
invinciblc Prussian army, and then the
aristocratic electoral regime which as
the Landtag or Prussian parliament, fin
ally the reichstag of the empire, elected
in spite of them by universal suffrage.
Aristocrats, protcctionists to the death,
militarists and belligerent anti-Semites
when not engaged in business, it is easy
to see where they stand.
The centrum is the Catholic party. I'll
is we'll known that Catholicism has been
retained in Bavaria, in almost the entire
territory of South Germany, and in all
that part of Prussia which is adjacent
to France. Since in the Catholic regions
of Germany there are many small peas
ant proprietors and many factory work
ers. the centrum, in order not to lose en-
tirely its own credit and that of the
church, has been obliged to make conces-
sions to the modern democratic spirit; it
has organized under its patronage many
Catholic labor unions, and from time to
time votes against increases in the mill
tarv budget. In the last reichstag, or
German parliament, the centrum was al
lied with the conservative party; Luth-
Grams and Catholics communed in their
hate of the lay spirit and of socialism.
The lay spirit is represented by the
national liberal party. This party is |
something like our progressive party and
our radical party, progressive and radi
cal party which supports the empire, but
which can, if necessary, accommodate it,
self to a republic of financiers such as
ours is. It's upper layer is composed of
high financiers, some of whom are jew
ish, of the heads of large industries and
of great commercial interests. This
party has in its ranks many professors,
pastors, all the free thinking and anti
clerical bourgeoise it has succeeded in
organizing "free" unions under the pat
ronage of its great manufacturers. By
its nti-cericalism it becomes at once
the enemy of the Lutheran conservatives
~, ig al
antagonistic to the agrarian aristocrats
because of its tariff policies. While the
great landed proprietors of Prussia wish,
in order to protect their products, to in
crease increasingly the taxes on foreign
products and meats, the great manufac-
turers of the national liberal party are
making a demand for lower cost of liv-
ing, so as not to be obliged continually
to raise the wages of their workers, and
therefore they demand lower taxes upon
foreign articles Of food.
They are not of a belligerent spirit,
for they realize that war is not bene-
fetal to large manufacturers and com
merce; but they are miltarists, since
the minister of war is the largest Gus
toner of many of them. Is there any
necessity of adding that they are anti
socialists!
The only party in Germany which can
call itself democratic is the socialist, or
social democratic, party. 1t is numeric-
ally the strongest, the richest and the
best organized of all the socialist parties
of the world. 1t has 100000 or A.
100000 voters and dues paying mem
beers to the number of 100000; there
are eighty-seven daily papers, several of
which have a circulation of over 1OO,-
600. It has millions of francs in its
treasury, and immense labor temples,
hundreds of them. 1t maintains cordial
and fraternal relations with a co-opera
tive movement almost as powerful as
that of England Finally, it has the con
fidence of the most formidable and rich
.4 I,l,,r ,,rf,, A izotiou i'm tha world The