PRIMITIVE PROPERTY AXD MODERN SOCIALISM. 



Ul 



berger appeals to his countrymen, "Cannot you 

 learn a lesson from the misfortunes of others ? " 



Some statistics of the strength of German 

 Socialism will be found in the protocol of the last 

 German Socialist Congress, held in May, 1S77. 

 The figures have an eloquence of their own. The 

 Constituent Reichstag of 1867 contained two 

 Socialist members ; the North-German Reichstag 

 of 186S, five. Then came the Franco-German 

 War, with the sense it inspired of national danger 

 and national unity. For the moment Socialism, 

 which is anti-national and cosmopolitan, suc- 

 cumbed before German patriotism. The number 

 of Socialist deputies in the first German Reichs- 

 tag, in 1871, sank back to two. But in the sec- 

 ond German Reichstag, which met in 1874, nine 

 Socialist representatives sat ; and in the third, 

 which was dissolved last June, having been elect- 

 ed in 1877, there were twelve. They are Auer, 

 Bebel, Bios, Bracke, Demmler, Fiitzsche, Hasen- 

 clever, Kapell, Liebknecht, Most, Motteler, and 

 Rittinghausen ; and each of them, except Demm- 

 ler and Rittinghausen, who are rich, has been re- 

 ceiving nine shillings a day during the session 

 from the Socialist exchequer. This rise in the 

 number of representatives does not adequately 

 measure the increase in the Socialist force. The 

 nine deputies returned in 1874 were elected by 

 350,000 votes, but the twelve of 1877 by as many 

 as 485,000. The total number of German elec- 

 tors is 8,943,000. Of these 5,535,000 actually 

 voted for the 397 deputies who make up the 

 Reichstag. While the average number of votes 

 by which a German deputy was returned was 

 9,000, the twelve Socialist deputies had an aver- 

 rage of 9,200 votes each. An eleventh of the 

 votes by which the late German Parliament was 

 returned were given for Socialist candidates. At 

 the Socialist Congress which met at Gotha in 

 May, 1877, it was asserted that out of the 397 

 electoral districts Socialist candidates offered 

 themselves in 175. Any change in the electoral 

 6ystem would probably be to the advantage of 

 the party. If a form of the minority vote were 

 introduced, Herr Bamberger considers they vrould 

 outnumber any other single section of opinion, 

 while the French scrutin de liste would at once 

 double the band of Socialist members. Longer 

 practice in electioneering tactics will, with the 

 present system, probably teach the workmen's 

 electoral committees how to group their votes 

 more compactly, and equalize electors and elected. 



Even as it is, the divisions in Germany, and 

 consequently in the German Parliament, often 

 give a casting vote to a group of twelve who al- 



ways vote together. Germany is so grooved and 

 scored with local prejudices that, out of the whole 

 number of members of the late Reichstag, there 

 were, excluding the Social Democrats, only seven 

 who were elected in constituencies with which 

 they are not directly connected either by birth or 

 residence. Only four of the twelve Socialists Sat 

 for their own electoral districts ; the rest were 

 chosen without relation to special local claims. 

 The contrast runs through all German political 

 life ; the working-men deputies represent the 

 working-class throughout the empire ; the rest of 

 the deputies represent about as many different 

 interests as there are seats. Hence the impor- 

 tance, even in an assembly of 397, of a body of 

 twelve members who always vote as one man. 

 Recent political and dynastic questions have 

 strengthened the tendency of the German Parlia- 

 ment to split up into fractions. Each of these 

 may very possibly be insignificant, if taken sep- 

 arately ; but a large number of them would join 

 the Socialists in trying to undermine the principle 

 of national consolidation. Nearly half of the 

 5,535,000 votes that returned the late Parliament 

 were indeed given to candidates opposed to the 

 principle of German unity. Herr Bamberger 

 reckons that 2,395,000 of the voters were Poles, 

 " Guelphs " — that is, adherents of the deposed 

 Hanoverian princes — Swabian democrats, Alsace- 

 Lorraine protesters against severance from France, 

 Social Democrats, and Ultramontanes. An addi- 

 tional three or four hundred thousand Socialist 

 votes, an increase not at all impossible at the rate 

 at which the movement is progressing, would give 

 the combination against the development of Ger- 

 man unity on its present basis an actual majority. 

 The calculation supposes that the Ultramontanes, 

 who are the nucleus of the opposition in the 

 Reichstag, will maintain their hostility to the 

 imperial system. We hope this is not so. With 

 the opening of a new pontificate the envenomed 

 bitterness of the relations between Berlin and the 

 Vatican may be expected to abate. But Prince 

 Bismarck has, for so great an intellect, so extraor- 

 dinary a faculty for keeping alive old grudges 

 and probing old sores, that German patriots must 

 be sanguine if they cherish implicit faith in the 

 change in the spirit of the Reichstag likely to en- 

 sue from the substitution at Rome of Pope Leo 

 for Pope Pius. The alliance between Catholicism 

 and Socialism in Germany, in view of the deadly 

 feud between the two in France, may seem a 

 monstrosity. But such confederacies with ele- 

 ments of disorder are no novelties in the history 

 of the Church of Rome. Individuals, like Nobi- 



