426 Lord Beay on Social Democracy in Germany. [May 14, 



Eightly interpreted, this only means a higher efficiency of all the 

 constituents of a people in their various functions, not of some only. 

 Less activity in the Government means an increased activity of all 

 citizens cooperating to further prosperity and culture. Lassalle 

 said the great question of the day was simply " eine Magenfrage," a 

 question of food supply, which the English free-traders — according to 

 others — reduced to "eine Beutelfrage," a purse question. Germany 

 is not suffering merely from either the one or the other ; the whole 

 condition of Germany is one of moral debility and intellectual 

 nervousness. Common sense is the tonic required above all others; 

 without it moral and intellectual remedies are of no use. 



Thiers left the inheritance of social democracy to Germany. He 

 also prophesied that " wicked " Frenchmen would be more beloved 

 by the nations of the future world, than well-educated Englishmen. 

 Perhaps, because as Novalis said : " Every Englishman is an island," 

 and our institutions are made to fit the British Archipelago. The 

 prospect for the nations of the future world — half of which is likely 

 to speak English and to be imbued with English ideas — is probably 

 that of a more luxuriant political vegetation than Thiers seemed 

 willing to admit, if they adopt or hold to the present faith of English- 

 men, that socialism is only another form of what Englishmen have 

 always abhorred and will always repudiate : despotism. 



[E.] 



