the home consumers that its slight curtailment turned 

 them all into revolutionists. "I propose to you," ran the 

 famous appeal of one of their stalwarts, Herr Rupert,* 

 "nothing more nor less than that we should all join the 

 Social Democrats and make serious opposition to the 

 Government. We must show it that we will not stand 

 the bad treatment meted out to us, and that we must 

 make it feel our power. . . . We must shout so that the 

 whole country shall hear us; we must shout until our 

 voices reach the halls of Parliament and of the Ministries; 

 we must shout until our voice is heard on the very steps 

 of the throne." And they did shout and oppose the 

 Government in a manner that up to that time had been 

 unknown in Germany. They did not, indeed, join the 

 Social Democrats, but they formed an organisation of 

 their own — the Union of Farmers — which soon shook 

 heaven and earth with its cries. It did not matter to 

 them that the Prussian State Council, after considering 

 their demands, declined to accede to them, finding it "a 

 doubtful policy for the State to increase the prime neces- 

 sity of life." f Nor were they much moved when the 

 Prussian Minister of Agriculture, Herr von Hammerstein, 

 openly declared their agitation to be "dangerous from a 

 public point of view." They did not even mind being 

 branded by the Kaiser himself as " bread-usurers. "J They 

 proceeded in their agitation with an ever increasing energy 

 and unscrupulousness, gained the adherence of the fore- 

 most Junkers, titled and otherwise, in the land, overthrew 

 first Count Caprivi and then Prince Hohenlohe, and lastly, 

 having obtained a Chancellor after their own heart in 

 Biilow and sympathetic allies in the Clerical Centre, they 

 succeeded in overpowering all opposition and ultimately, 

 after a great parliamentary fight, carried their object 



* Janssen, I.e., p. 61. 



t E. Wurin, " Die Finanzgeschichte des Deutschen Retches," Hamburg, 

 1910, p. 133. 



X Wurm, ib. 



