318 



GERMANY. 



of all coloring matter. This measure was afterward 

 rejected by the Federal Council. The Stock Ex- 

 change bill prohibited all time contracts for the 

 purchase or sale of grain. Judgments obtained in 

 foreign courts to enforce such contracts were de- 

 clared incapable of being enforced in Germany. 

 When grain dealers arranged to establish branch 

 houses and banks in Antwerp, Amsterdam, and 

 Brussels, on the motion of Count von Kanitx, the 

 Agrarian leader, the Reichstag requested the Gov- 

 ernment to negotiate treaties with foreign powers 

 prohibiting traffic in grain and produce futures. 

 The bill provided for a public register of prices. 

 All German stock and produce exchanges are placed 

 under the control of a special commission selected 

 for the purpose by the Federal Council, and com- 

 posed half of representatives of commerce and in- 

 dustry and half of representatives of agriculture. 

 Each exchange is administered by its own local 

 committee. Complicated provisions regulate the 

 fixing of prices and the admission of new securities. 

 Exceptionally severe regulations, enforced by heavy 

 penalties, are applied to the drawing up of prospec- 

 tuses and the publication of statements with a view 

 to obtaining official quotations of shares. Specula- 

 tion in shares of mining and industrial enterprises 

 is forbidden, and in the shares of any company hav- 

 ing a smaller capital than 20,000,000 marks. The 

 Federal Council is intrusted with discretionary 

 power to forbid time dealings in any class of goods 

 or securities. Conservatives, Clericals, National 

 Liberals, and Anti-Semites voted for the bill, which 

 was strenuously opposed by the Radicals. The So- 

 cialists also voted against it eventually on the ground 

 that it would make bread dearer. The sugar-tax 

 amendment bill was passed after a long debate and 

 went into effect on June 1. The Government pro- 

 posed to increase the export bounties from 1 mark 

 to 4 marks per 100 kilos, averring that an increase 

 would lead the sooner to an international agreement 

 for the total abolition or gradual diminution of all 

 sugar bounties. Prior to 1887 the German sugar 

 tax was calculated on the amount of beet root em- 

 ployed, 20 centners of green roots being expect- 

 ed to produce 1 centner of raw sugar. The 

 bounty, being intended as a drawback on exports, 

 was made the same for a centner of exported sugar 

 as the tax collected on 20 centners of beet roots. 

 When with the advances in machinery and chem- 

 ical processes and the improvement in the quality 

 of the beets 1-J- to 2 centners of sugar were extract- 

 ed from 20 centners of roots, the drawback became 

 a bounty which absorbed the entire revenue from 

 the sugar tax. In 1887, when the state was paying 

 a bounty of 4| marks on every 100 kilos exported, 

 this was cut down to 2.V marks, and a new duty was 

 imposed based on the consumption of sugar. In 

 1891 the Reichstag further reduced the bounty to 

 1 mark as a preliminary to the entire abolition on 

 July 31, 1897, provided that in the mean time Aus- 

 tria and France, the other bounty-paying countries, 

 should agree to do likewise. Failing to obtain such 

 an agreement, the Government proposed to raise 

 the bounty to 4 marks, partly as a means of pres- 

 sure on those governments. The Reichstag, how- 

 ever, voted to restore the export bounty of 2^ marks. 

 It raised the duty on raw sugar intended for home 

 consumption from 18 to 21 marks, fixed the limit of 

 production for the next season at 17,000,000 double 

 centners, and introduced a graduated tax on pro- 

 duction, beginning with 10 pfennige per 100 kilos 

 for the first 4,000,000 kilos, with 2"> per cent, in- 

 crease in the duty for every additional 1,000,000 

 kilos produced in the same factory. 



Another measure originated by the Agrarians 

 provides for the expenditure of 3,000.000 marks in 

 erecting grain warehouses in agricultural districts, 



and for the construction of numerous light railways 

 to facilitate the transportation of grain. 



Prince Ilohenlohe, who early in 1895 expressed 

 his readiness to take into consideration the question 

 of international negotiations for the rehabilitation 

 of silver, explained on Feb. 8 the results of his 

 efforts. The preliminary interchange of views with 

 the English Government led him to conclude that 

 there was no probability of the Indian mints being 

 reopened for the unrestricted coinage of silver, and 

 since this was acknowledged by bimetallists to be 

 the indispensable preliminary condition for any 

 international measure in favor of silver, without 

 which, in his own opinion, all attempts to raise the 

 price of silver would be in vain, a monetary con- 

 vention could not at the present time be expected 

 to bring the questions at issue nearer to practical 

 solution ; therefore it did not appear advisable for 

 Germany to take the initiative in summoning such 

 a conference. Under the influence of this convic- 

 tion the federal governments unanimously deter- 

 mined not to comply with the request for a confer- 

 ence contained in the resolution carried by the 

 Reichstag on Feb. 16, 1895. If, however, any ac- 

 ceptable and promising proposals were made by 

 any other state the Chancellor was ready to con- 

 template Germany's participation in an interna- 

 tional discussion of such plans. The disadvantages 

 involved for Germany in the fluctuation and de- 

 pression of the price of silver were defined as the 

 reduction of the value of the metal as a trustworthy 

 medium, the increased likelihood of the circulation 

 of forged coins, the injury to the German silver- 

 mining industry, and the loss in the export trade to 

 countries having a silver currency. 



The death, on April 12, of Baron von Schrader, 

 the King's chamberlain, as the result of a duel with 

 Liberecht von Kotze, whose arrest he had caused 

 on the charge that he had circulated slanderous 

 letters reflecting on the private lives of members of 

 the court, was the occasion for interpellations of 

 Clericals, Socialists, and Radicals regarding the 

 connivance of the civil and military authorities in 

 the illegal and barbarous practice of dueling, which 

 was becoming more and more common. Herr von 

 Kotze was afterward tried, and was sentenced to 

 two years' confinement in a fortress, yet duels oc- 

 curred with the same frequency, in many cases by 

 decree of the courts of honor established to avert 

 them, sometimes when one of the principals, as 

 Plerr von Kotze himself, had intended to seek re- 

 dress in the law tribunals. The increase in dueling 

 was attributed to the influence of the 'Emperor 

 himself, who in a rescript had declared that officers 

 who know not how to defend their honor can not be 

 tolerated in the German army. 



Reforms in the procedure of military courts, par- 

 ticularly public sessions and oral testimony, were 

 demanded by the people and by the most intelligent, 

 of the army officers. A bill for this purpose was 

 prepared and advocated by Gen. Bronsart von 

 Schellendorf, the Prussian Minister of War. When 

 the military cabinet of the Emperor still continued 

 to obstruct this and other long-promised reforms, 

 Gen. Bronsart von Schellendorf resigned his port- 

 folio, which was given on Aug. 15 to Lieut.-Gen. 

 von Gossler. Measures to regulate military service 

 in the German spheres of influence provide that 

 recruits may serve their time in the colonial forces 

 instead of in the active army, and that officers who 

 have resigned to join the colonial troops may be 

 readmitted to the army or navy. 



A new law against unfair competition is directed 

 mainly against the use of false weights and meas- 

 ures, the publication of misleading descriptions of 

 articles of commerce with a view to increase their 

 sale, and the disclosure of trade secrets, which latter 



