THE NEAR FUTURE. 595 



corn. A more widespread coercion is seen in the Old Age 

 Pension system. And, again, there is the recent Govern 

 ment measure for establishing compulsory gilds of artizans : 

 a manifest reversion. These and many other regulations, 

 alike of employers and employed, make them in so far crea 

 tures of the State, not having the unrestrained use of their 

 own faculties. And even when at home it is the same. 

 Says Mr. Eubule Evans, in a recent account of the changes 

 that have taken place in German life since 1870: 



There is little possibility of independence in speech or action. 

 The police are always at your elbow . . . half schoolmaster, half nurse, 

 he [the policeman] will supervise your every action, from the cradle to 

 the grave, with a military sternness and inflexibility which robs you 

 of all independence and reduces you to the level of a mere plastic 

 item ... if you wish to stay in Germany, you must give up your 

 individuality, as you do your passport, into the keeping of the police 

 authorities.&quot; 



And now note that this is the testimony not of an outsider 

 only, but that of a German who, perhaps above all others, is 

 the most competent judge. Prince Bismarck in 1893 said 

 to a deputation from the principality of Lippe: 



&quot;My fear and anxiety for the future is that the national conscious 

 ness may be stifled in the coils of the boa constrictor of the bureaucracy 

 which has m.ade rapid progress during the last few years.&quot; 



Verification is here afforded of a statement made above, 

 that the prevailing sentiments and ideas must be congruous 

 with the prevailing social structure. The stifling of the 

 national consciousness, feared by Prince Bismarck, is com 

 mented on by Mr. Evans, who, referring to the feeling of 

 Germans about bureaucratic control, says: &quot; Long use has 

 made it second nature to them; they can hardly imagine 

 any other regime&quot; 



And now we see why the socialistic movement has as 

 sumed such large proportions in Germany. We may under 

 stand why its theoretical expounders, Rodbertus, Marx, 

 Lassalle, and its working advocates, Bebel, Liebknecht, 

 Singer, and others, have raised its adherents into a body of 



