386 



GERMANY. 



appear as if the regulations made by him were 

 at the root of the disaster ; but he must state 

 that he had not yet been able to learn which 

 of his regulations ought to bear the blame. 

 The causes of the accident, so far as it was 

 possible to find the causes, had been ascer- 

 tained ; but he could not give any information 

 on the subject while the present inquiry was 

 pending. To the question whether precaution- 

 ary measures had been taken to prevent the 

 recurrence of such disasters, he would reply 

 that the present regulations were amply suffi- 

 cient. The development of the navy could 

 only be a slow process, but, on the other hand, 

 its requirements were large. During the time 

 he had held office he had made the greatest 

 efforts to raise the navy into a state of efficiency 

 for the service of the empire. The speaker 

 entered into particulars respecting the training 

 afforded to officers and sub-officers in the navy 

 since 1871, and maintained that they were now 

 much more efficient than before 1871. The 

 men now in the navy to whom was intrusted 

 the duty of steering enjoyed more particularly 

 the approval of the public in general ; and in 

 the case of the Grosser Kurfurst they incurred 

 no blame, for they had merely to follow the 

 command of the officers ; and, even if the lat- 

 ter lost their presence of mind, the steersman 

 could not question his orders. It was easy to 

 say that the German sailors had no experience 

 in the navigation of the colossal vessels which 

 were now constructed, but there was the same 

 want of experience in every navy in the world. 

 Neither the system nor the commander of the 

 squadron, he said, was at fault. The law could 

 not and would not spare him if he were found 

 to blame. Rear -Admiral Werner, at Kiel, who 

 had been appointed supreme arbiter in the 

 question of the collision, felt so deeply ag- 

 grieved by General Stosch's speech that he 

 asked to be permitted to resign. His resigna- 

 tion was accepted. In December the Govern- 

 ment was represented to be having under con- 

 sideration a proposal for the adoption of an 

 international code of regulations for ships at 

 sea, with a view of preventing collisions. 



A commission, consisting of eight officers of 

 finance and three experts, was appointed by 

 Prince Bismarck to devise the most practica- 

 ble means of increasing the revenue. Prince 

 Bismarck submitted to it his scheme for estab- 

 lishing a monopoly in tobacco, but the Com- 

 mission decided against this plan in December, 

 by a vote of eight to three. It recommended 

 instead a duty according to weight on inland 

 tobacco, accompanied by such customs duties 

 on foreign tobacco as would about correspond 

 to the proportion between customs and excise 

 which was accepted by the Imperial Taxation 

 Commission of 1873. It estimated that by the 



doption of its proposals an increase of $20,000,- 



would be secured, whereas the monopoly 



would not, at the most, yield more than $2,- 



00,000 more. Several commissions have been 

 appointed to inquire into the condition of the 



principal kinds of industry and trade, with a 

 view to obtaining in their reports a guide to 

 the future policy of the Government. It is 

 noticed, as a suggestive fact, that the Protec- 

 tionist party are in the majority in all these 

 commissions. 



The German Government became involved 

 in a difficulty on the Nicaraguan coast, which 

 was adjusted in the early part of the year after 

 a naval demonstration against the offending 

 state, but without any actual resort to force. 

 The German Consul, Eisenstuck, at Leon, Nica- 

 ragua, and some members of his family, had 

 been repeatedly assaulted in the streets by na- 

 tives armed with pistols, and the Government 

 and courts had refused to take cognizance of 

 the outrage, on the ground that it grew out of 

 a family affair with which they had nothing to 

 do a family difficulty being actually connect- 

 ed with the matter. The German Government, 

 however, considering that an insult was offered 

 to its consul, took a different view of the ques- 

 tion, and, having secured approval of its ideas 

 from the British and United States Govern- 

 ments, insisted upon being given a public satis- 

 faction. Pacific attempts to obtain this having 

 been fruitless, a squadron of four vessels of 

 war, two of them ironclads, was ordered to 

 the Nicaraguan coast to exact reparation. On 

 the appearance of the squadron the Nicaraguan 

 Government accepted the German conditions, 

 which were that the persons who had attacked 

 the consul and his family should be tried, the 

 officers who had failed to protect the threat- 

 ened household should be punished, an indem- 

 nity of $30,000 should be paid to the consul, 

 and a salute of thirty guns to the consular flag 

 should be fired. It is noticed that the German 

 navy has been used repeatedly in recent years 

 for similar purposes: in 1872 against Central 

 America ; in 1874 against Spain, on account of 

 the destruction of the German ship Gustav by 

 the Carlists ; in 1875 against the Sooloo Isl- 

 ands; in 1876 against Samoa; and later in the 

 same year against China. 



Some valuable facts respecting the consump- 

 tion of American articles in Germany are com- 

 municated to the State Department of the Uni- 

 ted States by the American Consul at Mann- 

 heim. Large quantities of American meat are 

 imported by one firm in Mannheim 10,000 

 hams in a single order, and an enormous amount 

 of beef and sausages, sent in thirty days from 

 St. Louis, equal to German sausages. Fresh 

 beef twenty-one days from St. Louis finds a 

 ready market in Baden. American stoves begin 

 to be seen in Germany, and glass from Pitts- 

 burg is approved on account of its strength and 

 clearness, American cotton cloths are bought 

 carefully by the German housewife. Sole leath- 

 er from the United States is preferred to the 

 English article. American preserved vegeta- 

 bles, fruits, oysters, lobsters, etc., are sold in 

 large quantities ; sewing and knitting machines 

 are accepted everywhere. 



The yield of the Westphalian, the largest of 



