440 



GERMANY. 



tive parties and the Catholic Center controlled 

 a majority of votes, elected Herr von Sey- 

 dewitz, Conservative, as President. The Lib- 

 erals did not vote, and of 204 valid tickets 195 

 were found to be in favor of the Conservative 

 candidate. On May 23d Freiherr von Stauffen- 

 berg resigned his post as first Vice-President of 

 the House, and on May 24th Baron von Frank- 

 enstein, one of the leaders of the Catholic Cen- 

 ter, was elected in his place. As this was 

 the first time that an Ultramontane had been 

 elected to this high ofiice, the Catholic press of 

 Germany characterized the event as a great 

 victory of its party. It is a noteworthy fact 

 that previous to the election of Herr von Sey- 

 dewitz both the President of the Reichstag, 

 Herr von Forckenbeck, and the two Vice- 

 Presidents, Freiherr von Stauffenberg and Dr. 

 Lucius, were Catholics ; but none of the three 

 sympathized with the Ultramontane Center, 

 and, though belonging to different political 

 parties, all of them, in the conflict between the 

 German Government and the Catholic Church, 

 sided with the former. 



The Socialists of the Reichstag repeatedly 

 produced scenes of great commotion. On 

 March 17th, when the report of the Govern- 

 ment, stating the reasons which had induced 

 them to place Berlin in a minor stage of siege, 

 was under discussion, Herr Liebknecht, the 

 Socialist Deputy for Dresden, severely attacked 

 the Prussian Administration. He denied that 

 the Socialists ever advised resistance to the law, 

 that they were connected with the Russian Ni- 

 hilists, or that they were responsible for the at- 

 tempts to murder some of the European princes. 

 The spirit of murder was an epidemic, as 

 might be seen from the rapidly succeeding at- 

 tempts in the earlier part of the reign of Queen 

 Victoria, than whom a more blameless and 

 constitutional ruler could not exist. "When the 

 speaker finally sought to defend himself from 

 the charge of willfully insulting the Emperor 

 by remaining once seated when the Chancellor 

 proposed three cheers for the Emperor, his 

 words produced a general uproar, and the 

 President declared that the speaker in acting 

 as he did had wounded the feelings of the 

 Reichstag and the whole German people in a 

 way which nothing else could have equaled, 

 and that, having warned the speaker twice al- 

 ready, he must put it to the House whether the 

 speaker should be permitted to proceed. Herr 

 Liebknecht did not wait for the vote, but left 

 the tribune. On March 31st the only Socialist 

 member present in the House again ostenta- 

 tiously kept his seat when the House respect- 

 fully rose to its feet to express its sympathy 

 with a recent affliction of the imperial family 

 (death of Prince Waldemar, grandson of the 

 Emperor). On May 14th the Reichstag was 

 informed that a communication from Washing- 

 ton to the Postmaster-General of Prussia de- 

 nied the assertion made some time ago by the 

 Social Democrat, Herr Liebknecht, that the 

 United States authorities had complained of 



letters from Germany being broken open or 

 tampered with before crossing the sea. 



On March 1 1th Herr von Btihler of Wurtem- 

 berg, moderate Progressist, moved that Prince 

 Bismarck be requested to call a congress of the 

 Powers, with the view of bringing about an 

 effective general disarmament, to the extent at 

 least of half their present peace strength, for a 

 probationary period of from ten to fifteen years. 

 All thinking men, the speaker said, agreed that 

 the continued competition among European 

 states as to which should spend most on armies 

 must necessarily lead them to bankruptcy, if it 

 had not partly done so already. The motion 

 received the support of only about a dozen 

 men, including Socialists, Alsatian Particular- 

 ists, and Poles. 



On June 19th Herr Delbruck presented an 

 interpellation in regard to the Government's 

 discontinuing the coinage of silver. He said it 

 was necessary to clearly define the situation, 

 especially as in the debates of the British Par- 

 liament the question whether Germany intend- 

 ed to modify the law fixing upon a gold stand- 

 ard had been treated as an open one. Prince 

 Bismarck replied that he did not know the 

 views of the federal governments, but he him- 

 self did not think it expedient unnecessarily to 

 commit himself to an expression of opinion 

 upon a question of such moment. He thought 

 the interpellation had not been well considered, 

 but, treating the matter from a business point 

 of view, he could assure the House that neither 

 the Federal Council nor the Prussian Ministry 

 had mooted the question of a modification of 

 the gold-standard law. Suspension of the sil- 

 ver sales was a measure of expediency, adopted 

 pending an increase of value. Any doubt re- 

 specting the stability of German coinage legis- 

 lation was wholly unwarranted. He had never 

 discussed the question with the Minister of Fi- 

 nance. The gentleman from whom Lord Odo 

 Russell, the British Ambassador, had derived 

 his information that " the German Govern- 

 ment is preparing to introduce and adopt a 

 double standard, as in France," must have been 

 better informed than the Imperial Government. 

 The President of the Imperial Bank, address- 

 ing the House, said the Government had al- 

 ready lost by its sales of silver 96,500,000 marks. 

 Herr Bamberger stated that the deputies who 

 introduced the interpellation (he was one) had 

 done so because of the report of Lord Odo 

 Russell, who had been informed by the Brit- 

 ish Consul-General, who was also a member of 

 the Bank Committee. The President of the 

 Bank observed that the British Consul-General, 

 though a member of the Bank Committee, was 

 not informed of the intentions of the Govern- 

 ment. 



The Reichstag was closed on July 13th by 

 Prince Bismarck, in the name of the Emperor. 



The special convention with Austria con- 

 cerning the northern part of Schleswig, to 

 which the imperial speech from the throne re- 

 ferred, was concluded at Vienna on October 



