GERMANY. 



357 



The cordial relations with Russia were ad- 

 vanced by the appointment in the early part of 

 the year of Prince Orloff, who is a persona 

 grata with Bismarck, to the Berlin embassy as 

 successor to Saburoff, Baron Mohrenheira be- 

 ing transferred from London to Paris to take 

 Prince Orloff s place. 



Prolongation of the Anti-Socialist Law. The de- 

 cision of the Reichstag with respect to the con- 

 tinuance for two years of the anti-Socialist 

 law seemed likely to be an adverse one, since 

 the Conservative fractions and the National 

 Liberals had no majority, and the Center party, 

 which held the deciding votes, had taken a 

 stand against this as well as other exceptional 

 legislation. During the debate Richter, who 

 argued that repression drove the Social Demo- 

 crats into the arms of secret conspirators and 

 anarchistic agitators, described the recent dis- 

 covery, not yet made public, of the Niederwald 

 plot. Bismarck announced his determination 

 to dissolve Parliament in case the bill was re- 

 jected. With this alternative before them, 38 

 of the Clericals voted on the second and de- 

 cisive reading of the bill, May 10th, with the 

 Government, while 45 voted with Windthorst 

 against the prolongation, and 25 members of 

 the newly-united Liberal Opposition deserted 

 their leaders and voted for the bill, which was 

 carried by 189 votes to 157. By this enact- 

 ment the law of October 21, 1878, against the 

 dangerous aims of the Social Democracy re- 

 mains in force until Sept. 30, 1886. An amend- 

 ment of Windthorst to abrogate the clause 

 forbidding Social Democratic meetings was ac- 

 cepted by the committee, but afterward with- 

 drawn by the mover. 



The Explosives Law. Eugen Richter, the Pro- 

 gressist leader, accompanied his disclosure of 

 the Niederwald attempt, first made during the 

 discussion in committee of the anti-Socialist 

 bill, with a motion to request the Government 

 to bring in a bill against the abuse of explosive 

 materials. Such a bill, Minister von Botticber 

 announced, the Government had in prepara- 

 tion. The act was passed June 9th. The 

 manufacture, importation, purchase, sale, or 

 possession of explosives is prohibited to all 

 who are not specially authorized by the police. 

 The transit trade in explosive substances is 

 permitted, subject to certain formalities that 

 enable the authorities to follow the shipments 

 in their transport through the empire. Per- 

 sons having a license to manufacture or sell 

 must keep a register so as to be able to give an 

 account to the police at any moment of the 

 origin and disposal of their goods. Certain 

 kinds of gunpowder are excluded from the 

 operation of the act. The penalty for the ille- 

 gal possession of explosives, or for making, 

 procuring, or giving them to others without a 

 legal warrant, is imprisonment at hard labor 

 for from one to five years; for causing danger 

 to life or property by their use, imprisonment 

 at hard labor, which shall not be for less than 

 five years in the case of serious bodily injury 



resulting, nor less than ten years if death ensue. 

 Conspiracy to commit crimes under the act is 

 punishable with imprisonment for not less than 

 five years. It is a penal offense also to incite 

 by public utterances to the commission of such 

 crimes, or to praise or glorify persons commit- 

 ting them. 



The Accident-Insurance Law. The bill for the 

 insurance of industrial laborers injured or 

 killed at their work, which failed to pass with 

 the sickness-insurance act in 1883, principally 

 on account of the provision to organize the 

 business under the direction of the state, in- 

 stead of leaving it to private companies, was 

 brought in again in essentially the same shape. 

 Prince Bismarck obviated objections by stating 

 that he desired merely a legislative basis for 

 his insurance scheme which could be amplified 

 and improved in the light of experience. He 

 appealed to the deputies to abandon sterile 

 negation and become fellow-shoemakers with 

 him in relieving the people where the shoe 

 pinches, and preventing them from going bare- 

 foot, reminding them that they possessed the 

 right of initiation as well as the power of re- 

 jection, and promising that he would gladly 

 consider any alternative proposals for these 

 ends. The insurance bills he described as the 

 complement of the anti-Socialist law, proving 

 that, while repressing agitation that set class 

 against class, the state had undertaken to better 

 the condition of the working- people. In this 

 year's debates Bismarck created a sensation by 

 enunciating the doctrine of the right to labor in 

 the folio wing words : " If you will give to the la- 

 borer the right to labor as long as he is in health, 

 secure to him care when he is sick, secure his 

 support when he is old ; if you will do that and 

 not shrink from the sacrifices, and not cry out 

 about state socialism whenever the support of 

 the aged is spoken of, if the state shows more 

 Christian solicitude for the working-people, 

 then I believe that the gentlemen of the Wyden 

 programme (the Social Democrats) will blow 

 their whistle in vain, that the numbers flocking 

 to them will diminish greatly when the work- 

 men see that the Governments or the legisla- 

 tive bodies mean to care for their welfare in 

 earnest." When called to account by Eugen 

 Richter for propounding so novel and startling 

 a doctrine, he replied : "I recognize a r\ght to 

 labor without qualification, and shall maintain 

 it as long as I am in this place. In that I do 

 not stand on the ground of socialism, which 

 is supposed to have begun with the Bismarck 

 administration, but on the ground of the mu- 

 nicipal law of Prussia." There is, in fact, a 

 paragraph in the Prussian code, never applied 

 except to the extent of relief works in times 

 of general distress, which prescribes that, '' to 

 those who lack the means or the opportunity 

 to earn the support of themselves and their 

 families shall be assigned work suited to their 

 strength and capabilities." The Social Demo- 

 crats brought in a resolution to request the 

 Bundesrath to lay before the Reichstag without 



