GERMANY. 



389 



A sugar-tax was likewise rejected. A bill 

 proposed by Count Udo Stalberg retains the 

 beet-root duty of 1'60 marks, and reduces the 

 sugar bounty to 17'40 marks, and, after tbe 

 expiration of a year, to 16*40 marks. 



A bill was passed to indemnify prisoners 

 wrongfully sentenced for the time of their 

 imprisonment, which did not satisfy Herr 

 Hartmann and the Socialist Kayser, who pro- 

 posed that all the damage sustained in money, 

 time, and loss of business should be made 

 good. Another bill regulates the communal 

 taxation of officers. The Moltke bill increas- 

 ing officers' pensions in proportion to the 

 length of service, the same as civil pensions, 

 was approved. The social reforms of Prince 

 Bismarck were extended by the establishment 

 of accident and sickness insurance for laborers 

 employed in agriculture and forestry, and acci- 

 dent insurance for persons in military service. 



The debate on the prolongation of the anti- 

 Socialist law occurred soon after the labor 

 disturbances in Belgium. Amendments pro- 

 posed by Windthorst, striking out the pro- 

 hibition of meetings, lessening the restrictions 

 on the press, and mollifying the minor state of 

 siege, were adopted. On the motion of Depu- 

 ty Hurtling, the duration of the law was re- 

 duced to three years. With these changes it 

 was re-enacted by 1(59 votes to 137. The Cen- 

 ter and Progressists had declared against the 

 continuation of the exceptional law, while 

 Prince Bismarck had threatened an imme- 

 diate dissolution of Parliament if it were 

 not re-enacted in its entirety for five years. 

 Minister von Puttkamer referred to Belgium 

 as a country where riot and anarchy had re- 

 sulted from freedom of speech and the press. 

 Herr Bebel spoke of the regicide in Russia as 

 a natural and excusable outcome of a policy 

 of fettering public opinion. Prince Bismarck 

 took note that the Social-Democrat leader had 

 at length expressed approval of the murder of 

 princes, and announced that he would accept 

 a prolongation for two years. In the final vote 

 one third of the Center party voted for and 

 one third against the bill, while the remaining 

 third remained neutral. In the extraordinary 

 session that was held in September, the So- 

 cialists charged the Saxon authorities with 

 misusing the anti-Socialist laws for the pur- 

 pose of suppressing trade - unions and check- 

 ing labor - strikes. In the spring and early 

 summer there were extensive strikes in the 

 capital. The Social-Democrats attacked Herr 

 von Puttkamer in the Reichstag, on account 

 of a ministerial order requiring public meet- 

 ings to be notified to the police and receive 

 authorization forty-eight hours before they are 

 held, whereas, previously, a notice at any time 

 was sufficient. 



The anti-Socialist laws were applied after 

 their renewal in novel and unusual ways. Herr 

 Bebel and other members of Parliament were 

 convicted of unlawful agitation, and sent to 

 prison. In Frankfort persons were prosecuted 



for subscribing to the Zurich " Social-Demo- 

 krat," on the "assumption that it is an act of 

 propaganda to buy a Socialist paper. The 

 military authorities, to prevent the spread of 

 socialism in the army, ordered that soldiers 

 should not be permitted to converse with work- 

 men. In Berlin, a number of ladies who had 

 formed a society for the protection of working- 

 women, were tried in December on the charge 

 that their society pursued political objects. The 

 aim of the association, as appeared from the 

 evidence, was to organize throughout Ger- 

 many work-women's unions on the model of 

 those existing among working-men, with the 

 object of obtaining fixed working hours, higher 

 wages, and better education for women. The 

 members were sentenced to pay sm'all fines, 

 and one of them to a short term of imprison- 

 ment, and the society was dissolved. The 

 working-people regarded this result as the in- 

 dication of an intention on the part of the Gov- 

 ernment to suppress labor- unions. 



The Prussian Landtag. The Prussian Chamber 

 was opened by the King in person on Jan. 14, 

 1886. A new loan was announced for reliev- 

 ing the pressure of "school and local taxation, 

 augmenting official salaries, and preparing for 

 the introduction of the spirit monopoly, which 

 was expected to yield sufficient revenue to sat- 

 isfy urgent requirements of the state and im- 

 perial governments, and to conduce at the same 

 time to public health and morality. 



A resolution in favor of establishing com- 

 munal savings-banks for the use of small farm- 

 ers was adopted in the place of one proposing 

 loans from state savings institutions on their 

 land in order to prevent their farms from fall- 

 ing into the hands of money-lenders. 



The Polish debate came on at the close of Jan- 

 uary. Bismarck had chosen the more obedient 

 Assembly as the arena for the contest, with- 

 out troubling himself to reconcile this course 

 with his utterances regarding the competency 

 of the individual states in questions of interna- 

 tional import. He said that the declaration 

 made in 1815, on taking possession of Prussian 

 Poland, was no longer binding, that it was not 

 of the nature of a treaty, and that it naturally 

 premised loyalty to the state. A party that is 

 hostile to the German state in its present form, 

 and only acknowledges a temporary and con- 

 ditional allegiance to Prussia, does not belong 

 to the state, and has no claims on it. He con- 

 fessed that it was the Polonizing tendencies of 

 the Catholic division in the Ministry of Wor- 

 ship that drove him into the ecclesiastical con- 

 flict. The purpose was announced of convert- 

 ing into Germans the Poles who remained, 

 after getting rid of all those of Russian and 

 Austrian origin. This was to be accomplished 

 by means of German schools, and by transfer- 

 ring the Polish officials and soldiers to German 

 provinces. The colonization of the Polish dis- 

 tricts by German land-owners and farmers, 

 after expropriating the Polish nobility, was 

 proposed, and authority was asked to advance 



