330 



GERMANY. 



The Emperor's special measure for the restric- 

 tion of strikes and the regulation of labor con- 

 tracts, making certain forms of strike agitation 

 a criminal offense, and hence called the penal 

 servitude bill, when introduced by the Govern- 

 ment into the Reichstag was opposed by large 

 majorities. The Reichstag even refused to sub- 

 mit it to a committee or to consider it in any 

 way previous to its adjournment in July. The 

 bill contained provisions against picketing, and 

 sought to limit and impair the right of coalition. 

 The punishment of penal servitude was to be 

 applied only when acts of incitement or intimida- 

 tion lead to a strike or a lockout, endangering 

 the public peace or the security of life and prop- 

 erty. Not only Socialists and Radicals, but Cler- 

 icals and National Liberals condemned it utterly, 

 and the Minister of Commerce estranged some 

 of the regular supporters of the Government when 

 he said that he would like to have the power to 

 stop every big strike. The bill was introduced 

 to make good a declaration of the Emperor, who 

 said in one of his public speeches that he would 

 enforce penal servitude if necessary to protect 

 workmen against those who would prevent them 

 from working or would incite them to strike. 

 The Clericals and other parties, except the Con- 

 servatives, have been anxious to prove that they 

 desire to protect the rights and advance the in- 

 terests of the laboring classes no less earnestly 

 than the Social Democrats, and therefore none 

 of the restrictive measures introduced to carry 

 out the latest social policy avowed by the Em- 

 peror has obtained a majority, and the failure 

 of the penal-servitude bill was more lamentable 

 than that of the antirevolutionary bill of 1895 or 

 that of the bill introduced into the Prussian 

 Landtag in 1897, aiming to restrict the right of 

 political association and of public meeting. The 

 bill did not make mere incitement to striking 

 punishable, but it prescribed penalties for those 

 who by the exercise of physical force, by men- 

 aces, or by insults endeavor to induce any person 

 to participate in or to abstain from association 

 for the purpose of obtaining better conditions of 

 work or w r ages. Undue pressure brought upon 

 employers to induce them to withhold work from 

 particular categories of persons was one of the 

 offenses defined, though it was left open to em- 

 ployers or employed to agree among themselves 

 not to employ or work for certain categories of 

 persons. 



An invalid and old-age insurance bill, amend- 

 ing and extending the existing act, was brought 

 before the Reichstag in June, and was carried by 

 a practically unanimous vote. The Socialists, 

 who had voted against the original bill ten years 

 before, voted solidly for the revision, as did the 

 Radicals, who opposed the scheme when first 

 advocated by Prince Bismarck as being a long 

 step toward state socialism. Facts regarding 

 the movement of population and the earning ca- 

 pacity of the laboring people in different parts 

 of the country had come to light that show glar- 

 ing inequalities in the operation of the system. 

 The pension offices of the agricultural districts 

 especially were at a disadvantage, owing to the 

 enormous migration of the young and strong 

 to the industrial and commercial sections. They 

 had to provide for four times as large a per- 

 centage of persons eligible for old-age pensions 

 that is, seventy years old and upward as the 

 offices situated in manufacturing and mining dis- 

 tricts, and even the invalid insurance to be paid, 

 in agriculture and forestry was 75 per cent, 

 greater, the working people engaged in mechan- 

 ical branches having through their sick funds 



and other facilities for procuring medical attend- 

 ance and their better housing and more intelli- 

 gent way of living a smaller ratio of sickness 

 than the farm laborers, especially those of the 

 east of Prussia, whom the Emperor pronounced 

 to be worse sheltered than the pigs and the cat- 

 tle. The pension office in Berlin had accumu- 

 lated a surplus so large that the interest of it 

 is sufficient to pay the demands upon it, while 

 that of East Prussia had to struggle with a con- 

 stantly growing deficit. The revision bill, as 

 passed by the Reichstag, provides that two fifths 

 of the income of all the offices shall go into a 

 common fund, out of which 75 per cent, of the 

 old-age pensions shall be paid, the remaining 

 three fifths being treated still as the special fund 

 of each office. The Government had intended to 

 turn three fifths of the receipts into the national 

 fund, and to pay the whole of the old-age pen- 

 sions out of this, but that was a greater sacrifice 

 than the manufacturing communities were will- 

 ing to make. The bill also increases the minimum 

 old-age pension from 106 to 110 marks a year 

 and the maximum pension from 190 to 230 

 marks. To each pension the Imperial Govern- 

 ment will contribute 50 marks as a present. The 

 invalid pensions have, under the old law, been 

 calculated by taking a fixed sum of 110 marks, 

 including the 50 marks from the imperial treas- 

 ury, and adding a sum, reckoned in pfennigs, ob- 

 tained by multiplying the number of weekly con- 

 tributions paid in by the applicant by 2, 6, 9, 

 and 13 for the different classes of wage earners. 

 The new law makes the multipliers 3, 6, 8, 10, 

 and 12, and the fixed sum is also graded accord- 

 ing to five wage classes, which receive 60, 70, 80, 

 90, and 100 marks respectively in addition to 

 the imperial contribution. The old law required 

 complete invalidity as the condition of receiving 

 a pension, whereas the loss of two thirds of the 

 earning capacity entitles one to a pension, which 

 begins at the end of six months, instead of a year 

 of inability to work. Furthermore, there has 

 been a reduction of the length of time that the 

 applicant must have paid premiums in order to 

 receive a pension, which is now two hundred 

 weeks for invalid and twelve hundred for old- 

 age pensions, instead of two hundred and thirty- 

 five and fourteen hundred and ten weeks respec- 

 tively. The new act extends compulsory insur- 

 ance to master workmen and technical artisans 

 not employed in factories, salesmen, and teachers, 

 but only when their annual salary is less than 

 2,000 marks; for persons of these classes receiv- 

 ing between 2,000 and 3,000 marks voluntary in- 

 surance is provided, as also for employers hiring 

 less than three workmen. Persons who have 

 passed out of the classes requiring compulsory 

 insurance may continue the insurance at their 

 own expense. The new law provides greater 

 facilities for having persons treated in hospitals 

 before the disease has advanced so far as to 

 render them invalids, particularly in cases of 

 tuberculosis. The Government bill provided for 

 the organization of local branch pension offices, 

 and the Reichstag approved this, but made it 

 optional with the state authorities to organize 

 them or not. It has been proposed to consoli- 

 date the 31 pension offices into one central ad- 

 ministration, and thus reduce the administrative 

 expenses, which now consume 17 per cent, of 

 the funds that pass through the offices. 



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