286 



GERMANY. 



sion to the Agrarians, intended as a slight com- 

 pensation for the abolition of sugar bounties. A 

 more substantial compensation was the lowering 

 of the internal duty on sugar, designed to extend 

 the domestic consumption of sugar by materially 

 lowering its price, and therefore acceptable to So- 

 cialists and Radicals as well as to Agrarian Con- 

 servatives, who would find in the home market 

 opened to them an outlet for their sugar if the 

 competition of cane-sugar drove it out of the 

 Knglish market. The Government in signing the 

 Brussels convention had no fear that Germany, 

 the greatest sugar-producing country in the 

 world and the most advanced in its methods of 

 production, could not still compete successfully 

 in the world's market; but it did fear that, if it 

 refused to accept the terms that Great Britain 

 offered at Brussels, German sugar would be shut 

 out of England by countervailing duties. Never- 

 theless, the extreme section of the Agrarians 

 struggled to prevent the ratification of the Brus- 

 sels convention by the Reichstag. Nearly all the 

 sugar manufacturers were opposed to the treaty. 

 The convention was finally approved on June 11 

 by 209 votes to 103. The minority consisted of 

 the greater part of the Conservatives and a large 

 section of the Clericals, while the Social Demo- 

 crats and the Radicals gave 110 votes for the 

 convention, which the ordinary supporters of the 

 Government would otherwise have rejected. The 

 sugar bill reduces the internal-revenue tax on 

 sugar from 20 marks per 100 kilograms to 16 

 marks and abolishes the bounties on exports. 

 The sugar cartel has raised the price about 14 

 marks to consumers in order to secure an extra 

 profit of 3 to 4 marks for its members. The do- 

 mestic demand has declined in consequence, but 

 the abolition of bounties will curtail the power 

 of the trust. 



The saccharin bill prohibits the production or 

 importation of saccharin except by permission 

 of the Federal Council, which is empowered to 

 license one or more manufacturers or importers 

 subject to constant official inspection and the 

 revocation at any time of their licenses; and the 

 product can not be sold except by specially li- 

 censed apothecaries for medical or scientific pur- 

 poses only. The existing factories receive com- 

 pensation at the rate of 6 times their average 

 annual profit, reckoned at 4 marks per kilogram. 

 The Imperial Chancellor is empowered to fix the 

 maximum quantity of saccharin that each li- 

 censed factory may produce. The use of saccha- 

 rin as a cheap substitute for sugar is stopped al- 

 together by this law, but not its use on the pre- 

 scription of a physician by persons suffering 

 from a disease that is aggravated by the use of 

 sugar. The bill appropriating money for the con- 

 struction of a railroad in German East Africa 

 was postponed on account of the unfavorable con- 

 dition of the imperial estimates. A bill to secure 

 liberty of worship to all subjects of the empire 

 was rendered effective by legislative acts in the 

 states where Catholic disabilities and restrictions 

 on worship still existed, as in Mecklenburg and 

 Brunswick. 



The Government tariff bill was introduced in 

 the Reichstag on Dec. 2, 1901, referred to a com- 

 mittee of 28 members on Dec. 12, and read in the 

 house on Feb. 26, 1902, after which the committee 

 went to work on the 946 clauses. High protec- 

 tion has been the fiscal policy of the German 

 Government" since 1879, and under it the country 

 has made a wonderful advance in industry, 

 though this was greatest and emigration smallest 

 in the- period of commercial treaties concluded by 

 Count von Caprivi. Agriculture has not been 



generally prosperous, and those who have suf- 

 fered most are the influential territorial aris- 

 tocracy of Prussia, who have received legislative 

 favors from the beginning, but not enough to 

 counteract the special disadvantages under which 

 they labor. While the world's competition haa 

 lowered the prices of agricultural products the 

 newly developed mines and industries of western 

 Germany have drained away the population of 

 the east and made agricultural labor scarce and 

 dear. The objection of the Agrarians to the 

 canal system, which they defeated three times in 

 the Prussian Chamber, was that it would not 

 only afford cheaper transport for competing for- 

 eign products, but would further stimulate this- 

 migration of the laboring population. When the 

 new tariff had to be made landowners and farm- 

 ers in most of the agricultural districts joined 

 in the cry for higher protection for their prod- 

 ucts, so that they could have a share of the pros- 

 perity that had come to the industrialists. The 

 Conservative and Clerical parties, which nor- 

 mally support the Government, and by their 

 numbers and compact organization can also de- 

 feat Government measures, were controlled by- 

 Agrarian opinion. The National Liberal party 

 contained many Agrarians. The remnant of the 

 Radical party and the Social Democracy were 

 determined to resist to the last every schedule 

 in the tariff that would make food still dearer 

 than it already Avas made by Agrarian measures 

 and expedients that the Government had adopted 

 during a series of years. Austria-Hungary, Italy, 

 Russia, and other countries that have supplied 

 Germany with food were deeply concerned in the 

 outcome of the struggle. The people of the Uni- 

 ted States were interested in the prospects of 

 their food exports to Germany, and also in the 

 question whether dear food would not weaken 

 Germany's industrial competition and start once 

 more the emigration of enterprising and skilled 

 Germans to America and drive German capital 

 abroad. Duties on grain, which had not existed 

 for fifteen years, were introduced in the protective 

 tariff of 1879, and were tripled in 1885, but lowered 

 again in 1892, when new commercial treaties were 

 made with Austria, Belgium, Italy, and Switzer- 

 land, followed by similar reciprocal arrangements 

 with Roumania and Russia. Other countries, ex- 

 cepting Portugal, have favored-nation treaties, the 

 one with the United States having been made by 

 Prussia in 1828. This old treaty has given rise 

 to various disputes with the United States re- 

 garding bounties and other evasions, and under 

 it Germany has claimed that the United States 

 can make no reciprocity treaty with any country 

 without extending the same advantages to Ger- 

 many. When Canada discriminated in favor of 

 Great Britain the German Government applied 

 the autonomous tariff to Canada. The German 

 autonomous tariffs of 1879 and 1887 made the 

 duty on wheat and rye 5 marks per 100 kilos, 

 but the duty since 1892 under the favored-nation 

 clause has been 3.50 marks, and on barley 2 

 marks. If new reciprocitv treaties are not con- 

 cluded before Dec. 31, 1903, the duties of 1887 

 would come into force on Jan. 1, 1905, unless 

 the Reichstag adopts a new tariff. The Govern- 

 ment proposed as minimum duties, not to be low- 

 ered for any country by a reciprocity agreement, 

 5.50 marks on wheat, 5 marks on rye and 

 oats, and 3 marks on barley. The Agrarians 

 called for 7. 50 marks per 100 kilograms on all 

 kinds of grain. The Tariff Committee, by a major- 

 ity of 17 to 11, adopted the rates of 6 marks on 

 wheat and 5.50 marks on rye, barley, and oats. 

 From Bavaria came a protest against a barley 



