288 



GERMANY. 



27,000.000 marks, while expenditure increased 

 21,000,000 marks. Herr von Thielen, Prussian 

 Minister of Public Works and head of the Im- 

 perial Railroad Administration, resigned on June 

 JJ. and was succeeded by Major-Gen. Budde. 



The dictatorship paragraph in the Constitu- 

 tion of the Reichsland was abolished pursuant 

 to an edict of the Emperor authorizing Prince 

 Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the Statthalter, and the 

 Imperial ( liancellor to take steps in the Bundes- 

 rath and the Reichstag to effect the repeal. The 

 law of Dec 30, 1871, conferred on the Chief 

 1 'resident of the Reichsland power to adopt in 

 the event of danger to the public safety all meas- 

 ures that he considered requisite. He was thereby 

 iiiM-sted with the same powers that the French 

 law of August, 1849, gave to the military au- 

 thorities when a state of siege had been declared. 

 In the Constitution of Alsace-Lorraine, adopted 

 in July, 1879, the same law was retained, em- 

 powering the Statthalter to employ for police 

 purposes the military garrison, to expel any per- 

 son, even a born Alsace-Lorrainer or a German, 

 from the Reichsland, to suppress any newspaper, 

 etc. The representatives of Alsace-Lorraine in 

 the Reichstag continually protested against the 

 paragraph until in 1895, and again in 1900, reso- 

 lutions were passed in favor of its repeal. The 

 Government paid no attention to these resolu- 

 tions, but finally proposed the elimination of the 

 paragraph as a token of the Emperor's good-will 

 and confidence in the loyalty of the Alsace-Lor- 

 rainers to the empire. 



The Reichstag Tariff Committee at length 

 reported the bill on Aug. 11. The Clericals on 

 the committee, supported by the Social Demo- 

 crats, proposed to devote any surplus accruing 

 to the treasury from the tariff to building a 

 fund for the maintenance of widows and orphans, 

 a motion which was lost by 3 votes, although 

 the ministers promised some such scheme for al- 

 leviating the pressure of the tariff on the working 

 classes. When the Reichstag reassembled on Oct. 

 14 and began the discussion of the compromise 

 bill as it came from the committee the Chancellor 

 accepted the altered duties on grain, even the 

 barley duty, and endeavored to conciliate the 

 opponents of higher taxes on the food of the 

 people by expressing a readiness to consider the 

 question of paying members of the Reichstag. 

 The Center, the two Conservative parties, and the 

 National Liberals supported the compromise 

 tariff. The Social Democrats and Radicals used 

 every parliamentary device to prolong the dis- 

 cussion on every clause. When on Nov. 27 only 

 a few clauses had been forced through in the face 

 of this determined obstruction, the leaders of the 

 Government parties moved that the Reichstag, in- 

 stead of continuing to vote on each clause, vote 

 upon the whole bill. This was contrary to the 

 rules of the house, but President von Ballestrem 

 declared the motion open to debate. 



The Kmperor excited some distrust and much 

 criticism by a telegram which he sent to the 

 Prince Regent of Bavaria expressing deep indig- 

 nation at the base ingratitude exhibited by the 

 Bavarian Chamber to the house of Wittelsbach in 

 refusing to vote 100,000 marks for the purchase 

 of works of art. and offering to place the sum 

 at the disposal of Prince Leopold. A member of 

 the Bavarian Dirt lia.l already offered to supply 

 the money which tin- < lerical 'majority had with 

 icld in retaliation for the dismissal "of Minister 

 f Education von Landmann because he had 

 uphold a Catholic professor in a dispute with the 

 V\ u'rzburg University senate. The Kmperor Wil- 

 helm'a impulsive strictures on a constitutional 



act of the Legislature of one of the federated 

 states, one most jealous of its parity with Prus- 

 sia in the federation, seemed to have the more po- 

 litical significance because the political party re- 

 sponsible for the act that provoked his outburst 

 was the one that in the Prussian Chambers had 

 defeated the canal bills and other legislative 

 projects that he had espoused, as was his con- 

 stitutional right, and also bills in the Reichstag 

 that he claimed to have the right to influence in 

 the same way. 



The Prussian Diet in the session that began 

 on Jan. 8, 1902, notwithstanding a deficit due 

 mainly to the diminution of railroad receipts, 

 was invited to authorize the construction of new 

 branch lines. The extension of the canal system 

 was regarded by the Government as a matter of 

 urgent necessity for the whole country. Meas- 

 ures were taken by the Government in advance 

 of parliamentary grants for the relief of agricul- 

 tural distress in Posen and Westphalia. The situ- 

 ation in the bilingual districts of the eastern part 

 of the kingdom had assumed an aspect so serious 

 that the Government considered it a question of 

 self-preservation for the Prussian state to main- 

 tain for the German element the political and eco- 

 nomic position to which it can justly lay claim 

 in virtue of the civilizing influence it has long 

 exercised. Unpatriotic agitation would be firmly 

 suppressed in reliance upon the energetic coop- 

 eration of the German population in those dis- 

 tricts and the support of the whole nation, which 

 regards the repression of the German language 

 and German culture as an assault upon the na- 

 tional honor and dignity. The Polish settlement 

 bill approved by the Landtag provided for an 

 addition of 250,000,000 marks to the fund for 

 land purchase and settlement in West Prussia 

 and Posen, of which sum 150,000,000 marks, sup- 

 plementing 200,000,000 marks voted for the pur- 

 pose in former years, are to be devoted to the 

 colonization of small German proprietors in the 

 Polish provinces and 100,000,000 marks to the 

 purchase of estates to be converted into Govern- 

 ment domains and forests. The Poles were more 

 thrifty, industrious, intelligent, prosperous, and 

 prolific than the Germans in Poland, and there- 

 fore the task of Germanizing these provinces was 

 difficult, if not hopeless. Religious instruction 

 in the German language had recently been intro- 

 duced in Wreschen, and when Polish children ab- 

 sented themselves they were sent for and 

 whipped. This incident, published throughout 

 the world by the Poles, the Government \\as 

 ashamed of, and not only was corporal punish- 

 ment forbidden in such cases, but the attempt to 

 utilize religious instruction as a means of remov- 

 ing the impression that German is the language 

 of Protestants only was abandoned. Anti-Prus- 

 sian demonstrations in Russian Poland vcn- 

 summarily suppressed by the authorities, and 

 similar demonstrations in Galicia were stopped 

 by the Austrian Government, but Poles of all 

 conditions manifested clearly enough their sym- 

 pathy for their Prussian compatriots, and their 

 resentment was intensified when Russian and 

 Austrian Poles were expelled from Prussian col- 

 leges. Expelled students who returned to Rus- 

 sian territory were arrested by the police. The 

 Russian Government found its policy of Russi- 

 fication rendered more difficult in consequence 

 of the revival of the Polish national spirit in 

 Posen, East and West Prussia, and Silesia. The 

 Roman Catholic clergy in Russian Poland refused 

 to give religious instruction in any language but 

 Polish, and disregarded the decree of the Russian 

 Government that where the children are not of 



