GERMANY. 



289 



Polish parentage they shall be taught in Russian. 

 The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Vilna was 

 relieved of his functions for this reason. The 

 Prussian Government in April issued a decree in- 

 tended to check the immigration of Poles into 

 Prussian territory. Many intending emigrants 

 to the United States were brought across the bor- 

 der by swindling emigration agents and left 

 there without money to take them farther. The 

 decree orders all to be stopped at the frontier 

 who are not provided with a passport and 400 

 marks in money besides railroad and steamship 

 tickets. Children without their parents are not 

 admitted, nor cripples or invalids. The settle- 

 ment commission which had charge of the fund 

 for colonizing Poland with German .farmers spent 

 144,000,000 marks of the 200,000,000 marks voted 

 in 1886 and 1898, and of the remainder 39,000,000 

 marks were required to complete the settlement 

 of the lands they had acquired for German pro- 

 prietors and tenants, 406,000 acres. The scheme 

 had proved a failure so far. In spite of the Gov- 

 ernment settlements the total German holdings 

 in Poland had decreased and those of the Poles 

 had increased 77,000 acres since the experiment 

 was started. Some of the assisted settlers had 

 become Polonized, and many had sold out their 

 farms to Poles and quitted the uncongenial sur- 

 roundings to return to their own country. The 

 Government asserted that German farmers, arti- 

 sans, and traders were boycotted. In order to 

 prevent the new settlers from parting with their 

 lands for any price they could get so as to escape 

 from Poland, the lands purchased with the new 

 fund will only be leased or sold for an annual 

 rent on terms preventing their transfer without 

 the consent of the Government. Inducements 

 were offered to the proprietors settled on the 

 lands previously purchased to convert their 

 tenure into one of this character. The policy of 

 expropriating Polish proprietors and settling 

 German farmers on the land Avas initiated by 

 Prince Bismarck. Thus far it had defeated its 

 own object by strengthening the Polish element 

 in the towns and artificially raising the value of 

 land over 20 per cent. The industrial and eco- 

 nomic development of Poland, to which in the 

 German part of the ancient kingdom the Prus- 

 sian Government contributed some capital by its 

 attempt at colonization, was coincident with the 

 disappearance of the political and class divisions 

 among the Poles and of the old Conservative 

 party which clung to aristocratic traditions. A 

 large meeting of Poles in Berlin resolved in favor 

 of the, organization of Polish life on a democratic 

 basis, the retention of Polish land in Polish 

 hands, and a Polish education for Polish children. 

 The national spirit of the Poles was inflamed the 

 more by a speech of the Emperor Wilhelm, de- 

 claring that Polish arrogance, encroaching on 

 Germanism, had compelled him to summon his 

 people to renew the struggle of the Teutonic 

 knights of old for the preservation of the most 

 precious national possessions. Count von Bu'low 

 said that Poles multiplied like rabbits, Germans 

 like hares. The Polish danger that the Govern- 

 ment undertook to avert was not confined to the 

 Polish provinces. The Poles migrate as laborers 

 to Westphalia and other mining and industrial 

 parts of Germany, bringing with them every- 

 where their language, religion, national customs, 

 and a standard of living that enables them to 

 underbid Germans in the labor market. They 

 often marry German or Polish women and bring 

 up large families, forming Polish settlements in 

 the midst of a purely German population. For 



ery German settled with state aid in Poland 

 VOL. XLII. 19 A 



scores of Poles have established homes among the 

 Polish communities in the heart of Germany. 



A bill passed by the Prussian Landtag for regu- 

 lating the inspection of meat was the .comple- 

 ment of similar legislation in the Reichstag. Al- 

 though its ostensible purpose was to protect the 

 public health, the object was to shut out Amer- 

 ican and other foreign meat for the benefit of 

 Prussian growers of live stock. Hence it was 

 supported by the Agrarians and opposed by the 

 Socialists and Radicals, who complained of the 

 dearth of meat already caused by laws and ad- 

 ministrative regulations similarly inspired and 

 similarly defended as hygienic measures. The 

 imperial law, which went into force on Oct. 1, 

 1902, forbids the use of noxious materials in the 

 preparation of meat for transport or sale, the 

 decision as to what is noxious to be left to the 

 Federal Council. The materials declared to be 

 noxious are boric acid and its salts, alkali and 

 alkaline earth, hydro-oxids and carbonates, sul- 

 furic acid and its salts, salicylic acid and its 

 compounds, and chloric-acid salts. The employ- 

 ment of any of these preservatives and the sale 

 or possession of preparations containing them 

 was made unlawful ; also the use of any coloring- 

 matter except in margarine and sausage skins. 

 Importers and manufacturers claimed that boric 

 acid is harmless, but they had no opportunity to 

 offer evidence before the promulgation of the 

 law. A bill to prevent the defacement of scenery 

 with advertising boards or notices empowers the 

 police to prohibit outside of towns any adver- 

 tising device or conspicuous sign that disfigures 

 the landscape. In urban areas the authorities 

 already had power to remove ugly advertise- 

 ments. The Prussian bill to prohibit the disfig- 

 urement of rural spots remarkable for natural 

 beauty, which leaves the police authorities to 

 judge what is a disfigurement, was not passed 

 without opposition, but the merit of the "measure 

 on the ground of public policy was recognized, 

 and proposals to grant compensation or exempt 

 certain kinds of advertising signs were rejected. 

 In Hesse and other states similar statutes were 

 enacted to protect natural scenery and public 

 monuments. 



Maritime Conference. The International 

 Maritime Committee, whose object is to harmo- 

 nize the views of national associations that are 

 studying improvements in maritime law, held its 

 fourth annual meeting at Hamburg in the sum- 

 mer of 1902 in succession to the conferences at 

 Antwerp, London, and Paris. A treaty proposed 

 at Paris in 1900 would change the old rule by 

 which damages from collisions are borne in equal 

 shares where the accident is inevitable and with- 

 out fault or where the fault is inscrutable. In 

 such cases the committee proposes that the losses 

 should lie as they fall. Where both ships are in 

 fault Tie English law makes each bear half the 

 loss, receiving from the other a contribution of 

 half her own loss and contributing half the loss 

 sustained by the other. Continental maritime 

 law generally discriminates as nearly as possible 

 between the degrees of fault and apportions the 

 damages accordingly. The committee approves 

 this rule. The treaty it has drawn up further- 

 more removes all restrictions on the measure of 

 damages, allowing compensation for detention 

 during repairs and the whole actual detriment 

 and loss of profit that can be proved to have re- 

 sulted from the accident. The fact that the col- 

 lision is caused by the fault of a pilot whose em- 

 ployment is compulsory or by fault of a tug shall 

 not- be a defense. Neglect of the duty to afford 

 assistance to the injured ship shall not entail 



