A Letter From Germany

As I am writing, the open squares of Berlin have been transformed into groves of fir trees. The great city is preparing to celebrate Christmas with its accustomed zest. Outwardly, at least. Many things, however, will put a damper upon the Christmas joy; for the year has hardly been one to increase the sum of happiness in the Fatherland. It has been a long time since the earnings of the people, whether laborers or employers, were so small. The dividends of joint stock companies touched a lower point than for a decade before. The people have been enjoying less of the comforts of life than they had grown accustomed to. On a higher plane, too, the year has left a feeling of disappointment; race asperities have grown more intense, political strife has waxed hotter, and social peace has apparently withdrawn further into the future.

The year is closing in the presence of a new and notable fact in history. Germany, Great Britain, and Italy have declared a joint blockade of the coast of Venezuela to compel the payment of certain debts to the citizens of those countries; and public opinion in the United States is nervous lest something should happen that might draw us in the difficulty. The Monroe Doctrine is in everybody’s mind. Government and people alike are determined that it shall be strictly observed; the Administration has pursued a dignified and calm attitude throughout the entire incident. Certain American newspaper editors of the hysterical school, however, have singled out Germany as the wicked partner in the combination, as being the moving spirit that has merely taken England and Italy into her service in order to cloak her real intentions of acquiring a permanent foothold upon the South American Continent. In order to give such assertions the semblance of probability, the papers in question have printed special dispatches from Berlin, which represented the German government as being in a particularly bellicose mood and about to order an advance upon Carácas with a hurrah.

Statements like these prove nothing beyond the fact that hysterical editors have hysterical readers, who demand that their “news” be striking, sensational; and that readers of this class have an infinite capacity for being gulled. So far from the German mind being excited over the Venezuela affair, the fact that has struck us Americans here most has been the marked indifference about the matter. Naturally there is some interest, — somewhat more than in the latest comet; but certainly no German editor has sold an additional copy of his paper by reason of his Venezuela news. The only thing that has aroused any concern here has been the manifestations of uneasiness in a section of the American press, whose hectoring attitude toward Germany has naturally been reported and commented upon. The German press has many sins to answer for, but certainly on this occasion it has preserved a tone that, upon the whole, has been unexceptional. In answer to the suspicions raised in the United States regarding Germany’s aim in Venezuela, some of the papers here have pointed to the fact that the latest volume of the diplomatic correspondence of our government contains a note in which the German government more than a year ago defined precisely the character of its proposed action, stating, in particular, that no occupation of territory was designed. This pledge on the part of Germany evidently satisfied our Administration from the very beginning as to the correctness of Germany’s course; but the hectoring editors, feeling the ground cut from under them at this point, as well as by Count von Büllow’s recent statement to the American public through the Associated Press, have replied somewhat in the following vein: Oh, of course Germany is not aiming at territorial acquisitions in Venezuela, —her action with England is sufficient guarantee of that; but why does not Germany come out with a round recognition of the Monroe Doctrine? Why does she not say that she will never, under any circumstances, annex one foot of South American territory ?

I am no attorney for Germany in this case, and it is not incumbent upon me to answer such a question; but I think reasonable minded Americans will not expect more of Germany than a declaration of her purposes in regard to Venezuela, it being the only part of South America subject at this moment to diplomatic scrutiny. The above demand is but a parallel to the attempt of Napoleon III. to extort from King William a pledge that no Hohenzollern should ever become a candidate for the throne of Spain. Germany has shown her hand fully, and our government has been amply satisfied that no action prejudicial to American interests will be taken ; if some truculent editors still insist upon our President assuming the rôle of Napoleon III., their demand can only bring the Monroe Doctrine into disrepute among practical statesmen content to deal with problems of international politics as they arise.

In view of the evident nervousness of American public opinion regarding Germany’s part in the recent blockade, one important fact should arrest attention at this point. It is that the course of the allied Powers has remained well within the limits of the Monroe Doctrine as it has been most authoritatively defined. The Doctrine has never excluded the right of European Powers to compel the payment of just debts by temporarily seizing territory. England and Germany have confined their action to a blockade of seaports. Was this limitation self-imposed, under the conviction that the American public would not stand more energetic measures ? Or was it suggested by our government under the same conviction ? In any case, the limitation expresses an apprehension lest the American people have drawn even a narrower definition of the Monroe Doctrine than our statesmen have set up. Whether this will make for peace in the world, it is apart from the purpose of this article to inquire.

But Germany, we are told, is laying her plans to occupy a part of South America; and her “vast colony” in southern Brazil has just assumed a new importance, has become a new danger to American liberty, since the German Colonial Congress in October passed a resolution recommending that German emigration be directed thither, instead of to countries already thickly populated, and in which their nationality would be speedily swamped. The vast colony in question has, in fact, only a population of between 150,000 and 200,000 souls, most of whom have been in Brazil a great many years. The growth of the colony has been very slow. This is now to be changed, alarmists would have us believe; and at no distant day Germany will have enough of her citizens there to form the nucleus of a new German empire on American soil.

To which several things should be said in reply. In the first place, Germany will never attempt anything of the kind so long as the Monroe Doctrine is maintained. She would not take the risks involved; she could not afford the expense of such an adventure; and there is no possible advantage that she could gain in South America that would outweigh the friendship of the United States. Even if we should throw the Monroe Doctrine to the winds, I think it extremely doubtful whether Germany would attempt to effect a foothold upon South American soil. Why? The answer is the Boer war. This proved that conquering the antipodes is an extremely costly business. But beside the mere question of expense, Germany cannot afford to embark upon large foreign adventures, menaced as she is at home by enemies only waiting their opportunity to strike her in a moment of weakness. The German Chancellor that should propose to send but 50,000 soldiers to seize land in South America — even with no Monroe Doctrine in the way — would be decried here as an extremely rash statesman.

But Germany could get her colony, the American objector will answer, without sending out an expedition to conquer territory; all she needs to do is to promote emigration to Brazil for a half-century, and then the colonists would rise and appeal to the Fatherland for help. I am far from sure of that. Has anybody ever heard of a German in the United States that sighed to have the German government extend its paternal wing over him? Would German colonists in Brazil prove more eager for a governor from the Wilhelm Strasse? Hardly. The feeling of nationality is a plant of exceeding slow growth ; it requires centuries to ripen it; and notwithstanding the noisy and sometimes repellent expressions of it that one sees here, the fact remains that, even in Germany herself, the sentiment of nationality is weak. For example, it has often been lamented that German peasants settled under government auspices in the Polish provinces tend rapidly to lose their race character, adopting Polish names, speaking the Polish language, and falling in with Polish customs. If such a thing can happen within the borders of the Fatherland itself, happen at a time when many old veterans of the great wars of 1867 and 1870 survive to tell of those moving, epochmaking events, what is to become of the weak plant of German national feeling when transplanted to South American soil? The perturbed editors should give their fearsome spirits a long rest. They evidently do not know their Germany.

The sharp attacks upon Germany in the United States and England in connection with the alliance against Venezuela were not justified by anything pertaining to that alliance itself. Everybody knows that these attacks were but the answering echo of the bitter, unmeasured abuse of the United States during the Spanish war, and of England during the Boer war, in which the greater part of the German press saw fit to engage. Those venomous epithets, those brutal, insulting cartoons are things not easily forgotten between nations. I mentioned in my article in the Atlantic Monthly last March the excessive development of chauvinistic feeling in Germany, and stated that it was rendering the task of German diplomacy difficult. The latter statement has been amply confirmed during the year just closing. The Venezuela alliance — the work of the two rulers rather than of the cabinets — was greeted by a storm of opposition in England; and the distrust of Germany in the United States extended considerably beyond the columns of the “yellow press.” The relations between the cabinets of Berlin and London were directly affected by the remarkable outbreak of Anglophobia described in the article just mentioned. Count Büllow about the beginning of the year yielded to that agitation by referring, in a speech before the Reichstag, to the British Colonial Minister in terms that are quite unusual in the public utterances of prime ministers. Later it became evident to the Berlin Cabinet that English diplomatic influence was being thrown against Germany at every point; and that propositions needing British support were met with cold indifference everywhere. It is a significant fact that a dispatch from Berlin to the American press several months ago, describing the efforts of the diplomatists to remove this unfortunate state of things, created no little commotion in Berlin; and the question was at once raised in the ministries, “Who has been divulging state secrets ? ”

The fact has not escaped attention here that many German papers have done their country immense harm by the insulting tone that they choose to adopt in discussing foreign matters. German writers are beginning to call attention to it. Count von Berchem, an old co-worker of Bismarck’s, wrote a letter to one of the papers on the subject several months ago, which was widely noticed. “Our press, ” he said, “is regarded abroad as hypercritical and chauvinistic. Whoever lives abroad and reads foreign newspapers cannot but notice this. Germany’s good name abroad has not gained anything by the phenomenon in question ; but there has been rather a loss in German sympathies all along the line. ” The writer finds the chief cause to be “the assumption of superiority in the sharp criticism of foreign affairs that has grown prevalent in Germany. ”

He might have stated the cause much more strongly and kept well within the limits of truth. In the case of England, for example, the treatment of the Boer war in the German press has left a depth of resentment such as the English — usually so indifferent to foreign opinion — have not felt toward any other people for some centuries. How could it be otherwise when some of the most gifted artists of Germany combine to make an art volume on the Boer war for the German home, filled with the grossest slanders and indecent inventions about the behavior of the English in South Africa ? An independent observer, wishing only to see good-will promoted between the nations, could but look on with sorrow at such excesses of race hatred; and now at the effects of it all in England. English correspondents in Berlin were in part swept away by the state of feeling around them and filled the columns of the London papers with angry and often venomous dispatches. That poem of Kipling’s, printed the other day, embodying such a torrent of passionate hate, will live as long as the English language, if only to characterize to future generations the unhappy state of feeling between Englishmen and Germans at the beginning of the twentieth century.

In view of such a situation, the conclusion of the Boer war is to be accounted as the greatest blessing that the year 1902 brought to Germany. As indicated above, the Germans were in an abnormal state of feeling; and the press was given over to unwholesome sentimentalism about the Boers,and to an exaggerated idealizing of their character; while English statesmen were caricatured in the guise of demons. “The German people have a right to express their feelings, ” is treated as an axiom here ; and there were few wise counselors to plead for self-restraint and moderation of statement. Since the conclusion of peace a better tone has been manifested; but it will require many years to obliterate the antipathies now existing. I know cool-headed Englishmen that have radically and permanently revised their attitude toward Germany by reason of what they read in German papers and heard from German acquaintances during the Boer war.

It is pleasant to record the fact that the Germans have this year shown a more friendly mood toward the United States than at any time since 1898. The press has seconded the Kaiser’s courtesies, and has discussed American affairs in a better spirit than usual. Serious articles on American topics, based upon correct information and written in an unobjectionable spirit, have grown more frequent. Prince Henry’s trip and his enthusiastic reception with us undoubtedly made an excellent impression on Germany; and this impression endures. Secretary Hay’s note on the Roumanian Jews, however, was received in Germany with mixed feelings. The Liberal press generally praised the humane purpose of the note; but influential papers of a different political alignment discussed it from their narrow anti-Semitic standpoint, and relapsed into their old vein of contemptuous comment about things American.

The controversy last spring regarding the diplomatic incidents connected with the Spanish war showed us the pleasant picture of Germany and England rivaling each other in suing for our friendship. The removal of the disagreeable suspicion that the German government took diplomatic steps unfavorable to us at that time is to be set down as one of the gains of the year for us. This fact in no way prejudices our good friendship with England ; and it is to be deplored that some of our newspapers are disposed to play England and Germany against each other, as if we could not be friends with both. The friendship of England is good, but the friendship of England and Germany is still better. Persons that try to improve our relations with England by fomenting hatred toward Germany should turn to Washington’s Farewell Address to see the foolishness of their course aptly characterized.

It is evident that the interest of the Germans in the United States is deepening every year. Never before have so many practical men of affairs gone to America in one year to study our methods of production. American ideas have already profoundly affected Germany’s industrial life, but this movement promises to assume still larger proportions in the near future. The alliance of the two great German steamship lines with the Morgan combination, the announcement of plans for laying a second cable from Emden to New York, the initiatory steps toward organizing an American Chamber of Commerce in Berlin, are further indications of the common interest drawing the two countries more and more closely together. The amount of American merchandise sold in Germany has been further reduced this year, owing to the business depression still prevailing here; but the exports of German goods to the United States have reached the largest figure ever known.

The subject of most interest just now in connection with the trade relations of the two countries is the tariff law recently passed by the Reichstag. That law is a far more important matter for us than the Venezuela blockade. It presents problems for our diplomacy that will be difficult to settle, problems that will call for broader statesmanship than the United States Senate has evinced toward the French Reciprocity Treaty. I fear that our merchants, and especially our farmers, have not yet realized the serious character of the new law as affecting their interests; when they do realize it, they will speak a stronger word in favor of reciprocity than our senators have yet heard.

The chief point of interest for the United States in this law is to be found, not so much in the high rates adopted, as in the statement made in the Reichstag foreshadowing a changed policy on the part of Germany in making new commercial treaties. On the final day of the tariff debate Dr. Paasche, one of the leaders of the majority, asserted that the government had promised that it would no longer extend treaty advantages to other countries than those that reciprocate with corresponding concessions. “ We expect, ” said Dr. Paasche, “that the government will undertake a thorough revision of all the treaties containing the most - favored - nation clause. Promises of this kind were made to us in committee. We have absolutely no occasion to concede anything to such nations as are glad to take what we give by treaty to other countries without making us any concessions in return. The United States has introduced a limitation of the most-favorednation clause ; we have every reason to act in precisely the same manner.”

The thing chiefly complained of here is our recent treaty with Cuba (not yet ratified). The Germans also remember our reciprocity treaties with various countries under the McKinley Law. While we have interpreted the most-favored-nation clause as not forbidding special trade arrangements between two countries, the general interpretation has been different; and Germany’s own practice has conformed to this latter view. When the existing commercial treaties with Austria, Russia, Italy, and Switzerland were made, Germany accordingly conceded to all other nations entitled to the most-favored-nation treatment the same reductions as were made to these countries. The United States thus secdred valuable concessions from Germany’s general tariff without giving anything in return. The duty on wheat, for example, was reduced from thirty-two to twenty-three cents per bushel, that on corn from twelve to less than ten; and corresponding reductions were made on meats.

The German Agrarians have always bitterly complained about this feature of the Caprivi treaties ; and the substantial justice of their objection has been recognized by many politicians who have only a measured sympathy with the general Agrarian movement. I believe it will also be recognized by most Americans; for manifestly we cannot expect Germany to apply to us a more liberal construction of the most-favored-nation clause than we have granted her. Under the new German tariff law we shall therefore be confronted by two alternatives : either we must make a special reciprocity treaty with Germany, or we must let our merchandise take its chances under the general scale of duties. Both alternatives call for some remarks here.

What are the probabilities that we shall get a good reciprocity treaty with Germany ? Without doubt we shall find the German government willing to treat with us upon a fair basis of give and take; and Count Bülow is abundantly furnished with objects of barter under the tariff law just enacted. There is no limit to the reductions that he may make in the duties as there fixed, except as to wheat, oats, rye, and barley; though the Reichstag would, of course, have to ratify any treaty made. The difficulties in the way of reciprocity will lie with us rather than with Germany; for what can our government offer in the way of tariff reductions in order to bring Germany to satisfactory terms ? The reciprocity section of the Dingley Act reads as if it had been constructed by a practical joker, — so meagre is the list of articles that may be reduced; there is almost nothing in it that could be offered to Germany as an inducement for granting us trade advantages; and of these few we have already traded off, under the existing diminutive treaty, about everything that the law allows. No new treaty can therefore be expected before our tariff law shall have been revised and the discretion of the government to reduce duties greatly enlarged. In view of the inertia of the United States Senate toward tariff and treaty questions, the outlook for a satisfactory reciprocity arrangement with Germany can only be regarded as extremely gloomy. It is to be hoped, however, that after the German law has been in force for several years, and has heavily reduced our exports to Germany, —as it is certain to do, —the pressure of public opinion may bring the Senate to reason.

But assuming the worst, — what would be the prospects for American trade with Germany in the absence of a treaty? Our goods would then come in under the general tariff; whereas those of our competitors, if they get treaties with Germany, will enter at greatly reduced rates. Now this general tariff contains extremely high duties in its agricultural schedules,—so that the government itself strongly opposed them as unreasonable ; nevertheless, they were voted by the Reichstag and must be enforced in the absence of treaty. American wheat would then be subject to a duty of forty-nine cents per bushel; whereas that of Russia, Roumania, and other competing countries may be reduced under treaty to thirtyfive cents. Our corn has been coming into Germany at less than ten cents a bushel; and two years ago Germany’s imports of it reached 104 million marks, out of a total of 129 million. During the current year imports from the United States have shrunk enormously, owing to our reduced crop in 1901 and consequent high prices; but Germany has meanwhile covered its deficit from Russia and Roumania. Will it not continue to do so when our corn pays a duty of thirty cents, and the Russian and Roumanian product only about half that figure?

It is frequently asserted in the Amer: ican press that Germany must in any case have American raw materials and some more or less manufactured commodities. The Germans know that very well themselves, and they have wisely left indispensable articles like cotton, petroleum, and crude copper on the free list; but there are other countries ready and waiting for the opportunity to supply Germany with wheat, corn, and other grains. Neither is Germany dependent upon us for meat; while large quantities of our bacon and lard are still shipped here, other countries, with good commercial treaties, would easily displace us in these articles too.

Such, in briefest outline, is the situation that confronts us under the new German tariff law. If it does not please some of our statesmen, let them reflect that Germany is merely imitating the bad example that they themselves have set; and that if a policy of commercial exclusiveness is good for us, other nations may regard it as equally good for them. From careful observation of the course of thought in Germany throughout the long movement that has now culminated in this tariff law, I can state that no other external factor exerted upon it such a powerful influence as the example of the United States. The spectacle of the greatest producing nation on earth — the richest in resources, the cheapest in the processes of production — frightening the world with its “American danger,” and at the same time shutting up its markets against outside competition, — this spectacle it was that gave the chief impetus to the maddest excesses of the German protectionists.

The very fact, however, that this German law is the direct effect of our own unwise policy gives occasion for one alleviating thought. Its reflex influence in the United States, namely, will make it impossible for the men at Washington, responsible for our donothing policy, longer to maintain their attitude of unconditional resistance to tariff reform. Our new breed of Teutophobes may attempt to aid and abet senatorial conservatism by scolding the German Agrarians in vigorous and varied phraseology; but our own Agrarians will regard energetic epithets a poor substitute for lost trade; and it will refresh the spirits of the weary to see the wry faces made on Capitol Hill when the next reciprocity treaty with Germany comes up for ratification. It can well be imagined that the obstinate old gentlemen will then take their medicine more speedily and in stronger doses than has been the case with the French Reciprocity Treaty.

Turning at length to the home politics of Germany, we find that the year was dominated by this same tariff question. It brought on the most violent parliamentary struggle that the Empire has ever known, and the Reichstag assumed for a time the disorderly and stormy aspect of the Austrian Reichsrath. Stated very briefly, the course of events in the Reichstag was as follows: When it resumed its sittings about the middle of October it found that the Tariff Bill had been reconstructed in committee in the direction of extremely high protection for the Agrarian interests. The government had combated every increase of the agricultural duties, and had declared with emphasis that it could never accept them since they would render impossible the negotiations of new commercial treaties. At this time the outlook of the hill was well-nigh hopeless. Not only were the majority and the government far apart in their views, but the majority were themselves much divided on essential questions. The National Liberals demanded a return to the original agricultural schedules of the government’s bill; but a large section of the two conservative parties rejected even the reconstructed bill because it was not yet Agrarian enough.

While the government and the majority parties were thus working at cross purposes, the determined minority had an easy task in delaying the progress of the measure. The Socialists and Moderate Radicals, convinced that the country was opposed to the heavy increase of the duties on the bread and meat of the people, aimed to defeat all action by the present Reichstag, in order to be able to appeal to the country next June with the effective campaign cry, “Bread-Usury!” The Socialists, the strongest and most determined of the opposition parties, made, however, the egregious blunder of advertising months beforehand their tactics for defeating the bill, — it was proclaimed, namely, that 700 aye and nay votes would be called for on the second reading.

Toward the end of November the majority parties became convinced that they would not be able to pass their measure at all without a compromise, first among themselves and then with the government. Finally, after weeks of debate upon the rules and other unimportant points, such a compromise was patched up behind the scenes. The government got the minimum scale of duties upon grain that it had insisted upon, except that it yielded an increase on malting barley to please the Clericals. It accepted, nevertheless, all the high maximum duties of the majority. The Conservatives, disappointed at not getting higher protection for the farmers, were conciliated with reductions on agricultural machinery.

This compromise, however, was of so precarious a character that it could never have stood through the ordeal of a regular second reading. The minority would have offered amendments at every point; some would have been adopted, and, the compromise having been broken, the coalition would have fallen asunder. Besides this, the majority had at length assembled their contingent of village priests and hunting country squires, and so could do business with a quorum of their own. But such a quorum could only be held together with the utmost difficulty; hence the greatest dispatch was necessary. Confronted by this trying situation, the Reichstag majority yielded to temptation, and did one of the most brutal things in the history of modern parliaments. Although its rules explicitly provided that a bill, upon second reading, must be discussed and voted upon paragraph by paragraph, the majority brought in a motion to dispense with this process and pass the bill en bloc. Before this was done, however, the House paused to amend its rules so as to place arbitrary powers in the hands of the president, to limit to a minimum discussions of questions of order, and to make it possible to close debate at any time and reach a vote.

It was these propositions that caused the disorderly scenes already mentioned. Excitement reached a high pitch, members hurled insulting epithets at one another, and the Reichstag degenerated for a time into a mob. New parliamentary “records” were made. For the first time in history the president’s bell was broken through too vigorous ringing, for the first time a sitting had to be suspended because of disorder, and for the first time the House sat through a day and a night and heard a recordbreaking speech eight hours in length. Amidst scenes like these the Tariff Bill was hurried through and practically without debate. Even after the majority had changed the rules so as to put an effective check upon obstruction, they refused to permit a discussion in detail.

This helter-skelter proceeding they excused by raising the cry of “filibustering,” and by alleging that business needs a rest after the long tariff agitation. This rest, however, is not yet in sight; for the government has all along stated that the duties fixed in the new measure are mere counters to be traded off in making new commercial treaties. The whole controversy is thus left open till these treaties have been laid before the Reichstag and ratified. As the term of the present Reichstag expires in June, the treaties will have to be disposed of by the new House to be elected then. Hence the election will turn upon the tariff issue, and a lively campaign activity has already been inaugurated. The Socialists particularly will throw a prodigious amount of energy into the agitation; and the parties that call themselves “state-preserving” are filled with apprehensions as to the result. The Kaiser, indeed, has recently made two speeches designed to break the lines of the Socialists by diverting a part of the labor vote to other parties ; but nobody believes that his voice will outweigh the recent action of the Reichstag. The Social Democracy has always been able to rely upon its enemies to supply its best campaign ammunition; and the party will now make immense political capital out of their latest folly. It will be dinned into the ears of the laboring population and the humbler urban classes in every corner of the Empire that the price of their food is to be raised in the interest of aristocratic land-owners. The Socialists themselves estimate that they will gain fifteen to thirty seats next June.

Besides the tariff law, there was little else in the legislation of the year that calls for mention here. The abolition of the sugar bounties puts an end to an intolerable situation that the government has long wanted to be freed from. Questions of private self-interest, however, play an enormous rôle in German legislation; and the sugar people had to be conciliated for the abolition of the bounties. Saccharine has come into extensive use in the manufacture of chocolate and similar articles, Band the sugar producers have long demanded protection from it. Hence it was necessary to recompense them for the abolition of the bounties with a law closing up all the saccharine factories of the country, except a few under strict government supervision. Saccharine can be bought hereafter only upon a physician’s prescription, as if it were a poison ! Such is the despotism of German legislation where Agrarian interests are involved.

The Polish question, while somewhat less marked by sensational incidents than in 1901, remained the subject of much concern throughout the year. The embitterment of the Poles against their Prussian rulers certainly underwent no relaxation, but rather seems to have grown more intense. Polish government officials ostentatiously refused to be present at the fêtes given in honor of the Kaiser upon his visit to Posen in September; and in various other ways the Polish nobility, in particular, showed their deep discontent with existing conditions. The Prussian Chamber voted an appropriation of 250,000, - 000 marks to continue the system of buying Polish estates, dividing them, and settling Germans upon them, — the sum of 200,000,000 voted some years ago having been about exhausted without any apparent result. The Prussian officials are evidently handicapped for their work of Germanizing these provinces by faults of their own, mostly in the way of excessive zeal and truculent meddlesomeness. An unlovely caste spirit prevails among them that renders them the worst possible evangelists of German civilization. One of the sensations of the year was the enforced resignation of the chief fiscal official of the Province of Posen for the reason that he had married, — a perfectly reputable lady, indeed, but only the daughter of a secretary to one of the courts, who had once been a non-commissioned officer.

The public mind is occupied in Germany with the subject of industrial combinations hardly less than in the United States. An immense amount of discussion has been given during the past year to the syndicates and kartells, as they are called here. The matter has been brought under the public eye more than ever through the policy of most German combinations of maintaining the highest possible prices for home consumers, while supplying the foreigner with goods at greatly reduced rates. Indeed, German writers on the subject point to what they regard as the chief difference between American and German combinations, — namely, the American trusts make it their chief concern to earn profits by economies in production and distribution; while their counterparts in Germany look mainly to keeping up prices. Under these circumstances the syndicates and kartells have undoubtedly lost in public favor during the year now closing.

Recognizing this fact, the leading managers of such combinations met in Berlin last spring to effect a central organization, which should protect their common interests as over against public opinion and, in particular, against hostile legislation. It is a significant fact that the syndicates decided to attach themselves to the Central Association of German Manufacturers, which is a composite organization of many manufacturers’ associations throughout the Empire, instead of creating a representative body of their own, and that thus the ordinary trade organization of German industries becomes the representative and mouthpiece of the syndicates.

The most patent fact that stands out in all the discussions of these organizations in Germany is that public opinion is greatly divided as to the benefits or evils of them ; and no agreement exists as to the advisability of legal measures for controlling them. The Congress of German Jurists discussed the matter in September; but the most striking feature of its deliberations was the great differences on all essential points. A large section favored publicity in the affairs of combinations, but the full Congress refused to commit itself even to so mild a recommendation at this stage of developments; and the question was referred to a future session. Meanwhile the government has inaugurated an inquiry on the subject by men of theory and practice, and in due time we shall have a voluminous report to conclude the matter.

William C. Dreher.