News of
the Week
THE fact that forty-five persons have been killed, to
say nothing of hundreds injured, in political affrays in Germany since the beginning of the year is of sinister augury for the remaining three weeks of the election campaign. As to the results of the campaign, no con- sideration for the mere constitutional obstacles is to be allowed to stand in the way of a Government victory. Stringent Press regulations have been issued and the Vet-worts has already been suppressed for three days for no graver offence than the publication of the official election manifesto of the Socialist Party. At the some time, President Hindenburg has been persuaded to decree the dissolution of the Prussian Diet after a motion for dissolution had been defeated in the Diet itself, and in spite of the decree of the Supreme Court at Leipzig overruling the attempted supersession of the former. Prussian Ministers when von Papen tried it some months ago. Herr Hitler, who stands increasingly revealed as the prisoner of the Hindenburg nominees in his Cabinet, is resolved to get a clear majority in the next Reichstag at almost any cost. How long, even if he does secure it, it can cohere, in face of the fundamental antagonisms between himself and Herr Hugenberg, may well be doubted. Outside Parliament conflict between the industrialists and the agriculturists, who demand a prohibition on the importation of all competing products, seems inevitable, and Bavaria's alarm at what has happened in Prussia makes something like a split between north and south Germany possible.
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