MUNICIPAL LIFE IN GERMANY.*
No English writer knows more of German ways than Mr. Dawson, and his large book upon public administration in towns is a mass of information. It is his misfortune to have produced it at a moment when Englishmen are not likely to be eagerly receptive of the German methods that he praises, or very patient of his unfavourable comparisons of British muni- cipal activities with those which Prussia has adopted and encouraged other States to accept. It is as unnecessary to emphasize the fact that German machines, military or municipal, are efficient for the purposes at which they aim as it is to impress upon any one that we dislike some of those purposes. But honesty demands that we should admit not only the efficiency and discipline with the complementary vices, servility and illiberal authoritarianism, but also a virtue genuinely to Germany's credit: for the great body of German officials, to whom such horrible power over their fellow- creatures must offer great temptation, are not a corrupt class. Many people might prefer to be governed by a light-hearted and even light-fingered Latin, and shrug their shoulders at the thought of his feathering his nest at their expense, rather than submit to the heavy-banded, omnipresent Teutonic official whose income is strictly limited to his salary; but we cannot withhold due respect. The most surprising point in his book is that Mr. Dawson thinks that our institutions are less liberal than the German, and he does not appreciate the balance of our restrictions. It is true that the Central Government, Parliamentary statute, the Local Government Board, the Board of Trade, the Home Office, and the Board of Education have generally been restrictive in their attitude to local authorities, and we are content to disagree with Mr. Dawson, who deplores the fact. We have discovered value in these Departments as useful brakes, and have had misgivings at their tendency to follow the German example of initiating work for local authorities and threaten- ing those who do not actively agree. No less have we regretted that municipal bodies have precipitately copied the German eagerness to be busy in other people's affairs by obtaining power to extend their control, their enterprises in trade, land-speculation, &c. Mr. Dawson tells us that the German communities rejoice in a greater freedom of initiation, which goes hand-in-hand with strong encouragement from the centre. But upon other pages he reveals the overshadowing power of the State officials, the supervisory authorities, and the police. To us it seems that the centralized power leaves our local bodies more freedom, while it stays in London, than is left to the German communities, among which the decentral- ized power of Berlin is intimate, ubiquitous, and ever-present. It is painful to see how completely a people can band its soul over to authoritarian keeping, but Germany endures it and appears to love the chains. It seems to us the deliberate nurture of a heart of stone. The efficient and coherent orderliness of method is appalling, for we cannot now look upon things German as merely ludicrous. The extreme example that Mr. Dawson gives of this habit of mind is perhaps one connected with the official care for illegitimate children (apparently not devoid of some of the evil effects of
• Municipal Life and Government in Germany. By W. H. Dawson. London.; Longman* and Co. [12a. ed. net.]
Dar old bastardy laws) and the careful methods of dealing with the parents; for mutual counsel and defence against these methods there has been formed an "Association of Fathers of Illegitimate Children." (Coherent seems too dignified an epithet for the case ; perhaps " sticky " might be substituted.)
We cannot go into the details with which the book is racked, but would take one point as illustrating the price that the poorest must pay for the benefits of municipal Socialism. While Mr. Dawson writes scornfully, and not alto- gether unjustly, of our rating system, which often hides from the poor the hardship which high rates must put upon them, he shows that the local Income Tax for equivalent purposes in Germany is graduated down to incomes of £45 a year in Prussia, of £20 in Saxony, and £15 in Bavaria before exemption is reached. It may be that Mr. Dawson has written a record up to a climax. He would be bold who would predict the future of this monarchical and bureaucratic Socialism. A hundred years ago the seeds were sown of the system which should be more liberal than autocracy. Then Prussia in her troubles produced a Stein, of whom Mr. Dawson says that he was " one of the few men who dared to tell the King the truth." It may be that another Stein will arise for Germany. None can tell whether such a one will have to reconstruct a German Empire, whether lie will enforce the ideals of the Prussia that we know, or whether freer States will emerge seeking leaders. Most earnestly do we hope that the land may be peopled by freer human beings conscious of individual souls.
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