GERMAN SOCIALISM OF TO-DIY. T HE events of last Sunday in
Berlin are full of interest to every student of Continental politics. It has long been a truism that most of the tenets of the so-called Social Democrats are indistinguishable from those of Liberals, and even moderate Liberals, in England. It is true that there is an extreme section to which some of the leaders, like Bebel and Singer, are nominally attached, and which is supposed to be ready at the proper moment to follow their Russian fellow-workers in the use of force ; but we believe that for practical purposes this attitude is no more than a pious opinion. Extreme men there are in the most orderly of parties, and it would be strange if German Social Democracy contained no votaries of the red flan.. The great demonstration on Sunday seemed to show that it is the centre, and not the wings, which controls the party policy. That day being the eve of the anniversary of the massacre of the petitioners in St. Petersburg by the troops, arrangements were made for a great Socialist demonstration throughout the German cities, partly as a token of sympathy with the Russian revolutionaries, and partly as an assertion of the need of franchise reform. Instructions were issued by the leaders insisting upon the necessity of preserving good order, and the command was obeyed to the letter. The dovecotes of officialdom were fluttered, and elaborate preparations were made to safe- guard the peace, the better part of an army corps, for instance, being stationed in and around Berlin. But for once the authorities showed themselves wise in season, and no attempt was made to veto the gathering. Ninety-three meetings were held in the capital and its neighbourhood, thirty-one of them within the boundaries of the city. Over forty thousand people attended, while some twenty thousand failed to gain admission. Not a single unruly incident disturbed the Sabbatical calm. The Socialists themselves preserved order and prevented overcrowding, and only drew upon the assistance of the police to supplement their own efforts. The demonstrators walked through the streets to the different meeting-places without molestation. The whole affair was a triumph of organisation on the part of Herr Bebel and his friends, and of good sense on the part of the authorities. Not the least significant event was the tribute which one of the speakers paid, amid loud applause, to the tact displayed by the chief of the Berlin political police. For once the lion and the lamb are aware of each other's merits.
The real importance of the proceedings lies in the way in which they were conducted rather than in the resolutions passed. German democracy is becoming conscious of its strength, and is therefore developing the qualities of patience and self-restraint. It is the sense of ' impotence, the hopeless feeling that the . iron powers of the world are arrayed against them, which drives men into the streets with bombs in their hands. The vote of sympathy with the Russian revolutionaries is natural and proper ; but we cannot believe that the lesson of Moscow has been without its effect on the minds of German Social Democrats. They must see that even a well-organised rising of the proletariat is conducted against hopeless odds, and that even the more potent weapon of a general strike will fail if the central authority is resolute in its opposition. The appeal to force is the last folly, because it carries the struggle into a domain where authority fights on its own ground with its own weapons. If democracy wishes to play into the hands of its enemies, it can follow no better course than to invite them to call out the troops. We must, therefore, take Herr Bebel's platonic approbation of extreme methods as an academic sentiment, disproved by the demonstration itself. His own organ, the Voreviirts, wisely points out that the proletariat could do the coercionists no greater service than by organising rciwdy processions and making experiments in terrorism. "Its sword, which will never break, is the idea, the appeal to reason, and to the sense of justice in the masses. The extreme centralisation of all European Governments has made the business of insurrection almost impossible. Even in a vast national upheaval, provided the Army and money, or the means of procuring it, are with the Government, the odds are against popular success. Local disaffection is easily checked by the authority which can control telegraphs, railways, and guns, and which can raise funds year after year in foreign markets, while the war-chest of the insurgents is depleted without hope of replenishment. It was one thing to overthrow a petty Grand Duke or a small bureaucracy, but it is another to challenge an Emperor or a strong President to trial by combat. "Non tali auxilio, nec defensoribus istis," must be increasingly the answer of wise democratic leaders to those of their followers who would appeal to force. Democracy is finding its own weapons, and they are stronger than rifles or hand-grenades. It is learning the immense strength of organisation and combination. The lesson of the Trusts and the Trade-Unions is being applied to political agita- tion. A quiet 'pressure brought to bear on a thousand points is far more potent than a spasmodic effort on one. And the merit of this new policy is that it will conciliate those other elements in the nation who are natural allies, but have hitherto shrunk from the methods of violence to which alliance might commit them. The German Liberal has in the past been the opponent of the Social Democrat, but now he is beginning to realise that they both fight for a common ideal, and that after all there is no serious difference in tactics.
Of the reality of the grievance which was the specific ground for last Sunday's demonstration there can be no two opinions. The Prussian franchise stands high among the world's electoral anomalies. Originally framed after the revolution of 1848, it is the essence of high-and-dry Conservatism, and excludes absolutely any representation of Labour. Among the four hundred and thirty-three Members of the Prussian Diet there is no single Social Democrat, although that party can claim a majority of voters in most Prussian constituencies, even under the imperfect elective system of the Reichstag. It is said that one and three-quarter million electors who are on the voting-roll for the Reichstag are thus disfran- chised in their own State. In the face of such facts, Herr Bebel is abundantly justified in describing the Prussian Diet as "a caricature of a real Representative Assembly." A similar grievance, though less great, exists against the Imperial representative system. The Reichstag is elected practically by manhood suffrage, but there are grave faults in the distribution of seats. The constitu- encies were marked out thirty-five years ago on the basis of a Census made several years earlier. One seat in theory goes to every hundred thousand inhabitants, but these hundred thousand inhabitants must have existed at the date of delimitation. Many things have happened since that date. Sparsely populated hamlets have become huge industrial cities, while certain agricultural districts have lost a large proportion of their people. But no provision has been made for Germany's great industrial expansion during the past few decades. One district near Berlin, which contains Charlottenburg and other large towns, returns only one Member, and so does the most populous division of the capital, with over half-a-million voters. A dense mining district on the Rhine has the same number of representatives as some backward part of Silesia with about sixty thousand souls. The result is that the representation of parties bears no relation to their numerical strength. The Socialists poll some three million votes, and in the last Reichstag they had eighty-one Members ; while the Roman Catholic Centre, with only one and three-quarter million voters, hold one hundred seats, and the Conservatives, with less than a million, have fifty-five. This is a real and tangible grievance, and the fact that Herr Bebel and his party should have centred their efforts on this most needful Constitutional reform is a hopeful augury for the future of the methods of German Social Democracy.
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