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 exclusively to peaceful pursuits. It is true these received great attention; German commercial and economic interests throughout the world were developed; uniformity was established in weights and measures (1872), coinage (1875), the administration of justice (1879); the laws of the empire were codified; and after a short time close attention was also given to social problems. On the other hand, military preparations (September, 1874), in case France should renew the war, were pushed forward with increasing zeal. Furthermore, the old internal feuds among the religious creeds and parties were resumed with greater passion than ever in consequence of the proclamation of the dogma of Infallibility and of the organization of the Centre party. In all this Bismarck was the leader, while the Liberals constituted the government party (see ).

It was not until 1875 that there was any degree of tranquillity and stability. Bismarck recognized that he was lessening the extraordinary esteem in which he was held by the whole world, by his excessive intimidation of France. Moreover, the defeat in France of the Royalists and Catholics by the Radicals and Protestants freed him from apprehension of danger from that quarter. Russia having been estranged from the empire by his anti-French policy, Bismarck sought the friendship of Austria-Hungary. In 1879 he brought about an alliance with Austria, which, when joined by Italy in 1883, became the Triple Alliance, which still subsists — the league of the great powers of Central Europe. He re-established better relations with Russia by means of the secret treaty with that country in 1887. The election of Leo XIII, the "pope of peace" (1878), disposed Bismarck to come to an understanding with the Catholic Church. But as a preliminary condition he demanded either that the centre party be dissolved or that it become a government party. At the same time he contemplated sweeping changes in internal politics. The Liberal ascendancy, beginning in 1871, had been responsible for the inauguration of an excessive number of economic undertakings, resulting in the financial depression of 1873; in political finance it brought about an almost complete stagnation in the development of the systems of taxation both of the empire and the component states; in social politics it had led to a rapid increase in the ranks of the Social Democrats, who after Lassalle's death had become under Bebel and Liebknecht an international party, in which numerous anarchistic elements were blended. In 1875 there had been a fusion of the Lassalle and Bebel factions; the Gotha programme was drawn up; at the elections of 1877 they scored their first important success. Liberalism had also failed completely in its opposition to the Centre; the latter party had so grown that it controlled more than a quarter of the votes in the Reichstag. Bismarck determined to restrict once more the influence of the Liberals in domestic politics. The transformation of the Conservative faction from an old-Prussian party of landed proprietors into a German Agrarian party (1876) made it capable of further development and useful as a support for Bismarck. He purposed forming a majority by combining this Conservative party with the moderate National Liberals (under Bennigsen and Miquel), while at the same time, the Centre party having refused to disband, there was the possibility of forming a majority of the Conservatives and the Centre.

Between 1876 and 1879 to organize the administration of the empire, the Reichstag created, subordinate to the chancellor, who under the Constitution was the only responsible official, the following imperial authorities or secretariats of State: Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Imperial Home Office, Imperial Ministry of Justice, Imperial Treasury, Administration of Imperial Railways, Imperial Post Office, Imperial Admiralty, Secretariat for the Colonies (1907). A number of non-political departments were also established, in part under the various secretaries of State, the chief of which was the Imperial Insurance Department; military affairs were placed under the Prussian Minister of War. In 1879 the imperial territory of Alsace-Lorraine was granted autonomy, though this was of a limited character. In 1878, after the attempts made by Hoedel and Nobiling on the life of William I, Bismarck carried out temporary measures for the suppression of Social Democratic agitation, e.g., the Socialist Law forbidding all Social Democratic organizations and newspapers. In the following year, encouraged by the increase in the sense of national unity due above all to the growth of German commerce and industry, he effected the financial and economic-political reform, his battle cry being: "Protection for German Labour!" Small protective duties were imposed upon agricultural and industrial imports, and a tariff for revenue only on colonial wares. The proceeds of both duties were to constitute the chief revenue of the empire, but of these only 130 million marks were to go to the imperial treasury, the rest being divided among the federal states, in return for which the latter, by means of federal contributions (Matrikularbeiträge), were to make good the contingent deficits of the empire. During the eighties the duties on agricultural products were gradually raised (especially in 1887), besides which several profitable indirect taxes, e.g., on brandy, tobacco, and stamps, were sanctioned, in order to meet the growing expenditures of the empire. In 1881 an imperial message to the Reichstag announced the inauguration of a policy of social reform in favour of the working classes. Between 1881 and 1889 the compulsory insurance of working-men against sickness, accident, disability, and old age was provided for by legislation. This was Bismarck's greatest achievement in domestic politics. The empire was now for the first time made the centre of the civil interests of the Germans, who up to this time had been occupied chiefly with the doings of their restive states, the management of Church and school having been retained by these. Bismarck, now at the zenith of the second creative period of his life, conceived the idea of organizing labour insurance on the basis of the community of interests of those engaged in the same work. By this means he proposed to establish in the empire self-government in social politics, which would equal in importance the local self-government of communities subordinated to the individual states, and which would complement the establishment of universal suffrage by educating the people for the administration of public affairs.

Bismarck also gave his support to the great German commercial interests which insisted upon the acquisition of colonies; in 1884 South-West Africa, Kamerun, and Togo were acquired; in 1885-86 German East Africa, German New Guinea, and the Bismarck Archipelago. He even went so far as to risk being embroiled with England, although it was an inviolable fundamental principle of his policy not to encroach on that country's privileges. It appeared as if Bismarck, though he had grown up under wholly different conditions and had been schooled in wholly different ideas, entered into the spirit of the democratic German of the future, with its world-wide commerce and its world-wide economic interests. But the first step taken, he retreated. He did not carry out his scheme of co-operative organization. It was in the fight against the growth of the German democratic tendencies within the empire that he exhausted his strength in the eighties. Domestic peace was promoted in Germany by the final though belated close of the Kulturkampf (1886-87); the beneficial effects of this were greatly lessened by the severity and violence of the measures with which Bismarck had begun (1885-86) to break up the national movement of the Prussian Poles, which was the conse-