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 but it results in most absurd inequality in the political rights of one district as against another. In some districts of Berlin, for instance, a man must pay 150,000 marks. in taxes in order to vote in the first class; in other districts a payment of taxes to the amount of 36 marks puts the voter into the first class. Bismarck called the Prussian method “the most miserable of all electoral systems,” but the Government shows no growing disposition to change it. Herr von Hammerstein recently said, “No other electoral system gives such a correct impression of public opinion as our tripartite system in Prussia.”



What is it that caused such remarkable growth of the Social-Democratic party? What are the complaints of the German people? What measures do the Social Democrats purpose? Does this party of protest and discontent, growing, as it has the most rapidly of any political party in Europe, foreshadow changes which will have a momentous effect on industrial conditions? Those are all questions, the answers to which seem to me of direct interest to us.



The point of view of the Social Democrats, without doubt, rests in large measure on a sound appreciation of economic facts. They have seen at close range the effect of modern economic development. They have noted the substitution of machinery for hand labor and the stifling of small industries by great and more efficient industrial combinations. They offer no plan to oppose such development. They recognize that it