Page:Scribner's Magazine, Volume 37-0211.jpg

Rh deal of freedom in regard to deciding their own questions.

During the last seven or eight years the coöperative movement and the movement for the formation of workmen’s syndicates have grown rapidly in Germany, and have made great headway among the Socialists themselves. It is the same active working class that composes the Socialist party, the Syndicates, and the Workmen’s Coöperative Societies, and these organizations will be of the greatest help to the Socialists in their future conflicts.

Although the Social Democrats form the party of the working men, they do not select working men as their representatives in the Reichstag. More than half of the representatives of that party are editors, and practically none are actually industrial workers.

There is a phase of human nature which one encounters in Germany which has a marked influence upon political development there. It is “unfashionable” to be out of accord with the Government policy. In England a man may be a “Free Trader” or a “Protectionist,” a “Little Englander” or a dreamer of imperialistic dreams, without affecting his social status one way or another. In France the whole business of politics is rather outside the highest social life and society concerns itself little with the shades of a man’s political opinion. But in Germany all that is different. It is distinctly unfashionable, in the view of the best society, to hold opinions antagonistic to the Government, and the weight of that fact is tremendous in the shaping of men’s opinions. The young man of good family who finds that with the adoption of radical political ideas he meets with distinct coolness in the homes of his friends, that his name is dropped from dinner lists, and his social acquaintances regard him with disfavor, needs a great deal of courage to pursue that line of thought. The power of social opinion, as represented in aristocratic society, is perhaps nowhere more potent in political matters than in Berlin.

The tremendous increase in the vote of the Social Democrats in Germany, while it has failed to give to that party anything like a proportionate representation in the Reichstag, has nevertheless had marked influence on legislative action. On the part of all the other parties there appears to be a wholesome fear of the increasing power of the Socialists and they are ready to adopt, not only any unfair means that they may devise to compass the Socialists’ defeat, but they are quite ready to make concessions and attempt to placate the dissatisfied workman. No other country has gone so far as Germany in legislating in the interests of the working class. The system of old-age pensions is the most notable example of such legislation. By Bismarck’s own admission, the measure was designed to take the wind out of the sails of socialism. It was believed that the interest which every workman would be given in the Government through a prospective pension would furnish the motive for securing the support of the working classes for the Government side. The ill success of the scheme from that stand-point is apparent. Nevertheless, the direst foes of socialism, after the great victory of the Social Democrats in the last election, called for further labor reform legislation as an antidote against the spirit of socialism.

In the Reichstag there has been a flood of enactments for the benefit of the laboring classes, and the consideration of suggestions along this line has occupied much of the time of members. Labor legislation has been popular with all parties. With the Socialists, naturally, because it was labor legislation which they particularly demanded, and with the other parties because they thought by championing the cause of labor they could overcome the disaffection of working men from their ranks. In the recent budget debates, an astonishing amount of time was given to petty questions regarding the wages of workmen in certain Government shops, their hours of work, and the regulations controlling their employment.

There is every reason to believe that legislation favoring the working classes will continue to be enacted by the Reichstag. Soon after the opening of the last session, Count von Bülow announced that the Government hoped eventually to bring forward a scheme of insurance for widows and orphans, at the public expense, and it was also intimated that some plan for insuring working men against non-employment was under consideration as a probability within the next ten years. Thus, the state, as an antidote to socialism, adopts measure after measure of a distinctly socialistic character.