ARISTOCRATS AND DEMOCRATS IN GERMANY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVII, Issue 35, 9 February 1906, Page 4

ARISTOCRATS AND DEMOCRATS IN GERMANY.

The German Minister for the Interior is said to have created a considerable sensation in Berlin, by the violent attack which lie has just made in. the Reichstag upon the Social Democrats. There are a large number of distinct political parties in the German Parliament, but the Social Democrats stand practically alone. They represent what would be termed progressive Liberalism in England or the colonies, and they are regarded by nearly all the other political parties -with bareJy-veiled suspicion and ! dislike. It is true that at the last gen--1 etaJ. election in June, 1903, the Social Democrats gained a great accession oi strength. They now number 82 members out of a House of 397; and on many public questions they can depend upon some support from the Radicals and the National Liberals, numbering about 85 members in aIL But in spite of the advances made in recent years by Herr Bebel and his followers, the Social Democrats still form only a small minority in the German Parliament. The Centre, or Clerical, party still number 100 members, and with the block vote of 73 Conservatives to aid them it is nearly always possible for the representatives of mediaeval feudalism to hold the Social Democrats in check. But the representatives of the old Prussian aristocracy, and of the "junkers," or titled landowners, are genuinely alarmed at the growing power of the Democracy. The last election, at which the Social Democrats increased their Parliamentary strength by nearly 50 per cent., was a warning that they could not safely disregard. The Prussian aristocrats view the programme of the Social Democrats with even greater horror and apprehension than the Tories of 1832 displayed towards the Reform Bill; and the threats and denunciations of Count yon Welmer bespeak the national dread of the privileged classes who find their traditional rights menaced by the masses who have been so long obedient to their will. The poli£ical and social condition of Germany to-day presents several curious anomalies. Remembering the old age pension system and the many efforts made by the German Government to promote the industrial efficiency and prosperity of Empire, we are sometimes tempted to think of Germany as an eminently desirable abode for the wage-earner. But in spite of what has been done for the benefit of the industrial classes in Germany in recent years, the country is still socially and officially in the hands of the privileged classes. The authority of the nobles and the lajiclo"wners is certainly not so pronounced or so oppressive as the tyranny exercised by the aristocracy of France before the great Revolution. But the sections of the nations represented by the Clericals and the Conservatives in the Reichstag are still almost mediaeval in the views they hold of their rights and duties and their attitude toward the wage-earners and the masses. It is difficult for an Englishman, much more difficult for anyone whose views of life have been formed in these colonies to understand the extent to which, the privileged classes are still separated from the unprivileged in Germany. "The German untitled citizen," says an English observer, "is cut off from the aristocracy without even an imaginary connecting link." No ambition, no ability, no personal ■worth can bridge the gulf that in Germany still separate* the titled "classes" from the plebeian "masses." An arrogant contempt for the rights and claims of the democracy has always characterised the Prussian nobility, and more especially the "junker" class of landowners to which Bismarck himself belonged. But Bismarck was a statesman of genius, and he advocated that extension of the suffrage which, as he knew, would doom the privileges of his class to extincFor this, the Prussian aristocrats have never forgiven him; and they have never tried to conceal their fear and suspicion of the industrialists. And these feelings are fully reciprocated by the masses. "As for the lower orders," says Mr Sydney Whitman in his valuable study of Imperial Germany, ''their sentiments for the nobility are such that the least said of them the better. The distrust felt toward the nobility by the masses is so great that the German Conservative Party are often forced to put forward Parliamentary candidates without titles, fearing that it would be impossible to carry through one of their own order." This was written 15 years ago, and the events of the last few years have aggravated this mutual enmity and suspicion. But the influenca of the Social Democrats is steadily spreading, and it will need more than, the petulant anger of the surviving representatives of the feudal system to turn back the rising tide of German Liberalism.