POLITICS IN GERMANY.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVIII, Issue 12995, 10 December 1902, Page 6

POLITICS IN GERMANY.

The notable increase in the strength the Social Democratic Party at the last general election in Germany has been emphasised since 1898 in many ways, but in none more pronounced than in the vigorously aggressive attitude which has been assumed towards the Party by the Centra and by the Emperor William himself. The Kaiser is blessed with a complexity of character which is a little confusing to the political student at a distance, and he certainly conveys a general suggestion of insincerity in his many and divers political and social posings. Like the notorious gander of Bradley, he has avowed “notions ” which do not always coincide withl his actions, and he appears to calmly regard his individuality as a quite sufficient excuse when his practice fails to fit his theories. But there is wisdom in his latest madness, and his advice to the German workmen to form a genuine workman’s party and ignore the invitation of the Socialists to make a party alliance is tempered with, a fine quality of diplomacy. ThaG P.eichstag has for years past suffered from! a disunion which has split the more proa gressive party in Germany into half-a-dozen distinctive factions, each ear-marked with a discriminating tag, each’ armed with a! specific policy, and all prilling different ways after much the same purpose, to th<f intense edification of tho Clerical Party. Of late there has been a marked tendency) among these various factions to coalesce* . with a view to forming a strong • Radical or Socialistic Party in the Legislature, and it is against such a coalition that the Kaiser’s influence is obviously being cast. The feudal spirit appears to die hard in Germany, but it is undoubtedly fast passing away, and not even she Emperor, narrowed as he is by the prejudices of environment and isolated in an artificial atmosphere which has induced a growth of egotism, of which even Mr Le Gallienne might bt proud, can long stay the inevitable. Fearful as the title sounds to the horrified ears of tho aristocracy, the Socialists of Germany are in reality no more revolutionary, if indeed as advanced, as the Progressiva Liberals who have been sent back in such! numbers to our own Legislature. Modems Germany has a heritage of centuries of autocracy to fight, and she could have no more unsafe guide in her deliberations than the man who is the direct lineal descendant of the “ iron-handed rulers of the Fatherland.” From the secure vantage ground of our own unimpeachable legislative methods and achievements the spectacle of a growing German regeneration possesses a strong contemporary interest.