A GERMAN CAMPAIGN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14929, 29 February 1912, Page 4

A GERMAN CAMPAIGN.

SOCIAL DEMOCRATS AT WORK

PHILOSOPHY AND A WOMAN.

[FEOH OUR LONDON CORRESPONDENT.]

Behijn, January 13. I have had the opportunity of attending a typical political meeting of the German Social Democrats at Bremen, a busy ocean seaport, and a good type of the great centres of modern industrialism in which the Socialists have their chief strength. It all goes to indicate that the Social Democrats of Germany are not what we regard as Socialists. The men present were almost all better class artisans or small tradesmen, well dressed, clean, and quiet.

All wore "bowler" hats. But why re- ' mark it ? This is a Socialist idiosyncrasy. They all wear their hats in .assemblies, as aa indication— Zealand Socialists can correct me — that all men are equal and . not to uncover to each other. But it r made little difference. They sat sedately i at their tables, quaffing their Pilsencr with 1 pensive farsightedness, saying nothing; in- ' terrupting never. A thoroughly respectj. able, decent crowd of the lower middle 3 class and upper artisans. They made no 5 interjections. They did not even smoko 3 until the lady speaker had finished. , The Social Democrat Type. [ *The principal speaker was a doctor of 1 philosophy, of unrefined and rather nuggety appearance, but earnest and alto- ' gcther moderate in speech and manner. J He spoke in measured and somewhat heavy 5 tones, stating that he did not believe in - a "rod-coloured policy," a gentle refer- ) ence to what we know as red flag oratory." Strange to say, the chairman himself —he was also medium-sized and nuggety, and might have been a glazier in our * English gallery of types was exactly th/» kind of man the speaker was condemning; , and he got up and said so. He word" a » red tie, and was, in accordance, an avowed . opponent of the Monarchy and of consti--1 tutional government altogether. / But even this avowal begat no more than a good- , natured tolerance of his audience. It was i the same quiet, well-balanced, philosophic i crowd that I had ■ seen in Osnabruck, ! and, having seen since at Berlin and Ham- [ burg, have come to regard as the type of L the German democracy. Just as the Centrums represent a welli to-do and solid middle-class, hated for their ' creed in Prussia and the east, so the Social Democrats represent a more comprehensive grade, distinctly lower in the social i scale, but better organised and as wellbehaved. Decent, respectable, very earnest, and studious. How often have J seen the same people assembled to hear politics in New Zealand. Blindfold one could size up their politics from, the frequent reference to the rights of the working class ("arbeiter "). No War With England. The doctor-philosopher made vno . refer- , ence to the British flags on the wall—Germans do not hanker after such demonstrations as this suggested—but he said with great earnestness what the Social Democrats have always said, to the undying anger of the war party, that a war with England was not at all to be feared. "We are a peace-loving people, and the English people love peace, and we will not have war." There was no applause, but the unanimity was quite unmistakable though unexpressed. That is what struck me over and over a £ ai »> the utter undemonstrativeness of the German, the patience of his philosophy. Such a man as our unpretentious, inoffensive, and colourless— have found it difficult to get a hearing even in a carefully policed meeting in England, and quite impossible, I should say, to attract an audience in Australia or New Zealand, where one wishes a little spice and free-hitting to one's politics. Our philosophic doctor also resorted to the practice of reading long extracts from the speeches and newspaper articles of the opposing side, and calling down upon them, by the mere inflection and modulation of voice and judicious pauses, the full weight of ridicule and disdain of which the meeting was capable in its ordered demonstrations. Not a word of criticism. The .Lady Rabid. Followed a lady orator whom, ungallantly, I do not love. She was apparently a decently-educated woman, youngish, dressed in black, with elbow sleeves for the manual work entailed in the speech. She stepped forward to the footlights as if to take service in tennis. She was a hopeless ranter, llike one nursing a lifelong grievance against, say an inspector of noxious weeds, she poured forth an unending torrent of sentences, only gasping for more breath to carry the plaint further. She, too, read extracts, of course; holding the paper in her left hand, while with her right she sawed the air with gesticulations of anger and disdain, growing more and more vehement as her fervour increased. The crowd became amused. They did not interrupt. it seemed to me they tolerated her goodnaturedly because she was a woman. - When, by the loudness of her words, and the climax of her modulation, she had apparently made a hit, they simply laughed. She was the very type of the firebrand, more correctly described by the English than by the German of the word "agitator," by which they designate persons who assist candidates in an flection. After all, it was a very quiet, harmless meeting. Unabashed by what the philosopher had said, the cl.airman closed the meeting in an orthodox wav by calling for cheers for the cause of'Herr Alfred Hencke. and the " Hochs" were given with heartfelt solemnity. They generally are. out of protest against the Monarchy. It is loyal and orthodox to give three deep "Hochs" when the Kaiser is mentioned. The Socialists do not merelv ignore this demand. They make capital of it with the expression " Hoch leben " ("he lives high "), a reminder of the Socialist quar- , rel with the Monarchy. Well, whether the meeting at the Concordia Cafe had much to do with it I i know not, but Herr Hencke captured the ■ Bremen seat for the Social Democrats. A Clockwork Organisation. . j The organisation of the Socialists in '. Germany is regarded as the greatest poli- ■ tical organisation in the world. It has ' certainly worked wonders in the face of ' great obstacles. The office system is as j j nearly perfect as one could expect, and , the canvass and registration are most , thorough. Every member must submit to h a substantial levy for the expenses of the < campaign, and the plate is held at the i door of every meeting. The discipline of < the order is notoriously severe, any , offence being punished in a most salutarv manner. " ( The Sozial Demokratischen Verein are T a strange paradox. In actual politics they , are not nearly so violent as the Red Flag ! t orators of Hyde Park, or as the gene- i c rality of British Socialists. But they are j i unrelenting republicans. Their staunch- j t ness on this point _is the obstacle to any j < union of forces with the different types '» of Liberals in the Reichstag, and is the 1 * main reason for the Kaiser's objection to ' - a party which admittedly represents many i f of the best interests of such a State as j * Germany is. . i * The position of the Social Democrats 1 ( is one of rill-round hostility to all the I other political parties, and' in the pre-1 <! sent conflict they have made a disastrous ' t assault upon the Liberals, against whom \ I they have achieved their princpal sue- i C cesses. They emerge from the conflict ' v actually the strangest political party in •'' Germany, and they are only debarred :°. from the commanding position to which ! ' their constituency is entitled by the fact' 6 that several of the great centres which p they have captured return only the same q number of members to the Reichstag as i, when they were insignificant villages, or l mediaeval cities, " "it