GERMAN ELECTIONS.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVI, Issue 10966, 5 January 1912, Page 4

GERMAN ELECTIONS.

KEEN INTEREST. [By JSlectbic Telegraph—Coptbight (Peb Press Association.) Received' January 5, at 10.30 a.m. * Berlin, .January -I.

Thero is much comment oil the Government's attitude in confining itself to advising the electors to vote against the Socialists. The results of the firstballots are eagerly awaited, as the bargaining of the Government with the various groups will thereafter begin.

The Berlin correspondent of the Standard; wrote in August last: — The German Government statisticians have been busy for some time past in calculating the probable extent of the increase of the aggregate Socialist- po'l and the number of seats in the Reichstag which will be gained by the Socialist party at the next general election, expected to take place in the autumn of 1911". The necessity of these investigations was suggested by a series of byelections in which the Socialists not onl\ increased to a remarkable degree the number of votes given to their candidates, but also succeeded in c-aptur'iig constituencies which have never before been represented by members of the party.- Alarmed by these indications of a widespread national discontent, the professional statisticians of the Government Were ordered to calculate as nearly;as possible the presumptive extent of next year's Socialist gains. It is accepted as a certainty that the aggregate Socialist poll will take anotSerleap forward in 1911. just as it lias increased at every general election dur-. ing the last thirty years. At the last general election in 190», Socialist candidates polled 23 per cent, of all the votes cast Throughout the couutry, and there is a very general expectation that their percentage at iiext year's, elec- | toral contest will amount to 40 per cent. The reports of the Government statisticians have been alarming in the extreme, and the Imperial Chancellor, Dr von Betlimann-Hollweg, now reckons witb the probability that the Socialist party in the Reichstag to be elected next vear will number 140 or even 150 deputies. It must be remembered mat the Reichstag is composed of 39< deputies, so that if there were 140 or 150 Socialist deputies they would be within measurable distance of commanding ail absolute majority of the Imperial Legislature. Possibly by combining witK the Radicals and one or two smaller groups of malcontent politicians, such as the Polish Nationalists, they, might command a majority. If the Raaicals were not sufficiently numerous to enable the formation of this combined opposition, the Roman Catholic Centre Party would possess the balance of Eower, and would dominate the situation v threatening to form a coalition with the Socialists unless its own demands were fulfilled. In that case Germany, with a population two-thirds would be entirely under the control <>< an ultramontane Roman Catholic Partv. Dr von Bethmamt-Hollweg has been holding a series of conferences with leading politicians of different parties and groups, and also with leading editors. with a view to preventing the anticipated victory of the: Socialists. Party leaders and politicians of the Conservative and Moderate groups have been summoned to liim to conier on ways and means of stemming the Socialist tide. Lea'ding newspaper writers Tir.ve been exhorted by the Imperial Chancellor to use all their-public influence to bring about a combination of all other parties and groups against tiie Socialists so ,;.s to prevent the capture of so many parJiamentary seats ov Socialist followers.