selves who have killed the goose which laid the golden eggs, or at least rendered her sterile for a time by their impetuous claims. One of the highest authorities in these matters, however, Dr. Engel, declared, as early as 1877, in his reports on the industrial enquête, the current statements to be exceedingly exaggerated; and things have become much better since. "The misery may be great here and there," says he, "but the exaggerations are greater still. It appears to be a peculiarity of the German character to waver continuously between optimism and pessimism. The 'take it coolly,' seems to be unknown to us. In the years 1870 and 1871 we were not only the bravest, but also the most cultivated, and in 1872 even the richest nation of the world. In 1876, on the contrary, we became suddenly, without any transition, the most awkward and tasteless of people. In 1877 we are also the poorest, and in pressing danger of starvation." Since these words were written, one of the first of German economists, Herr Soetbeer, has irrefutably proved that the growth of our national wealth has by no means been checked by the depression of 1876, and that it is now more rapid than ever. Socialism in its present form, that politicizing, democratic Socialism which worships Marat and Ferré as its patron saints, lays hold on our workmen less extensively and less deeply, maybe, than is generally supposed, but still clamorously enough. The public imagines the attempts to assassinate the crowned head of the German empire to be so many manifestations of this mental disease; as if, forsooth, a Henry III., a William the Silent, a Henry IV., had not fallen victims to the hand of assassins long ere any one dreamt of social democracy; as if, in our own pre-socialistic times, not only the French citizen-king and the French Cæsar, but also the Queen of England at the time of her greatest popularity, the republican slave-freer Lincoln, the royal predecessor of our own Emperor, and that monarch himself, in more peaceful times, had never been attacked by lunatics. The discontent, as well as the misery of the lower classes is, besides, much smaller in Germany than in Italy and Ireland, where universal service is not enforced. Emigration is by no means caused by this; the stream exists, and will flow a long time still, whether compulsory service is abolished or not. And as for Socialism, it is redoubtable only where there is no true middle-class, as in Russia, or where the middle-class allows itself to be intimidated, as in France. In Germany, which has the most numerous middle-class in Europe, and a middle-class resolved to defend itself, Socialism has no more chance of success than the servile wars and Jacqueries which have burst forth periodically ever since an organized society has existed, and which will for ever burst forth, because society can neither put an end to inequality nor persuade the lessfavoured classes of the justice of such inequality; so that exhaustion, resignation, and force-in other terms, labour, religion, and the police, will always be the sole means of making them submit to their hard lot. The rapid development of German manufactures since 1850, naturally makes the spread of social democracy among the working classes appear more alarming than it really is, and we are apt to overlook the consideration that if an unarmed power like the North American State was able to cope with a widely-spread Socialist revolt, and to quell it in a few weeks almost without bloodshed, it would be easy for the German State to do the same in as many days. Besides, the unwise help which Socialism found in the sympathy of the learned middle-class is fast being withdrawn, since men's eyes have been opened to the danger of playing with such utopias, and this, in its turn, has had a salutary and sobering effect, even on the lower classes. It is, however, not merely the apprehension of danger from Socialism which unsettles men's minds; there is also a strong fear lest our manufactures, as yet in their infancy, should be damaged, nay ruined, by the increase of unconscientious workmanship. The rebuff we met with at Philadelphia is not yet forgotten; we are painfully conscious that our manufactures are neither solid nor in good taste, and that in the long run their cheapness alone will not enable them to stand the test of competition with those of superior foreign workmanship. And here, again, we accuse men instead of circumstances, and throw the blame solely on our workmen's carelessness and negligence, while German workmen are notoriously in request in foreign countries quite as much as German clerks and German nursery-maids. The disease, which cannot be denied, lies, alas! much deeper, and is therefore far more difficult to cure. Our middle class, which, after all, consumes most, cannot afford to purchase substantial goods, as the French and English middle-class can, therefore the workmanship must necessarily suffer. Were we to renounce showy, scamped wares, we should have to eat with wooden spoons, and go about in homespuns and unbleached linen. I do not deny that we might be happier and richer under a more primitive simplicity in our outward life than beneath our present threadbare luxury de pacotille-especially if we were to spend on our families what is now squandered in taverns in the evening. Nor can it be doubted that a less pretentious household and a more homely life. might exercise a purer moral influence upon ourselves, as well as upon those growing up around us, the latter particularly; for as that indefatigable Jeremiah of New Germany, Herr Lagarde, has it, "the tavern (kneipe) and the cigar are a far more effectual means of barbarization, and a more demoralizing power, than all the Radical theories in the world put together;" and ". . . . to my mind, though I am a native here, And to the manner born, it is a custom More honour'd in the breach than the observance;" for he who must needs finish his day in malodorous, smoky cellars, may be a Liberal, he never can be a free man!" How simply did our ancestors live, although relatively much wealthier than we! How "aristocratic" Herder and Schiller appear to us with their cane-bottomed chairs and simple polished tables! To be sure, our wealth has forsaken us ever since the Thirty Years' War; but our middle-class university men, so numerous in Germany, are poorer than ever just now. The salaries of Government officials and lawyers' and doctors' fees do not augment in proportion to the rise in rents and in articles of daily consumption, for the law of demand and supply needs time to find its balance. The official, the clergyman, the schoolmaster of to-day, who earns £200 is, in fact, a poorer man than his father was with £100, even could he and would he live as his father did, which our altered circumstances would hardly allow. Most likely the equilibrium will only be established by means of association. If, e.g., our book manufacture is not to dwindle down into the "cheap and nasty" species, publishers must be enabled to consider themselves independent of private purchasers when there is a question of new publications. This, however, would necessitate a development of public libraries, and a further increase of the already flourishing circulating libraries sufficient to guarantee to the publisher an immediate sale of 1000 copies of a valuable new work to institutions of this sort, so that he might be able to regard what is sold to the few who can afford such luxuries or are obliged to buy professionally, as clear profit. If, again, our already rapidly declining art of engraving is not to be entirely lost, towns and art societies will have to play the part of collective art patrons; for the single individuals capable of recognizing the superiority of a valuable engraving over stunting and distorting photographs are not rich enough to buy it, and, however great a part our museum and gallery-system may have played in promoting the half-culture of the nation, we shall have to resort to association whenever contemporary works of art or of art-manufacture are concerned, on account of our financial circumstances and the democratic character of our society. Besides, this as well as other forms of association have long since been called into life by our middle classes. Private gardens and grounds, indispensable to the Englishman and Frenchman, are replaced in Germany by public walks where our middle-class citizen sips his coffee and smokes his cigar among a hundred others of his own rank; the luxury of a ball at his own house being beyond his means, he subscribes to public balls, where his sons and daughters are free to enjoy an amusement which is denied to the young people of the same class in other countries; he cannot afford to entertain his guests with good chamber-music or celebrated public singers, but he is a member of some musical society or public orchestral association for cheap concerts, where he and his family have opportunities of hearing the best music performed by the best artists, such as the Parisian and the Londoner have only begun to know since the existence of the Pasdeloup and the Monday Popular Concerts, and such as no provincial in England or France is able to enjoy at any price. However this may be, it is an undeniable fact that our middle-class And is in a bad way, and that to assure it that it is only passing through a period of transition is but a poor attempt at consolation. Are not all historical moments periods of transition? History never stands still; the question is only, how long this period of transition is likely to last? The old, purely intellectual, and ideal German life, with its material poverty, seems for ever lost; the new public and realistic life is poor inwardly, and irretrievably false outwardly. Our traditions of the past, and our aspirations for the future, are sadly at variance with each other. How are we to get rid of this discord? past, supposing this to be possible? Is it by giving up our traditions, Is it by going back to the and forming a new state of things adapted to a merely external existence? Or is it by conciliating the old and the new? if we admit this reconciliation to be the task of our times, what are the means by which we can perform it with least risk, avoiding too hazardous and costly experiments on the one hand, and that convenient free-and-easy nonchalance on the other which so often conceals itself beneath general thoughts and terms? A reconciliation is certainly needed; for the deepest, most legitimate reason for our dissatisfaction does not lie so much in our disappointment after having attained longwished for benefits, nor in the necessity we are under of fighting out the hard political and ecclesiastical battles which have been forced upon us by the new State, nor in the incessant wounds inflicted upon our susceptibilities by envious and suspicious neighbours, nor in the material burdens and privations we are now groaning under, nor even in the outward disproportion between the claims and wants of our middleclass, and their means of sustaining these claims and satisfying these wants; it lies rather in the inward disharmony which is felt in that very portion of the nation which, properly speaking, ought to be the nursery of our national culture. Now, this inward disharmony has source in our half-culture, and as the half-educated are always disso does the present predominant dissatisfaction of the Germans contented, its principally spring from the preponderance of the half-educated. KARL HILLEBRAND. But ་་་་ FREE-TRADE, FROM AN AMERICAN STAND-POINT. THER HERE seems to be an impression prevalent in England that Americans, notwithstanding the wide diffusion of knowledge among all classes, and a characteristic shrewdness in matters of moneymaking, are, in at least one respect, an exceedingly ignorant and foolish people. Despite the flood of light which British writers periodically throw upon the subject of political economy, and against arguments the most convincing, addressed to their purses as well as to their intelligence, they obstinately persist in impoverishing themselves by adhering to an antiquated and utterly exploded doctrine of Protection, blindly ignorant of the wealth that would pour in upon them by the adoption of the system of Free-Trade. "Why will they not be satisfied with their unquestionable agricultural supremacy, instead of bolstering up their manufactures by an artificial and injurious system ?" indignantly demands a leading London journal. "It will soon cure itself, for it obliges the people of the States to pay more for things than they are worth," is the cheerful optimism of another. "It is a miserable commentary on the economic education of free nations," is the querulous utterance of a third. "It is very unfair for the States to levy a tremendous tax upon our iron, while we levy none upon theirs," asserts Mr. Foster at Bradford. "With fraternal solicitude England continues to urge the abandonment of this policy," writes Mr. Isaac Watts, of the Manchester Cotton Supply Association ;-sentiments whose source indicates such manifest altruism that only an obdurate Protectionist would fail to be touched to the heart. Mr. Bright, whose friendship for America in her darkest days will always secure him a respectful hearing, declares that an American Protectionist is a person beyond the reach of argument, the system a form of slavery to be resisted by all who love freedom;* asserts that reciprocity is lunacy, and that those of his * Letter to Cyrus W. Field, January 21, 1879. |