THE DISILLUSIONMENT OF GERMANY.
A FRIEND who has recently been studying on the spot JOIL the progress of opinion in Germany tells us that the thing which surprised him most was the apparent growth in the sense of disappointment among the educated classes. It was not disaffection, but disappointment, and was seemingly confined to the economic results of Empire. Everywhere the people were proud of the new position of their great country in external affairs, and of the reputa- tion attained by their Emperor among Sovereigns and statesmen. They had, however, hoped for another result which has not yet been attained. They had expected more domestic prosperity, and found themselves, if dependent upon salaries, distinctly poorer men. Not only had the general standard of living • advanced, which is true more or less of every country on the globe, but the pram of everything desired in decent households had advanced beyond all precedent. Rentals, luxuries, sand even necessaries, all cost more, and as the educated classes not employed in actual trade had always lived thriftily, salaries having always been low and promotion never very rapid, it was now difficult to live at all. Germans love comfort almost as much as the English do, though they do not usually spend so much on it, and the obligation to push thrift to the verge of meanness is felt to be a painful one, more especially as they had been taught to etpect that with their improved position in the world the lean years would tend to disappear. They have not, however, disappeared. The improved Navy, the enlarged Army, even the increase of colonial possessions, all cost money, and much money,—so much money that the Imperial Exchequer shows an apparently permanent deficit, and the credit of the country has decreased, with the result that, as Germans are fond of investing in public securities, the families which save seem to themselves to be getting poorer. That is, we fancy, the true explanation of the falling demand for new scrip which has induced the authorities in Berlin to make of the applications for their new loans a State secret. The new loans for Prussia and Germany have indeed been subscribed, but the excessive eagerness to secure allotments, which a few years ago induced investors to ask for sums six times, and even ten times, the amount offered, has passed away. Naturally the investing classes have grown acrid in their criticisms,while those who depend upon the Universities, the State Services, the Army, and even the employees of industrial enterprises, doubt angrily whether affairs in general are well managed. The Socialists, if not more numerous, are at least more bitter, and the Professors, who in Germany have so large an influence on opinion, think it an open question whether the triumph of 1870 has added as much to the common happiness as it unquestionably has to the national dignity and sense of position in the world. Much of the dis- contented criticism which is now audible everywhere, and which begins to affect even the tone of Parliament, is due to this disappointment, which cannot for the present be removed, and which undoubtedly tends to sharpen the anxiety to obtain wider possessions, and to estimate all diplomatic success by the rather sordid test of possible pecuniary gain.
The immediate effect of this condition of opinion ought to be a great extension of the preference for Free-trade, which would compel the Government to remove all taxes on articles of prime necessity. If salaries cannot be increased, the alternative clearly is to make things cheaper, —an 'alternative which even in America is becoming perceived, and strengthens the hands of those who call themselves "Revisionists." In Germany, however, there are many obstacles to that course of procedure. It has, in the first place, been the habit for generations to allow the chiefs of the Executive a free hand in the management of foreign affairs, and the body of the people scarcely believe that they know enough to control their Government when it is arranging mysteries like foreign Treaties and great economic bargains. They shrink back when they are told that they must submit for grave reasons of State to heavy duties on imports of produce, say, from Russia or the United States. The Protectionist policy, moreover, is very dear to the "Junkers " ; and the Hohenzollerns cannot rid themselves of the tradition that the support of the " Junkers " is essential to their own authority, and to that general ascendency of conservative ideas which the upper classes of Germany, and more especi- ally of Prussia, consider essential to the stability of the State, and to social arrangements which are very near their hearts, Those classes are, in fact, in every department of State work paid chiefly in dignity, and think fairly easy incomes derived from agriculture protected by the laws indispensable to that dignity. It is most difficult, there- fore, to cheapen imports ; and though the Socialists perceive the truth, the mass of the people, even when Liberals, cannot get rid of the impression that more colonies and. a wider increase of the acreage within which their Govern- ment is influential must produce a greater amount of wealth, and possibly a better distribution of it. Look, they say, at England. What makes her so wealthy except her wide possessions,—which, we may remark in passing, did not before the time of Sir Robert Peel make her common people wealthy at all. The total result for the, moment therefore, is to sharpen the desire of the Government for influence abroad' such as we have seen guiding its action in Morocco, and in al transactions in which the fate of the Ottoman Empire is concerned, and perhaps in its desire to exert pressure both upon Austria-Hungary and the Balkans. How long this state of opinion will continue it is hard to guess, for in the end the leaders of thought in Germany have always proved themselves capable men ; but it undoubtedly contributes to the fierce activity of the German Emperor within the province wherein he is nearly absolute, and probably, also, to that increasing fear of what is called in Germany Socialist opinion, which induces the Government of Prussia to refuse even moderate improvements in the almost absurd franchise of the kingdom. In the end, we fancy, the weight of opinion in the smaller and Southern States, which gain least by the enormous military and naval expenditure, will be felt in the Imperial Govern- ment. That opinion, supported as it will be by the remonstrances of the Exchequer, will develop at any rate a strong wish to relax the pressure of high prices, which at present take all sense of ease and comfort from the immense body of agents of the State, who in Germany are sure in the last resort of a hearing not always accorded to the electors.
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