The German Government has sustained something of a defeat in
the Reichstag. Under pressure from the Clerical party, and, it is reported, from the Emperor, who abhors license, the Ministry supported a Bill called, from its framer, the Lox Heinz°, designed to prevent all obscene representations in literature or in art, but containing clauses which the literary class perceived, or fancied, would virtually involve a censorship. Nothing would be safe unless the authorities thought it "becoming," and in Germany authorities are very rigid. All who write or draw, especially playwrights and dramatists, accordingly raised furious protests, the Bill was stopped by systematised obstruction, and there might have been an Italian scene but that Herr Richter, the Liberal leader, suggested a compromise. The penal clauses against obscene representations are retained, but limited to exposure in the streets or public places, and the general clauses are dropped out altogether. The Government has accepted the compromise, and the Bill thus amended has been passed. The original law would have passed too had not long experi. once made the Germans certain that their bureaucracy dreads intellectual freedom, and would use any Act against the improper to reduce its area.
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