In the Reichstag on Wednesday the Associations Law was carried
by 194 votes to 168. One would hardly have predicted some time ago that Prince Billow would succeed in inducing
the diverse components of the Bloc to pass this measure. The chief subject of controversy has been the language clause. In its original form it virtually forbade the use of any language but German at public meetings. Of course it was directed against the Poles, but Poles are not the only German subjects whose mother-language is not German. It is astonish- ing to think that it was seriously proposed, for example, to make the French in Alsace-Lorraine speak German at public meetings. Naturally the clause was hotly opposed, but eventu- ally a compromise was reached by which the prohibition of all languages but German does not apply to International Con- gresses or to election meetings. Moreover, in districts where more than sixty per cent, of the native-born population speak a non-German tongue, they may use it at public meetings during the next twenty years on giving notice to the police; and the different States may make further exceptions if they please. The Berlin correspondent of the Times says that the Radicals explain their acceptance of the law by declaring that in spite of its language restrictions it gives new rights of public meeting. It is a highly illiberal Act in any case, and even if the Poles manage to get more good than bad out of it they will have one more grudge against the Government.
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