The able Berlin correspondent of the Times is rather despondent
as to the result of the German elections, which will be announced before the end of June. He thinks the Radicals will suffer, and indeed all Liberal parties except the Social Democrats, and that the Clerical Centre will lose the Polish vote, the Poles being indignant at the apathy of their co- religionists in face of anti-Polish legislation. He says the monstrous inequalities between voting districts deprive the returns of all reality as indications of popular opinion, and is inclined to doubt whether Germans as a whole care greatly about the suffrage. In the election of 1898, out of 11,441,000 voters only 7,752,000 availed themselves of their privilege, and they voted rather for groups like the Centre than for Con- servatives or Liberals. There are no less than nine such groups in a House of 397 Members, the largest being the Clerical Centre, which has 105 representatives, or nearly a fourth of the whole. The subjects which really excite fervour are rather religious or economic than political, the majority probably recognising that on all others the Emperor intends to rule, and has the power to do it.
Previous page
