One hundred years ago
Prince Bismarck spoke on Wednesday for the second time in favour of the AntiSocialist Bill. He declared that he was in favour of all means for relieving workmen from need, and especially of co-operative societies, which the Government would not shrink from assisting; but he desired to put down the Socialism which, preaching to the people that the ideas of God, Fatherland, and Property were frauds, sought heaven only in momentary enjoyment. There were 60,000 such Socialists in Berlin alone, thoroughly organised, and their propagandism must stop. For himself, if he lost his faith in God and a Hereafter, he would not live a day. He condemned strongly the thirst for luxury and for getting-on manifest in Germany, believed that laws and opinions were alike too lenient, and hinted a sort of admiration for the swift French method of shooting Socialists down. His speech made a deep impression, especially on the middle-class Members of the Reichstag, who are evidently under a fear that the Socialist movement is directed against them, and who express a jealousy, which is felt also in America and even in England, at the comfort enjoyed by handicraftsmen, as compared with intellectual workers.
Spectator, 12 October 1878
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