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Peace and Retrenchment will support Radicals and SocialDemocrats. As neither the Government nor the Opposition group can collectively gain supporters on this issue, the Nationalist and Pan-German organs are appealing to the electorate to ignore all other questions, and vote for the parties pledged to support a new Navy Bill, which is inevitably, they hope and believe, the coming Reichstag's first task. Judged by party declarations, such voting will not materially improve the bad prospects of the Bill. The Centre, the Radicals, and the Social-Democrats will oppose. The Centre organ, Germania, declares (November 19th) that the party "would not regard a new Navy Bill with sympathy. . . but entirely antagonistically"; while the Radicals have had a surfeit of "national" politics under the Buelowblock. Opposition by Centre, Radicals, and Socialists would have defeated a Navy Bill in the late Reichstag; and as the Centre cannot lose very many seats, and the Socialists will probably gain many, the position in the future Reichstag may be still less favourable, unless the Centre changes its mind. The Centre, however, is both a popularityseeking party, and a party eminently easy to deal with, and a new Navy Bill put before the Reichstag in the spring of 1912 will probably be sufficiently popular to make it worth while for the Centre to come to terms with the Government. Hence the coming election cannot in itself prove decisive on this question. But anti-British and big-navy sentiment will play a considerable part in influencing the electorate and diverting a certain number of votes from the directions they would take were the Blue-Black Block, the Financial Reform, and Protection the only issues.

The result of the 1912 election, however, was predetermined long before the recent outbreak of Anglophobe feeling. The trend of popular sentiment began to show itself immediately after the retirement of Prince Buelow simultaneously with the passing of the Financial Reform and consolidation of the Blue-Black Block. Between the Reichstag Election of January, 1907, and July, 1909, there was the usual proportion of by-elections; but they showed no marked reversion from the sentiment shown by the General Election. During the late Reichstag forty-eight by-elections were fought, with the result that thirty seats remained with the parties holding them, and eighteen were won and lost. The Right suffered badly. The Conservatives (including Reichspartei and Bund der Landwirte) lost seven seats, and gained none. The Centre lost three seats, and gained one. As two of the lost seats were captured by the National-Liberals and the third by the Socialists, while the win was at the expense of the Bund der Landwirte, the loss to the Government coalition is three; and the total Conservative-Centre loss is ten. Against

this the Hanoverians gained a seat (from the National-Liberals), so that the net loss of the coalition is nine. Liberals gained four seats and lost six.

The NationalTheir gains were at

the cost of the Conservatives and Centre. Of the losses five were to the Socialists, and the sixth to the Hanoverians. The last alone counts as a Government win. The Radicals (Fortschrittliche Volkspartei) won two seats from the Conservatives, and lost two to the Socialists. Finally, the Socialists, profiting at the cost of all other parties, gained ten seats and lost none. These results show a marked landslide to the Left. The Conservatives and Centre lost to the National-Liberals and Radicals; but the victors were unable to maintain their strength against the Socialists. Alone of the large parties the Socialists can show a net gain since 1907. On these results are based predictions of a great Socialist victory in January. The Socialist by-election successes appear still more striking in view of the short time in which they were gained. All date since Prince Buelow's resignation. At the twenty-two by-elections fought between the 1907 General Election and the Buelow resignation, the Socialists did not gain a seat. Their ten victories have been gained out of the twenty-six later contests. Whether victors or vanquished, they increased their poll in every election, with the exception of one Berlin district. The results indicate a sudden and marked reaction from the anti-Socialist impulse of 1907, and confirm other indications that the events of midsummer, 1909, were the real cause of the change in public opinion. By-elections, of course, are a notoriously unreliable indicator, but no better is available, and the by-elections fought during the 1903-6 Reichstag agreed roughly with the Election results of 1907. During this Reichstag forty-four by-elections were fought, registering twenty-nine changes. The Conservatives won two and lost two seats; the Reichspartei had no loss or gain; the Bund der Landwirte (Anti-Semites) gained three seats and had no losses. This left the Conservative group with net gains of three. Centre won one seat; the Poles lost one; the Hanoverians registered a gain and a loss. The National-Liberals won five and lost five; and the three Radical parties now united as Volkspartei won two seats and lost three. The Socialists captured one seat and lost three. These by-elections indicated a transfer of votes to the Right, the Conservatives being chief gainers and the Socialists chief losers; and the following General Election confirmed this indication, inasmuch as the Conservative party membership increased from 93 to 112, and the Socialist diminished from 79 to 43, while the National-Liberal rose from 50 to 56, and the Radical from 35 to 50. In foreshadowing a movement

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towards extreme Right and away from extreme Left, the byelections proved faithful pointers; but the General Election movement was stronger, probably, as a result of the unprecedented rally caused by the rejection of the Centre as Government party. There is no reason to think that the revulsion towards Social-Democracy in the coming Election will be stronger than is indicated by the gain of ten by-elections in 1909-1911; but if it is as strong, the Socialists should easily regain the eighty-one seats which were their high-water mark at the Election of 1903. The probability of a great Socialist success has from the beginning determined the attempts which have been made on both sides to make tactical provisions for the first, or second, elections. Neither of the two grandiose plans propounded has been realised. These plans were what is called Sammlungspolitik, or Concentration Policy, and Grossblockpolitik. Sammlungspolitik, which represents the official hope, dates back to the Miquel era, and means the union of all the "bourgeois" parties against the Socialists. Of late the governmentally-minded Press, and the official Norddeutsche-Allgemeine Zeitung, has preached that only by this means can Germany be saved from a Socialist inundation ; but they have preached somewhat unconvincingly because the Socialist party numbers only 53; and even at the 1903, high-water mark, Socialists formed considerably less than a fourth of the Reichstag. The Government's action in 1907 constituted another form of Sammlungspolitik, inasmuch as all the "national " parties were concentrated against the "anti-national" Centre and Socialists. This election-cry was plausible, for had the Socialists been successful in 1907, they with the Centre and its appendages would have had a Reichstag majority. At no time since 1909 has there been the least chance of Liberals and Radicals both making common cause with the Government parties; but Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg seems to have cherished to the last the hope of detaching the National-Liberals. However, the Socialist Peril has proved no more effective as a party solvent than "Protection of the National Work." From the first the National-Liberals have held that the Financial Reform is the main issue. At the National-Liberal Congress in Cassel, in October, 1910, Herr Bassermann, the party leader, declared that, "The Concentration Policy, put in other words is nothing but a demand that NationalLiberals shall enter the Blue-Black Block. . . . The Concentration Policy would have no effect but to confirm the predominance of the Conservatives and Centre." Instead, therefore, of all four "bourgeois" parties uniting, there is merely an agreement that Conservatives and Centre shall support one another as far as is practicable with party interests in the first, and to a greater extent

in the second, elections. The rival Grossblockpolitik, which is recommended to the Left parties by analogy with the coalition in the Baden Landtag, is also a form of Concentration Policy. The Radical Reichstag member and publicist, Friedrich Naumann, prefers to call it, "From Bassermann to Bebel," inasmuch as it aims to unite the National-Liberals, the intermediate Radicals, and the Social-Democrats. With untiring energy, but in vain, Naumann presses this policy on his own party and on its neighbours as the only means of creating a Reichstag majority over the Right and Centre. It is a policy easier for members of the middle party than for the two wings. To all Socialists except the despised Revisionist minority, the Radicals themselves are pestilent "bourgeoisie "; how then could Socialism swallow the high finance, capitalistic industry, and Imperialist sentiment of the National-Liberals? And if the Radicals cannot stomach Social-Democratic intransigeance and arrogance, how could the remoter National-Liberals? The National-Liberals emphatically denounce the Grossblock concentration scheme; but influential Radical newspapers continue to recommend it, particularly for adoption in second elections. They point to the Dusseldorf Election, where Grossblock policy in a modified form (the Liberals abstaining) led to the Socialists capturing a Centre citadel with 70 per cent. of Catholic electors; and they further point to the Radical-Socialist fraternisation in the Oldenburg Landtag Elections, and to the Grossblock policy pursued in AlsaceLorraine. Here, in order to prevent an absolute Centre majority, the Liberals and Socialists came to an agreement under which in fifteen districts the Socialists withdrew their candidates, and in two abstained, in return for which in eight districts the Liberals withdrew in favour of Socialists. The partisans of the Grossblock have some effective arguments. They say that the SocialDemocrats, however successful, cannot dominate the Reichstag without Liberal support; that Socialism is becoming tame; that Dr. von Bethmann-Hollweg himself did not scruple to carry the Alsace-Lorraine Constitution by means of Socialist help, given freely, although the Alsace-Lorraine upper house conflicts with the party's principles, and so on. But as the Grossblock has failed to come off, Liberals are implored in no circumstances to give their votes to the Conservatives or Centre in the second elections, and to abstain if they cannot conscientiously give them to Socialists. Between National-Liberals and Radicals an arrangement was come to a year ago. In some districts the National-Liberals have undertaken not to contest Radical seats, and to support Radical candidates against either Government parties or Socialists, the Radicals rendering the same services elsewhere. This agree

ment, though not perfect, is a fairly satisfactory one from the point of view of saving doubtful seats; but it is a small thing compared with the Grossblock policy, which, were it adopted, in time would almost certainly result in a large Liberal-RadicalSocialist Reichstag majority.

In discounting the indications of a Socialist landslide, two factors should be remembered which operate respectively in favour of and against the party. The first is the unknown quantity, the "bourgeois" Socialist voter; the second is the relatively small electoral value of a given increase in the Socialist vote. The Socialist vote in 1907 of 3,259,000 certainly gives an exaggerated idea of the numerical strength of programmatic Social-Democrats. Beyond doubt large numbers of electors who reject Socialist doctrine, and would oppose the party were there any chance of it attaining a Reichstag majority, vote for Socialist candidates as the most extreme form of protest against unpopular features of German politics and national economy, and as an effective way of expressing discontent with the weakness and academic impracticableness of the Liberal parties. It is with the aim of frightening back into their proper parties these strayed 'bourgeois" that the governmental-Conservative Press raises the unsubstantial spectre of a Socialist Peril which does not exist. Here German Social-Democracy contains an automatic corrective to too great success; and it is not possible to estimate how far recent Socialist by-electoral triumphs have frightened the nonSocialist citizens back into the Radical camp. The other antiSocialist factor arises from the change in economic conditions which has made German Socialism so strong. The present distribution of Reichstag seats is based upon the 1866 census, and has not been changed since the foundation of the Empire, despite the very unequal growth of town and country, of Industry and Agriculture. The urban and western electoral districts are enormously more populous than the rural and eastern; and this circumstance is most in the interest of the Conservatives, and least in the interests of the Socialists. Were Reichstag seats allotted according to party polls, the Left parties would have had a considerable majority in the last Reichstag. The anomalies are great. The electoral district of Schaumburg-Lippe, with 9,891 voters, has one representative. The district TeltowBeestow-Charlottenburg, with 248,160 voters, has also one. Agricultural East-Prussia, with 402,945 voters, has seventeen members. Berlin, with 493,457 voters, has only six. Berlin has a Reichstag member for every 81,682 voters. Pomerania has a member for every 25,957. The eleven most populous constituencies count together 1,519,424 electors. The eighty-five least populous

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