No. 277.
Mr. White
to Mr. Evarts.
Berlin, May 22, 1880. (Received June 10.)
Sir: The session of the Imperial Diet (Reichstag), opened by the Emperor’s commission at the beginning of last February, was closed on the 10th instant with the usual formalities by the vice-chancellor. Although it has not accomplished work of so extensive and important a character as previous sessions, it has adopted several measures of considerable moment to the internal development of the empire.
[Page 430]The debates, too, on bills which failed to receive its sanction, and the constitutional questions which it has had to discuss, have invested its proceedings with more than passing interest.
Contrary to general expectations, the budget showed a deficit of 6,500,000 marks. The results of the new tariff, although it had been in partial operation since July, were not appreciable, and consequently the contributions from the federal states to the imperial exchequer, (Matriculär Beiträge), which had occasioned so much discussion at the end of the previous session, had to be increased by 7,000,000 marks. The total revenue of the financial year 1880–’81 was estimated at about 570,000,000 marks, and the expenditure at about 580,000,000 marks; 130,000,000 marks of the revenue are anticipated from the new tariff, the tobacco tax, and the excise, the total increase looked for being 22,000,000 marks. On the other hand the expenditure is expected to be 30,000,000 marks more than the last year, and thus, unless the tariff and tobacco tax should realize more than can now be reasonably hoped for, the next financial year will begin with a deficit of about 8,000,000 marks.
That such an increase in the customs duties is hardly expected on the part of the government may be inferred from the fact that it attempted, although unsuccessfully, to obtain parliamentary sanction of new taxes, namely, an additional malt tax and new stamp duties.
Other measures of levying additional taxes, notably, a charge upon all who are for any reason deemed unfit for military service, are still in embryo. The most important item in the budget was the providing funds for an increase of the army, the particulars of which I have already communicated to your Department. After a debate, in which Field Marshal von Moltke took a leading part, the Diet sanctioned this proposal, the practical result of which will be that at a cost of about 17,000,000 marks 30,000 mea will be added to the standing army for seven years, increasing the war strength by 300,000 men, at a total yearly cost of 340,000,000 marks. Extra service is also to be imposed upon those who have passed through the standing army, but it should be remarked that this provision applies to none who, at present, belong to any branch of the reserve.
Much time was spent in the discussion of a bill relating to employers and employed. The semi-official press and some members of the government seemed to favor the compulsory formation of guilds for employers, workmen, journeymen, and apprentices in the smaller branches of trade. These were to be empowered, the suggestion was, to elect representatives to an imperial chamber of industry or handicraft in contradistinction to the chamber of commerce, already existing.
As may readily be perceived, the framing of such a measure was surrounded by difficulties. Ultimately its supporters gave up its full scope, and the formation of guilds was not made compulsory; but certain privileges are to be afforded to such corporations to encourage their future development. A bill relating to usury was also passed. This was undoubtedly called forth by the numerous instances in which officers of the army had been induced to sign away their property for a temporary loan. The law is aimed at those who lend money to any person in distress, or who may be inexperienced or thoughtless, upon the security of their property at more than the usual rates of interest. Such professional money-lenders shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three months and to a fine not exceeding 15,000 marks. It is a very widespread opinion that this bill was not drawn up with sufficient definiteness and will, therefore, be practically useless. An effort was made in the [Page 431] committee on the bill, by Count William von Bismarck, to declare null and void all bills of sale, bonds, and similar instruments of the kind above indicated when given by officers of the army or other persons in the service of the empire, but this suggestion was not carried into effect.
Socialism was again the subject of much discussion, the special point being the question whether the anti-Socialists law of October, 1878, should be continued, and it was ultimately resolved that it should remain in force until September 30, 1884.
The state of siege in which Berlin is supposed to be, on account of the Socialists, is also to be continued. But on the other hand it must be noted that the Diet is disposed to relax the stringency of the law as regards the individual members of the Socialists party within the Diet, three of their number having, as the result of its vote, been freed from the police regulations imposed upon them in 1878.
Besides the work above mentioned, the Diet prolonged the commercial treaties in Austria-Hungary, Belgium, and Switzerland until June, 1881, and entered into treaties of friendship with the Hawaiian Islands and Paraguay similar to that concluded last year with the Samoan Islands. These are the chief results of a session which has altogether borne comparatively little legislative fruit.
The measures which came before the Diet only to be rejected or to be classed among those with which there was not time to deal were of more interest from an American point of view than any of those adopted.
Among these was the Samoan bill, which proposed to guarantee, until 1899, interest at the rate of 4½ per cent, on the capital of a South Sea trading company established last January on the ruins of the house of Godeffroy & Co., of Hamburg. The reasons which led to its rejection by the Diet have already been reported upon to you. Another futile bill was one intended to alter clause 1, Article IV, of the coinage act of 1871; that instead of the silver coins in circulation being ten marks per head of the population, they should amount to twelve marks per head. But this bill will doubtless be renewed next year. The coinage question had previously been touched upon by Mr. Scholz, of the treasury, in his speech on the budget, and from the statements made by him it appears that the German Government is determined to continue the policy adopted last June, of selling or recoining the large stock of silver it has on hand. The Federal Council has also had the monetary question before it. Two of its committees were asked to report on the double standard. This was duly done by them, but the substance of their report, which was a verbal one, has not been made public.
Several proposals of new taxes rendered necessary by the increased armaments and the depression of trade affecting the customs and excise revenues were also submitted to the Diet, or had been already prepared by the Federal Council. There were to be, as already mentioned, additions to the malt tax, new stamps duties, and a tax on all who, for any bodily defect or other recognized cause, are released from service in the army. As the financial needs of the country are pressing, these proposals may be expected to reappear next session.
Another important bill rejected by the Diet was that which sought to restrict the sea traffic carried on between German ports to German vessels alone.
The political tendencies of the session have been somewhat startling, although not altogether unexpected. As I pointed out to you in my dispatch No. 40, it was possible that Prince Bismarck might co-operate with the center, i. e., the Ultramontane party, so long as the interests of the nation were not seriously affected. He undoubtedly used the support [Page 432] of the center to enable him to pass the tariff bill of last summer. It was then thought that the chancellor was “on the road to Canossa.” The Liberal and Progressionist journals pictured him arm in arm with the Pope. Dr. Falk resigned and supposed reaction was on foot in the Kultur-Kampf. That was at the end of last year’s session of the Diet. The closing of the session this year witnesses a scene in which the positions are reversed.
The expectation that the agreement between the Conservative parties and the Ultramontanes will be continued has proved ill-founded. When in February last the Pope addressed a letter to the ex-bishop of Cologne, in which he surrendered one of the main points demanded of him by the Prussian Government, the negotiations with the Vatican had apparently reached their most effective point. Since then there has been a change in the attitude of the center. When the military bill was before the Diet, the center opposed it; when the anti-Socialist law was to be prolonged, the center argued for its abolition and when one of the chancellor’s favorite projects, the Samoan bill, came to be discussed, the center defeated it. More than one question of parliamentary privilege had troubled the chancellor towards the close of the session; and when, on the 8th instant, his old co-worker, Dr. Delbrück, supported by the Ultramontanes, the Progressionists, and the National-Liberals, led the attack against him on the Elbe navigation act, the silence he had maintained throughout the session was suddenly broken, and in an impassioned speech he attacked first the center and then the parties, especially the National-Liberals, who, from “the tower,” which, as he said, the center supplied, do their utmost to defeat his efforts to consolidate the German union.
The question before the Diet was a constitutional one. Dr. Delbrück, as a member of the Federal Council committee having charge of the commercial treaty with Austria-Hungary, had maintained that only the Diet could move the customs line on the Elbe from a point above Hamburg to one below that port 5 the government affirmed that the Federal Council was fully empowered to make such a change, and that the privileges of the Diet would not thereby be infringed. It was seen that if the Federal Council could thus deal with the customs line on the Elbe, it would also have the right to include a suburb of Hamburg within the line. The chancellor’s speech dealt very briefly with this constitutional question. * * * The report of the committee, however, was referred back to the Federal Council, and as the Diet closed its sessions for this year on that day, the question of privilege is left in abeyance. With regard to Hamburg, a compromise has been arrived at; certain committees of the Federal Council being left to report on the expediency of including a suburb of that port within the customs union, without any reference to the constitutional question involved.
The chancellor argues that the right of moving the district lines for levying customs duties is one which the Emperor of Germany, as King of Prussia, never made over to the Diet. But the Bavarian minister at the Imperial Court, who is also a member of the council, does not seem to agree with him, and in consequence of some unpleasant words between him and the chancellor on account of this difference of opinion, the Bavarian minister has applied for leave to resign his position.
The chancellor’s appeal for support has thrown much light on the relations of the various parties one to the other. There seems no longer to be any bond between the Conservatives and Ultramontanes, and the chancellor’s suggestion that the Liberals should coalesce with the Conservatives in supporting the government against the demands of the Ultramontanes [Page 433] is not likely to be carried out. From sundry parts of his speech it must be concluded that he despairs of the Liberals ever giving up their own party views in order to assist him in consolidating the empire, unless he recompenses them by concessions in his financial policy. If the Liberals will not come to the Conservatives, the Conservatives must go to the Ultramontanes, was a leading idea of his speech, and it is still to be seen who will make a concession.
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The proceedings in the Federal Council which led the chancellor to proffer his resignation have resulted in the adoption of a new code of rules, by which the representation of several states through one member is permitted only when authority for this is produced from their respective governments; and this is to remain in force for only one sitting. By this measure it is hoped that the systematic representation by substitutes, which in April last led to such serious anomalies, will be avoided in future.
I have, &c.,