of the affair are the Crofters. Their attitude has been dignified; they have yielded where it was inevitable, but they have given up no essential of their agitation. Whilst the military force is still in possession of the island they have been carrying out a determined No Rent policy, On many estates the Martinmas rents due in November last have been refused, while it is certain that next Whitsuntide their organisation will be sufficiently complete to ensure non-payment of rent throughout the island. They have thus adopted a course of passive resistance. Active and open

resistance they feel would be useless at present, and only in one case will they use force. Some eighty summonses of eviction have been issued from the Sheriff's Court for non-payment of rent. If it is attempted to carry out these evictions the Crofters will resist to the death. "It is better to die fighting than to die evicted" say the Crofters, and as they are men who abide by their word, the Government had better take warning in time. These two determinations, to pay no rent and to resist eviction, are the chief features of the Crofters' policy. Hitherto they have been kept back by politicians who told them that they would lose the support of public sympathy if they were too extreme. But now they have grown tired of waiting for public sympathy. No landlord has a right to take rent and give nothing in exchange for it, is the doctrine which is now being preached, and the social revolution is advancing rapidly in the Highlands. Something more revolutionary than an Irish Land Act will be required before the Crofters are satisfied.

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The men in Skye are fully aware that it is not only their own battle they are fighting, but the battle of the workers in towns. is most important that this feeling of sympathy should be maintained and spread throughout the whole of agricultural Great Britain. Socialists in towns should be sent down to any disaffected district, so that the two sections of the one movement may keep touch with each other. The messages of sympathy from Socialist and Radical organizations have greatly strengthened the hands of the Crofters in the present struggle, and if the expedition to Skye has been a ridiculous failure from the middle-class point of view, Socialists at least owe a debt of gratitude to Sir W. Harcourt and the Sheriff of Inverness-shire for having drawn the workers of town and country into bonds of closer union.

R. P. B. FROST.

Vol. III. No. 1. New Series.

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The Elections in Germany.

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N correction of a statement in my article of last month I may remark that the number of votes cast for Social-Democratic candidates was not about 550,000 but nearly 700,000. Herren Hasenclever and Blos have each been returned for two districts; Hasenclever for Berlin VI. and Breslau, and Blos for Greiz and Brunswick. The Social-Democrats have nominated as new candidates Herr Pfaunkuch of Cassel, a joiner, for Berlin, and Herr Weimer, a merchant from Nürnberg, for Greiz, who was formerly a member of the Reichstag. Both will no doubt be elected when this article is before the reader, so that the SocialDemocratic party will have increased the number of their representatives from twelve to twenty-four.

It may be interesting to the readers of To-DAY to know the trades practised by the Social-Democratic members: Auer is by trade a harness-maker; Bebel, a turner; Blos, journalist; Bock, shoemaker; Dietz, compositor; Frohme, mechanist; Geiser, journalist; Grillenberger, locksmith; Harms, silkweaver; Hasenclever, tanner; Heine, hatter; Kayser, merchant; Kräcker, saddler; Liebknecht, journalist; Ueister, cigar-maker; Rödiger, carver and cabinet-maker; Schuhmacher, tanner; Sabor, teacher; Singer, manufacturer; Stolle, gardener; Viereck, editor; Vollmar, journalist, formerly an officer in the Bavarian army.

The Social-Democratic parliamentary party, therefore, numbers, inclusive of Pfaunkuch, who is sure to be elected, fifteen workingmen in the literal sense of the word.

It is a well-known and old-standing complaint of the reactionist parties in Germany, which are under the influence of the large feudal landowners, that agriculture is insufficiently represented in the Reichstag. On looking at the official return of the members (the German" Dod ") we find that 133, more than one third of the total number, are landowners and agriculturists, amongst whom there is not a single small farmer, most of them beng country squires of the conservative type, ignorant and_narrow-minded. This class of "representatives representatives" of the people Privy Councillor Hermann Wagener described in one sentence :-"Some are

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blockheads by nature, others on principle." There are further twenty-five Landräthe (under prefects) who also represent, in the main, agrarian interests, nine half-pay officers, twenty-one Regierungsräthe (prefects), ex-ministers, &c., &c., who are all more or less connected with the landowning classes. Thus almost one half of the new Reichstag directly represents agricultural interests.

"In the name of Heaven" sixteen clergymen and priests, among them the Protestant Jesuit Stöcker, render assistance to this group while seven chamberlains of the Pope give it their blessing.

Thus there is a compact working majority for the landed interest, which in most cases is directly opposed to the interests of the people. This will become evident when the motion for raising the duty on corn is made. If the Government for some reason of their own do not oppose that, we shall soon have the duty trebled or quadrupled, and as a consequence the price of bread will rise. One would be at a loss to understand how the country party can in view of such facts keep on complaining of insufficient representation, if one failed to recognise their extraordinary impudence. The squires indeed try to make people believe that the land interest ought to be paramount. In a petition to the Reichstag the following occurs: "Germany's chief branch of industry is agriculture and cattle-breeding. It is therefore for the inhabitants of Germany a pressing necessity, if they intend to retain their abode in the country, to provide for the highest possible prices for corn and wool." Whether the mass of working men, mostly living in very needy circumstances, can pay "the highest possible" prices without being brought down to utter destitution, does not concern the noble patriots.

Side by side with the agitation for increased duty on corn we have a virulent opposition against any tax on the distilleries, which are monopolized by the squires, and are a source of great revenue to them, especially in Prussia. This shows what power the landed interest really has obtained in the legislature. These very same gentlemen will in the most touching terms deplore the drunken habits of the people, take part in crusades against the "Branntweinteufel," and yet they drive a roaring trade by making and selling abominable stuff to enrich themselves.

Next to the landed interest in point of numbers and influence is the legal interest. Not less than 53 lawyers have seats in the present Reichstag, where, in spite of belonging to different parties, they form a regular guild or trades-union. They delight in stretching every Act on the Procrustean bed of worm-eaten jurisprudence. Personal and class-interest keep them in the old grooves, though many of them pride themselves on their economical science, which with them consists in familiarity with the forms of private property and its uses and mis-uses. Altogether the lawyers' trades-union proves once more that knowledge of "law" does not necessarily imply devotion to justice.

Bureaucracy is represented by forty-nine members, who with very few exceptions are to all intents and purposes the tools of the allied governments. Their personal and class-interest is so closely

bound up with that of the Government that they may be said to represent it alone.

The educational interest is represented by sixteen members, a figure which would seem sufficient, were it not for the fact that among the sixteen there are ten university professors and only one elementary school teacher. The teachers ought at all events to have the same number as the professors, to adequately represent the importance of their class.

Manufacture and commerce cannot well be separated, as most manufacturers are also merchants. They are represented by fortysix members. As against agriculture even this class is considerably under-represented.

Twenty-two members are municipal officials, mostly mayors and town councillors, a number quite sufficient to take care of communal interests. There are six medical men, and fifteen gentlemen connected with literature and the press, belonging to different parties and representing different interests.

The working and artisan classes are represented as already mentioned by fifteen members, all Social-Democrats, none of the other parties containing a working man or artisan. This, even with the addition of the other nine Social-Democratic members, who may be taken to specially represent working-class interests, is far below the proportion of this class in the population.

There are nineteen gentlemen of independent means, and eleven pensioned officials to represent the idle classes. These gentlemen bear their responsibilities with the greatest ease, and in many cases with an indifference bordering on stupidity. More than one hundred and forty-three members, one-third of the total number, belong to the nobility, chiefly to the Prussian nobility. This reveals the ugly fact that to a great many of the German people a man with a handle to his name is still a person who claims and obtains special respect and privileges. Though these 143 noblemen belong to different parties, yet with a few exceptions, they come together when class-interests and class-privileges are at stake, and combine against the interests of the people.

To return to the group of clergymen in the Reichstag. It would be a mistake to suppose that this group is concerned with the representation of church interests alone. It presumes to take the lead in general social reforms, to indicate to the powers of the State how to act. Whether Catholic or Protestant they pretend to be the representatives of "true social reform." With the greatest effrontery they demand that the State should assist the Church with its power in order to win over the minds of the people to favour reforms in the "spirit of Christianity." After this is done the State may put forward all its forces to effect these reforms! The old arrogance, the old presumption, the old conceit! This would be less serious were it not that the clerical group is supported in the Reichstag with fanatical zeal by 180 lay members. To effect social reforms in the spirit of Christianity means with these men to persuade the destitute masses of the people to look upon their miserable condition as divinely ordained.”

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spirit of Christianity" read "supreme power of nobility and clergy" to whom freedom, equality, human rights are abominable heresies.

Fortunately however the authorities of the Church have long since given ample evidence that they are entirely unfit to have anything to do with social reforms. What was Christianity originally but a religion of equality? Priestly influence has disfigured and degraded the gospel and made it nothing but a bulwark for the privileges of the wealthy classes. Human liberty, the true love of mankind have never found a place within Christian churches. For centuries simpletons and hypocrites have been preaching at all seasons "love," when they were approving of the oppression of millions of men or even being themselves actually engaged in that work. Up to now so-called "Christian charity has been nothing but the secret enemy of the rights of men, when it should have been their open friend.

Under the rule of Christian dogma, the great majority of men have been deprived of their rights and of the means of working out their own happiness, oppressed, exploited, cheated of their own and prevented from taking part in intellectual progress. The authorities of the church have invested some individuals with more than earthly honours and in doing so have deprived the majority of all human dignity. They strenuously opposed all endeavours to make human happiness the object of human endeavour. Of their own accord they have never consented to social reforms; they Pretained to the very last the system of serfdom; they protected, encouraged and defended slavery; they have ruled the masses and deprived them of self-respect; they have endeavoured to command men's life and freedom, blood and treasure. On every page of history we find these facts recorded. But, alas, to the great mass of mankind history does not yet teach the truth. Priestcraft can still rely upon the ignorance of the people and at this hour is supported in Germany by nearly 200 so-called representatives of the people.

In spite of the influence of the clerical party in the new Reichstag, it will not be able to make political capital by any pretence of instituting social reform. It will have to meet the spirit of independent thought now so powerful an influence among the people, teaching them that political freedom is not the final duty of the State, and that economical equality must also be brought about. This brings up the social question, that terrible problem which modern society has to solve, if it is not to perish like ancient civilizations. The antagonism between the interests of the rich and the poor must be ended by the abolition of all privilege and the transformation of the capitalist system of production.

This great act of social justice is the end for which the twentyfour social-democratic members of the new Reichstag have to strive. In their struggle they have the most powerful of all allies -the stern logic of events-and against this the parties of reaction and corruption, the military, priestly, and capitalist influence will be powerless in the long run. Social-Democracy in the German Reichstag is one more warning of the downfall of the existing system of society.

KARL FROHME.