forces of the country for the struggle in the great markets of the world were also in question. The issue of the war gave to Germany for the first time the possibility of organizing and uniting these economic forces by political means. From that time forward Germany has been able to enter the markets of the world with the same weapons as other nations.

Italy and Germany were the only great Powers of the Continent to which other parts of the world remained hitherto shut for purposes of political colonization. All other great Powers, and even smaller Powers like Holland, Portugal, and Denmark, had their colonies beyond the sea; others, like Austria and Russia, had fields for colonization on the Continent itself. Germany and Italy alone were confined to boundaries centuries old. And yet the natural need for expansion was far greater with Germany than with most of the other European nations. While the increase of population in France was continually declining, it was regularly rising in Germany. Emigration reached the figure of 200,000 souls a year, and for some years now was exceeded by the emigration of Great Britain alone. Railway extension, carefully promoted by the Imperial Government, had since 1870 given an incentive to production in all departments. In those fifteen years the industrial development of Germany has gone forward with rapid strides, and has been able to meet the requirements imposed on a civilized people by a commerce transformed by mechanical inventions. But Germany has been overtaken by the same difficulties which threaten the other civilized nations of Europe: over-production has for years made itself much felt there in the most various departments; an over-production not merely in industrial products, but also in men of superior education, who are therefore unable to find vent for their faculties at home. To the previous redundancy of hands, of simple power of labour, there is now added a redundancy of heads and of wares. Consequently, the need of colonies, both for agriculture and for trade and industry, has become ever stronger. And while this need has been growing, one of the old outlets for German produce and German labour-viz., Russia-has been ever more and more firmly shut against Germany.

Formerly the surplus labour of Germany had two great markets, North America and Russia. There used for centuries to flow to the Eastern Slavonic countries a great number of manufacturers, professional men, artisans, merchants, day labourers, and a great quantity of German commodities. But Russia began twenty years ago to put in force a so-called national doctrine, which proposed to exclude foreign-i.e., in this particular case, especially Germancommodities and men as much as possible from the Russian markets. A high protective duty has more and more effectually excluded German commodities, and national jealousy has as effectually

debarred German citizens from the natural outlets of Central Europe. It would need a new war to break down this barrier, and that is not the policy of the German Empire. While, therefore, the need of a new outlet grew rapidly stronger, the old outlet was as rapidly narrowed by the protectionism of Russia. If Germany was not to resort to force, she was compelled to give her whole strength to seeking by peaceful means openings elsewhere which might offer a compensation for those she had lost in Eastern Europe.

Then, to aggravate the situation still more, there came the Socialist agitation, which spread rapidly ten years ago, and led four years later to the attempt on the life of the Emperor. The Government turned itself against this movement with its whole energy, stopped its spread as far as possible, and undertook with the greatest zeal to introduce legislative reforms for the purpose of mitigating, if not removing, prevailing evils in the condition of the lower classes with all the resources at the disposal of the State. A loud, hot fight sprang up in all circles in the country over this social reform. The Government hoped by an energetic reconstruction of the inner conditions of production and industry to find correctives for the growing distress and the increasing numbers of those who suffered from low wages or absolute want of work. Many believed that by such ameliorations at home, sufficient outlet would be created for the annual surplus of men and commodities. The agitation for these reforms has brought about many and great ameliorations, and it still continues to bear fruit in the ingenious proposals of which the Chancellor of the Empire is the author. But the conviction has already for a long time pressed itself on individuals, that no enduring protection from the dangerous pressure of over-production is to be looked for in this way. They see that the extent and character of the German soil would not be sufficient, even with the most scientific cultivation, to furnish the annual increase of population with such an income as is required in a civilized nation in our era. For some years the annual increase of population has been something like half a million, and now it is 600,000. Voices have accordingly been raised from time to time, demanding for Germany colonies of her own, and at the same time a regulation of emigration. They point out that, with all the liberality of many foreign colonial Governments and all the favour shown by the United States, the German emigrant and the German merchant can yet never count on the security and the advantages which the Englishman, the Dutchman, or the Portuguese enjoys. Consular protection can never be equal to the protection of one's own Government; the customs and all other conditions of trade will be regulated according to the practice and profit of England, America, and Portugal, but never according to

a foreign State like Germany. Both as agriculturist and as

trader the German is continually compelled to associate with, and subordinate himself to, peoples foreign to him in language, law, and custom, which is in the first place a loss to himself materially, and in the next is hardly consistent with the dignity of a State like Germany. People began to see, what everybody in England long knew, that the trade of a mother-country with her own colonies was far more advantageous than trade with the colonies of other nations. They remembered that in many countries it was German travellers and scholars who had done most to investigate, open up, and make known those countries for the European market, and that the reward of this work had never fallen in any adequate measure to Germany. They bethought them that the German foot had landed on many points of the world beyond the sea, and had just as good a right to political protection from its native country as the English, Dutch, or any other. And finally, they said that Germany was in a position to apply as great, or even greater, power to the protection of German interests beyond the sea than Holland or Portugal could employ for theirs.

These considerations led, two years ago, to the formation of a Union for the purpose of preparing the way for the acquisition by Germany of colonies of her own, of regulating emigration, and of instituting a propaganda in Germany for both these objects. And how urgent the need for both actually is has been shown by the rapidly growing interest in the efforts of the Union in the course of the last two years. Under the lead of Prince HohenloheLangenburg it has extended itself over all Germany, and, with the assistance of many earlier societies established for similar purposes, it has brought large sections of the people to take a concern in aims that were hitherto quite foreign to the German public.

The Government long held itself aloof, nay, averse, from the new movement. It entertained a strong traditional prejudice against emigration, and also against all policy of colonization, a prejudice caused by the extensive emigration that was taking place, and strengthened by the Conservative character of the Prussian bureaucracy and the bureaucratic distrust of all popular agitations. In these circles, too, a belief still prevailed in the omnipotence of the State, which was supposed to be quite competent to provide sufficient work for a population of any extent. This bureaucratic self-satisfaction borrowed support from the Liberal teaching which had not yet emancipated itself from a belief in the infallibility of the doctrine of Free Trade and Laissez faire. Free Trade Liberalism had, indeed, only two years before, under the lead of the Deputy Bamberger, energetically opposed the attempt of the Imperial Chancellor to engage the Empire in the acquisition of the Samoa Islands, and it contended still that German subjects were able to pursue

their callings with quite sufficient success in the colonies of foreign Powers, and that for Germany to acquire colonies of her own would only be to impose a useless, nay, an injurious burden upon the State. Liberalism accordingly took up an attitude of antagonism to the efforts of the Colonial Union. But on the other hand, its efforts found powerful friends in a band of commercial houses which had been established, for longer or shorter periods, in countries beyond the sea, and which knew by their own experience the importance of this colonial question for Germany. Among these, one in particular was the firm of Lüderitz, who had settled in West Africa. The proprietor of Angra Pequena entered last year into an alliance with the Imperial Chancellor for the national recognition of his acquisitions, and thereby gave occasion for the practical intervention of the Chancellor in this field.

Prince Bismarck had long appeared to take no interest in the colonial movement, waiting to see whether there was anything more in it than a mere passing excitement. The failure of his proposals to support a German firm in the Samoa Islands, five years before, justified the Chancellor in maintaining an attitude of cautious reserve as long as public opinion furnished no probable ground for thinking that, if the Government renewed its action in behalf of German commerce in distant parts, it would not be again left in the lurch by the Reichstag. But the Chancellor was bound to take up a different position towards colonies already acquired, from what he had taken up towards the demand for acquiring colonies. The call for political protection to trans-oceanic property regularly acquired could hardly be refused to German subjects by the Chancellor of the German Empire, so far as the power of the State permitted. Accordingly, the transactions about Angra Pequena were carried out and concluded, in so far as they openly expressed the will of Germany to take the colonial acquisitions of German subjects under the protection of the Empire. When once this decision of the Government was taken in the case of Lüderitz, it naturally opened the way for a series of analogous cases. Other commercial houses asked for the same protection in the Cameroons and other parts of Africa. This forced the Chancellor to send a man-of-war, and, soon afterwards, a special squadron, for the purpose of accurately investigating the legal claims of these commercial houses on the spot, before the Empire would assume the responsibilities involved in the grant of its protection. The officers and ships entrusted with this duty are now again under way, having hoisted the German flag at several parts of West Africa, after examination of the legal rights of the case.

The Chancellor soon found an opportunity of explaining in what sense alone he had sent out this expedition, in connection with another question on which he spoke before the Reichstag. The need of cherishing

German trans-oceanic commerce, and giving it greater security and convenience, had led to the plan of subsidizing one or more steamship lines in the same way as has long been done in England, France, and elsewhere. The Chancellor accordingly laid a proposal last winter before the Reichstag, in which he asked 4,000,000 marks for this purpose. But the Liberal parties, again under the lead of Herr Bamberger, stood up against this proposal on exactly the same grounds as had formerly led them to oppose the Samoa scheme, and they declared that any such subsidy was not only useless but injurious. In spite of the impressive speech of the Chancellor, the matter was referred to a committee, with very unfavourable prospects. In this committee the Chancellor took occasion to explain his position towards the colonial question. He said it was far from the thoughts of the Government to acquire colonies by means of the power of the State, but it was the duty of the Empire to protect her subjects in their possessions, and whenever and wherever a German subject acquired in a regular way a landed freehold that stood under the dominion of no other civilized State, and invoked the protection of the Empire, he might be assured that such protection would not be withheld. Here was the intention of the Government openly declared, and declared in favour of the aims approved by the popular movement so far as they were advanced by the acquisition of commercial colonies or commercial stations. In the meantime the proposal for the steamship subsidy will again come up before the newly-elected Reichstag.

Nothing is further from the ideas of the founders of the Colonial Union, as well as from the movement produced by them, than the ambition of making trans-oceanic conquests. Neither the political position of Germany nor its fleet is adapted for this task. What is aimed at is simply an open path-in the peaceful competition with other European nations for the extension of European civilization in other parts of the world-a competition which might at the same time offer us the advantage of a new outlet for our production and population— a competition, indeed, whose political conditions and consequences will doubtless be accommodated to the justice and moderation shown by other Powers in respect to our justifiable wishes. And this is a demand which every State in Europe must recognize as warrantable, and most of all England, which marches at the head of those nations who have inscribed peaceful and open competition on their flag. It is a demand whose justice no German Government can mistake, and whose loyalty towards the claims of other Powers Prince Bismarck has repeatedly demonstrated in the great care and respect he has exhibited for the rights of friendly Governments. It is also a demand on whose fulfilment the prosperity and peace of Germany depends, although people in Germany are not sanguine enough to