EVANGELICAL SOCIAL CONGRESS IN GERMANY 33
5,000 marks. Anyone who has had experience with organiza- tions knows that not much can be done with such small means. They barely suffice to pay a secretary for managing the finances, the cost of the annual meetings, and the monthly bulletin whose circulation does not extend beyond the members. Formerly the entire time of a secretary was employed, but now a young clergy- man in Berlin is paid 1,200 marks and gives but part of his time. This shows that the Congress has not its former strength. The Congress may continue as long as it has already lived, but there is no prospect of its pursuing a vigorous and aggessive policy.
External difficulties are also adding to the burden. This Congress is not the only organization which is interested in social politics. The Union for Social Politics was established even earlier (1872), includes most of the German Economists, and once in two years holds great and enthusiastic assemblies, with important papers, and has already published over one hun- dred volumes of information about social conditions. In Janu- ary, 1900, the former Minister von Berlepsch founded the Union for Social Reform which proposed to hold a meeting once in two years and which publishes brochures on social topics. Great manufacturers, merchants, members of the imperial legislature, and professors have joined him ; and all seek direct influence on legislation. The Evangelical Social Congress differs from both these societies in its principle of regarding social conditions from the religious and ecclesiastical standpoint ; and yet more than two-thirds of the papers thus far read are not specially religious in contents, but have regarded economic problems from a purely scientific point of view; and on this ground it meets the compe- tition of the other societies.
Further, we must take into account the fact that the Congress has lost its "ecumenical" character. It no longer includes all parties of theological science and of the church, but now it is an organization of those who belong to the critical and historical school, and this is manifest in the election of Harnack as presi- ident, although it was already clear in 1896. In 1896 Stocker left the Congress and with his friends founded the Church Social Conference, an association which stood on theologically ortho-
