for order, against the parties of Umsturz, or Revolution, and shortly afterwards an amendment of the Criminal Code, commonly Umsturz-Vorlage. called the Umsturz-Vorlage, was introduced, containing provisions to check attempts to undermine the loyalty of the soldiers, and making it a crime punishable with three years’ imprisonment to attack religion, monarchy, marriage, the family or property by abusive expressions in such a manner as to endanger public peace. The discussion of this measure occupied most of the session of 1895; the bill was amended by the Centre so as to make it even more strongly a measure for the defence of religion; and clauses were introduced to defend public morality, by forbidding the public exhibition of pictures or statues, or the sale of writings, which, “without being actually obscene, might rudely offend the feeling of modesty.” These Clerical amendments aroused a strong feeling of indignation. It was represented that the freedom of art and literature was being endangered, and the government was obliged to withdraw the bill. The tendency towards a stricter censorship was shown by a proposal which was carried through the Prussian parliament for controlling the instruction given at the universities by the Privatdozenten. Some of the Conservative leaders, especially Baron von Stumm, the great manufacturer (one of Bismarck’s chief advisers on industrial matters), demanded protection against the teaching of some of the professors with whose economic doctrines they did not agree; pastors who took part in the Christian-Social movement incurred the displeasure of the government; and Professor Delbrück was summoned before a disciplinary court because, in the Preussische Jahrbücher, which he edited, he had ventured to criticize the policy of the Prussian government towards the Danes in Schleswig. All the discontent and suspicion caused by this Lex Heinze. policy broke out with greater intensity when a fresh attempt was made in 1900 to carry those clauses of the old Umsturz-Vorlage which dealt with offences against public morality. The gross immoralities connected with prostitution in Berlin had been disclosed in the case of a murderer called Heinze in 1891; and a bill to strengthen the criminal law on the subject was introduced but not carried. The measure continued, however, to be discussed, and in 1900 the government proposed to incorporate with this bill (which was known as the Lex Heinze) the articles from the Umsturz-Vorlage subjecting art and literature to the control of the criminal law and police. The agitation was renewed with great energy. A Goethe-Verein was founded to protect Kultur, which seemed to be in danger. In the end the obnoxious clauses were only withdrawn when the Socialists used the forms of the House to prevent business from being transacted. It was the first time that organized obstruction had appeared in the Reichstag, and it was part of the irony of the situation that the representatives of art and learning owed their victory to the Socialists, whom they had so long attacked as the great enemies of modern civilization.
These were not the only cases in which the influence of the parties of reaction caused much discontent. There was the question of the right of combination. In nearly every state there still existed old laws forbidding political societies to unite with one another. These laws had been passed in the years immediately after the revolution Law of combination. of 1848, and were quite out of place under modern conditions. The object of them was to prevent a network of societies from being formed extending over large districts, and so acquiring political power. In 1895 the Prussian police used a law of 1850 as a pretext for dissolving the Socialist organization in Berlin, as had been done twenty years before. A large majority of the Reichstag demanded that an imperial law should be passed repealing these laws and establishing the right of combination, and they refused to pass the revised Civil Code until the chancellor promised that this should be done. Instead of this course being adopted, however, special laws were introduced in most of the states, which, especially in Prussia and Saxony, while they gave the right of combination, increased the power of the police to forbid assemblies and societies. It was apparent that large and influential parties still regarded political meetings as something in themselves dangerous and demoralizing, and hence the demand of the Conservatives that women and young persons should be forbidden to attend. In Prussia a majority of the Upper House and a very large minority of the Lower House (193 to 206) voted for an amendment expressly empowering the police to break up meetings in which anarchistic, socialistic or communistic doctrines were defended in such a manner as to be dangerous to society; the Saxon Conservatives demanded that women at least should be forbidden to attend socialistic meetings, and it remained illegal for any one under twenty-one years of age to be present at a political meeting. In consequence of the amendments in the Upper House the Prussian law was lost; and at last, in 1899, a short imperial law was carried to the effect that “societies of every kind might enter into union with one another.” This was at once accepted by the chancellor; it was the time when the Navy Bill was coming on, and it was necessary to win votes. The general feeling of distrust which this prolonged controversy aroused was, however, shown by the almost contemptuous rejection in 1899 of a Bill to protect artisans who were willing to work against intimidation or violence (the Zuchthaus-Vorlage), a vote which was the more significant as it was not so much occasioned by the actual provisions of the bill, but was an expression of the distrust felt for the motives by which the government was moved and the reluctance to place any further powers in their hands.
Meanwhile the emperor had set himself the task of doing for the German fleet what his grandfather had done for the army. The acquisition of Heligoland enabled a new naval station to be established off the mouth of the Elbe; the completion of the canal from Kiel to the mouth of the Elbe, by enabling ships of war to pass from the Baltic to the North Sea greatly increased the strategic strength of the fleet. In 1890 a change in the organization separated the command of the fleet from the office of secretary of state, who was responsible for the representation of the admiralty in the Reichstag, and the emperor was brought into more direct connexion with the navy. During the first five years of the reign four line-of-battle ships were added and several armoured cruisers for the defence of commerce and colonial interests. With the year 1895 began a period of expansion abroad and great naval activity. The note was given in a speech of the emperor’s on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the empire, in which he said, “the German empire has become Welt-Politik. a world empire.” The ruling idea of this new Welt-Politik was that Germany could no longer remain merely a continental power; owing to the growth of population she depended for subsistence on trade and exports; she could not maintain herself amid the rivalry of nations unless the government was able actively to support German traders in all parts of the world. The extension of German trade and influence has, in fact, been carried out with considerable success. There was no prospect of further territory in Equatorial Africa, and the hope of bringing about a closer union with the South African Republic was not fulfilled. On the Pacific, however, there were great gains;[1] long-established plans for obtaining a port in China which might serve as a base for the growing trade at Tientsin were carried out at the end of 1897; the murder of two Catholic missionaries was made the pretext for landing The “mailed fist.” troops in the bay of Kiao-chau; and in amends China granted the lease of some 50 sq. m. of territory, and also a concession for building railways. The emperor showed his strong personal interest by sending his brother, Prince Henry, in command of a squadron to take possession of this territory, and the visit of a German prince to the emperor of China strongly appealed to the popular imagination. The emperor’s characteristically rhetorical speeches on this occasion—particularly his identification of his brother with the “mailed fist” of Germany—excited considerable comment.
- ↑ In 1899, following the Spanish-American War, Germany purchased the Caroline, Pelew and Marianne Islands from Spain; in 1899–1900 by agreement with Great Britain and America she acquired the two largest of the Samoan islands, renouncing in favour of Britain her protectorate over certain of the Solomon islands.
