GERMAN POLITICS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1930, Page 6

GERMAN POLITICS

THROES OF RECENT ELECTION. No political event in Europe within recent years is so pregnant with unpredictible reaction as the Gereman general election campaign which has just ended. The political situation piioi to the election was chaotic. In 1929 the Parliamentary machine had become ■so clogged by the jealousies and bickerings of the various parties and groups that the nation’s political leaders felt impelled to warn the people that they were steadily drifting toward a dictatorship. In February of that year ex-Chan-, cellor Wirth declared that the poi

al situation was “so tangled and poisoned” that the Parliamentary system should bo characterised as “thoroughly degenerate and ready for death.” Failing improvement,' he predicted, “German democracy would end with a dictatorship.” Another ex-Chancellor, Dr. Muller, referring to the “continued whispering about a dictatorship” warned the workers that such a system would mean “the destruction of the social welfare policy.” The late Dr. Stresemann, speaking of the dangers of a dictatorship in an address to the People’s Party, said: “Do not decieve yourselves. We are on the eve of a grave Parliamentary crisis. First, because our Parliamentary system has become a caricature, and second, because our Parliment has lost its .sense of responsibility toward the people.”

When the Republic was constituted by the National Assembly at Weimar in 1919, it was decided to adopt an electoral system of proportional representation and voting by lists, in the belief that the Parliament so elected would reflect as accurately- as possible the state olf national public opinion. As, however, no electoral list was admitted unless drawn up by a political party, the actual result was enormously to increase the influence of party organisations on the election results, and in practice, to limit the freedom of choice of the voters. Hence has arisen a multiplicity of parties, each with Internal groupings which tend to destroy its equilibrium. Economic depression has accentuated the activities of the various groups and so unsettled the ordered course of government that the President himself has been obliged to intervene to steady and direct the policy of the country. He has even gone so far as to hint that lie might be compelled to have recourse to Article 48 of the Constitution, which would invest him with dictatorial pow-

This state of affairs has projected into the political'shtuation much bitterness and ■ rancour, translated during the election campaign into violent 1 action fights. The result has been startling. The new National Socialist Labour Party, properly described as the “Steel Helmets” —the German Fascis--ti, in fact—has emerged as the second' strongest party in the new Reichstag, with a force of 101 as compared with its modest 'following of 12 in the previous Chamber. Its leader is Herr Hitler, a fire-eating campaigner whose somewhat hectic platform was such as might be calculated to 'make a temporary appeal to an electorate plunged in clepre■ssesion and uncertainity. For Germany’s present ills Hitler condemned the previous regime in the most extreme terms. He demanded that all German statesmen responsible for the Dawes and Young plans should be cited before the People’s Tribunal and punished. “Our attack,” he declared, “will be carried out an a wide front and it Will constitute an avalanche of enlightment.” A reference to the news columns wih* show that before anything like progressive government can be resumed, the compromising of differences and the settlement of claims among over a dwell separate parties and groups must be accomplished. The situation points to a working coalition on the grand scale arranged in the previous Chamb-. er to facilitate the ratification of the Young Plan of Reparations, with the not remote possibility of a Fascist dictatorship as an alternative. Whichever way it goes the economic political stability of Europe is in the balance.