THE STRIKES IN GERMANY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 2680, 14 September 1889, Page 6 (Supplement)

THE STRIKES IN GERMANY.

The correspondents of tho London papers aro right in tho great attention which they are paying to the strikes in Wu.-t----phalia. Those strikes are not more extensive than many similar movements have been in England, which attract no international attention ; but in the circumstances of Germany they indicate tho

arrival of an economic; crisis which, as may be perceived from its action, periously disquiets the Imperial Government. That discontent with their poverty which has recently been manifested by the (lorman peasantry, and which has produced a scries of Protectionist laws intended to keep up the price of agricultural produce, lias now extended to the classes which live by weekly wages. As wo have repeatedly pointed out, they are for the most part very badly off, their wages in coin being far lower than those of unskilled labourers in our own cities, while their hours of working may be taken, in the roucli, to be one-fifth longer. Fathers of families, in fact, often labour twelve and fourteen hours a clay for twelve shillings a week, having, in addition, to walk a considerable distance to their place of work. With certain exceptions, these conditions are general—in Baden, for example, rather a comfortable little State, work from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. is by no means uncommon—and owing partly to the rise in grain due to Protection, partly to the increase of knowledge as to the conditions in other countries, and partly, perhaps, to the general decay of the old spirit of acquiescence so observable throughout Europe, the labourers begin to find their lot intolerable. The Westphaliau miners, who are the most numerous and the most determined of all who work hard, have naturally been the first to strike ; but the movement is spreading fast into other trades, until the Berlin correspondent of the Daily news reports that the tailors, carpcnters, furriers, basket-makers, brewers and omuibus-drivers of Berlin, with the builders of Sprottau, the carpenters of Brunzlau, Kouigsbcrg, and Wiirsburg, and the tailors of Bremerhaven have either actually struck, or are coming out on strike. In all cases the demands are for higher wages and shorter hours, the latter grievance being in some instances positively monstrous. The omuibus-drivers, in particular, declare that they work seventeen | nU rs a day for seven days a week, and then have to clean the cars ; and there are whole classes of respectable labourers worked as in England only the poorest victims of the most wretched sweaters are made to work. Toil, in fact, is protracted in many parts of Germany, as it also is iu many districts in Switzerland and Italy, as it never would be protracted for horses or ploughing oxen. The Government, as is most natural, is seriously disturbed by these occurrences. The Hohen/.ollcrns, besides feeling to the full the influence of that sentiment which induces all Kings who really govern to feel most for the classes at the base of society, have always been conscious of the comparative poverty of their people, whose great estate, their country, is much of it in sand and forest, and have, besides, one pressing administrative interest in their economist condition. The extreme poverty of Germany has greatly facilitated her military system, has made hard fare and low pay bearable to the conscripts, and has enabled her to surmount her grand recruiting difficulty, which is to obtain non-commissioned officers in numbers sufficient to make entire divisions, or, indeed, entire armies, by themselves, without unendurable expense. You cannot conscript a hundred thousand good corporals and sergeants. If there is to be a serious and universal change in the rate of wages, the cost of the army will soon become unbeatable ; while the conscription will appear to households which count in pfennigs to be a much more oppressive tax. Tke Emperor is Coin-mander-in-Chief as well as Sovereign, and in both capacities he dreads a great economic movement, a dread greatly increased by the belief which he shares with his grandfather William, the founder of the Empire, that the true cause of the spread of Socialism is the over-anxious position of the great body of working men. To this must be added a fear, lest the soldiers should come into hostile and sanguinary conflict with the population. There is no fear whatever of discipline breaking down, for that has become in Cie.-many a sort of religion ; but all the workmen are old soldiers—the men who went on deputation to the Emperor were covered with medals—the fighting, if there is any, would be most desperate ; and a bloody collision on a great scale, though it could only end in one way would break, perhaps permanently, the sympathetic and kindiy relation now existing between the great body of workmen who have beeu through the Army, and the same kind of men still borne upon the rolls. A German riot is, in fact, and always must be, a struggle between soldiers aud Landwehr mou ; and no rulor of Germany, oven if he were personally callous, could regard such a struggle without horror. It is not only civil war ; it is almost war in the barracks. The Emperor, therefore, pays close personal attention to the strikes, and while wainiug tho men with his own lips that if they resist the authorities or make the movement Socialist, they will be shot down, ho assures them uf protection while they are orderly, and signifies to tho great employers that they are expeelcd by the Government to be reasonable. It is clear that the pressure thus applied is considerable, aud it is assisted by pressure from the groat customers of 1 the mines—for instance, the Krupp factory is reported to bo nt its wits' end for coals, iiml to bo sending large orders to distant mines—and by tho bankers, who finance half the companies, and who are 1 impeded in all their calculations by such ■ disturbances. Tho employers, therefore, will make concessions if they can ; but they are full, like all other Germans, of < ideas of their own dignity, and of the 1 necessity of resistance to coercion; : and in many cases tho concessions demanded are beyond their power. Tho workers in Germany, as in England, are not wholly reasonable, and their inclination to press both claims at oncc—that for shorter hours and that for ' bighor wages—though under the circumstances natural enough, makts tho total ' demand a heavy one. The traditional ' day' of tho Continent is much longer th:\n ours, even in Switzerland, and employers have not yet learned tho amazing difference between England and Continent workmen when employed on tasks which require tho application and continuous strength. The marsin, too, iu many of the trades is not large, of the sensitiveness of tho shareholders about their dividends is far greater than it is in Eugland, or, at all events, far more formidable to directors.

The Government being so irresistibly strong', and the men being entirely unable to wait long without wages, there will, we presume, be a compromise, basod mainly upon a reduction of hours; but the struggle may have many permanent effocts. It will cheek the present tendency of all Germans to plungo into industrial undertakings, a tendency stimulated even more than with us by the steady fall in the interest to be derived from all passive investments ; and it may seriously interfere with German competition with the rest of the world. The success of that competition, so fur as success is obtained, a point upon which much exaggeration is current, is duo in part to painstaking, and in part to energetic pushing, German bagmen being the most übiquitous" of mankind ; but it rests ultimately upon the suporior cheapness of Gorman labour, If that is to become a thing of the past, the workingfaculty of the English, and tlio ingenuity of the Americans in paving labour, will retain for thom their ascendency, and manufacturing progress in Germany may

even receive a chuck. That will be overcome, no doubt; for a sensible people with the habits both of organisation and steady work are not easily defeated in the industrial struggle, and, as wc said before, there is a marg'n to bo gained by mure energetic work for fewer hours; but, pending the readjustments, the discontent

of the labouring class will increase, and wit'i it the tendency to emigration and .Socialism, which already counts more than 500,000 votes. Germany from the outside appear* to be. very s-trong, and very prosperous in all international alfairs, but she has internal troubles as serious, though not as worrying, as any of our own. No journalist can think so, because of the wearisomcness of Parneliism, a wearisomcness without a precedent in j olitieal history ; but we are not sure that a great statesman would not rather have to deal with Ireland, even under the present condition of diseased conscientiousness iu England, than with the social problem in Germany. We are quite sure Prince Bismarck would ; though that is, of course, no comfort to Mr Balfour, who, if he spoke like the German Emperor, would bo considered insane.—The Spectator.