IV.
The Centre has almost as much claim as the Conservative party to be ranged with the Right. It was formed in the Rhine provinces, where many prince-bishops once held their court, in Bavaria, in Baden, and in Silesia, with the object of counteracting, in the name of the Catholic minority, the intolerant spirit of the Protestant majority, and of securing for the Church the liberty that is her due. Although some official party-writers have tried hard to make us believe the contrary, the Centre is a religious party. It regards the interests of the Church as paramount. Still, like the rest, it has been won over to the nationalist idea, and it works towards maintaining the federal character of the Empire.
The deputies of the Centre number eighty-nine. This figure is low, if we consider that in 1911 Germany contained about 24,000,000 Catholics as against 40,000,000 Lutherans and Evangelicals. The way in which the electoral districts have been parcelled out is no doubt the reason why this party has fewer representatives than it might fairly expect. For all that, it seems to have reached its zenith, and while for the time being it does not lose its principal seats at the battles of the polls, on the other hand it no longer gains any from its rivals. Among the working-classes its great enemy is Socialism. Hence, in order to retain its adherents in the manufacturing centres, the Catholic Right has considerably broadened its Conservative programme. It is feeling the influence of that Christian Democracy which reigns supreme in the southern States. As the Protestant journals have taken good care to point out, it is quite obvious to-day that the party contains two opposite currents, and that a certain antagonism exists between the controlling bodies in Cologne and in Breslau, the latter being more conservative and more amenable to the dictates of Rome, while the former tries to shake off the Vatican leading-strings in internal politics. This cleavage came to light in the discussion that arose among German Catholics over the setting-up of mixed labour syndicates, composed of Catholic and Protestant workmen.
For seventeen years, from 1890 to 1907, the Centre in the Reichstag laid down its conditions and even issued its commands, as the price of letting those bills pass which the Government considered of vital importance. Defeated by Prince von Bülow’s bloc,[8] it took its revenge two years later, by wrecking the Chancellor’s scheme for financial reform. If after this the Centre did not hold undisputed sway in divisions, it remained a doubtful ally for the Government, and in momentous conflicts its desertion could still affect the issue.
No one can deny that the German Centre and the Belgian Catholic party have many points in common. Both acknowledge the same ideal, and fight with the same energy to protect the consciences of the faithful from the inroads of advanced teachings and the ravages of free thought. The electoral successes of the Belgian Clericals were greeted by the Catholic Press of Germany with no less enthusiasm than their own. The Belgians, who for the most part cling to the same beliefs as the German Catholics, might have expected some sympathy from their brethren in the faith, when their country was outraged in such dastardly fashion. Yet no cry of Christian pity went up from the deputies of the Centre when their Protestant Emperor pounced upon his victim; no plea for mercy was uttered by them on behalf of our stricken people; no protest against the murder of our priests or against the destruction of our old churches, where many of them had knelt in pious reverence when they came to visit our land. If they spoke of Belgium at all, it was only to propose annexation as was done by the deputy Erzberger, one of their leading men in the Reichstag, in a manifesto that was eagerly recorded by the whole German Press. In vindicating his hateful suggestion, this good Catholic appealed to no right but the brutal right of the conqueror, to no interest but the interest which the German Empire has in possessing the seaboard of Flanders with its splendid port on the Scheldt. He thought to cover the nakedness of his greed by means of those lying charges with which, like his Protestant colleagues, he tried to sully the heroic resistance of the Belgians.