But in spite of all this, I dare not yet venture to whisper a word to Ernst about flight. Even if I could devise a sure way of getting the young fellow on board a foreign vessel, and supposing I had any means of recouping Franz for the expense of the journey, I should still feel incapable of taking such a decisive step for Ernst’s future, without his mother’s full acquiescence. And to talk to her of such a thing, in her present frame of mind, might be her death.
CHAPTER XXIX.
A STORMY PARLIAMENTARY SITTING.
I have not been in the House since the debate on the savings bank question. It will be remembered that this was prior to the recent general election, and that the House, or as it was styled, the Committee of Government, was then composed exclusively of those members of the Socialist party who had sat before the Revolution, the seats of all the members of the various other parties having been declared vacant, in consideration of the fact that all such members had been returned through the influence of capital. To-day, however, the newly elected opponents of Socialism sat in their places, occupying the entire left side of the House, and numbering about one-third of the seats.
The only lady member who has been returned, the Chancellor’s wife, sat in the middle of the front Opposition bench. She is a fine, dashing woman, with plenty of energy: to my thinking she was perhaps a trifle coquettishly attired for the occasion. She followed her husband’s speech with marked attention, at one time nodding approval, and at another shaking her head—she wore ringlets, and had red ribbons in her hair—to denote dissent.
The Government side of the House lay under a very apparent cloud of depression, resulting from the news of the large deficit. The Opposition, on the other hand, was very lively in its sallies. The strangers’ galleries were densely packed, the number of women present being especially large, and the excitement everywhere considerable.
A debate on the condition of the national finances was down for the order of the day, and I will endeavour to reproduce here the main points of the debate as to the causes of the great deficit. The first speaker was
The Chancellor—“The fact of a considerable diminution in productive values having taken place in our country, a diminution so great that those values are now only one-third of what they were before the great Revolution, is a fact that it ill becomes us either to be-laugh or to be-weep, but which we must all endeavour to grasp and to comprehend. Prominent amongst the causes of that retrogression are the opponents of our socialistic system.”
The Member for Hagen, on the Left—“Oh, oh.”
The Chancellor—“I need scarcely remind the Member for Hagen that in order to establish Socialism in the country, we have been under the necessity of increasing the police force more than tenfold. In addition to this, we have seen the expediency of doubling the strength of the navy, and of the standing army, so that these forces might be in a position to render adequate support to the police in their work of maintaining order and preventing emigration, and might also constitute a sufficient bulwark against dangers from abroad. Furthermore, the declaring void all State bonds and values on the part of the various socialistic governments of Europe, has necessarily affected whatever German capital was invested in those countries, and in this way greatly tended to lessen our income. Our export trade has fallen off to an alarming extent, partly owing to the Socialist order of things which now reigns supreme in many countries, and partly to the aversion which the bourgeois nations show to our manufacturing system. In respect of these various causes it can hardly be anticipated that there will be much alteration in the future.
“A fruitful cause, in our view, of the great falling-off in the nation’s productive power has been the release of young and old persons from the obligation to labour (hear, hear, from the Left), and the shortening of the hours of labour. (Uproar.) We are also further of opinion that the abolition of all piece-work has, undoubtedly, contributed to a diminution of manufacture. (Hear, hear, from the Left). One result of the demoralising effects of the former state of society is, that, unfortunately, the consciousness of the indispensable necessity that is laid upon all persons alike, in a socialistic community, to labour, has not even yet penetrated the bulk of the people to such an extent (dissent from the Right), that we should feel justified in not laying before you the measure we are about to introduce, viz. a bill to extend the maximum working-day to twelve hours. (Sensation.) In addition to this, we propose—at least as a provisional measure, and until such time as a satisfactory balance shall have been restored—to extend the obligation to work to all persons between the ages of fourteen and seventy-five, instead of, as hitherto, to those between the ages of twenty-one and sixty-five. (Hear, hear, from the Left.) We shall, however, in these arrangements, make provision for affording facilities to talented young persons for their further culture, and shall also take care that decrepit persons are engaged in a kind of labour that shall not militate against their state of health.