Returning to Bismarck, the year brought on not only the final demise of his nonagenarian "old master' (as he spoke of him), William I, but also, after but a three months' sorrowful reign, that of his son, the more liberal-minded Frederick III, and after acting for so many years very successfully the the major domus, the real head, under his attached sovereign, a man singularly free of personal ambition, the stern old Chancellor stood facing the young and impetuous successor, Wil liam IT. It was a situation inherently impos sible for any length of time. William II all through his reign has only tolerated for any length of time mediocrity in his immediate en tourage. He could not brook such a mentor as Bismarck After some 20 months of semi-hostil. itles, after the patching up of several quarrels between them, the complete rupture came at last, in March 1890,. and the gnarled old states.* man formally resigned and retired to his bosky Tusculum at Friedrichsruh, near Ham burg. There the present writer paid him, eight years later and but six weeks before his death, a visit for the purpose of learning the old statesman's views regarding the Spanish-Ameri can War. The eight years between 1898 and 1898 Bismarck spent mostly in watching itn. potently the "new course,' the "zigzag course,* as he termed it, and in cursing the "young man in Berlin' under his breath. The immediate cause of the rupture, in March 1990, had been the refusal of the young monarch to sanction renewal of the anti-Socialist special legislation already •referred to. Freed from the chafing re• straint exercised by the older and more • ex perienced man, the Kaiser in his characteristic ally impulsive way devoted himself to the task of reconciling the Socialists to his person, to his methods, to his aims. In all of which, although no more anti-Socialist laws had been passed, he failed completely. Then William II turned and himself became the virulent foe of the Social ists, terming them in one of his most typical speeches, "Eine Rotte Menschen, nicht went, den Namen von Deutschen zu tragen' (a lot of men unworthy to bear the name of Ger mans), and not until after the great war itself had started, in 1914, did William II again speak to one of them.
Up to 1879 the young empire, largely to foster its nascent industry, had adhered to low import and export duties. But in that year, internal political considerations rendering it in. advisable for the government longer to resist the steady pressure exerted by the land-holding classes, the so-called Agrarians (identical in the main with the rural aristocracy of the Prussian provinces lying east of the Elbe, and whence the larger half of the higher and more influential office-holders and army commanders are drawn), a high protective tariff was en. acted. This and subsequent even more drastic measures of a similar land bore with particular weight upon the lower classes, the humbler breadwinners of the industrial towns, since it greatly heightened the price of all foodstuffs without a corresponding rise in wages. Some articles of diet, meats particularly, increased almost to •prohibitive rates. This state of things remained unaltered from early in the nineties on. Reciprocity treaties were cow eluded, one after the other, with Austria-Hun; gary, Russia, the Scandinavian countries,. Hot land, Belgium, Switzerland, etc. These in a measure shifted economic conditions in this respect. From then on German industry grew rapidly in volume and efficiency. In 1876, at the Philadelphia Exposition, the imperial com missioner, Reuleaux, in bis official reports, had been obliged to stigmatize German industrial exhibits as "cheap and nasty.' Now, under these novel conditions, German industry had rapidly become so formidable a competitor that England decreed her "Made in Gremany' man date, vainly attempting thereby to stem' the tide of German exports. Part of what William II designated as his "Weltpolitik" consisted in this strenuous race for mercantile supremacy, and he took good care, in his speeches to his people in season and-out of season; to impress them with the necessity of a constant' growth as an exporting nation. Similarly, German ship
ping and German trade increased by leaps and bounds. The world began to take note of the °German danger." But in 1902 a new tariff law passed the Reichstag, once again enhancing the duties on foodstuffs, once more with the him of favoring the Agrarian (or younker) in terests • of the nation.. The Socialist party boined as an election slogan the phrase °bread usury." At the new Reichstag elections, in June• 1903, it was dearly shown that the hum, ier classes condemned outright the new tariff. While the Socialists increased their delegation in the Reichstag from 56 to 81 and their popular vote from 2,107,000 ballots to over 3,010,000 cast, the Agrarian vote considerably diminished and even the biggest party, the Centre, mut tered but 1,875,000 votes. However, the non Socialists -in Reichstag pooled their issues and showed a united front in that body, thus enabling them to enact the new Zolitarif of 1904, 'granting none of the Socialist, demands. However, even this unwise legislation able to retard the •rapid increase of Germany's industrial progress. It outdistanced England's, relatively speaking, in many quarters of the globe.
While the chief claim of his grandfather, William I, to the title of a great ruler, had consisted not so much in his own initiative and in his own qualities, but rather in a wonderful knack possessed by him in unerringly picking the right man for the right place and then modestly stepping back and allowing him a free hand, William II prided himself on the contrary in always leading the van in all that he deemed might advance the interests and power of Ger many. In the endeavor to a' colonial empire, in the promotion of German.industry, trade, shipping, in all the measures that were takulated to •consolidate the nation, in areforra of the German school system, in the fashioning of the most powerful army on the globe, and lastly in the creation of a huge navy William II was always the driving agency, the deter mining factor. He aimed at turning the Ger man school system into one having a purely national and patriotic basis, so that the German boys and youths should •not become, as he put it, °young Romans or , Greeks," should not deem the acquisition , of classic lore the chief desideratum, but rather first become deeply versed in the language, literature and history of their own country and race; and in ..a measure he succeeded. With his own conviction that Germany needed a navy large and efficient enough to cope with any foe, no matter• which, on the water, the overwhelming bulk of the nation for years and years did not agree. Re luctantly only the German people followed him on this path.• In the south and in' the• interior provinces especially, those far removed from the Waterkant and unfamiliar with the sea, the Kaiser's naval program was never popular. Nevertheless, with resistless energy he pursued his way, overcoming all obstacles. The Ger man navy, in its development, was based, first, on the Reichstag act of 1900, supplemented by those of 1906 and 1912. The latter program was to have been completed by 1923 and pro vided for a fleet of 41 first-class battleships, 12 battlecruisers and 30•smaller cruisers, with an additional 18 cruisers for foreign service and also to replace worn-out vessels. In 1914-15 the naval budget was $117,000,000 and its man power comprised 3,700 c sioned officers, with 75,468 men, For, .a decade more before the outbreak of the war the keynote of Ger many's foreign policy was a growing estrange ment from Great Britain. At the bottom of this feeling was commercial rivalry. The Kaiser aided this by •his indiscreet utterances on the occasion of the Jameson raid and during the early stages of the Boer War in South Africa. In the Russo-Japangse War Germany's Attitude was friendly to Russia. Then came the first Morocco episode, Germany thus testing the strength of the Franco-British ing. It led to the very brink of war in 1905, until at the conference of Algeciras the moot points, were settled, greatly to Germany's dis satisfaction. To her dismay even, her nominal ally, Italy, had sided against her at Algeciras.