Vastly different than the record of England and France has been the course of events in central Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries. Stein and Hardenberg had abolished serfdom in Prussia in 1808-11, but in 1815 Metternich was able to preserve the old regime intact in Austria and was also able to nullify the de cree of the Congress of Vienna which ordered each ruler in the German Confederation to give his state a constitution. Between 1815 and 1848 the power of the middle class was increased by the first effects of the industrial revolution and a disgruntled proletariat was also created. A liberal and democratic regime would probably have come into existence in cen tral Europe in 1848 had it not been for the fact that the problems and issues of nationality and dynasty conflicted with the cause of lib eralism and democracy. Taking advantage of this division of strength and interests among the liberals, the reactionaries, led by Schwart zenberg, were enabled to triumph in 1848-50 as they had in 1815. The tragic significance of this failure of the liberal movement in mid Europe in 1848 can scarcely be exaggerated. In Germany it meant that German unity was not to be accomplighed under the benevolent auspices of the liberals of the Frankfort Par liament, but under the autocratic and brutal ((blood and irons policy of Bismarck, who, after creating the German Empire in this man ner was able to throttle all subsequent at tempts to liberalize it and bring it up to the level of modern democratic nations. Taking over bodily the mechanical aspects of the in dustrial revolution from England, Germany presents, as Professor Veblen has so convinc ingly pointed out, the curious spectacle of a great modern industrial and commercial nation dominated by political autocracy and a media val intellectual atmosphere. The semi-media val constitution given to Prussia in January 1850 by Frederick William IV has been re tained practically unchanged and no redistribu tion of seats in the Prussian Landtag has taken place since 1860, thus giving rise to a situation resembling that of the notorious *rotten bor oughs* of England before 1832. Furthermore, the exclusive three-class system of distributing the suffrage and the archaic method of oral voting in Prussia destroy even those slight traces of democracy which might exist in spite of discouraging surroundings. In the German Empire universal manhood suffrage was intro duced in 1871 for elections to the Reichstag, but as the Reichstag is only an impotent de bating society dominated by the autocratic Bundesrat and the still more mediaeval Prus sia, the representatives of the people cannot make their will effective in the government and the vaunted universal suffrage and the alleged democratic Reichstag appear upon close exami nation to be merely empty shams, the verbal eulogies of Prussian apologists notwithstanding. To make matters still worse, the distribution of electoral districts for seats in the Reichstag has not been altered since 1870. This excludes the great industrial cities of modern Germany from anything like an equitable representation, deprives the bourgeoisie and proletariat of a just expression of their will, even in the for ensic department of the German political or ganization, and perpetuates the dominating in fluence of the reactionary squirearchy. More over, since 1907 that most fundamental of all contradictions of democracy, the subordination of the civil government to the military, has, for all practical purposes, existed in the German Empire. From the standpoint of the realiza tion of political democracy, then, Germany's Condition to-day is very similar to that of Eng land in the time of Henry VIII and of France in the days of Charles X. Nor is there any greater degree of social democracy in Ger many. The elaborate social legislation pro gram of Bismarck came not from the influence of the people nor as a result of the modern democratic conception of the state as the agent and servant of the people, but proceeded from Bismarck's highly undemocratic desire to crush the Social Democrats, to ensure a healthy nation as the indispensable basis of a strong military system, and to attach the peo ple to the autocratic German state through gratitude for its paternalism. The social leg islation of modern Germany is, thus, in no way a symptom of social democracy, but is simply the outgrowth of the same 18th century en lightened despotism that impelled Frederick the Great to undertake his internal reforms in Prussia. Of the truth of this assertion over whelming proof is afforded by the fact that the Social Democrats invariably opposed the social legislation of Bismarck, and by Bismarck's ac knowledged purposes in undertaking the pro gram of social reform. In Germany, trade unionism, as a movement toward economic de mocracy, made its first appearance as a signifi cant movement in the decade of the sixties, but was greatly weakened and suppressed during the period of anti-socialistic legislation be tween 1878 and 1890. After 1890 it revived and has received legal sanction for extensive eco nomic activities. It is probable that no fact in recent history so clearly indicates the power of the underlying forces now making for democ racy as the action of the German governing classes in 1914. In spite of their throttling control over the organs of government, they were unable to check the operation of those great industrial and social forces which have created modern democracy and they deemed it necessary to stake their very existence in the desperate attempt to stifle the growth of liber alism by the consolidation of all classes and the submergence of all opposition through the psychological effect of the great national and patriotic enterprise of an aggressive, vigorous and glorious European. War.
In the Austrian Empire political liberalism, since its defeat in 1850, has met a somewhat kinder fate than in the Prussianized German Empire. No serious attempt was made to re store the feudal system which was abolished in 1848-49, and in the period from 1860 to 1867 the liberally inclined Francis Joseph, in order to placate his own subjects and the Hungarians for their disappointments in 1848,49, granted reforms which embodied many of the aspira tions of the liberals of 1848. An important ap
proximation to real parliamentary government was secured by the Constitution of 1861 and the *fundamental laws° of 1867 which gave the Austrian legislature a legal position of much greater power than that possessed by the Ger man imperial legislature, carrying with it the institution of ministerial responsibility. While the suffrage was at first extremely exclusive, the acts of 1896 and 1907 have introduced uni versal manhood suffrage. The existence of a considerable degree of social democracy in Austria is also attested to by the passage of a number of important social reform acts since 1885 which have not been simply a perpetua tion of the benevolent despotism of Joseph II, but have been largely a result of the agitation of Socialists and Liberals. Economic democ racy has appeared in Austria as a result of the legalization of trade-unionism in 1869 and its subsequent growth since that time. While many influential vestiges of autocracy still re main in Austria in theory and law, and many more in actual fact, there can be no doubt that Austria has advanced much further along the *democratic than her great mid-Euro pean ally.
Hungary, however, has been little affected by the progress of either political or social de mocracy in the other member of the Dual-Mon archy. It has made almost no advances in a liberal direction beyond the situation which ex isted in 1847 except to retain the act of the lib erals of 1848 abolishing the political and eco nomic aspects of feudalism. Hungary remains to the present day politically and socially the most illiberal, archaic and mediaeval of any great European nation.
In Italy the permanent establishment of par liamentary government was anticipated by Charles Albert of Piedmont in 1847-48 and was assured by the efforts of Cavour, a great ad mirer of the English system and one of the most vigorous advocates of parliamentary in stitutions among the liberal statesmen of the 19th century. The necessary complement of parliamentary government, universal suffrage, was secured by the laws of 1882 and 1912. Fi nally, social democracy has made great strides in the laws of 1886, 1898, 1908 and 1912 which protected the labor of women and children, in sured the working classes against accident, sick ness and old age and established a national life insurance system. In Italy trade-unionism has had a very recent origin and development. Coming into existence along with the growth of the strength of radical parties recruited from the proletariat, trade-untonism has been little hampered in Italy by restrictive legisla tion.
In Russia, which retained most aspects of the mediaeval system unimpaired, with the ex ception of the transitory reforms of Alexander I, down to the middle of the 19th century, an epoch-making step was taken in the formal abolition of serfdom by the decree of Alexan der II on 3 March 1861. The adjustment of the conditions of emancipation, however, brought little progress in the direction of social democ racy, but resulted essentially in a transforma tion of the peasantry from serfs of nobles to °serfs of the state.° Not until the manifesto of 16 Nov. 1905, the edicts of November 1906 and the sweeping land reforms of 27 July 1910 and 11 June 1911, were the intended benefits of the Emancipation Act of 1861 and the real abolition of serfdom actually accomplished. The first important movement in the direction of political democracy in modern Russia came in 1864, when Alexander II issued his notable decree creating the local assemblies or semstvos, thereby introducing some degree of local self government into Russia, something which had not existed since the period of centralization under Peter the Great at the opening of the 18th century. After the Polish revolt of 1863 Alexander II, like his uncle, Alexander I, aban doned his early reforming tendencies and the night of reaction settled upon Russia which was not to be broken for 40 years, in spite of the policy of revolutionary terrorism and the assassination of tsars, dukes and public offi cials. But the grip of reaction, which assassina tions could not break, was weakened by that deadly and persistent enemy of medixvalism in politics and society— the industrial revolution —which first began to affect Russia on a con siderable scale in the nineties during the min istership of Witte. This greatly strengthened the hitherto insignificant Russian middle class, in which lay the only hope of liberalism. Guided by such able leaders as Professor Mil yukov and aided by the discrediting of the old regime through the disasters of the Russo Japanese War, the bourgeoisie, in the revolu tionary movement of 1905-06, were able to ex tort from the tsar the grant of approximate universal suffrage and the creation of a con stitutional parliamentary government. When freed from the strain of war, however, the tsar, encouraged by his reactionary ministers, pro ceeded to abrogate his liberal measures by lim iting the powers of the Duma and by altering the electoral law so as to defeat the principle of universal suffrage. While this reactionary pol icy proved temporarily successful, in 1917, dis asters more serious than those of 1904-05 drove the discredited autocracy from Russia in complete humiliation. During the summer of 1917 the Russian revolution passed through those stages, so familiar to students of French history between 1789 and 1793, from the control of constructive bourgeoisie statesmen to that of the leaders of the Bolsheviki mob. The ulti mate outcome of the revolution cannot be pre dicted, but it is probable that it will be as im possible to re-establish the conditions of 1900 in Russia, as it was in France to bring about a return to the order of things which existed in 1788.