MIQUEL, JoHANNEs VON ( 1829- 1901). A German statesman, born in Ncuenhaus, Hanover. of a family of French emigres, and edu cated for the bar at Heidelberg and Gottingen. In his student days he was a rabid revolutionist and something of a Socialist, but when the period of reaction set in he soon forsook his earlier sentiments. His practice in Gottingen was very successful, and in 1864 he was elected a member of the Hanoverian Diet, and in 1865 Burgomaster of Osnabriiek. Removing to Berlin in 1870, he was a director of the Disl«intogesellscha ft until 1873, and then president of its advisory board until 1870. Then he was again made Chief Burgo master of Osnabruck, and in 1880 of Frankfort on-the-Main. But his greater field of usefulness was in the Prussian (louse of Deputies and in the Imperial Diet. There, as in the Prussian House of Lords, of which he was ex-officio a mem ber as Burgomaster of Frankfort, he was a leader of the National Liberal l'arty and one of Bis able and forceful lieutenants. In 1890 he became Prussian Minister of Finance, and was hailed as the 'Emperor's man,' no doubt to reassure the country in face of its fear that the new' Imperial policy was to be merely reac tionary. In this office, which Miguel held tip to a
months before leis death, lie showed himself an able financier, and a bold reformer in his attempt to liberate the Imperial Treasury from depending on the contributions of the various States. As a politician he was an opportunist driven to intrigue with any party and, above all, to any sacrifice of conviction to the policy of the Kaiser, in the hope that he might be made Chan cellor. But it he was unsuccessful in his pro gramme of Imperial finance, in his more proper sphere of Prussian finance, by playing somewhat into the hands of the Agrarian Party, he secured the adoption of a new tax system, which greatly benefited the working classes and at the same time tremendously inereased the revenue. nu. his Prussian policy, consult: Zedlitz mud Neukirch. "Miguel als Finanz- und Staatsminister," In Preussischc Jahrbiicher (1901).