2 the socialism of to-day. of the Minister of the Interior, no one rose to vote in favour of the proposed clause. The shorthand report shows that this result was received by the assembly with laughter. Since then the two attempts against the life of the Emperor, repeated one after the other by Hœdel and Nobiling, forced the hand of the Imperial Parliament, and an exceptional law of draconic severity was put into operation against Socialism. During the course of the debate. Count Eulenburg, Minister of the Interior and Prussian Delegate to the Federal Council, in order to defend the object of the law, explained very clearly the ideas actually held by the Socialist party in Germany. As he was not contradicted by those members of the Diet who represented that particular shade of opinion, we may assume that he advanced nothing which was not correct on all points. Before 1875, there existed in Germany two powerful Socialist associations. The first was called the General Association of German Working Men ” {der allgemeine detitsche Arbeiterverein). Founded by Lassalle in 1863, it afterwards had for president the deputy Schweizer, and then the deputy Hasenclever. Its principal centre of activity was North Ger many. The second was the » Social-democratic Working Men’s Party ” {die Social-democratische Arbeiterpartei), led by two well-known deputies of the Reichstag, Herr Bebel and Herr Liebknecht. Its adherents were chiefly in Saxony and Southern Germany. The first took into account the ties of nationality, and claimed the intervention of the State in order to bring about a gradual transformation of society ; the second, on the contrary, expected the triumph of its cause only from a revolutionary movement. These two associations existed for a long time in open hostility towards each other ; less, however, from the difference of the aims they had in view than in consequence of personal rivalry. Nevertheless, in May, 1875, at the Congress of Gotha, they amalgamated under the title of the “ Socialist Working Men’s Party of Germany ” {Socialistische Arbeiterpartei Deutsch lands). The deputy Hasenclever was nominated president ; but the union did not last long, or was never complete, for as early as the month of August following a separate meeting of