CONSER  VA  TIVE  SOCIALISTS.

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a  great  net-work  of  iron  roads  is  one  of  the  most  complicated
of  industrial  enterprises.  It  requires  special  knowledge,  not
only  for  the  maintenance  of  the  line,  but  also  for  the  choice
and  construction  of  the  rolling-stock.  It  needs  administrative
capacity  to  organize  the  staff  of  officials,  and  get  them  to  work
together,  as  well  as  sound  commercial  judgment  to  regulate
the  scale  of  charges.  In  a  word,  all  those  qualities  must  be
combined  which  go  to  make  up  at  once  the  manufacturer  and
the  merchant  Consequently,  if  the  State  is  to  undertake  this  i
duty,  which  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  to  be  found  in  the
whole  sphere  of  industry,  it  might,  ã  fortiori,  be  intrusted  with
the  working  of  the  mines  of  Saarbrück  or  of  the  Harz  Mountains,  1
the  cultivation  of  lands,  as  in  the  case  of  the  State  farms,  and,  ■
in  fact,  the  production  of  all  the  principle  articles  of  commerce,  ;
whether  in  the  shape  of  raw  materials  or  manufactured  goods.
There  is  no  reason  for  stopping  short  anywhere  in  this  direction.
1  he  only  logical  conclusion  is,  that  we  should  place  every
industry  under  the  direct  control  of  the  State,  which  is,  in  fact,
the  ideal  of  the  extreme  Socialist.
Latterly,  Prince  Bismarck’s  socialistic  tendencies  have  become
still  more  marked,  and  he  now  chooses  his  advisers  in  economic
matters  from  the  extreme  left  of  the  Katheder-socialisten
(“  Socialists  of  the  Chair”).  In  the  spring  of  1877,  during  his
solitude  at  Varzin,  it  is  said  that  he  employed  himself  in  profoundly ­
  studying  social  questions.  One  cannot  help  admiring
the  resolution  of  this  statesman,  who,  in  the  midst  of  the  painful
preoccupations  of  a  foreign  policy  so  full  of  difficulties,  devotes
months  and  years  to  the  search  of  means  for  the  amelioration
of  the  condition  of  the  labouring  classes.  I  know  no  more
decisive  proof  of  the  actual  importance  of  the  problem.  Besides ­
  his  private  secretary,  Herr  Lothar  Bücher,  the  Chancellor
has  several  times  consulted  Herr  Adolf  Wagner,  Professor  in
the  University  of  Berlin,  whose  theory  of  property  is  fundamentally ­
  the  same  as  that  of  Rodbertus  and  Dr.  Schæffle,
former  minister  in  Austria,  whose  recent  work,  the  “  Quintessence ­
  of  Socialism,”  places  him  in  the  ranks  of  Socialists.  We
all  know  that,  as  a  result  of  his  meditations  and  conversations,
i'rince  Bismarck  presented  to  the  Prussian  Parliament  a  pro-