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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
ject for the creation of a general insurance fund for disabled 
workmen, to be supported by the proceeds of the tobacco 
monopoly and by subscriptions levied from employers. The 
tax upon tobacco would thus become the patrimony of the 
poor, according to Herr Wagner’s expression. There could 
not, in fact, be a better tax than that which hits a harmful 
substance ; and since in France a fund and a palace have been 
founded for disabled soldiers, and, in England, one for disabled 
sailors, it is not easy to see why Germany should not do as 
much for disabled labourers ; for he who has passed his life in 
using some tool, or following the plough, is surely as worthy of 
interest as he who has devoted his days to the carrying of a 
gun or the loading of a cannon. I think the Chamber was 
wrong in rejecting Bismarck’s proposal, but those who main 
tained that the measure was essentially socialistic were per 
fectly right. In a lengthy speech delivered on the 3rd January, 
1882, Bismarck said: “I have already explained the system 
which I am come to uphold, according to the instructions of His 
Majesty the Emperor. We wish to establish a state of things 
in which no one can say, ‘ I exist only to bear social burdens, 
and nobody takes thought of my fate.’ Our dynasty has for a 
long time been endeavouring to reach this object. Frederick 
the Great already described this mission in saying, ‘ I am king of 
the beggars,’ and he realized it in administering strict justice. 
Frederick William HI. gave freedom to the peasants. Our 
present sovereign is animated by the noble ambition to put a 
hand, in his old age, to the work of assuring to the least 
favoured and weakest of our fellow-citizens, if not the same 
rights that were seventy years ago granted to the peasantry, at 
least a decided amelioration in their condition, in order that 
these poor fellow-citizens may, in the future, feel assured that 
they can count upon the help of the State.” The whole theory 
of State Socialism and of “ a Socialist monarch ” is summed 
up in this passage. 
During these last years the camp of the Conservative 
Socialists has been broken up. Some have gone to swell the 
ranks of the “ Agrarians ; ” others, terrified at the progress of 
demagogic Socialism, have become retrograde Conservatives ;