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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  maintained ­
  that  the  measure  was  essentially  socialistic  were  perfectly ­
  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  ;