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THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

rights  of  the  country  folk  and  to  obtain  a  reduction  of  military
service  and  of  the  taxes  that  burdened  the  land.  Among  the
resolutions  passed  at  the  general  assembly  of  the  peasant
clubs  of  Bavaria,  held  at  Deggendorf,  in  October,  1871,  may
be  found  the  following  passage  :  “  We  detest  with  all  our  soul
the  military  system  which  is  looked  upon  as  the  principal  thing
for  which  all  else  should  be  sacrificed.  It  absorbs  the  living
forces  of  labour,  even  when  they  are  most  indispensable  for
production,  as  at  harvest-time.  Yet  the  army  exists  for  the
nation,  and  not  the  nation  for  the  army,  just  in  the  same  way
as  the  government  for  the  people,  and  not  the  people  for  the
government."
In  the  general  assembly  of  Christian  Social  Associations,
held  at  Essen,  on  the  29th  June,  1870,  Herr  Witte,  one  of  the
delegates,  thus  enumerates  the  forces  at  their  disposal  :  “  Fifteen ­
  thousand  Catholic  peasants  are  already  federated  in
Bavaria.  Fifteen  thousand  farms  form  a  solid  basis  of  operations ­
  from  which  to  obtain  possession  of  the  country  districts.
We  shall  soon  have  as  many,  or  even  more,  in  Westphalia  and
in  the  Rhine  country.  A  hundred  thousand  master-workmen
range  themselves  under  our  flag,  and  eighty  thousand  gallant
journeymen  of  the  Kolpings-Vereine  offer  us  their  services.
Our  societies  will  soon  count  their  members  by  hundreds  of
thousands.  We  have  already  a  goodly  army,  and  it  is  only  the
commencement.  Thirty  thousand  German  priests  have  just
put  their  hands  to  the  work.  I  foresee  a  brilliant  future.”
All  this  army,  of  w^hich  the  orator  spoke,  was  sent  forth  to
the  ballot  by  the  clergy,  and  at  the  elections  by  universal
suffrage  for  the  Imperial  Parliament,  in  1870,  it  gained  more
than  one  victory.  Thus,  at  Elberfeld,  it  beat  the  Social
Democrats,  although  the  latter  were  on  their  own  ground.  In
1871  a  ministerial  rescript  pronounced  the  dissolution  of  the
peasant  clubs  of  Westphalia,  as  constituting  illegal  political
associations.  They  were,  however,  immediately  reconstituted
under  the  name  of  “  Union  of  Westphalian  Peasants  "  (  Westfalische ­
  Bauernverein),  and,  under  the  presidency  of  that  member ­
  of  the  Ultramontane  Centre  whom  we  have  already  mentioned, ­
  Baron  von  Schorlemer-Alst,  the  number  of  members