claims its share in international life.  The entrance of Japan into the circle of the great World Powers means a call to arms.  “Asia for the Asiatics,” is the phrase which she whispers beneath her breath, trusting in the strength of her demand.  The new Great Power has emerged victoriously from its first encounter with a European foe.  China, too, is preparing to expand her forces outwardly.  A mighty movement is thrilling Asia—­the awakening of a new epoch.

Dangers, then, which have already assumed a profound importance for the civilized countries of Europe, are threatening from Asia, the old cradle of the nations.  But even in the heart of the European nations, forces which have slumbered hitherto are now awake.  The persisting ideas of the French Revolution and the great industrial progress which characterized the last century, have roused the working classes of every country to a consciousness of their importance and their social power.  The workers, originally concerned only in the amelioration of their material position, have, in theory, abandoned the basis of the modern State, and seek their salvation in the revolution which they preach.  They do not wish to obtain what they can within the limitations of the historically recognized State, but they wish to substitute for it a new State, in which they themselves are the rulers.  By this aspiration they not only perpetually menace State and society, but endanger in the separate countries the industries from which they live, since they threaten to destroy the possibility of competing in the international markets by continuous increase of wages and decrease of work.  Even in Germany this movement has affected large sections of the population.

Until approximately the middle of the last century, agriculture and cattle-breeding formed the chief and most important part of German industries.  Since then, under the protection of wise tariffs, and in connection with the rapid growth of the German merchant navy, trade has marvellously increased.  Germany has become an industrial and trading nation; almost the whole of the growing increase of the population finds work and employment in this sphere.  Agriculture has more and more lost its leading position in the economic life of the people.  The artisan class has thus become a power in our State.  It is organized in trade unions, and has politically fallen under the influence of the international social democracy.  It is hostile to the national class distinctions, and strains every nerve to undermine the existing power of the State.

It is evident that the State cannot tolerate quietly this dangerous agitation, and that it must hinder, by every means, the efforts of the anti-constitutionalist party to effect their purpose.  The law of self-preservation demands this; but it is clear that, to a certain point, the pretensions of the working classes are justified.  The citizen may fairly claim to protect himself from poverty by work, and to have an opportunity of raising himself in the social scale, if he willingly devotes his powers.  He is entitled to demand that the State should grant this claim, and should be bound to protect him against the tyranny of capital.