As I have said, the Reichstag was invented to be, and has always served the purpose hitherto of, a forum in which discontented Germany could blow off steam, but achieve little in the way of remedy or reform. But during the war the Reichstag has even ceased to be a place where free speech is tolerated.  It has been gagged as effectually as the German Press.  I was an eyewitness of one of the most drastic muzzling episodes which has occurred in the Reichstag during the war—­or probably in the history of any modern Parliament—­the suppression of Dr. Karl Liebknecht, member for Potsdam, during the debate on military affairs on January 17, 1916.  That event will be of historic importance in establishing how public opinion in Germany during the war has been ruthlessly trampled under foot.

The Reichstag has practically nothing to do with the conduct of the war.

Up, practically, to the beginning of 1916 the sporadic Social Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr. Liebknecht, was ignored by the Government.  The war-machine was running so smoothly, and, from the German standpoint, so victoriously, that the Government thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his heart’s content.

Dr. Liebknecht had long been a thorn in the War Party’s side.  He inherited an animosity to Prussian militarism from his late father, Dr. Wilhelm Liebknecht, who with August Bebel founded the modern German Social Democratic Party.  Four or five years before the war Liebknecht, a lawyer by profession, campaigned so fiercely against militarism that he was sentenced to eighteen months’ fortress imprisonment for “sedition.”  He served his sentence, and soon afterwards his political friends nominated him for the Reichstag for the Royal Division of Potsdam, of all places in the world, knowing that such a candidature would be as ironical a blow as could be dealt to the war aristocrats.  He was elected by a big majority in 1913, the votes of the large working-class population of the division, including Spandau (the Prussian Woolwich), being more than enough to offset the military vote which the Kaiser’s henchmen mobilised against him.  Some time afterwards Liebknecht was also elected to represent a Berlin Labour constituency in the Prussian Diet, the Legislature which deals with the affairs in the Kingdom of Prussia, as distinct from the Reichstag (the Imperial Diet), which concerns itself with Empire matters only.

Dr. Liebknecht is forty-four years old.  Of medium build, he wears a shock of long, curly, upstanding hair, which rather accentuates his “agitator” type of countenance, and is a skilful and eloquent debater.  A university graduate and well-read thinker and student, he turned out to be the one consistent Social Democratic politician in Germany on the question of the war.  When the war began the Socialist Party was effectually and willingly tied to the Government’s chariot—­including, nominally, even Liebknecht.