This transformation could be easily paralleled from other towns. Thus in Munich, from the terrible average of 404 during the years 1871-1875, it had fallen to 214 in 1902.1

7. The number of suicides among the urban population-where they are always most numerous—has considerably diminished :

whereon Soziale Praxis, the well-known journal for social politics, remarks :—

It is probable that the decrease of suicide is connected with easier conditions of employment, increasing prosperity, improved modes of living, all of which are shown to be facts by the statistics respecting incomes, capital, savings banks, the life insurance system, and the consumption of food.2

8. Emigration during the last decade has dwindled to extremely small proportions. The following are the figures for "Emigration across the sea

1 This is mentioned by Professor Brentano in his lecture on Wohnungs-Zustände (1904), p. 1.

2 Quoted by Horsfall, Improvement of Dwellings, p. 192, who gives the substance of an article based on the official figures.

As we should expect, the depression of 1901-2 has somewhat increased the recent numbers. But they are still below those of 1896, and only a third or fourth of what they were not many years ago.

For a complete survey of the conditions of the German working classes there are still several other

1

1 Stat. Jahrb. für das Deutsche Reich (1904), p. 22.

topics which deserve to be considered. It might be shown how, since its creation in 1883-1889, the workmen's insurance system has been almost every year widened in its range, extended in the amount of benefits offered, and brought into closer touch with the real circumstances of working-class life. Most full of promise for the future of the country are the friendly personal relations between the representatives of the employing and employed classes, which has happily been brought about in some important industries by their compulsory co-operation in the carrying out of the new laws. Having achieved the establishment not only of insurance against sickness and accident but also of a vast system of old age pensions, German social reformers are beginning to feel themselves within sight of the next great step in advance-some provision for widows and orphans. The new Customs law of 1902 ear-marked for this purpose such additional income as should be obtained from the new duties on corn. How much this will be cannot be anticipated; and it is unnecessary to enter now into the vexed question of the motives which impelled the legislature to so novel a departure. But, certainly, some of those economists and administrators to whom the construc

1 See a most interesting survey of "the progress of the last fifteen years" by Dr. Bödiker (for so long at the head of the Imperial Insurance Office) in Schmoller's Jahrbuch, xxviii., p. 91 (1904).

tion of the system already existing has been largely due, take the matter quite seriously.

2

Or we might look at the encouraging improvement that has taken place in the field of poor relief. It has been most marked in some of the towns like Crefeld, Mannheim and Erfurt-above all in Hamburg, where the number of persons in receipt of relief has positively diminished since 1892 though the population is now half as large again;1 and in Frankfort, where in 18841885 one person out of every thirty-six of the population received out-door relief, in 1902 only one out of fifty-five. This has been due, indeed, in large measure, to the introduction of the so-called "Elberfeld system". But what we are concerned with now is the actual progress which, whether aided or hindered by the contemporary tariff policy, has co-existed with it. The interconnection, however, of the several elements in the national life may be illustrated from the fact that the compulsory insurance system (whose connection with the tariff policy has been indicated above) has already diminished the relative number of the orphans who become a charge upon public charity.3

1

Münsterberg in Schmoller's Jahrbuch, xxviii., p. 219 (1904). 2 Zahn, German Insurance as a Social Institution (officially prepared for the St. Louis Exposition, 1904), p. 26.

See for Bavaria, the Zeitschrift des k. Baier. Statistischen Bureaus (1902), No. 4, p. 328. Cf. Freund, Armenpflege und Arbeiterversicherung (Schriften des Vereins fur Armenpflege, p. 21),

Or, again, the friends of industrial peace would give their attention to the surprising development, particularly within the last two years, of the practice of "collective bargaining" between bodies of employers and employed. The revival of trade in 1903 naturally led to a good many labour difficulties-as is always the case at such a time. But it has also been accompanied by a movement in the direction of friendly negotiation and joint agreement between capital and labour which has, so far, met with remarkable success. A German trade union paper, with perhaps some pardonable exaggeration, thus describes the altered situation:

While, in years gone by, our friends have had to carry on struggles for weeks to obtain their most modest demands; while, but a few years ago, the employers brusquely declined all dealings with an organisation of workpeople; to-day these same employers are recognising the organisations as equal factors (in the adjustment of wages).1

The sense of the word "tariff" which is now uppermost in the minds of social reformers in Germany, is that in which it designates a joint agreement as to wages and hours of labour. There are said to be at

(1895). There seems also in Bavaria a decrease in the proportionate number of permanent paupers. The fact that the total number relieved bears the same proportion to the population is apparently mainly due to the larger number receiving temporary assistance. See the table in the Zeitschrift already cited, p. 326. 1 The Holzarbeiterzeitung, quoted in Soziale Praxis, 1st Oct., 1903.