The political life of Germany probably has a more direct practical interest for the American citizen than does that of any other Continental nation, for many of their political questions and their legislative problems directly concern us. That is true because of the barriers they are putting up against our exports of food products, and because of the work which the Government is doing in education and in legislation affecting social conditions—legislation that 
The Sister Superior protesting at the door of the parochial school Rue Bacon against her expulsion.has most pronounced effect upon the efficiency of industrial competition.
There is an “irrepressible conflict” in the development of German national life. Germany is endeavoring at the same moment to be a great agricultural nation and a great industrial nation. Agriculture must wrest whatever it may of success from a stubborn, parsimonious soil; industry finds itself in a country barren of natural resources and lacking cheap raw material.
It is only within a generation that Germany's industrial ambitions have become internationally important; but within that generation almost all of the vital currents of German development have been flowing in the direction of industrialism. Industry has gained on agriculture, until to-day the national economic life is about equally divided between the two. The great progress of industry has seemed to the agricultural half of the nation to work great hardship to it, while the present hopes and ambitions of the industrial half seem to the agrarians only to be the planning for them of still greater hardships.
The landlord sees in manufacturing and commerce an unfair competitor for labor. The factory entices the laborer from his fields. Railroads and steamships, the landlord thinks, are a malicious innovation, because they bring the fields of Argentina and America into sharp competition with his own sterile acres. His only hope has been in keeping out of Germany the products of other agricultural countries and by gaining from the Government higher and higher protection for his own products.
The landlord's antagonisms and complaints are by no means without foundation. He has certainly fallen on evil days. The march of events has made more and more difficult his financial position. While he has succeeded in laving enormous taxes on the foodstuffs of the German working man, he has not freed himself from the difficulties of almost impossible competition. Livery comparison which he makes with his former position and influence adds to his bitterness against the new industrial régime.
On the one side he finds himself pressed by what he regards as upstart socialistic doctrines and insistent demands for broader political rights, and even worse than that, the ever-reiterated demand for what seems to him ruinously cheap food. On the other hand, his long-established influence in affairs is assailed by a new aristocracy of wealth. When one remembers the historical position of the landed class, the landlord’s view is not unnatural. All through German history the junkers have officered the army and led it to its fields of victory; they have supplied the statesmen and furnished the class that has ruled the country. It is small wonder that they feel bitter antag-