But would it not have been perhaps more natural if the proletariat, when it desired to enter into a legal-parliamentary course of action, had sought alliance with the existing party of opposition--as has happened in other lands? We must lay stress on the fact that it was hindered in this through the incapacity of the middle-class party of that time in radical politics; for this reason it could not at the time absorb the proletariat. It is a part of the inheritance which German liberalism has received from the year 1848 that one of its chief characteristics is the fear of the red spectre--revolution. Indeed the proletariat has itself helped towards this by its behaviour. We all know how the middle-class agitation of the year 1848 in Germany failed, and sought the protection of the Prussian bayonet from the "gens mal intentionnés"--the well-known undercurrent of democracy present in every civil revolution. Civic pride and defiance fell at that moment, as always, when the spectre of social revolution appeared on the horizon--witness the law against the socialists. Thus was the bridge between the proletarian agitation and civic opposition even at that early time broken, soon to be entirely destroyed. As in the strictly political sphere this fear and hesitation did not permit the liberal party to come to decided radicalism, which probably would have contented the proletariat for a long time, so in the economic sphere earlier German liberalism was characterised by what we to-day would call an incomprehensible doctrinairism, an inane obsession derived from the dreary Manchester school of thought. The exertions of Schulze-Delitzsch, who was indeed in his sphere a serviceable man, could not nearly make good the shortcomings of the liberal party in all questions of social politics. The liberal political economists of that time had no understanding of the demands and movements of the proletariat. Such pitiful writings on the so-called "working-man's question" as those by Prince-Smith are not produced by writers of reputation in other lands, so far as I know. Possibly this or that great man _de l'Institut_ has rivalled them. The inability of the liberal party to draw the gushing water of proletarian agitation to its own mill finds striking example in the answer which, in the year 1862, a deputation of working-men from Leipsic received from the leaders of the "National Union." The working men had applied for the privilege of taking part in political life. They wanted some recognition for their leaders. And what was given as answer? That the working men were by birth already honorary members of the union!