Gentlemen, in spite of all the characteristic and true Prussian manifestations since the first months of the war, about which I just spoke, we had even up to now political dreamers. Gentlemen, those will now be enlightened about the situation, wherever they are, and that is of great value. _The darkest pessimists were right in their prophecies._ These debates have furnished water for our mills. The Conservative parties of this house stand with their old animosity against any democratization. From the Centrum nothing is to be hoped. The National Liberals provide a special chapter. Their ideal with respect to the electoral reform has been long similar to that of Frhr. v. Zedlitz, namely, not democratization, but future plutocratization of the electoral reform. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) So everything is as it was before! The National Liberals put out of their present thoughts the struggle for peoples' rights, because success is to them, as they say, more important. Gentlemen, that is explainable. These gentlemen know, in fact, for what this war is fought. For their electorate this war is such a tremendously important political and economic business that the people's rights, bad or good, have to be retarded. Gentlemen, the mine fields of Briey and Longwy, the mine fields of West Poland, the colonies which promise important profits and some other nice things are really no bad investments for German capital. The people can wait. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) And Mr. Pachnicke, the boldest representative of democracy in the bourgeois parties of this house, is already satisfied in advance--sure enough, only for the present, as he says--with the secret and direct vote! But even the moderate optimism of Mr. Pachnicke and Mr. Cassel that a majority is available in this house with reference to that patch-work reform, was very roughly stripped of its mask in the Budget Commission by a conservative interruption. Even here everything shall be as it was before! And even for this patch-work reform Mr. Pachnicke wants to wait until after the war. Gentlemen, we are not so modest. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.) We see all other classes in the war, and especially through the war, pursue unrestrained and without any compunction their class interests. We know that this war serves or will serve, if it will go according to the desire of the ruling class--the great capitalistic interests--the interest of the ruling classes in a particular way. Shall only the masses of the people wait until after the war? The technical restoration of the law is a trifle. ("Very true!" from the Soc.-Dem.)