Harking back once more to Stieber, it will be remembered that, at the outset of his career, he took service in a mercantile firm, and identified himself with German Socialism of the revolutionary kind. He learned at first hand the power which Socialism has among the working classes; he learned that, with very little reality behind the promises, it is easy to make a workman do nearly anything, if only the promises as regards the future of the working class are large enough. He came to his own as a master in espionage and treachery--by betraying the men to whom he posed as a leader--at almost the first beginnings of the German Socialistic movement, and he watched that movement grow as the years went on. He saw that working men had a passion for organising in defence of their rights, and that they could be led by nearly any appeal which proclaimed their rights, no matter how extravagant the proclamation might be. Further, he saw that in Germany, under the Empire, workmen's rights would never win them anything--repression was too efficiently conducted, and there was no good in the workmen's movement for him; so he joined in with the forces that unto to-day (1914) govern Germany and suppress all that makes for real democratic government. Stieber was an opportunist, and knew well which side would best reward him. Later on in his career he gained opportunities of studying the social conditions involved in the political constitutions of other countries; after 1870 the constitution of France interested him, and, studying it as he studied all things, with a view to the furtherance of his plans, he saw that much nominal power was placed in the hands of the people-- illiteracy and ignorance were no bars to the free expression of opinions, and, further, a man might agitate and stir up discontent among the working people to his heart's content, compared with what might be done in Germany, and there was no aristocracy nor any bureaucracy to say him nay. Now, said Stieber, if these workmen could be stirred up in a way that would make them distrustful of the governing classes: if class could be set against class, unions formed, and the men led to strike and paralyse industry at a given time--say, at a time when Germany wanted to make war--the benefits accruing would be immense; but not to France.