The little State of Brunswick consists of the mediæval town and a ring of industrial suburbs separate from the town, with satellite rural townlets and villages. The political life and vital heat of Brunswick centre now in this mushroom ring of factories, where the old rebel character of the State is more truly reproduced than among the burghers and bauers of the dead town and dormant villages. Under pressure from the workmen in these factories Brunswick established a government that, unlike that of Berlin, was sufficiently revolutionary to attempt to realise the social revolution. When the inevitable split came between the Social-Democrats in power and the Independents in opposition, Brunswick declared for the Independents. The free Republic of Brunswick became a citadel of the Independent extremists, a centre of revolutionary propaganda and a _corpus vile_ for the application of revolutionary principles. And it was unfortunate that it made itself so obnoxious to its big neighbour, Berlin, in its first two characters that its services in the third capacity were overlooked. For Brunswick was working out a _régime_ which was in fact a compromise between the revolutionary institutions of council government and the established parliamentary system of its constitutional Government. True parliamentary institutions had under the leadership of extremists like Merges been relegated rather to the background. But they had not been abolished and remained ready to function, when required, as a sort of Second Chamber and conservative counterbalance to the radical _régime_ of the Workmen's and Soldiers' Councils. Nor had this _régime_ so far as I could ascertain done any irremediable material harm, while it had certainly done real moral service. The propertied and professional classes had been alarmed certainly; but had learnt to defend themselves very effectively by strikes and refusal of taxes, and had thereby obtained recognition of their rights as a numerical minority. Feeling, of course, ran high; but the freedom of speech of the burghers was never curtailed while the workmen's party was in power. Of course, the workmen's leader, the hunchback tailor Merges, was represented as a sort of ogre throughout Germany, but the Brunswick burghers rather despised than dreaded him. Their opinion of the rule of the "Arbeiter Rat," or Workmen's Board, is expressed in these lines pasted on the pedestal of the equestrian statue representing Duke William of ever pious and still immortal memory (obiit, 1884). "Good Old Bill, if you'll get down, Merges shall give up your crown. We'll put you on the Board, of course, And put the tailor on your horse."