The Polish population, as was found by the census of 1880, was increasing more rapidly than the German in Prussian Poland, and fresh steps were necessary for its suppression. All Poles, subjects of Austria and Russia, were therefore expelled from Prussian Poland, and in 1886 Prussia voted the sum of 100 million marks for the purchase of land from Polish proprietors, and the settlement on these lands of Germans. Next year the complete elimination of the Polish language from all schools was effected and German was made the only language for religious instruction of Polish children. With the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890 the rigidity of these restrictions was relaxed for a few years, but in 1894 an even more active propaganda for the Germanization of Prussian Poland was organized by the “Ostmarken Verein,” or Hakatist Association (so called after the initials of its founders Hannemann, Kennemann, and Tiedemann). Another 100 million marks was voted in the Prussian Diet for the purchase of Polish lands and the settlement thereon of German Colonists, and these were introduced into villages in solid blocks with their mayor and their Protestant church. By the aid of the state grants these settlers acquired their land at ludicrously low prices, but were not permitted to part with it again to Polish proprietors, and a couple more regulations rounded off the general policy, the total effect of which was to forbid Poles either to acquire land or to erect houses. A further grant of 125,000,000 marks was voted in 1908 for fresh acquisition of land and the establishment of German settlers. Territorially the result of these measures was entirely satisfactory from a German point of view, for in 1912, a quarter of the whole territory nationally Polish and inhabited by Poles was owned by Germany.