On this same New Year’s Day William sent a photograph also to the venerable Postmaster-General, Herr von Stephan, bearing a written legend not less characteristic than the other. It ran thus: “Intercommunication is the sign under which the world stands at the close of the present century. The barriers separating nations are thereby overthrown, and new relations established between them.” Upon the sentiment thus expressed much of great importance to Germany and to Europe depends. Brief as has been the career of the present German Empire among nations, its history already covers one very remarkable and complete _volte face_ on economic subjects, and the beginnings of what promises to be a second and almost as sweeping change. Up to 1876, with Delbrück as President of the Chancellery and Camphausen as Minister of Finance, Germany stood for as liberal a spirit of international trade relations as at least any other nation on the Continent. But in that year Bismarck, by a combination of the various Conservative factions which leaned toward high tariffs, inaugurated a Protectionist policy which forced these Ministers out and ranged the German Empire definitely on the other side of the economic wall. To the end of Bismarck’s rule, Germany steadily drifted away from Free Trade and toward the ideals of Russia, Thibet, and the Republican party in the United States. But even before Bismarck’s fall it became apparent that the young Emperor took broader views on this subject than his Chancellor, and during the past year several important steps have been taken toward bringing Germany forward once more into line with modern conceptions of emancipated trade. A liberal Treaty of Commerce has been signed with Austro-Hungary--the precursor, it is believed, of others with countries now committed to stupid and injurious tariff wars, while at home no secret is made of the ministerial intention to in time reduce duties on cereals, lumber, and other necessaries, and generally pursue a tariff reform policy. The Reichstag has during the year passed a bill which, beginning in August of 1892, spreads over five years the extinction of the sugar bounties, another great bulwark of the rich protectionist ring. An attack upon the spirit bounties is expected next, while the Upper House of the Prussian Diet has just passed the new Graded Income Tax Bill which is to pave the way to a return from tariff to direct taxation.