Social Democrats had promised them freedom. “Freedom,” said the speaker with bitter scorn; “are you free in the Rhineland?” No; there was only one way by which a happier future could be reached--the re-creation of Germany on strong nationalist lines; a Germany resting on force, purged of democratic and international follies, with her eyes fixed on herself and the principles of Bismarck well to the fore again. To do this the defeat of Social Democracy and Socialism at the polls was the first essential. A Government must be returned which would know how to safeguard the welfare of the Fatherland. Unceasing work was an essential of reconstruction; the eight hours’ day was another colossal blunder recently made. Here and there the speaker threw an occasional sop to the democratic Cerberus. Perhaps it was true that they had relied a little too much on force alone in the past, and had forgotten the old idealistic teaching of the poets and philosophers. And again the rule of bayonets was over; government now rested on the will of the people--a good old tag which appeared towards the end of the speech. If the Volkspartei have their way, how much will shortly remain of the will of the people in Germany? Now for an English woman sitting unperceived and unrecognised among a German audience this speech was not pleasant hearing. Naturally, the speaker glided easily over the rotten ice of Germany’s responsibility for the war. He had nothing to say as to the original crime of German militarism, the real starting point of his tale of woe. For him history began with the Peace, an indefensible position. Nevertheless all he had to say on that subject drove home every doubt people like myself have felt as to the scrapping by the Peace of the fundamental principles for which we fought the war. The speech was a practical illustration of how the Treaty itself has played straight into the hands of the German reactionaries, how it has brought democratic professions into utter contempt, how it has made the lot of a German democratic Government practically impossible.