At the same time the vital necessity of relieving Germany by an annual
Auswanderung is now fully recognized. The necessity becomes daily more
urgent. In Germany the birth-rate per mille has advanced to 38; in
Great Britain it stands at 35, giving a yearly increase in population
for the two countries of 600,000 and 400,000 respectively. Hence every
walk of life is congested in the Empire, and in the lower strata of
society the struggle for existence has become almost internecine. The
artizans have no accumulated resources to fall back upon as in England,
and the pressure of the agricultural class upon the soil, for all its
thrift and economy, is fearfully severe. The struggle tells chiefly,
of course, upon life in its weaker stages, and the returns of infant
mortality indicate how desperate it has become, how shrunken is the
margin between production and consumption, and what the terrible remedy
is which Nature is constrained to supply. In populous tracts in the
heart of the Empire the rate of infant mortality reaches 40, and even
45, per mille. In corresponding English districts it does not rise
above 20.
For the last twenty-five years individual thinkers have proclaimed the
importance of organizing German colonies to carry off this surplus
population regularly, of preventing its absorption into foreign
peoples, and of utilizing it for the common weal. For years their
exhortations remained like the voice of one crying in the wilderness.
The country was engaged in consolidating its national existence; a
superficial glance revealed the fact that the more desirable spaces of
the earth’s surface were filled up, and the official classes looked
upon the proposal askance. Proud of the great work its industry and
intelligence had already achieved, the Beamtenstand was confident of
its ability to solve the newer problems by re-adjusting the relations
of labor and capital, and by modifying the social organization.
The task has proved more formidable than was anticipated, and the
attitude of the Socialists has disabused the bureaucracy of its
confidence. In opposition even to the enticing schemes of the Iron
Chancellor they show themselves determined to insist on their own
inadmissible scheme of social re-construction. Nor do they manifest
more favor towards the colonial panacea; some of their leaders, indeed,
have denounced it in the bitterest terms, both as impracticable and as
an _ignis fatuus_ likely to lead the nation astray from the true path
of salvation. On the other hand, the commercial classes are warm in its
support, and German conservatism generally hopes for the effect which a
Greater Germany may possibly exercise in diverting the imagination of
the working classes from internal Utopias.
But the difficulties in the way of establishing transmarine
agricultural colonies, and this is the central aim of German
aspirations, are very great. Germany has to make up the lee-way of two
centuries, to recover the start which England obtained while she was
torn and exhausted by recurring war. The suitable zones of the world
are apparently already occupied, and neither the acquisition of islands
in the Pacific, nor placing barren coasts or fever-swamps in Africa
under the Imperial ægis, will serve her purpose. Popular aspirations,
indeed, point to a South African Empire, incorporating the Transvaal
and Cape Colony at our expense, and influential papers do not hesitate
to air these aspirations. But neither these suggestions nor the more
practicable demand for a Germany in South America have yet received the
_imprimatur_ of responsible politicians.