The results and significance of the elections in Germany

As is known, general elections to the German parliament (the Reichstag) took place on 4 May.

The results of these elections could easily have been foreseen, thanks to the steady influence of quite distinct internal political forces and no less definite external circumstances, of which the social and political life of present-day Germany is made up.

The strongest influence on the alignment of forces, on the election slogans and on the outcome of the campaign came from that fatal policy of military occupation, in time of peace!, which the government of Mr. Poincaré practised toward the German people, beaten militarily but ceaselessly defeating its victors economically…

The general character of the evolution under way in Germany, of that unceasing growth of the sense of its own strength and of its right to live and develop amid ever-worsening external political conditions, which offend, apart from real wrongs, the national self-respect and pride of the German citizen, was already marked with complete precision and unswerving logic in the elections of 1920, and it showed itself even more vividly in the latest ones.

This evolution of public sentiment has left its mark on the composition of the new parliament in a further strengthening of both extreme wings, perhaps smaller than had been predicted. It is on these wings that the voter, pushed toward taking a risk, always hopes for more energetic action, perhaps at the price of less responsibility… And, naturally, this strengthening of the wings takes place at the expense of the centre, which is always the more passive and balanced, and which the German voter sharply reproached for excessive slowness in face of the violence of France's occupation policy.

And in fact the German Social Democrats suffered most in the election struggle, being in the eyes of the average voter the most responsible for the first period of the Republic's existence; so did the German People's Party members, who shared this responsibility with the Social Democrats over the last 4 years…

As to the composition of the new parliament, the main figures given in the Polish papers say this: Social Democrats 100, Catholic Centre 62, Democrats 24, People's Party 45.

In all, about 240 deputies…

Up to now the government's "centre-left" was made up of these groups.

The opposition groups are expressed in numbers as follows: the Nationalists, of whom there were very few in the previous parliament, received as many seats as the Social Democrats, more than 100; the Hitlerites 33; if we add to this a few small groups, such as the big landowners and others, the right opposition grows into a quite considerable force, more than 160 deputies.

But the most interesting and telling symptom of the growth of "social weight", and of the collapse of the Social Democracy that was so recently all-powerful, is the strong group of Communists who have entered the new parliament in a number unprecedented so far in the great states, 62 deputies…

From these figures it follows above all that power, for the time being, has remained in the hands of the same centre that has held it until now.

For it is clear to everyone that the formation of a government alliance of Nationalists with Communists is quite impossible, notwithstanding that they are united by their combative mood against the "occupiers in the west and the east", by a determined struggle for the abolition of the Treaty of Versailles, and by a negative attitude toward the proposals of the experts on reparations, that is, they are united by matters of foreign policy…

The only result of such a composition of the chamber will be a strong weakening of this government centre and, conversely, strong pressure on it from both opposition groups, the right and the left…

It is clear that the Nationalists' demands will decisively influence the Stresemann People's Party members and the social groups of the centre close to them, just as on the left the Communists will press still harder on the Social Democrats, who have lost a good part of their "fantasy"…

And because the Communists, as we have said, accept the foreign programme of the Nationalists, which by the force of things is being pushed to the front, it is clear that the further evolution of political moods and of the government's line of conduct in Germany must go in the direction of, and under the slogans and strong influence of, the Nationalists…

The government's "centre-left" will inexorably turn, by regroupings in the parliament, into a "centre-right" that more and more actually takes power into its hands… That is the quite plain general result of the elections.

The report that the leader of the Nationalists, Hergt, is to be head of the cabinet best confirms our conclusions.

In German-Entente relations the leading groups have somehow strangely changed places: until now the right-wing premiers of the Entente came to terms with the German governments to a greater or lesser extent; now it will be the reverse…

Whether the new combination will lead to a solution of the problem of reparations, fatal for all of Europe, and in general to a liquidation of the terrible legacy of the Great War, we shall see.

But there can be no doubt that now all three of the most important governments in Europe, those of Germany, France and England, will truly make a determined and sincere attempt to resolve somehow, though for the time being only by a purely technical compromise, this fatal problem. For a truly lasting solution of the general European tangle, being a radical one, in connection with a decisive revision of the Treaty of Versailles, is possible only when our eastern neighbour, having rebuilt her strength to the full, throws her whole weight onto the scale pan of the European balance.