The extraordinary importance of the forthcoming general elections and the seriousness of the political and economic situation are daily becoming more evident in the absence from the election campaign of the mass of small issues usually forming a large part of electioneering speeches and articles in the party ress.
this respect; two highly symptomatic and important events occurred to-day, one being 8 warning issued by the leaders of the Clerical Centre Party to the Social' Democratic Party, and the other a memorandum submitted to the Government by the Federation of Employees in connection with the threatened dismissal of a very large number of workers by some of the leading industrial undertakings.
As regards the first, the "warn-which was signed by the two party" leaders, Dr. Kaas and] Hess, bluntly declares that if the Social Democrats do not alter their attitude of unrelenting—opposition to the Chancellor, Dr. Bruening, who himself is a member of the Clerical Centre Party, they will have do without that party's help in the Prassian Government coalition and Diet. Since the stability of republicanism in Germany is generally believed to rest mainly on its key-position in Prussia, and since the coalition of the Left and Centre, comprising the Social Democrats," the Demoerats and the Clerical Centre Party, in Prussia commands but a small majority, the threat, if seriously meant, has a great deal of weight and danger behind it, particularly Mr, Hess is the leader of the Centre Party in the Prussian Diet.
The memorandum of the Feder tion of Employees, on the other hand, was caused by the fact that political circles connected with the So-called bourgeois parties view with some concern the action of a number of leading firms especially in the metal and electrical industries in chosing the opening of the electoral campaign for a move to enforce wage cuts and wholesale dismissals. The example set by the firm of Siemens which served notices of dismissal on 7,000 employees, 10 per cent of the entire number: of its Berlin staff, was during the last few days followed by the G man General Electric (A E G), the Bergmann electric works, the Borsig machine works and a number of other prominent German firms who. set the trade unions before the alternative either of agreeing by midday on Thursday next to wage cuts or facing the dismissal of a. considerable portion of their employees.
Te is understood that the trade unions are resolved to oppose any wage cats as they declare that the present wages are the minimum needed by the workers to make both ends meet. The same is being arued 1e memorandum of the Federation of Employees which is the strongest organization of its kind in Germany and traditionally very moderate in its economic demands as well as in its political principles.
The Federation, however, thought that it was urgent to call the atten-of the Government to the dangers involved in the action of the industrialists as, apart from the effect on the national finances which such dismissals would have by throwing thousands more on the already very meagre resources of the unemployment insurance, it is inferred that it may tend to accent tuate the movement of the electors to the radical extremists on both wings, a development which would further delay the stabilization of the political and economic life of the nation, German Democrat Dissolved July 30, Today the Democratic Party ceased to exist after 12 years of ups and downs during the latter portion of which it was. steadily" loosing ground in the country though it kept undimmed its influence on and through some of Germany's leading. newspapers such as the "Berliner /Tageblatt", the "Vossische" and the "Frankfurter Zeitung" as well as op the middle-class and especially thos? intellectual circles who might be regarded as having tried to live up to the best traditions of the men members of the party's executive voted against a minority of but four in favour of dissolving the party and joining the newly formed "State Party", thereby ratifying the commitments entered into by the party's leaders two days ago, caused little surprise in German political quarters.
Aug. 2.
The groups which recently seceded {trom the German Nativnai People's Party under the leadership of Herr, /Hugenburg returned an unfavourable answer to the People's Party's intation to conclude an electoral] alliance which might have led to ithe formation of a new Conservative Party without extremist tendent cies and more of the type of the pre-Republican one of the same On the other hand, the People's Party rejected the offer of the former Minister, Kock, to resign the leader ship of the recently-formed State Party if by so doing he would facility jate the entrance of the People's Party into the combination, which so far comprises the old Defmoeratic Party and the Young German Order.—Trans-Ocean Kuo Min,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.