The final result must necessarily have been the overthrow of the monarchy, which had to happen sooner or later.

In earlier times a similar situation had been created, which had imperatively demanded a solution and for which a solution was found. Side by side with the peasant and the artisan, a new class was gradually developed, namely that of officials and employees, especially those employed in the various services of the State. They also were a 'disinherited' class, in the true sense of the word. But the State found a remedy for this unhealthy situation by taking upon itself the duty of providing for the State official who could establish nothing that would be an independent means of livelihood for himself in his old age. Thus the system of pensions and retiring allowances was introduced. Private enterprises slowly followed this example in increasing numbers; so that to-day every permanent non-manual worker receives a pension in his later

years, if the firm which he has served is one that has reached or gone beyond a certain size. It was only by virtue of the assurance given of State officials, that they would be cared for in their old age. that such a high degree of unselfish devotion to duty was developed, which in pre-war times was one of the distinguising characteristics of German officials.

Thus a whole class which had no personal property was saved from destitution by an intelligent system of provision, and found a place in the social structure of the national community.

The problem is now put before the State and nation, but this time in a much larger form. When the new industries sprang up and developed, millions of people left the countryside and the villages to take up employment in the big factories. The conditions under which this new class found itself forced to live were worse than miserable. The more or less mechanical transformation of the methods of work hitherto in vogue among the artisans and peasants did not fit in well with the habits or mentality of this new working-class. The way in which the peasants and artisans had formerly worked had nothing comparable to the intensive labour of the new factory worker. In the old trades time did not play a highly important role, but it became an essential element in the new industrial system. The formal taking over of the old working hours into

the mammoth industrial enterprises had fatal results. The actual amount of work hitherto accomplished within a certain time was comparatively small, because the modern methods of intensive production were then unknown. Therefore, though in the older system a working day of fourteen or even fifteen hours was not unendurable, now it was beyond the possibilities of human endurance because in the new system every minute was utilized to the extreme. This absurd transference of the old working hours to the new industrial system proved fatal in two directions. First, it ruined the health of the workers; secondly, it destroyed their faith in a superior law of justice. Finally, on the one hand a miserable wage was received and, on the other, the employer held a much more lucrative position than before. Hence a striking difference between the

ways of life on the one side and on the other.