on May 2, 1879, he said:
We see that France manages to support the present difficult business situation of the civilized world better than we do; that her Budget has increased since 1871 by a milliard and a half, and that thanks not only to loans; we see that she has more resources than Germany, and that, in short, over there they complain less of bad times.
And in a speech two years later (November 29, 1881) he returned to the same idea:
It was towards 1877 that I was first struck with the general and growing distress in Germany as compared with France. I saw furnaces banked, the standard of well-being reduced, and the general position of workmen becoming worse and business as a whole terribly bad.
In the book from which these extracts are taken20 the author writes as an introduction to Bismarck's speeches:
Trade and industry were in a miserable condition. Thousands of workmen were without employment, and in the winter of 1876-77 unemployment took great proportions, and soup-kitchens and State workshops had to be established.
Every author who deals with this period seems to tell broadly the same tale, however much they may differ in detail. "If only we could get back to the general position of things before the war," said M. Block in 1879. "But salaries diminish and prices go up."21
At the very time that the French millions were raining in upon Germany (1873) she was suffering from a grave financial