No. 199.
Mr. Sargent to Mr. Frelinghuysen.
Berlin, May 14, 1883. (Received May 31.)
Sir: In my No. 141, of April 19, I had the honor to inform you of the special message sent by the Emperor to the Reichstag, in which he recommended the immediate consideration of the budget of 1844–’85, to leave the next session free to dispose of certain so-called socialistic measures, principally the accidents insurance bill. The strong feeling aroused in the Reichstag among the ordinary opponents of Prince Bismarck’s policy suffered no diminution, and a crisis was reached the past week, when a motion of Herr Richter, the Progressionist leader, to refer the budget to a committee, was adopted by a vote of 105 to 97. This reference, according to the forms of the German Reichstag, is equivalent to a rejection of the budget bill. The debate on the motion ran high, the Ultramontane and Conservative deputies supporting the Government, and the different elements of Liberalism fusing to carry the reference.
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The progress of this contest between parliamentary and executive will, which has been in progress for several months, has been peculiarly interesting. I have called your attention to it from tiine to time. In January last an imperial message to the Reichstag called attention to the workingmen’s accidents insurance bill, and there was a hope expressed that it would encounter no parliamentary delay. At about the same time the biennial budget bill was laid before the imperial legislature. The latter was not adopted, but sent to the graveyard of a committee, on the expressed ground that to sanction it was to diminish the comparative weight of the Reichstag, while other work excluded the consideration of the accidents insurance bill. Then came the Emperor’s special message, with the results stated.
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I have, &c.,