A clause in this Act required immediate application of the principle of socialisation to coal mines, and a Coal Bill has accordingly also been passed. By this the State takes over the industry and entrusts it to a Coal Board, reserving the right to regulate prices. Nothing is said as to the composition of this Board, but nothing is changed in the proprietary basis of the industry further than its organisation in regional syndicates.
There is also to be an Expert Council, representing employers, workmen, and officials equally. The retail coal trade remains untouched.
As to "Socialisation" generally, the reports of the Socialisation Commission have all been rejected and the Commission, that last relic of the revolution, resigned as long ago as May. The recommendations of Wissels, an active Minister, had as little success and he resigned in June.
The Government had promised that socialisation was to be established in the Constitution; but Art. 156 of the Constitution does no more than give the State the power to "socialise" and syndicalise industry, while Art. 155 says that private royalties are to be legislatively transferred to the State.
Therefore, in spite of plaintive posters, it is not communistic socialisation, but capitalistic syndicalisation, that has been introduced in Germany. While loudly proclaiming a step forward, the Government has taken a long stride back.[E]
"Socialisation" has not as yet affected the economic basis of the Prussianism that we have been fighting. This basis was a coalition between the old political interest of the landed proprietors and the new political interest of the captains of industry, or, to express it shortly, between the Junkers and the Jews. The free trade and liberalism that kept Great Britain from "Prussianism" in spite of the power retained by a few feudal families and the landed gentry was due to the different relationship in England between the upper and middle classes. In England our "Junkers" and "Jews" coalesced during our great industrial development, perhaps because our upper class had already more Jews than Junkers. In Germany they remained apart but combined for their own interests. We have seen to what extent the revolution has threatened the economic authority of the captain of industry--the industrial profiteer. Is the feudal landed proprietor also threatened?