The Junkers will fight
hard to keep their privileges, and the throne will fight hard
for the Junkers because they are the greatest supporters of the
Hohenzollerns.
The workingmen in the cities are hard workers and probably work
longer and get less out of life than any workingmen in the world.
The laws so much admired and made ostensibly for their protection,
such as insurance against unemployment, sickness, injury, old
age, etc., are in reality skilful measures which bind them to
the soil as effectively as the serfs of the Middle Ages were
bound to their masters' estates.
I have had letters from workingmen who have worked in America
begging me for a steerage fare to America, saying that their
insurance payments were so large that they could not save money
out of their wages. Of course, after having made these payments
for some years, the workingman naturally hesitates to emigrate
and so lose all the premiums he has paid to the State. In peace
times a skilled mechanic in Germany received less than two dollars
a day, for which he was compelled to work at least ten hours.
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