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evolutionary episodes, but in a spiritual discontent and a questioningof the wisdom of leaders and the soundness of the parliamentarystructure. Throughout this period ministry after ministry, strugglingwith the economic and political problems growing out of theseconditions, fell into the practice of following certain settled principlesof action, and these principles of action were arrived at by along period of acquiescence in the demands or tolerances of thepeople. These we have described during the period of the oldimperial government as follows:1. The policy of state debt and spending to supplement the incomeof the nation and create purchasing power, done haltingly andwith misgivings. No matter what kind of ministry was in power allfollowed this practice because, despite the misgiving, the publicdemanded results which could be obtained in no other way and waswilling to tolerate the practice.2. There was a settled approval of the policy of the philanthropicstate which undertook to quiet the opposition of the indigentthrough measures of social welfare. No government could haveexisted that had cut the social-welfare services or those other governmentservices made possible by government borrowing. Henceministries which did these things ran with and not against thestream.3. Originating in the aristocratic support of the military caste,pushed further by the general situation in Europe and the demandof the business world for armed might as an ally of foreign relationsand by the dreams of the devotees of the knightly spirit, militarismbecame the greatest economic prop of the existing order, the greatand glamorous public-works project of the empire, which withdrewgreat numbers from the unassimilable labor pools and supported agigantic industry with public funds. Because of a variety of interests,but chiefly because of the economic interest, militarism had thesupport of the nation.4. The old Bismarckian policy of an integrated German empire inCentral Europe and an avoidance of the institution of colonial adventurewas forced to give way before the growing ambitions of theempire. Militarism could be supported only by a continuous propagandabased on fear and on glory.125