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documents, and inheritance taxes—the last a questionable stretchingof its powers. Excise taxes could be levied only on sugar,tobacco, spirits, and beer. It could impose no income taxes. Therevenues thus collected were never sufficient for the empire. It wasforced to depend, therefore, upon another source of funds; namely,the matricular contribution. That is, when the taxes levied by thecentral government were insufficient to meet its requirements, itcould call upon the several states to contribute on the basis of population.But apparently it had no effective means of enforcing thesecontributions for many of the states remained habitually in arrears.This is a very different picture from that despotic state which ispopularly envisioned as the creation of Bismarck.For forty years after the founding of the empire, the centralgovernment made futile efforts to expand its powers. These wereforcefully resisted by the several states until after the World War.The states of the German federal government were far more jealousof their sovereign powers than the states of our union.The inadequacy of empire revenues drove Bismarck frequently toattempt purchase of all the German railroads to get their profits forthe central government. The states resisted this until after the GreatWar. They said that with an annual revenue of 800,000,000 marksfrom the roads Bismarck could tyrannize over the parliament, thestock market, and the states. 4 He tried to erect state monopolies oftobacco to eke out with its profits the state deficits but was balked. 5It would not be true to say that the empire enjoyed parliamentarygovernment in the unrestricted sense of that word. There was anempire parliament composed of a popular assembly, the Reichstag,and the Bundesrath, representing the states. The Reichstag was notso potent an instrument of popular government as the British Houseof Commons because the Chancellor was named by and responsible,not to it, but to the Emperor. The Chancellor, however, had to dobusiness with the Reichstag since all money bills had to be votedby it and it frequently resisted his demands.The socialist membership in the Reichstag increased steadily.Bismarck sought to force repressive laws against it but for long*Prince Bismarck, by Charles Lowe, Cassell & Co., New York, 1886.'Cambridge Modern History, Vol. XII.8o