ontest with the Clerical party
and the Socialists the Government had the full support of a large
majority. Even in the hostile Reichstag of 1884, in which the
Socialists, Clericals, and Progressives together commanded a majority, a
series of important laws were passed. Once, indeed, the majority in
opposition to the Government went beyond the limits of reason and honour
when they refused a vote of L1000 for an additional director in the
Foreign Office. It was the expression of a jealousy which had no
justification in facts; at the time the German Foreign Office was the
best managed department in Europe; the labour imposed on the secretaries
was excessive, and the nation could not help contrasting this vote with
the fact that shortly before a large number of the members had voted
that payments should be made to themselves. The nation could not help
asking whether it would not gain more benefit from another L1000 a year
expended on the Foreign Office than from L50,000 a year for payment of
members. Even this unfortunate action was remedied a few months later,
when the vote was passed in the same Parliament by a majority of twenty.

Notwithstanding all their internal differences and the extreme party
spirit which often prevailed, the Reichstag always shewed determination
in defending its own privileges. More than once Bismarck attacked them
in the most tender points. At one time it was on the privileges of
members and their freedom from arrest; both during the struggle with the
Clericals and with the Socialists the claim was made to arrest members
during the session for political utterances. When Berlin was subject to
a state of siege, the President of the Police claimed the right of
expelling from the capital obnoxious Socialist members. On these
occasions the Government found itself confronted by the unanimous
opposition of the whole House. In 1884, Bismarck proposed that the
meetings of the Reichstag should be biennial and the Budget voted for
two years; the proposal was supported on the reasonable grounds that
thereby inconvenience and press of work would be averted, which arose
from the meeting of the Prussian and German Parliaments every winter.
Few votes, however, could be obtained for a suggestion which seemed to
cut away the most important privileges of Parliament.

Another of the great causes of friction between Bismarck and the
Parliament arose from the question as to freedom of debate. Both before
1866, and si