us speaker, lest I forget them--they are of so little
weight. He finished by saying that my prestige was waning. If he were
right, I should feel like saying "Thank God," for prestige is a very
burdensome affair. One suffers under its weight, and quickly gets
tired of it. I do not care a farthing for it. When I was very much
younger, about as old as the previous speaker is now, and when I was
possibly still more ambitious than he, I lived for years without
prestige, and was actually disliked, if not hated, by the majority of
my fellow-citizens. At that time I felt better and more contented, and
was healthier than during the years when I was most popular.

Such things do not mean much to me. I am doing my duty, let come what
may.

As proof of his assertion the previous speaker claimed that the
workingmen are refusing the help which the Imperial Government is
trying to offer them. This he cannot possibly know. He has no idea of
what the great mass of the workingmen are thinking. Probably he has
some accurate information of what the eloquent place-hunters are
thinking of the bill, people who are at the head of the labor
movements, and the professional publicists, who need a following of
workingmen--dissatisfied workingmen. But as to the workingman in
general, we had better wait and see what he is thinking. I do not know
whether the full meaning of this question has even yet sufficiently
penetrated into his circles to make it a subject of discussion, except
in the learned clubs of laborers, and among the leading place-hunters
and speakers. In the next election we shall be able to tell whether
the workingmen have formed their opinion of the bill by then, not to
speak of now.

The legislation on which we are entering with this bill has to do with
a question which will probably stay on your calendar for a long while.
The previous speaker has correctly said that "it opens up a very deep
perspective," and it is not at all impossible that it may also make
the moderate Socialists judge more kindly of the government. We have
been talking of a social question for fifty years; and, since the
passage of the law against the Socialists, I have been constantly
reminded, officially, from high quarters, and by the people, that we
gave a promise at that time. Something positive should be done to
remove the causes for Socialism, in so far as they are legitimate. _I_
have received such reminders daily. Nor do I believe that this social
que