may fairly claim to protect himself from poverty by work, and to have an
opportunity of raising himself in the social scale, if he willingly
devotes his powers. He is entitled to demand that the State should grant
this claim, and should be bound to protect him against the tyranny of
capital.

Two means of attaining such an object are open to the State: first, it
may create opportunities of work, which secure remunerative employment
to all willing hands; secondly, it may insure the workman by legislation
against every diminution in his capacity to work owing to sickness, age,
or accident; may give him material assistance when temporarily out of
work, and protect him against compulsion which may hinder him from
working.

The economical prosperity of Germany as the visible result of three
victorious campaigns created a labour market sufficiently large for
present purposes, although without the conscious intention of the State.
German labour, under the protection of the political power, gained a
market for itself. On the other hand, the German State has intervened
with legislation, with full consciousness of the end and the means. As
Scharnhorst once contrasted the duty of the citizen with the rights of
man, so the Emperor William I. recognized the duty of the State towards
those who were badly equipped with the necessaries of life. The position
of the worker was assured, so far as circumstances allowed, by social
legislation. No excuse, therefore, for revolutionary agitation now
existed.

A vigorous opposition to all the encroachments of the social democrats
indicated the only right way in which the justifiable efforts of the
working class could be reconciled with the continuance of the existing