PRUSSIA AND THE GERMANS

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3143, 23 July 1917, Page 6

PRUSSIA AND THE GERMANS

LIGHT ON POLITICAL GERMANY

THE KAISER AND THE

"BUND"

Mr. James Middleton, ,in the "World's Uork Magazine," gives au interesting description of the autocratic powers of the Kaiser and the extraordinary political utructure of the German Empire:— "When will the present world war end? Ao question comes so constanly to everybody's lips. And no question, it feems, is more difficult to answer. Will the war be ended by successful drives on the Western front, by the breaking of the submarine blockade, or by the slow, tortuous policy of starvation rnd exhaustion? We cannot answer these questions yet one fact stands out pre-emin-ently: thero is one way in which the war can be ended, and ended quickly. The elimination of the Holicnzollerns, the transformation of Germany from a military autocracy into a. democracy, the complete reshaping of the fundamental principleo underlying the German constitution—a transformation like this would immediately lead to peace. But probably most people who discuss- this possible revolution in tho German governmental system really known very little about it. A brief survey will discloso •xr,v completely Germany will lave to transform her political ideas before she can arrive at anything remotely resemi- 'iic; popular rule, as Americans, Englishmen, and Frenchmen understand it. Sinco we are discussing so glibly the forthcoming German Republic, it is perhaps desirable to examine precisely of what the German nation consists.

"W'v. must study two things—the German ivnnivn and the several German States. For Germany, like the United States, has a dual system ; a Federal Government and independent State sovereignties. Neither State nor federal system, however, contains much trace of democi'atic ideas.

"One lias only to pick up the overage n"wspapcr to understand the prevailing ignorance concerning: the nature cf the German Empire. For the last 'three years we have been sneering at the 'Godanointed Kaiser.' that presumptions gentleman who claims to rule his Empire by Divine right. Now ihe Kaiser claims r,o right to rule by Divine appointment; lie is, as I shall show, a constitutional monarch. There is an entirely different person, the King of Prussia, who has blatantly advertised himself as a Hon of Heaven; it liappens indeed, that one onit the same man is both Prussian King and German Emperor; yet no one can understand the German system who does not keep the two offices distinct. Again, tho newspapers contain constant l-plei-mices to the 'Emperor of Germany' and the "Empire of Germany." Anyone* riding in the New-

York street cars will not a proclanntioli signed by the Mayor of New York, informing his fellow-citizens that the United States is at waa- with the 'Empire of Germany.' The statement is untrue, for there is no such thing as an 'Empire of Germany,' any more than there is any such person as an 'Emperor of Germany.' There is a German Empire and a German Emperor—a Detitschos Beieh and a Deutsche:' Kaiser. When Prince Henry visited the United States in 1902, Mr. Seth Low. then Mayor of New York, referred to him, in his welcoming speech, as the 'brother of the Emperor of Germany.' Immediately a howl went up from protesting Germans. Prince Henry's 'august brother,' we then learned, was merely German Emperor.

"At first it seems that only the metaphysicia! German mind can grasp tWi distinction; yet the distinction is important and. in itself largely explains tile German system. For the Kaiser, qua Kaiser, is rrally not a monarch at all. Sovereignty, that is, does not reside in his person. Tlie German conception of a monarch is that of a man who in himself alone possesses Sovereign power— who does not derive it from tho people, from parliaments, from 'the consent of the governed,' but possesses it himself, as an appointment from heaven, or at least from some mystical source apart fro mthose- over whom he inles. Thus the King of Prussia when first crowned at Konigsberg in 1701, placed the crown on his head with his own hand, thereby signifying that he alone had the right to bestow upon himself this prerogative. But the German Emperor possesses no such supernatural dienity. The German constitution describes him thus: 'The presidency of the Union belongs to the King of' Prussia, who bears the title of German Emperor.' Here is a discovery, most astonishing to Americans, for the Kaiser, according to the particular word used in the constitution, is apparently somo new and strange kind of a President! He does not possess a single power that has not originated outside of himself-that has not conferred upon him. These powers are as nree.iselv set down in a written constituare Mr. Wilson's, and he must just as rigidly confine himself to them. But Germany, as most people know, does contain a liberal assortment of monarchs—gentlemen whose power goes far back into history. Something more than a hundred years ago, liefore Napoleon smashed a large proportion ot them, Germany possessed nearly two hundred of th r se divinely-appoint-ed potentates. She now has only twentv-two. These personages are known under several names—kings,grand dukes, dukes, princes. They all derive their power from the fact that, in the dynastic and territorial struggles that took place centuries ago, their ancestors proved to be somewhat more successful ruffians than their rivals; now however, a halo of divine right envelops their ridiculous pretensions. All these personages are monarchs-they are kings of Prussia, of Bavaria, of Saxony, the grand dukes of Baden, of Oldenburg, the dukes ot Saxe-Weimar. Mecklenburg-Schwerin, tho princes of Waldeck and SchaumburgLippe, and the like. To use the mystical "von" in reference to the Emperor, }o call him Kaiser von Deutehlaud, instead of Deutscher Kaiser, would imply that he belonged to this same exalted order. It would signify that the sovereignty of all Germany was centred in ms person-that ho was the God-given monarch of Germany. But the Kaiser, as Kaiser, is nothing of the sort. As Emperor his office dates back no further 'than 1871; and he possesses only those powers which the real Sovereigns of Germany—her kings, grand dukes, princeshave* graciously bestowed upon hiin. German Empire a "Bund" of Princes. "We, the people of the United States," begins the American Constitution, thus describing the source of political power. But here is the preamble to the Consti-' tution of the German Empire:—"His Majesty, the King of Prussia, is the name of the North German Bund, his Majesty, the King of Bavaria, etc., ... do conclude an everlasting Bund." "That is, the German Empire is the creation, not of the German people, but of the German princes. It is a Bund—an association of 22 States and three free cities. It has no powers that these States do not confer. The German Empire does not consist of 65,000,000 members—the population of Germany; it consists of 25 members—that is, the 25 communities of which it is composed. The empire is a highly artificial hothouse product; the realities are the German States, each one of which is the result of an immense amount-of history. Sovereignty, so far as the empire is concerned, is not an attribute of the Kaiser or of any popularly chosen legislative assembly; it resides in the princes of th« several States, just as much now as it did in the days when the empire did not exist.

"Sovereign power, however, must be exercised in a tangible fashion. These 2") independent German Sovereigns must have some machinery for concerted action. To obtain such concerted action the German Constitution has set up the most amazing legislative chamber ever devised. The fact that it seems necessary to refer to the Bundesrath ns a 'legislative chamber,' when it is not a legislative chamber at all. shows the difficulty of describing the German system. It is entirely impossible to use the terms applied in discussing political institutons in other countries; it is necessary to, jiansp and describe our terms, as we go on. Most newsnaper readers, if asked offhand to describe the German Legislature, would say that it consisted of two chambers, a Bnndesratli and a Reichstag. A vogue impression prevails that the

Bundesrath corresponds to our Senate and the Reichstag to our House of Representatives. Nothing could be further from the truth. Neither does the Bundesrath have any .resemblance to a House of Lords or any hereditary chamber in the world. It is not a deliberative body; it is not even an advisory body. It is a kind of council of German princes. It is an assembly in which all these German kings, grand dukes, dukes, princes and free cities come together, by proxy, practically to direct the affairs of their Empire. Each one of these potentates sends a specific number of delegates, the precise number being mentioned in the Constitution. Thus the King of Prussia sends seventeen, the King of Bavaria six, the King of Saxony four, and so on, the total membership amounting to 58. The rulers not only send these delegates, but instruct them precisely as to how they are to vote. Each delegation always votes in a mass; in the Bundesrath the 'unit rule' prevails, as it does in a democratic Presidential convention here. The seventeen delegates from Prussia always cast seventeen votes; to split the vote would violate the Constitution. If only a single delegate from Prussia is present he casts seventeen votes, and always : n accordance with instructions he has received from home. The members of the Bundesrath are thus dummies, or 'rubber stamps' for the princes who send them. German 'writers usually refer to them as ambassadors; and, in _fact, they have all the privileges and immunities and all the honours that usually attach to the ambassadorial office. Clearly anything liko debate is absurd, since these delegations must vote as a unit, and can only vote in accordance with definite instructions. Power of-the Bundesrath. "More astonishing than its organisation is the enormous power which the Bundesrath possesses. Other nations have upper chambers that represent only property and hereditary privilege, but, in such countries, these chambers have very little power. In contrast to these the German Bundesrath, which is merely another name for an association of 22 German autocratic States and three free cities, wields the utmost influence in legislation. . Take the matter of financial measures, for example. England's historic struggle for liberty represents the attempt to wrest the taxing power from the King and place it in the hands of the people. In this struggle, of course, the people long ago gained the upper hand. The vitality of the British Constitution consists in the fact that all money bills must necessarily originate in the popular branch, the House of Commons. In recent years the House of Lords has lost the right to ratify such measures even formally. This taxing power has always been regarded as an inseparable prerogative of democracy; thus the fathers of our Constitution decreed that all measures of raising revenue must originate in the more popular branch of Congress—the House of Representatives. How far\Germany is removed from the essence of democracy' is evident from the fact that this council of autocratic princes, tho Bundesrath, originates all taxing bills. Evidently the taxing power in Germany to-day. is as much the privilege of the Crown as it was in England under the Tudors. The Chancellor, the direct representative of. the Kaiser and responsible only to him, prepares the Budget and submits it to the Bundesrath for approval. .This body discusses and determines its final form and then passes it on to the Reichstag, the so-called popular Chamber, whose assent is technically required before it can become a law. The Lower House, that is, merely has the veto power—a power which, up to this time, it has not made particularly efffective. Piecise'y this same procedure obtains in all legislation. Constitutionally, the Reichstag has Hie. right to initiate legislation, but it is a right which it does not use to much purpose. According to the usual procedure, the Chancellor introduces all the important Bills in the Bundesrath, which, after uue consideration, passes them on to the Reichstag. There have been times when the more popular body has asserted itself and even defeated the legislative programme of the Bundesrath. but they have not been numerous. 'J'nis assembly of. autocratic princes generally has its way. If we could imagine pur %Smate as a gathering, not of popularly elected law-makers, but of representatives of forty-eight divinely-appointed .autocrats, voting as units in obedience to institutions, and if we could further imagine that the Senate's word was piacticaily law in taxation and all other important legislation, we could understand sompwhat the legislative system that prevails in the German Empire.

"Representation" in the Reichbtaq. Yet we hear more of the Reichstag than of the Biindesrath. What part does it play in the German legislative plan? A close examination discloses that this body, which is supposed to represent the people, does violence to the democratic idea. Tho laws gcverning its membership really ante-date tho German Empire itself; they are the same as those which fixed the membership of. Ctc iNiorth German Confederation. That is, the 'appointment' of -.epresentatives, as we should call it here, dates from 18G9. This provided that the re; presentation, as it existed then, should remain fixed pending further legislation, and that further legislation has never been exacted. That is, the representation in the Reichstag to-day, for the States which made up the' North Gorman Confederation, is based upon the population of nearly fifty years ago. Tho theory is that there shall be one member for each 100,000 people, and on this basis Berlin, which had a population of about ,fi00,00(t in 1869, had six representatives. To-day Berlin has a population of more than 2,000,000, yet it still has only six representatives in the Reichstag. This same situation prevails in all the cities of the old North German Confederation. Why the ruling powers have never reapportioned the representation so as to give the cities their due is no particular mystery. These cities are the centres cf l.beral thought and political reform, and especially of Socialism, and their enfranchisement might endanger the present autocratic regime.

"Thus Bismarck, whose dead hand is most apparent in all these arrangements, nullified in two ways the democratic instinct supposedly represented in the Reichstag. He gerrymandered its representation so that the political power still remained in the hands of the conservative agricultural classes, and he reduced the Reichstag merely to the position of a ratifying body. Indeed, the whole German Constitution does not contain anywhere the rudiments of a Parliamentary system. Tho essential of such a system is a Cabinet, appointed by the popular Parliamentary body, and removable by it. But, to begin with, the German Empire possesses no Cabinet; it has merely a Chancellor, appointed and removed at will ]>y the Kaiser, who has under his supervision the Foreign Office, other branches of Imperial administration. Far from being responsible to the people, the Chancellor is not even a member of the Reichstag. That he frequently- addresses it Tecent events have disclosed, but he does this merely as a member of the Biindesrath, one of whose privileges it is to sit with the lower body. His true position, as personal representative of the, Kaiser, is shown by the fact that he is the presiding officer of the assembly of princes—that is, the Biindesrath. . "I have said that the Kaiser, as Kaiser, possesses no great power, that he is merely a kind of imperial president. In reality, the Kaiser possesses enormous power; indeed, he practically dominates tho whole German Empire. Contradictory as this seems, it is not really so; the point is that the Gorman Kaiser and the King of Prussia happen to be one and the 'same person. The Biindesrath, as I have already said, practically controls the German Empire; and the King of Prussia practically controls ths Biindesrath; herein we have the whole German Empire in a nutshell. We must remember that Prus«=n is not only the largest German State, but that it is larger than all the rest combined; its population is 40,000.000, whereas the next largest kingdom, Bavaria, has only 6,900,000. Omtside of Prussia there is not a single. German State as populous as our own New York, and the great majority have populations that are insignificant compared with the average American State. The smallest of them, Schaumburg-Lippe, shelters only '10,000 souls, and, 4 n general, a population of 100,000 is quite a respectable showing for the minor subdivisions of the German Empire. Quite naturally, therefore, Prussia overshadows them all in the management of Imporial affairs. The

constitution provides that the King ot Prussia shall be German Emperor—that is his first and one of his greatest perogalives. "It Rives him outright 17 of the 58 delegates to the Bundesrath; as lie controls Waldeek and Brunswick, he has three besides, so that William's actual voting stiength is 20—only"ten votes short of a .numerical majority. In the management of Americin railroads and other large corporations a large compact minority suffices to control, and this rule similarly prevails in the German Empire. A unique provision of the Constitution stipulates that fourteen votes in the Bundssrath can defeat any proposed; amendment, and since the Kin? of Prussia controls .20, he can evidently block any attempt to change the existingregime The Constitution also provide? that Prussia caji veto all proposals to change the Army, the Navy, and the Customs laws. Prussia, by the constitution, has the chairmanship of all the committees except that on foreign all, the Kaiser, as King of Prussia, possesses the initiative in legislation, «ince he can instruct his Chancellor to prepare laws for introduction to the Bundesrath. For Pmssia itself is the. realitv. Herein we haw the historic vital state;" and it is not until -we examine Prussian institutions that we clearly understand the extent to -which the autocratic idea prevails in Germany. I« Prussia certainly divinity does surround the King. When its megalomaniac monarch exclaims, There is but one master here and that am I.'"