THE GERMAN CONSTITUTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1730, 15 September 1917, Page 4

THE GERMAN CONSTITUTION.

The future development of the Gorman Constitution was recently discussed in the Berlin Tageblatt by Prince Licbnowsky, the German Ambassador in London until the outbreak of war. He declared that the time has now passed for the destinies of Germany to be in the hands of one. man, who may not even be first-class, aid whose power is so” great that he can make peace or war on his own account. Some people who wish for a continuance of the present system may contend that in the end ho is controlled by the Emperor, but Prince Liehnowsky argues that the Emperor is far more eontitutional than is commonly supposed, and adds that in the course of long experience at the Foreign Office and in the Diplomatic Service, apart from a few impulsive telegrams, he has never known the Emperor act independently of his Chancellor, or against his advice. The fact, therefore, remains that the Chancellor practically governs alone. This is additionally proved by the fact that if his decision is wrong, he alone, and not the Sovereign, bears the blame, and has to resign. The writer then points to the advantages of contsitutional government by the Throne, Ministers, and the people’s representatives acting with each other, and declares that a change to this effect in Germany is imperative, and will come whether or no.. Prince Lichnowsky says that this deraoeratisation of Germany will necessarily alter existing relations between the empire and the federated States, and that the latter will have to give up some of their privileges, just as every citizen will have to relinquish something in favour of the new order. ‘‘They may not like it,” he says, “but they will have to lump it, and the empire will have power to compel, them, as one-third of the national fortune is by now mortgaged to it. The empire to-day is something more than a ‘perpetual alliance of sovereign States,” Nothing in political life remains stationary, and the empire must either develop to its full extent or the country will fall to pieces, as in 1800.”'