Germany and the Germans from an American Point of View. Collier Price
in Germany, to hear the querulous questioning of the great deeds of this man, whose boot-legs were stiffer than the backbones of those who decry him.
What a splendid fellow he was!
“Give me the spirit that, on this life’s rough sea,
Loves to have his sails filled with a lusty wind,
Even till his sail-yards tremble and his masts do crack,
And his rapt ship run on her side so low
That she drinks water and her keel ploughs air.
There is no danger to a man that knows
What life and death is - there’s not any law
Exceeds his knowledge; neither is it lawful
That he should stoop to any other law.”
He was no worshipper of that flimsy culture which is, and has been for a hundred years, an obsession of the German. He knew, none knew better indeed, that the choicest knowledge is only mitigated ignorance. He surprised Disraeli with his mastery of English, and Napoleon with his fluency in French, both of which he had learned from his Huguenot professors. The popular man, the popular book, the popular music, picture, or play, were none of them a golden calf to him. He mastered what he needed for his work, and pretended to no enthusiasm for intellectualism as such. He knew that there is no real culture without character, and that the mere aptitude for knowing and doing without character is merely the simian cleverness that often dazzles but never does anything of importance. “Culture!” writes Henry Morley, “the aim of culture is to bring forth in their due season the fruits of the earth.” Any learning, any accomplishments, that do not serve a man to bring forth the fruits of the earth in their due season are merely mental gimcracks, flimsy toys, to admire perhaps, to play with, and to be thrown aside as useless when duty makes its sovereign demands.
Much as Germany has done for the development of the intellectual life of the world, she has suffered not a little from the superficial belief still widely held that instruction, that learning, are culture. Their Great Elector, their Frederick the Great, and their Bismarck, should have taught them the contrary by now.
The newly crowned German Emperor left Versailles on March 7th for Berlin, and on March 21st the first Diet of the new empire was opened, and began the task of adapting the constitution to the altered circumstances of the new empire.
The German Empire now consists of four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg; of six grand duchies: Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, Saxe-Weimar, Oldenburg, Meeklenburg-Strelitz, and Mecklenburg-Schwerin; of five duchies: Saxe-Meinigen, Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Brunswick, and Anhalt; of seven principalities: Schwartzburg-Sondershausen, Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt, Waldeck, Reuss (older line), Reuss (younger line), Lippe, and Schaumburg-Lippe; of three free towns: Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck; and of one imperial province: Alsace Lorraine.
The new empire is in a sense a continuation of the North German Confederation. There are 25 states, the largest, Prussia, with a population of over 40,000,000; the smallest, Schaumburg-Lippe, with a population of a little more than 46,000 and an area of 131 square miles.
The central or federal authority controls the army, navy, foreign relations, railways, main roads, canals, post and telegraph, coinage, weights and measures, copyrights, patents, and legislation over nearly the whole field of civil and criminal law, regulation of press and associations, imperial finance and customs tariffs, which are now the same throughout Germany.
Bavaria still manages her own railways, and Saxony and Würtemberg have certain privileges and exemptions. Administration is still almost entirely in the hands of the separate states.
The law is imperial, but the judges are appointed by the states, and are under its authority. The supreme court of appeal (Reichsgericht) sits at Leipsic.
The head of the executive government is the Emperor, no longer elective but hereditary, and attached to the office of the King of Prussia. Outside of Prussia he has little power in civil matters and no veto on legislation. He is commander-in-chief of the army and of the navy; foreign affairs are in his hands, and in the federal council, or Bundesrath, he exercises a mighty influence due to Prussia’s preponderating influence and voting power. There is no cabinet, just as there is no cabinet in Great Britain, that modern institution being merely a legislative fiction down to this day. The chancellor of the empire, who is also prime minister of Prussia, with several secretaries of state, is chief minister for all imperial affairs. The chancellor presides in the Bundesrath, and has the right to speak in the Reichstag, and frequently does speak there. Indeed, all his more important pronouncements are made there. The chancellor is responsible to the Emperor alone, by whom he is nominated, and not to the representatives of the people.
The federal council, or Bundesrath, or upper chamber of the empire, consists of delegates appointed by and representing the rulers of the various states. There are 58 members. Prussia has 17, Bavaria 6, Saxony 4, Würtemberg 4, Baden 3, Hessen 3, Mecklenburg-Schwerin 2, Brunswick 2, and each of the other states 1.
This body meets in Berlin, sits in secret, and the delegates have no discretion, but vote as directed by their state governments. Here it is that Prussia, and through Prussia the Emperor, dominates. This Bundesrath is the most powerful upper chamber in the world. With respect to all laws concerning the army and navy, and taxation for imperial purposes, the vote of Prussia shall decide disputes, if such vote be cast in favor of maintaining existing arrangements. In other words, Prussia is armed in the Bundesrath with a conservative veto! In declaring war and making treaties, the consent of the Bundesrath is required. The following articles also give the Bundesrath a very complete control of the Reichstag. Article 7 reads: “The Bundesrath shall take action upon (1) the measures to be proposed to the Reichstag and the resolutions passed by the same; (2) the general administrative provisions and arrangements necessary for the execution of the imperial laws, so far as no other provision is made by law; (3) the defects which may be discovered in the execution of the imperial laws or of the provisions and arrangements heretofore mentioned.”
The Reichstag, or lower house, is elected by universal suffrage in electoral districts which were originally equal, but as we have noted are far from equal now. This house has three hundred and ninety-seven members, of whom two hundred and thirty-five are from Prussia. It sits for five years, but may be dissolved by the Bundesrath with the consent of the Emperor. All members of the Bundesrath, as well as the chancellor, may speak in the Reichstag. Nor the chancellor, nor any other executive officer, is responsible to the Reichstag, nor can be removed by its vote, and the ministers of the Emperor are seldom or never chosen from this body. This Reichstag is really only nominally a portion of the governing body. It has the right to refuse to pass a bill presented by the government, but if it does so it may be summarily dismissed, as has happened several times, and another election usually provides a more amenable body.
Of the various political parties in the Reichstag we have written elsewhere. It is, perhaps, fair to say that such powerful parties as the Socialists and the Centrum must be reckoned with by the chancellor. He cannot actually trample upon them, nor can he disregard wholly their wishes in framing and in carrying through legislation. It would be going much too far in characterizing the weakness of the Reichstag to leave that impression upon the reader. None the less it remains true that it is the executive who rules and has the whip-hand, and who in a grave crisis can override the representatives of the people assembled in the Reichstag, and on more than one occasion this has been done.
It seems highly unnecessary to announce after this description of the imperial constitution that there is no such thing in Germany as democratic or representative government. But this fact cannot be proclaimed too often since in other countries it is continually assumed that this is the case. All sorts of deductions are made, all sorts of illustrations used, all sorts of legislative and social lessons taught from the example of Germany, without the smallest knowledge apparently on the part of those who make them, that Germany to-day is no more democratic than was Turkey twenty years ago.
What can be done and what is done in Germany has no possible bearing upon what can be done in America or in England. All analogies are false, all illustrations futile, all examples valueless,