of a system which, because of its decentralized and inefficient form, has long since proved itself inadequate for performing municipal functions. Whatever may be the future municipal system in the United States, we may reasonably predict that it will at least contain the fundamental principle of the commission plan, namely, a centralization of administrative power and responsibility. TENDENCIES TOWARD MINISTERIAL RESPONSI BILITY IN GERMANY WALTER J. SHEPARD Ohio State University When asked, "How far do you regard the present constitutional system of the Empire final?" Bismarck is said to have replied, "Final it is not. Doubtless we shall pass through the stages which you in England have passed through. But it will be a slow, gradual process, and we cannot foresee the direction. which development will take." That judgment expresses a strong belief in the evolution of constitutional government,an evolution, moreover, which in general must follow the course of English political development, but which will doubtless unfold very slowly and reflect in its details the influences of special circumstances and local tendencies. To the general propositions which the I. on Chancellor stated, the student of comparative political institutions must give assent. Ever more clearly are we coming to see that the changes in the forms and organization of governments follow an orderly, developmental sequence. The belated evolution of parliamentary government in Germany is entirely explicable from the peculiar centrifugal forces which prevented absolutism, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from accomplishing its great mission of national unity. That work was left to the nineteenth century. The results of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era were; first, the widespread acceptance of the most advanced doctrines of constitutionalism and the adoption, in most of the smaller states of Germany, of constitutions more or less closely modeled on the French Charte; and, second, the dissemination of the idea of German national unity as the only secure protection against foreign aggression. Though urged together as concomitant principles of the Liberal cause, these two dynamic ideas were essentially incompatible. The nature of constitutionalism, culminating as it does in democracy, is dispersive, centrifugal, disintegrative. Unification could only be accomplished by the absolutist agencies of iron and blood. The priority between these two movements belonged logically to that for national unity. The constitutional propaganda undoubtedly interferred with, and probably somewhat delayed, the achievement of a united Germany; but the dominant note throughout the period from Jena to Sedan was national unity. This movement has left a heritage of crass materialism, a worship of force, which constitutes one of the striking characteristics of present-day Germany. The remarkable transformation in the nation's Weltanschauung, in the Zeitgeist, since Kant and Fichte, Goethe and Schiller expressed the lofty idealism of the Germany of a century ago, must be reckoned with in any attempt to guage the strength of liberal tendencies to-day. This spirit of aggressive materialism, personified in its completest sense in Bismarck, has dominated external and internal politics, as it has all commercial and industrial activity, and has gone far toward crushing out the sentiments of liberty and freedom, of self-government and popular rights, which, for the very reason that they were in large measure doctrinaire, flourished in the philosophic atmosphere of the early nineteenth century. There is no doubt that the cult of force conduces to the strengthening of the monarchical principle. The constitutional movement of the first half of the nineteenth century, on the other hand, has very much of a fictitious character. It is essentially premature; it represents the efforts of the advanced Liberal section of opinion to force the nation into a phase of constitutional evolution for which it was not yet ready. The formal copying of the institutions of England and France had the effect merely of setting in motion powerful forces of reaction. All the fundamental laws which date from this epoch contain definite articles on ministerial responsibility, impeachment, countersignature and interpellations. They afford ample basis, so far as constitutional prescription goes, for the establishment of responsible ministerial government. They satisfied the demands of radical publicists like Rotteck, Welcker and Robert von Mohl, whose works on constitutional government were one of the principal agencies for the spread of French and English ideas. And yet up to the present moment in no state of Germany, and much less in the Empire, have ministers recognized a real or effective responsibility to anyone but the monarch. The work of national unity and the reactionary tendencies incited by the premature adoption of the outward forms of parliamentary government have checked the development of liberal institutions. But of recent years the indications of a transition to a new phase of government have become increasingly numerous and remarkable. These signs of change may be grouped into three general classes: first, the tremendous upheaval of discontent at what is called the 'personal régime' in the Empire; second, the widespread demand that an effective ministerial responsibility to the Reichstag be imposed upon the Chancellor, and the suggestions of such a change actually taking place; third, the democratization, and agitation for democratization, of the electorates in the several states. Discontent at the personal rule of the Kaiser has been occasioned by his oft-repeated assertions of divine right, by the obtrusion of his personality into every sphere of private as well as public activity, by his direct participation in elections and aggressive opposition to Social Democracy, by his flamboyant and indiscreet utterances on foreign affairs, and finally by the lack of success which has attended his efforts in personally directing Germany's foreign policy. There is no doubt that the feeling of dissatisfaction and protest at the personal régime is almost universal. No party or section of political opinion defends the Kaiser against the chidings of the nation. But it does not follow from this that the desire for parliamentary government of the English or French type is equally general. Twenty years ago the Kaiser "dropped the pilot," and has insisted ever since on steering the ship of state himself. His chancellors have been mere personal secretaries with very little power of initiative. To do the Kaiser's bidding has been their almost sole function. Having taken the helm, he has been compelled to bear the responsibility. In descending into the arena of party contests, he has forfeited the protection which the throne affords. The mystical doctrine of royal irresponsibility cannot be pleaded by him who chooses to be his own first minister. William I more wisely exercised his autocratic power through a Grand Vizier. Bismarck, in taking over the effective direction of governmental policy, was able to shield his "alter Herr" from the popular attacks and partisan hostility, to which William II has subjected himself by undertaking on every occasion the personal direction of government. The purely formal responsibility which the Chancellor has assumed for his Imperial master's acts has deceived no one. The reaction against the personal régime might have been predicted as soon as the principles governing the new reign were discerned. This protest and discontent at arbitrary personal government does not, however, imply a desire for parliamentary ministerial responsibility. It may mean, and among large sections of the people does mean, nothing more than a demand for a return to Bismarckian traditions, a restoration to the Chancellorship of the functions of a Grand Vizier. Thus far it is evident that the national revolt against the personal régime has produced no perceptible effect upon the mind of the Emperor. His latest appointment to the Chancellorship can in no wise be interpreted as indicating a willingness to return to the practice and methods of his grandfather. Whether we view Prince von Bülow's retirement as occasioned by lis defeat in the Reichstag or as the consequence of the withdrawal of Imperial favor, there is no doubt that von Bethmann-Hollweg occupies no essentially different position than his predecessor. The Kaiser, in insisting on himself playing the star rôle in every act of the political drama, condemns the rest of the caste to a dead level of mediocrity. It is difficult to say how far this refusal to listen to the loud expressions of popular disapproval may go without causing a decided increase in the demand for a more radical solution. As yet, however, the most influential section, though probably not the numerical majority, of the people are opposed to the establishment of parliamentary gov ernment. |