Volkskammer

“ It provided for the election of a National President, to serve until his successor could be elected at a general election, and for the appointment of a Minister-President and various ministers of state. The constitution created a so-called Committee of State, to be named by the various state governments and to occupy the position of a Second Chamber, and empowered the assembly to enact "such national laws as are urgently necessary," particularly revenue and appropriation measures. ”

“ In the Palatinate the people seized the Bavarian Government officials, and the public moneys, and instituted a Committee of Defence, which placed the province under the protection of the National Assembly. In Würtemberg the people forced the King to acknowledge the Imperial Constitution, and in Baden the army, united with the people, forced the Grand Duke to flight, and erected a Provincial Government. In other parts of Germany the people only awaited a decisive signal from the National Assembly to rise in arms and place themselves at its disposal. ”

“ Instead of opposing reforms undertaken on the basis of existing institutions, as it once was accustomed to do, in the hope of bringing about the establishment of a socialistic state by one grand coup, it labors for such reforms as are adjudged attainable and contents itself with recurring only occasionally and incidentally to its ultimate ideal. The supreme governing authority of the party is a congress composed of six delegates from each electoral district of the Empire, the socialist members of the Reichstag, and the members of the party's executive committee. ”

“ Each local deputation which petitioned for the recognition of the German constitution, which was the universal cry, was refused an audience by the government, and this with a peremptoriness which at last became startling. I was present one afternoon at a committee meeting of the Vaterlands-Verein, although merely as a representative of Röckel’s Volksblatt, for whose continuance, both from economic as well as humane motives, I felt pledged. Here I was at once absorbed in watching the conduct and demeanour of the men whom popular favour had raised to the leadership of such unions. ”

“ In the constitution of the new empire two legislative bodies were provided for, the Bundesrath or Federal Council, whose members are annually appointed by the respective state governments, and the Reichstag or Representative body, whose members are elected by universal suffrage for a period of three years, an annual session being required. Germany, therefore, in its present organization, is practically a federal union of states, each with its own powers of internal government, and with a common legislature approximating to our Senate and House of Representatives. ”

“ Within Parliament it is the Chamber of Deputies that preponderates. Aside from the king and ministry, it alone enjoys the power of initiating legislation; and the opposition with which the Chamber of Magnates may be disposed to meet its measures invariably melts away after a show of opinion has been made. By a simple majority vote in the lower chamber a minister may be impeached for bribery, negligence, or any act detrimental to the independence of the country, the constitution, individual liberty, or property rights. ”

“ All who were ever present at the meetings of the council must know with what zeal the cause of the citizens was there defended. A committee of the Council of State received all the petitions of the Empire, and laid before the Sovereign those which deserved his attention.
With the exception of lawyers and persons employed in the administration, it is surprising how far the rest of society were ignorant of our political legislation. No one had a correct idea of the Council of State, of the Legislative Body, or of the Senate. ”

“ For the immediate formation of the cabinets in the Empire and in Prussia, the questions of individual appointments will be decided by the political parties in agreement with the organizations of workers, salaried employés and civil servants taking part in the general strike, and a decisive influence will be accorded to these organizations in the new policies of economic and social legislation, all with the view of safeguarding the rights of popular representation. ”

“ The President shall exercise powers of discipline and police within the Reichstag building. The administration of the building is under his control; he has control over the income and. expenditures for the building within the limits laid down by the national budget, and he represents the Reich in all legal business and legal actions involved in his administration of the building.
Article 29. The sittings of the Reichstag shall be public. On the demand of fifty deputies the public may be excluded by a two-thirds majority vote. ”

“ In a democracy only the parliament elected by the whole people should decide; only it could appoint [96] the Government and it was responsible for its decisions and nominations only to the people of the nation themselves. As for vocational associations, their function is to defend only the corporate interests of their members and they had no right to encroach on the political domain. In the events of March-April, 1920, the unions, leaving their vocational domain, revealed themselves the real masters of Parliament and of the Cabinet, which had to submit to their injunctions. ”

“ ARTICLE 17 Every State must have a republican constitution. The representatives of the People must be elected by the universal, equal, direct and secret suffrage of all German citizens, both men and women, according to the principles of proportional representation. The State Cabinet shall require the confidence of the representatives of the People. ”

“ Protected against the Cabinet, against insurrections, and against individuals who have designs on their independence, the deputies of the Reichstag can and must organize themselves in such a way as to assure for their labours maximum efficiency. It is imperative that the majority shall be able to impose its will without thereby sacrificing the rights of the minority. To this effect Article 26 provides, “The National Assembly chooses its President, Vice-President, and its Secretaries. It regulates its own procedure.” ”

“ If the chancellorship is without a counterpart among modern governments, no less so is the Federal Council, or Bundesrath. No feature of the German political system is more extraordinary; none, as one writer has observed, is more thoroughly native. [316] It is not an "upper house," nor even, in the ordinary sense, a deliberative chamber at all. On the contrary, it is the central institution of the whole Imperial system, and as such it is possessed of a broad combination of functions which are not only legislative, but administrative, consultative, judicial, and diplomatic. ”

“ Politically the Councils system unites in the same organism both parliament and administration, thus rendering possible that constant control of administration which the parliamentary régime is incapable of exercising, and maintaining a permanent supervision of the elected by the electors. Economically the Councils watch over the execution of socialization measures; later they become the regulators of production and consumption.
To this duality of functions there corresponds a double organization. The political system rests on Workers Councils properly so called (Arbeiterräte) ”

“ No division of competence between the two parliaments [90] in such a way that only social and economic questions shall be submitted to the Chamber of Labour can be admitted. This distinction between political affairs and economic affairs is a pure impossibility, for economy, politics and general culture form a unity which must be respected. It is on production, on “creation” that the existence of the people and all its material and intellectual life rests. The two parliaments therefore should have equal power to study these questions. They must also have equal rights. ”

“ The German workmen were ready to admit to equality anyone with any industrial productive status, who was not in the service of declared enemies of the Councils—such as the captains of industry or the Coalition Government. And so important is this suffrage question as a gauge of the liberality of the Council movement in Germany and of its distinction from Bolshevism, that I append as a footnote the regulation of the Berlin Executive Council, published previous to the Convention of the second Congress of Councils. ”

“ The National Economic Council consists of the union of the National Workers Council with the corresponding representatives of the employers and other “interested classes of the population.” The Constitution does not state precisely what is to be understood by this last expression. In the Constitutional Committee it was unanimously agreed that the consumers shall be particularly represented in the Economic Councils. The creation of these Councils is obligatory and legislators are bound by the Constitution to enact the necessary laws to this effect. ”

“ No coloured persons or bastards shall be admitted into our Assemblies. In like manner no military officer or official of the State, who draws a fixed annual or monthly salary, shall be eligible as member of the Volksraad. ARTICLE 29. The members of the Volksraad are elected by a majority of votes from among the electors of each district. No one shall be considered as elected who has not obtained at least sixty votes. Everyone who is born in the country and has attained the age of twenty-one years, or has become naturalized, shall be a burgher qualified to vote. ”

“ The Volksraad shall consist of at least twelve members, who must possess the following qualifications:-They must have attained the age of thirty years, and be born in the Republic, or have for fifteen consecutive years been burghers entitled to vote, be members of a Protestant Church, reside, and possess immovable property, in the Republic. No persons of notoriously bad character, or who have had a dishonouring sentence pronounced against them, and no uncertified or unrehabilitated insolvents shall be eligible. ”

“ But even so protected, the Government feel that in the ultimate issue in a conflict between the two Chambers, the first and representative Chamber must prevail. The other body may review and may suspend, but for the case of measures sent up in successive sessions from the representative Chamber on which no agreement can be reached, we have introduced the machinery which appears in the Constitution of the Australian Commonwealth, that both Chambers shall [64] sit together, debate together, vote together, and the majority shall decide. ”

“ The National Council is not a committee of private individuals, and the Vienna protest itself proves that, for such an official declaration would not be issued against a committee of private individuals. In reality the National Council is the organ of the entire Czecho-Slovak people, and it worked and proceeded in accordance with the plans and desires of the national leaders at home, who in numerous declarations adopted and approved the policy of the National Council abroad. ”

“ The Government consisted of Commissioners—a sort of inner Cabinet, an Executive Council—a sort of Ministry, and an Assembly of Councils—the Legislature. The first was Bolshevist, in general standpoint, the second Independent Socialist and Moderate Communist, the third predominantly Moderate Socialist. The Commissioners, especially the Russians, did not enjoy the confidence of the Assembly, still less of the garrison. I believe that they would soon have been replaced by a Socialist régime, but for the military action of Prussia and Würtemberg. ”

“ Powers of Legislation.—By reason of the pivotal position which the Bundesrath occupies in the German constitutional system the functions of the body are fundamental and its powers comprehensive. Its competence is in the main legislative and fiscal, but also in part executive and judicial. By the constitution it is stipulated that the legislative power of the Empire shall be exercised by the Bundesrath and the Reichstag, and that a majority of the votes of both bodies shall be necessary and sufficient for the enactment of a law. ”

“ The Chamber is far from having its full share in public affairs; the ministers are less for France than they are for the crown, and parliament has determined that the administration shall have, as in England, a strength and power of its own, and not a mere borrowed power. ”

“ For the success of these institutions, we must suppose a sufficiently firm political education and intelligence, a public that knows its wishes and how to make them prevail, a Parliament and a Cabinet skilled in recognizing the wishes of the nation and ready to submit to them. Because of the mistrust of parliamentarism, it has been decided that the President shall be elected directly by the people. He is endowed with power by the nation and placed near to the Reichstag in order to control it. ”

“ The possibility of new revolutionary action on a large scale had therefore grown very much less. Under these circumstances the national parliament could indeed issue its ordinances and have them proclaimed through the national executive, but the governments of the several German states felt that they need not pay much more attention to them than they pleased. And yet, the parliament had still its principal task before it: to complete the constitution of the German empire, to introduce it practically, and thereby to satisfy the great national want of the German people. ”

“ In every modern State there is a Council formed of the heads of different administrative departments; this was so universal that it was supposed to be essential to a constitution. In the German Empire we search for it in vain; there is only one responsible Minister, and he is the Chancellor, the representative of Prussia and Chairman of the Council. ”