THE COLONIST. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1918. THE PRUSSIAN FRANCHISE.

Colonist, Volume LX, Issue 14865, 12 September 1918, Page 4

THE COLONIST. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1918. THE PRUSSIAN FRANCHISE.

The Prussian franchise question, which is represented as one of life and death to the Hohenzollern dynasty, continues to excite periodical political'crises, but is getting no nearer a solution. The "Reform" Bills are before the Upper House of tho.Diet, having passed the Lower House for the fifth time last month. The Chancellor was reported the other day to have told the Upper House that, the Government saw no possibility of approving the Bill as it was sent from the Lower House. The latter's scruples about the introduction of general equal suffrage mu,st be subordinated to the protection of the dynasty and the Crown. The fact seems to be that ilic delay of the measure is by no means due to Prussian parliamentary methods, but is dictated by ulterior motives .md is acquiesced in by the several parties each for its own reasons. "The Times," commenting on Hertling's statoment lo various deputies . lasb month that he would certainly dissolve tho Diet "if the situation is not cleared up by the winter," said it is obvious that the whole "crisis" is, at least for the present, quite artificial, that all parties concerned are playing for time, and that the main consideration with tho Government is tho possible use to which the franchise, question can still be put for

the purposes of its war policy at home and abroad.' The .Franchise Bill, after its fifth reading, i s in the same impossiblo state, as before, the Diet having maintained its substitution of plural votes' for an equal franchise, and having introduced various restrictions upon the power of Parliament—especially restrictions which guarantee the position of tho churches and non-inter-' f erence with denominational ' schools. The Government nominally insists still upon an equal franchise, but has not seriously defined its attitude, and will evidently, as already indicated, act according to circumstances —cither accepting a "compromise" or promoting a "crisis." In tho "Zukunft" of June Bth, fieri- Harden states clearly the aspects of the situation which concern the outside world. He writes, for instance: "In the summer of 1917, when the skieswore dark, one and the same anxiety gave birth to the Reichstag Peace Resolution and to the Royal promise of an equal franchise. The Reichstag resolution has been emptied of all its, contents by the treaties of Brest and Bucharest, by the campaigns in the Crimea and 011 the Don and the Dunajec, and by the claims1 to Esthonia arid Livonia, which are incompatible ' even with these treaties; tho adroit' Hcrr Erzberger, the father of the Reichstag resolution, has had to admit that the evil reputation of his child must terrify even those who are most willing'for peace. Not yet has the 'pledged word of the King' become a mere hu.sk." But Herr Harden goes on to explain that nobody has any serious convictions or ideals1, and that it- is all a matter of time and opportunity. The Ministry which in July, 1917, accepted the responsibility for /the Royal..Rescript was dismissed im-mediately-afterwards. Its successors would like to redeem the pledge, says Horr Harden, but not to pay a higher price than the war situation demands; tho situation seems to them more favourable than it was a year ago, arid they hope that next year it wiil. be more favourable still. Herr Harden observes further that with the exception, of the handful of Socialists and Poles, none of the parties in the Diet seriously want real reform. They all know that they would lose seats, and the "Radicals" know that they would hardly be able to remain a party at all, although they eagerly pretend that they are "pasionately in iove with equal franchise." None of #ie parties really want to disturb "The foundations of the ClasfcrStato Prussia," and they will none of them yet admit that the Prussian system is seriously threatened by the world-movement towards democracy.