The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." THURSDAY, AUG. 16th, 1917. SHAM REFORM IN GERMANY.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LX, Issue 17063, 16 August 1917, Page 4

The Wanganui Chronicle "Nulla Dies Sine Linea." THURSDAY, AUG. 16th, 1917. SHAM REFORM IN GERMANY.

The utter futility, from a democratic point of view, of the reforms foreshadowed In the first speech of the new German Chancellor, Dr Michaelis, is apparent as soon as the main features Bf the existing Imperial and Prussiaji constitutions are clearly understood. Dr Michaelis has simply adopted the policy pet forth in the Kaiser's rescript of April, promising by Royal favour to amend the Prussian franchise, and hinting at an attempt to bring about closer co-operation between Imperial Ministers and the majority of parties in the Imperial Parliament. That this does not mean anyi thing approaching to Parliamentary or " responsible" government is plain from an admirable exposition of the PrussoGerman polity given in the June number of thi> "Round Table." It was the same policy of "blood and iron" that welded the yoke of absolutism about the neck of Prussia after the convulsion of 1848, bound Germany together as a militarist empire after the war of 1870, and plunged Europe in 1914 into the present ruinous war. In his letters to King Louis of Bavaria, Bismarck showed that he regarded the empire he had created as a new "Holy Alliance" against liberty, a powerful buttress of reaction. He also confessed in his "Reflections" that universal suffrage for the Imperial Parliament was the "blackmail to the opposition" paid during the Austrian war, and he deliberately set himself to devise a constitution which should reduce to the most insignificant proportions the practical power of the Parliament so elected. Leading, controlling and dominating the German federation has been, and still is, absolutist, Prussia. The Bundcsrath or Upper Houes of the empire is an assembly of delegates not representative of the peoples, but of tho dynastic Governments of the State?. Prussia, apart from the small States utterly subservient to her, has 17 out

of the 58 votes in this.Upper House, find it is .expressly enacted in the constitution thai any amendments —including changes in the army, the navy, and- the tariff—shall be lost if 14 votes in the Bundesrath are cast against it. Thus th c Prussian Government can always prevent any alteration of the German constitution. The people's representatives can talk and criticise, *md they can refuse new taxation, but their control of the purse is very limited-, because, in practice and in accordance with the received interpretation of jurists, the Government can spend the money needed for the carrying out of existing law, even if the appropriations were refused by the Parliament. This principle is borrowed from Prussia, where the rule is laid down that the Diet (or Parliament), having no right of itself to repeal laws, cannot make them inoperative by refusing funds 'for their maintenance. Prussun Ministers, again, are wholly independent of the Prussian Parliament, whihc has no control over administration, while all laws which it may pass are subject to the very real veto of the Sovereign. Government in Prussia is distinctly "personal," and a nure change of franchise, though it might lower the political statuß of landowners and men of wealth, would have no effect upon the absolutist, monarchical system. P-russian absolutism has to enforce these its legal claims a mighty force that was lacking to the autocracy of tfte Czars. It has behind it a thoroughly organised and unquestionably obedient bureaucracy, dependent upon, and in the last resort always submissive to, the military power, which is the backbone of a despotism i more or less concealed in times of peace beneath " scraps of constitutional paper." In both Prussia and the empire I the military power is outside and above all Parliamentary control. Under the constitution, the navy is under the supreme command of the Kaiser, who determines its organisation, composition and personnel. The army, save for certain privilege_s accorded to the King of Bavaria in peace time, is [in practically the same position. Not only lias the Kaiser the right to order mobilisation against external attacks oi- in the event of an outbreak of war, but "if in any part of the Federal territory the public safety is threatened"—and he alone decides whether this condition is fulfilled—he can proclaim a state of siege (kriegzustand), in which event martial law comes into force, the civil authorities become everywhere subordinate to the military commanders, and the orders of the latter are to be executed "without it being permissible to raise the question of their legality." This "state of siege, * which handed over the whole empire to military rule, was declared a few days before the actual beginning of th e war, and ever since then the civil power has been completely under the military power. It is an absolute military dictatorship, that can be used against either the enemy without or the disaffected within the empire. Such is the Prusso-Germati polity, and nothing but the utter destruction of the elaborately constructed military machine which has been employed as the reserve defence of despotism at all times, as well as the engine of aggression abroad, can democratise Germany. As the "Round Table" states, "neither the Kaiser nor his generals nor his bureaucrats need submit to popular control as long as they can count on the obedience of the army and the mingled pride and submissiveness with which the people still regard the whole fabric of Prussian militarism."