The Governments of Europe

by Frederic Austin Ogg

273. Subsidiary Executive Bodies.—Two other executive organs possess considerable importance. These are the Oberrechnungskammer, or Supreme Chamber of Accounts, and the Volkswirthschaftsrath, or Economic Council. The Oberrechnungskammer has existed continuously since 1714. Its function is the oversight and revision of the finances of the departments, the administration of the state debt, and the acquisition and disposal of state property. Its president is appointed by the crown, on nomination of the Staats-Ministerium. Its remaining members are designated by the crown on nomination of its own president, countersigned by the president of the Staats-Ministerium. All enjoy the tenure and the immunities of judges, and the body collectively is responsible, not to the Ministry of State, but to the crown immediately. In status and function it resembles somewhat closely the French Cour des Comptes. The same group of men, with additional members appointed by the Bundesrath, serves as the Chamber of Accounts of the Empire. The Volkswirthschaftsrath consists of seventy-five members named by the king for a term of five years. Its business is to give preliminary consideration to measures vitally affecting large economic interests, to determine what should be Prussia's position in the Bundesrath upon these measures, and to recommend to the crown definite courses of action regarding them. Its function is purely consultative.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PRUSSIAN LANDTAG—LOCAL GOVERNMENT

I. Composition of the Landtag

274. The House of Lords: Law of 1853.—Legislative authority in the kingdom of Prussia is shared by the king with a national assembly, the Landtag, composed of two chambers, of which the upper is known as the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, and the lower as the Abgeordnetenhaus, or House of Representatives. Under the original provisions of the constitution, the House of Lords was composed of (1) adult princes of the royal family; (2) heads of Prussian houses deriving directly from the earlier Empire; (3) heads of families designated by royal ordinance, with regard to rights of primogeniture and lineal descent; (4) 90 members chosen by the principal taxpayers of the kingdom; and (5) 30 members elected by the municipal councils of the larger towns. By law of May 7, 1853, this arrangement was set aside and in its stead it was enacted that the chamber should be made up entirely of persons appointed by the crown in heredity or for life; and, on the authorization of this measure, there was promulgated, October 12, 1854, a royal ordinance by which the composition of the body was fixed substantially as it is to-day. The act of 1853 forbids that the system thus brought into operation be further modified, save with the assent of the Landtag; but this does not alter the fact that the present composition of the Prussian upper house is determined, not by the constitution of the kingdom, but by royal ordinance authorized by legislative enactment.

275. The House of Lords To-day.—The component elements of the House of Lords to-day are: (1) princes of the royal family who are of age; (2) scions of the Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, and sixteen other once sovereign families of Prussia; (3) heads of the territorial nobility created by the king, and numbering some fifty members; (4) a number of life peers, chosen by the king from among wealthy landowners, great manufacturers, and men of renown; (5) eight titled noblemen appointed by the king on the nomination of the resident landowners of the eight older provinces of the kingdom; (6) representatives of the universities, of religious bodies, and of towns of over 50,000 inhabitants, presented by these various organizations respectively, but appointed ultimately by the king; and (7) an indefinite number of members, chosen by the king for life on any ground whatsoever, and under no restriction except that peers must have attained the age of thirty years.

The composition of the chamber is thus extremely complex. There are members ex-officio, members by royal appointment, members by hereditary right. But the appointing power of the crown is so comprehensive that the body partakes largely of the character of a royal creation. Its membership is recruited almost exclusively from the rigidly conservative landowning aristocracy, so that in attitude and policy it is apt to be in no degree representative of the mass of the nation, at least of the industrial classes. As a rule, though not invariably, it is ready to support cordially the measures of the crown. In any event, through exercise of the unrestricted power of creating peers, the crown is in a position at all times to control its acts. The number of members varies, but is ordinarily about 300.[380]

276. The House of Representatives.—The Abgeordnetenhaus, or House of Representatives, consists of 443 members—362 for the old kingdom, 80 added in 1867 to represent the newly acquired provinces, and one added in 1876 to represent Lauenburg. Representatives are elected for a five-year term, and every Prussian is eligible who has completed his thirtieth year, who has paid taxes to the state during as much as three years, and whose civil rights have not been impaired by judicial sentence. Every Prussian who has attained his twenty-fifth year, and who is qualified to vote in the municipal elections of his place of domicile, is entitled to participate in the choice of a deputy. At first glance the Prussian franchise appears distinctly liberal. It is so, however, only in the sense that comparatively few adult males are excluded from the exercise of it. In its actual workings it is one of the most undemocratic in Europe.

277. The Electoral System.—Representatives are chosen in electoral districts, each of which returns from one to three members—as a rule, two. There has been no general redistribution of seats since 1860 (although some changes were made in 1906), so that in many districts, especially in the urban centers whose growth has fallen largely within the past fifty years, the quota of representatives is grossly disproportioned to population. Until 1906 the entire city of Berlin returned but nine members, and its quota now is only twelve.[381] The enfranchised inhabitants of the district do not, moreover, vote for a representative directly. The essential characteristics of the Prussian electoral system are, first, that the suffrage is indirect, and, second, that it is unequal. The precise method by which a representative is elected[382] may be indicated as follows: (1) each circle, or district, is divided into a number of Urwahlbezirke, or sub-districts; (2) in each Urwahlbezirk one Wahlman, or elector, is allotted to every 250 inhabitants; (3) for the choosing of these Wahlmänner the voters of the sub-district are divided into three classes, arranged in such a fashion that the first class will be composed of the payers of direct taxes, beginning with the largest contributors, who collectively pay one-third of the tax-quota of the sub-district, the second class will include the payers next in importance who as a group pay the second third, and the last class will comprise the remainder; (4) each of these classes chooses, by absolute majority, one-third of the electors to which the Urwahlbezirk is entitled; finally (5) all the electors thus chosen in the various Urwahlbezirke of the district come together as an electoral college and choose, by absolute majority, a representative to sit in the Abgeordnetenhaus at Berlin.[383]

278. Origins and Operation of the System.—The principal features of this unique system were devised as a compromise between a thoroughgoing democracy based on universal suffrage and a government exclusively by the landholding aristocracy. The three-class arrangement originated in the Rhine Province where, by the local government code of 1845, it was put in operation in the elections of the municipalities. In the constitution of 1850 it was adopted for use in the national elections, and in subsequent years it was extended to municipal elections in virtually all parts of the kingdom, so that it came to be a characteristic and well-nigh universal Prussian institution. It need hardly be pointed out that the scheme throws the bulk of political power, whether in municipality or in nation, into the hands of the men of wealth. In not fewer than 2,214 Urwahlbezirke a third of the direct taxes is paid by a single individual, who therefore comprises alone the first electoral class; and in 1703 precincts the first class consists of but two persons. In most cases the number of the least considerable taxpayers who in the aggregate pay the last third of the tax-quota is relatively large. Taking the kingdom as a whole, it was estimated in 1907 that approximately three per cent of the electorate belonged to the first class, about 9.5 per cent to the second, and the remaining 87.5 to the third. In the individual precinct, as in the nation at large, the little group at the top, however, possesses precisely as much political weight as the large group at the bottom, because it is entitled to choose an equal number of Wahlmänner. The result is a segregation of classes which, whatever its merits at certain points, is of very questionable utility as a basis of government.