[19] Art. 20.—In the first draft the Sovereign Reichstag consisted, not, as here, of the popular Chamber only, but of the Volkshaus—the popular Chamber, and the Staatenhaus—the representatives of the States. The latter, now known as the Reichsrat (see Art. 60), is no longer part of the sovereign body and has merely a suspensory veto against it (see Art. 74).
[20] Art. 25.—The President's power of dissolution was unrestricted in the early drafts.
[21] Art. 34.—This article, a late addition, constitutionalises a procedure that strengthens democracy as against bureaucracy.
[22] Art. 35.—The institution of a permanent Committee on Foreign Affairs for which our advocates of democratic diplomacy have laboured in vain for twenty years has been commented on above, see p. 253.
[23] Art. 48.—It was in virtue of the article corresponding to this in the provisional constitution that Berlin attacked and suppressed the Council Governments set up in Munich, Brunswick, Bremen, and elsewhere.
[24] Art. 55.—The Chancellor is consequently no longer the sole responsible Minister, but merely as elsewhere in democratic constitutions primus inter pares, the Premier. Moreover, he has, of course, lost his special authority from the Crown and his special association with Prussia. It would have been better in the circumstances to have dropped the title of Chancellor.
[25] Art. 60.—The Reichsrat is the much reduced remains of the Bundesrat. (See p. 252 and Arts. 1 and 20.)
[26] Art. 61.—For the importance of this restriction in respect of Prussia, see p. 251.
[27] This clause as to German Austria was objected to by the Supreme Council at Paris as contrary to Art. 80 of the Treaty of Versailles: "Germany acknowledges and will respect strictly the independence of Austria.... She agrees that this independence shall be inalienable except with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations." The exchange of notes on the subject is not worth appending, as it expresses an ephemeral phase of diplomacy and not any essential principle of international law. In so far as the German Constitution is concerned, the objection seems unimportant in view of Art. 178, par. 2.