And, if we carry this comparison into other political regions, we find the same result; that Prussianism and Junkerism have lost their vantage grounds and have been put under democratic control.
In Foreign Affairs the influence of Prussia was, as we have cause to know, especially fatal to Germany and to Europe. But that is now at an end. The German Constitution not only affords the usual guarantees of Parliamentary Government for a democratic foreign policy, but guards the nation against defects in those guarantees that have been found dangerous even in our own Constitution. Two innovations have for years been urged by reformers in our own country, the institution of a permanent parliamentary committee on foreign affairs, and the submission of important treaties, as well as of declaration of war, to Parliament. Had Germany had these safeguards at the time of the war there would have been no war. Had we had them then we should now have peace. Articles 35 and 45 of the German Constitution are worthy of our careful consideration.
The financial relationship between States and the Central Government is always a difficult matter to arrange. If the Federal Government is dependent on subsidies from the States, it can have no strength, nor even any real democratic basis. If the States depend on the Central Government, they have no vitality and become in time mere administrative departments. Under the old Constitution there was no clear principle, but the fiscal authority resided nominally in the States, while the Reich really by all manner of devices encroached on this autonomy. Now there is a clear general principle that the States must content themselves with such sources of revenue as are left to them by the Reich. And we certainly cannot criticise a centralisation which is indispensable to Germany in the enormous effort it must make to meet the financial obligations imposed on it by the Treaty of Versailles. Moreover, Prussia can no longer dominate Germany financially and economically as before. Prussia's economic preponderance has been greatly reduced by the loss of Lorraine, the Saar, and Silesia. In communications, too, Prussia can no longer give the lead and lay down the law to the lesser States; for communications come under federal control. Within two years railroads, posts and telegraphs and canals are transferred to the Reich.
In the region of public welfare we find that the new German Constitution is more satisfactory than might have been expected from the conditions of its genesis. It meets adequately two main requisites for progress; the formulation of the general principles inspiring the practical provisions of recent progressive legislation, and the attribution of responsibility for further legislative development of such principles. Thus, besides establishment of equality of sexes, we find such principles as that "Marriage is established on the equality of the sexes." "Families with numerous children are entitled to equitable and equalising treatment." "Motherhood is entitled to protection of and provision by the State" (Art. 19). Illegitimate children are to have "similar conditions for their corporal, spiritual and social development" (Art. 121), "Childhood is to be protected against exploitation" (Art. 122), and so forth. While all these questions are attributed to the Reichstag (Art. 7, § 7).
The same approbation can safely be accorded to the chapter on public work. The economic purpose of society is to "guarantee to all an existence proper to men." "Property has its obligations, and its use must also serve the common good." While these vœux pieux are given more definite application in provisions for housing and contributory insurance, and in recognition of "nationalisation" in Art. 156. Moreover, these principles are, to some extent, guaranteed by the previously discussed recognition of Industrial Councils in Art. 165, which provides a measure of "socialisation," and by the specific recognition of socialisation as a principle in Art. 7, § 13.
When we come to the all-important region of education, the conditions of compromise in which the Constitution took shape have prevented the establishment of any very clear principle or very cut and dried procedure. This was indeed one of the most contentious chapters of which 'clericalism' contested every inch. The Democrats and Dr. Preuss had originally introduced a uniform and secular system; but they and the Social-Democrats, in the abstention of the Independents, were unable to carry this through against the Clerical Centrum. The resultant compromise is not unlike that now prevailing in England. It may work but it satisfies nobody.
And finally coming to the army the effect of the success secured by the centralising party is even more questionable. The Revolution originally contemplated merely a militia on the Swiss model, under Federal control. The first result of reaction was to substitute a professional and highly paid force, the Frei-Corps, under Prussian command and control. The consequence of this was that the Southern States insisted on retaining their separate military systems, and these were duly recognised in the early drafts of the Constitution, to the great disgust of nationalists and militarists. But then came the proclamation of Räte-Republics in Saxony and Bavaria, and their suppression by Prussian Frei-Corps with some assistance from Würtemberg and Baden. This re-established, de facto, a military predominance of Prussia which enabled the Prussian jurists to replace military matters under the Federal Government. Art. 79 now gives complete authority to the Minister of Defence; and the special military autonomies of Bavaria and other States, reserved in previous drafts, disappear. But, so long as the Frei-Corps continue, with their Prussian organisation and officers, a Federal army is, for the present, at least, nothing else than a Prussian army. Though Noske is the Minister of Defence, not Minister of War, as he is sometimes called, and is a member of a Federal Cabinet and not, as before, a Prussian Minister, and though the Eden Hotel clique has been transferred to the Ministry of Defence—yet the armed forces of the Republic are, for the present, the armed forces of Prussia.
This is, however, a transition stage. The Prussian officer is the creation of conditions that no longer exist to-day, and the Frei-Corps a creation of conditions that will not exist to-morrow. When Germany again gets peace, Prussia will lose a predominance that it owes to past conditions, but not to the Constitution.
It is indeed in its efficiency as a bond between the past and the future that the Constitution must be judged; as a bond that will reduce revolution to rapid evolution. Dr. Preuss, its author, claims no more for it than that it will not act as a bar to any normal and natural growth. But it will have to do more than this. It must serve as a bridge by which Germany can safely pass over the immense gulf that separates the Germany of yesterday from the Germany of to-morrow; the Germany of the Courts of Potsdam and of Pumpernickel, from the Germany of the Executive Councils of Berlin and Brunswick. It is a formidable span for any bridge, and, when we look at this Constitution and find one abutment of it in Article 65 consecrating an ultra-mediæval particularism, and the other abutment in Article 165 "anchoring" the ultra-modern forms of industrial councils, we may wonder whether the intervening structure will ever stand the strain. Can the constitutional compromise of Dr. Preuss ever safely convey seventy million people from government by the divine right of princes to government by industrial representation? Even if it does not, and this Constitution is swept away by a second flood-tide of revolution, it will have served a purpose. It will have finally exorcised the constitutional incubus of northern Prussianism and southern particularism. The vague and dangerous powers of Prussian imperial sovereignty and the less dangerous but equally disabling national sovereignties of the Principalities have been swept away. Art. 11 of the Constitution establishes the Commonwealth as a Republic and assigns its sovereignty to the people.[13] Moreover, Art. 178 repeals the Constitution of 1871, while Art. 181 puts the Constitution in force on the authority of the National Assembly alone, thereby finally ending the claim put forward at first by Bavaria that it should be ratified by the Landtag.
The difference between the Constitution of 1919 and that of 1871 can indeed best be seen at a glance by comparing their preambles. Here is that of 1871. "H.M. the King of Prussia in the name of the North German Confederation, H.M. the King of Bavaria, H.M. the King of Würtemberg, H.R.H. the Grand Duke of Baden and H.R.H. the Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, for those parts of the Grand Dukedom of Hesse South of the Rhine, conclude a perpetual confederation."