The Cabinet of the Reich announced its intention of soon submitting a project of law which will adopt in outline the Rathenau proposition. Already the mine owners are discussing in the press the question of the “maturity” of the mines and the mode of calculating the cost of production. But above private interest there is a collective interest and the question will come up whether the system proposed by the Committee on Socialization and the Cabinet does not incur the risk of becoming more troublesome than profitable to the community itself.
CONCLUSION
We have analyzed in the preceding pages the principal provisions of the German Constitution. There are in it a great number of other provisions, which had to be omitted from this analysis deliberately, either because they also occur in all the other Constitutions of the world, such as the principle stated by [Article 102], that judges are independent—provisions which do not at all serve in characterizing the work of Weimar; or, on the other hand, because they were dictated exclusively by the necessity of solving problems created by the particular circumstances in the midst of which the Reich found itself; such as the provisions of [Article 88] and those following, dealing with the post, railroads, and navigable waterways. These provisions present only a slight interest from the general constitutional point of view.
In its final draft the Constitution of 1919 bears throughout the stamp of compromises, which had to be effected between the parties represented in the Assembly, on practically every problem attacked. On nearly every question which the Constituent Assembly had to solve, bargains were negotiated between the conflicting interests and theories of the parties opposed. If one takes these articles of the Constitution one after another, one can draw up the balance sheet of every party, and note the points on which it has won its cause and those on which it had to compromise. The Social Democrats wanted to substitute for the federal Empire a unitary State; whereas the Centre, whose co-operation was needed for the Social Democrats to remain in power, defended the federalist idea. The final result constitutes a marked victory for the Social Democrats. But on the question of the relation of Church and State, the Centre obtained a solution that is much nearer their desires than those of the Social Democrats. Sometimes problems of a non-constitutional nature were mixed into negotiations on the Constitution. It is known, for example, that the Social Democrats secured the signature of the Centre to the Treaty of Versailles only in exchange for Social Democratic consent to the compromise clauses on education.
Nevertheless the product of these negotiations and these transactions constitutes a work whose essential characteristics are clearly enough indicated, and whose bold outline seems to respond to the demands which all constitutions of this kind make.
From the point of view of legal technique the Constitution of Weimar is, on the whole, well made. Conscientiously, scientifically, the men who drew it up studied foreign Constitutions, subjected them to the most stringent criticism, tested them by the particular exigencies of the Reich and by the special character of its people. Here they imitated, there they initiated. Naturally, they were not wholly able to detach themselves from the judgments, preferences and prejudices that prevail in their country. Perhaps from the strictly German point of view it is better that it should be so. The work is strongly marked with their traits. It is logical and fine-spun, audacious, complicated and sometimes obscure, painstakingly conceived and solidly constructed.
But whatever technical merit a legal document may present, it is worth little unless it accommodates itself to the realities for which it is created, unless, too, it is strong enough to resist the thrusts directed against it and to master them. Has the Constitution of Weimar resistance enough to withstand all the inevitable assaults which will be aimed at it, and can it guarantee to the German people a well-ordered public life and a stable government?
We know the bases on which it is constructed; politically—unitarism, parliamentary democracy, the republic; economically—the participation of the working class in the management of industry, evolution toward the nationalization of the industries most important in the national life. The political institutions, under more or less different forms, have been tested by other peoples, who have not complained of them. Will these institutions, adapted as they have been, succeed equally for the German people? The economic institutions are new. What will be their worth?