In the National Assembly the speakers for the parties of the Right insisted at great length on the difference that exists between political elections and purely local elections. In the latter it was necessary above all that the elector choose men known to be familiar with local needs and competent to satisfy them. These propositions are undisputable, but the conclusion which the German Nationalists drew from them was that to be an elector in a district one must be a holder of property in it. These conclusions were rejected by the Assembly as contrary to the democratic principle, and a year’s residence was the only condition finally adopted.
2.—THE LEGISLATIVE POWER OF THE REICH.
The states are limited not only in their right to adopt whatever constitution they desire; they are also limited considerably in legislative power by that of the Reich.
I.—FUNDAMENTAL LIMITS OF POWER.
Already the Constitution of 1871 had reserved to the Reich a certain number of matters on which only it had the right to legislate. It was thus that foreign affairs, citizenship, customs, indirect taxes, railroads, post and telegraph, legislation, civil, penal and commercial, the army, the navy, the police and regulation of the press, all were included in the legislative authority of the Reich. In the memorandum submitted by Preuss in his draft of the Constitution, he insisted on the necessity of revising this division of authority. He submitted as a principle that all state functions belonging naturally to the national collectivity as such should be concentrated in the hands of the Reich more strongly, more exclusively and more clearly than in the preceding constitution. On the other hand, the autonomy and free administration of the smaller collectivities, from the communes up, would find their consummation and their most complete development in the republics, which should be constituted in united groups according to the nature of their populations and their economic structure.
In the course of this work two tendencies clashed: the necessity for the development and strengthening of the unity of the Reich; and the necessity, on the other hand, of assuring the states a sufficiently individual existence. A compromise was effected; but more than ever before perhaps the centralizing tendency was accentuated; and it has gone as far as possible without completely suppressing the reason for the existence of the states.
The authority of the Reich is more or less extended according to circumstances. It can be, to use the technical expressions employed in Germany, exclusive, concurrent, and normative.
1. The competence of the Reich is exclusive, when it alone has the right to legislate, in the respect that the states cannot pass laws on the matters touching this authority of the Reich, even if the Reich abstains from using that right. These matters are enumerated in [Article 6], which contains, as compared with the former constitution, important innovations.
The relations with foreign nations are hereafter the exclusive province of the Reich. The states lose the active and passive rights of legation, and they cannot enter into relations with foreign states except through the intermediacy of the Reich. However, [Article 78] gives them the right to conclude treaties with foreign powers on matters which belong to their own proper legislative domains, policing of the frontier problems, for example. But these treaties must secure in addition the consent of the Reich.
Another novelty is the unification of the army. In place of the former contingents there is hereafter an army of the Reich in the hands of which is concentrated all the means of defence of Germany. The army is hereafter from this point of view placed on the same basis as the navy.