The New German Constitution

by René Brunet

When the necessary agreements are concluded, the Ministry appears before the Reichstag. It reads its declaration and programme and a grand political discussion commences. But the programme having been in advance submitted to the groups, sometimes even corrected and redrawn at inter-group meetings, the Ministry is sure of a majority and the discourses are only manifestos by which each party explains why it is for or against the Ministry.

(2) Parliamentary government, in practice, may take one of two different forms: government by the Cabinet or government by the Assembly. In a government by a Cabinet, it is the Council of Ministers that governs and it is they who give the direction of general policy. It is the guide and the superior of the Assembly whose confidence supports it. On the other hand, one calls it government by the Assembly when the Ministry is limited to executing the decisions of the Parliament and to following the initiative of the latter.

In Germany, while it cannot be said that the Reichstag exercises considerable authority over them, it seems that the Ministers take little initiative and that they content themselves most often with following the direction given them by the Assembly. It is the agreement that prevailed at the formation of the Cabinet that continues as a policy. The Ministers are either the presidents of the respective political groups, or else have been nominated by these groups. How, therefore, can they be completely independent? There are here some factors analogous to what one called in France “the bloc of the Left” under Minister Combes. All the important measures are first discussed between the government and the groups and the Ministry does not act except in agreement with the groups of the majority. Instead of placing itself at the head of the majority and assuming the responsibility for the measures which it feels necessary to take, the Cabinet comes to an understanding with it. Perhaps it cannot be said that it follows the directions given it by the majority. But it does not act, in any event, unless it is first assured of the majority’s support. Perhaps, also, in the critical circumstances which Germany is traversing and given the manner in which its groups are organized, it is impossible to do otherwise. The head of a Cabinet appointed by the chief of the executive power on a programme given him for the realization of this programme, may act with independence, if this programme creates its own majority. Even if it cannot command a stable majority, it can lean on some of the minority groups and, according to circumstances, may create different majorities. There are acts which no one can criticize and there are successes which nullify opposition. But such is not the case in Germany, where the Ministry has to abide by the contract which prevailed at its organization.

(3) The preceding remarks suffice to explain the following fact: since the establishment of the parliamentary régime in Germany no Ministry has ever been overturned by the Reichstag. How can it be, if it conforms to the condition of its agreement and if, before each hazardous decision, it assures itself the approval of the majority? On the other hand, if it cannot obtain this approval, or if it does not want to accept the policy desired by the majority groups, why should it go before the Assembly and engage in a battle lost in advance? It resigns.

The Ministry, therefore, is never overthrown; it retreats, or more correctly, it does not retreat, but changes. The number of men available for a Ministry is very limited and the groups present almost always the same men. There is in advance a certain knowledge as to who the men are who will enter a Cabinet as soon as one knows what groups will participate in the formation. Further, the possibilities of combinations within a given Chamber are limited enough. From the beginning of February, 1919, only four groups have participated in power, of these the People’s Party participated only after June, 1920. It is inevitable, therefore, that in each new combination there remain at least two groups which already belonged to the preceding one. Quite naturally these groups leave, without exception, the same men in power. Why change? An important part of the preceding Ministry, therefore, is maintained in each new Ministry.

In June, 1919, Scheidemann’s Cabinet, which consisted of Social Democrats, Democrats and members of the Centre, was replaced by Bauer’s Cabinet, in which only the Centre and the Social Democrats entered. The members of these two groups which were in the Scheidemann Cabinet remained in the Bauer Cabinet and it was sufficient to replace with members of these two groups the vacancies left by Scheidemann and the Democrats. In March, 1920, Bauer’s Cabinet, into which the Democrats entered in October, 1919, attempted a new change after the coup d’état of Kapp. Conferences took place, in which took part the President of the Reich, the Ministers and representatives of parties, in which was discussed the question as to which Ministers should remain and which must go.

The more the discussion was prolonged, the greater grew the number of Ministers to remain. But the unions intervened and demanded the resignation of the whole Cabinet. Bauer acceded. Nevertheless the Cabinet, which was thereupon constituted by Hermann Müller, retained several members of the preceding Cabinet, notably Hermann Müller himself, who from Minister of Foreign Affairs became Chancellor, and Bauer, who from Chancellor became Minister of the Treasury. The same procedure took place in the constitution of the Fehrenbach Cabinet. It was expected that a Ministry coming after elections that expressed a considerable change in the political situation, and after the Social Democrats withdrew from power and the People’s Party arrived, would translate this change by a more profound modification than usual of the Cabinet. But out of thirteen members five had been members of the preceding Cabinet.

It does not seem, therefore, that the attempt made by the Constitution to regulate as precisely as it may be done the functioning of the government of the Cabinet has had up to now any appreciable effect on the practice of parliamentarism. Germany begins at a point that other countries, in which parliamentary government has operated for years, have hardly attained, if they have at all attained it. A concentrated Cabinet, a Cabinet of republican defence, a Cabinet of transition, a bloc of the Centre—are these accidental deformities of the parliamentary régime, or are they forms toward which it must necessarily tend? We are told in Germany that these practices, obviously little compatible with the conception of parliamentarism or with the regulations provided in their Constitution, are to be explained by the state of revolution in which the country still finds itself; and that they will disappear if some day Germany recovers its equilibrium, and make place for a correct and complete application of constitutional rule.