[ [83] This is an interesting novelty as to real estate, but the principle is by no means new, being well established in patent law. Failure to exploit a patent right may lead to its loss.
"Property imposes obligations. Its enjoyment shall be at the same time a service for the common weal";
Directing the dissolution of entailed estates;
Declaring that civil servants "are servants of the whole people, not of a party."
The anti-Christian and anti-religious sentiments of the Socialists did not find as complete expression in the constitution as those parties had desired. The church is disestablished, but it retains the right to tax its members and have legal process for the collection of the taxes. The property of the church is left untouched. Subsidies formerly paid from public funds are discontinued. Sunday is protected as "a day of rest and spiritual elevation." Religious bodies may hold services in hospitals, prisons, army barracks, etc., "in so far as need for divine services and ministerial offices exists," but no person can be compelled to attend.
All these provisions are, of course, of comparatively minor importance—except that dissolving the entailed estates—and many are mere doctrinarianism, but the final section of the constitution, dealing with economic affairs, brings principles which, if the combined Socialist parties should ever succeed in getting a bare majority of the country's voters under their banner, would make possible far-reaching changes along Marxian lines. Article 153 reads:
"Property can be expropriated only for the common welfare and by legal methods. Expropriation is to be made upon just compensation, so far as a law of the Reich does not prescribe otherwise." (Italics by the author.)
Article 156 reads:
"The Reich can, by law, without prejudice to the question of compensation, with due employment of the regulations governing expropriations, transfer to the ownership of the people private economic undertakings which are adapted for socialization. It can itself participate, or cause the lands or municipalities to participate, in the administration of economic undertakings and associations, or can in other manner secure to itself a deciding influence therein.
"The Reich can also, in case of urgent necessity and in the interests of the public, consolidate by law economic undertakings and associations on the basis of self-administration, for the purpose of securing the coöperation of all creative factors of the people, employers and employees, in the administration, and of regulating production, manufacture, distribution, utilization and prices, as well as import and export, of the economic properties upon principles serving the interests of the people."
"Labor enjoys the especial protection of the Reich." gained by the revolutionary parties in framing the constitution. They not only make sweeping socialization possible, in the event of the Socialists coming into power, but also, as the italicized sentence in article 153 indicates, socialization without compensation to the former private owners.
There are still two Socialistic articles to be considered. One, article 157, says:
"Labor enjoys the especial protection of the Reich."
Die Arbeitskraft, translated above by labor, means the whole body of workmen. The provision is another bit of doctrinarianism without any particular value, but it is nevertheless at variance with the equal-rights-to-all and all-Germans-equal-before-the-law spirit that is so carefully emphasized elsewhere in the constitution. The other article calling for particular mention is No. 165, the last article of the constitution proper. This is a direct heritage of November, 1918.