VTHE UNIVERSITY
OF ILLINOIS
,w,on. fo. *' ,,,'. Uni ,.,,,ly.
MA
POLITICS
POLITICS
BY
HEINRICH VON TREITSCHKE
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY
BLANCHE DUGDALE & TORBEN DE BILLE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THE
RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
M.A., F.R.S., LL.D., D.C.L.
AND A FOREWORD BY
A. LAWRENCE LOWELL
PRESIDENT OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. II
NEW YORK
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1916
CONTENTS
THIRD BOOK
CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE
PAGE
XIII. FORMS OF CONSTITUTION ... 3
XIV. THEOCRACY ..... 21
XV. MONARCHY . . . . .58
XVI. EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY . . .78
XVII. CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY . . .144
XVIII. TYRANNY AND CAESARISM . . . 207
XIX. THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC . . . 226
XX. THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC . . . 273
XXL STATE CONFEDERATIONS AND FEDERATED STATES 330
XXII. THE GERMAN EMPIRE . til .358
FOURTH BOOK
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE STATE
XXIII. THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY . . 389
XXIV. THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE . . 449
v
348322
vi CONTENTS
PACK
XXV. PUBLIC ECONOMY .... 486
XXVI. ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE . . . 523
XXVII. HISTORY OF THE COMITY OF NATIONS . .561
XXVIII. INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INTERNATIONAL INTER-
COURSE . ^ f . . . . 587
INDEX 623
VOL. II
XIII
FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
WE have in this chapter to investigate the
various forms which the constitution of a State
may assume. We must, in the first instance,
eliminate that false theory of the powers of the
State which has long exercised a confusing in-
fluence on the science of government.
Aristotle says that in every State there is a
triple source of authority : TO @ov\ev6/j,evov Trepl r>v
KoivSiv, TO irepl ras dp%d<;, and TO Si/ca^ov.
This scheme, called the " triaspolitica " of the
Stagirite, was elaborated in the course of succeed-
ing centuries, and has been more particularly
adopted and distorted by modern political philo-
sophers. After the Revolution of 1688 Locke
evolved the doctrine of the division of powers.
Following in Locke's footsteps, Montesquieu dis-
tinguished three separate authorities in the State
the legislative, the judicial, and a third called
by Locke the federative.
Montesquieu describes it as that power which
deals with matters inseparable from the law of
nations : immediately afterwards he calls it out-
right the executive authority. Now the essence
3
4 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
of liberty is said to consist in the separation of
these three authorities, which must never be
united in a single grasp. This ideal was realized
for Montesquieu in the England of his day,
which in his eyes " reflected freedom as in a
mirror." Rarely has a more stupendous error
been enunciated ; beyond all question it is pre-
cisely in England that this division was not to
be found. It is indeed true that the judicial
authority was in that country comparatively
independent, and this caused Montesquieu's mis-
take. He was a scion of the old French noblesse
de robe, or hereditary magistracy, which was
able to display a certain stubbornness towards
the Crown just because it was hereditary. Ani-
mated by this spirit, Montesquieu lays special
stress upon the fact that the regular course of
justice in England could not, as in France, be
arbitrarily disturbed by means of lettres de
cachet. The power of the Crown had, however,
faded to a shadow : the House of Commons both
made the laws and controlled the policy of the
nation so completely that whoever had its
confidence necessarily became the inspirer of
England's foreign policy. In England, therefore,
the exact contrary of this much-prized division
was discernible ; and if we contemplate modern
constitutional monarchies we perceive that, wher-
ever the Kingship is vigorous, as in Prussia,
there also the division of authority is lacking.
All authority in the state is centred in the King.
Without his assent no law is valid ; in his name
justice is administered ; his instructions direct
foreign policy and internal government. And
CONSTITUTION AND ADMINISTRATION 5
yet how capricious is this division. How is it
possible to speak of a purely executive office ?
Every administration not only executes but
co-operates in the further development of legisla-
tion. As this fact came to be more and more
realized a variety of further pouvoirs were evolved,
primarily by French thinkers : a pouvoir electif
alleged to be inherent with the electorate, a
pouvoir moderateur with which Benjamin Constant
endows the King for the purpose of reconciling
the Chambers, etc. All this is merely the idle
sport of ingenuity. This whole doctrine of the
three authorities in the State and their division
is the toy of theory and playful fancy. The
essence of the State is its unity, and that State is
the best organized in which these three powers
are united in one supreme and independent
hand.
Thus this separation is equally untenable
both in theory and in practice. Far more
satisfactory than this ancient doctrine is that
which divides power into the constitutional and
administrative categories. (By constitution we
understand the totality of institutions by which
the unified will of the State is consolidated and
expressed ; the juridical character of the State,
the division of classes, distribution of offices,
and appointments, etc. Administration, on the
other hand, is the aggregate of institutions by
means of which the will of the State thus em-
bodied manifests itself in the diverse relations of
life. At first sight this is a purely theoretical
distinction. As in the realm of thought in
general, so here too we have to deal with elastic
6 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
conceptions. Many departments of State belong
to its constitutional as well as to its administra-
tive side. Whether the State is supported by
universal military service, or a mercenary army,
or a feudal army, is a constitutional question of
the first rank, for upon its solution depends the
character of the State, whereas the particular
technical questions of the military organization
are administrative matters. Again, in finance a
sharp division would be found impossible. Is
there a general liability to taxation ? Are taxes
imposed by the sole authority of the State, or
in virtue of the taxpayer's vote ? Is any person
exempt from taxation ? These are all weighty
constitutional questions. The classifying of a
tax as direct or indirect, however, falls within
the range of administration. The essence of
each separate institution must be sought : by
this process it will become apparent that the
country's army and finance belong to the ad-
ministrative half of the State.
If we take a rapid survey of the different
forms of constitution, the decisive point to
determine is where the sovereignty resides, and
in whom is the supreme and final authority
vested ? To this question also Aristotle has
supplied an answer which has been adhered to
through successive centuries. His simple teach-
ing is that authority may rest either with one
or several or many, and according to this distinc-
tion he builds up the difference between monarchy,
oligarchy, and democracy. Instead of democracy
he uses the word TroTureia. These three ideal
forms of government (6p6ol rpoTrot), each of which
ARISTOTLE AND MONTESQUIEU 7
aims at the common good, may however de-
generate, if the welfare of all be not sought and
if power be selfishly exercised in the interests of
those who wield it. When the summa voluntas
regis is directly described as such ; when it becomes
absolute, then a tyranny or despotism has arisen.
If the aristocracy governs in the interests of its
separate aspirations, so that the rule of the best
is transformed into the domination of a clique,
an oligarchy has been established. If the sove-
reign people rules only in order to procure
transient advantages for itself, then democracy
becomes corrupted into an " ochlocracy." This
word was not introduced until a later date :
Aristotle himself describes the degeneration of his
7ro\LTia as " SvjfjiOKpaTia."
This triple arrangement of Aristotle's was
further elaborated in the course of centuries. To
later generations it appeared superficial to distin-
guish between the forms of government only by
the number of those who held power. In the
search for principles Aristotle came to be amplified
by Montesquieu. But Montesquieu's comments
on the methods of differentiation between the
three forms of constitution are, after all, only
brilliant aphorisms which do not go below the
surface nor penetrate to the core of the
subject. He lays down that the principle
of monarchy is honour, that of aristocracy is
moderation, and of democracy, virtue. But why
should honour be the governing principle of
monarchy only ? It might more accurately be
asserted to be part of the essence of aristocracy
which must cling to certain positive notions of
8 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
chivalry and honour. Similarly it is inexplicable
why moderation should be the distinguishing
markf of aristocracy ; this could be said with far
more truth of democracy, which must perish if it
is not handled with cautious perspicacity. In
short, at the risk of irreverence we must openly
declare that no satisfactory result can be obtained
by attempting to define the nature of a given
form of government. If we search for the
fundamental principle underlying these forms,
we must approach the task in a political spirit.
We shall here describe as the principle of a
constitution that political idea, through the
realization of which it has been created. If we
consider monarchy in this spirit we shall perceive
that its nature is unity. Monarchy arises when
this idea emerges in tangible political form.
When it is overstrained, that is to say when the
ruler sets his individual will above that of the
State, tyranny has supplanted monarchy. In
the same way the basis of aristocracy is division
into classes. The existence of different estates
with different rights is assumed, and herein lies
the nature of pure aristocracy. If the aristocratic
conception remains vigorous and is carried into
practice with skill it may conduce to the stability
of the State : if it is carried too far, and the gulf
between the classes becomes too wide, aristocracy
degenerates and founders. The principle of
democracy is equality. The ideals and illusions
of democracy alike depend on the notion of the
equality of all that bears human form. Nothing,
however, is achieved by this ancient trinitarian
division derived from Aristotle. It brings home
ARISTOTLE'S ARGUMENT 9
to us once more that his outlook on the universe
was a narrow one and is no longer adequate for
the study of the multifarious aspects of modern
political life. One form of constitution of im-
mense power which has determined the history
of several continents through many centuries is
absent from his schedule Theocracy. Aristotle
in his Hellenic pride of race disregarded its
existence. To him the Persian monarchy as
displayed before him in Europe was a mere
corruption of Kingship. This was a radical
error. With the double exception of Phoenicia
and Carthage all Asiatic and North African states
had a constitutional form, peculiar to themselves,
alien to the free, open, and secular spirit of the
West. Oriental states as distinguished from
European can only be understood if it be
remembered that in the East the revealed word
is at the same time law and doctrine. We
therefore must place theocracy, which for cen-
turies has dominated Asiatic nations and many
aboriginal states of Africa and America, in a
category quite distinct from those already men-
tioned.
If, however, we examine these a little more
closely it would appear that the great Stagirite
is guilty even of a logical mistake. Are, then,
the three categories monarchy, aristocracy, and
democracy really co-ordinated ? After all, it
is clear that two of them are subordinate to a
third and wider notion. Monarchy stands out
in sharp contrast to democracy as well as to
aristocracy, but these two latter have something
in common and are comprehended in the jointly
10 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
applicable term of Republic. This distinction
is not like one drawn by Aristotle an external
one ; it is not based on the number only of the
ruling class. Consider England in the days of
the Commonwealth. Oliver Cromwell was the
greatest and most powerful master she has ever
had, and yet under his rule she was undoubtedly
a republic.
The nature of monarchy is not summed up in
the single fact that authority is concentrated in
one person. Contrasted with a republic, authority
rests on personal, not on delegated right. In
the course of history this or that dynasty has
risen to power and ruled by right of conquest.
In true monarchy the monarch being actually
sovereign can never subject his authority to
any other, while in a republic power is delegated.
It is delegated either by popular assemblies or
aristocratic bodies, and the chief magistrate is
then both ruler and subject. The true distinction
between the monarchical and the republican
form lies not in the fact that the former is ruled
by a sole individual, but that in a republic the
chief magistrate is both ruler and subject with
no self-derived power.
Aristotle knew few monarchies, and those not
of the most exemplary kind, while we have a very
ample experience. It may in fact be said that Aris-
totle and Hellenes in general misunderstood mon-
archy. They start with the notion that monarchy
consists in the rule of a single individual : then,
naturally inquiring how one man can be placed
so far above his fellows, they arrive at the conclu-
sion that since only a semi-divine being can be
THREE TYPES 11
superior to all other men, a republic is a more
reasonable form of government. This is Aris-
totle's view. It is simply a fundamental error.
Why, we should be no better than Byzantine
flatterers were we to say that our royal family
is superior to all other families in this country.
Neither personal excellence nor mental capacity
lies at the root of the position of the house of
Hohenzollern, but their distinguishing mark is
that they are our Kings and stand on their own
right and exercise a power which is undisputed.
Thus we discern three main types of constitu-
tional form Theocracies, Monarchies, and Re-
publics. A glance over any considerable period
or area will prove that this division of the subject
is full of promise. Classical antiquity was re-
publican in spirit, modern times have been
monarchical. Theocracy has flourished chiefly
in Asia ; in Europe this type was only represented
by the Papal States, which are an anomaly
amongst us. It will further be perceived that
in recent times the daughter states of Europe
have uniformly become republics for the reason
that their political tradition has been broken.
Modern America is in all essentials republican.
We see, then, whole periods of history, nay
whole continents ranging themselves in accord-
ance with these categories ; the division, therefore,
must be fundamental and essential. Unfortu-
nately most of our constitutional text-books treat
very casually of theocracies : they must be
more deeply studied as an expression of the
contrast between Western and Oriental genius.
If we compare our three chief constitutional
12 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
divisions we find that monarchy, by sharing some
characteristics of the other two forms, takes a
position between them. In common with theo-
cracy its power is not derived but original.
Theocracy rests its claim on an immediate and
divine commission. Similarly, while discarding
the mystical claim, monarchy appeals to the
hereditary and historical right of a dynasty,
which, once established, admits of no question.
Thus these two types are placed in opposition to
the Republic. From another point of view theo-
cracy is at variance with the republican and
monarchical form. The pious formula " By the
grace of God "in no wise implies that the
monarchy is the direct mouthpiece of God's will.
It bears no mystico-theocratic meaning, but is
intended only to convey that the authority of
the monarch stands above all earthly power.
Monarchies and republics alike embody the secular
conception of the State.
Clearly it is impossible to formulate any
ethical classification of these three types of
government. No more can be said than that
theocracy belongs to a period when men's minds
were enslaved by authority. A people cannot
become free and enlightened until the inspired
word is not held to confer at the same time the
right of compulsion. Theocracy can only flourish
in the dreary chaos which such a belief brings
into religious and political ideas, and therefore it
may fairly be described as the most immature of all
forms of government. This appears clearly when
it attempts to assert itself amongst a free people :
the grotesque nature of its claims is then obvious.
ETHICAL JUDGMENTS 13
Of this the history of the Papacy is sufficient
proof. We must, however, guard against
attempting to establish an order of precedence
based on merit as between monarchical and
republican forms of government. To set out
in search of a good constitutional form is
from a scientific point of view a confusion of
thought. The historian must be content merely
to inquire what form is most appropriate to a
given people at a given period. He will accord-
ingly acknowledge a republic to be ethically
justifiable where it satisfies the ethical require-
ments of a nation. Historians cannot without
presumption say more, even of the best constitu-
tions, than that, since the State is primarily
power, that State which gathers authority most
completely into the hand of one and there leaves
it most independent, approaches most nearly to
the ideal. On the other hand, one may say of the
Church with equal force that her ideal is republi-
can. Her power is rooted in the conscience of
the faithful ; therefore a republican constitu-
tion, which in some way or other leaves to the
individual conscience a certain scope, while
remaining itself the living voice of faith, conforms
more closely than any other to the ecclesiastical
ideal ; whereas the Church, which is based on a
monarchical pattern, deviates furthest from it.
All this can be laid down in abstracto, but a
little reflection shows that the weal of nations
rests but slightly on their form of constitution.
It must be left to journalists to glorify the
freedom of modern France. 1 Let us turn our
1 Lecture delivered January 1893.
14 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
thoughts to 1848. In that year Piedmont
enacted a statute which was almost literally
copied from Louis Philippe's charter of 1830 ;
and which is still the constitution of Italy. At
the moment when the constitution founded on
this charter perished ingloriously in France, it
was adopted in Piedmont, and in spite of faults,
has proved itself capable of survival in Italy.
In the same way our Prussian constitution is
known to have been modelled by the Rhenish
Westphalian clerical lawyers on that of the
neutral state of Belgium, and in spite of this
stupendous mistake it has been developed in
such a way that we flourish under it.
More than any other form of government
monarchy has the faculty of rejuvenating and
perfecting itself by assimilating borrowed institu-
tions : in a word monarchy is the constitutional
Proteus. This importation of foreign institutions
is indeed also possible in a theocracy. There are
theocratic monarchies as well as theocratic aristo-
cracies, and in Israel we have even an illustrious
example of a theocratic democracy. Nevertheless
the nature of theocracy is to remain fettered
owing to its limited capacity for adopting repre-
sentative institutions. A latent monarchical
power is also sometimes to be found in republics.
Thus Carthage has its family of hereditary
strategists, the Barcidi, a line of heroes
sustained by democratic forces. There is a
certain conflict between this peculiar institution
and the nature of a mercantile oligarchy, and
yet Carthage never ceased to be an oligarchical
republic. Hannibal was taught by his own
HYBRID CONSTITUTIONS 15
tragic experience how curmudgeon was the spirit
of that oligarchy which he called his native
country. Exactly the same holds good of a
monarchical office of modern times curiously
akin to that held by the Barcas. Their modern
counterpart is the House of Orange, in which the
supreme military command was practically heredi-
tary. Its career was part and parcel of the
national life, and, supported as it was by the
warlike spirit of the people, it was able to confront
the aspirations of the great mercantile families.
So long as the Stadtholdership did not actually
become hereditary, Holland remained a republic,
the power of Orange notwithstanding. And
here again we see how little the constitutional
form of a State affects the greatness of a people.
When in Holland that happened which had been
foreshadowed for three hundred years, when at
last the family of Orange achieved the royal
crown, what was the result ? The constitutional
arrangements of the modern kingdom of the
Netherlands are more logical, lucid, and con-
sistent than those of the Republic, yet who
would place modern Holland on a level with the
old glorious Republic ?
The natural faculty of all States to perfect
themselves by importing from others particular
institutions is therefore considerable, but it is a
dangerous error to correct by means of what
Leibnitz calls " a mixture " the inevitable one-
sidedness of all human endeavour. The defects
inseparable from the main constitutional types
cannot be pruned away by constructing a type
of State which is necessarily hybrid. This false
16 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
method has played a disastrous role in times of
political perplexity. Tacitus mentions a con-
stitution thus concocted from aristocratic, demo-
cratic, and monarchic elements, but adds that it
can be more easily invented than practised.
All the same there have been men who have
churned together what seemed best in a variety
of institutions, and imagined they could give
vital force to what they put down on paper.
This Ciceronian way of proceeding is mistaken
if for no other reason, because the most diverse
States are themselves composite. Rome, the
most logical aristocracy in the world, is called
by Polybius and Cicero a mixed State. If it is
conceived to be the duty of a great people to
provide the pattern Constitution for an academy
of professors, the old Holy Roman Empire
would have been the most perfect of States.
In my youth this was the generally accepted
view. It is another symptom of the notorious
muddle-headed German cosmopolitanism which,
when apparently extinct, is always reviving.
All States closely examined reveal distinctly
where their true centre of gravity lies, and
whether they are genuine monarchies or genuine
republics. A mixed State belonging to neither
kind does not exist.
Within the circle of these forms of constitution
a further contrast may be perceived, and consists
in the fact that monarchies and aristocratic
republics pursue a definite and attainable end,
while theocracies and democratic republics strive
after an unrealizable ideal. The two former
take their stand on certain actual circumstances
AIMS AND IDEALS 17
of reality, such as on the rule of a single individual
supported by some section or other of the people,
or by a whole nation determined to recognize
a particular dynasty as its own. Such rule is
not only possible, but a patent fact, just as the
rule of a plurality is both possible and legitimate.
On the other hand it is impossible, quite apart
from our Christian beliefs, to admit that the
Almighty intervenes directly in affairs of State.
The experience of centuries has taught weak
mortals that there is no direct means of ascer-
taining the divine will. Sooner or later theocracy
runs mad and overstrains its own doctrine. The
mystical edifice becomes top-heavy, whether by
oracular pronouncements or supposed inspiration
of the Holy Ghost, or whatever other lies priests
may coin. A theocratic government must by
exaggerating its own fundamental idea infallibly
aim at realizing what is beyond realization.
The same fact, unwelcome as it is in a democratic
age, holds good of democracy, for the very notion
of democracy contains a contradictio in adjecto.
All governing implies the existence of the governed,
but if all are to rule, who is to be ruled ? Pure
democracy logically carried out makes for a goal
as inconceivable as the goal of theocracy. Both
have in common the abnormal tendency to
compel an unattainable result. This may be
seen in all radical democracies. All inequalities
between individuals are to be violently levelled,
so much so that a point is reached at which
even sex distinctions are to be abrogated by
enactment. For the sake of conforming to a
principle every possible difference between
VOL. II C
18 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
human beings is to be bludgeoned out of
existence.
The sorts of constitutions we have hitherto
examined are not the only ones into which the
subject might theoretically be divided. So far
we have dealt only with such divisions as apply
to uniform States. Yet another distinction
emerges when we consider the composition of
States. It then appears we may have either the
absolutely uniform State, or one which may be
united with others. The latter is a complicated
condition of things, since the nature of a State
is unity and the various forms of union may be
highly complex. There are fundamental unions
such as Castile and Aragon, or States may be
united in a purely external way, merely by the
person of the sovereign. In this case the Allies
recognize in common nothing but the sovereign
and the enemy. So runs the accepted definition.
But there are unions where even the enemy is
not held in common. This might be said of
the union between England and Hanover. The
instance of Sweden and Norway shows that the
personal union may also take a closer form, and
it is hard to say whether this is not after all
a fundamental union, since these two countries
cannot legally separate and must have an identical
foreign policy. Constitutionally Finland is united
to Russia only by a personal tie, but owing to the
brutality of Russian methods, the reality of the
tie is different. And this relationship becomes
still more momentous when a number of States
constitute themselves into a federation. A
variety of States may form themselves into an
CATEGORIES OF STATES 19
association which is subordinate to its component
parts ; or again, sovereign States may resign their
sovereign powers to a superior central authority,
retaining only a portion of their prerogatives.
The Swiss cantons and the United States of
America may be cited as examples.
Lastly, we shall here concern ourselves with
that most striking of all evolutions a monarchy
under federal forms which is our own Empire.
There are still other conceivable categories of
States. One may proceed by the historical method
and enumerate the vast theocratic monarchies of
the East, the popular democracies of the Ancients,
and the well-defined units which constitute modern
States, but no system of constitutional history can
be evolved by this method, which is suitable only
to political history. Further, it is possible to
differentiate States according to the ideal for which
they strive. This arrangement was adopted by
Leo in his treatise on the physiology of the State,
in which he discriminates between sacerdotal
States, military States, mercantile States, etc.
This again is only the idle play of ingenuity, for
it is precisely the characteristic of Christian
nations not to identify their existence with a
single purpose to the same degree as the nations
of antiquity. An inexorable one-sidedness is a
distinguishing mark of classical mentality. Hence
Greek poets weary the modern reader by in-
cessantly repeating the a-w^poa-vvr). Carthage was
undoubtedly the mercantile State Kar e^o^v ;
not so the Netherlands, whose heroic history
flourished side by side with a brilliant, artistic,
and scientific expansion. Indeed, though con-
20 FORMS OF CONSTITUTION
temporary England is solely swayed by the
interests of her commercial policy, it would be
doing her a grave injustice to suppose that her
rich intellectual life is entirely overshadowed by
the spectre of commercialism. Sparta was with-
out doubt a warrior State, but what State in
modern times can be so described without
reserve ? Ignorant and hostile critics have often
stigmatized Prussia with the epithet of militarism,
and yet it is obvious that this conception entirely
fails to take the measure of our national life.
We will discard all these classifications in
favour of an arrangement by which our subject
is divided into Theocracies, Monarchies, Re-
publics. The next three sections will be devoted
to the closer examination of these three forms
of government.
XIV
THEOCRACY
EVERY theocracy depends upon the intermingling
of spiritual and temporal authority. In this
form of government spiritual laws are also ipso
facto secular ones, and under it, divine revelation
and the ordinances of the temporal State become
commensurate terms. Hence theocracies are as
a rule found where existence is viewed only from
an ecclesiastical angle. It is one of the glories of
the Arian race to have broken the bonds of this
most terrible of all dominations. For us divine
truth consists in tiie good tidings which make
their appeal to the heart but do not strive to
impose themselves by force as do the laws of
men. To the Oriental, on the other hand, divine
truth is a command resulting in that dismal
slough of stagnation which characterizes the
interior life of the East, and which contrasts so
markedly with the Western predisposition to
limpidity and liberty of thought.
It is very important not to disregard this
essential difference, which I have not found
adequately stated in any political text-book.
It constantly happens that Oriental monarchies
are spoken of as degenerate temporal States ;
21
22 THEOCRACY
in fact they are something essentially different,
namely, theocracies, whose potentates rule in
virtue of a spiritual right which they neither
can nor may abrogate. In all other respects,
however, their power, because derived immedi-
ately from God, is without limitations. The
conception formed of the Godhead is quite
immaterial to the nature of a theocracy. Among
the subjects of the Sultan a certain Kurdish tribe,
the Jezidi, worship Satan. Through a variety of
extraordinary interpretations of the old Persian
dualistic creed, they have preserved only the
veneration of Ahriman, and their sheikh reigns
in the name of this secret diabolical power ;
consequently they are the most profligate of men.
Nevertheless, regarded in a political light they
constitute a theocracy, that is to say, a Govern-
ment invested with supernatural authority and
protected from all secular control.
It is a presumption on the part of modern
society to forbid the State to interfere with the
liberty of conscience. In our view the State is
fully entitled to do so, although it would be
madness to attempt it amongst us ; it would
meet with such resistance that it would have
to acknowledge its own impotence. In the
East the State has been able to rest for centuries
upon the influence it exercises upon the minds
of men, because there is nowhere the trace of a
desire to assert individuality by means of rational
thought. Theorists are generally of opinion
that all men act in accordance with the
dictates of reason. No such thing occurs to
them ; millions act according to the dictates of
THE ORIENTAL MIND 23
obscure instincts, and feel perfectly content in
consequence. In such a soil theocracy is a
foregone conclusion and sure of a long life. Let
us transport ourselves in thought to the realm
of Eastern imagery which says, "A thousand
years in Thy sight are but as yesterday." This
can be said not only of Jehovah, but of the whole
Oriental outlook upon life. Any one who has
been in the East knows that the scene of Rebecca
at the well is there constantly reproduced.
Wherever the life and thought of the people is
moulded in this form, theocracy may be considered
a native growth and the securest guarantee of
order. These people require to be checked and
guided by something that can be called a divine
revelation, and are entirely lacking in the critical
bent and impetus towards action. The Turks
are an example : ask any one of them as he sits
cross-legged and smoking his chiboukh what he
is really about, he will reply, " Thou seest, I sit."
And yet we find amongst the nations of the East
a marvellous wealth of the imaginative faculty,
to which their immortal poems bear witness no
less than does the perfection of their artistic taste.
The exquisite patterns of the textiles of Kashmir
have never been surpassed by us in spite of all
our discoveries in aniline dyes.
The Oriental tendency to live in a world
of dreams while craving for an authoritative
creed, makes the further development and
immense duration of theocracies a certainty.
When a people is once imbued with this stifling
faith and stagnant outlook upon life it is
the ready prey of an obscurantist Government
24 THEOCRACY
which can count upon an authority and duration
unrivalled in secular States. The sacerdotal
States of Asia endure for hundreds and even
thousands of years. If a people feels this form
of rule to be beneficent no objection can be
raised. It remains the duty of the historian to
study such a phenomenon, even if he can only
regard it as an abnormal aspect of human
existence.
The loftier a creed is, and the more ready to
foster a spirit of inquiry, the less readily will
it lend its support to a theocratic constitution.
It is characteristic of the Christian view of
liberty to rebel against rigidity in the relations
between the subject and the State, and any
attempt to establish the direct intervention of
divine will in this world's affairs is a patent lie to
thinking minds. Lucid political thought leads
straight to the severance between temporal and
spiritual powers which is fatal to theocracy. The
Papacy is the most elaborate but also the most im-
moral of all theocracies, because it subjects peoples
destined to liberty to a yoke incompatible with
the freedom of the spirit. We may feel that
Oriental theocracies satisfy the ethical standards
of the nations over which they rule, but we cannot
extend the same generous latitude to the Papacy,
which continually makes war upon the secular
aspirations of a 'world more tolerant than itself.
A theocracy must aim at repressing the spirit
of free inquiry ; it cannot do otherwise. Lip
service at the very least must be paid to the
revelation upon which the edifice of the State
is founded. It is no easy matter to set limits to
ITS TENDENCIES 25
such coercion whose rigour will always be modified
by circumstances. Free inquiry into certain
branches of science may indeed be permitted,
although the results of unhampered research
would, strictly speaking, be found to conflict
with revealed truth. The Roman See has always
been very liberal towards mathematics and
astronomy, but will assuredly never loosen the
fetters with which it seeks to bind those branches
of science whose free development would endanger
the theocracy. In the front rank of these
scientific enemies stands history in its widest
sense, towards which the theocracy must proceed
with far greater caution than is necessary in its
attitude to natural science.
Similarly the gulf which separates the ruled
from the rulers must be immeasurable in a
theocracy whose head, as we have shown, of
necessity claims a sacrosanct character. As a
rule theocracy tends to adopt aristocratic forms :
in it the priestly caste will monopolize the
Government. It is true that in Indian mon-
archies the King belonged to the military caste,
but he was bound by the counsels of the Brahmins
who were the virtual rulers of the country.
Among the Israelites, although in modified forms,
we find an influential hereditary priesthood.
No less than these the Catholic Church has
sought by means of ingenious and plausible
contrivances, such as the celibacy of the clergy,
to turn her priesthood into a caste which isolates
it in the middle of civil society.
The aim of creating as profound a severance
as possible between priest and layman is greatly
26 THEOCRACY
promoted by the mystical rite of ordination,
which sets its irrevocable seal upon the candidate.
A further consequence of the theocratic system
is to exclude more effectually than under any
other a vigorous participation of the people in
the Government. A constitutional Pope and
a constitutional Sultan are alike anomalies. In
the early years of Pius IX. a certain benign
disposition to reform was not lacking, but was
cherished in vain. A Cardinal would cease to
be a true Prince of the Church were he bound by
lay advice.
The Teutonic knights were forbidden by the
statutes of their order to consort with laymen.
Nevertheless Henry of Plauen attempted to
bridge the cleft between the celibate knights
and the Prussians by means of a provincial
constitution, but since the final decision of every
question rested with the knights as representing
the ecclesiastical power, the ultimate alternative
to destruction was complete secularization.
It is contrary to the nature of theocracy to
change and grow with the times, because it rests
upon the immutable rock of revelation. When-
ever a free and secular spirit, an active and
critical reason, manifests itself amongst a people
governed by a theocracy, that theocracy must
choose between annihilation and radical change.
Only a people destined to dream away its
allotted course in perpetual drowsiness will per-
manently endure a theocracy. Amongst nations
capable of progress, on the other hand, an
original, indigenous form of government suited to
primitive times can often be maintained under
THE BRAHMINS 27
more enlightened conditions only by falsehood
and deceit. The whole world rings with priestly
fraud and cunning from the time of Hans and
the Roman augurs down to our own day. In
order to keep alive the dwindling faith in revela-
tion they snatch at oracles and miracles, never
yet disdained by theocracy, and a State originally
pious becomes a travesty of holy things.
Of all the ancient theocracies of the East the
most notable is the majestic sacerdotal empire of
the Brahmins, in which as a rule we find a king,
belonging by birth to the military caste, entirely
subject to Brahminical law and guided in matters
of conscience by a priestly Council. We are here
confronted with a priesthood craftily employing
the secular arm solely in support of its own
domination. Constitutional order and religious
concepts are here very closely intertwined.
The whole nation is divided into sharply-
defined castes, and any infringement of this
division is severely punished in the delinquent's
after life ; for here nourishes the theory of the
migration of souls, that most ghastly fancy ever
devised by the human brain in its most frenzied
ravings, being an eternal circle which, as a rule,
only leads the wanderer from bad to worse. A
people possessed of such beliefs is checked once
for all in its free development. Nor can it be
denied that amongst the mixed races of the
Indian peninsula stagnation soon set in ; there-
fore the advent of Buddha and the spread of his
doctrine of man's real mortality proclaimed a
genuine liberation of the spiritual life. As the
immortality of the soul preached by Jesus made
28 THEOCRACY
us free, so Buddha's teaching of the real destruc-
tion of the flesh may be said to have enlarged and
illumined the warped vision of the East. This
suffices to show what intellectual slavery over-
takes men who allow themselves to be governed
by a theocracy.
All powerful Oriental States, with the exception
of the mercantile communities of Phoenicia, were
theocracies. Appellations are immaterial, and
Pharaoh may be truly called both King and
Pontiff, although a high - priest stands at his
right hand. In Egypt we find the fetters of
theocracy so closely linked as to have annihil-
ated amongst the people the very notion of a
secular ruler. Alexander knew very well what
he was about when he represented himself
as Ammon, that horned divinity of the desert.
And Bonaparte too, when in Egypt, fully
appreciated the popular value of the saying,
" A thousand years are as a day." The legend
of Iscander or Alexander, the great Frankish
Sultan who should return after a thousand
years, was still alive among the people, and
Napoleon on landing in Egypt was able to
represent his arrival as the return of Iscander.
Thus such nations require to be ruled. No
people has seized upon the idea of a life to come
with so much energy as the Egyptians. They
were so absorbed by the glamour of a world
beyond, that the tombs of their dead kings far
surpass in splendour the palaces of their living
successors. Faith in immortality was the secret
spring of Egyptian history ; all minds were
dominated by the thought of the stupendous
BUDDHISM. JUDAISM 29
Day of Judgment. When such is the mental
attitude of a people, an exclusively priestly rule
is inevitable. In Ethiopia, on the southern
frontier of Egypt, a purely theocratic State,
Meroe, long maintained itself. There govern-
ment was under the immediate direction of the
high-priest.
Likewise in Tibet, at a later date, Buddhism
evolved the pure theocracy of the Dalai Lama,
which, in its external form, so resembles the
Papacy that the Jesuit missionaries who first
visited that country in the seventeenth century
described it in their reports as a diabolical
imitation. There they found the same vestments
and mitres, the same thuribles and clouds of
incense ; they beheld the Pontiff of the East,
the thrice-crowned priests in snow-white robes.
They were as yet unaware that most of the ritual
ceremonies of the Romish Church are of Oriental
origin.
The Hebrew theocracy is in its way the most
peculiar of any, and for two reasons. For we
find a religion superior to all its rivals through
its uncompromising monotheism, and yet without
belief in immortality. It is natural to suppose
that some doctrine of a future life would be
indispensable to a theocracy, since it gives the
priest power to curse even the departed. But
the history of Israel shows the fact to be quite
different, for it teaches us that a definite belief
in the immortality of the soul developed only at
a late period, and the promise of earthly happiness
contained in the saying " that it may be well
with thee and that thou mayest live long in the
30 THEOCRACY
land " sufficed to maintain the power of the
hierarchy. There is no parallel to this in history,
and it is also exceptional to find democratic
ideas of equality in conjunction with theocracy.
This small people, fascinated by the idea of being
the Chosen out of the multitude of the uncircum-
cised, regards itself as a nation of aristocrats ;
within its ranks, however, a strong democratic
spirit prevails, and it is only outside them that
inequality may be sought. The only privilege
tolerated within this dead level of democracy
was the right reserved to the tribe of Levi of
exercising the sacerdotal office. When the elders
of the people become estranged from the Lord
God of Sabaoth, then demagogues and prophets
arise to inspire the people with fresh zeal in
the fulfilment of their national destiny. The
prophets are only intelligible to political thought
when considered as demagogues. Another char-
acteristic sign of the spirit of Israel is solicitude
for the poor and humble, as shown, for example,
by the institution of the Sabbath. It is of
course true that the actual conditions of life in
ancient Palestine greatly diverged from the
letter of the law contained in the sacred books.
For does not the promised land belong to the
Lord God of Sabaoth who will redistribute his
own at the appointed intervals ? These legal con-
ceptions never died out, but it must be admitted
that their practical execution at the septennial
Jubilee left much to be desired.
Of all Eastern theocracies none appeals as
forcibly to us as the Jewish, but it lacked expan-
sive force ; the Israelites have never excelled
THE JEWS. THE PERSIANS 31
in foreign policy. Such diminutive States must
indeed be of small value if the State be rightly
denned as power. From time to time the
Israelites undertook wars of conquest, but with
moderate success. As surely as patriotism is
the foundation of all political greatness, so too
a people without a mother - country will be
deprived of true political genius, essential elements
of which are valour and love of hearth and home.
The bent of the modern Jewish mind is directly
antagonistic to genuine political talent, and it is
therefore nothing short of an outrage that
Jewish influence should predominate to-day in
our political press.
Of all the theocratically governed nations of
the East the most secular - minded were the
Persians, and it is exactly amongst them that we
find institutions really capable of developing.
No doubt they too regarded their king as a semi-
divinity, immeasurably exalted above all his
subjects ; but he was not invariably surrounded
by the priestly caste : the instruments of his
royal will were warriors, and the organization of
the State was so firmly knit together, that
generally its protectorate over the small Hellenic
States offered no menace to its integrity. The
government of Asia Minor by Persian satraps
may be adduced as the earliest example of
regular and methodical administration. To a
certain extent, then, the Pambasileus was a
temporal ruler, but that the theocratic concep-
tion was not extinct we in the West have good
reason to remember even to-day.
With the new dynasty of the Sassanides,
32 THEOCRACY
Persia, as we know, came into contact with the
Roman Empire. Diocletian removed the seat
of government to Byzantium and adopted the
etiquette of the Persian Court, which has been
gradually transmitted from Byzantium to the
West ; and it is only honest to admit that it
does no credit to the boasted freedom of our
Western atmosphere that we should still retain
the theocratic formulae and ceremonies of the
East. The exaggerated veneration due to a
theocratic origin which we still pay to the
majesty of the Sovereign is a deep stain upon
our monarchy. Our courts have adopted forms
and customs of social intercourse which do not
bear the stamp of a free Arian, but rather recall
the dreary monotony of Oriental slavery.
We may gauge the strength of Oriental
theocracy even at the present day by examining
the construction of a State whose institutions,
while rooted in sheer rationalism, yet retain a
theocratic outline. I refer to China. Few races
have had less religious conviction than the
Chinese. They are imbued with a dispassionate
and prosaic spirit of inquiry ; lack of tenderness
and of imagination is a fundamental mark of
this people, who are entirely absorbed by the
sordid calculations of commercial life. And yet
they are held together in the tight grip of certain
superstitious ideas. Hundreds of millions of
men regard themselves as a single family, the
elect of God, ruled over by the Son of Heaven.
The sanctity of the native soil is an idea no less
firmly rooted than these in the national conscience.
No Chinaman may be buried beyond the pale of
CHINA. JAPAN. TURKEY 33
his ancestors if a dire destiny is to be averted
from his kindred. Such a superstitious system
of thought is essential to the theocracy : that
it exists in China and that the power of the " Son
of Heaven " is quite different from that of an
ordinary monarch cannot escape the glance of a
vigilant observer.
The colossal difficulty without which no
theocracy can be transformed is illustrated for
us by the recent history of Japan. Even down
to our own time a government combining the
dual character of spiritual and temporal authority
flourished amongst this most chivalrous race,
more closely allied to us Europeans than any other
Far Eastern nation ; Mikado and Tykom were to
one another as Emperor and Pope. When about
the middle of the nineteenth century their ports
were thrown open to North American as well as
to other traders, the great upheaval began ; the
truth of the saying Sint ut sunt aut non sint
was made plain. It was not now a question of
reform but of revolution in its most aggravated
sense. Everything is changed down to the
minutest details of life : the official language,
dress, the calendar, the division of time. The
hierarchy is transformed and enters upon a new
phase.
The two most important theocracies for us at
the present day are the Ottoman Empire and
the Papacy. The former presents a curious
combination of theocratic ideas and the military
institutions of feudal monarchy. According to
constitutional theory the Sultan, in whose veins
flows the sacred blood of Osman, is the legitimate
VOL. II D
34 THEOCRACY
successor of the prophet ; no Mussulman can
entertain the notion that any race but the
Osmanli could reign over him. Even Mehemet
Ali did not aim at dethroning the Sultan, but
only at a Mayoralty of the Palace. Belief in the
special sanctity of the blood of Osman is un-
doubtedly a strong bulwark of the State.
As the Lord's Anointed the Sultan may pro-
mulgate spiritual laws, which, however, may not
conflict with the text of the Koran or its orthodox
interpretation. In that abominable book bald
judicial dicta are huddled together pell - mell
with moral precepts, and in this medley the
Oriental finds the complete subjection which
he requires. Ablutions and temperance are re-
ligious laws, and any morality except one imposed
from without is unintelligible to the Moham-
medan. When a true Mussulman is converted
to Christianity without thorough preparation, he
ceases to wash and begins to drink.
The Sultan then is also bound by the Koran ;
he has in his train the Sheikh - Ul - Islam, a
kind of confidential Pope, who may on occasion
be consulted. Doubtless he calls himself " the
humblest and most miserable of slaves," just
as the Pope of Rome styles himself " servum
servorum Dei," but in critical cases he utters
the decisive word. When the Sultan appears
to be in danger of infringing the sacred law,
the Sheikh - ul - Islam may be appealed to, and
it is notorious that his decision has often
turned the scale in the choice between peace and
war. In ordinary practice it is assumed that
the Sultan neither can nor will exceed the
ISLAM 35
strict letter of the law. This theocratic ruler
is invested in the name of the one true God
and of His prophet with the proprietorship of all
conquered territory. It is he who distributes
the scimitars and the horse - tail standard ; a
small fief, or Timar, must provide a horseman,
a larger one, or Sanjak, a whole company. This
bellicose feudal monarchy is encamped in the
midst of a multitude whose abject condition
baffles description. Conversion of the conquered
is not the primary motive of Islam : if it is
attained it is welcome; if not, conquest suffices
provisionally. In its view the universe is divided
into the realms of Islam and of war : the one
predestined to victory, the other to subjugation.
Humanitarian considerations are here irrele-
vant, the fact cannot be too much emphasized that
they emanate from a purely Christian standpoint.
The Oriental's exclusiveness and brutal hostility
to strangers is irreconcilable with the notion of
human brotherhood which is dependent upon
the belief that all men are God's children. A
Mohammedan cannot span the gulf which severs
the believer from the infidel ; to him all un-
believers are, in the words of the Koran, " swine
with the same bristles, dogs with the same tails."
In its political aspect the history of the Sultan-
ate is particularly instructive, because it reduced
tyranny and enslavement to a fine art, admired
even by Machiavelli. Undoubtedly many of the
traditional tricks of political management were
handed down to the Turks by their Byzantine
predecessors. They organized the whole Empire
on a military footing and understood to perfection
36 THEOCRACY
how to subjugate the Giaour and to rule over
the races of the Balkan Peninsula by pitting
them against each other. Their first care was
to rob the Christian population of the flower of its
youth. The strongest and handsomest Christian
boys were annually carried off to Constantinople,
and after being forcibly converted and castrated
were turned into Janissaries by a careful military
training. A host such as the Janissaries over-
flowing with the fanaticism of the soldier and
the zealot, is undeniably a powerful instru-
ment of government, and for a considerable
time they were in fact the best soldiers. They
were the Sultan's standing army at a time when
no other European sovereign had such a force
at his command.
The Giaour, on the other hand, was forbidden
to bear arms or even to mount a horse, because
it was a fundamental principle to prevent military
talent from developing in him, and even at the
present day, in spite of all the honeyed talk
about equality between Christian and Mussul-
man, no Christian serves in the Turkish army.
The circumstance that the Turkish army is
Mohammedan to a man exposes the patent
falsehoods spread by the Turkish Government
on this subject. The fact is that all the Prussian
majors we send to Turkey are employed simply
as drill sergeants, and are without real influence,
for they too are " swine " and " dogs." In old
times Christian troops were no doubt summoned
in order to protect the baggage train of the armies,
and still more to be flung in heaps into the
trenches round besieged Christian fortresses, a
ISLAM AND CIVILIZATION 37
living bridge of unbelievers for the storming
Moslem host. In this way and in no other does
the Turk understand the military duties of his
Christian brother, for his domination depends
upon the suppression of other nationalities by the
followers of Mohammed, and even more upon the
dogma common to all theocracies that God's laws
are unchanging. " Change is innovation and in-
novation the path to Hell," is written in the
Koran. All these facts are not changed because
the Sultan's weakness and the tutelage assumed
over him by European diplomacy enable them
to be hushed up.
It is to be hoped that the future will wipe
out the scandal of having such a government
on European soil. What, after all, has Turkish
rule achieved during these three hundred years ?
Nothing but destruction. Like an avalanche of
rubbish they poured over the Western world,
annihilating all they encountered. And yet no
trace of their hundred and fifty years of rule in
Hungary remains, except some ruined Christian
churches and the hot baths of Buda. We know
that theocracy is by definition incapable of de-
velopment beyond a certain point. How resplen-
dent was civilization under the Ommayades in
Spain, at Cordova and Granada, and yet at a
given moment it became rigid and was com-
pelled to yield to the comparatively rude
Christian races of the North, in whom lay the
germ of expansion peculiar to their faith. The
Turks have never developed at all, and in virtue
of their innate lazy-mindedness have always re-
mained a nation of soldiers whose courage indeed
38 THEOCRACY
we cannot but admire. It is the misfortune
of a people who sees its destiny in the achieve-
ments of a band of mounted brigands to have
been brought within the orbit of Western en-
lightenment. What are the celebrated mosques
but imitations of the Hagia Sophia ? That Chris-
tian temple has simply been copied by the
Turks. They are experts at embroidering slippers
and covering fayades of palaces with a kind of
marble lace-work, and they are past masters in
the decoration of festal apartments such as the
great halls where the harem bathes. True archi-
tecture they have none. It is astonishing with
what ingenious perversity they have transformed
St. Sophia, that exquisite building, the perfection
of whose dimensions seems to re-echo the rhythm
of ideal proportion. On entering, what a sight !
As Mecca lies in a south-south-easterly direction,
all the prayer niches have been shifted sideways
from the centre. All church furniture, all carpets
are askew and turned towards this corner : it seems
exactly as if a party of drunkards had given
everything a twist. That is the way Orientals
bungle when they meddle with Christian concerns.
It was inevitable that the hollowness of
Mohammedan rule, content with simple obedience,
should in the course of time avenge itself, and
we are to-day witnessing its gradual decay.
The first warning has been given by the physical
and mental decline of the dynasty. The Moslem
is forced to make peace, and even a humiliating
peace, with the infidel. The nineteenth century
saw the dawn of an aspiration towards Christian
ideals of civilization. We have here another
TURKISH REFORMS 39
illustration of the truth that when at last Theo-
cracy is roused from its long sleep to the necessity
of change, reform is always found impossible.
The alternatives of revolution, secularization,
and conquest alone remain. We Europeans have
learnt this lesson from the fate of the Sultan.
Since Russia is the natural enemy of Western
Europe, and the Sultan has come to regard the
Czar as his most dangerous foe, it often happens
that the Sultan is made to figure as the repre-
sentative of Liberalism. There was once a time
many centuries back when the Turkish Empire
could with some justice have been considered
democratic. For a nobility is unknown in the
Empire : before the Caliph all are equal ; it is
only collectively that the mass of the faithful
form an aristocracy as distinct from the sub-
jugated droves of the Giaour, so simple are the
class distinctions of the Ottomans. When in
the great days of Islam they went forth to
conquer and convert, it was certainly an allevia-
tion for the vanquished when they adopted the
Mohammedan religion. For it must be remem-
bered that every convert from Christianity was
released from feudal obligations. Hence in the
sixteenth century the Turks were constantly
received by the population along the Danube
with emotions similar to those with which at a
later period the Sans-culottes were greeted along
the Rhine. Thus it is clear that the Turkish
Empire at its zenith appeared as a liberating
power in contrast to the feudal rigidity of
Christian States. But there is no thraldom more
abject than that of religious slavery. Personal
40 THEOCRACY
subjection to a feudal overlord is more tolerable
than the collective subordination to which the
Mussulman condemns the Christian herd.
Our century has seen a serious attempt to
infuse European principles into the theocratic
fabric of this Oriental State. A sober historical
survey must recognize, however, that such re-
forms are merely so many steps on the road to
further decay. Since Turkey has turned Liberal,
as newspaper politicians understand that term,
she has lost province after province. The de-
struction of the Janissaries, that decisive stroke
by which reform was initiated, has proved itself
a portent. Doubtless these kidnapped and
converted Christian youths, who knew no home
but the camp fire, became in time a fierce and
dangerous Pretorian guard. Their forcible im-
pressment was carried out with a refinement of
cruelty well calculated to rob the Giaour of his
best strength. Nevertheless, as things stood,
the system, even with all its attendant horrors,
was consistent. After the massacre of the
Janissaries under the formidable Sultan Mahmud
II., the ever illusory attempt to introduce Euro-
pean conditions of life was made. The capitation
tax was abolished on paper, and the maxim laid
down likewise on paper that Christians should
serve in the army. The Sultan, however, saved
the last vestige of a reputation for political
insight by not committing the blunder of enforcing
this decree.
Still more ridiculous was the plan of establish-
ing the constitutional ideas of Western Europe
on a firm footing in Turkey, for their indispensable
TURKISH IDEAS 41
condition, which was a sense of nationality, was
lacking. The population consists not only of
Osmanlis, but of a hotch-potch of Mohammedans
and Europeans of all sorts. Turkey is incorrigible,
and will remain so in spite of all her fair promises.
To feel convinced of this, one has only to know
the habitual Turkish methods of transacting
State business, and to recall, for example, the
grotesque conditions under which the Hat-i-
Sheruf of Gulhane was promulgated in 1839.
When the Grand Signior appeared and all present
fell flat on their bellies, the court astrologer
stepped forth and proceeded to examine with his
astrolabium whether the auspicious hour had
come. As Allah graciously spoke the words,
"It is time," the reading of the edict of liberty
took place. A State capable of such proceedings
will never change, but since some of the old
martial spirit survives, and is renewed by drafts
of seasoned troops from Asia, Turkey will in all
probability remain in Europe until driven out
by force. This view was expressed fifty years
ago by Moltke, then a captain in the Turkish
service. To us it appears that this entirely
alien order of things cannot be reformed. The
famous dogs of Constantinople are the best
simile that can be found of a people mentally
inert, but grown expert in the art of governing
by centuries of experience. Those mild but
sturdy animals sleep during the day, but at night
perform spontaneously the functions of scavengers.
If, however, it is attempted to tame one of them,
he dies of a broken heart for love of his lost
freedom. So also the Turk. Under the tent
42 THEOCRACY
in the desert he was in his element. That he
has drifted into the toils of civilization is a
tragedy that can only end in his annihilation.
The Papacy towers above the theocratic
institutions of the West by the grandeur of a
development peculiar to itself. In the early
centuries of the Church, a highly centralized
power was beneficent and necessary in resisting
the crude encroachments of Arianism. Her for-
mulae and doctrines have preserved for us the
glowing ideals of a past age. The historic
development of the Papacy typifies the growth
of Christian theocracy and clearly shows how
incompatible are its intellectual restrictions with
the essential spirit of Christianity. It is distress-
ing that the greatest oracle of Christian thought
during the Middle Ages, St. Augustine, should have
employed his genius to establish upon a logical
basis the anti-Christian doctrine of the Civitas
Dei : that the Kingdom which is not of this world
is also the most glorious in the world. Among
the liberty-loving peoples of the West whose
march is towards enlightenment, such claims must
in the long run provoke universal opposition.
To secure victory the Church was compelled to
forge an imposing panoply of spiritual weapons.
The truth that Theocracy like Democracy pursues
an unattainable ideal and is conscious of this
fact, emerges with particular clearness from the
annals of the Popes. From simple Bishops they
rose little by little to be rulers of a Church
claiming universal domination. And since the
secession of the Teutonic nations, the encroach-
ments of the Papacy have been so successful
AIMS OF THE PAPACY 43
as to make it possible for its crowning achieve-
ment, the doctrine of Papal Infallibility, to rind
acceptance in our own time. A Church of which
one of her own ablest protagonists could say that
her temporal authority was as obvious as the
State of Venice must inevitably aim at theo-
cratic absolutism. Her spirit is that of authority
without condition or compromise, and she makes
the word synonymous with Papacy. If it
be assumed that all authority on earth is
from God, and that God is represented by a
man, that man must have supreme power. The
logical interdependence of these postulates is so
compelling that there is no choice between
complete surrender to them and their collective
rejection as heretical and tending to idolatry.
Any attempt to find a middle course would be
derisive ; the failure of the " German Catholics "
and of the " Old Catholics " would always recur
and should serve as a warning. It is the glory
of the Roman system to admit of only one answer :
Yes or No. All is sacrificed to external symmetry,
and the Ultramontane party is therefore not
ecclesiastical but essentially political in aim ;
its only object is to rule. One may be an
excellent clerical while rejecting all religious
belief. One of the best known leaders of the Ultra-
montanes in Baden coolly said to me, an avowed
antagonist not accustomed to the confidences of
opponents, " For my own part I have no need
of religious faith, but a final authority is necessary
in this world, and the Pope is the only possible
one."
If we consider the Church in the light of her
44 THEOCRACY
universal adaptability we must acknowledge her
unrivalled skill in the art of ruling men. The
features characteristic of theocracy become more
and more pronounced. The enforced celibacy
of the clergy goes hand in hand with Hildebrand's
victories over the Emperor. The Byzantine
bureaucracy formed the model for the admirable
classification of the hierarchy, the apex of which
was the College of Cardinals by which the Pope
must be elected. In the days of Henry III.
Popes were still made and unmade by the
Emperor ; within a short space of his death
these conditions were reversed and the Imperial
influence upon the Papal elections was entirely
eliminated.
Concurrently with these events a dogmatic
system was elaborated in the interests of priestly
domination. By the most important amongst
its tenets, the doctrine of transubstantiation,
which established the power of the priest to
create God, and his exclusive right to the cup,
the gulf between priest and people, between a
commanding and teaching Church and a hearken-
ing and obedient flock, was so magnified that it
could never again be spanned. Gregory VII.
succeeded in freeing the choice of bishops from
all trace of secular control. Celibacy and sacer-
dotal ordination formed, as it were, an impene-
trable barrier around the priesthood, which
happened to be the only professional class at a
time when all other professions were hereditary,
and therefore the ascendancy of the clergy was
immense. The Church alone offered a career
to every kind of ability ; Gregory VII. himself
THE ROMISH HIERARCHY 45
sprang from the humblest class of the people.
The feast of Corpus Christi. the greatest solemnity
in the Roman Church, is not celebrated in honour
of the Saviour but of a miracle to the Host. It
is the festival of the self-glorification of the clergy,
and displays to full view the prostration of the
laity before the ministers of the Church Militant.
In Spain the Romish system is seen in its full
luxuriance. Unlike the light-hearted Italian, the
hard and morose Spaniard is a fanatic. In
Spanish churches the clergy, seated in gorgeous
stalls, occupy the entire nave, and from time to
time a hoarse croak emerges from their midst.
The laity is relegated to the side aisles, whence
the altar is barely visible.
The interests of true monarchy were more
and more counteracted by the ever - increasing
expansion of a hierarchy which did not scruple
to use faith as the vehicle of its own power. The
issue could not be doubtful : since the Church's
claim is based on Apostolic descent from St.
Peter, it follows irresistibly that his legitimate
representative must be the sole repository of
spiritual power. This conclusion was finally
proclaimed by Pius IX., and will in all probability
be long maintained. As yet the Catholic world
reveals no symptom of revolt against the Pope's
infallibility.
This universal Church, in her attempt to set
up a world-wide spiritual dominion, has sacrificed
much of the true Christian spirit. On the other
hand, the temporal States of the Church which
formed the mundane basis of her power were
conspicuous amongst all others only for the
46 THEOCRACY
misery of their condition. The first beginnings
of the temporal sovereignty of the Pope, which
endured only 650 years, were in a political sense
as promising as its consequences have been
disastrous. It is an historical fact that in the
early part of the Middle Ages the Bishops of
Rome were the Emperor's subjects. Subse-
quently they obtained possession of considerable
tracts, but were unable to erect them into
anything that could be called an independent
State. Otho IV. was the first Emperor who
recognized a territorial sovereignty vested in the
Bishop of Rome, but the donation of Neuss is
only one of the many political crimes which
lie to the charge of this Guelph Emperor.
For a long period the Pontifical Government
had immense advantages over its temporal
colleagues. Since the only haven of culture was
the Church, she naturally controlled nearly all
the intellectual forces of the time. The Court of
Rome was the first to maintain permanent
embassies, and the Pope was therefore in posses-
sion of incomparably more ample political in-
formation than any temporal sovereign could
dispose of. Moreover, while the rest of Europe
still made payments in kind, Peter's Pence and
the Annates flooded Rome with coin. A money
currency is an immense instrument of power over
those who know only the primitive practice of
barter and exchange. The Byzantine Empire,
deprived of vigour and genius, yet maintained
itself solely by the finished technique of its
administration and the excellence of its financial
system. Its well-paid officials long kept at bay
PAPAL ADMINISTRATION 47
the onslaughts of youthful nations. A similar
process may be observed in the Papal States.
The Emperor Frederick II. adopted the admirable
administrative methods of the Moors ; the Popes
in their turn learnt from him, with the result that
their Government became the most highly organ-
ized in Europe. Even during the exile at Avignon
the traditional maxims were not abandoned,
but, on the contrary, embodied in the so-called
Aegidian Constitutions which were drawn up by
Cardinal Albornoz as the permanent basis for
the guidance of the internal administration and
police. In 1356 these regulations might justly
be called a masterpiece of wisdom. Unfortu-
nately they were adhered to without intermission
until the French Revolution, more than four
hundred years later, when stereotyped reason had
long since degenerated into absurdity.
Even the spiritual advantages of the Papal
regime became attenuated with the lapse of time.
A new superior secular learning rose into im-
portance and everywhere displaced the old
ecclesiastical type of scholarship. The increasing
use of money relatively diminished one of the
Pope's advantages ; and when from the days
of Martin Luther onwards Peter's Pence grew
less abundant, a main support of the political
structure of the Papacy began to crumble. As
a result of the financial disorder the armies of the
Holy See became notoriously the worst in the
Western world. A remedy was sought in Swiss
levies, which, however, failed to maintain the
former strength of the Pontifical State. Since
the Reformation the spirit of criticism had grown
48 THEOCRACY
apace, but although the general conditions were
at length condemned as intolerable by the
liberated judgment of a more enlightened age, no
means of reconciling the warring principles were
at hand. As recently as 1815 even Metternich
saw the need of attempting serious reforms in the
Papal Government. After the Italian disturb-
ances of 1831 a conference of the five Powers
was held at Rome, at which modest but im-
practicable proposals for reform were made by
Bunsen on behalf of Prussia. 1 Since the tradi-
tional gulf dividing priest and layman, which is
so indispensable to theocratic predominance, was
carefully maintained as between the ecclesiastical
and secular delegates to the newly-devised pro-
vincial assemblies, these bodies never attained
the unity requisite for success. The priesthood
as usual proved itself incorrigible.
If the Papal Government can be said to
have deserved credit in the early days of its
existence for its administrative achievements it
was from the first the source of untold political
misfortunes for Italy. All Italian patriots, from
Dante onwards, have been the sworn adversaries
of the Holy See. No doubt the Papacy was
reckoned as a " gloria italiana," and as such
soothed the national pride, though at the same
time it hampered national unification. Come
what might, no Pope could identify himself with
purely national ideals. From time to time there
arose a great Pope who was also an Italian
patriot ; such was Alexander III., perhaps the
greatest of all Pontiffs, the redoubtable opponent
1 Treitschke, History of Germany, vol. iv. p. 68 (Ed. 1907).
PAPAL DUPLICITY 49
of the Hohenstaufen ; and Julius II., surnamed
the Terrible, who subdued Bologna and there set
up his own statue by Michel Angelo as an emblem
of his despotism. These Popes never completely
attained their ends, but their history shows
that Papal policy can only be identified with
national aims within certain definite limits.
From the first the Roman Pontiffs played a
double game, originally between the Goths and
Byzantium, then between Lombards and Franks.
The goal was always the same, the division of
Italy. This territorial policy was effectively
promoted by the existence of problems which
divided the peninsula in half. As long as upper
and lower Italy obeyed different masters the
Popes inevitably leant alternately towards the
Normans and towards the German Emperors.
When the unity of Italy seemed to be in sight
through the reversion of southern Italy to the
Hohenstaufen, the Papacy became the implac-
able opponent of the Empire. Later, the policy
of vacillation was still continued, and even
during the Reformation the Curia could not
be induced to side whole-heartedly with him
who could have stemmed the tide of revolt. In
this connection there is nothing more instructive
than the controversies between Charles V. and
that consummate Medician schemer, Clement
VII. No sooner did Charles prepare to suppress
the Reformation than the Pope began to fear a
future predominance of the Empire, and true to
his tacking policy opened negotiations with the
French and even with the Porte. It is well
known that when Gustavus Adolphus landed in
VOL. II E
50 THEOCRACY
Germany at the opening of the Thirty Years'
War his intervention was welcomed with joy
by the Pope, because he feared that Wallenstein,
if victorious, might march upon Rome.
Such tactics have from all time characterized
Papal diplomacy, and have at last brought about
the shipwreck of the temporal power. Towards
the middle of the nineteenth century a group
of high-minded enthusiasts, the so-called Neo-
Guelphs, arose in Italy, and for a brief period
transformed men's views of the political role
which they believed that the Papacy might be
made to play at the head of the national move-
ment, much as the " Greater Germany " party
believed that Austria would be the means of
German unity. As Pius IX. at first appeared to
be a moderate man, nationalist dreams were
imputed to him, which, in fact, no Pope could
ever indulge in. It was imagined that the party
of unity could found a confederation over which
the Pope would preside. Such was the pro-
gramme when the war of 1848 broke out. On
April 29, 1848, the Pope pronounced the decisive
Allocution, in which he abandoned the nationalist
cause on the ground that he could not fight
against a Catholic Power like Austria. The
Church's cosmopolitanism was thus irrevocably
proclaimed, and a blow dealt at her prestige from
which she has never recovered. At last the chair
of St. Peter had to be protected by French and
Spanish garrisons. Nothing brings home more
clearly how blessed a deed despoiling the Church
may be than a comparison between the vulgar
monument raised by Pius IX. in memory of the
ITALY AND THE POPE 51
mercenaries who fell at Montana and the follow-
ing noble words inscribed upon it by the Italian
Government in commemoration of 1870 : " We,
who rejoice in the blessings of liberty, preserve
this melancholy memorial of the Theocracy in
order that our fellow-citizens may recognize the
value of freedom and unity."
Since that time the Pope is placed in an
entirely abnormal position, inasmuch as he still
receives the recognition due to him as a sovereign,
although he has been deprived of the territorial
independence which in all other cases is the
indispensable adjunct of sovereignty. Let it be
supposed that an insoluble difficulty arises
between the Papacy and another State. In
former times Oliver Cromwell could despatch war-
ships and reduce the Pope to submission by a
demonstration on the coast. At the present day
the Italian Government repudiates all responsi-
bility for the political acts of the Holy See, but
in fact protects an irresponsible Pontiff from any
kind of reprisals. Coercive measures are power-
less against him unless Italian neutrality is
violated. In short, he is protected by a secular
State which will recognize no responsibility for
his acts. Here again the peculiar circumstances
of the Curia are visible : two ways of improving
its unsatisfactory position are open to it. It
might follow the advice of the Jesuit Ventura,
and silently become reconciled to the kingdom
of Italy, a course which would offer great future
advantages. As the clergy, to which the bulk of
the people is much attached, is more patriotic
than amongst us, it may be taken as certain that
52 THEOCRACY
if the Pope withdrew his prohibition and allowed
the faithful to vote, a strong Papal party would
soon arise. Another probable consequence
would be that first of all the ladies, then the
gentlemen of the Court would come under
Vatican influence. For many generations the
Princes of Savoy, after a stormy youth, have
turned penitent in their old age, and this practice
might quite conceivably lead to the virtual but
indirect control by the Pope of Italian affairs.
This effect cannot be counted on, for every Italian
has such a capacity for enjoying the pleasures of
this world that it is scarcely possible to imagine
him priest-ridden. The other alternative open
to the Pope, and in fact adopted by him, was to
play the part of a prisoner ; a real farce, for no one
prevents Christ's Vicar from going where he
pleases. Great material discomfort has been the
inevitable consequence, and being too obstinate
to accept the civil list offered him by the Italian
Government he is compelled to drain the resources
of the faithful all over the world.
On close scrutiny this system shows signs of a
certain consistency, for if the first alternative had
been followed the Papacy would no doubt have
been untrue to its inmost spirit. The Pope could
not make himself master of Italy without barter-
ing a cosmopolitan for a purely national mission.
Hence even a mild and gentle Pope like Leo XIII.
is completely inaccessible to any reconciliation
with the Italian Government, and constantly
renews his protests against it. The Church of
Rome is determined to remain the world-wide
Church, and therefore can never make any peace
THE TEUTONIC ORDER 53
with the sacrilegious robbers who have fortu-
nately made their nest in Rome.
Amongst the minor Theocracies of Europe
the Teutonic Order is the only one which can
boast a creditable history. 1 From the very first
its military constitution preserved it from the
priestly influences which oppressed other ecclesi-
astical states, and a wealth of talent enriched
its most flourishing period. It disposed of the
intellectual attainments of the clergy, but was not
in conflict with them. The Bishops were members
of the Order, and hostility between Church and
State was therefore an impossibility. Rome
taught the Teutonic Order the value of per-
manent ambassadors and systematic finance.
By means of exemplary thrift it amassed immense
reserves of ready money at a time when its neigh-
bours were in want. It irresistibly attracted
all the spirited and ambitious youths of noble
birth in Germany, and at the outset its statutes
were so liberal that no test of pedigree was
required for admission to its ranks. Members
of the principal mercantile families of Hamburg,
Liibeck, and Bremen were received without diffi-
culty, efficiency was the only standard. The
restraining test of quarterings was not applied
until the decline set in. A contributing cause
of prosperity was the expansive impulse innate
in the German people to whom at that time the
regions beyond the Eastern frontier were like
America to-day, the land of Promise.
Thus for a short time the Order had at its
command the most vigorous elements of the
1 Treitschke, Historical and Political Essays, vol. ii.
54 THEOCRACY
nation. Already by the middle of the fourteenth
century it had consolidated its power in Prussia,
and established its control over one hundred miles
of Baltic coast. Decay was no less rapid. The
defeat of Tannenberg cost the Order all the
glamour of invincibility which was half its power.
Unlike secular States, such as the later kingdom
of Prussia, the Teutonic Order lacked the internal
recuperative forces necessary for its salvation
as a State. It was theocratic in constitution,
and therefore irreconcilably at variance with the
spirit of the people over which it ruled. The
laity, the native Prussian nobility, the dwellers
in the towns all felt increasing resentment towards
the foreign masters whose celibate condition
precluded genuine attachment to the soil ; the
break-up of the State was hastened by appalling
acts of treason. All attempts at reform after the
great defeat, all attempts to enlist the lay elements
of the community in support of the State as
constituted by the Order, were doomed to failure
when brought into contact with its Statutes.
No remedy was conceivable except the revolution
actually carried out by the last Grand Master,
who, in 1525, transformed the ecclesiastical
State into a secular principality, and to our
perpetual benefit built a pillar for the foundation
of the Prussian monarchy.
Compared with this military theocracy the
paltry spiritual principalities of Germany, subject
to the Roman obedience, assume a well-nigh
ludicrous aspect. The infusion of Christian
notions of almsgiving into the domain of law
had terrible consequences. When the French
STATES OF THE CHURCH 55
occupied Cologne one-fourth of its 40,000 inhabit-
ants were registered beggars. The well-known
saying, "It is good to live under the crozier,"
had no other meaning than that under its sway
the mean man need do little or no work, for his
wants would be attended to in any case.
The rise of these ecclesiastical States dates
from the days of the Othos, who made use of
the bishops in resisting their lay vassals. The
bishops thus grew in power, and finally succeeded
in acquiring territorial rights. It is worthy of
note that these petty sovereigns were obliged to
tolerate the existence of representative Estates.
Almost everywhere we find a provincial assembly,
whose assent and approval seems to have been
sought by the prince. This was no doubt largely
due to the fact that bishoprics were generally
filled by the nobility, more especially after the
Reformation. For centuries Cologne and other
Westphalian Sees were occupied by Bavarian
princes. Bishops like these of illustrious German
blood could not become totally estranged from
the nation. Although the old aristocratic clergy
whose power was broken in 1803 was far more
worldly-minded than the priesthood of to-day,
it may be questioned, nevertheless, whether we
have not good reason to mourn it. The princely
scions of Wittelsbach and Nassau were after all
attached to the country by a thousand ties of
interest and affection ; the modern clergy, plebeian
and poor, is chained to Rome. Nevertheless
the small German theocracies had become com-
pletely atrophied in the eighteenth century under
their aristocratic rulers. Military establish-
56 THEOCRACY
ments were out of the question, and plans of
reform, of which many were made, invariably
proved vain. At last the " Reichsdeputations-
hauptschluss," as the final act of the old Imperial
Diet was called, put an end to these States in
1803, without causing any one a pang.
The political effects of their system are felt to
this day, and are clearly noticeable in the way
votes are cast in the Rhine country. In any
place that has belonged to the Palatinate both
Catholics and Protestants vote more or less
independently, while any district formerly in
ecclesiastical territory is sure to vote for the
clericals. In these regions it has in fact become
extremely difficult for the Prussian Government
to collect taxes. The iron grasp of Napoleon
had been meekly endured, but when it became
Prussia's task to establish a secular government
by pacific means, the Rhinelanders began to count
every farthing due to their Protestant king with
a grudging parsimony that was both comical and
petty. To them it seemed a fantastic innovation
that such claims should be put forward by a
temporal Government in peace time.
Thus the effects of ecclesiastical rule long
remained perceptible in the customs and habits
of mind of the people. But if we inquire what
its permanent achievements have been, the answer
is indeed a gloomy one. During the last hundred
years under the old system, the people became
so estranged from the national life that Cologne
and Treves were entirely untouched by the
intellectual revival of the time ; the incorpora-
tion of the Rhenish provinces by France was at
ITS DOOM 57
first hardly noticed by them. The new currents
of German thought were so unfamiliar on the
Rhine when the Prussians entered Cologne and
Bonn that the names Goethe and Schiller were
totally unknown to the people. It is appropriate
here to recall the impudent claims of the Catholic
clergy to control education, an audacity which
is all the more striking when it is remembered
that the first elementary schools were founded
by the King of Prussia. With the exception of
a few dame schools and ambulating teachers no
means of education whatever existed in rural
districts.
Once more we meet those characteristic
features of priestly rule, immobility and love of
ease, which made these countries incapable of
reform from within, and the predestined prey
of revolution. A certain grandeur of conception
and majestic consistency of method cannot be
denied to Theocracy, but for modern nations
the final conclusion must be that this form of
constitution is doomed.
XV
MONARCHY
IN direct contrast to Theocracy, Monarchy
proclaims the essentially secular nature of all
State authority. Doubtless primitive peoples
have shown an inclination to trace their king-
ship to a divine origin, but the royal authority
once established nevertheless bears a distinctly
temporal stamp. Of this fact and of the funda-
mental difference which divides it from theo-
cracy, monarchy makes no secret. The claim to
rule " by the grace of God " is no more than a
devout aspiration which does not attempt to
formulate a mystical and spiritual right to power,
but simply to assert that the inscrutable will of
Providence has decreed the elevation of a par-
ticular family above its rivals. Piety is a funda-
mental requirement in a monarch, since the
notion that he stands immeasurably above all
other men may actually unsettle his reason, if
it be not balanced by personal humility which
compels him to acknowledge himself God's instru-
ment. All this does not abrogate the axiom that
it is the nature and aim of monarchy to be of this
world. Genuine monarchy does not aspire to
partnership with the Almighty.
58
ITSfESSENCE 59
On the other hand, monarchy stands opposed
to republicanism. In a republic, authority is
founded upon the will of the governed, while in
a monarchy it is derived from the historical claim
of a particular family, and concentrated in the
will of one man who wears the crown and who,
though surrounded by more or less responsible
advisers, ultimately decides every question
himself. It is idle to toy with metaphors : the
minimum test of monarchy is whether or not the
will of the monarch can be overruled. We are
confronted by the conflict between unity and
division. It is an ancient experience that
monarchy presents more perfectly than any other
form of government a tangible expression of
political power and national unity. Hence its
marvellous appeal to the average understanding,
and to natural reason, of which we Germans saw
such a striking example in the early years of our
new Empire. For us the conception of a united
Fatherland became incarnate in the person of
our venerable Emperor. Our emotions when it
once more became possible to say, " In this man
Germany is one," were beyond all expression.
Nevertheless it is only a secondary feature
of monarchy that in it authority resides in the will
of a single individual ; the primary consideration
is that this authority is not delegated but original
and inherent in him. One may, to use an ex-
pression familiar to the schoolmen, speak of
the aseitas of royal authority, and the fact
that this authority is self -derived produces a
much higher level of social justice under mon-
archy than under any known form of republic.
60 MONARCHY
Republics are less likely to be just, because all
government is necessarily party government,
and this contention is fully borne out by historical
experience. Revolutions are caused not by
hatred of monarchy, but of a privileged class.
It is precisely to the monarch that the masses
will turn for help against their oppressors. A
king worthy of the name is so exalted above all
private animosities that he can survey the
struggles of parties and classes from an immense
height. At the time of their greatness the French
had a profound insight into the nature of
monarchy, and it was a maxim of their constitu-
tional law that the King at his accession suffered
a capitis diminutio in respect of his legal person-
ality ; his private property merged in the Crown.
This is a maxim of first-rate importance when
considered in the light of its ultimate conse-
quences. In so far as monarchy bases its right
on history it implies an aristocratic element :
the claim of certain families to preponderance
in virtue of an alleged superiority. History also
supports the contention that a flourishing aris-
tocracy is always politically competent and a
support to the Crown. On the other hand, it
is peculiar to all healthy monarchies to contain
a strong democratic force. Raised above all
parties the King is naturally drawn to the weak
and humble amongst his subjects ; as Frederick
the Great said, "To be the friend of the poor
has ever been the glory of monarchy."
Monarchy implies the idea of equal justice
for "all, which is realized in the person of the King.
This is the cause of a phenomenon which appears
THE MONARCH'S OUTLOOK 61
in all genuine monarchies, and which consists in
the unlimited confidence of the people in the
righteousness of their King. Even to-day it
may be said with truth that in spite of all hostile
agitators the mass of the people have more
confidence in the Crown than in Parliament.
The spontaneous judgment of average men who
invariably seek a final cause will always discern
in the King a manifestation of that self-sufficing
power which typifies the suum cuique.
Furthermore it is possible for the monarch from
the height - of his exalted station to see further
than ordinary mortals, who survey only a narrow
sphere of practical life, and whose limitations
are revealed by their well-nigh incredible pre-
judices. Class hostility is no less frequent in the
professional and academic sections of the com-
munity than in the aristocracy ; no class regards
society as a whole, but sees only fractions of it,
whereas it is obvious that a monarch is in
a position to take a comprehensive view of the
national life, and to gauge more accurately than
any one of his subjects the rival forces which
shape its course. Foreign affairs are particularly
subject to this rule. A monarch is competent
to judge of external relations in a manner far
beyond the scope either of private individuals or
of republican administration. A far-seeing policy
is possible only to him who is the true centre of
affairs.
In addition to this consideration it must be
remembered that as a matter of fact all the royal
houses of Europe form one great complexus of
families united by innumerable ties of con-
62 MONARCHY
sanguinity ; and in this way monarchies obtain
a great practical advantage recognized by all
great republicans. Washington often and sadly
declared it to be his experience that a sovereign
people requires to suffer before it can be made to
understand, and this dictum is confirmed by the
War of Independence. Had the American people
been guided by a right political judgment, that
inevitable war would have broken out a genera-
tion earlier ; but in fact it required to be forced
into it by dire necessity. A monarchy is better
able to foresee the future, and there is many a
historical crisis of which it may be truly said that
the decisive act could have been performed only
by a monarch. Prussian policy up to 1866 could
only have been carried out by a great king and
a great minister, never by a republic. At that
time only a small group, at Freiburg no more
than five of us, adhered to Bismarck. Such was
the extent of the public approval which is
alleged to have supported him. He alone was
able to accomplish what was necessary, in spite
of the opposition of the people. Fortunately
the great statesman possessed the gift of pre-
senting things in such a light that every Prussian
must feel in his heart that the honour of his
country was at stake, and thus was infused into
the struggle the impetus and vigour of a national
war.
Amongst the other advantages of monarchy
over republicanism must be counted the force of
tradition. In a well-balanced monarchy the
keynote of its character is expressed with
peculiar force in the customs and conventions,
POWER OF TRADITION 63
in short in the traditions of its public life,
because the habits and circumstances of the
reigning family are inseparable from the history
of the State. This fact was symbolized with
exceptional dignity under the old French mon-
archy, when on the death of a sovereign the
principal officer of State broke his staff over the
body of the dead Prince, exclaiming, " Le Roy
est mort " ; then immediately grasping a fresh
staff, raised it over the people with the cry,
44 Vive le Roy ! " The person of the sovereign
passed away, the identity of the Crown remained
intact. That even Homer was familiar with
this conception is proved by his speaking of the
imperishable hereditary sceptre of the King.
Generally speaking, a fixed rule of succession
may be regarded as a conditio sine qua non in
monarchy, and it is facilitated by the recurrence in
ruling families of certain hereditary characteristics.
It is not of course an exclusive privilege of royal
families to transmit their peculiarities from
generation to generation, it is common to all men.
Although the Hohenzollerns are a gifted race
which has produced many individuals with
strongly marked characteristics, yet it may be
said of them collectively that they have been
simple-minded people. With all his genius
Frederick the Great had plain common sense
which enabled him always to see the main issue.
A long experience of affairs turns certain political
opinions into hereditary habits of mind in reign-
ing families : such was the origin of the efforts of
the Hohenzollerns to bring about German unity.
At first they sought it only as an expedient in
64 MONARCHY
their own defence. By throwing in his lot with
the Reformers the reigning sovereign joined a
small minority, and was compelled to seek allies.
It cannot be denied that this stability of
family traditions involves the danger of torpor
and stagnation. There have been dynasties like
the Hanoverians in England, so devoid of origin-
ality that one king can hardly be distinguished
from the other. Or let us turn and contemplate
the Hapsburgs. Everywhere we recognize the
same stolid caste of features : one and all
were priest-ridden. The house of Oldenburg,
too, is remarkable in all its branches for uniform
nullity. In the reigning branch the Christians
can only be distinguished from the Fredericks by
their higher numerals. Christian IV. alone was
able to unseal the lips of the muse, and lives in
the recollection of his people as the hero of whom
the national anthem sings, " King Christian
stood by the lofty mast." Notwithstanding, the
dynasty was always beloved, for with all its
monotonous mediocrity there was nothing re-
pellent about it.
The danger of becoming stereotyped would
be greater for monarchy even than it is, did
not nature everywhere supply an antidote ; the
rivalry between elder and younger which exists
in all classes of society is especially keen in these
high spheres. No position in the world offers
greater moral temptations than those which
assail the heir-apparent of a great kingdom. It
has long been a fact of experience that energetic
and duty-loving rulers are especially jealous of
their successor, and will not allow him the
POWER OF PERSONALITY 65
slightest share in public affairs. The Emperor
William I. made a point of gently eliminating the
Crown Prince. When the heir to the throne in
spite of his exalted rank is deprived of influence,
he is forced into opposition which is bound to
assert itself in a more or less questionable manner.
No Hohenzollern has ever yet been of the same
opinion as his father. This is the corrective which
nature employs for our benefit against the evils
of a too prolonged predominance, and which
saves monarchy from that monotony which is
the bane of theocratic rule. The individuality
of the ruler has ever asserted itself as a
source of renewed vitality, for his government
and monarchy is no exception to the universal
rule that personality is the decisive factor in
history. Monarchy rests upon the profound
belief, derided by all modern Liberals, that history
is made by men. Whoever believes that the
perpetuum mobile known to be an impossibility
in the material order can yet be maintained in
the realm of thought, will lean to republicanism
and persuade himself that effects can dispense
with a cause. Whosoever, on the other hand,
takes his stand upon the conviction that history
is made by assertions of the will, and therefore
of the personality of individuals, will embrace
the monarchical faith. Gervinus is the chief
exponent of the doctrine that public opinion or
general conditions develop themselves and con-
stitute the sole cause of progress. This absurdity
brought matters to such a pass that the force of
a movement came to be gauged by the fact that
no man of mark was found at its head. Gervinus
VOL. n F
66 MONARCHY
predicted a great future for the " German-
Catholic " movement, because it proceeded from
the people and because it failed to enlist the
support of a single eminent man. 1 It failed
precisely for these reasons. The more we pene-
trate history the more we are driven to conclude
that it is a mere academic abstraction to speak
of the evolution of circumstances. The indis-
pensable factor in shaping events is personality.
History is not made by rule of thumb. What
succeeding generations call an historical necessity
was once a complexus of circumstances, more or
less favourable, upon which an individual will
understand how to stamp his mark.
Far be it from me to minimize the claims of
the economic view of history, but I cannot over-
look that it takes only one aspect into considera-
tion ; and when it invites the conclusion that
events shape themselves it leads the student into
error.
The belief, then, that history is the outcome
not of the brainless power called public opinion,
but of the deliberate will of men of action, is
the foundation-stone of monarchy. There can be
no doubt that monarchy affords a wider scope
than any other form of constitution to that force
which no human ingenuity can tame, and which
we call character. Although Frederick the Great's
saying that monarchy is the best and worst
constitution according to the disposition of
the monarch, is an exaggeration, it contains a
deep truth. A ruler's characteristics are of incal-
culable importance ; not so much because genius
1 See Treitschke's History of Germany, vol. v. p. 340, 5th ed., 1905.
PERSONALITY OF THE MONARCH 67
is essential though always valuable, but rather
because sound judgment is the indispensable
faculty.
It has already been stated that the funda-
mental principle of any constitution contains
the defects of its qualities, and this maxim
applies with special force to monarchy ; for kings
are their own worst enemies. Their exalted
position is a temptation to pride of every kind.
There is a danger by no means remote that the
moods and merely human foibles of the prince
will receive the respect due only to the Crown,
and that adulation, with all its demoralizing
consequences, will ensue. If every whim of a
capricious prince were to become law without
delay, monarchy would be caricatured, and con-
sternation would seize all free and generous minds.
Arbitrary monarchs are compelled to resort to
their enemies because they are abandoned by
their friends. It must, of course, be remembered
that much depends not only upon the real char-
acter of the monarch, but upon the idea which
his people have of him. An immeasurable altera-
tion in the general attitude towards monarchy
has taken place even in my own lifetime. At
the beginning of his reign Frederick William IV.
was as much overrated by public opinion as his
great brother was under-estimated.
Some monarchies have been especially favoured
by fortune. Such were Prussia, Sweden under
the Vasas, and Holland under the House of
Orange. Others again have been particularly
afflicted in their dynasties. Piedmont is the only
State in Italy which has had good kings ; while
68 MONARCHY
unhappy Spain can only boast of two since
Philip II. who can even be called good men
Charles III., who made a feeble effort at reform,
and young Alphonso XII., whose premature death
was mourned by our own generation. Monarchy is
indeed strong when it has withstood the test
revealed by Spanish annals. In France, Louis
XVI. was an exception, but he appeared when it
was too late to save the State. In England,
after the line of blood-stained mediaeval tyrants
had come to an end, the hereditary villainy of
the Stewarts made way for the hereditary nullity
of the Guelphs, and the whole presents an abject
picture. How could a true monarchical spirit
flourish in a country ruled by such kings ? It is
the special merit of monarchy to be easily under-
stood and to adapt itself readily to the natural
order of things. It fascinates the plain man to
see a single figure at the helm on whose word all
depends, and for such the term " Father of his
people " has genuine meaning. When the crown
is worn by a weak or a bad man nature is dis-
torted ; when the monarch is penetrated with a
sense of lofty duty it is glorious to behold the
purifying influence of his exalted office. Of
such kingly manhood Prussian history affords
us splendid examples in Frederick the Great
and King William I.
Let us survey the career of Frederick the
Great, who, after all, is the greatest king that
ever reigned on earth. In early life he was an
impressionable poetaster, full of dreams and
fancies, a prey to sentimental reverie. On the
very day when he gave orders for the invasion
EMPEROR WILLIAM I. 69
of Silesia he composed an ode in praise of the
peace of rural life. Suddenly the hero hidden
within him stood revealed, and from that day
forth the imperial instinct grew more and more
pronounced. In his old age his whole being was
absorbed by the care of the States he ruled, and
this one solicitude banished all personal predilec-
tions and hostilities. During the last phase of his
life he became entirely selfless and dominated by
the desire to execute ideal justice. Such is the
evolution of a monarch built on heroic lines.
The Emperor William I. offers some analogy
with his great predecessor, although the evening
of his life was brighter. Already during his last
years he seemed transfigured by the idea of his
political mission, beyond the limits of which he
cherished no personal aspirations or desires.
Monarchs of his stamp set the seal of truth
upon the saying common to all nations, that the
royal word is sacred. No doubt the expression
is sometimes used in a minatory sense, but its
primary implication is that loyalty to the plighted
word lies at the root of monarchy. When John
II. of France found that the humiliating terms of
peace which he had been compelled to sign while
a prisoner in England were rejected by his own
people, he once more delivered himself up to his
enemies, saying that when faith and honour had
vanished everywhere else in the world, they
would still be found amongst princes. Frederick
the Great who quoted this saying fully endorsed
it. The reason is clear. The sense of responsi-
bility is weakened amongst men in proportion
as it is divided. Parliaments are always more
70 MONARCHY
unscrupulous than princes, because all their
members shirk responsibility by throwing it
upon each other, whereas monarchs are kept in
check by the knowledge that their family's
honour is at stake as well as their own.
But things are very different when the monarch
is a weak and frivolous man, and the danger of
his being such is the relative justification for the
distrust of monarchy felt by the ancients. Plato,
who had been tutor to Dionysius of Syracuse,
and whose teaching was attended by the success
usual to the practical efforts of great philosophers,
has attempted to define ideal kingship. His
definition made so deep an impression upon the
mind of his contemporaries that they were driven
to accept Aristotle's false conclusion that since
men cannot be gods, monarchy must in practice
always be an inferior form of constitution or
Trape/cySao-t?. The truth is, on the contrary, that
a certain degree of mediocrity, provided it be not
malevolent, as in the case of the Hanoverian
Guelphs, is quite compatible with true monarchy,
and when supported by tradition may even be
elevated and dignified by it.
If we attempt to strike an average we cannot
fail to perceive the profound truth that only
democratic prejudice can attribute happier
results to the elective than to the hereditary
principles. Will any one seriously contend that
the sovereign people's wisdom has raised better
men to the presidency of the United States than
destiny has placed upon the Prussian throne ?
At first eminent men came to the front over there,
of whom the last was Lincoln ; at the present day
EDUCATION OF PRINCES 71
only respectable mediocrities are elected. Elec-
tion does not promote the men who have the
greatest ability, but those who have the greatest
following. All the prominent party leaders are
so besmirched in the course of the frenzied
struggle of democratic politics that they ai*e
scarcely thought fit candidates for the honours
of the presidency. On entering political life
every man must face the fact that, with the single
exception of suicide, every conceivable crime will
be attributed to him in the newspapers. At
length, immediately before the election, an in-
dividual appears known as the " dark horse."
Neither party has time to annihilate him com-
pletely, and a compromise leads to the election
of a man of third- or fourth-rate ability.
It is, then, demonstrably clear that the vulgar
passions which so frequently govern the electoral
campaigns of democracy do not lead to a more
rational result than the accidents of heredity.
A prince becomes identified by birth and training
with certain traditions, but the stability derived
from this gradual evolution is necessarily lacking
in the man raised to power by the vote of the
' people. From all time eminent men have treated
the education of princes as a political problem
worthy of the most careful study ; and as princes
have quite different duties to perform from their
subjects, it has always been held that they should
be differently trained from other men. It has
been reserved for the Houses of Orleans and of
Coburg to diverge from this immemorial precept.
It may well be asked if the Orleans princes have
become less haughty through their middle-class
72 MONARCHY
training. It has left their inward pride greater
even than that of other royal personages, and,
furthermore, they received an inferior course of
instruction. Princes have no place in public
schools, where their position is bound to be a
false one. Deceived by the same mistaken notion
of liberalism, the Coburgs have followed the
Orleans in an error of judgment which certainly
will not be persisted in, and there will be a return
to the rule that princes must be differently
educated from subjects. Let us take an obvious
example : it is an inevitable consequence of the
innumerable family ties which connect modern
dynasties, that a prince should speak three lan-
guages like a native. Why on earth should a young
prince be bothered with Latin, let alone Greek ?
He has no place at a public school : it is enough
to surround him with some, youths of good family
to excite his emulation and to counteract a sense
of isolation.
When the reins of government are in the
hands of a tolerably competent ruler, especially
of one who is naturally humble-minded, even if
only moderately gifted, the inherent strength of
monarchy will be revealed in the close relation
between the king and his troops. Nowhere more
than in the army is there need of a supreme,
final, and unrestricted will, and as the king alone
stands above faction, no one can be more fitted
than he to realize the idea of sovereignty by
means of military command. It is the birth-
right of the king to be commander-in-chief, and
if, in fact, he is born with a genius for war, no
man can resist the conviction that in him mon-
ARMY AND STATE 73
archy has found its highest expression. A perfect
military organization is undoubtedly an easier
task for a monarchy than for a republic. A
soldier swears fealty more readily to a visible
chief than to a political idea. A king can employ
the army without the slightest danger to the
internal peace of the kingdom, while a republican
general is always exposed to the suspicion of
utilizing a victorious army for his personal ends.
Such designs were not unfamiliar to the army
of Washington. In modern France this point
of view is perfectly well understood, and the
conqueror of Germany would infallibly become
Emperor of the French. Republics are therefore
often obliged to take artificial precautions :
Venice in her decline invariably employed foreign
condottieri.
What is true of the army is equally true of the
Civil Service. No republic is as well fitted to
train competent public servants as a healthy
monarchy. Aristocratic republics have also a
relative latitude of choice, but dare not enlist
all the talents, and must sooner or later become
exclusive ; a monarchy can afford to leave
every man his rank and to establish a regular
rotation by seniority. Such things are impos-
sible in republics with the incessant alternation
of election and retirement, and official incom-
petence is as frequent under democracy as are
ability and integrity under genuine monarchical
rule.
Monarchies, therefore, in which the succession
is secure are distinguished from most repub-
lics by the beneficent calm of public life, and
74 MONARCHY
the placid development of political institutions,
simply because a definite barrier is opposed to
the ambition of gifted and energetic men. Under
a monarchy the question who is to rule is settled
once and for all, and this fact has a special
influence on the chiefs of the army. The pretorian
spirit is an impossibility in a monarchy which is
rooted in the moral convictions of the people.
In a republic, unless its institutions are excep-
tionally ancient and dear to the hearts of the
people, there is always a danger that some over-
mastering ambition will be fascinated by the
desire to overthrow the constitution. The
feverish unrest in France leads to the continual
recurrence of the question whether this or that
one will venture to make himself supreme master
of the State. Old-established institutions may
of course exist under a republic and have a similar
influence as under a monarchy. In a republic as
ancient as that of Switzerland certain constitu-
tional notions have become as deeply ingrained
in the mind of the people as monarchical concep-
tions are with us. In spite of intestine struggles,
solidarity of sentiment between the Swiss cantons
has always survived. Both after the fierce war
in which Zwingli lost his life as well as after the
Sonderbund war in our own century, the country
returned with extraordinary rapidity to peaceful
occupations. The stubbornness of a constitution
hallowed by tradition in this case proved itself to
be a source of unification.
All that has here been said in support of
monarchy presupposes that the people subject
to that form of constitution cherishes a strong
THE RIGHT OF DYNASTIES 75
faith in the hereditary right of the dynasty, and
the moral basis of its government. It is no less
impossible to create a royal family than arti-
ficially to manufacture a nobility, but even a
legitimate dynasty may easily forfeit its rights to
the throne by its own misdeeds. The rights of
sovereigns, as those of other human beings, are
not imperishable. The whole history of France
is monarchical, and while her principal institu-
tions have remained so to this day, the pinnacle
of the monarchical edifice is lacking, because the
undoubtedly legitimate heirs of the immemorial
house of Capet have entered the lists as leaders of
faction and are now unable to assume the position
of natural sovereign. That attachment to the
royal person, that religion of royalty which once
supported the old French kings, has disappeared
without leaving a trace. That even such a
race as theirs could ultimately lose the ethical
right to make good its claim to power is a moment-
ous warning to all rulers to put no illegitimate
strain upon their hereditary prerogatives. The
principle of heredity has a profound justification,
but the intimate trust of a people in its rulers
must constantly be earned afresh, and no dynasty
can be certain that destiny does not reserve for it
also the fate which has befallen the descendant of
Hugh Capet in modern France.
Hence it clearly cannot be laid down that
monarchy is necessarily superior to a republic
as a form of government. A monarchy would
be madness under the conditions which prevail
in North America. All the essential conditions
are lacking, and it is pure doctrinaire pedantry
76 MONARCHY
to contend that the country would attain a
higher level of prosperity by adopting monarchy.
There will always be nations whose genius is ill
adapted to find expression under monarchical
institutions witness the Greeks. Modern Europe
is the home of true monarchy, which has always
been rejected by the theocratic East, by the
democratic Western Continent, and by the re-
publican spirit of antiquity.
The infinite variety of type presented by
monarchy, and the facility with which that form
of government can assimilate extraneous insti-
tutions, makes it extremely difficult to construct
any system of classification. It is, however,
possible to distinguish six main groups of mon-
archy. Firstly, legendary monarchy, prevailing
under aboriginal conditions. Secondly, feudal
kingship, in which we include its emanation,
monarchy limited by representative Estates.
In this category monarchical forms have become
so evanescent that it may be doubted whether
mediaeval monarchy should not rather be de-
scribed as polyarchy. Of these the former is the
least mature but the most vigorous, the latter
the weakest and most incomplete. Thirdly,
elective kingship as known in Poland, which
may be considered as the caricature of monarchy
in its last stage of degeneration. Nothing is
more instructive than to examine corrupt con-
stitutions, and the example of Poland teaches us
how a State should not be constituted. Fourthly,
hereditary absolute kingship as known in France
in the hey-day of her monarchy, or in Prussia
before she had a constitution. Fifthly, constitu-
TYRANTS 77
tional kingship, which presents so many varieties
of form that they can only be comprised under
one head for convenience. It is obvious that
aristocratic as well as democratico-republican
ideas frequently take refuge under the constitu-
tional label. Lastly, a very peculiar form of
kingship which stands on the very brink of
republicanism, because it rejects the fundamental
monarchical principle of heredity. Specimens
of this type are found either on a small scale in
the tyrannies of ancient Greece and of Italy, or
on the grand scale in the Roman Empire and in
Bonapartism. The sovereign people transmits
its authority in some form or other to the tyrant,
who governs by means of the personal sway
which his vices and virtues have won for him
over the people. The people, incarnate in one
man, Vhomme peuple, then reigns supreme.
XVI
EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
WE will next examine some types of early
monarchy. In doing so it is highly important
to bear in mind that the most primitive form of
early kingship has affected the great nations
differently, according to the nature of their innate
political bent. There are nations who have a
natural aptitude for monarchy and who have
therefore preserved it intact. In the beginning
it was universal, for since it both implies and
embodies the idea of unity, it is indispensable
at least as a transition stage ; it is further
necessary almost everywhere, in order to secure
unity upon an unshakable foundation as well as
to force alien tendencies within the State to sub-
mission. Nor should it be forgotten that the
young republics of the new world all have
monarchical antecedents of considerable import-
ance. The common law, trial by jury, the two-
Chamber system, and the government of the
country by individual administrators are all
emanations from the monarchical period.
The political temperament of nations is re-
vealed by the maintenance or destruction of these
traditions. Purely temporal monarchy makes
78
HELLENIC MONARCHIES 79
its first appearance in history amongst the
Greeks, but there can be no doubt that their true
political instinct was for democracy. Unlike
the early kingdom of Rome, the monarchy of
Homeric stamp has vanished almost without
leaving a trace upon subsequent history. At a
later date we find the dual kingship of Sparta,
but monarchical ideas, strictly speaking, are
nowhere to be found in Hellenic institutions.
So soon as the Greeks attained a clear conscious-
ness of their national unity they are seen to
incline towards Republicanism. Homer is a
monarchist, and repeats a thousand times the
oft-quoted line : OVK ayaObv 7ro\vKoipavi,'r), el? Koipavos
eo-Tco. He speaks of the divine descent of kings,
but this opinion must not be thought to arise
out of a theocratic state of things, but rather to
spring from the childlike tendency of a youth-
ful nation to derive from the gods all that it
reveres. The characteristic feature of Homeric
monarchy was a peculiar blend of the elective
and the hereditary principles. The crown became
hereditary in a family because it transcended its
rivals by wealth or warlike achievements, but
on the death of the king his companions in arms
chose as his successor that member of his family
who seemed to them most worthy to fill his place.
A characteristic mark of Hellenic monarchies
was the sharp contrast between their political
importance and the magnificence of their outward
display. No clear distinction had yet been
drawn between the legal prerogatives of the
monarch and the functions of the other authorities
in the State. This is clear from the fact that
80 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
Homer designated the real sovereign Agamemnon
by the very title of /9ao-t\y9, which was also
given to his subordinates, chiefs of smaller
districts. He wielded a huge power as their
leader in war, and as supreme judge in difficult
cases. But the relation of the princelings to
him was so uncertain, and the notion of obedience
so lax, that it is hard to imagine how obedience
could be enforced by the suzerain once the
campaign was at an end. Monarchy of this type
presents rather the aspect of a confederation
whose members are quasi-independent than of a
single unified State ; and so long as the conditions
of life in Greece remained pastoral as distinct
from urban, the kingship was restricted to its
primitive functions of leadership in war and of a
final court of appeal. Of administrative affairs
he knew nothing, for in the simple rustic con-
ditions then prevailing administration was out
of the question. The inner flaw of ancient Greek
monarchy is then beyond dispute, and in addition
it must be remembered that, notwithstanding
the divine origin claimed for some of its regal
families, the Hellenes were conspicuously lacking
in that virile fidelity which the ancient Germans
bore to their chieftains. Such a standard of
manly honour must necessarily be unintelligible
to a people who recognized in Odysseus the
embodiment of their moral ideal.
If we turn our gaze from the Homeric to the
ancient Roman type of monarchy we perceive
clearly the whole difference between an agri-
cultural and a town-dwelling community. It is
significant that the Greek language possesses no
THE ROMAN KINGS 81
unequivocal word for justice. 81*77, Bucaioffvpt) are
capable of a moral and strictly legal interpreta-
tion. Greek thought was never entirely successful
in formulating an original and adequate theory of
political authority. Contrast with this the vigour
with which even the earliest Roman kings de-
veloped institutions peculiar to their nation. It
is undoubtedly true that the Romans preserved
a strong monarchical instinct throughout their
history. The lex regia was never formally
repealed, and even under the Caesars the legal
fiction endured in virtue of which the Imperator
was subject to the summa potestas of the
people vested in himself. The legendary king-
ship of Servius Tullius was invoked to provide
a theoretic legitimacy for the Flavian Emperors.
And yet in comparison with its Greek counterpart
this primitive Roman monarchy reveals a great
deficiency : it was not hereditary. The dead
king's successor was chosen by the Senate after
an interval during which an " interrex " con-
ducted the business of State. But once the new
king was installed, he far exceeded in authority
the Greek /Sao-tXev?. He was possessed of the Im-
perium in its fullest sense ; he had the supreme
command in war ; the right to pardon, and to
punish with death ; he not only rendered justice,
but he interpreted and extended the law by his
judgments. He was a high-priest, and at the
same time exercised very far-reaching adminis-
trative functions within the walls of his City
State. The power of these early kings may be
measured by the magnitude of the oldest existing
architectural monument of Rome, the cloaca
VOL. II G
82 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
maxima, which is their work, and which pre-
supposes a highly centralized authority capable
of enforcing the sacrifice of domestic concerns to
official requirements.
Nothing is more remarkable than the persistent
way in which the royal office of primitive Rome
continued to influence the history of her people.
Not without reason have the consuls been de-
scribed as kings for one year. The introduction
of the consulship effected only two changes in the
old constitutional order of things : the annual
change of officers of State, and the balance of
authority by its division between two equally
entitled partners. The energy of the Imperium
as understood by the kings was never lost, but
monarchical ideas were preserved with concen-
trated intensity under republican forms, and it
is not surprising that a return to monarchy
should ultimately have taken place. Greece, on
the other hand, was never able to achieve its
organic reconstruction, but was compelled to
import it from Macedonia. The Greeks were
temperamentally republicans, the Romans mon-
archists, or, at the very least, mindful to
preserve in the central authority a power most
easily compatible with monarchical views.
The kingship of our original German ancestors
is more akin to that of Greece than to that of
Rome. This is quite in accordance with the
fundamental nature of things, for in both cases
the purely rural conditions of life restricted the
king to judicial and military functions. As in
Greece so in primitive Germany, the outlines of the
monarchical State were at first fluctuating, and
OLD TEUTONIC KINGS 83
its manifestations therefore various and unstable,
but in spite of this it contained the germs of
a mighty future. Something profoundly noble
but at the same time fantastic and nebulous
lay concealed in these ancient Teutons. Their
mythology reveals a sublime and glorious insight
into the divine which the Greeks never attained,
and the notion of another life was strong in them.
The weird personalities of their gods glide before
us in such confusion that only one or two leave
a distinct impression upon the memory, and as a
whole Valhalla is not presented to our view with
the same plastic clearness as Olympus.
The same fundamental characteristic is per-
ceptible in the political sphere, in which we find
evidences of a genius for government coupled
with much unclearness of thought. Heredity was
nowhere the absolute rule, but was practised
conjointly with the elective principle. Some
chief or other was presumed to descend from
Wotan, and as such he and his family were held
to be sacred and called upon to rule. But since
leadership in war and military capacity were
obviously required of the king, descent could not
be an unconditional claim to succeed him, and
the chief men of the clan raised the most capable
amongst his family to fill his place. An element
of instability was thus introduced, and also in
other respects the type of royal authority might
vary. We find at one time petty local kings, as
amongst the Allemanni, and at another a more
powerful king who raises himself to be their
suzerain, and who stands in the relation of
Agamemnon to the Homeric paladins.
84 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
Amongst the Anglo-Saxons it was not till a
later date that the king emerged distinctly from
amongst the ^Eldormen, and that he was able,
although unsustained by the dignity of an heredi-
tary office, to emancipate his authority from the
traditional control, and finally to assume com-
mand of the State. Thus it may be said that
the ancient Germanic monarchy, like the Homeric,
was weak and immature. In the Teutonic
character there is a fundamental strain of manly
sincerity which contributed to the development
of the originally imperfect monarchical institu-
tions.
Already in primitive times, overshadowed
as they are by myths and legends, we perceive
that the king was leader in war and supreme
judge in peace, but we also find the first germs
of modern representative institutions. In some
form or other the free-born German demanded
to be summoned to all deliberations momentously
affecting the State. The issues of peace and
war were first debated in assemblies of minor
chiefs gathered around the king ; they were
then presented for ratification to the host of
tribesmen capable of bearing arms who mustered
annually in March or in May. These meetings
decided whether or not war should be waged the
following summer. All this was very primitive
and imperfect, but the elements of a repre-
sentative constitution were traceable from the
beginning, and, as Montesquieu with the instinct
of genius has said, the cradle of constitutional
government is to be found in the forest glades of
Germany.
AFTER THE MIGRATION OF RACES 85
Brought into contact with Rome, these rude
institutions were further expanded. Sybel is
certainly quite inaccurate in asserting that
Germanic kingship owed the attainment of its
full vigour to the migration of peoples and to the
conquest of Roman provinces. Long before these
events the royal office had a recognized and legal
authority, but Sybel is right inasmuch as they
created for it a multitude of fresh problems
and opportunities. Henceforward the king could
not be restricted to his military and judicial role.
It became incumbent upon him to organize an
administration and to rule over peoples of alien
blood. A code of personal rights came to be
recognized. At first these barbarian princes
decorated themselves with foreign titles such as
Quaestor and Consul, much as the modern South
Sea Islander fancies himself improved by donning
a frock-coat. But the scope of their authority
was gradually extended as fresh tasks occasioned
by the conquest of towns presented themselves
for solution ; and though it is untrue that the
monarchy was created by the necessities of a
people on the march, it may not be too much to
say that they gave an irresistible impetus to its
activity.
The phases of this transformation were ex-
tremely varied, according as the migrating unit
was an entire nation or a smaller group, comitatus.
The latter had naturally not the same facility
as the former in transplanting and consolidating
their institutions. Thus Odoacer, so often de-
scribed as the destroyer of the Western Empire,
was not the king of a people in arms, but the
86 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
leader of a faction, a Roman captain who returned
amongst the barbarians and founded a comi-
tatus, and then succeeded in capturing the
Eternal City, which he held for a short time.
Even Byzantium, as its power declined, realized
that the youthful Teutonic community which
confronted it contained a political principle
surpassing its own in moral value. " What shall
befall the Empire," says Synesius in addressing
Arcadius, " when you its rulers shun the cold of
winter, garbed in robes of silk and adorned with
peacocks' feathers ; when you aim at being saints
and fail to be men ? If we are to be saved we need
a God and a King." The Byzantine statesman
felt instinctively that the Teutonic State stood
on a higher moral plane, and was even more
formidable than the Empire of the Caesars.
The fair beginnings of the Germanic Empire
were strangely vitiated in the course of time. No
doubt the Germans in their gradual conquest of
Rome learnt much from her superior civilization
that was previously unknown to them in the
various branches of the art of government :
perfectly to administer her vast territory was
beyond their scope. Indeed we can trace in the
great Frankish Empire a gradual disintegration
which can only be described as decay. Since
the immediate personal rule of the sovereign was
practically impossible in the vast areas that
acknowledged his sway, high officers of State
invested with far-reaching prerogatives were
appointed by the Crown, which rewarded them in
the currency of the day, that is, with lands and
vassals. This led little by little to the establish-
FEUDAL MONARCHY 87
ment of feudal monarchy, which perfected the
system of universal subordination by means of a
personal relationship exactly expressed in the
words of the oath taken by the Norman baron in
swearing fealty to his suzerain : "I will be thy
man for the fief which I have received from
thee." Here the idea of the subordination cf all
subjects is obscured ; instead the sanction of
a personal relationship is adduced as the basis
of a contract in virtue of which obedience is
promised.
A State so constituted may, under certain
circumstances, be extremely strong, as, for
instance, the Norman monarchy in England
during the first century and a half of its duration,
which may be roughly described as a despotism
under feudal restraints. William the Conqueror
regarded the island he had invaded as his property
in the literal sense : terra mea, dominium meum.
A Norman host 40,000 strong attacked and
subdued a profoundly hostile people ; a com-
pletely new order of things was grafted upon the
ancient stem of Anglo-Saxon institutions. The
Norman lawyers were perfectly accurate when
they laid down that all rights emanate from the
king. His authority was further immeasurably
increased by the power of declaring forfeiture
of fiefs in cases of disobedience. This feudal
monarchy, then, was immensely strong, so strong
indeed that the Norman barons were at last com-
pelled to ally themselves with the despised Saxon
Thanes and yeomen in order to break the hated
yoke.
But this example of a monarchy at once
88 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
feudal and absolute is quite exceptional, and its
possibility was due to abnormal circumstances ;
as a general rule, feudal institutions tend to
deflect the nature of monarchy, and to promote
the creation within the State of a number of
smaller sovereignties. The necessary attributes
of office came to be regarded as profitable rights
at the disposal of individuals and their heirs.
By degrees the royal officers appropriated to
themselves the specific functions of the Crown
and became hereditary owners of the lands
originally bestowed on them for life as fiefs. This
progressive usurpation produced the barons in
France, the princes in Germany. A number of
territorial magnates sprang up subordinate only
in name to the authority of the king, who
retained simply the feudal overlordship with
prerogatives as uncertain as those of true
sovereignty are clear and precise. For men of
to-day it is hard to grasp the ingenious view of
law and right prevailing in that age, and an ex-
pression current in mediaeval Paris is character-
istic of it. The French expression for satisfying
a man by smooth words is to pay en monnaie
de singe. This saying recalls the fact that
although every man who entered Paris had to
pay his penny at the gate, a juggler with a
monkey paid nothing, but instead let his monkey
dance before the gate-keeper. The amusement
thus afforded him was held to have redeemed the
debt to the , city. So did that age think and feel,
and gradually developed the amazingly distorted
system of ideas which was characteristic of
mediaeval civilization. The idea of individual
MONARCHS AND FEUDALISM 89
rights entirely outweighed the idea of the State,
which well-nigh perished.
More especially in Germany we see the collect-
ive liberties of the separate Estates gain ground
by means of a feudal doctrine entirely antagon-
istic to the State, which it has been the merit
of modern absolutism to extirpate. In these
monarchies based upon rigid class divisions,
common law was almost set aside ; each estate
of the realm had its own special privileges which
it was the object of its corporate existence to
defend. The aim was freedom from the State,
not freedom within it. The State was regarded
as the natural enemy of individual liberty, as a
power to be checked and muzzled, which must
never be allowed to proceed an inch beyond the
stipulated limits. Subjects did not look upon
themselves as subjects but as joint parties to a
contract. This appears with special clearness
from the forms in which allegiance was promised.
The new lord must swear to grant fresh privi-
leges called "joyeuse entree" and every accession
was made an excuse for their extension. This
method was employed on a large scale by the
Estates of the Realm in the Imperial Capitula-
tions. Such compacts were sworn to by all
parties, but their oath reached no further than
the parchment on which it was recorded. The
conception of duty existing ipso jure between
subject and sovereign was nowhere apparent.
This stands in close relationship to the right
of resistance, which was either formally recog-
nized or practically exercised by the Estates.
The Aragonese swore fealty to their king in
90 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
these words : "If thou wilt observe these statutes
we will obey thee ; if not, not." In Germany we
find the right of resistance guaranteed in several
of the smaller States, such as Bavaria and Liine-
burg. Thus it comes to pass that the majesty
of the State, the fountain of law and order which
as such never can be placed in a purely contractual
relationship to its subjects, is mutilated and de-
filed, and it may therefore be truly said that con-
stitutional monarchy as exhibited in England and
in Belgium presents a negation of the monarchical
principle. Hence it seems to us like derision when
the ancient Estates of Germany are held up to
admiration by self-styled orthodox monarchists.
On the occasion of the Congress of Carlsbad *
in 1819,Friederich Gentz wrote a pamphlet entitled
" Of the Difference between Representative
Assemblies and Delegated Estates," which must
be called a masterpiece of sophistical controversy.
In this he contends that representative govern-
ment depends upon the idea of the sovereignty
of the people, which is not true, although it may
be true that such rubbish has been taught by
certain purblind theorists like Rotteck. In no
genuine monarchy can the sovereignty of the
people form the basis of its representative system.
With that system Gentz contrasts the Estates
alleged to be specifically German in origin,
whose authority he derives from the conscious-
ness of caste privilege, a consciousness which he
considers disposes them to uphold the sacred
rights of monarchy with more vigour than can be
expected from any representative system.
1 Treitschke, History of Germany, vol. ii.
ESTATES 91
This ingenuity in perverting historical facts
is nothing short of amazing. Where was royal
authority weakest at that time ? Undoubtedly
in Mecklenburg, where there was practically no
monarchy at all. How Gentz could support
so untenable a doctrine is explained by the fact
that he had in mind neither the old Estates of
Wurtemberg nor of Mecklenburg, but the
mandatory provincial assemblies of Austria.
There prolonged struggles had completely under-
mined the power of the old provincial Estates,
whose functions were now exhausted after three
days' session : First day, arrival of their lordships
in their state coaches ; second day, unanimous
adoption of the provincial mandate ; third day,
departure of their lordships in their state coaches.
Gentz had before his eyes this specimen of the
utter decline and decay of the provincial Estates
when, with cynical disregard for historical facts,
he laid down that provincial Estates do not
impair the credit of the monarchy. Of course
they do ; and what is more, they make it their
object to bring the sovereign to his knees. They
regard their duty as strictly limited to the per-
formance of their written pledge, and thus develop
that peculiar stubbornness of attitude which not
infrequently presents a dignified aspect. Of a
true political spirit, however, there is no trace.
Profound social injustice characterizes the
whole system, and the idea of the general good is
lost in this oligarchical caricature of public life.
The Law of Succession of Mecklenburg of 1755,
which still subsists as a well-preserved mummy,
expressly enacts that " the edicts which do not
92 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
affect the lawfully acquired privileges of the
nobility and the provinces," but " which have
been enacted for the common weal of the whole
country, are laws of indifferent consequence."
In the old legal terminology " indifferent " means
that which applies equally to all and not to one
class only, but the word is appropriate to Mecklen-
burg even in its modern and reproachful sense.
Here the Diet with all the burlesque features of
its composition has remained intact till the
present day. Those of the Grand Duke's vassals
who are of noble birth appear in person and
represent no one but themselves. Regular pro-
cedure and orderly methods of business are un-
known ; spectators may wander at pleasure into
the middle of the assembly. When I asked a
Mecklenburg noble if these visitors did not lead
to confusion in the ballot, he replied, " Oh no,
they are easily detected by the meekness of their
bearing." Everywhere the Estates represent
only their own class ; a conception of the general
good, of solidarity of interests, in short, of
nationality, are totally lacking under this type of
constitution. For this reason revolutions in such
States are never, properly speaking, conflicts of
political principle, but more in the nature of law-
suits in arms. If the difference cannot be settled
peaceably, recourse is had to arms. But the idea
of establishing any new constitutional maxim
was utterly alien from mediaeval minds. They
fought for their acquired liberties and did not
look beyond.
Any popular representation was then simply
out of the question in those States of Germany
ESTATES 93
where provincial diets existed. Even the prince
was not superior to the Estates ; he represented
only himself, and the group of unconferred pre-
rogatives known collectively as "jus territorial "
were an aggregate of rights gradually acquired
by him, not as sovereign but as territorial over-
lord restricted within the limits of his feudal
suzerainty. The theory that the sovereign repre-
sents the nation as a whole was totally obscured.
If Ludwig von Haller intended to set up monarchy
based on Estates as the ideal constitution, it must
be admitted that this positive aspect of his
doctrine is entirely erroneous. Haller's great
achievement was his attack on the doctrine of
Natural Rights ; in this direction he dealt mighty
blows which even to-day command admiration.
The moral courage required in his day for such a
task can hardly be over-estimated by us. Haller's
idealism, however, completely disintegrates the
conception of the State. According to him the
prince is no more than a very powerful landlord
who has divided the land amongst his faithful
dependants and bound them to himself by a
contractual tie. It is clear, then, that Haller also
took refuge in the theory of a social contract
although on different lines, which logically ex-
cluded both the notion of sovereignty and that of
the general good.
Hence it was the uniform rule in the old diets
that the Estates did not represent the whole
community but only its privileged classes. We
nowhere find the peasantry represented except
in a few districts of South Germany and on the
northern coast where the population was purely
agricultural. Generally speaking, the only classes
represented were the clergy, whose place in
Protestant countries was taken by secularized
chapters limited to noblemen ; the nobility, who
were regarded as protecting the interests of their
tenants ; and lastly, the towns, but amongst these
only the Free Towns of the Empire. Moreover,
the deputies of the towns were not representatives
in the strict sense, but delegates, who received
positive mandates curtailing their liberty of
action. The representative character of the
assembly was therefore very imperfect, and
although the fiction whereby the nobility was
supposed to represent the interests of its depend-
ants sometimes corresponded with reality, it
was in most cases a mere mockery, especially in
later times. This form of Constitution therefore
came to be especially abhorred. While absolute
monarchy in more or less competent hands was
often popular amongst the lower orders, they
have always regarded monarchy based on the
Estates with peculiar hatred. Is it not notorious
that the popular fury displayed during the French
Revolution was directed chiefly against the clergy
and the nobility ? Had it been possible at the
right moment to found a democratic monarchy
the storm would probably have been avoided.
The injustice and inequality of this form of
class-representation is proved by its whole fiscal
system. As a matter of general rule it is true
that the lord of the manor paid no taxes on his
land, but it is well to avoid the distorted picture
dear to modern Radicals, and to remember that
the territorial aristocracy bore all the burdens
TAXATION 95
of local administration and justice. The con-
ditions were certainly primitive, but it is impos-
sible to maintain that the landed gentry of
Germany were at any time so exempt from public
dues as it is the fashion to contend to-day. They
were expected to give their blood, not 'their
treasure, for the prince. Payment of taxes was
not recognized as a universal duty. On the attack
of a foreign enemy, the capture of the suzerain,
or the marriage of his daughter, levies were raised ;
in all other cases taxes were regarded as the badge
of serfdom.
It is curious to observe how long ancient
notions of law derived from the Romans con-
tinued to subsist amongst us. The Germanic con-
queror of Roman soil was free from taxation as a
matter of course ; he had acquired his land at the
point of the sword, and was, moreover, an agricul-
turalist who rarely saw ready money. Taxes were
for the Romans, who were the more oppressed
because secretly admired. Such archaic con-
ditions could only be stamped out after a severe
conflict. It is a misunderstanding of German
character to ascribe the dislike of taxation to
avarice, which is not one of its characteristics, so
much as a tendency to live from hand to mouth.
The aversion to taxation is in reality the aversion
felt by free-born men to the symbol of subjection.
This point of view was encouraged and maintained
under altered conditions by the circumstance
that money was scarce in the Middle Ages, and
the collection of dues often impossible. Although
with the rise and development of the science of
economics the need of regular fiscal arrangements
96 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
became imperative, still the Estates continued
to regard the grants made in the light of voluntary
aids. Supplies must be begged for, and it was
held to be within the competence of the Estates
to vote or to refuse them.
This state of affairs led to a curious dualism
in the management of the exchequer. In this
matter the legal theory, so much admired by
Haller, was that the prince must meet the ordinary
expenses of the government out of the revenue
of his private domain, and was only entitled to
appeal to the Estates under exceptional con-
ditions. The Estates provided against such
emergencies by creating a fund raised out of taxes
and intended to supplement the Treasury in
extraordinary cases. This twofold Treasury
system was the rule from the sixteenth century
onwards, and survived in Hanover until 1833,
when it was suppressed. It was restored by the
coup d'Etat of 1837, but was finally abolished in
1848. In Mecklenburg, on the other hand, it
still continues in a modified form. The Grand
Dukes of Mecklenburg are sovereigns upon their
immense estates, beyond the boundaries of which
they have absolutely no power to levy taxes
except in virtue of the carefully appropriated
grants made by the Diet.
This type of monarchy, though imperfect,
may, however, under favourable conditions attain
to a high level of prosperity, as shown by the
example of Sweden under Gustavus Adolphus,
and his immediate successors. But her strength
lay not in the combination of monarchy with
representation by classes, of which even the
SWEDEN 97
peasant delegates formed one, but in the fortuit-
ous talent for government of a succession of
individual kings, and above all in the fact that
universal military service was introduced as
early as the reign of Gustavus Adolphus. Fiefs
from the Crown were forfeited by all who pre-
ferred domestic interests to military duty in war
time. The male population was annually exhorted
from the pulpit in the king's name to join the
colours ; and so arose in rude form the obligation
to bear arms.
Thus it happened that Sweden, through the
ability of her rulers, for a time at least, reaped the
benefit of a well-balanced Constitution, to the
essential merits of which her sudden pre-eminence,
and her temporary superiority to the German
States at this time must in no small measure be
attributed. Our nobility, it must be remembered,
adhered to the old notion that its sole duty was
to take the field as heavily armed cavalry ; when
that went out of date it remained passively at
home. Hence the defencelessness of a monarchy,
based on Estates, in its later days all the more
ominous because in essential conflict with the
fundamental principle of that political system.
After all, the feudal monarchy as limited by
delegated Estates was dominated by the nobility ;
it was by definition aristocratic, and the character-
istic feature of healthy aristocracy has from all
time been military prowess. As paid infantry
replaced the feudal cavalry in war, the special
function of the aristocratic caste disappeared.
Individual gentlemen could no doubt take service
as officers, but the contingent they raised amongst
VOL. II H
98 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
their dependants no longer had military value.
Thus arose the repulsive anomaly of a pre-
dominantly civilian nobility.
Moreover, to grant to the local suzerain
supplies necessary for the upkeep of a standing
army was a larger sacrifice of constitutional
liberties than could be obtained. In this way
the nobility of Brandenburg, always distinguished
for valour, was directly responsible for the defence-
lessness of the country at the outbreak of the
Thirty Years' War. The Elector George William
may be said to have had no army whatever ; for
the contemptible handful of bodyguards and
troopers which he collected at such pains were
useless when pitted against the military efficiency
of the vast armies controlled by Austria. The
ridiculous impotence in war of the German
Electors which enabled Sweden to intervene in
her affairs as their protector must be laid at the
door of the various Diets which would never
tolerate the idea of the miles perpetuus. Standing
armies and regular taxes, which had come to be
the two bugbears of the landed nobility, were
finally established by the Great Elector at the
expense of violating constitutional liberty. It
was inevitable that the idea of uniform taxation
should at last take root, and to-day we see
clearly that in this change lay the earnest of a
great advance towards freedom.
From what we have said it must be apparent
that no free spirit could feel any enthusiasm for
the political conditions of the old order. They
produced hard stubborn characters and stiff-
necked men like the Great Elector's contemporary,
GERMAN CLASS FEELING 99
Ludwig von Burgsdorf, who typifies the Junker
class at its best. What it may be at its worst
Konigsberg learnt from the Kalksteins. A
supreme example of this attitude of mind towards
the State was known to our century in the
person of Baron von der Marwitz, whom Harden-
berg was compelled to imprison out of hand at
Spandau for the violence of his opposition. If
this spirit was narrow it was also firm, and
nothing is more inaccurate than Radical chatter
about aristocratic servility in Brandenburg. The
contrary is the fact and holds good also of
Mecklenburg, where the nobility, though indisput-
ably narrow-minded, is conscious of its independ-
ence and determined to preserve it.
Another feature of monarchy limited by
aristocracy was to encourage a certain sort of
egoism which, like bribery and nepotism, flour-
ished under its sway with peculiar luxuriance.
Chartered rights were only too often made the
opportunity of oppression by landlords against
their tenants, and there was urgent need of a
hand strong enough to compel these gentry not
to press the letter of the law too far. Nepotism,
which is not characteristic of the nobility only,
but of all close corporations, was universal, and
we find it no less firmly rooted in Wurtemberg
under the auspices of a purely middle-class
parliament, well known to have been the worst
in Germany. The noble families of Wurtemberg,
although in many cases they had altered their
status by gaining admission to the chivalry of
the Holy Roman Empire, still readily entered
the service of the reigning prince, but no longer
100 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
as his subjects. Therefore the Diet was composed
almost entirely of assistants who were doctors
of divinity and of clerks who were attorneys.
The whole body was collectively designated as
honourable, but none the less pillaged the State
by corruption and place-hunting as consistently
as any assembly of nobles. The final result of
this form of Constitution is, taken all in all, a
deeply disappointing one, especially for us Ger-
mans, for it proved to be the nursery of our
innate provincialism.
It is well known that Frederick the Great
was the first to establish an interprovincial code
of rights applicable to all his subjects. Before his
time a native of the Mark could not enter public
employment in Cleves, nor a Rhinelander in East
Prussia. In this connection it is interesting to
note how these old provincial conceptions con-
tinued to influence our own time, and that as
late as 1815, Rhinelanders, for all their boasted
liberalism, were incensed at officials from East
Prussia being appointed to posts over them.
They recalled with bitterness that even the Great
Elector had given a solemn promise to the
Estates of Cleves to give no places to strangers.
Suddenly these ancient doctrines came once
more to the surface. Ultimately representative
institutions were adopted all over Europe, and
it is instructive to trace their evolution in certain
States from the old conditions. In France all
bridges leading to the past have been broken
down, and the ancient monarchy destroyed
beyond repair. In England, on the other hand,
the outward forms of the traditional order never
GERMANY AND HER KINGS 101
entirely perished, and under their protecting
cloak a feudal assembly has gradually been
transformed into a modern parliament. England's
extraordinary stability is due to her feudal
monarchy having early been very highly central-
ized, and to the king having always retained
control over legislation and the administration
of justice. For this reason her parliament never
could become the dissolving and dangerous force
which it has been in other States. As early as
1352 English law had developed and incisively
formulated an entirely native doctrine of high
treason. By such means does a State arrive at
consciousness of its own dignity, and thus does
it become aware that the violation of its constitu-
tion is not an act comparable with an infringe-
ment of a private right. The following century
reveals, even in Germany, attempts to formulate
the obligations both of sovereign and subject
towards the State, in the interests of the common-
weal ; examples from the history of Brandenburg
are Frederick I.'s Act of General Pacification
and the Dispositio Achillea, which laid down the
inalienability of the national territory. Such
arrangements conflicted with the spirit of the
feudal monarchy, for if the country was originally
the property of the prince from which he had
from time to time made grants to his vassals,
then he might also partition it by will.
It is significant, however, that the continental
jurists did not discover their doctrine of High
Treason for themselves, but borrowed it from
the Roman Law, and generally speaking their
maxims are found to be in sharp contrast with
102 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
the organic development of English constitutional
history. As already stated, the modern Constitu-
tion of France is connected by no link with her
past, and the same may be said of Spain, whose
present Constitution is entirely the creation of
political theory. During the Middle Ages Italy
remained a land of cities, whose republican
tendencies prevailed over representative caste
tendencies, which never reached any high level
of maturity. At last Italy too adopted a Con-
stitution on the French pattern, devoid of
national antecedents. Germany stands half-way
between England and the Latin States. Our
country was always so rich in currents and
counter-currents that political problems have
rarely admitted of a direct solution, while complex
remedies suggested themselves with inevitable
urgency. The time-honoured contrivances of the
aristocratic State were not abolished but died
of inanition. The old social divisions lost all
power and all sense by standing armies and
regular taxes. An additional blow to the old
system was the erection of Committees which in
most States superseded the Diets themselves.
None the less the old traditions remained alive
and were still traceable with certain modifications
long after 1815 in the Upper Chambers of our
early Parliaments, especially in the minor States.
It is most striking in Saxony, where the Upper
House, though altered in a few unimportant points,
is still composed entirely of the old spiritual and
temporal Lords. But the continued influence of
the old conception of constitutional freedom is
also clearly perceptible in the political mentality
CONSTITUTIONAL CONTRACTS 103
of parliamentary radicalism. Even Rotteck is
at bottom a political thinker of the old school
penetrated by the conviction that individual
liberty must be protected from violation on the
part of the State by contractual guarantees.
Even at the present day the opinions of Radicals,
when not thorough-paced Democrats, bear the
impress of French Jacobinism combined with
that view of liberty so characteristic of the old
order, which regarded it as the privilege of a
class.
This political structure was dominant for
centuries, and still casts its shadow over Europe.
Though it be impossible to sum it up in a few
words, we may yet say with confidence that it
has brought no blessing to any country, least
of all to our own. Monarchical authority amongst
us at last declined so entirely that the essential
justice inherent in its nature was reduced to im-
potence, the privileged classes assented to the
exploitation of the poor and humble. Patriotism
fell into decay, and the State, conceived simply
as an organic agglomeration of private rights,
was united by no bond of ideal aspirations. Pro-
vincial Diets often proceeded to measures of
open treason like the Prussian League, which in
1440 actually placed Western Prussia under the
domination of Poland. Not long after, in 1460,
the Provincial Councils of Schleswig and Holstein
chose Christian I., King of Denmark, to be their
suzerain, and thus inaugurated a connection
destined to last four hundred years. Even this
transaction revealed the jealousy felt by the
provincial Estates of their class privileges, which
104 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
they strained every nerve to preserve intact. It
may be said then that the frenzy to uphold class
privilege not only caused countless minor dissen-
sions within the Empire, but directly contributed
to bring its Northern and Western Marches
under foreign rule. It is the peculiarity of this
view of society that while resting upon a supposed
contract it has always failed to discover any
secure basis for authority ; under such conditions
no adequate idea of the State is possible. This
will appear even more clearly when we come
to consider elective monarchy pure and simple,
which is the Trape/cpao-i? of monarchy limited
by privileged Estates. It often happens that
nothing throws a clearer light upon the funda-
mental principles of a Constitution than its
caricature ; and the comparative method may
therefore lead more quickly than any other to
the perfect understanding of the essential nature
of monarchy.
If for no other reason elective kingship is
clearly proved to be a corrupt specimen of true
monarchy by the fact that it almost invariably
arises out of violent conflicts. To establish the
reasonableness and necessity of the hereditary
principle in monarchy seems, as Dahlmann once
said at Frankfort, like pronouncing a laudatory
oration in honour of the multiplication table. Only
a king by right of inheritance can rise superior
to the contending parties and currents amongst
his people, whereas a king by right of election
is the natural enemy of the Constitution from
the moment he becomes the father of a family.
The greater his power, the greater his temptation
ELECTION v. INHERITANCE 105
to evade or annihilate his constitutional limita-
tions. Moreover, it is as perilous to elevate a
native as a foreigner to the supreme dignity.
On the one hand a foreigner involves the country
in external wars alien to its interests ; whilst on
the other hand a native candidate never com-
mands his due measure of authority. Since he
lacks the support derived from dynastic prestige,
he is necessarily compelled either to avail himself
of demagogic influences or to become the tool of
aristocratic faction.
Both in Latin and Germanic States it was not,
as we have seen, uncommon to find an amalgam
of the hereditary and elective principles. In
such cases the new ruler belonged to the same
family as his predecessor, but his selection was
left to the magnates, whose choice was subse-
quently acclaimed by the people. Out of this
condition hereditary monarchy developed in
Western Europe at an early date, and a
transition to the same system could have been
achieved far sooner even in Germany, had not
her various dynasties, unlike the long-lived
royal house of France, frequently died out.
The gloomy and gifted despot, Henry VI.,
nearly succeeded in establishing the hereditary
right of the Hohenstaufen to the Imperial Crown.
An inscrutable destiny condemned even this
glorious race of rulers to premature extinction.
Nevertheless the Empire became at last, in fact,
an hereditary monarchy. During the last three
centuries of its existence it seemed unthinkable
that any but a Habsburg prince should be
raised to the throne. The sole exception,
106 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
Charles VII. of Bavaria, lives in the recollection
of posterity, not as a legitimate sovereign, but
rather as a kind of usurper.
The advantage of securing the succession to
the throne from all hazards was almost univers-
ally felt as an instinctive need, and was therefore
little by little adopted automatically. It is a
significant fact that the final establishment of
hereditary monarchy in the states of Eastern
Europe synchronized with the definite pre-
ponderance of Western culture. The election
of the king ceased in Denmark after 1660, in
Bohemia during the catastrophe of the Thirty
Years' War. In Hungary the elective principle
remained in force up to the end of the seventeenth
century. In Russia it was not till the reign of
Alexander I. that accession to the throne was
freed from dangerous vicissitudes. Until his
time the authority of the Czar was a question
of fact, not a right. The period between the
death of Peter the Great and the advent of
Catherine II. was a continuous and frenzied
struggle for power between rival claimants.
Each successful competitor was in his turn com-
pelled to resort to acts of atrocious violence in
order to stamp out resistance. If to-day Russia
is entitled to call herself a regularly constituted
State, which is by no means beyond discussion,
she owes it chiefly to the fact that the Crown
devolves on a recognized principle and that no
doubt can arise as to the identity of the heir-
apparent.
Of all the States of Eastern Europe one only
failed to conform its constitution to the occi-
POLAND 107
dental type : it was reserved for the great
aristocratic republic of Poland to ring the death-
knell of aristocratic licence. Countless conflict-
ing causes complicate the annals of this unhappy
people. The ruling nationality of pure-blooded
Poles was always numerically too weak to inspire
and dominate the confused medley of Red
Russians, White Russians, Germans, Gypsies,
Jews, Vlachs, and Lithuanians. Such ethno-
graphic conditions inevitably led to the tyranny
of the ruling race. Furthermore the geographical
position of the country influenced its fate ; it
was separated from the Baltic by Teutonic
colonies, and although at one time it extended
its borders to the Black Sea by annexing
Bessarabia, yet its intimate union with and
ultimate retention of that territory was made
impracticable by insurmountable differences of
custom and language. We have already said
that no great power can long be severed from the
sea. Poland was destined to suffer the full
penalty of her ill-favoured latitude, but her fate
was sealed by the vices of her Constitution. In
the days of Boleslav the resources and bulwarks
of the monarchy were stronger than in Germany,
and as late as the fourteenth century the country
could boast of a really vigorous ruler in Casimir
the Great. On his death the magnates invaded
and usurped the prerogatives of the Crown.
To this must be added the disastrous social
fact that no commercial middle class of native
extraction ever succeeded in taking root. In the
early days of vigorous monarchy, large numbers
of German traders had been called in and had
108 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
founded flourishing industrial cities on Polish
soil. Urban life as a whole all over Eastern
Europe is a German creation. That Slavs and
Magyars are alike incapable of founding towns
on their own initiative is clearly proved to-day
by looking at Hungary. The Magyar, born to
life on the " Pussta," is a kind of Bedouin to
whom existence in towns is incomprehensible.
Debreczin, with 50,000 inhabitants, is but an
overgrown village composed of cottages separ-
ated from each other by widely intervening
spaces.
The corner stone of German mediaeval
cities was their charter of liberties ; they had
their own tribunals, their own penal laws, their
local corporations whose statutes forbade any
stranger from practising any of the recognized
crafts. The prime condition of their rise was
their isolation from the country beyond their
city walls ; without this protecting barrier and
the right of banishment, they could never in a
chaotic and barbarous State like Poland have
attained prosperity.
Such results could never have been produced
by any but Western stock. Here we have a
patent illustration of Bismarck's aphorism about
masculine and feminine nations, for even in
Polish towns urban life has a German flavour ;
any one standing before the church of St. John
in Warsaw, or in the principal square of Cracow,
might fancy himself in the market - place at
Leipzig.
After a time the native aristocracy were
alarmed at the growth of German civic institu-
POLAND 109
tions, which had taken root amongst them, and
became suspicious of their influence. Like the
Teutonic Order, the German burgher, ever growing
richer, appeared to be the natural foe. Life was
made so bitter to the Germans that great numbers
of them were obliged to withdraw from the un-
grateful country ; but since trade had to be
carried on somehow Jews were allowed to take
their place and to dwell in the " realms of peace and
plenty." Butthis makeshift commercial class never
succeeded in putting forth the requisite mercantile
energy, and was never able to form an adequate
counterweight to the power of the national
aristocracy. No Pole would consent to consider
a Jew his equal. Gradually Poland developed
into a State where nobility of birth was the only
standard, and we behold the appalling spectacle
of an aristocratic domination which maintained
the semblance of a monarchy while scouting
every pretence of the justice which is monarchy's
very nature. That a nation cannot consist of
knights errant, it has been the unhappy destiny
of the Polish people, in spite of its many valuable
and chivalrous qualities, to prove beyond dispute.
A fully developed feudal hierarchy as under-
stood in Germany was never adopted by the
Polish nobility. Instead they possessed an
analogous institution which affected the State no
less detrimentally. The magnates surrounded
themselves with so-called " Brotherhoods " or
clans formed from the Schlachta or minor nobility.
They all bore the arms of their chief and were
ready at all times to use their broadsword in his
service. These States within the State eventu-
110 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
ally sapped the old kingdom's strength, and
from the fourteenth century onwards the nobility
ruled with unbridled violence over it. The
Voivods were invariably magnates, and their
position, especially in the frontier territories,
was so independent as to make it doubtful
whether at this time Poland should be con-
sidered a single State or a federation of princi-
palities. At times the very name of a central
authority seems to have fallen into disuse, and
the appellation of Royal Republic of Poland,
applied at a somewhat later date to this
constitutional hornets' nest, is no less strikingly
apt than Frederick the Great's epigrammatic
description of the Holy Roman Empire as " the
illustrious Commonwealth of German Princes."
The nobility finally closed its ranks to newcomers
in 1374 and constituted itself the governing caste,
which on the accession of the Lithuanian house
of Jagellon was able to exact great concessions
as the price of its support. Consequently it
obtained in 1386 the grant of a charter by which
the entire nobility was withdrawn from the
jurisdiction of the common law, and was invested
with the sole privilege of appearing at the pro-
vincial and general assemblies of the kingdom.
For it alone was reserved the governorship of all
royal castles and domains, and the filling of all
places of profit under the Crown. Hence from
that date onwards the towns were systematically
excluded from all share in the Government
representation.
Aristocratic aggrandizement, having once
found acceptance, expanded with uncontrollable
POLAND 111
fertility, and its promoters understood to per-
fection the art of consolidating their mastery
over the Crown by the continued extortion of
well calculated privileges. The maxim gained
ground that Royal offices must be provided with
Crown lands to maintain their establishments,
which affords a striking parallel to the so-called
" Immunities " which prevailed in the Frankish
Empire. The consequence of this fatal indis-
cipline may be easily divined. Such methods
laid the foundation for the princely fortunes of
the Czartoryski, Radziwill, Lesczinski, etc., while
the royal revenues melted away. Poland ex-
hibits the crude contrast between a poverty-
stricken and brutalized peasantry living in de-
gradation and misery side by side with a nobility
housed in palaces of fairy beauty. The con-
dition of the Polish bondmen was so pitiable, and
their intellectual outlook so brutal and limited, that
by comparison the Russian serfs seemed to live in
cultured ease. Their lot could be alleviated from
time to time by the benevolence of an omnipotent
ruler ; but the kings of Poland after a time
totally renounced the right of intervening between
the nobility and their dependants. Bound by
law to the soil the Polish peasants were further
badgered and buffeted like dumb animals by the
extortions of corrupt and dishonest pedlars.
The Schlachta numbered hundreds of thousands,
and it even happened that whole armies which
had been victorious against the Turks were
ennobled by a single act.
In 1413, contemporaneously with consolida-
tion of this aristocratic Constitution, an additional
112 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
privilege was bestowed upon the nobility, by
which every nobleman who had not already been
convicted was exempt from arrest. Untold
distress gradually overspread the land. We know,
for instance, that Bromberg under the rule of
the Teutonic Order was a prosperous city with
about 10,000 thriving inhabitants. It became
Polish ; and when after 250 years it returned to
us under Frederick the Great, we found it a
charred heap of ruins inhabited by some 200
ill-favoured rascals. How did this come to pass ?
None can tell, it was the normal consequence of
Polish rule. Anarchical conditions were a source
of pride, and perpetual war a condition of happi-
ness ; even to-day that is the standpoint of
every genuine Pole. To him German methods,
German justice, German industry seem as con-
temptible as the wild doings which we colloquially
call " Polish inn-keeping " does to us. Every
hope of improvement vanished when religious dif-
ferences were added to the already existing causes
of social and political confusion. Protestantism
had made great headway in Poland, and the
sects whose teaching contained germs of radical-
ism were especially influential. In opposition to
these, a counter-Reformation led by Stanislaus
Hosius joined hands with the Society of Jesus and
the nobility in order to suppress the dissenters,
whose fate we can estimate by the massacre of
Thorn, and the saying current amongst the
nobility, " Beat a Lutheran and he will give you
money."
The climax of this constitutional chaos was
reached on the extinction of the Jagellons in
POLAND 118
1573, when elective monarchy was definitely
established by law. On the demise of the Crown
the entire nobility, headed by the Magnates
attended by the Schlachta, arrayed according to
territorial precedence, gathered in the vast plain
of Wola before the gates of Warsaw for the royal
election. The successful candidate was installed
on a golden throne raised high above the assembled
host, and was acclaimed by the clash of swords
and bucklers. As a condition precedent he was
compelled to sign the so-called pacta conventa,
equivalent to the Electoral Capitulations of the
German Emperors. Certain liberties remained
invariable, and at every fresh election further
concessions were extorted. So the idea grew
that the king's duty was not to govern but to
function as a figurehead. " Rege, sed non
impera ! v exclaimed Zamoiski the Vorvod to
Sigismund III. When Thiers in 1830 coined his
celebrated maxim, " The king reigns, but does
not govern," he little dreamt that it had been
proclaimed many centuries earlier in a State of
very different type. The coincidence is no mere
accident ; there is an unmistakable parallel
between the constitutional principles of Polish
magnates and those of modern Radicals.
Rousseau stands alone amongst philosophers as
an admirer of the Polish pandemonium which will
remain forever proverbial as an example of what
the State should not be. Before the first partition
of Poland Rousseau published a short pamphlet
in which he warned that country against adopting
the coercive doctrine of the State held by the
nations of the West. With the Frenchman's bliss-
VOL. II I
114 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
ful ignorance of foreign conditions he was unaware
that these far-famed liberties of Poland were the
liberties of the nobility only, beneath whose yoke
groaned a multitude of serfs. Frederick the
Great sickened at the sight of Polish degeneracy,
as his satires show, and, paraphrasing Voltaire,
denounced Rousseau's constitutional theory in
these words, "If he had his way sovereigns
would once more have to crawl on all fours."
The Polish Parliament consisted of the Mag-
nates and the Schlachta plus the King. The local
assemblies of the various provinces sent a repre-
sentative, who must be unanimously chosen, to
the Lower Chamber of the central Parliament.
The Upper Chamber was composed exclusively
of Magnates who sat in virtue of a personal right.
The King, the Magnates, and the representa-
tives of the provinces were separate and co-
ordinated Estates. The king was not superior
to the other two ; he attended the sittings of
parliament in person, placed upon the throne as
the first amongst equals. In such an assembly,
as no concluding motion was conceivable, business
was brought to a close, via facti. It was
enacted that no lights should be used, in order
that proceedings might terminate before night-
fall. Occasionally even this method failed of its
object, and the country then enjoyed the stimu-
lating spectacle of a slumbering parliament. The
King, the Lords, and the Schlachta dozed and
snored through the night, so as to be on the spot
by daybreak. The rules of procedure were of
the simplest, and permitted the intervention of
guests, or so-called " arbitri" who were frequently
POLAND 115
of the opposite sex. The flashing black eyes and
nimble wits of Polish ladies often played a sinister
part in the conduct of business.
The liberum veto, that famous " jewel of Polish
freedom " introduced in 1652, was the inevitable
consequence of unrestricted aristocratic pre-
dominance. If the relation of the subject to the
State depend only upon a supposed contract, then
every subject is clearly entitled to be consulted
upon any change in the terms of that contract.
It was further enacted that if in any parliament
a single Bill was lost, parliament itself must be
dissolved and all its previous legislation be
cancelled. Thus it was within the power of any
member of the Schlachta to annihilate the labours
of an entire session. Already then men could be
found who felt that the State was treading the
paths of destruction. " A stronger than you
shall arise," cried John Casimir to the rebellious
nobility. From 1652 to 1704 only seven parlia-
ments ran their normal course, while forty- eight
dispersed in disorder.
Here it cannot be doubted that we are face
to face with constituted folly, but as unreason
when it has reached a certain pitch becomes
hateful to the nature of man, a homoeopathic
remedy was found by legalizing anarchy. To
the political mind it is highly interesting and
instructive to observe that the instinct of self-
preservation was maintained even in this re-
publican degeneracy. It was a time-honoured
privilege of every Polish nobleman to conclude
treaties and to indulge in private warfare ; on
these occasions he appeared wearing one red boot
116 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
and one black, respectively symbolizing fire and
murder. From this it followed that when a
parliament was dispersed because parties could
not agree, they had the right to constitute them-
selves into two separate assemblies, not subject
to the ordinary rules of procedure. The
bracchium saeculare was then proclaimed, which
simply meant that the two bodies resorted to
the appeal of arms. If one or other of them
succeeded in capturing the king it proclaimed
itself a General Assembly and established
the dictatorship. By its authority a parlia-
ment of the whole kingdom would then be called,
with the power to take decisions by the vote of
the majority which naturally commanded scant
respect except when backed by the larger number
of scimitars. So it comes about that what a
party cannot attain by legal means it achieves by
force.
Such was the Constitution which Rousseau
and his modern Radical followers have so long
extolled as a pattern. For our part we have
learnt enough to know that if ever a country
perished by the inexorable necessity of interior
decay it is Poland. But it must be admitted
that since the loss of its independence the Polish
nation shows remarkable signs of transformation.
A distinction must be drawn between the pro-
vinces. Throughout Polish history the inhabit-
ants of Greater Poland, that is to say of the
districts between Gnesen and Posen, have been
specially remarkable for their frivolity, and for
that longing for adventure which is found in all
Poles. It was the misfortune of both parties
POLAND 117
that these fantastically - minded people should
fall to Prussia, and it is all the more important
that we should show severity in order that the
establishment of German civilization may be
hastened. In spite of all the mistakes of our
Government, which changes its system regularly
every five years, we may confidently look forward
to the final victory of Teutonism in these pro-
vinces. 1 A rising in Prussian Poland is, however,
not unthinkable. There the population has
enormously increased, and the novel phenomenon
of a Polish middle class has made its appearance.
Although it is largely leavened by Jews, this
class may be the means of restoring a Polish State
in Russia. In the midst of these difficult
problems one thing is certain : Poland as an
aristocratic commonwealth can never live again,
for feudalism is in complete conflict with our
industrial age.
A fourth type of Constitution, namely absolute
monarchy, stands out in striking contrast to
monarchy limited by Estates, which has been as
much hated by the people as absolute monarchy
may be said generally to have been beloved.
The masses of the people were driven by a natural
instinct to see in the man who was the visible
embodiment of the national unity their natural
protector against their many petty tyrants. The
pith and kernel of absolutism is that the whole
function of the State, legislative as well as
administrative, is united in the hands of the
monarch. Civil jurisdiction is exercised in his
name, although in practice it is directed by
1 This lecture was delivered in 1892.
118 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
authorities independent of him. Personal rights
are sacred even to the absolute ruler, and secret
justice is always presumed to be arbitrary.
Even this profound and fertile form of Con-
stitution contains a contradiction, and has there-
fore always been a stepping-stone to further
constitutional development amongst progressive
peoples. If absolute monarchy be conceived in
a generous spirit, and if it be granted that the
benevolent autocrat who guides the State is
endowed with such limitless power only that he
may the better promote the people's welfare, the
necessity of governing not only for but by the
people will soon appear, and it will not be long
before the nation is in some way or other made
to participate in the conduct of affairs. For this
reason the vogue of absolutism was short, as
we learn from Prussia. The ideal of the absolute
monarch was realized in Frederick the Great, but
already in his time the lower orders began to
raise their heads and become conscious of their
claims. Soon after the death of the great king
his system began to crumble.
Absolutism is rarely found in unmitigated
form, for it almost always tolerates the fragments
of extinct liberties, and absorbs the power of an
earlier Constitution, while maintaining its form.
In this way the old mandatory provincial
Assemblies of Austria, which we have already
examined, long continued to enjoy a peaceful
existence in complete inactivity. In Prussia,
too, previous to the fall of the Holy Roman
Empire it was quite exceptional for the Govern-
ment to dissolve provincial Diets. The chief
ABSOLUTE MONARCHY 119
examples of such proceedings are in Munster,
where a dangerous clerical opposition was
fomented by the Cathedral Chapter ; in Silesia,
where the principal nobility long remained
Austrian in sympathy ; in Western Prussia, where
the Polish aristocracy formed a centre of dis-
affection. In the other dominions of the Crown
the provincial Diets continued to exist though
shorn of their privileges, and allowed to retain
only certain administrative functions.
The attack on ancient forms of representation
was most successful in Latin States. The French
States were not once convened between 1614 and
1789, although the idea of their legal existence
was as firmly rooted in the public consciousness
as the necessity of the Cortes in every Spanish
mind. In theory pure absolutism has prevailed
nowhere in Europe, in practice its career has been
brilliant and eventful. Its most consistent
theoretical formulation is contained in the Danish
royal code of 1665, which sets no limits to the
prerogatives of the Crown. It can be argued
that absolutism, owing to the energy of the central
authority, is a necessary transition stage for
expanding nations if they are to avoid pro-
vincialism and lay the foundations of unity and
equality before the law.
Apart from the petty democratic tyrannies of
Italy, which form a separate category, four stages
may be roughly distinguished in the development
of absolute monarchy in Europe. All absolutism
presupposes a certain degree of legitimacy, the
authority of the Crown must at least be acknow-
ledged in order that it may not have to compel
120 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
respect by force. The first stage of absolute
monarchy is typified for us by Philip the Fair of
France. He represents for us the self-sufficing
sovereign will which constituted itself the tangible
expression of the State and reduced mediaeval
chaos to order. In England, as we have seen,
authority was already centralized under the early
Norman kings ; but true absolutism attained
maturity only through the Tudors, who, after
the internecine butchery of the Wars of the Roses,
were able as national rulers to dominate repre-
sentative institutions without suppressing them.
This process was even more marked in France.
Not only was absolute monarchy a practical fact
far earlier in France than elsewhere, but the
theory of it was far more idealistically conceived
by the French than by any other nation. There
is a real grandeur about the doctrines of the
fourteenth - century jurists who received their
training at Bologna. A more recent exponent
of the theory of absolutism, Jean Bodin, developed
the doctrine of the independence of the State
from all authority but its own. It is possible
to trace the gradual steps by which absolute
government in France first grew powerful through
the ancient Constitution, then supplanted it.
Feudal law had upheld the maxim, " No land
without a Suzerain." The Barons were practical
sovereigns of their fiefs, subject only to the
vague prerogatives of their overlords. Little
by little, supported by the Third Estate, the
Suzerain of all, who was the king, constructed
his own sovereignty out of the amalgamated
sovereignties of his vassals. Abandoned by the
FRANCE 121
two superior orders, the third order could not but
see in them their natural enemies. Peasants as
well as burghers found conditions of life far more
tolerable on the royal domains than on the lands
of private lords, where the lot of the peasantry
was miserable beyond all description. Royal
administration offered comparative safety, and
it became the custom for citizens of towns
subject to private lords to take refuge within the
jurisdiction of the Crown. By such an act private
allegiance dissolved, and by this means the
nucleus of a healthy middle class began to grow
up under the protection of the king. Royal Com-
missioners, so-called " baillis," were despatched
into the provinces to extend wherever possible the
royal authority, which, while everywhere resist-
ing the claims of the lords, finally displaced them.
Later on Richelieu replaced the " baillis " by
" intendants," who were the predecessors of the
modern prefects, and who as plebeians were more
trusted than noblemen. Governorships were
reserved for the aristocracy, whose ostentatious
extravagance brought the purely honorary
functions of their office into disrepute.
Even the Estates of the realm never possessed
a legal right to be summoned periodically ; they
always remained an extra legal authority as dis-
tinct from the Crown and its Ministers, and were
ruined as an institution by the fury of class hatred.
In the midst of the deadly peril of the Hundred
Years' War, the nobility and the clergy, by an act
of criminal folly, conferred upon the Crown the
right to tax the Third Estate at pleasure on
condition that the two higher orders would be
122 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
exempt. Nothing could contrast more strongly
than this suicidal conduct with the attitude of
the aristocracy of England which was always
careful to preserve its relations with the other
Estates of the realm. Thus the Etats generaux
disappeared more and more from view. They
were brought into some prominence during the
wars of religion, when they held their sittings at
Blois and at Orleans, but they enacted fanatical
decrees with unfailing regularity, and, having
become the arena of religious strife between the
rival persuasions in the aristocracy, were gradually
pushed more and more into the background. By
Henry IV. 's time they had fallen into such dis-
repute that it was felt by the Third Estate as an
alleviation when, in his reign, the sittings began to
be less frequently convoked, and finally entirely
ceased under his successor. Of the once powerful
provincial Assemblies of France only those of
Languedoc and of Normandy retained their im-
portance, and were not entirely devitalized. The
assembly of the Estates of Dauphiny which met
at Vizille in 1787 was the pattern upon which the
great National Assembly of 1789 was modelled.
The first phase of unlimited monarchy, during
which the king appeared especially in France
as the restorer of peace and centre of unity, was
followed by one which may be described as the
theocratic period. Of this fanatical school of
absolutism, which inscribed cujus regio, ejus
religio upon its banners, Philip II., the cloistered
king-monk of the Escurial, is the perfect and
abhorrent type. Philip was not only the secular
head of the State he was also an ecclesiastical
THEOCRATIC MONARCHS 123
dignitary. The resources of the Inquisition were
at his disposal, and the Crown derived additional
strength from the almost unlimited powers over
Bishops which Philip wrung from the Pope. To
restore the unity of faith was his sole and absorb-
ing aim. In other respects he barely governed
at all, the material welfare and instruction of the
people were totally neglected. In spite of its
wealth the country fell into general decay, and
bled to death spell-bound by the idea of universal
Catholic empire. The development of theocratic
absolutism followed a similar course in Germany
during the great wars of religion. Ferdinand II.
boldly laid down the maxim, novus rex, nova lex,
and repudiated the liberties conferred by his
predecessors upon the Bohemians. In virtue
of the royal supremacy, and armed with the
Papal blessing, he proceeded to promote the wel-
fare of his people by means of the Lichtenstein
dragoons. The conception of government which
limited its ambition to the restoration and main-
tenance of religious uniformity, and ignored all
other internal questions prevailed in Austria
until the time of Metternich. A somewhat milder
version of the same political principles was
professed in Protestant countries, where the
princes, supported by the Court preachers, were
above all concerned to enforce the precept, cujus
regio, ejus religio.
At the close of the religious turmoil of the
seventeenth century absolutism modified its char-
acter, and its theocratic form was succeeded by
what may be called a courtly absolutism, which
found amongst the French its first and highest
124 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
development and its earliest decline. It was
the tragic destiny of that people which, earlier
than any other, had understood and valued the
virtue of unlimited monarchy to be the first to
suffer from its most deadly errors. Till the era
of the two great Cardinals, Richelieu and
Mazarin, who completed the unification of France
about the middle of the seventeenth century,
the monarchy may be said in spite of some crimes
to have been true to its mission. The numerous
illegalities of which the Government was guilty
must be regarded as expiated by the noble purpose
of securing the State from the disruption which
was the darling aim of a turbulent aristocracy.
Under Henry IV. France had enjoyed the benefits
of a peculiarly lofty and healing phase of absolute
monarchy. The king, although one of the
greatest liars known to history, was idolized by
the people, and was endowed with the irresistible
charm of a perfectly chivalrous bearing. Any
attack on Henry IV. involves the whole French
nation, and no one has the right to dismiss with
contempt the genius of an entire people.
The idea of monarchy had matured to such
a pitch in France, that the nation felt its glory
embodied in the person of the king ; the
two Cardinals secured its practical guarantees
upon an unshakable foundation. The Fronde
having been quelled, Louis XIV. on his majority
took over the legacy of absolute and unques-
tioned sovereignty. From that date forward
began the monarchy's career of guilt. By that
time every possibility of the revival of aristo-
cratic and centrifugal tendencies was out of the
LOUIS XIV. 125
question. The sole object of the Crown should
have been to employ its undisputed predominance
in the interests of national prosperity and enlight-
enment. The shallowness of Louis's character
made him sacrifice such considerations for out-
ward show in which the essence of monarchy
consisted for him. His whole attitude is summed
up in the odious motto, L'Etat c*est moi. This
expression is said first to have been used as a
retort to Louvois, whom the king reproached for
the devastation of the Palatinate, and who excused
it by saying that the blame would be laid upon
the State and not upon the king. Such an origin
of the saying would have done him credit, but
he later employed it to justify the most repre-
hensible proceedings, and it has therefore since
become a byword for fulsome and repellant
self-glorification. This incident has a psycho-
logical aspect which it is important to note. All
nations know the saying, " Self-praise is no com-
mendation,*' but in the highest place of all, self-
praise has something outrageous and implies a
challenge. There is no doubt that unlimited
power bestowed upon a single individual not only
excites but distorts his understanding, but when
it degenerates into petulant arrogance, and a
nation is constantly reminded that it would be
in the shade but for the light which radiates from
this same individual, it is inevitable amongst
thinking people that a reaction must sooner or
later set in which will culminate in revolution.
France has had to taste the bitter experience of
this revolution which was precipitated by the
cruelties of religious intolerance. The expulsion
126 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
of the Huguenots deprived the nation of its last
chance of uniting freedom with piety, and obliged
it to choose between frivolous free-thinking and
blind surrender to the fiat of the Church. It
is not too much to say that the French Revolution
was the logical outcome of the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes.
Another repulsive feature of the later stages
of French absolutism was that it associated itself
entirely with the interests of the courtiers instead
of applying its resources to the intellectual and
material improvements of the nation, and was
blind enough to identify its cause with that of a
hated aristocracy. The infatuation of such a
policy was made manifest by subsequent events.
Under Louis XIV. the small gentry of the Vendee
and other Western Provinces, although the
healthiest element of the French aristocracy,
were in bad odour at Court because, unlike the
other nobles, they preferred to live as honest
gentlemen on their estates in friendly contact
with their dependants rather than waste their
substance at Versailles. But, when the day of
reckoning was at hand, who fought for the rights
of the Crown ? Not the polished nobles of the
Court, who fled the country in attendance upon
the degenerate princes. None were found to
fight for the golden lilies but the provincial
squireens. Nothing could be more significant.
Thus the noble spirit of absolute kingship was
poisoned by the air of Courts.
Yet another brand of monarchy existed which
took root and may be said to have flourished best
in Prussia. Of the three final stages of absolut-
PRUSSIAN MONARCHY 127
ism the theocratic, the courtly, and the en-
lightened our country became familiar only
with the last and noblest ; for, at the time when
theocratic notions had the upper hand, even in
Brandenburg our monarchy was not absolute
but limited by Estates, and the powers of the
prince were extremely restricted. The career of
courtly absolutism among us was but short and
stunted. King Frederick I., a man of very
moderate intellect, attempted, according to his
poor ability, to emulate Louis XIV., but at heart
felt a keen sense of his duty to the State. His
imitation, confined to externals, soon became
ridiculous. The heavy German lacks the danger-
ous French gift of making wrong alluring ;
Germans who attempt to tread such paths are
only coarse and clumsy. On this principle
Frederick I. kept a State mistress as a part of
the insignia of absolutism. It may be said with
truth that enlightened autocracy has prevailed
with us since the days of the Great Elector, and
found in Frederick the Great its most accom-
plished representative. The State policy is fitly
epitomized in the saying, " Everything for the
people, nothing through the people," but more
nobly still in the words of the Great Frederick
himself, " The sovereign is the chief servant
of the State." As heir-apparent the youthful
prince took pleasure in using almost offensive
terms to express his belief in the unconditional
subordination of the monarch to the welfare
of the nation as a whole, and his " Anti-
Machiavelli " therefore employs the term
" Lackey of the State." Frederick William I.
128 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
also regarded himself as perpetually on duty.
In his own eyes he was a Prussian officer who
happened also to be King of Prussia. His whole
being was absorbed by the sense of service to the
common weal. There is an awe-inspiring sternness
in a life so penetrated by a sense of duty.
This fact is even more vividly brought to
light by a study of Frederick the Great's char-
acter. The average man can scarcely grasp
the standpoint of personal abnegation and of
detachment from all selfish aims which char-
acterized the wise, lonely old gentleman who
wandered to and fro with his greyhound in the
picture-gallery at Sans Souci. Hence the foolish
verdicts on the great king to which we are so
often treated. Enlightened despotism reached
its zenith in Frederick the Great, whose historical
importance in this respect has been misjudged
by most historians. Because he had a genius
for despotism it is assumed by a tempting but
treacherous analogy that he was also a pioneer
in Statecraft. No doubt he deserved this
appellation for having been the first to declare
emancipation from Austria as the true political
goal. But as regards internal affairs such a
claim cannot be supported ; in this respect he
did not initiate but concluded a great epoch.
With a few isolated modifications he maintained
the institutions inaugurated by his father. He
showed creative zeal only in regard to the ad-
ministration of justice. By the General Pro-
vincial Code (Allgemeine Landrecht) he con-
solidated the legislative structure begun by the
Great Elector.
FREDERICK THE GREAT 129
Genius alone possesses the talisman of inspiring
emulation, and many European Courts were spurred
to imitate Frederick's example by the glamour
of his renown. If we compare Augustus of
Saxony and Eberhard of Wurtemberg, who strove
to out-strip Louis XIV. in self-adulation and
riotous living, with Frederick Christian of
Saxony, Charles Frederick of Baden, Charles
Augustus of Weimar, who endeavoured to walk
in the footsteps of our great King, we fully realize
that he alone taught the German princes to
conceive their royal mission aright. His father's
grim and narrow austerity unredeemed by genius
was repellent in the extreme. The startling
anomaly of an historic people at once so venerable
and so undisciplined had in him its living embodi-
ment. The key to the problem lies in that return
to barbarism of which the Thirty Years' War
was at once the cause and the climax. Regarded
from this angle our history has a tragic aspect
not fully redeemed by the subsequent glory of
the absolutist era. Frederick's conception of
kingship is set forth with perfect logicality
in his Mirror of Princes, which he dedicated to
Charles Eugene of Wurtemberg. Even the
greatest of Austrian monarchs, Maria Theresa
herself, felt the spell of his influence, and it is
perhaps her greatest merit that she, a woman,
was yet able to recognize the greatness of a man
who had earned her unbounded hatred, and she
was magnanimous enough to attempt the intro-
duction of his system into her government as
far as local conditions would allow. Monarchs
and ministers pledged to progress arose even in
VOL II. K
130 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
Catholic and Latin States ; Italy, Spain, and
Portugal began to initiate reforms.
It is unfortunate that the enlightened absolut-
ism which emanated from Sans Souci began its
triumphal march through Europe when it was too
late for most countries to profit by its benefits.
The form of absolutism native to Prussia rests
upon, and is inseparable from, a firm hierarchical
division of the people, which is bred upon the
tradition that each of its separate classes has
an unalterable function to perform. While the
nobility own and administer the large landed
estates, the smaller holdings are left in the un-
disturbed possession of the farming peasantry.
It is the right as well as the duty of the nobility
to shed its blood in defence of the King and to
occupy the high offices of State. Below it
comes the citizen class, whose avocation is prin-
cipally trade and commerce, and which for that
reason was exempt even as late as the Great
Frederick from military duty in most Prussian
towns. The function of the peasantry was to
provide the main body of the army, and in addi-
tion to cultivate its share of the soil in peace
time. To maintain intact the frontiers between
the classes was regarded by the absolute monarchy
as indispensable to social justice. Out of the
humble town - dwellers which he found at his
accession, Frederick's measures and policy
gradually, though no doubt unintentionally,
evolved a middle class which little by little ac-
quired, at least in part, the refinement and wealth
of the nobility, and began to feel itself the back-
bone of the nation. The transition to another
ENLIGHTENED AUTOCRACY 131
and freer form of constitution became inevit-
able. It is evident that when monarchy is con-
ceived in the lofty spirit in which Frederick II,
understood it, the power of the monarch increases
in proportion as he holds himself to be invested
with a political office for the benefit of all. Even
a government inspired by theocratic notions like
that of Philip II. recognized the Church as
limiting its power, just as courtly absolutism
was restrained by the nobility. The French
monarchy succumbed not to its own inherent
faults, but to the fact that it allowed its aims
to be hampered by the interests of an aristocracy
which had become an integral part of its system.
In contrast with these types of absolutism, so-
called enlightened autocracy can detach itself
from the clogging influence both of ecclesiastical
and aristocratic prepossessions and carry out its
task with noble concentration. In Prussia the
power of the Crown had expanded in every direc-
tion, and though the King was unable to intervene
in civil causes, and had to learn the danger of
such meddling when he tried to dispossess the
miller of Sans Souci, yet it was always within
his competence to appoint Courts of High Com-
mission and to apprehend any individuals in
the interests of public policy. These preroga-
tives vested an immense discretionary power in
the King, and the use made of them against the
popular leaders in 1819 was in a legal sense
perfectly justified and in accordance with the
recognized rights of the Crown. This great
discretionary authority left the Crown full
latitude to proceed very gently and liberally
132 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
when it so desired, as shown by the tolerant
attitude of Frederick the Great and Catherine II.
towards the Jesuits after their dissolution by
the Pope.
It is generally overlooked that in other spheres
the old absolute monarchy was far weaker than
modern constitutional kingdoms, and its lack of
elasticity was particularly apparent in finance.
Under the old system each Provincial Assembly
raised by direct taxation fixed sums which could
not be increased at the demand of the King, who
in point of fact had full control only over revenue
yielded by direct taxes. The weakness of the
Government in this respect led Frederick the
Great, when his financial necessities became
pressing, to that system of State monopolies and
surveyors which ultimately made him so un-
popular. The result was that Frederick had not
the power to raise the total yield of direct taxa-
tion. The drawbacks to such a state of things
were especially onerous in war-time. Without
England's assistance Frederick the Great could
never have carried on the Seven Years' War,
and his successor soon found himself in great
financial straits. Generally speaking, at that
time, just because it had such an overwhelming
share of power, the Crown felt a far greater moral
responsibility towards public opinion than con-
stitutional monarchs of the present day, who are
shielded from criticism by representative govern-
ments. When under Frederick William III. it
was proposed to establish monopolies, which at
that time would have been a salutary proceeding,
and to introduce a paper currency, the King on
MONARCH'S PLEDGES 133
both occasions held back from a fear lest public
opinion would condemn these measures. If a
State monopoly in the tobacco trade had then
been established and maintained, a valuable
source of revenue would have been created. The
Government of that day, however, showed a
greater deference to public opinion than do our
contemporary authorities. Although the pro-
posed monopolies broke down under insurmount-
able difficulties, our present Government felt
strong enough to attempt their introduction.
It remains true that a Constitutional Monarchy
can proceed far more boldly in finance than any
other because it shares responsibility with the
representatives of the people.
The theory of absolutism lays down as a
general maxim that the monarch is bound by
the promises of his predecessors so long as he
has not formally repudiated them, but since his
powers in legislation are unlimited, he may
abrogate any law and a fortiori a mere promise.
Its practice, indeed, is very different, and experi-
ence has proved the moral prestige of such
pledges to be so powerful as virtually to preclude
their repeal. Filial reverence alone suffices to
make a son averse from cancelling the promises of
his father, and this natural sentiment brought
Frederick William IV. to the brink of disaster.
It would have been possible for him to repudiate
his father's pledge to grant a Constitution and
substitute some project of his own, but he re-
frained out of respect for the paternal memory.
Without taking this course he nevertheless did
make proposals of his own, which proved imprac-
134 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
ticable on legal grounds. While the original
promises remained both unredeemed and un-
repealed, Parliament was perfectly justified in
demanding their fulfilment. A constitutional
State, on the other hand, can easily solve
such problems by a legislative method. When
Government finds itself committed to a law
which has proved inapplicable in practice, it has
only to convince the legislature of this fact and
to pass a second measure annulling the first.
It is a further defect of absolute monarchy
that all opposition to Government must assume
the appearance of personal resistance to the
Sovereign ; all public servants are his instruments,
and ministers are answerable to him alone. The
choice of the prince in making appointments
may, as a general rule, be guided by the pre-
scribed examination tests, but he is fully entitled
to make exceptions at his pleasure. It is no
uncommon thing amongst us for troopers to have
risen rapidly from the ranks to prominent posts
because on some occasion they have attracted
the favourable notice of the King. The relative
independence from control by the Crown, which
is claimed at the present day by chiefs of great
departments, would have been unthinkable under
the old monarchy, when every criticism inevit-
ably implied a personal attack upon the ruler
himself. On the accession of Frederick William
II. a complete change from the spirit which had
animated the reign of Frederick the Great set
in, and we still have to blush for the torrent of
scurrilous lampoons against the King which
flooded the country. That opposition should
THE CZARS 135
take this form is natural and unavoidable when
the King, in whom everything centres, proves
inadequate to his task, as it must be confessed
that Frederick William II. turned out to be.
Thus we are led to the conclusion that even the
loftiest and most perfect type of absolutism can
be no more than a transition stage to a Con-
stitutional Monarchy, which governs not only
for the people but through it.
For this reason our own time knows despotism
in one European State alone, namely in Russia,
where it is so closely bound up with the social
habits and outlook of the people, and so well
suited to its educational level, that, given com-
petent rulers, it is certain of a prolonged future.
To class the Prussian absolutism with the Russian,
as the Radicals do, is an error. Just as the
Russian Empire extends far into Asia, so the
Russian monarchy is half orientalized in char-
acter. The White Czar is not only the unques-
tioned master in temporal affairs, he is also the
head of the Orthodox Church. That fact is of
course disguised by the veil of official terminology,
but deep down in the hearts of the people is
rooted the belief that the true faith is guarded by
the White Czar of Holy Russia.
Only after a prolonged struggle with the
nobility have the Czars made themselves sole
masters of the State, and the immense power
which they wield to-day rests upon the complete
democratizing of society. In Russia there is no
hereditary nobility strictly speaking, but the
whole community is divided in Chinese fashion
into professional categories ; this is the " tchin,"
136 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
and any one who wishes to preserve his status in
that hierarchy must enter the service of the State.
If two successive generations of a family have
failed to hold public employment that family
forfeits its place in the " tchin."
The absolute power of the Emperor is exercised
through four main channels which are the
Ministry of State, whose decrees have executive
force ; the Council of the Empire, in which the
Imperial Ukases are drawn up, and which con-
sists exclusively of superior officials ; the Senate,
which is the Supreme Court of Appeal ; and,
lastly, the Holy Synod, which is the final author-
ity in ecclesiastical affairs. This assembly, which
consists entirely of Bishops, has preserved only
the appearance of independence and is brought
under the immediate control of the Emperor by
the presence in its midst of an Imperial Pro-
curator, whose functions are apparently nominal
and in fact despotic. On its side, the Holy Synod
raises the very natural claim that the White Czar
should own no subjects but such as profess the
orthodox faith. Special dispensations are the
only legitimate means of evading this rule, but
reasons of secular policy may deter the State from
its rigorous assertion. Mohammedans are usually
the beneficiaries of this calculated leniency, which
the Russian Church has ever extended more
readily to them than to Protestants! or Roman
Catholics. Nothing can be achieved amongst
Kalmucks, Kirghese, or other engaging Tartars
by religious propaganda. Owing to their semi-
Oriental temperament, Russians have a peculiar
facility for dealing with Moslems, who, for their
LIBERATION OF SERFS 137
part, fully realize the half-Asiatic character of
Russians. At Constantinople and in the East
generally the difference is recognized in colloquial
speech between Franks and Moscos.
Long after Peter the Great had imported the
outward forms of Western civilization into his
dominions, it fell to the lot of the magnanimous
Emperor Alexander II. to attempt the infusion
of the Western spirit into the rigid mould of a
semi-Asiatic despotism. It is surprising that
one and the same man should combine such
moral fortitude with such physical timidity.
The nineteenth century can boast no more admir-
able example of political courage than the aboli-
tion of serfdom in a State like Russia. At the
date of this event, which took place soon after
the Crimean War, the position of Russia may be
compared with that of Prussia after 1806.
Alexander possessed in Count Waluieff a talented
adviser imbued with the spirit of Stein, though
less profound than he. The happiest results
were anticipated from the Emperor's reforms,
but he was unfortunately lacking in the sustained
energy which stamps creative genius, and allowed
himself to be arrested half-way to his goal by
the passive resistance of the well-to-do classes.
A middle class is only now beginning to emerge,
but in those days the lack of it made itself felt
as Russia's greatest weakness. Personal libera-
tion meant little to the serf unless he were also
endowed with his plot of land. A Russian
peasant has scarcely any property beyond his
hut, which is worth but little. Even at the
present day he lives in a primitive communistic
138 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
group, which Russian Radicals have the audacity
to hold up as a pattern. Every commune has
its portion of arable land, in the cultivation of
which all collaborate, subject to certain rules.
In order to allow some parts to lie fallow in defer-
ence to the requirements of the soil the allotment
cultivated by each peasant farmer under com-
munal supervision is intermittent. This in-
stability of tenure is Russia's misfortune, and
fosters the nomadic strain in the character of her
people.
Another factor in the rural life of Russia is
the configuration of the country, which is so
featureless as to make it difficult for any one to
remember his bearings. The same repellent
monotony extends for hundreds of miles, and the
total absence of what we consider the amenities
of landscape further impedes the civilizing
process. The quickest method of counteracting
the primary encouragement to a wandering life
which these conditions constitute would have
been to create peasant ownership. But Alex-
ander unfortunately stopped half-way in his
magnanimous project, which, like his other
grandly-conceived reform, the establishment of
Zemstvos, was arrested in its infancy and has
to-day been lost sight of. Instead, representa-
tives of the landed interest were appointed to
act as advisers to the Governors of the various
provinces in order to co-operate with them in the
administration, notably with regard to road-
making and the poor-laws. This again was a
well-considered plan, for without the preliminary
experience of some measure of local government,
ALEXANDER II. 139
no scheme of popular representation had a chance
of holding its own against a centralized bureau-
cracy. Once more the opposition of the wealthy
classes proved too strong, and already in the
lifetime of Alexander II. it became apparent that
in an Empire of such vast extent even the most
carefully balanced reforms are dependent for
their success on the personality of those who are
entrusted with their execution. Where the
Governors were men of ability the Zemstvos were
tolerably successful ; where the Governors were
tyrannical the whole system remained a fiction.
It is unfortunate that, in addition to these whole-
some innovations, Alexander should have im-
ported a number of Western institutions with
no better claim to consideration than that they
have found favour with liberal theorists. First
among these importations stands trial by jury.
The mere mention of a Russian jury provokes a
smile, for, while their value may sometimes be con-
tested even amongst ourselves, in Russia their
success is infinitely more impeded by the good, as
well as by the bad traits of the Slav, who is far
more easily swayed by his passions than the
Teuton. The Russian lacks moral discipline rather
than intelligence. How could even an approxim-
ately just verdict be expected when the educational
and moral level of the nation is no higher than
it is in Russia ? The unreasonable conclusions at
which Russian juries have been known to arrive,
are fully explained by the general conditions in
which the people live.
It was to be expected that the lessons taught
by the experiences of Alexander's reign would
140 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
be followed by a violent reaction, which took
place indeed, but in such uncompromising form
that it is hard to foresee what course may still be
open to the internal development of Russia. As
we have already said, the greatest strength of
hereditary monarchy is that the interests of
the reigning dynasty are inseparable from the
fundamental principle of the Constitution ; the
necessary degree of continuity is thus secured,
but it is precisely this essential element of healthy
political life which is lacking in Russia. Not until
the accession of Alexander I. in 1801 was the
order of succession to the throne securely settled.
That conditions have remained unstable in spite
of this consolidating change is proved by the
circumstance that every new Czar reverses the
policy of his predecessor, and by the fact that
the throne has been occupied alternately by
innovators and reactionaries with monotonous
regularity. The modernizer, Catherine II., was
succeeded by the Muscovite, Paul I., who was
followed by the Germanophile Philo-pole,
Alexander I. Then came the nationalist,
Nicholas I., and following upon the high-minded,
cultivated European Alexander II. we see the
primitive Muscovite ideal personified in Alexander
III.
This continual fluctuation is an unmistakable
symptom of immaturity, the origin of which
must be sought in complex and abnormal ethno-
graphical conditions. The precise character of
their civilization is therefore difficult to analyse.
Contemporary Russian history has revealed to
us that sheer madness may seize upon the rulers
BALTIC PROVINCES 141
of such a State. A measure so suicidal as the
annihilation of the German-speaking community
in the Baltic Provinces is a phenomenon which
has rarely, if ever, been attempted before. The
inhabitants of that part of the Empire were, if
anything, too faithful. Their share in making
Russian history is enormous, and it is hardly too
much to say that every third name in the roll of
Russian soldiers and statesmen belongs to a native
of these regions. Add to this the ethnographical
conditions. The Baltic Provinces are at bottom
not German at all. Although there is a thin
crust of German nobles and merchants, the great
bulk of the inhabitants spring from Lithuanian
and Finnish stock, and a German rising would
therefore have been a practical impossibility.
These are the provinces which Russia, with un-
paralleled cruelty, determined to partition and
persecute in spite of all she owed them. If the
expulsion of all Germans from Russia were
carried out, it would be followed by the collapse
of her public services, for the proper conduct of
which native ability is totally inadequate. In
spite of this, or perhaps because of it, hostility
to Germans is rampant. A new reign would
probably once more bring Western notions into
fashion. No great power can flourish whose
Government is subject to such convulsive im-
pulses. The panacea of German Liberals for all
evils is the introduction of a representative
Government. No one can prophesy with cer-
tainty whether that system can ever take root
in Russia, but for the present a constitution
would be a very doubtful boon. Social reforms
142 EARLY TYPES OF MONARCHY
are Russia's most crying need. Serfdom must
entirely disappear, and the peasantry must be
enabled to hold land ; the miserable system of
elementary education must be radically recast.
On inquiry the only opponents of the improve-
ments are found to be the great landlords, who,
together with a few representatives from the
great towns, would alone constitute an eventual
Russian Parliament. Such a body, therefore,
would necessarily be reactionary in the worst
sense and would only serve to handicap the
Crown. Doubtless educated Russians felt
keenly the need of a constitution between 1815
and 1830, when the Grand Duchy of Warsaw
revelled in its independence, and even later, when
the small states which Russia wished to detach
from Turkey began to indulge in all manner of
constitutional experiments. Every one of them
must needs have its Skupshtina, in which, of
course, the members belabour and shoot each
other, but which suffices to prove that Parlia-
mentary institutions may have a future even
among Slavs and Vlachs.
Although the result may be doubtful, there are
many things which show that Russia will one
day attempt the experiment of a Parliament,
but even the actual conditions should not mislead
us into underestimating her gigantic vitality.
The unrivalled power of assimilation which char-
acterizes Russia is an asset of the greatest value
in the political life of a nation and must not be
overlooked. If there be a people which seems
predestined to greatness, it is the people of
Russia. Its civilizing mission in Asia is un-
RUSSIAN AMBITIONS 143
deniable, and many unsolved problems lie before
it in that Continent ; but it is a danger for
Europe that successes in Asia fill the nation with
an overweening sense of victory to which it is not
entitled. Its Western frontier is of such a nature
as to make it unassailable and it has attained to
such a pitch of national conceit that it thinks
itself capable of conquering and ruling the West.
The imagination of Russian subalterns has no diffi-
culty in sketching a campaign in which one half
of the army would invade India, while the other
half would march on Constantinople by way of
Berlin and Vienna.
In Asia the Russians, as an Aryan people with
a semi- Oriental form of government, are the
obvious bringers of Western culture ; but to
Europeans the present conditions in Russia are
an object lesson that any return to absolutism
would be a sheer impossibility for Western
nations.
XVII
CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
THE infinite variety of aspects assumed in
history by Constitutional Monarchy are dictated
by the course of political evolutions and the
changing needs of nations. There are three
indispensable tests in the proper analysis of this
form of government. Firstly, although both
in fact and in law the entire power of the State
is centred in the Crown, no legislation can be
made effective without the co-operation of the
elected representatives of the people, that is to
say, of an assembly whose members vote individu-
ally and not by classes. Secondly, the administra-
tion itself is in one way or another controlled by
the representative assembly, which at the very
least has the right to grant or refuse supplies.
Thirdly, justice is administered in the King's
name, but in such a manner that civil and
criminal proceedings are protected from his
interference, and that the royal prerogative of
pardon alone remains to him. These are the
characteristics common to all representative
systems. The circumstances of each case, how-
ever, differ so widely that it is impossible to
regard States like England, Belgium, and Prussia
144
THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION 145
as governed by identical constitutions. In this
connexion it must never be forgotten that
Parliamentary institutions on the Continent
originated in a cult of the British Constitution,
which gave rise to a great misunderstanding.
We know that to Montesquieu England, though
ruled by the proudest aristocracy of his day,
appeared as the paragon State combining the
advantages of monarchy, aristocracy, and de-
mocracy. He believed that she had solved the
problem of maintaining while co-ordinating these
three elements in the State ; the patent fact that
Parliament controlled both the executive and
the legislative power seems/to have escaped him.
With Montesquieu's erroneous presentation before
us, it becomes our duty to inquire what was the
real condition of English institutions in their
classic period towards the end of the eighteenth
century, and what were the precise features
which gave those institutions their world-wide
influence. That influence has been immense,
and the triumphal progress of English constitu-
tional law throughout Europe in the nineteenth
century is comparable only with the once irre-
sistible sway of the Roman Law of Persons. A
vogue so unparalleled cannot be due to accident
or caprice.
The Norman doctrine that all power and all
law emanates from the King is to this day main-
tained in England in theory, and is exemplified
in practice by the absurdities of etiquette. On
close scrutiny, English public life shows traces
of that same subtle hypocrisy which also colours
its social life, and for which the English language
VOL. II L
146 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
provides an untranslatable expression. The
clerical drawl is all-pervading : it is heard not
only in the pulpit, but in the fashionable drawing-
rooms of London, where frivolity is as prevalent
as in Paris, though hidden by a tedious veneer of
outward decorum, which is kept up even in the
political arena. The epidemic aptly described
by a contemporary publicist as " constitutional
cant " has everywhere disseminated the doctrine
of the legitimacy of the Hanoverian claim. What
are the facts ? With the destruction of legitimate
monarchy in England by the Revolution of 1688,
the effective power of the Crown was annihilated.
James II. was the last governing King of England,
and William III. a mere usurper. The " glorious
Revolution " was an upheaval in the widest sense,
and was a signal for the gradual decay of all
national traditions. Thenceforward the monarchy
existed by the grace, not of God but of Parlia-
ment, although William III.'s personal ability
enabled him still to play the part of a true king.
The Act which placed William III., upon the
throne laid down that King James II., having
broken the original contract between prince and
people, the Crown should be held forfeited.
Modern English constitutional law rests upon
the false doctrine of an original contract, yet
another specimen of the sort of thing which is
hushed up by liberal doctrinaires. By a sub-
sequent resolution Parliament then summoned
the Guelphs to the throne, although their heredi-
tary pretensions to it were of the remotest nature,
and the claims of some five-and-forty members
of the Stuart family were thereby set aside. The
ENGLAND 147
title by which the House of Hanover reigns to-day,
and by which the House of Coburg will one day
reign in its stead, is an Act of Parliament which,
in contravention of an ancient hereditary right,
called in a distant relative of the legitimate
sovereign to supplant him. Now, if it is of the
essence of monarchy that authority should be
self-derived, it must be clear to every unpre-
judiced mind that the British Constitution is
closely akin to an aristocratic republic, since,
notwithstanding the formalities of an obsequious
ceremonial, the King has been deprived of all
real political power, and since the legal basis of
his government rests, not upon an inherent
historical right, but upon an arbitrary act of
the legislature. These conditions, to the main-
tenance of which the extraordinary tenacity of
certain personal characteristics has powerfully
contributed, are in every respect peculiar
and local. The last eminent man to occupy
the throne of England passed away with
William III., and even he, as a foreigner and a
usurper, did not wield the plenitude of royal
authority. Under his successors the personality
of the sovereign was so completely overshadowed
that there could be no question of maintaining
the Crown's freedom of action against the en-
croachments of a haughty native aristocracy. A
Duke of Norfolk could not look up with venera-
tion to the new-born majesty of a German
princeling. The first two Georges were not
Englishmen at all, and the former was so ignorant
of his adopted country's language that he was
obliged to communicate with his ministers in
148 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
dog-Latin ; the consequence was that he absented
himself from the meetings of the Council. A
new direction was thus given to constitutional
development, and matters came to such a pass
that it was no longer seemly to mention the
King's name in debate for the plain reason that
that name had lost, and was intended to lose, all
influence. George III. was the last English
Sovereign who attempted the re-establishment
of personal rule. His machinations began with
the betrayal of Frederick the Great and ended
in disgrace and disaster with the loss of the
American colonies. Such were the consequences
of the final effort of a small-minded king to
restore the lapsed prerogatives of the Crown.
At a subsequent period the Prince Consort was
compelled to abandon as chimerical the plans
which he had harboured for the revival in England
of monarchy in the German sense. He resigned
himself to the task of instructing his wife in the
difficult art of maintaining with decency the
ridiculous position assigned to her between the
rival parties, an art which she in fact practised
with considerable grace.
Regarded as a whole, the conditions of English
public life explain why Montesquieu laid down
that suspicion is the predominant factor in con-
stitutional monarchy, and how it is that he made
himself responsible for the repulsive doctrine
which attempts to found a noble form of govern-
ment upon one of the ugliest traits of human
nature. Yet this doctrine is accepted as axiomatic
even at the present day by all Radicals, although
they may not venture to proclaim it broadcast.
ENGLAND 149
Even my own revered master, Dahlmann, taught
that political freedom had probably less to fear
from the Crown when it is worn by a mediocre
man than from the dangerous gifts of genius.
It is a marvel that such words could be uttered
by a lofty and spirited thinker, as though genius,
the greatest of all Heaven's blessings, could ever
become a public danger.
It should be obvious that even if it were
possible, it would remain highly undesirable to
transplant to other countries such a degenerate
phenomenon as English monarchy has now
become. Common sense suffices to tell us that
the best political institutions are those from
which the strongest hands can evolve the greatest
results. Any one, therefore, who asserts that
monarchy should be constructed with a view to
suffering the least possible harm from mediocrity
may be said to have studied history in Bedlam.
The education of English princes is well calculated
to propagate the hereditary nullity of the House
of Guelph, and may be said to have achieved its
object with admirable success. Not one of the
possible heirs to the throne can be called a soldier
in the professional sense, and it is no presumption
to surmise that the ancestral peculiarity of the
Hanoverian line in this respect, which has become
a commonplace of English public life, will be
transmitted to the next two generations of the
House of Coburg. Germans, however, will not
diverge from the paths of common sense, and
will not propose to their countrymen to exchange
a healthy and living limb for even the most
cunningly contrived artificial member. We know
150 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
by experience that our monarchy is so devised as
to yield the best fruits under monarchs of strong
personality. In the last resort it cannot be the
aim of constitutional government to deprive
monarchy of all reason for existence ; in a nation
politically mature the maintenance of its vigour
and popularity should rather be the object of
the Government's solicitude. In our country
the monarchy is about the only institution
which unites us to our historic past. Can we
desire to barter our glorious Hohenzollerns for
the English Georges ? The annals of our mon-
archy are so glittering that every Prussian has
a right to say that the best conceivable king is
only just good enough for him. According to
our law the monarch alone is invested with the
authority of the State, and he who asserts the
contrary must prove his allegation by the evidence
of examples peculiar to the history of foreign
countries.
We have established that the first factor in
English constitutional life is an impotent
monarchy. The second is the existence of an
exceedingly powerful and politically astute
aristocracy. The yeomen had been completely
bought out by the end of the sixteenth century.
Conditions which survive as a curiosity in Meck-
lenburg and parts of Pomerania are the rule in
England at the present day. The life of the rural
classes bears the stamp of servility. The great
landlords occupy beautiful castles ; next to them
and wholly dependent upon them come the tenant-
farmers ; and finally a host of day - labourers,
who have no other cause for existence than to
ENGLISH ARISTOCRACY 151
serve the landlord. In England the gentry have
devoured the peasantry, who in Germany con-
stitute the backbone of the community. The
perfectly logical result has been that aristo-
cratic influences have preponderated in the
development of her Parliamentary institutions.
Although decisive debates have always had to be
conducted in the Lower House since the days
of the elder Pitt, it would be an error to conclude
that impotence seized upon the House of Lords
from that time onwards. Who in those days
nominated the Commons ? None other than the
Lords, who figured as the elite of the nation while
they packed the Lower House with their younger
sons, nephews, and cousins, and caused their
henchmen to be returned to it by subservient
voters. Every Peer had a number of electoral
divisions in his pocket.
Any fundamental difference of outlook was
therefore impossible, and in fact did not arise
throughout the eighteenth century. Hence it
follows that the whole trend of political life was
determined by the aristocracy, which so over-
shadowed the Court that it ceased to be, and has
never again become, the centre of society. The
two historic parties of Whigs and Tories were
agreed on the principles which should guide the
conduct of State affairs ; the struggle raged only
round the application of those principles in
individual cases. The chief object of contention
was office for its own sake. The hollo wness of
their political contest softened the asperities of
party warfare, and saved the State from the
dangers of revolution. It is due to England's
152 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
immemorial habits of self-government that the
orderliness and justice of civil administration
could remain undisturbed by the conflict of
parties. As Justices of the Peace the country
squires carried on the entire current business of
the county, which they conducted in the spirit
of free men, though no doubt in a slow and
cumbrous manner. It was a point of honour
with the well-born young gentleman, on conclud-
ing his studies and on returning from the Grand
Tour, to be inscribed on the list of magistrates, and
this privilege was never refused to a landowner.
Justices of the Peace might belong to either of
the two political parties, but as the jurisdiction
of all alike extended to the whole county, each
could check the partisan decisions of the other ;
at the same time they were sufficiently independ-
ent to be unaffected by the change in the Ministry,
and justice took its course slowly but without
corruption.
Standing above this aristocratic local adminis-
tration are a small body of Parliamentary officials,
some sixty-four in number, who change with the
Ministry, and who are selected from one or other
of the Houses of Parliament. These are the real
heads of the administrative departments round
which all political ambition centres. Below
them is another grade of officials, who bear the
significant title of "clerks." All English officials
are so designated ; they have no latitude in
taking decisions, and only exist to carry out
the orders of chiefs sitting in Parliament, from
which they are themselves excluded by law. It
is a very ancient experience that a class which
ENGLISH CIVIL SERVICE 153
is cut off from the full satisfaction of its ambition
always suffers a capitis diminutio. Let us suppose
our Prussian corps of officers to be so constituted
that the generals were necessarily chosen from a
different class from the other officers. All would
instantly be changed. This is the position in
England. The whole category of Civil Service
clerks is excluded from the highest offices ;
they are therefore underlings in the full sense,
and in this respect can be compared only
with our Councillors of Chancery. They, too,
know that they will never really govern, but
must for ever remain mere instruments. A
Civil Service whose functions are thus curtailed
will attract a very different type of man
from one which will afford scope to his capacity
for government. The aristocratic nature of
the English Constitution here stands revealed.
Every administration, like every army, must
recognize a distinction between superior and
subordinate ; the vital question is where the
line of demarcation is drawn. In Germany this
line is drawn much lower down than in England,
and therefore our social life has a far more demo-
cratic aspect than hers.
The apex of the marvellous English state-
machine is the Cabinet, which is the Sovereign
de facto, and is composed of the King's confidential
servants. These persons, chosen from amongst
the men who have won the favour of Parlia-
ment, form a Government of which the law to
this day knows nothing. The law recognizes a
Privy Council, of which ministers are invariably
members, but no statute enacts that it alone
154 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
should hold the reigns of Government. The
chief members of the Parliamentary majority
for the time being occupy places in the Cabinet,
which has been rightly called a Committee of
that majority. Thus there is no representation
of the Government as such, for the Government
itself forms part of Parliament. Ministers sit
on the front -bench either of the House of Lords
or the House of Commons, and Peers may only
speak in the Upper House, Commoners only in
the Lower.
What a contrast with our own institutions,
and what a situation would have arisen if Prince
Bismarck had been prevented from speaking in
the representative Chamber, simply because he
happened to be a member of the Chamber of
Peers. As only members of the House of
Commons may speak in their House, our whole
system of Government Commissioners would
be an impossibility in England. The totally
different position of the permanent officials in
Germany and in England is here revealed. Our
Civil Service is an independent bureaucratic
body consisting of the King's servants, which,
while standing outside Parliament, confronts it
and addresses it in the name of the Government.
The English Civil Service is literally controlled
by Parliament, and all its officials can be sum-
moned to appear at the bar of either the Upper
or the Lower House.
All these elements have combined to create a
State much to be admired, no doubt, but no more
democratic in spirit than the House of Commons
is in composition. It is a surprising thing that
ENGLISH PARLIAMENT 155
that body should ever have come to be spoken
of as a popular assembly. Until 1832 not one of
its members owed his seat to the free choice of
people. Pocket boroughs were not the exclusive
privilege of Peers ; in the great towns too, as in
Germany during the eighteenth century, the
Parliamentary vote was controlled by a handful
of town councillors, whose numbers were renewed
by co-option. In Portsmouth, whose population
even before the first Reform Bill had reached
over one hundred thousand souls, the electors
numbered only sixteen. It is ridiculous to be
asked to regard as a popular assembly a House
elected under such conditions, and which possesses
qualities of quite a different order.
The fact that the candidates for election were
always drawn from the aristocracy enabled its
members to enter public life at a very early age,
and the younger Pitt to become Prime Minister
at the age of twenty-three. Thus it was possible
for the aristocracy to train its political heirs in
its own school. The Prussian bureaucracy also
trains its own political successors. The differ-
ence is that in Germany the young men are trained
by their superiors, whereas in England they are
trained by Parliament. It goes without saying
that in England no man can hope to maintain
himself in power without the support of a majority
in both Houses of Parliament at his back. It is
astonishing that so predominantly aristocratic
a Constitution could ever have appeared to a
continental student as an amalgam of demo-
cratic, aristocratic, and monarchical elements.
The truth is that democracy was non-existent,
156 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
that monarchy had become a shadow, and that
a powerful, well- organized aristocracy alone sur-
vived. These conditions of course cannot afford
to be weighed in the scales of the moralist. Only
two methods were practical in attempting to
influence such a powerful oligarchy, and both
were occasionally employed at the same time by
the same Ministry. Either the mind of Parlia-
ment must be persuaded, hence the great power
of oratory ; or else, in Sir Robert Walpole's words,
"The wheels of Parliament must be oiled."
Enormous bribes were continually needed in order
to preserve the Government's majority ; corrup-
tion became systematic, and one of the officials
of the Treasury still retains the bombastic title
of " Patronage Secretary." Such an aristocratic
system could never be kept alive if there were
not a good chance of becoming rich in its service,
and only the very few realize with what perfect
unconcern Englishmen themselves are prepared
to admit this fact. There are some character-
istic English lines to the effect that other States
are governed with the full rigour of the law,
whereas in England the State is maintained by
the gentle bonds of friendship. Existence under
such circumstances may be very agreeable
indeed, but it is absurd to hold them up as a
pattern to the stern sense of justice which
governs the German conception of the State.
The German plan of filling minor posts in the
public offices with discharged non-commissioned
officers, who, after all, have deserved well of the
State in their modest way, is far more equitable
than the English custom of distributing such
ENGLISH PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 157
places amongst the old servants and ex-flunkeys
of noblemen.
So the old British Constitution rattled along,
held together by some mysterious inner cohesion
which would instantly have been destroyed if
any part of the machinery had been tampered
with. Since the close of the eighteenth century,
however, the middle classes have steadily grown
in strength and power. New classes with
hitherto undiscovered claims were brought into
being by the great manufacturing industries and
knocked peremptorily at the gates of Parliament.
The younger Pitt quickly discerned the symptoms
of this new social formation. No sooner had the
French Revolution broken out than he eagerly
began to urge a reform of the franchise in order
that at least a part of the House of Commons
might represent the working-classes of the people.
The great struggle with France which ensued
absorbed the whole life of the nation for many
years, during which Pitt's reforms had to be post-
poned. The old order of things survived until
1830, when the democratic movement had become
too strong to be resisted any longer. Popular
forces had become so powerful outside that it
was necessary to admit their representatives to
some proportion of influence in public affairs.
The first Reform Bill became law in 1832, and
has since been followed by three others. By
that measure the electorate was doubled, and in
half the constituencies the vote of the middle
class thenceforward predominated.
The attitude of the House was now funda-
mentally transformed, and the old aristocratic
158 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
parties doomed to disappear. The House of
Commons has to a great extent emancipated itself
from the control of the House of Lords, and
may to-day be regarded as a genuinely popular
assembly. The importance of the Peers is sub-
stantially diminished, especially when compared
with what it was in the eighteenth century.
These social changes have entirely altered the
aspect of the House of Commons, in which proud
scions of the nobility sit cheek by jowl with
bankers and chairmen of railway companies.
Nearly a third of the members of the Lower
House are railway directors, and it is easy to
understand the significance of such a fact in a
country which has more railways than any other
in the world. The strife of parties, which once
consisted in a monotonous contest for power
between two aristocratic factions, no longer
centres in struggle for office, but has developed
into a conflict of social forces and rivalries, to
which denominational animosities were added
when Irish members took their seats at West-
minster. This Irish crew has been shot like
some foreign body into the heart of the House
of Commons, and, after the fashion of our
Polish deputies, lurch first one way and then the
other.
On close examination the two historic factions
will be found to have split up into at least six
groups, which only remotely follow the lines of
the old aristocratic parties. These groups contain
men who seek to promote the interests of the
working classes, but whose views approach very
near to Socialism. The old appellations of Whig
ENGLISH LOCAL GOVERNMENT 159
and Tory have nearly passed out of use, and have
been replaced by the hollow names of Liberal and
Conservative, borrowed from the Continent ; in
England they are peculiarly inappropriate, for
the Whigs were always the haughtiest section of
a haughty aristocracy, and it is a mere accident,
due to a fortuitous connexion with the financial
interests of the great towns, that made the Whig
party occasionally appear to lean to liberal
measures. The illuminating fact is that there
was no fundamental difference of principle between
the two aristocratic parties, both of which have
in turn attacked and defended long Parliaments,
Irish Reform, Catholic Emancipation, etc.,
according to whether they were in or out of
office.
Not only have repeated reforms altered the
character of the British Parliament, but the
time-honoured tradition by which the gentry
carried on the local government of the country
has long been undermined, and is to-day almost
at an end. It is obvious that the old Justices
of the Peace must be inadequate to the political
control of the complicated conditions of modern
urban life. A great central police authority was
first established in London and given a half-
military, half-bureaucratic organization on the
Continental pattern. The Poor Law was re-
formed and a Board of Public Health introduced.
The Justices of the Peace have been succeeded
by the County Councils, who appoint paid
officials to conduct public business. The general
principles of administration are in process of
transformation, and the final result cannot yet
160 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
be foreseen. The ancient boast that every noble
landlord was a born adviser of the Crown is
rapidly being transformed into a patent untruth
by changes in the economic conditions of the
nation. The immense power of capitalism tempted
the Peers themselves to gain some control of
that engine of influence by taking part in financial
speculations. Since railway " kings " and
cotton " lords " have become masters of the
State the House of Peers has sunk into the shade ;
but the British aristocracy is at once so wealthy
and so politically astute that it is not unreason-
able to hope that it will be able to adapt its
course to the altered institutions required by the
advent of new social forces.
This rough-and-ready sketch-picture of English
institutions and their recent development shows
once more, and very plainly, how frivolous
it is to attempt to transplant institutions
which have their roots in the history of the
country in which they originate. Experiments
of this kind have always failed. In France Mon-
tesquieu's teaching, which implies a complete
misunderstanding of English political thought,
came to be amalgamated with Rousseau's doc-
trine of the sovereignty of the people. They
are no more akin than fire and water, but the
Control Social became the rage in Europe just
as the Esprit des Lois had been. Rousseau
taught that freedom was alone secure under
the one and indivisible authority of the Nation.
As no single individual is superior to any
other, he, in fact, obeys only his own will in
submitting to the will of all. Herein is con-
FRENCH THEORISTS 161
tained Rousseau's tremendous fallacy, which all
radicals have shared, and which, though a
patent delusion, has nevertheless fascinated the
minds of men. It is quite easy to detect that
the doctrines of Montesquieu and Rousseau
have often been simultaneously entertained by
political thinkers. The addled brain of the
Abbe Sieves was crammed with the dogmas
both of the Esprit des Lois and of the Control
Social, and the French Constitution which he
drew up was founded upon contradictions and
foredoomed to failure. When it was suspended
it was at once apparent that the idea of the in-
divisibility of the people's sovereignty had sunk
infinitely deeper into the minds of Frenchmen
than the idea of constitutional checks and
balances. Finally nothing remained but the
undivided Convention and its undivided guillo-
tine. The inexorable logic of the situation at
last led to the annihilation of the sovereignty of
the people through its most complete embodi-
ment " 1'homme - peuple," Napoleon. More
recent attempts artificially to reproduce English
institutions on French soil have also failed.
When we consider the types produced to-day
as the finest flowers of French civilization, we
cannot but be struck by the prophetic insight of
the two men who, in their own time, were de-
nounced as reactionaries, Burke and Genz. Has
not the latter's terrible dictum "France will
drift from one form of Constitution to another,
and from disaster to disaster " been confirmed
even in our own time ?
Similar experiments have succeeded better in
VOL. II M
162 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
Germany, Belgium, and Italy, partly because in
these countries Rousseau's ideas have had less
influence, partly because in them the more prac-
tical though somewhat mechanical contrivances
of Montesquieu were more acceptable than
unadulterated Radicalism. In Belgium the
Monarchy is a shadow raised into transient
importance by the great political ability of
Leopold of Coburg, the founder of the dynasty,
which, because it was imported, was incapable
of asserting the legitimate rights of the Crown
against the encroachments of the people's repre-
sentatives. In that respect it offers some analogy
with the history of the Guelphs in England,
although the principles of the respective Con-
stitutions differ fundamentally. Under the
Belgian Constitution all authority emanates
from the people ; a King hemmed in by such an
axiom is no longer a Monarch in the true sense.
In Italy, too, the position of the dynasty is full
of difficulty ; its title to the Crown has not the
same origin in all parts of the Kingdom, and is
only hereditary in certain portions of it. A small
proportion of the population owes a traditional
allegiance to the House of Savoy, while the vast
majority have accepted it by periodical plebiscites.
In Belgium as in Italy there is a fixed order
of succession to the throne, but in both the
Monarchy rests upon a more or less democratic
foundation, and the constitutional and parlia-
mentary arrangements, originally borrowed from
England, have consequently undergone some
inevitable changes in a democratic direction. In
Germany things are quite different ; faith in
GERMANY 163
Monarchy, and in the indefeasible right of native
dynasties to rule, is still a living force. This
faith, which is inseparable from our deeper and
more historical conception of the State, could
not fail to find expression in our constitutional
system. These German conditions will be the
object of our further inquiries. Thiers' saying
that the king should reign but not govern may
be well suited to an aristocratic republic such
as Poland, and yet this favourite expression of
the oligarchical view of freedom is thoughtlessly
endorsed even amongst ourselves by men who
call themselves Liberals. Most of us, however,
take it for granted that our Constitution means
what it says, and that the power of the Crown is
genuine and living. The nature of a Constitu-
tion is tested by the question whether or not the
principle that executive authority is centred in
the Crown retains effective vitality. The reply
will show the line of demarcation between the
aristocratic Constitution of England, the demo-
cratic Monarchies of Italy and Belgium, and the
constitutional Monarchy as it exists in Germany
and especially in Prussia.
To secure that heredity of the royal office,
the rational justification of which we have
already considered, it is necessary first of all to
establish a regular order of succession to the
throne. The descent of the Crown in the male
line has always proved itself the most adequate
means of ensuring this end, for it avoids the
risk of frequent changes of dynasty which involve
great dangers in countries where monarchical
sentiment is strong. For such changes sever one
164 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
of the strongest political bonds which can unite
a people, namely love and reverence for a native
dynasty.
Another bulwark of Monarchy is the strict
regulation of royal marriages. In this matter
political interest must be given due considera-
tion without much regard being paid to the
wishes of Phyllis and Corydon, which are irrele-
vant to the political question at stake, though
a marriage of inclination which coincides with
political expediency would of course be doubly
desirable. Democratic platitudes should also be
avoided. The rules relating to equality of birth
as applied to royal marriages on the Continent
are well founded. It is not desirable that princes
of the blood should ally themselves with subjects,
or that the descendants of subjects should occupy
the throne. Although the early life of the
Emperor William I. was turned into a tragedy
by the enforced sacrifice of his love for Elise
Radziwill, his father was justified in demanding
it for other reasons besides inequality of station.
We could not wish a Radziwill to be our queen
if we reflect for a moment upon the encourage-
ment of faction within the State which would
inevitably have resulted from the elevation of a
private family to such an exalted height. In
comparison with such a marriage, an alliance
with one of the reigning houses of Europe is in-
finitely more advantageous, if only because those
houses are so linked together by ties of blood as
almost to form a single family, with whose in-
terests and concerns it is necessary for a powerful
dynasty to be connected.
ROYAL MARRIAGES 165
After Henry VIII. 's hymeneal prodigies, it was
enacted by the English Parliament that its assent
should be necessary to the validity of any royal
marriage in England. Such an affront to the
Monarchy can only be explained by the terrible
experiences which England has undergone in
this respect. No private person at the present
day would endure such a restraint upon his
individual action. A man may tolerate inter-
vention by his family, but to be compelled to
accept the tutelage of an entirely external author-
ity in such a question is unworthy and unbearable.
These legal provisions have in practice produced
much the same result as we experience in Germany,
for Parliament only recognizes royal marriages
when the contracting parties are of equal birth.
All the world knew that the Duke of Cambridge
had for years been united to an actress, and yet
it was possible for a Minister publicly to say, " I
dare affirm that H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge
is not married to any one." In the eyes of the
law this was the exact truth. The public mind
is penetrated with the conviction that the com-
munity of royal families represents a power
which no single reigning House standing alone
can afford to challenge or disregard.
One of the principal weaknesses of monarchy
lies in the possibility that the head of the State
may be either a minor or of unsound mind ; in
the latter case his removal is far more difficult than
it would be in a Republic, where he is either not
re-elected or may be compelled to retire. A
sovereign cannot be subjected to such an external
power, since he is by definition responsible to no
166 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
one. Hence a regency has always been regarded
as a misfortune, and has always been curtailed
by every available means. It is no folly, as
superficial satire would have us believe, but
sound sense, that our monarchs attain their
majority and assume the reins of government
at eighteen. The underlying motive of such
a daring expedient is the dread of a regency,
which seems so distasteful an alternative that
even the government of a youth of eighteen is
preferable to it. The practical failure of regencies
is taught on every page of history. Their forma-
tion is a matter of the greatest difficulty, and under
our Constitution is regulated by very precise
dispositions. These provide firstly, that the
agnates of the family shall meet together in
order to decide whether a sovereign or heir
apparent is competent to govern ; secondly,
after their decision has been confirmed by the
Diet, the oath is administered to the agnate
next entitled to the regency. The incalculable
chances of life defeat the most precise and skil-
fully formulated enactments. It is easy to lay
down the general rule that mental disease shall
suspend a man's legal personality, but as medical
science has so far discovered no infallible rule
in this matter, the intervention would probably
come too late in the case of a sovereign as in
that of a private individual who is placed
under restraint by an ordinary right-minded
family. The idea of deposing a legitimate ruler
has something so repellent to the public conscience
of a monarchical State, and at the same time a
weak-minded sovereign is so convenient an instru-
REGENCIES 167
ment in the hands of interested parties, that when
such a calamity arises dissensions cannot fail to
ensue. It is very likely that the complications
which arose in Prussia in 1857 sprang from the
excessive prolongation of the too often renewed
appointment of Prince William to represent
his brother ; after the first three months of
Frederick William IV.'s illness it became apparent
that he would never again be of sufficiently sound
mind to conduct State business. The refined
susceptibilities of those who surrounded the
stricken sovereign, and the generous disposition
of his younger brother, shrank from pressing his
claim to the regency as senior agnate. The
nomination to represent the Crown was thrice
renewed, and only after the lapse of three years
was a regular regency installed. This delay need
not be regretted, for it revealed the secret
calculations of faction.
An ugly contrast with these events is evoked by
the partisan struggles in the British Parliament
after the mental seizure of George III. The
repeated attacks of lunacy which afflicted that
monarch brought to light how little reliance
can be placed upon the profession of English
political parties. The Prince of Wales having
ranged himself amongst the Whigs, they hastened
with sudden demonstrations of loyalty to declare
that the regency belonged to him as of right,
notwithstanding that it had previously been
the distinguishing mark of their party to
champion the rights of Parliament against
assertions of prerogative by the Crown ; while
the Tories, on the other hand, maintained
that this right must be conferred on him by
Parliament.
Such agitations may imperil the very existence
of a State, but we have been taught by the
Bavarian precedent that a country may endure
without danger even the melancholy fate of an
indefinitely protracted regency, provided that
legal measures have paved the way for such a
contingency. In the Bavarian case one insane
king has succeeded another for, as King Otto
was incurably mad even before his accession,
and therefore incapable of any valid act of will,
absolutely no legal means existed of bringing
about his abdication. The question was raised
whether it would not be preferable that Prince
Luitpold should at once ascend the throne, but
it was deemed inadvisable to vary an order of
succession the stability of which lies at the root
of the monarchical idea.
What are the further disabilities which may be
said to incapacitate a monarch for government ?
In former times the answer was a simple one.
No man could receive the electoral hat unless
fitted to lead an army. To-day the personal
direction of military operations by the sovereign
is no longer indispensable. Blindness is the only
bodily defect which is an absolute barrier to the
practical exercise of the office of ruler ; for,
although it has not a deleterious effect upon a
man's mental faculties but is compatible with
great sagacity and may develop a profound
knowledge of human nature, yet in the case of a
blind monarch, the grave question of the royal
signature is involved. There can be no certainty
BLIND MONARCHS 169
that the document which he has signed is the
one which has been read to him. Everything
depends upon the honesty and good faith of a
secretary. For this reason no great States have
ever tolerated blind sovereigns with the exception
of the Byzantine Empire, whose example should
be as deterrent in this respect as in others. We
need not here consider phenomenal exceptions
like the great blind Doge of Venice, Enrico
Dandolo, who, in spite of his infirmity, conducted
a naval war, conquered Constantinople in person,
and rendered other invaluable services to the
State when over ninety years of age.
We have here to deal with the question whether
or not blindness should exclude from the succes-
sion, and we must regretfully admit that Germany
is the only country in which blind men have been
permitted to rule in modern times. The succes-
sion of George V. of Hanover was a European
scandal. One scarcely likes to hazard a guess
as to what that unfortunate prince may have
been induced to sign. Furthermore his accession
was a flagrant violation of immemorial right.
As an Electorate of the Empire Hanover had
remained subject to the provisions of the Golden
Bull, which stipulates that blindness should be a
notabilis defectus. Moreover it was an hereditary
ailment in the Guelph family, by reason of which
many of its members have been silently forced
to renounce their claim. It was all the more
outrageous that King Ernest Augustus should
have taken steps to secure the succession for his
son in defiance of family compacts as well as of
the dictates of reason. The poor blind gentleman
170 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
himself gloried in his accession in spite of his
infirmity, and saw in this event a direct mani-
festation of God's will. Mecklenburg can also
point to a blind Duke in the roll of its rulers, but
in such dwarf States these things do not matter,
for in them history dissolves into anecdote.
According to the letter and to the spirit of
nearly all constitutions, the king is inviolable in
his person as well as irresponsible for his acts,
for this is in the nature of things. To govern
and at the same time to be held accountable
for acts of government is incompatible ; no
one can be made answerable for his acts until
they are past. When Republican officials are
called to account they are suspended ; but a
king, being irremovable, is for this reason, if
for no other, precluded from accountability.
The necessary consequence of the king's personal
irresponsibility for his acts as ruler is that the
constitutional responsibility for them falls upon
the shoulders of his Ministers.
Ministerial responsibility is another subject
which has become the shuttlecock of partisan
theorists. What really matters is political re-
sponsibility, and that cannot be taken too
seriously. To struggle with the susceptibilities
of public opinion, to overcome the resistance of
opponents, and yet perhaps after two years to
find one's self discarded like scrapped iron, is but
an ungrateful prospect. Political responsibility
is an extremely serious matter, whereas legal
responsibility, in the usual acceptation, for
political acts is of very doubtful efficacy. In
every well-governed constitutional State there
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY 171
must be some form of administrative jurisdic-
tion to which even Ministers are liable. These
legal safeguards are valuable and form a
guarantee against ministerial caprice ; on the
other hand it is more than doubtful whether
the right to bring an action against Ministers is
as precious as constitutional theorists formerly
supposed ; and in our own Constitution it
is unsupported by an executive clause. As
a rule this liability of Ministers to prosecution
for their official acts will not be found satisfactory;
in practice I am aware of no instance in which
such proceedings were conducted with convincing
impartiality. A Minister who has committed
an offence may be cited before the Courts like
an ordinary subject even if the offence has a
political character. There are, in fact, no
political crimes peculiar to Ministers as such.
Ministerial indictments always spring from con-
flicts of authority between Parliament and Govern-
ment ; impartial justice is therefore rarely if
ever possible.
Strafford, the unscrupulous Minister of Charles
I., had the letter of the law on his side, for the
Stuarts seldom departed from strict legality,
which is a point of material importance to the
subject. They continued to do what the Tudors
had done throughout the sixteenth century :
they made use of the dispensing power, which
rested upon no Act of Parliament, but which
was supported by innumerable precedents from
the reign of Henry VII. to that of Elizabeth.
The difference was that the Tudors exercised their
power for the good of the country, the Stuarts
172 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
theirs to promote rank tyranny. Stafford's
trial raised a purely political question ; it was
a struggle for power, and it must be admitted
that Stafford lost his life illegally.
Similarly, the proceedings against Charles X.'s
Ministers also bear the stamp of a partisan trial.
What was the charge brought against Polignac ?
He had made high-handed use of Article 14 of
the Constitution, which conferred upon the king
the right to issue decrees of his own authority in
cases of emergency. That that article had a
valid existence is shown by the fact that its
abolition was the first act of the victorious
opponents of the fallen dynasty. Such a step
would have been superfluous if the late King's
Ministers really had violated the Constitution.
It is very doubtful whether their conviction could
be maintained at law or whether their punish-
ment could be equitably defended ; they were
probably the innocent victims of the innate
French craving for a scapegoat when things
turn out badly, a characteristic which is con-
stantly revealing itself anew in times of peace
as of war, and to which Bazaine also was sacrificed.
As Moltke has shown, his offence could not by any
possibility be construed into an act of treason.
The law cannot compel a general to be a genius,
and Bazaine certainly was not one.
We have had some unpleasant experiences
in Germany also in connexion with Ministerial
trials. Hassenpflug, one of the ablest and un-
worthiest amongst the Ministers of our minor
States, was three times impeached by the Diet of
Electoral Hesse. The Hessian constitution con-
IMPEACHMENT 173
tained a provision obliging the Chambers to im-
peach a Minister whom they believed guilty of
high treason. This was stigmatized as official
encouragement of German quarrelsomeness and
self - righteousness. Nevertheless Hassenpflug
found a distinguished constitutional jurist to
defend him and was repeatedly acquitted, in my
opinion rightly, by the Supreme Court of Appeal,
which was by no means disposed to favour him.
His object was to undermine the Constitution, but
it was impossible to give evidence of facts which
would have proved such an intention. It is the
art of individuals like him so to cover their game
that the arm of the law cannot reach them.
All this explains why Ministerial impeachments
are antiquated in England since the regular
alternation in office of the two great parliamentary
parties has become a matter of course. Since
the reign of Queen Anne, which saw the last
attempt to impeach a Minister of the Crown,
it has become an axiom with every successive
administration to let the waters of Lethe flow
over the past. When one of the parties comes
into power it knows very well that it may go out
the following year, and that it would then be its
turn to have its dirty linen washed in public.
Such is the quixotic calculation which makes
each party in succession agree to bury the past
deeds of its rival in oblivion. This unmitigated
party-system cannot fail to produce a certain
slackness in public morality, a certain coarsening
of political sense of honour. Under George III.
a political trial once more took place, this time
not of a Minister in the narrow sense, but of a
174 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
Governor - General of India. Even the trial of
Warren Hastings presents the aspect of a conflict
between two political parties, who chose this
arena in which to measure their strength.
The weapon of impeachment was thus silently
eliminated from the armoury of party warfare
for reasons of tactical expediency which com-
mended itself to both sides. For even in countries
where Parliamentary Government is otherwise
understood, as on the Continent, this double-
edged sword is of very doubtful value, if for no
other reason, because no provision exists for the
composition of a court competent to try such
cases. In England that point presents no
difficulties, for the House of Lords is the legally
established tribunal before which an impeached
Minister is cited to render account of his acts.
As the principal Ministers are peers, it is evident
that they can only clear themselves before other
peers. In continental States a solution of the
problem is not so easy, and our Upper House, for
example, obviously does not lend itself to a hasty
transformation into a court of justice for the
trial of accused Ministers. For such a purpose
the aristocracy in our country no longer enjoys
a sufficient consideration amongst the people,
who would never believe that such a Court had
not taken a partisan view and had not returned
a verdict dictated by a conservative bias. Our
Upper Houses not having the necessary compet-
ence to deal with such cases, it was proposed,
amongst other remedies, to bring them within the
venue of the High Court of Justice. But this
tribunal is ill-adapted to try political causes by
MINISTERIAL RESPONSIBILITY 175
reason of its dependence on the Minister of Justice,
who may be a party in cases to be adjudicated
by it and who has a large share in making appoint-
ments to the Bench. Another expedient was
therefore devised, whereby a body of lawyers of
repute nominated ad hoc, partly by the Crown
and partly by the Chambers, is summoned to
sit as a Court of Justice ; but even this arrange-
ment offers great scope to partisan verdicts.
The nominees of the Chambers in the small
German States were always men who could be
counted upon as aggressive partisans.
The net upshot of all this is that little good
can be expected from saddling Ministers with
legal responsibility. There is on this point a
gap in Prussian law, which I should like to see
remedied so as once for all to silence the Radical
cavillers, who are for ever whining at the inade-
quacy of Constitutional guarantees. It is, how-
ever, dangerous to raise hopes too high. Public
opinion may easily become inflamed in favour
of one side or the other, and a Court, however
composed, will be more or less influenced by it.
Had the article of the Constitution dealing with
Ministerial responsibility been carried out, and
had a tribunal been seized of the matter at the
time of the Constitutional dead-lock, one may
well ask whether its verdict w r ould have carried
any weight, however framed. The letter of the
law told against the King and his great Minister,
but the letter of the law was resisted by a
material obstacle : supplies had not been voted
and yet the Government must be carried on.
Such questions no longer belong to the domain
176 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
of law, for they do not admit of a clear and final
solution. If it were humanly possible to form
a tribunal to settle such problems, which could
hold out a hope of satisfying the moral conscience,
it would be seized upon with enthusiasm by all
parties ; but where should it be found ? Security
from violation of the Constitution, even when
perpetrated by a Minister, should be sought in
a regularly organized administrative code rather
than in measures of such difficult application as
those already referred to. The whole doctrine of
Ministerial accountability before the law belongs
to a bygone school of political thought, of which
Rotteck and Schlosser were disciples.
Under a monarchy in which the whole authority
of the State is centred in the person of the King,
it follows that the choice of ministers must lie
with him, and that they must become the instru-
ments of his will. Only on these terms can the
monarchy perform its duty of standing above
parties. It has been contended that the independ-
ence of Ministers versus the Crown should be
safeguarded since they cannot otherwise be held
responsible by Parliament, for no one can be
drawn to account for things which he has not done
of his own free will. Nevertheless, it is a fact
that divergencies frequently arise between the
will of the King and the will of the Chambers.
If we examine this aspect of the matter, which
was given such careful attention by Mohl, it
will appear that wherever monarchy is more than
a name, these divergencies always do in fact
occur, and that the will of the King often differs
very materially from the will of the representatives
PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT 177
of multifarious interests. The healthy develop-
ment of our Constitution requires that this
antagonism should be allayed, however unpalat-
able the task may seem to the Minister to whom
it may be confided. The theorists who would
abolish it by a mere fiat conveniently forget
that Ministers are responsible not to the Chambers
alone, but also to the Crown.
Calm and lucid reasoning leads to the conclusion
that the existence of the Monarchy itself is
involved in the solution of this question. If
it be true that the essence of Monarchy consists
in the concentration of the State's authority
in the King, it is obvious that that system is
vitiated when the King can be coerced by Parlia-
ment in his choice of counsellors. The assertion
that it is the final end of constitutional Monarchy
to evolve into a system of Parliamentary Govern-
ment on the English pattern, that is to say,
government by a fleeting majority in one House
only, is the negation of Monarchy itself. Where
and by whom is it laid down that Germany with
her glorious history is bound to follow in the
footsteps of an island State, of which one may
roughly say that where it is strong we are weak,
and vice versa.
We have, it must be admitted, imported much
shallow clap-trap from England, such as the
avoiding of the King's name in Parliamentary
debates. With characteristic hypocrisy English-
men profess to consider that the name of the
King should no more be taken in vain than the
name of God. The will of the King has no
weight whatever under this Guelphic monarchy,
VOL. II N
178 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
whose founder could not speak the language of
his subjects, and who therefore could not preside
over the meetings of his Council. It is a matter
of no consequence what Queen Victoria thinks
on any political question, and yet we are asked
to accept the system under which she reigns as
a model for our own country, where, after all,
the Sovereign understands German very well.
In Germany the King's will still has a very
definite meaning. This truth applies with special
force to Prussia, which is alone in still having a
monarch whose authority is underived or sui
generis. In our country a minister need not hide
timidly behind the Sovereign, but there is no
reason why he should not, in a given case, warn
Parliament against coming to a certain decision
by announcing beforehand that it would never
receive the Royal Assent.
The briefest survey of our present Parliament
will show how ridiculous it would be to attempt
the establishment of party government, more
especially as the text of the Constitution of the
Empire is contrary to such a project. The
Chancellor, who is the only responsible Minister
of the Crown, is entrusted with the execution
of the decisions of the Federal Council (Bundes-
rath), consisting of the representatives of twenty-
five separate Governments ; he is therefore under
the obligation to represent views with which he
may very possibly disagree, and of championing
in the Reichstag the interests of twenty-five
different sovereigns. The Imperial Constitution
enacts that no member of the Federal Council
shall also be a member of the Imperial Diet, and
PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT 179
further, that all the chiefs of the administrative
departments shall ipso jure be members of the
Federal Council ; hence a Parliamentary form
of Government is a constitutional impossibility.
I trust that you will carefully ponder these things
in order to realize that there is an inherent fallacy
in attempting to cast German institutions in an
English mould. We all have cause to rejoice
that we possess a vigorous-minded Civil Service,
which, by its achievements, its social standing,
and by the support of the Crown, wields a genuine
power, and we need desire no change in this
respect.
The French have been foolish enough to
preserve English forms of Parliamentary life
while adopting a Constitution at bottom in-
compatible with them. The attractive American
pattern of a Constitutional Republic does not
admit of parliamentary government, and for
good reasons. The President, being a responsible
official, must govern in accordance with his per-
sonal convictions, for no one can be responsible
except for what he has himself resolved. Parlia-
mentary government is possible in a monarchy
when the monarch is not held responsible,
whereas such government is practically impossible
in a republic. As Presidential elections in the
United States are generally held at no great
interval of time from Congressional elections, it
often turns out that the President and Congress
are of the same mind ; but this is not inevitable.
After the death of Lincoln, his successor, Johnson,
found himself in continual conflict with Congress,
which failed in its subsequent attempts to call
180 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
him to account for his administration. This is
conspicuous proof that the Government of the
United States is not conducted on parliamentary
lines.
The French discerned rightly that a President
who is responsible for the administration must
wield a very effective power, and the fear of it
induced them to adopt the anomaly of a President
bound to a parliamentary system of government.
He can be personally called to account only
for a coup d'etat ; in ordinary cases ministers
are responsible, not the President. All this is
very characteristic of the French nation, which
lives in perpetual fear of another 2nd of December,
but on the whole desires that Ministries should
be the sport of faction, and that an irresponsible
President should govern through responsible
ministers. Who shall say how many Ministers
of the Interior France has had since 1870 ? A
short time ago they numbered twenty-one ; by
now they may have had twenty-four. What is
the practical result ? When more than twenty-
one ministers have succeeded each other in as
many years as the heads of a department with
such vast ramifications as the Ministry of the
Interior, the inevitable consequence must be to
make the permanent officials omnipotent. The
bureaucracy tightens its grip more and more,
and the continual change of ministers confirms
the sway of stupid routine. Such a system
cannot be desired by any one who wishes the
Civil Service to breathe a wholesome spirit. To
sum up, it is clear that a purely parliamentary
regime is unsuited to German conditions. This
THE VETO 181
is no cause for complaint ; on the contrary, we
must congratulate ourselves that our Constitu-
tional Monarchy has preserved the character
implied by its name.
Thus we are brought face to face with the ques-
tion of the royal prerogative of assenting to and
promulgating laws. All legislation must be initi-
ated by the Crown, in whom is also vested the
right of assent and promulgation. The precise
meaning of the prerogative of assent has been lost
sight of through the prevalence of a Radical theory,
which substitutes the blessed word Veto for an
accurate description of the positive right of assent.
A veto is the right vested in some person or other
in protection of his own interests, or of interests of
which he is guardian, to forbid a measure complete
in itself. This occurs, for example, when a Govern-
ment decides that a Papal decree has encroached
upon its rights,-and therefore is subject to the Royal
prohibition. This matter, says the State, does
not in itself concern me, but in the present case
this particular decree prejudices public interests ;
therefore I intervene. It is an abuse of terms
peculiar to colloquial speech to use the negative
word Veto in referring to the King's positive
right to give the royal assent, that is to say, a
placet without which no law is valid.
In England matters are arranged as follows.
If the King is not in his conscience convinced
that a particular measure approved by Parlia-
ment is desirable, he has only the choice between
a new Ministry and a Dissolution. Even this
choice is not entirely free, for the King cannot
venture upon either alternative unless his Ministry
182 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
command a majority in Parliament or has the
certain prospect of doing so, otherwise no states-
man of note will consent to form an administra-
tion. At the present day the king has no
longer a decisive voice in selecting the members
of the Cabinet ; he summons the leader of one or
other of the aristocratic parties and commissions
him in general terms to form a Ministry. The
example of English conditions had a contagious
effect upon the French National Assembly. The
idea gained ground that the positive right to give
assent should in fact operate solely as a right to
refuse it, and the struggle continued to rage
round the question whether such refusal should
be permanent or merely suspensive. A suspen-
sive veto is no veto at all, for it converts the
king into a republican official with a mandate
derived from others. These ideas were never more
eloquently expounded than by Mirabeau. They
finally led to the conclusion endorsed by the
Parliament of Frankfort that even in questions
affecting the constitution the veto of the Crown
shall cause only a temporary delay. On these
lines the German Empire might have been
legally transformed into a republic without valid
objection from the Emperor.
The positive right of assent to all legislation
is so essential a prerogative of the Crown that the
real power of monarchy stands or falls with it.
We have often suffered from the personal inter-
vention of the king and may expect to do so
again, but so long as we are monarchists we shall
remain convinced that this prospect is preferable
to the king becoming a puppet. In Germany
THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT 183
there is very little probability of such a constitu-
tional deformation. We need only remember
that our Ministers are the king's servants, who
must possess his confidence and require it more
than the confidence of the Chambers. In England,
Italy, and Belgium the position is quite different,
for the balance of power is reversed. In those
countries we find government based on party
majorities as contrasted with government by a
monarchical Civil Service, which on principle
stands outside parties.
The German system is not only better adapted
to the spirit of monarchy, it also affords a better
guarantee of political integrity than any party
government can offer. There is literally no
country in Europe where the administration is
so effectively controlled by Parliament as in
Germany, for the reason that in Germany the
power of the Government is a real counterweight
to the power of Parliament. In England the
task of criticizing the administration is left
entirely to the Opposition, whose attacks are
tempered by the knowledge that it too will one
day stand in the pillory ; whereas the inquiries
of our Parliament are searching and exhaustive
just because its members know that they them-
selves will never be called to the helm. The
effect upon our full-dress debates is sometimes
almost an offensive one, but they often present a
more gratifying spectacle of men who are really
in earnest about the removal of every abuse
from public life. It is almost impossible to con-
ceive that Spain should ever be delivered from
the burden of the crying scandal of her railway
184 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
system, for all prominent party-leaders have
received presents of railway shares from Roth-
schild and his Paris friends, and when new men
come into office they, too, are gratified in the
same way. Therefore no Government will ever
attempt to eradicate the mischief.
The impartiality of the royal authority implies
independent resources at the disposal of the
Crown. Of all the delusions of average radicalism
one of the strangest is to extol the cheapness of
republican governments in contrast with the
lavish expenditure of kings and courts. The
extravagance of the Lilliputian princes of
Germany, who all wanted to ape the ways of
Versailles, is certainly a blot upon our history,
but waste of public money has never reached
such heights as under the republican regime in
France, where the Third Republic has made it
the order of the day. The Budget must not be
made the only gauge of public expenditure ;
Parliamentary elections and the bribery incidental
to them swallow up such huge sums that the
expenses of a court are in comparison hardly
worth considering. Wealth and brilliancy are
necessary to preserve the dignity and influence
of the court. Dahlmann said with great truth
that Germany paid a heavy price before it got so
inexpensive an Emperor. The modern establish-
ment of our courts is on a very modest footing,
while the large republics spend immense sums on
outward show.
The history of the royal revenue has varied
greatly in different countries and in proportion
to the extent of the Crown lands. In the older
CROWN REVENUES 185
States it was the accepted practice that the
expenses of government should be defrayed by
the king from the income derived from the royal
domains. In cases of urgent need the great
vassals were exhorted to grant aids. In course
of time the resources of the royal domains became
insufficient to meet the strain put upon them.
Already in the seventeenth century taxes had
become the rule, while the Crown lands furnished
only a portion of the revenue. It gradually
became incumbent upon the Government sharply
to divide the hereditary revenues of the Crown
from the domain of public finance. In this
respect Prussia was a hundred years ahead of
England, where the Crown lands were recklessly
alienated by the kings, partly to meet the
expenses of civil war, but more especially to
provide the means of oiling the Parliamentary
machine. At an early date, in fact in the seven-
teenth century, the court had to rely on Parlia-
mentary grants to cover the whole cost of the
royal household. It became the custom to divide
the whole expenditure into two parts : the one
to be voted annually by Parliament to meet
the needs of the Army, the Navy, Foreign Affairs,
and the National Debt, according to the trend of
public events ; the other, styled the Civil List,
to be voted at the beginning of every reign for
the requirements of the Civil Service and of the
Court.
The attempts to reorganize this eccentric and
unsound financial arrangement were protracted
throughout the eighteenth century. It could not
fail to lead to chaos under extravagant kings,
186 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
when confusion had been the rule under the
cheeseparing Guelphs. They no doubt occasion-
ally sent their savings to Germany, and of course
spent vast sums on maintaining their numerous
mistresses and in bribing Parliament. The crude
English temperament took pleasure at the begin-
ning of every new reign in having the dirty linen
of the last washed publicly before all Europe.
Pitt tried to improve a state of things which
had gradually become intolerable, but the French
Revolution relegated all reforms to the back-
ground, and a clear distinction between the
expenditure of the Court and that of the State
was not established until 1831. The term " Civil
List," however, was still applied to the former
alone, for Britons have difficulty in discarding
expressions which they have got accustomed to.
On the Continent, or at any rate in Germany,
conditions were more satisfactory, for aJl our
petty sovereigns possessed large hereditary
domains, and therefore were not dependent upon
the Diets for their personal maintenance. The
old constitutional maxim that public expenditure
should be entirely defrayed by the revenues of
the Crown lands had of course been abandoned,
but they were still everywhere sufficient for the
upkeep of the Court. The position of the reigning
houses was therefore sounder amongst us than
elsewhere. Prussia set the example of further
changes to all other States. Already, under
Frederick William I., the royal domains were
declared to be the property of the State, the
Crown reserving the right annually to fix a sum
for its own use out of the revenue of such domains.
PRUSSIAN CROWN LANDS 187
This arrangement was again altered in 1820
under Frederick William III. in such a way that
a definite proportion of the total income of the
royal domains was once for all appropriated by
law to the use of the royal family, which dis-
played an unparalleled magnanimity in the
transaction, for a great part of the Crown lands
were originally their family estates. In point of
fact the country is not put to any expense in sup-
porting its king, for in the course of historical
events a greater portion of the legitimate posses-
sions of the royal house have been transferred
to the State than is equivalent to the expenditure
of the Court. Had our royal family retained
the royal domains as private property it would
have enjoyed a far larger income than it disposes
of to-day.
Such being the historical position, bitter
controversies like those which arise in England
are impossible in Prussia. Here the normal
condition is that the royal family is supported
out of the revenues of what were formerly the
royal domains, and therefore finds itself independ-
ent of the Prussian Diet. In many of the petty
German States the dignity of the Crown was
forgotten to such a degree that a Civil List in
the full sense of the term has been adopted, by
which the income of the Prince is fixed for
life, or even, as in Bavaria, for a period of five
years. The indecency of such an arrangement
should be obvious to everybody. Even a Govern-
ment official would not submit to having his
salary fixed for a specified term of years, and it
cannot be desirable to treat the reigning prince
188 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
worse than his officials. One cannot resist the
impression that, in this respect, many injuries
have been inflicted upon the Princes.
I now turn for a brief space to the composition
and rights of Parliament. The two-chamber
system, which we find established to-day in all
constitutionally governed states, has its origin
in England, where, as early as the twelfth century,
there existed an assembly of barons whose support
and assent was necessary to the king ; this
assembly was the nucleus of the House of Lords.
The representatives of shires and cities were
first summoned in the thirteenth century, under
the auspices of the powerful dictator Simon de
Montfort. The great barons themselves felt the
need of gaining the support of the Commons in
order to resist the despotic fiscal methods of the
Crown. The two-chamber system proved so
advantageous that, like freedom of association,
trial by jury, and local government, it has been
copied wherever Anglo-Saxon influence has pene-
trated. Even the superficial causes of this success
are obvious. Every one who has lived in a
college knows that it breathes a certain atmo-
sphere, from which the average man cannot
emancipate himself. The two Chambers of a
Parliament will always act as a mutual corrective,
and this co-operation and interaction is highly
desirable where such vast issues depend upon the
cautious sifting of every question. The moral
value of a law is greater when it has been
elaborated and adopted by two assemblies
rather than by one ; a further advantage is
that if a conflict arises between the Crown and
HOUSE OF LORDS 189
one of the two Houses, the other can act as
mediator.
Nor must the different composition of the two
assemblies be forgotten. If the reason be sought
why the House of Lords so long controlled the
destinies of England, the answer is to be found
in the fact that its members represented the
genuine governing classes of the country. For
neither birth, nor wealth and landed estates,
nor the unknown quantity described as intellectual
ability, are of themselves sufficient to provide an
Upper Chamber with a sound foundation, the
only reliable constituents of which are men who
habitually take the lead in conducting local
affairs. Political activity invariably placed at
the service of the country or of local government
on an extended scale is certain to be honoured
by all ; for this reason the consideration of the
House of Lords was extremely great so long as
England retained her patriarchal system of local
administration. Everybody in those days felt
in regard to the Lords : These are the men in
whose hands the political future of the country
really lies.
A sound Constitution is the indispensable con-
dition of a satisfactory system of local adminis-
tration, without which the country cannot provide
an adequate upper chamber, for it must, in that
case, be lacking either in prestige or independence.
In this respect the history of French institutions
is highly instructive. France has no local Govern-
ment ; the whole nation consists of Government
officials and those whom they govern. No French-
man objects to being held in leading strings
190 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
by his prefect, provided that the relationship
offers him the opportunity of securing the petty
advantages which he covets. Our officials were
thunderstruck when the Alsatian notables ap-
peared in their offices in order to begin their
trumpery traffic. The French all assume the
right to criticize the Government, and even to
eject it, but in practice every one submits to
official tyranny. According to French writers,
who should know their own nation, the pro-
vincial communities have no living individuality
of their own, and desire none.
It has therefore from all time been impossible
to form an Upper House in France consisting of
the representatives of the governing class ; for
that class is composed entirely of officials, and
what an Upper House consisting of such elements
may become we see in Napoleon's Senate, which
was undoubtedly a brilliant assembly replete
with talent and technical ability, but totally
without independence towards the authorities
and servile beyond all precedent. The Restora-
tion took a different line, and set up a Chamber
of Peers representing aristocratic and territorial
interests. Under Louis - Philippe the Upper
House was composed of capitalists, but these
purse-proud money-grubbers merely helped to
encourage communism. The notion that wealth
alone entitles a man to become a legislator is
so monstrous that it could not fail to turn the
great bulk of the people against all forms of
property. Latterly we have seen the French
make the most extraordinary experiments in
order to create a Senate which might enjoy some
PRUSSIAN UPPER CHAMBER 191
measure of consideration, but without success.
This continued failure is due to the fact that a
politically vigorous First Chamber is an im-
possibility unless a healthy local administration
exists concurrently with it.
Unfortunately when the German Constitution
was framed this fact was not sufficiently realized.
In Saxony and other central States the First
Chamber is simply the old Diet in modified form,
while the Second Chamber contains the popular
representatives. It is no wonder that the confid-
ence of the people centres in the latter, while the
former languishes in obscurity. In Prussia too,
owing to the romantic fads of Frederick William
IV., the composition of the Upper House has been
a total failure, and this fact would be even more
apparent than it is, had not the majority of the
" lords " acquired the habit of shining by their
absence. It would only provoke derision if all
the so - called representatives of ancient and
established territorial interests, who populate
the boarding-houses of Berlin, were to make
their appearance in a body. It is perfectly
obvious that the overwhelming majority of our
aristocracy is perfectly unfitted to have a parlia-
mentary career. Of course there are many illustri-
ous families in Germany whose pedigree would
justify a claim to hereditary membership of a
Chamber of Peers ; such are the Mediatized
Princes of the Empire or the Stolbergs, Counts
of the Harz, who are so closely connected with
their localities that they would be fully entitled
to collaborate in the making of our laws. It is
a misfortune for our country that these families
192 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
are not more numerous or more evenly distributed.
The native nobility of North-East Prussia un-
doubtedly presents some of the most precious
of aristocratic qualities, but it cannot, on the
whole, be called an independent and high-
spirited aristocracy in the same sense as the
ancient houses referred to above ; it has preserved
its loyalty to the Monarchy by continually serving
it in civil and military employments, and its
interests are so closely linked to the Crown that
it could never maintain a sufficiently independent
attitude in any conceivable Upper House.
It would appear, then, that a purely aristocratic
chamber could never in our country enjoy
sufficient credit with the people to form an
adequate counterweight and complement to the
popular Assembly. An Upper House really
representative of the governing classes in Prussia
would have to include delegates from the great
administrative corporations. Let us suppose
that the Prussian Provincial Diet presented six
of its members to the King every six years as
candidates for nomination to the Upper House ;
it is quite certain that the choice would fall upon
men who had played a part in the local govern-
ment of the country, or upon great land-owners
or great capitalists in some way distinguished by
their services. They would provide an excellent
storehouse of expert political knowledge ; blended
with the hereditary aristocracy, they would
form an Upper House sure to command public
esteem. But a reform in this sense is no longer
practicable, for our Upper House is so unstable
a structure that any alteration would infallibly
PRUSSIAN LOWER CHAMBER 193
cause its collapse. The course of development
is left to chance. The great majority of the
members, including the landlords, no longer
present themselves, and the remnant of the
Assembly is so insipid in character that it only
occasionally sums up courage to readjust the
partiality of the Second Chamber by a correcting
amendment. However, the potential activities
of the Upper House, of which symptoms are so
rarely perceptible, should not be too much
scorned. It is beyond question that many a
foolish proposal fails to find a hearing in the
Lower House because it is felt that it is fore-
doomed in the Upper Chamber.
The Lower House should principally stand
for the mass of the tax-payers and be the specific-
ally popular Assembly, representing those who
perform the most general duties of citizenship,
such as tax-paying and military service ; while
the Upper House should represent the ruling
classes, upon whom fall the more complicated
tasks of public life. An immense amount of
ingenious theorizing has already been expended
upon the proper constitution of a Second Chamber.
It is a constitutional axiom that the Second
Chamber should be regarded as representing the
nation as a whole, and not particular classes within
it. It is possible to imagine a Chamber whose
members should be chosen from professional
categories, but who in their collective capacity
had to represent the nation. It is a matter for
regret that such caste divisions do not exist in
our Second Chamber, so that the peasantry, for
instance, remain unrepresented, while the whole
VOL. II O
194 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
trend of modern culture and all known forms of
parliamentary life incline to give the intellectual
element an undue political preponderance.
Lawyers, men of birth with a classical education
and practice in public speaking, officials of all
sorts, including many who have imbibed and
periodically emit the venom of some fancied
grievance : such are the elements which compose
Parliaments. A modern deputy is required to
have an opinion upon so many subjects that a
man of average education will naturally be in a
better position to form a judgment upon them all,
even though often only a shallow one. The
legal mind is particularly well suited to this
exercise ; Lasker is a good example of the
influence which a man without political genius
can attain. His talent lay in his rapidity of
grasp, and hardly one sitting passed without a
Lasker amendment. The peasant's mind moves
with difficulty in such an atmosphere ; he there-
fore gives his vote to the townsman who seems
to have most insight into rural concerns. How
many candidates on seeing their prospective
constituents have not wondered in their hearts,
"What made such men fix upon me as their
chosen representative ? " The good folk of the
Hunsriick, who once elected me, were a fine and
sturdy set, but their only link with me was the
recommendation of a few men whom they
trusted.
This predominance of the book - learned in
Parliament over the plain peasant and artisan
is a serious flaw in modern popular representation,
against which no remedy seems effective. Suppose
REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEMS 195
an attempt were made to introduce representa-
tion by estates, the question would immediately
arise of what those estates are composed, and a
candid survey would show that their outlines
are no longer clearly visible. The only hereditary
caste now remaining is the nobility, which, in
its capacity as such, has lost all its ancient
prestige owing to its anomalous position. The
professional castes are so inextricably inter-
mingled that it would be impossible to make
the boundaries between them the basis of franchise
legislation. Caste divisions were indeed still
the foundation of the Prussian United Diet
(Vereinigter Landtag), an assembly representing
the great and small land-owners and the towns ;
but already before 1848 this system had become
almost unworkable on account of the gigantic
changes wrought by the spread of industrialism
in the Western provinces. On the Rhine and
in Westphalia it is often impossible to say where
the village ends and the open country begins.
Any system of representation based on caste
distinctions could only be artificially produced
under our present conditions.
All this has led to the adoption of the principle
of universal suffrage and the formation of geo-
graphical electoral areas in which all the in-
habitants are called upon to vote according to
a certain franchise law, or even without one ;
the choice therefore lies only between universal
suffrage and a franchise. The answer is ready
to hand : all franchises are arbitrary and must
therefore be rejected. This is true enough, but
equally capricious is the decree which lays down
196 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
a limit of age and calls to the polls every man
who came into the world twenty-five years ago.
Without doubt there are innumerable young
men of twenty-four who are more competent
to vote than some of their seniors. Therefore
every franchise must become, to some extent,
arbitrary ; but, broadly speaking, it remains a
sound principle to exclude the wholly irresponsible
section of society from the exercise of a right
which implies a capacity for independent judg-
ment. The democratic current of our century
has fostered the idea that the effective right to
vote is an innate right of man. Since, however,
it is more a duty of citizenship than an individual
prerogative, and since it must be exercised for
the common good, i.e. for the good of the State,
it must rest with the State to decide who shall
exercise it. This right becomes unreasonable
when pushed to its furthest conclusion, and
ignores the time-honoured truth long ago laid
down by Aristotle, that the greatest wrong is
to equalize the unequal. It has but one merit,
which is to allay the political mania of Radicalism
by applying a homoeopathic remedy, for it makes
it possible to meet the wildest Radical with the
retort, " You have all got votes, get a majority
if you can."
Except for this one advantage, it remains
true that in Universal Suffrage a dispropor-
tionate share of influence is given to stupidity,
superstition, malice and mendacity, crude egoism
and nebulous waves of sentiment, all of which
introduce an incalculable element into the life
of the State. It is a patent error to assume
UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE 197
that Universal Suffrage will always serve Radical
interests ; it is far more accurate to describe
its influence as uncertain. The social conditions
in any given province decide which of the social
forces will benefit by Universal Suffrage. In
our Eastern Provinces, where a real territorial
nobility still survives, it operates in preservation
of the feudal spirit, for the peasants vote as a
matter of course on the same side as their masters.
The squire brings his labourers in their hundreds
to the polling-booth and there issues his directions ;
this cannot be otherwise, for it is the outcome
of the actual balance of social forces. This
kind of influence, however, is an impossibility
in industrial districts, owing to the resentment
which has accumulated there against employers.
There can be no doubt that Radicalism runs
riot in these parts of the country. No one but
a doctrinaire Radical can suppose that true
liberty can emerge from any manipulation of
Universal Suffrage. It is visibly tending, on
the contrary, towards a weakening of Parlia-
mentary institutions. In the turmoil of economic,
political, and ecclesiastical currents no single
group can achieve a reliable majority or exercise
decisive influence upon Government.
We may, indeed, ascribe to Universal Suffrage
a certain power of alleviating the lot of toilers,
and in any case, once conceded, it can hardly
be repealed. Such a step would call forth a
sense of bitterness and injury among the masses
that would far outweigh the present dis-
advantages. The undue extension of the
franchise is of moment not so much on account
198 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
of the effect upon a particular election as upon
the general character of political life. The
strongest lungs always prevail with the mob,
and there is now no hope of eliminating that
peculiar touch of brutality and that coarsening
and vulgarizing element which has entered into
public life. These consequences are unavoidable,
and unfortunately react upon the whole moral
outlook of the people ; just as the unchecked
railing and lying of the platform corrupts the
tone of daily intercourse. Beyond this comes
the further danger that the really educated
classes withdraw more and more from a political
struggle which adopts such methods. A cor-
rective to the unreason of Universal Suffrage
has been sought in the no less unreasoning
and immoral secrecy of the ballot. Its privacy
is designed to confer upon weak spirits qualities
which they naturally lack. We are fools to
prate of the freedom and enlightenment of our
age, when we have lost the plainest sense of
manly honour. The very liberty of our institu-
tions has introduced forms of moral corruption
of which earlier and more submissive generations
knew nothing. If the exercise of a parliamentary
vote is a citizen's highest duty it should be carried
out in a form which free and honourable men
need not despise, i.e. publicly and with full
responsibility. No man can have a true sense
of political honour who does not feel humiliated
when he slinks up to the ballot-box and slips
his paper in. All the reasons urged in support
of secret voting are specious. It is not a function
of the State to debilitate the moral sense of its
THE SECRET BALLOT 199
citizens. A real conflict of duties arises when
fathers and sons differ in politics. A son must
decide for himself whether he places political
conviction above filial respect and gratitude,
and it is not the part of the State to solve these
problems for him.
In England this was formerly never in doubt.
Well into the nineteenth century secret balloting
was regarded as a symptom of complete corrup-
tion. But the notion, which the Press has
encouraged, that freedom consists in the evasion
of responsibility, has been extended to the polls,
and is the result .of enfranchising classes who
have no real claim to vote since they are in-
capable of independent judgment.
A curious ignorance of practical affairs lies
at the root of the whole matter. In rural
constituencies and small localities it is usually
quite impossible for any man to hide for whom
his vote has been cast. Even in towns there
are all kinds of little ways of finding out how
this or that individual has voted. The next
step is to adopt the shabbiest trick that ever was
proposed in the name of Liberalism ; and which
consists in the expedient of sending the voter
to a tavern, there to deliver his vote in a sealed
envelope provided by the Government. What
manner of proposal is this to make to honourable
men ? Manly courage is utterly undermined by
such subterranean methods on the part of the
State, which artificially propagate hypocrisy
among millions of working-men, who have no
real choice in the matter. The immorality of
such a system is beyond dispute, and anything
200 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
which a respectable individual would regard
as dishonouring must have a deteriorating effect
when practised on the whole community. In
this question, however, our enlightened century
has become so narrow-minded that all hope of
improvement in respect of it has vanished. A
generation is growing up which we have deprived
of the power of plain and straightforward judg-
ment, and the consequences will be only too often
and too sadly revealed. These are ethical far
more than political questions.
Let us now turn to the consideration of the
rights of popular assemblies. They may be
divided into three categories : the right to
control administration, the right to collaborate
in legislation, and, lastly, the right to grant
supplies. The test of what our Provincial and
Imperial Diets have accomplished is to be found
not in what they have achieved but in all that they
have prevented. Political experience shows that
every governing class, if left to itself, becomes
either stereotyped or corrupt. The rough-and-
tumble of a popular Assembly is well calculated
to resist this tendency, and I have already
shown that this check is particularly effective
in States which are not subject to party-govern-
ment.
Here we see the great merit of the German
parliamentary system. It leads to much use-
less talking, gives scope for much unnecessary
clamour and petty jobbery, but when all is said
and done it has great advantages. We are in-
debted to the watchful care of our Parliament,
cantankerous though it may sometimes be, for
THE GERMAN PARLIAMENT 201
the virtual elimination of corrupt practices from
our administration. There is no saying how
far this influence extends. A highly - placed
officer once said to me that the Army itself would
not be in its present efficient condition without
the Reichstag. Army administration must exert
itself to avoid everything which' could lay it
open to criticism, because there is always a group
of privileged cavillers in Parliament ready to
beat the big drum about every little failing. If
it were possible amongst us, as it is in England,
to rise from the parliamentary ranks to be
Minister of War, what happens there would
also happen here : criticism would be tempered
by the reflection, " Your turn to-day, mine to-
morrow," and our Army would become accessible
to the same abuses as hers. This brings us to
the crux of the matter, which is to ascertain
the truth of the comparison so often made
between the alleged freedom of France and
England with the slavery of Germany. Although
as a rule our members of Parliament cannot
become Ministers we have the far more important
advantage of an honest and effective control of
government by Parliament.
Next amongst the chief rights of Parliament
comes collaboration in making laws. In England,
where Parliament governs, Bills are usually
brought forward by the party in power ; while,
on the Continent, it is the general rule that new
legislation should originate with the Ministry
although Parliament possesses the technical right
to initiate it. Our Parliaments frequently de-
mand legislation, but leave the drafting of Bills
202 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
to the Government. It is needless to dwell
upon the fact that without this co-operation of
Parliament, laws in harmony with the ethical
instincts of a thinking people cannot be framed.
The technique of legislation has suffered much
through the parliamentary regime. Its tendency
to compromise has introduced every variety of
implied and palpable contradiction into con-
temporary laws. This undeniable defect, how-
ever, is not sufficiently grave to outweigh the
advantages of parliamentary co-operation.
Lastly comes the right of the popular assembly
to grant supplies. In this connexion the most
singular prejudices are rampant. The con-
ventional and primitive notion is as follows :
since most Constitutions explicitly mention the
voting of the Budget, the Chamber may reject
such of the Estimates as it pleases and reduce
taxation accordingly. Here again we see how
strongly bygone class - conceptions survive in
modern Liberalism. The State is the enemy
to be resisted, and every request which it makes
for money is ab initio suspected as unjust and
tyrannical. It is the Chamber's duty to keep
a tight grip on the purse-strings, and if the
Government does not resist, it starves. Is not
this the exact counterpart of the ancient notion
that Parliament day was pay-day, and that
the Government was a wild beast which must
be caged as long as possible ?
When we turn to the subject of national
finance, we see at once that a distinction must
be drawn between revenue and expenditure.
In every conceivable kind of Constitution the
STATE EXPENDITURE 203
outgoings fall into three different classes :
Standing expenses, classified according to their
amount and their character, such as the interest
on the National Debt, official salaries, etc. A
State which has contracted a Public Debt is
bound to pay a certain sum in interest on that
debt every half-year, and the legal obligation
to do this is created not by the Budget but by
the law which authorized the creation of the
Loan. The Budget, generally speaking, does not
create legal obligations, but the expenditure
proposed by it arises out of previous legal con-
tracts, which have usually already been embodied
in laws. Now, who was the author of the laws
in virtue of which these sums became payable ?
Without doubt the King and the two Chambers,
whence it follows that the Second Chamber by
itself is not at liberty to cancel such payments.
This is obvious, and was practically admitted
even by the party of progress at the time of the
constitutional struggle. They were themselves
incapable of carrying a Budget, though there
was a chorus of denunciation against a Budgetless
Government ; but any man amongst them who
happened to be a Government creditor or public
servant still went quite naively every quarter-
day to collect his interest or his salary. The
extravagances of their theory were thus refuted
by facts. An official has a legal claim to his
salary, and if it be not paid to him, he can take
action at law and must receive his rights.
There is in every State another section of
public expenditure which, while resting on the
same legal foundation, is by no means equally
204 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
invariable in its amount. When, for example,
the creation of new cavalry regiments has been
approved by law, the necessary expenses will
include certain fixed items, such as officers'
salaries ; while, on the other hand, the cost of
food for the men and fodder for their horses
cannot be laid down beforehand. But once
the measure has been passed, the expenses
incidental to it must be paid, however much
the price of a particular commodity may vary.
The task of the Provincial Diet (Landtag), in
regard to these items is, therefore, somewhat
different from that which it performs in relation
to the first-mentioned category of expenditure.
In the former case its function is merely super-
visory ; it audits accounts and sees that all
is in order, but its actual sanction is not here
required. Its control has a wider scope with regard
to the second class of expenditure, and here too,
with regard to the items which have fluctuated
with prices, it may examine whether due economy
has been practised. When the creation of a new
tribunal has been decreed by law, and the
Landtag considers the appointment of two
councillors to be excessive, it can suppress
their posts for the future, although no civil
servant already provided with a post can be
dismissed from it without another being found
for him elsewhere in Government service. For
the rest, the Landtag has the right to ear-mark
for suppression everything which it considers
superfluous. There is a third class of expenses
which are neither fixed in amount nor sanctioned
beforehand by law. Under this heading come
PARLIAMENT AND BUDGET 205
all the new demands made upon the Landtag,
which that body is perfectly at liberty to deal
with as it pleases.
If it were possible to fit facts to theories,
the simplest course would be to arrange the
Budget in three sections in accordance with
these three classes of expenditure. An attempt
has been made to draw up two Budgets, the
one to deal with fixed, the other with fluctu-
ating expenditure ; but when this system is put
to the test it will be found that practically
every item of State expenditure belongs to
more than one of the above - named categories.
There is in fact no remedy but that Parliament
should recognize its own limitations in this
respect. Except for a handful of Social Demo-
crats, there are, at the present day, probably no
deputies left who can be called whole-hearted
supporters of the unconditional right of Parlia-
ment to control finance. This right is effective
only when Parliaments discriminate between the
legal differences in the nature of the functions
which they exercise in voting the various kinds
of Estimates. The expression " to grant sup-
plies " is merely misleading, for it represents the
Landtag as having complete freedom to vote or
to reject the whole of the Estimates.
The same thing may be said of the revenues
of the State, for neither in regard to them can
there be any question of a general sanction on
the part of the Chambers. It is nonsense to
say that the Chambers sanction any part of the
revenue derived from the Crown lands. The
income of the State railways is regulated by
206 CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY
previous laws which made them the property of
the State, and hence it is clear that the present
Landtag is incompetent to abrogate these laws.
Similarly every State has necessarily an elaborate
and interdependent fiscal system. It is obvious
that Customs cannot be altered every year,
for they depend upon treaties extending over
a number of years. Some items of Revenue
there are whose amount and legal basis is
unvarying, and also items which are still un-
fixed and in regard to which Parliament has a
completely free hand. Mechanical classifications
are impossible in practice, and the best method
for a calm despatch of public business is a mature
grasp of its legal aspects.
XVIII
TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
DEMOCRATIC Tyranny, the last of the chief
categories into which monarchy falls, really
stands half-way between the monarchical and
republican forms of government. It springs
from the soil of democratic society, and is always
found to be the product either of the transition
from aristocratic organization to a completer
realization of the democratic principle, or else
a result of democracy itself pursued with that
fanatical logic which is an attribute of political
extremes, to the point at which the ideal of
popular sovereignty is at once made actual and
nullified. The whole authority of the State is
then made over to a single individual who is
regarded as an embodiment of the entire people.
The scope of the monarchical power is enormous,
in fact often unlimited, but since it reposes upon
no assured foundation of law, the struggle to
assert it absorbs a great portion of the political
strength inherent in monarchic forms, and de-
prives them of the calm security and stability
which are their best and fairest attributes.
The study of this type of State is particularly
instructive, because the power of personality
207
208 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
plays so important a part in it. A ruler who has
nothing at his back but good luck and a full
purse, his wits and his good sword, relies absolutely
and entirely upon himself. There is in him a
kind of elective affinity with the great artist, who
is the sovereign " I " as well as he. There was
a deep psychological reason for the friendship
which existed between Leonardo da Vinci and
the Tyrants of Italy, for the words of the poet
apply very specially to that group of rulers :
Es soil der Sanger mit dem Konig gehen,
Sie beide wohnen auf der Menschheit Hohen.
(The highest peaks scaled by the mind of man
Shall be the home of poets and of kings.)
A man who has risen above his fellows solely by
his own personality and daring, will have other
reasons for making his Court a splendid home
for Art and Science beyond the hope of thus
consoling the people for their vanished freedom.
Care for the safety of his own existence forbids
him to have anything in common with the
masses whom he must hold in subjection to his
iron will, and he therefore feels an inward sym-
pathy with the artist, who like himself draws
nothing from direct intercourse with the common
world of men. The tyrant shows us the individual
man in his greatness as well as in the height of
his presumption. The psychology of the Roman
Emperors in the madness of their Caesarian
dreams can only be properly apprehended in the
light of these political forms, where one man
may rise as high above other men as the Heavens
stand above the earth.
ANCIENT TYRANNIES 209
We find democratic Tyrannies existing in the
smaller City-States of ancient Greece, and we
meet them again in Italy during the Renaissance.
But we see them also on a greater, grander scale
under the Roman Caesars, and under Bonaparte
in the modern world. The spirit of antiquity
was Republican through and through, and the
Romans only expressed the sentiment of all
contemporary nations when they freely applied
the term servitium to the Monarchy and libertas
to the Republic. Thus it came about that in
Rome as well as in Greece the period of the old
kingship was brief. Greece was indeed again
a kingdom of wide extent in later times under
Philip of Macedon and his successors, but this
far-reaching monarchy was only half Hellenic,
and stands in sharpest contrast to the City-
States of older Greece. Alexander's rapid career
of conquest brought half Asia under his yoke,
and his death was followed by the rise of the wide
Empires of the Diadochi ; but these again were
semi-Oriental in character, and they too were
obsessed by the theocratic notions of the East.
The new princes adopted Oriental customs, and
the Ptolemies had themselves portrayed on their
coins in the image of divinities, like the Pharaohs
of old. The real political ideal of the Hellenes,
on the other hand, was always a Republic. The
fall of the ancient original kingdoms was followed
everywhere throughout Greece first of all by the
rule of the great families in the cities. Then,
when the mass of the people grew in prosperity
and in ambition, and the times required the
strong hand of a monarch, the national instinct
VOL. II P
210 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
of self-preservation produced the rulers known
by the originally harmless title of Tyrant, who
provided the necessary point from whence his-
torical development could proceed. They broke
the power of the old city families, and they
sought to increase the glory of the city by
brilliantly successful wars, as well as by the
fostering of science and art.
What a galaxy of men, made great by their
service to their cities, history has recorded for
us among them ! Periander of Corinth, Poly-
crates of Samos, and most gifted of them all,
Pisistratus of Athens, who began the turning
of the Acropolis into the treasure-house of
Greece. All the glamour which poetry can lend
hangs about the Courts where Polycrates and
the Pisistradi harboured Simonides and Anacreon,
and collected the songs of Homer. The great
conception and plan of the Iliad, with all the
deep aesthetic feeling which the brothers Grimm
have lately expounded for us again, could only
have been put together by the hand of a true
poet. It was a creative genius which came to
light in those days under the sheltering care of
a race of tyrants who were lovers of the things
of the mind.
Yet, in spite of all this, the fall of the Pisistrids
came quickly, and the people sang paeons of
praise to the tyrannicides Harmodius and Aristo-
geiton. Not all the brilliance and glory of this
purely usurped dominion had availed to strike
its roots into the nation, and here we lay our
finger upon the weakness which has at all times
beset this form of government. It is this which
MEDIAEVAL TYRANNIES 211
makes Gervinus so ridiculous when he, inter-
preting history after his own fashion, draws a
comparison between modern monarchies and
the tyrannies of Greece, and maintains that they
are nothing but a transition stage between the
aristocracies of the Middle Ages and the purely
democratic Republics of the future. Only a man
like Gervinus, whose abysmal ignorance blinds
him to the reverence due to universal history,
could draw so senseless a parallel between a
monarchy like our own, which has stood for
centuries upon a foundation of law, and the
ephemeral power of city rulers, whose span was
often only twenty or thirty years.
In more modern times, towards the end of
the Middle Ages, Italy became the classic home
of city tyrannies. Here the nobility were com-
pelled to congregate in the towns, and the country
districts fell in consequence quite out of the
development of social conditions. In the demo-
cratized urban life, where rich merchants and
bankers rubbed shoulders with the aristocracy,
children of fortune gradually rose into prominence
and gained adherents among the people, either
by the arts of the demagogue or by the power of
the purse, or else they roved the country as
condottieri, to pick up what luck or their good
swords might bring them ; in any case rulers
by no right but that of possession, and emphatic
champions of the worship of the sovereign "I."
They were a swaggering race, self-reliant to a de-
gree, and they fill us with daemoniac feelings half
of admiration, half of repulsion. It was for them
that Machiavelli wrote his great Tyrants Codex.
212 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
One of the oldest of these lines of rulers were
the Delia Scalas in Verona. They were the very
personification of the worship of their sovereign
selves. Until their day princes had been content
to seek burial in the churches among the com-
munity of the faithful, but these Scaligeri built
outside the Cathedral doors, and under the free
air of Heaven, the tombs on which they were
sculptured high upon their chargers. It is very
significant, this revival of the antique worship of
personality in the midst of a Christian world.
The mediaeval man sought salvation in Heaven
after he was dead, but the ancient desired that
his fame should endure upon earth. Schiller
never wrote lines more beautiful than these
Wenn der Leib in Staub zerfallen
Lebt der grosse Name noch,
(When in dust the body crumbles
Still the glorious name lives on,)
and they are thoroughly Hellenic. Now the
tyrants made the antique conception of the
value and immortality of personal renown a
living thought again in Italy. We must not
speak of their rule as a monarchy, for it was
rather a sense of power which had no limits but
those it set for itself. We have another clear
example of it in the Sforzas in Milan, one of the
most interesting among these races of tyrants.
When the Milanese built a triumphal arch for
Francesco Sforza, he turned his horse outside it
and said, " These are the superstitious apparatus
of kings, but I am the Sforza."
These words of his express at once the greatness
ITALIAN TYRANTS 213
and the moral frailty of this whole form of
government. A ruler of this kind is well-nigh
omnipotent so long as he enjoys the smiles of
Fortune and the favour of the people ; let these
desert him and he is lost. Not for him is the
support of loyalty, dependence, or gratitude, upon
which an old-established monarchy can reckon
even in its evil day, and the terrible fate which
befell countless Italian tyrants is very significant
of the nature of these political forms. This
naturally does not exclude the possibility of a
brief period of truly brilliant intellectual life
unfolding under such usurpers. In Italy they
promoted for a time a marvellous intensity of
culture ; to this day almost every important
city in the land bears the stamp of its great
tyrants in immortal works of architecture. We
can trace it in Milan through the three dynasties
of the Delia Torre, the Visconti, and the Sforza.
Here, for a short space, a kind of family tradition
was developed in a ruling family, but again and
again a contrary Fate brought its dominion to
an end, because favourable Fortune was a sine
qua non for its stability.
Yet nevertheless this purely actual dominion
showed greater power of resistance in the City-
States of Italy than in the towns of ancient
Greece. In Italy democratic tyrannies were
not always the stepping-stone to democracies,
but developed sometimes into hereditary mon-
archies. It is very singular to observe how these
tyrants deteriorated both morally and politically
as soon as they succeeded in establishing a
legitimate dominion over a larger territory. The
214 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
Medicis were great while they were rulers of
the city of Florence. The power of money was
the ultimate factor of their government, but
with it all they were filled with artistic sense
and fine aesthetic taste. But after Pisa had been
forced to bow her haughty neck and the whole
valley of the Arno lay in the hollow of their
hand, this gifted race of usurpers declined into
the undistinguished line of Grand Dukes of
Tuscany, and became just as petty a race of
princes as our own House of Gotha. The
Estes ran a similar course, for their importance
was greater while they were purely city tyrants
than in the later period when they had gradually
got themselves recognized as Dukes of Modena,
with a certain amount of legitimate claim to
the title. Thenceforward the incentive was lack-
ing which drives tyrants to make supreme
efforts. The old Italian tyrannies, with no
foothold of established law, were cruel very
often, and were obliged to understand the art of
governing by fear ; it was their age which gave
their name the significance it has gradually
acquired. To this day the cages in which Ludo-
vico Moro kept his enemies are still hanging in
the Church Tower at Piacenza. Milder forms
were adopted when the governments were legiti-
matized, but when the throne was secure the
reason for straining every nerve vanished, and
with it the greatest qualities of the old tyrannies
disappeared as well.
Thus we find democratic tyranny recurring
twice in history, at different times, but in each
instance in the government of little States. It
THE CAESARS 215
is remarkable that we should also meet it twice
upon the grander scale. First of all in Rome,
where, however, it was not a transitional stage
towards democracy but the prelude to a period
in which the Romans lost their grip upon republi-
can ideals. On the one side we see an aristocracy
split by cliques, thoroughly small-minded and
outworn, on the other an autocrat of genius,
bent on founding a kingdom with the power the
sovereign people had put within his grasp. It
is well known how Caesar wished to restore the
ancient Roman monarchy as the settled Con-
stitution of the State. The dream was shattered
by his death, for there was no one of his successors
who could dare so great a thing. When the
Constitution was crystallized under Augustus
and Tiberius it held by the law that the whole
of the Emperor's authority should be derived
from the Roman people. The Caesar united in
his own person the will of the nation and the
whole majesty of the State, and upon this his
power depended. Legally, the fact never ad-
mitted of any argument. To this day the great
tablet of marble shines in the Capitol which
sets forth that the nation has bestowed the
supreme power upon the Emperor Vespasian.
Thus the Caesarship was never a matter of
legitimate inheritance, its possessor held it by
no established right, therefore it was a Tyranny
and not a Monarchy. In it everything turned
upon whether the Caesar was personally adequate
to his task. It is significant of the nature of this
form of government that its title should be
nothing more nor less than the name of a man.
i
216 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
A man of genius created it, and left it for his
successors to live up to.
The installation of a new Emperor was carried
out either by decree of the Senate, with the
nominal agreement of the Comitia, or else by
the legions in the provinces elevating one of
their leaders upon their shields, in which case
the citizens assembled in the army were held
to be representative of the sovereign people.
We see by this to what legal quibbles an order
of things which had no foundation in law was
forced to resort. It is clear that here the
characteristics of true monarchy, peace, and
security are all totally lacking. In the later
centuries of antiquity the Ancients themselves
seem sometimes to have felt that the monarchies
of the young, inwardly sound Germanic peoples
were, even in their immaturity, superior to the
older forms of State. But in the Rome of
Caesar's day a hereditary monarchy was an
impossibility, for the old kingly institutions had
been utterly destroyed, and a republican de-
velopment of centuries had made the term
servitium synonymous with monarchy, even as
libertas was with Republic. No kingship was
possible but one of actual possession. Trace for
a moment the remarkable process by which the
attributes of the ancient monarchy were lopped
off, and how, many generations later, they revive
and flourish. The plenitude of sovereignty en-
joyed by the ancient kings was divided amongst
the various great offices of the Republic, each
of which represented a fragment of a kingly
authority which had once been a single whole.
THE ROMAN EMPERORS 217
Thus it continued to be throughout the centuries
until the rise of the Empire, and then the Em-
perors once more united in their own persons
all the offices which had been separated under
the Republic.
To all outward appearance the change was
very gradually made, for neither the Senate nor
the old popular assemblies were abolished. At
first even the idea of a dual government, divided
between the Senate and the Princeps, was retained
in the law, and the time was not yet ripe for the
Emperor to take formal precedence of the Senate.
In actual fact he stood above it already, for the
Senate was mostly composed of men who were
his creatures. The ultimate decision lay with
the Emperor, because he united in himself the
whole group of offices of the Republic, and above
all the office of Tribune of the People. This
made him the formal representative of the sove-
reign people, and gave him, in this capacity, the
right of veto upon any decree passed by the
Senate. The actual effect of this was to create
a new authority, which struck at the very essence
of the Republic. The abrogation of the principle
of divided control and of a short term of office
were both likewise innovations. The Emperor
was invested with the purple for the period of his
life, and nothing but assassination or the victory
of another usurper could depose him from his
seat. Lastly, and most important of all, the
Empire abolished the old republican principle
that in Rome itself the civil and military power
might never lie in the hand of one man. Within
the City all troops were compelled to lay aside
218 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
their arms, and the civil authority alone held
sway. In the Provinces, on the other hand, in
the last period of the Republic, we find a practi-
cal state of siege existing. Here the Proconsuls
and Propraetors combined the civil and military
supremacy. What had been the actual state of
affairs in the Provinces was now approved by
law for the whole orbis terrarum, and all power in
both departments of the State was put into the
Emperor's hands.
These very conditions, however, were what
made it possible to govern all the parts of the
Empire with more justice than they had ever
enjoyed under the Republic. When we compare
the state of affairs in the Provinces under the
old order and under the new we cannot fail to
see how needful the change in the forms of
government had become for the decaying world
of antiquity. For one thing the idea that far
distant parts might be represented by deputies
was quite unfamiliar to the Ancients, who could
only conceive political liberty as direct participa-
tion by the citizens in the conduct of the State.
Therefore so soon as the antique State widened
beyond the confines of the city into broad
dominions, or into a World-empire, its ancient
freedom was bound to become a hollow form.
Rome might indeed bestow the rights of citizen-
ship upon provincials such as the Italic tribes,
but in practice it was impossible for all these
cives Romani to travel to the city to take part
in a consular election. In the Provinces the
only real value of the privileges of citizenship
was in respect of the law of persons. Only one
ROMAN ADMINISTRATION 219
solution was possible, and instead of the Provinces
being dominated by a City the whole Empire
was made subject to an individual. In the last
days of the Republic the government of Rome
had been the rule of a town which had sucked
into itself the very life-blood of Italy and the
Provinces. We have a terrible example of it
in the administration of Sicily under Verres,
which was no exceptional case, for the aristocratic
Civil Service of ancient Rome received no salaries,
and its officials were compelled to squander
millions in pandering to the mob. It is impossible
to estimate the cost of the Aediles office, but all
this expenditure had then to be made up in the
fat harvest of a Proconsul or a Propraetor.
The only remedy lay in an absolute monarchy.
Thenceforward most of the Provinces lay in the
hand of the Emperor, and he appointed legates
to be his responsible representatives in them.
They received a fixed salary, and held their
position for as long as they possessed their
master's confidence, in contrast to the Republican
governors who, being compelled to leave the
Province after a few years, had always made
haste to squeeze it dry as fast as possible. Then
again it soon came about that the Imperial
throne was not always filled by Italians, but by
Spaniards, Africans, and other provincials, who
did not necessarily take up their residence in
Rome, so that the system of government was
able to be relatively just to all parts of the
Empire. Half against his will Tacitus admits that
the Provinces were not hostile to the Empire.
" Neque provinciae ilium rerum statum abnue-
220 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
bant," he says in the Annals. We may trans-
late the double negative with confidence into
the positive assertion that they could breathe
freely under the rule of richly-paid officials who
were not out for plunder.
Thus the Roman Empire is seen as a necessary
transition from the City -State of antiquity to
the Continental State of the Germans. When
we observe how a peaceful civilization spread
over the orbis terrarum, and how wars were
gradually relegated to the fringes of the Empire,
we cannot deny that in spite of its many isolated
horrors, this form of government provided a
tranquil close for the life of the ancient world.
Until then war had been as normal a condition
as peace is to-day. Everything Roman which
is still left for us to admire upon the earth is a
relic of Imperial Rome. The older Rome was un-
cultured through and through, and the Republic
was finally swept away in a tornado of license.
Originally the Romans were semi - barbarians,
with no sort of capacity for the finer enjoyments
of existence. Under the Emperors all this was
changed, although there was still no develop-
ment of really independent art. Horace and
Virgil merely followed in the footsteps of the
Greeks and had none of the youthful freshness
which we see, for instance, in Ennius. Neverthe-
less in the reign of Hadrian, Greek art renewed
its youth so vigorously that Winckelmann held
some of the work of this period to have the
genuine Hellenic stamp.
Yet in spite of all this it is impossible to
feel any great enthusiasm for the conditions
THE ROMAN EMPIRE 221
that prevailed, for we are assailed on all sides
by the feeling that the nations of the ancient
world had outlived themselves, and that morally
and physically their strength was ebbing. Their
day was closing in twilight after a brilliant noon,
and the light of their evening came to them
from a monarchic power, which could never
clothe itself completely in the garb of legitimate
authority.
There was indeed a wide difference between
lawful kingship and the self-deification of the
Caesars, which arose from no individual caprice,
but had its root in political forms themselves.
If a modern monarch were to exalt himself thus
it would be reckoned to his personal disgrace,
but in Rome the Emperor was in very truth a
god. The nations of antiquity put the State
above every other thing, and therefore its veri-
table head was bound to receive the honour
due to a divinity. Temples were built to the
Emperor, even while he yet lived. What mortal
man, thus treated, could avoid having his head
turned ? The mad dreams of the Caesars were
the inevitable psychological result of this form
of State, for only a man of real genius could
remain undazzled by the giddy height to which
he had been raised by a freak of Fortune and
by no inherent right.
Under Diocletian the Empire underwent a
very essential alteration, both inwardly, and out-
wardly. Rome was transported across the
Bosphorus into the theocratic dream-world of
the East, and the eastern half of the Mediter-
ranean began to exercise a potent influence
222 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
over its western shores. The wars with Persia
followed, and, for a further misfortune, brought
points of contact with the Persian Kingdom.
Persian ceremonial crept into Europe. The Em-
peror became numen sacra numen, like any theo-
cratic ruler of the Orient. Everything about him
became sacred, down to the purple dye of his robe.
Under these forms the Byzantine Empire shaped
itself into a logical " Panbasileia." The theo-
cratic element e tered into it more and more, and
when it adopted Christianity under Constantine,
Caesaro-Papalism was an absolutely natural result.
Roman Caesarism has found its modern
counterpart in the Bonapartism of France. In
its later setting this form of State is unmoral in
all its aspects, because the French formed part
of a community of civilized nations. Neither
can they be called outworn in the same degree
that the Romans were when the Caesars reigned,
for such a decay is contrary to the nature of
Christian civilization. The gracious mutual give
and take which rejuvenates and reinvigorates
Christian nations was lacking in the old Pagan
world. It is because it was an unnatural portent
in a civilized and independent world that Bona-
partism is so much more hideous than the
Caesarism of old. It, too, has taken its title from
a mighty historical personality. Here, too, the
ruler must stand out from his fellow-men either
by his military glory and his power of govern-
ment, or by his wealth, and as a patron of the
arts ; in him the nation must recognize the re-
flection of its own innermost self. Napoleon I.
understood this well, for he knew the needs and
NAPOLEON 223
the wishes of the French people. His foreign
policy was just one gigantic gamble, and his idea
of a world empire was contrary to reason and
could never actually have endured. He was
in this a destroyer, and nothing more, and by
rousing the nations beyond the limits of their
endurance he helped them finally, against his own
intention, to unity and freedom upon national lines.
Within his own country, however, his achieve-
ments have become part of the nation's life, and
the institutions which he created have survived
the lapse of time. The greatness of Napoleon
lay in his insight into the French character ; he
knew that what they wanted was to be governed
like a flock of sheep, as slaves in reality, but with
absolute freedom of speech. He formed his judg-
ment of them coldly and cynically from his own
Italian standpoint, and no amount of phrases
ever blinded him to their failings. With a con-
sistency which compels our admiration he built
up a State of soldiers and police ; in other words
he founded his own despotic power upon the
army, and a strictly centralized administration.
He was unable to dispense with the simulacrum
of a Parliament, but he was able by a master-
stroke to prevent it from gaining an asce dancy.
He constructed three representative bodies : the
Senate, consisting of State dignitaries, were
puppets of his will; then a Tribunate, whose
function was only to discuss projected laws ;
and finally a legislative body, which had nothing
to do but ratify the measures whose details had
been settled elsewhere. Here we see the Janus-
like lineaments of a despotism born of the
224 TYRANNY AND CAESARISM
Revolution, but it was a democratic despotism.
Very characteristic was the malicious and mock-
ing contempt with which Napoleon treated the
German princes, who indeed deserved nothing
better. The crowned Plebeian wished to prove
that he was worth more than all their titles
could make them, and that he, a child of the
Revolution, stood above any prince of them all.
Yet here again the only possibility for the
stability of such a system lay in the nation
seeing itself embodied in the power and good
fortune of this single man, for in a State so
constituted the moral forces of loyalty and law
could never make themselves felt. The French
had long since ceased to hesitate before a broken
oath. Napoleon III., who also tried to rule by
virtue of the people's will, soon discovered on
what a broken reed he was relying. There is
no doubt that at first he, too, was beloved by the
masses, who were wearied of the self-seeking
strife of parties, and yearned for tranquillity.
It was fear, that basest instinct of the human
soul, which raised both the Napoleons to the
throne. Society was divided into two opposing
camps ; the nivelleurs who stood for a universal
destruction, and the trembleurs of the educated
classes, who knew how to turn to their own profit
the struggle at the Barricades which they had left
it to other men to fight.
A nation so sunk in cowardice is ripe for a
despot. It is the fashion to call the French
lovers of novelty, but in reality there is very
little political ground for this reproach. The
last hundred years have brought less change
BONAPARTISM 225
to France than they have to Germany, for the
revolutions only affected the surface of the State.
The unprejudiced observer is bound to admit
that it was under the rule of the first and third
Napoleons that the country presented the most
harmonious impression of a relatively sound
political development. There is no use in at-
tacking Bonapartism with moral aphorisms, for
it, and not the bureaucratic Republic of to-day,
expressed for France the laws of her political
logic. To this day the governmental forms of
the country are based upon the institutions of
the First Consul. The firmly centralized hier-
archy of a thoroughly despotic Civil Service,
which dispenses the citizens from the labours of
self - government, and leaves them only the
privilege of criticizing, paying, and occasionally
taking refuge in a revolution, is the substructure
of the State, and demands a despot at its head.
The Republic only lives on because no new
Bonaparte has arisen to replace the man who
beat the Germans.
In themselves, the forms of democratic tyranny
have of course formed the stepping - stone to a
Republic. The chosen Iea4er of the nation
may be invested with an undefined, unlimited
power such as no legitimate monarch of our own
day can ever hope to possess, but, either formally
or actually, the will of the people must still be
its only legal basis, and it may be withdrawn
from him at any moment. Even the Napoleons
were dependent upon Fortune, and when Fortune
forsook them they fell, even as the Tyrants of
Ancient Greece had fallen long ago.
VOL. II Q
XIX
THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
ALL Republics have this characteristic in common,
that in them the authority of the State is dele-
gated, and does not rule by its own right, as it
does in a monarchy, so that consequently the
rulers are subjects at the same time. The
central authority cannot possess that complete
independence which is, at any rate potentially,
the attribute of monarchy, for it is appointed
directly, and ruled indirectly, by the will either
of the nation as a whole or of a ruling class
within the nation.
As long as there was belief in a natural law,
and absolute acceptation of the principle of the
sovereignty of the people, it was logical to derive
the will of the State from the will of the Many.
If we start from the delusion that a natural
condition, in which States were non-existent,
was the precursor of all political forms, and that
upon it followed the appointment of a supreme
authority by the sovereign people, we are already
thinking as Republicans, and the institution of
monarchy becomes quite inexplicable. It was
only after the school of historical law had van-
quished this doctrine of Natural Right that it
226
MONARCHIES AND REPUBLICS 227
became possible to criticize the republican State
from the same unprejudiced standpoint as other
political forms. It then at once becomes clear
that the classical State does not by any means
embody the ideals which the philosophers con-
stantly depicted in their conception of a
contented and innocent antique world, firstly,
because it was inherently unfree, and, secondly,
because of its limitations, for it was a City State.
Speaking generally, these limitations reappear
in the Republics of modern history, for, as a rule,
this form of government has only stood its test
in the little States. Republican rule is impossible
in a great State unless it be made up of a federa-
tion of small ones, for it is only adapted to narrow
horizons, where considerations of foreign policy
play no part.
Republican forms themselves may be divided
into two kinds, sharply distinguished from each
other by the difference between aristocracy and
democracy. So wide is the gulf that we may
say that monarchy stands between these two
forms of Republic. It is no matter for astonish-
ment that mathematical minds so seldom under-
stand the world of history, which is so full of
conflicting lines that it is useless to try to divide
it into any geometric pattern. The monarchy
and the aristocratic Republic have tradition and
inheritance in common, they both cherish the
belief that some kind of historical dispensation
has called either a family or a whole nobility to
rulership, and herein lies the natural affinity
between these two forms of government. Mon-
archy is akin to democracy on the other side
228 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
because the high position of the monarch gives
him at all events the power to join hands with
the simple man as his protector against the
strong and the arrogant. To this we must add
a point of psychology. When rule is divided
among a number of persons, old experience
seems to show that it is exercised for the benefit
of the majority, whereas a single ruler, responsible
only to himself, appears rather to consider the
welfare of the whole community. For this reason
monarchies can rarely incur as much dislike as
purely aristocratic States may do. Human
opinion is a real force in these matters, and
human sentiment must be reckoned with by
those who strive to understand the effect produced
by different political forms in actual operation.
It explains why a more or less latent monarchical
force has always been the support of the nation,
and the defence of the weak and the oppressed
in aristocratic States.
Aristocratic government is always difficult to
manage, because it is founded upon a conception
of class distinctions which is undoubtedly at
variance with the natural instincts of equality
in the human race. I have already remarked
how equality is postulated with peculiar emphasis
in respect of those highest possessions which are
the common property and the distinguishing
mark of the race of men ; nowhere is inequality
more intolerable than in legislation for the family.
All aristocratic domination is founded upon the
idea that one class is called into a higher position
than the others. The very name signifies that
this form of State reposes upon the belief that
ARISTOCRATIC TEMPER 229
the purest blood flows in the veins of the rulers,
which in itself throws a certain odium upon
those who are ruled. There is something terribly
inhuman and arrogant in a purely aristocratic
temper of mind, which has a far more baneful
effect than the haughtiness of a monarch. The
aristocracies of the Middle Ages were character-
ized by a cynical contempt for their fellow-men ;
it was they who turned the word for peasant
(villanus) into a term of abuse. In the Council
House of Augsburg there are three allegorical
paintings. Aristocracy is there depicted in the
guise of a solemn Senate, Monarchy as a brooding
despot receiving the humble homage of a gor-
geous train of followers, but Democracy is a
drunken Cleon encircled by a yelling mob. These
illustrate the point of view of the nobility, and
the principle, " Better be destroyed than en-
slaved," for in that world the serf could expect
no consideration. It was from the middle-class
aristocracy of Holland that we got our con-
temptuous nickname of " Janhagel " for the
lower classes. It brings out clearly the hard-
hearted pride of wealth and learning which the
Dutch displayed towards " Jan Hagel " or the
simple man ; it is the temper of lords who have
no overlord.
This violation of the natural instincts of
humanity is then the reason of the difficulties
which beset this form of State. The demand
for distinctions and divisions in political life
can only be reasonably raised in a nation where
the differences of social conditions are patent
to every eye. In ancient Switzerland, with its
230 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Cantons old and new, its protectorates and its
territories, which were absolutely subject either
to the whole Confederation or to individual
Cantons, the distinction was reflected in the legal
position of the three different kinds of Province.
We find similar conditions in the Netherlands,
where the Seven Provinces composed the back-
bone of the nation, and where there was no in-
sistent call for complete equality.
A flourishing aristocratic State presupposes
the existence of an astute ruling class, holding
firmly by the settled tradition of their policy.
The tendency of democracy is always levelling,
and its demand is for a fixed and rational code
of laws, while an aristocracy always prefers to
rule along historical lines. Hence the aristocratic
temper of historians of the first rank. The
man who is steeped in history is bound to have
a certain predilection for what has gone before ;
Stein spoke as a pure aristocrat when he said
that making a Constitution meant developing
the present out of the past. Wise aristocratic
statesmanship is founded upon the further de-
velopment of the past in the present ; it has to
watch lest the will of the past, as expressed for
instance in the law of inheritance, should cramp
and control free action in the directions which
the present desires to pursue. Most aristocratic
governments are inclined to permit this to
happen, and to introduce no changes, although
the economic life of the nation is perpetually
driving new social forces into action. The idea
of rule by virtue of inheritance runs through
everything, as the peculiar reverence shown to
POLITICAL TRADITION 231
family tradition shows. This has displayed itself
at all periods under the most diverse forms. The
ancestral portraits borne in the funeral procession
of the Roman patrician denote as much as do
the tombs of the Venetian Doges in San Giovanni
e Paolo how much stress was laid upon the
family and its inherited tradition. An aristo-
cracy is often unable to do justice to the natural
tendency of the human spirit towards perfect-
ability, therefore this form of government is
seldom tolerant, and yet it is in a position to
compel respect. Its policy is consistent and
well considered, for the very reason that it takes
no count of the natural inclinations of the common
people, and its history will always have a peculiar
attraction for the professed student of politics.
In an aristocratic State everything naturally
depends upon the kind of political training the
ruling class have received. A family education,
in which father transmits to son the judgments
and prejudices of his class, together with the
habit of command, is necessary for the main-
tenance of political tradition, with its rights and
customs. Much sagacity therefore has been pro-
perly expended upon the attainment of this end.
The practical training of the nobility upon the
ladder of official life has an unspeakable import-
ance, which the Roman aristocracy understood
better than any other nation when they put
their young patricians through all the grades
of office from that of quaestor onwards. We see
the same process in the Teutonic Orders, in which
the individual knight could rise from the lowest
rank to that of Commander and " Gebietiger."
232 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
The thing to be aimed at is the construction
of a type in which individuality shall be kept
in the background. Aristocracies only wish to
bring into prominence the habit of mind and
inherited wisdom of their class, and they look
coldly upon the development of great and original
personalities. Monarchy, on the other hand,
works upon the opposite theory that history is
made by individual men great kings with great
ministers to seize great opportunities. Hence
it follows that aristocratic States will not always
permit great military glory to be won ; they
begrudge the crown of victory to their generals,
lest it be followed by the crown of royalty.
Venice usually appointed foreigners to lead her
armies, because these would not easily find
enough following in the State to bring about a
revolution.
Think for a moment of ancient Rome. Her
Consuls were all as like one another as two peas ;
we read of them celebrating their triumphs over
the enemies of the city, but of their personalities
we can form no picture. Her aristocratic his-
torians make a principle of mentioning the names
of individuals as seldom as possible. Look, too,
at the history of the Teutonic Order, which was,
as I have explained before, a theocratic aristo-
cracy. We do not know to this day whether
Meinhard von Querfurt, the great dyke-builder,
was a mythical or a historical personage. An
aristocracy such as this could not tolerate the
genius of a Heinrich von Plauen. Praise and
blame both fell to the lot of the Order as a whole,
and as a whole it carried on its great work. No
ARISTOCRATIC JUSTICE 233
aristocracy can avoid a strain of hardness and
narrowness, and we may describe it as following
national aims in a peculiarly harsh and logical
manner. Those who would understand to what
greatness world-wide commerce can rise, as well
as to what baseness it can stoop, must study the
merchant aristocracy of Carthage, while Sparta
shows what a warrior aristocracy is like when it
has made war the be-all and the end-all of
existence.
In such a world of fixed tradition the violation
of long-established law was held to be a contra-
diction of the political forms themselves, and
therefore the forms in which justice is adminis-
tered have in all aristocracies generally been
both strict and good. The justitia fundamentum
regnorum is eminently aristocratic, even though
the good Emperor Franz also took it for his
motto. Justice was always assured even in the
aristocracies which shock us by their harshness.
Its political trials apart, Venice possessed a good
civil and criminal jurisprudence, and it is well
known that in ancient Rome the body of Judges
was the last legacy of the aristocratic Republic to
the budding monarchy. We may safely say that
the jurists were the only category of politicians
who survived under the Caesars. The main-
tenance of law in all its severity is a strong
point in aristocratic Republics, but we have to
admit at the same time that they are, and must
be, less inclined to mercy either than a monarch
or a sovereign people. There is something
thoroughly aristocratic in the strength of char-
acter of those inhuman fathers which old Roman
234 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
history shows us pronouncing sentence upon their
own sons. If an aristocracy is to survive it can
tolerate no disrespect to the laws upon which it
is founded, for since the rights of the rulers them-
selves are based upon inherited tradition, all other
rights must be held equally sacred. Everything
has its sure and logical connection, and the spirit
of the State, one-sided though it may be, is
thereby invested with a certain grandeur.
In this strict administration of justice we may
seek a compensation for the undeniable injustice
which suppresses the development of talent, and
forbids any man to climb out of the station in
which his birth has placed him. A still higher
recompense is to be found in the outward brilli-
ance which is another attribute of aristocracy.
The splendour of the rulers is blazoned to the
world, and handed down to posterity by buildings
and monuments of every kind. There is some-
thing so imperial about the Palace of the Doges
and its surrounding buildings that it served as
a model for the architecture of the cities subject
to Venice upon terra firma and along the Dal-
matian coast, where we see with astonishment
St. Mark's Square reproduced again and again
by the towns involuntarily compelled to imitate
their overlords, so soon as they were drawn
within the sphere of their dominion. The majesty
of ancient Venice stood out in small things as
well as great, for the whole town was laid out
with the pomp of a Presence-Chamber.
In these directions the old aristocracies were
very far ahead of our own democratic century,
and this was very forcibly brought home to me
ARISTOCRATIC SPLENDOUR 235
in Stockholm lately. There, upon the Ritter
Island, packed with memories of the old aristo-
cratic age of Sweden, stands the Riddarholm
Church ; close by it the Ritter Haus, in whose
gigantic hall hang all the coats of arms of the
old Swedish and Pomeranian families. Two
hundred paces farther on we come upon a shabby
barrack -like building, which serves as place
of assembly for Sweden's two Chambers at the
present day. In Amsterdam, too, we can visit
the splendid Council House, built upon 40,000
piles, with its seven doors for the governors of
the Seven Provinces. The Council Houses of
our own Free Towns, Cologne, Nuremberg, Augs-
burg, all are likewise magnificent. In Rothen-
burg three stand side by side. They are the
evidences of the pride of the city aristocracy,
and also the sop thrown to the people. The real
instinct for splendour of outward forms will
always be more widespread in an aristocratic
than in a democratic century, except when now
and again a Demos with keen aesthetic perception
inhabits a ruling city, as in the case of Athens
and Florence.
Everything which touches the amenities of
life will as a rule be more gracefully and skilfully
provided for in an aristocracy, and this is the
reason why it produces such excellent diplomats.
Venice had the best the world has ever seen,
and their despatches from foreign Courts are the
admiration of all historians, and the classical
model for their kind. These men had the dignity
which comes of early training in the art of rule.
From youth up they had practised the aristo-
236 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
cratic art of being bored without betraying it,
and yet of never becoming blase ; of controlling
their own countenances while narrowly scrutin-
izing the expression of others. To us all this
already seems unfamiliar, for our upstart demo-
cratic manners have begun to lose touch with
these courtesies of a bygone age.
A Government whose whole nature is so closely
entwined with the ideas and forms of the past
must naturally look upon all the living forces
of the present with a strong mistrust, and there-
fore, since all history is continually moving
forward, this form of State stands always in a
certain antagonism to it. Two classes of persons
are the inevitable and dangerous enemies of
such a government, namely, men of talent whose
birth is plebeian, and those whose origin is mixed.
This was already known to Aristotle, for in no
aristocracy can the separation of classes be so
strictly kept but that there will be children born
who feel it an injustice to be put below their
own blood kindred. Nevertheless, outstanding
ability is generally repugnant to every aristo-
cracy, even when it manifests itself among its
own officials. Therefore we find everywhere
some system of control, designed, like the Censor-
ship in Rome, to keep strict watch over the
official class, lest they should exceed their powers.
The most celebrated of all these is the skilfully
contrived checking system of Venice, where one
authority was always in close touch with the
other, where the red and black Inquisitors kept
mutual watch upon each other, and the secret
denunciations were thrust by night into the
DECAY 237
Lion's Mouth. In the same way Sparta had her
Ephors, and in this case the spirit of suspicion
ruled so strongly that overseers were appointed
by the State. This political mistrust often
brings an uncanny atmosphere into the life of
aristocratic States.
A system of this kind may work for a long
time, but no amount of political wisdom can
defend it in the long run against the living forces
of history. The beginnings of its decay often
pass unperceived, but Aristotle had already
noted the process.' "Aristocracies," he says,
" generally crumble gradually and no man
marks it " (\avddvovari fjLTafid\\ov<rai T&> \vecrdai Kara
fjLLKpov). " When the best cease to be the best,"
when the inward claim that is founded on educa-
tion, on the greater instinct for justice, etc.,
gradually disappears, then the ruin begins softly
and slowly, unseen, 'until suddenly the whole
structure falls asunder. Think of the aristo-
cracies which collapsed at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. Think of the past which lay
behind Genoa and Venice, and Berne as well.
Their history had been proud indeed, and yet
how suddenly they broke under one tread from
Napoleon's heel. They fell, never to rise again,
for they were ripe for destruction, although
men had still thought them strong ; not even
the Vienna Congress was capable of setting
Venice and Genoa on their feet once more. To-
day, we may safely say that although almost
every highly developed nation has aristocratic
elements, yet no form of State, with the exception
of a theocracy, is become more impossible in
238 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
modern Europe than a purely aristocratic Re-
public. The conditions for it are no longer to
hand, for it requires on the part of the people a
submissive acquiescence in the superiority of
their ruling class, and they must, moreover, find
comfort in this belief. So it was in Venice of
old ; the common man could earn money in
plenty, he felt a certain pride in his Government,
and an illumination on St. Mark's Square con-
soled him for many trials. No artistic display in
the world could cast such a spell to-day, and we
may almost declare with certainty that Europe
will never see an aristocratic Republic again. As
a form of State it belongs entirely to history,
although its influences are traceable still in many
of the traditions of the States of our own time.
If an aristocracy is to survive it must keep
its attention fixed first upon the rejuvenation
of its ruling class, for this alone hinders secret
antagonisms from rising suddenly and danger-
ously to the surface. To this extent only was
Montesquieu justified in saying that moderation
was the leading principle of this kind of State.
This is only partly true ; it is one of the brilliant
sallies upon forms of government of which his
book is so full. An aristocracy is always in
danger of exaggerating the system of exclusion,
and thus giving opportunity to the detested
irapeKpaa-K which the Greeks called oligarchy.
It can only avoid falling into torpor by knowing
how to revitalize itself with democratic forms,
without letting slip the reins of government.
Here the wisdom of the Romans showed itself.
Cicero made his mistake regarding the mixed
SLAVERY 239
Constitution of Rome because the Roman aristo-
cracy had been shrewd enough to veil their
dominion under democratic forms. Step by step
did they apparently give way, yet never did they
quit the field, and again and again the old aristo-
cracy found a way to reinforce itself with plebeian
energies. By such wise concessions it maintained
itself for long. It has been the same with the
English nobility, where the influx of fresh blood
is not difficult to ensure, although, in spite of
it, this aristocracy finally so slighted the other
classes that a wide gap arose between them and
the lower ranks of the nation.
Thus all experience shows the difficulties
which beset this form of State, on account of its
perpetual conflict with the natural impulses of
human nature. It is very important to dis-
tinguish correctly the different forms in which
modern and ancient aristocracies are constituted,
for this is the very point upon which the antagon-
ism of Paganism and Christianity comes most
uncompromisingly to the fore. The foundation
of slavery upon which they rested made the
aristocracies of antiquity aristocracy intensified.
Slavery must have made their frightful harshness
vastly harsher yet, and our modern world is
simply unable to picture an aristocratic rule
such as Sparta knew. Slavery is also the primary
cause why antique democracies, on the other
hand, strike us as so beautiful ; it is because,
in our modern sense, they were not democracies
at all. Slavery enabled them to be comparatively
restrained, noble and fine, while it shows up an
aristocracy in its ugliest aspect.
240 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Another point to consider in forming a judg-
ment upon aristocracies is the character and
ideals of the ruling nobility. We are at once
met with the contrast between a military and
a monied aristocracy, and experience and psycho-
logy are at one in declaring the former superior
to the latter in every way. Moral ideas lie at
the root of the dominion exercised by right of
birth ; conceptions of knightly honour, military
spirit, and political duty are never utterly lacking,
although they are often dimmed and faint. A
monied aristocracy is founded upon principles
which are the very reverse of honour. The spirit
of avarice is so strong within it that we may
call government by merchants the worst rule of
any. Republics such as Carthage, or in modern
times the British East India Company, may be
reckoned among the most abominable, although
certainly also the most worldly-wise, of men's
achievements in the sphere of politics. The poor
Hindus were right enough when they called the
East India Company " a wicked old woman,"
for it is impossible to describe how this trading
Company drained the life out of the nation. When
future times pronounce their verdict on the exist-
ing French Republic, the principles of this form
of government will perhaps be better understood.
A plutocracy is still a possible form of aristocratic
State, even at the present day, decked out, as
it is in France and many parts of Switzerland,
in the trappings of democracy.
It is well known that Greek theorists mis-
understanding the nature of monarchy, and
dismissing it as an unpractical dream have
AUSTRIA AND SPARTA 241
pronounced the domination of the best to be
relatively the most perfect form of Constitution.
These theorists were one and all nobles of the
city, filled with passionate hatred for the Demos.
Plato is the city aristocrat personified, instinct
to his finger-tips with arrogance of caste ; and
Aristotle inherited some of this from him. All
the Greeks looked upon Sparta as the fountain-
head of political wisdom, even as we looked
upon England a few decades ago ; in those days
we sought and found a depth of meaning in
British institutions which astonished English-
men themselves. We see with amazement the
Athenian philosophers, filled as they were with
a culture and a nobility of speech which
none but the lonians could compass, extolling
the Spartan State which showed in every par-
ticular an absolute contrast to their own glorious
civilization. Plato finds his modern counterpart
in Frederick Gentz, who lent the power of the
mind which had formed itself upon Goethe and
Schiller and the Kantian philosophy to serve the
cramped and narrow statesmanship of Austria.
Vienna could never have produced such a man
as he ; he was no native of that world where Jesuiti-
cal teaching alternated with pastry gobbling !
Plato and Aristotle followed a course similar
to his, if less ignoble. They committed a crying
injustice against their Fatherland, they vilified
the Prussia of Greece in order to exalt its Austria,
for to Hellas Sparta was the power of death and
perpetual stagnation which paralysed the whole.
From its very beginnings the Spartan character
was dour and narrow in the highest degree. The
VOL. II B
242 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
State had been carved out by the sword, for when
its Dorian conquerors had divided the land
between them at one fell swoop nine thousand
Spartiates had each received an inalienable patri-
mony, and the aristocracy was thereby estab-
lished on a very firm footing. As long as this
was kept to, the dominion of the nobility was
secure and internally sound. Below them and
in dependent relation to them stood thirty
thousand Lacedemonians as Perioeci, who exer-
cised no political function whatever, and below
them again came more than two hundred thousand
Helots, State slaves of the Spartiates. So long
as these divisions were kept up the aristocracy
was healthy at the core. The real direction of
the State was in the hands of the yepova-ia,
a Senate composed of twenty -eight members,
whose minimum age was sixty. This body
supervised all the various official authorities on
behalf of the State, it exercised penal jurisdiction,
and directed the lives of each individual citizen.
Side by side with it there was a National Assembly
of the ruling nobility, but it only met once a
month, for the purpose of ratifying or rejecting
without discussion the decrees of the <yepov<rLa.
This system presupposes the thorough and
comprehensive training of the ruling class in the
art of government, and this attribute of the
Spartan State was what chiefly called forth
Plato's admiration. His pre-eminently pedagogic
mind always believed that virtue could be taught.
He thought it came from knowledge and under-
standing, and he invested education with
absolutely magical power in consequence. In
SPARTAN CUSTOMS 243
Sparta the boys and youths were trained on
a very methodic system. They were only left
to feminine care for the first seven years of
their lives; after that they were taken out of
their mothers' hands and publicly educated as
children of the State (jralSef 7r6\.irtKoi) until their
thirtieth year. This system had marvellous re-
sults in its development of physical energy ; so
manly, warlike, and hard was it that even those
notes of musical instruments which might tend
to soften the spirit were expressly forbidden ;
the ears of Spartan youths might only hear
certain specified harsh sounds. Education in the
proper intellectual sense was likewise forbidden on
principle, for fear it should lead to effeminacy of
character.
In Sparta even marriage was treated as a
purely political matter, and all family life was
absolutely suppressed for the sake of the State.
The sole aim of marriage was to rear healthy
children for the warrior class ; youths and
maidens whose physical characteristics seemed
to promise a vigorous progeny were paired with
each other for this purpose only. In fact marriage
was hardly worthy of its name in Sparta, because
the husband scarcely ever lived at home. He
was obliged to present himself thrice daily to sup
black broth at the Syssitia or common table.
The female sex coarsened and deteriorated under
this purely military development of the Spartan
State ; women were looked down upon in a really
terrible way, and were given no place at all in a
world made for men alone. Their only function
was to suckle stout warriors, and for the rest
244 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
they were nothing but weaker men, with all the
tenderer sides of their natures forcibly suppressed.
These masculine creatures, who had lost all their
womanhood, were the final cause of the overthrow
of the State.
Another dangerous germ of destruction lay in
the ancient double kingship, which had great
power in the earliest times, but was reduced to
complete impotence under the later Constitution.
Both kings had certain privileges, and they took
command of the armies in the field, in the name
of the Gerusia, of which they were both members.
This fallen royalty carried with it the risk of a
strong king arising ; who, in order to make his
proud title a reality once more, should ally
himself with the Perioeci and the suffering
masses of Helots, for in this case a king must
become a demagogue if fortune were to favour
him. The attempt was once made and failed ;
its primary result was the appointment of Ephors,
a body of State overseers, five in number, elected
on the average for the space of one year, whose
function was to exercise control over all officials
of the State, including the kings. It followed,
by one of the natural laws of politics, that the
authority of the State was transferred from the
Gerusia to this little group of Ephors, and the
aristocracy was transformed into an oligarchy.
The office of Ephor became thenceforward the
highest object of an ambitious Spartan's desire,
and he sought to attain it by all lawful and
unlawful means. The disastrous spirit of sus-
picion which led to the institution of these
Ephors was bound up with the inherent impossi-
SPARTAN DECLINE 245
bility of keeping the State always upon a war
footing. Aristotle hit the right nail on the head
when he said that Sparta's Constitution would be
perfect if the State were a camp. This, however,
it was not, and its desire to become so artificially,
involved its cutting itself off intentionally from
contact with States whose development was
higher. Sparta tried, for this reason, to prevent
economic intercourse with neighbouring lands
by introducing an iron coinage and by other
means as well. Nevertheless, since war brings
nations together as much as it sunders them,
and since it has always been one of the strongest
influences for change in history, the Spartans
must have learnt something of the civilization of
more cultured peoples during the perpetual wars
they waged. The spectacle of the wealth and
beauty of the world could only affect these
barbarians in one way. They ignored the beauty,
but they saw the power of money. A terrible
auri sacra fames took possession of their untutored
minds, until they became like the lion who has
once tasted blood. Robbery and plunder spread
everywhere, until even the old tribal territories
at home were bought and sold, and with this the
sexless women of Sparta began to play a dreadful
part. The toll of war among the men had placed
two-fifths of the tribal territories in the hands of
these shameless creatures, who ruthlessly misused,
in their ever-growing greed, the power which
capital placed in their hands.
The pressure upon the lower classes became
unendurable, and a despairing cry for a monarchy
arose, but the redivision of property under King
246 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Cleomenes came too late, and in the ensuing
struggle of all against all the State fell into a
ruin, which could have had no better outcome
than its final subjugation beneath the adminis-
tration of a Roman Proconsul.
Thus did Sparta meet an obscure and miserable
end. She had had five hundred years of life,
and her discipline and endurance had even made
her vanquisher of Athens. Hers too had been
the aristocratic art of diplomacy, and we cannot
but admire the political shrewdness and skill of
her ill-educated and laconic race, even though
in the other States of Greece she did find natural
adherents who were unfortunately lacking to
Athens. To belong to the Spartan party was
as common in the reactionary circles of Greece
as Austrian inclinations once were in Germany.
All the city nobility which the democracies had
driven out naturally joined this party. It is
difficult nowadays to form any true conception
of the savagery of these nobles. We may make
some guess at it from the words of the secret oath
which they swore against their Fatherland : " I will
be an enemy to the people, and work them as much
evil by thought and deed as I can think or do."
To these elements Sparta looked for support,
much as Austria has looked to the landed gentry
of the Empire and to the Church of Rome. These
old Greek times are in many ways so strikingly
like the political conditions of Germany that we
sometimes almost feel that we are studying the
history of our own country during the German
Confederation. Greece faced her decisive struggle
in the Peloponnesian War, which was for her
SPARTA AND ATHENS 247
what the war of 1866 was for us, and Sparta then
used precisely the same methods against Athens
as Austria did against us. King Brasidas caused
himself to be preceded by a proclamation in
which he offered release from the oppressive
preponderance of Athens to all Hellenes who
should adhere to him. Benedek made the same
promises to Germany regarding the oppressive
preponderance of Prussia. The high-hearted
Athenian nation who set out to unify Greece and
to pursue a Great Greek policy found no natural
partizans among the petty States, and in this
lay the real cause of the failure of Athenian
policy.
The mere student may find something to
admire in the spectacle of -this crude and brutal
State in the midst of a race whose destiny was
to lead the van of civilization, but Grote and
Niebuhr have proved beyond dispute that with
all its immorality the Athenian Democracy was
more moral and more human than Sparta. The
breadth and greatness of Niebuhr has seldom
struck me so forcibly as in his lectures on Greek
History. He, almost a reactionary in modern
politics, hates Sparta, and expresses an enthusi-
asm for Athens, because he feels that the spirit
of Hellenic life burned more brightly there.
We who belong to a manly race, where
militarv service is universal and skill in arms
/
is looked upon as a normal passion for every
healthy man, can never take for our model a
State where military efficiency is the only ideal.
Our age is one of fashions in learning, which
change like the cut of clothes. One generation
248 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
of scholars raves for Athens, the next reveres
Sparta. Yet, when we look at history dispassion-
ately, we do not find the embodiment of the
Hellenic ideal in the brutal warriors of Sparta,
but in the undying loveliness of Athenian life.
In Sparta we have seen a military State in all
its terrible harshness, and we now turn to study
the striking contrast which the distorted com-
mercial State of Carthage affords, with its equally
one-sided but decidedly more repulsive extremes.
World-wide commerce unfolded itself grandly in
the hand of this Semitic people in the Bay of
Tunis. The Western Mediterranean they re-
garded as their own monopoly, and they per-
mitted to no other nation the right of passage
through the Pillars of Hercules. The navigation
of these straits was regarded as a trade secret of
Carthage. They sailed round Africa and reached
the East Indies, they journeyed northwards
through the Atlantic until they came to the
Shetlands, and they gathered precious amber
on the shores of East Prussia. Everywhere as
they went they exploited the subject peoples to
fill the purse of Carthage. The magnificent
mining operations which they undertook in Spain
give us some idea of how well they understood
how to turn Nature to their service, but the
lowness of the galleries, in which men must lie
upon their stomachs as they worked, also shows
us how shockingly this nation of traders misused
their human labour. The State, as Aristotle
tells us, was steeped in greed ; its system, he
adds, would be perfect if it were a speculative
trading business and not a State at all.
CARTHAGE 249
To all their refinement of comfort and luxury
this people joined a hideous combination of
immorality, blood-thirstiness, and sensuality in
their horrible worship of Moloch and Astarte.
This Semitic merchant State has shown us how
little wealth by itself can do to ensure civilization.
It may be that modern nations are once again
to make this experience for themselves, for we
are rushing with lightning speed towards a
similar development. The motto of our very
latest Art seems to be, " We can afford to pay,"
for what is there to admire in the aesthetic
magnificence of the present day except the
money it has cost ? Our newest architecture, in
its Nuremberg toy-box style, bears witness to
the poverty of our invention, and yet we hear its
perpetrators boasting of being greater artists
than Rauch or Schinkel or Schliiter ! It may
easily befall us to see the beauty and nobility
of human life swallowed up by the greediness of
commerce. Carthage has shown us the terrible
degeneration that may overtake a nation which
is driven by the avarice of Semitic blood into
permitting the dominion of capital pure and
simple. We see it at the acme of wealth and
prosperity, pursuing its barbarous worship, and
producing a literature which is nothing short of
twaddle. We only know of one single serious
book to lay to the credit of the richest nation of
the world, namely, Mago's Dissertation on Agri-
culture, translated into Latin by Cato Uticensis.
The political Constitution of Carthage was
admirably suited, after its own fashion, to a
State whose aims were purely commercial. We
250 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
find here a Senate, composed, like that of Sparta,
of twenty-eight Gerusiasts, with two Suffetes
at their head, although in Carthage these were
elected annually. Although their power was
equally small, they do not present such a striking
contrast to the governing aristocracy as the
Spartan kings, because another monarchic opposi-
tion party very soon arose. The whole Car-
thaginian Constitution was oligarchical from the
first, and the existence of cliques was an inevitable
part of it. An Ephorate was finally instituted in
it also, though it was a far larger body than in
Sparta, and it became the real ruler of this
merchant nobility. The great business houses
joined themselves together in groups of five, and
the Board of the Hundred and Four was composed
from these groups by a sort of distillation process.
The masses remained content under this Govern-
ment, as no direct taxes were required of them,
for the proceeds of the high tariffs and of the
Spanish mines sufficed by themselves for all
public expenditure.
Such a State as this would have crumbled of
itself, if it had not contained a healthy strain of
monarchic-democratic opposition. It is fortun-
ately impossible even for Semitic humanity to
give itself up entirely to the pursuit of gain. The
Carthaginian army became a very real power,
the more attractive in our eyes because it appears
as a reaction of the spirit of heroism against the
purely material spirit of the State. A commercial
policy on the Carthaginian scale could not have
been carried on without a great army. Yet here,
as everywhere else, the city nobility were slack
CARTHAGINIAN ARMY 251
and lazy, so, since the merchant princes would
not serve, the army was recruited from the lower
classes and from the neighbouring tribes of
nomads ; to these did the traders leave the
trade of arms. In other ways as well the Car-
thaginian army bore the stamp of a commercial
State, for, like the troops of the Netherlands
in later times, its strength was in its artillery and
its engines of war. Commercial States, with
their intelligence and their great command of
capital, always produce the best technical weapons,
and at all times engineers have usually been of
the burgher class, while the horsemen were drawn
from the nobility. The Carthaginians used
elephants as engines of wholesale destruction.
Perpetual fighting went on, usually against the
Bedouins on the edge of the Sahara or in the
interior of Spain, where Carthage finally clashed
steel against Rome. These unceasing wars pro-
duced a race of great military commanders, who
had nothing in common with the Semitic State
which gave them birth. All the heroic elements
of the nation were embodied in Hamilcar, Has-
drubal, and Hannibal ; they were the chivalrous
strength of the people, and drew the masses to
them by a magnetic attraction. It is precisely
in the masses that natural sympathy for heroism
is always found, and therefore the House of Hamil-
car was much beloved in Carthage. Relying
upon their popularity, and yet more upon the
army, these generals soon built up a latent
monarchy, and became a stumbling-block in the
way of the aristocratic domination, just as the
kings had been in Sparta. So little logic is there
252 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
in political institutions that this opposition was
the very means of keeping the Carthaginian
State for a time upon its legs. In itself there is
something inconsistent about the existence of a
latent monarchical power, with no legal justifica-
tion, within a logically constructed aristocratic
State. The power of the Barcidis was purely
founded upon facts, and had no sort of basis
of law, for nowhere was it written that the leader
of the army should be a member of this family,
but it was usurped by great and undying military
prowess. This was fortunate for Carthage ; for
had this great race of soldiers not existed the
merchant aristocracy would have been seen in
all their pitiable sloth, and Carthage could cer-
tainly never have waged her three great wars
against Rome. When misfortune finally over-
took her it became evident that the State was
no longer fit to be the home of heroes, and the
fate of Carthage was sealed when Hannibal
turned his back upon his spiritless Mother-City.
How different is the noble picture which the
Roman aristocracy offers us. Rome was the
greatest, the wisest, and the most powerful of
ancient republics, and in its classic period it
was a completely logically constituted aristo-
cracy. Polybius and his follower Cicero prove the
purely superficial quality of their examination
when they try to prove that this was a mixed
Constitution from the fact that the supreme power
was in the hands of two Consuls, and that the
people were admitted to the Comitia to ratify
the decisions. The triumph of this aristocracy
lay precisely in the marvellous skill with which
ROME 253
they absorbed democratic ideas into their Con-
stitution and thereby turned them to their own
ends. Niebuhr got this point exactly when he
said that we may recognize the political insight
of the Roman Patricians in the art with which
they receded and gave way step by step without
ever being untrue to their own nature. The
Roman State was superior to the Spartan from
the outset, because it possessed a power of
expansion which Sparta lacked. Moreover, in
Rome the family stood more independent of
the State, which was not the monstrous vampire
which it became to Spartan life. Crude and
rough the temper of the Romans may have been,
but Roman manners can in no way be compared
with the deliberate brutality of Sparta.
At the very beginning of her history Rome had
the good fortune to live through a long period
of real kingship, which succeeded in softening
antagonisms of class. After the fall of the
monarchy the Patricians understood how to
govern the State through the Comitia Curiata,
and for a time the Republic was an aristocracy,
founded solely upon birth. Against this the
Plebeians made an increasingly successful re-
sistance. They demanded that the Comitia
Tributa should be joined to the Comitia Curiata
for themselves alone ; they finally succeeded in
obtaining the Connubium, and therewith swept
away the old class distinctions in the legal sense,
for when there is absolute freedom of marriage
between classes no class can maintain its existence
as a legally exclusive caste. Upon this followed
the struggle around the magistrature, which
254 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
ended in the Plebeians once more forcing an
entrance into every office of the State.
Thus the aristocracy made concession after
concession, until at last it appeared to have
taken the lower place. But it was still in appear-
ance only, for they managed so to establish
relations with the victorious party that its
best families were merged with the older aristo-
cracy. The proud Fabian clan now held out its
hand to the Valerian, who had once been liberal
out and out, and the alliance between the old
Patrician class and the leading Plebeian families
produced the official aristocracy of the Optimate,
whose position was never legally denned. It had
the advantage over the older aristocracy of being
to some extent accessible from below, although,
as we see from the typical instance of Cicero, it
was not possible at first for homines novi to prosper
in it without having recourse to servility. They
were continually excusing and justifying them-
selves in the eyes of the better-born. It is
evident that in Cicero's day the Optimate already
had tremendous power, but it was not only
strong, but also on the road towards deterioration
and ossification in all directions. We can trace
how the number of ruling families went on
shrinking, and how the necessity for the mon-
archic coup d'Etat was becoming more and more
pressing. The real rulers were reduced to a
small clique who contemplated sharing the govern-
ment of the world between them.
Nevertheless it will always be a marvel how
the Roman aristocracy in its great days did
succeed in preserving its aristocratic dominion
ROME 255
under democratic forms. Outwardly, the whole
machinery of the State was highly aristocratic.
The meetings of the Senate were held in solemn
form. At the same time the formula Senatus
Populusque Romanus, in which it is significant to
note that the Senate stands first, preserved the
fiction of its being no more than on a par with
the people. In fact, however, the Senate ruled ;
the sovereignty was vested in it, and it exercised
control over the administration. In those days
the whole nation appeared in the guise of an
army ; it marched to its assemblies in warlike
array to the sound of trumpets, but these assem-
blies soon became tumultuous, and sat more for
the purpose of voting than for discussion. In
practice the Senate controlled them absolutely.
The composition of these National Assemblies
was also characteristic, and its consequences
were far-reaching, for the lower classes were but
weakly represented, and the centre of gravity
lay among the wealthier citizens. All these
arrangements were part of a shrewd consecutive
policy, and another masterly invention was the
institute of Censors, with moral and judicial
authority, to which the aristocratic spirit of
suspicion had given rise. Carthage, too, had her
Ephors, who kept stern watch lest officials
should exceed their powers. A healthy aristo-
cracy, such as Rome was through a long period of
its history, keeps intact its code of honour by
means of this kind of self-control.
We have further to admire the well-ordered
gradation of offices, which prevented the rise
of any but practical and well-trained statesmen,
256 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
and the energetic authority wielded by these
officials. Polybius, who gives us upon the whole
a correct picture of the Roman State, says that
the power of the Consuls is more kingly than
republican. There was something in this strong
official control which kept the State together,
even after it had begun to expand upon Imperial
lines. The training of this governing class was
much more liberal than in Sparta. Rome had
no State education, for the upbringing of sons
was left in their parents' hands, and the position
of the mother of the family was far more respected
than in Sparta. As soon as the youth was
grown up he entered upon his official career.
None of the offices were salaried, and thus here
again the poorer classes were completely ex-
cluded. In the later period the man who took
the post of aedile had either to be a millionaire
or was forced to borrow hugely from the numerous
Orientals who inhabited Rome. We have already
seen how officials could reimburse themselves
when they became Propraetor or Proconsul of a
Province.
It is not difficult to recognize how this system
affected the education of the governing class. Its
first result was that peculiar Roman hard-
heartedness which held everything permissible
that could serve the Roman State. Caesar, who
was perhaps the mildest of all the Roman states-
men whom we know of, had still no hesitation
about cutting the hands off a whole German
tribe. This was a thoroughly Roman frame
of mind. Regarding the resistance made by the
Germans to Rome he merely remarks that " by
ROME 257
nature all men strive for freedom and hate the
condition of slavery." This he freely admits,
but his own destiny as a Roman was to reduce
the Germans to servitude.
The first internal cause of the fall of the old
Republic lay in the decay of the stern moral code
of the governing class, and the second in the
unreasonable concessions made to the passions
of the lower classes. The peasant of Italy was
sacrificed in his competition with the grain from
Asia and Africa, in order that the Roman mob
might feed plentifully and cheaply. These in-
ternal conditions of the sinking Republic are a
warning and an instruction for all time, but the
primal cause of decay lay in the extension of
its territories and the resultant increase of
responsibilities which the City Republic was by
its whole situation incapable of coping with.
The great dignitaries who composed the Senate
were indeed men of thorough practical experience,
and the Roman Republic was thereby endowed
with the power of getting at the truth of facts ;
but still a Board of this kind in a City State is
not of itself capable of carrying on a great foreign
policy. It was not genius in the proper sense
which dictated this continual extension of Roman
territory ; the cause lay rather in the nature of
things, in that intolerance of powerful neighbours
which drove Rome to victory upon victory,
conquest upon conquest. A consciousness of
her destiny as mistress of the world only appears
remarkably late in her history ; the idea is first
expressed clearly under the Empire, when Caesar's
genius had given the thought of universal
VOL. II S
258 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
dominion its magnificent embodiment. Taken
all in all, her wonderful combination of flexibility
and conservatism has made Rome a model of an
aristocratic government. The skill with which
the Patricians made concession to the people,
without letting fall the reins of power, reminds
us of the way in which the English aristocracy
contrived for a time to render justice to the
populace by means of the House of Commons,
without surrendering the control by the old
nobility.
The cramped conditions of the antique world
gave rise to a considerable number of Aristo-
cracies. Modern history is otherwise, for in later
times the middle and lower classes have become
so increasingly conscious of their power that
even in England the democratization of Parlia-
ment has become a patent fact. Mediaeval
history, on the other hand, exhibits a strong
aristocratic tendency, arising partly from a natural
conception of class distinctions and partly from
the peculiar immaturity of States in those days,
who were eager to acquire great territories, and
having done so, then left them very much to
themselves. The politically constructive instinct
of the German race did indeed give but little
opportunity to aristocratic Republics on any
large scale, and the prevailing form was rather
an aristocratic Monarchy. When we do find a
military nobility it is linked with Monarchy in
some form or other. With the exception of the
religious Orders of Knights, which were in reality
Theocracies, the Middle Ages only give us govern-
ing Aristocracies in City life.
THE IMPERIAL CITIES 259
In antiquity, as we have seen, the harshness
of aristocratic government was accentuated by
slavery and by the prevalent conception of life,
but in the Middle Ages it strikes a kindlier note.
Happiness is of course a relative term, and yet,
when we contrast present conditions, we do get
the feeling that the simple man was happier in
those days in many ways than he is in this age
of social discontent, and for this reason we feel no
repulsion against the class divisions of mediaeval
times.
After the fourteenth century this primitive
dominion of ruling families was followed by a
time in which the power of the Guilds rose to its
height, and succeeded here and there in bringing
full-blown Democracies inta existence. Then,
as a rule in the larger Cities, we see a reaction
setting in, and during the later period of the Holy
Roman Empire it is safe to describe the greater
Imperial Cities as thoroughly aristocratic. It
was of course long since they had had any real
aim of their own, but when the life of a body
politic has lost its aims, its constitution ossifies
of its own accord. Nuremberg has become a by-
word in this respect. There, at the end of the
eighteenth century, we find the " enjoying
families " (Geniessende Familien), which was the
title given to those whose members enjoyed the
monopoly of election into the Council. The idea
of public duty had been entirely displaced by
the thought of the salary to be enjoyed. This
form of corporate life carried its destruction
within itself.
The long life of Aristocracies, as compared
260 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
with the democratic form of State, bears testi-
mony to their statesmanlike prudence and wisdom.
The democratic Republics of Italy fell every-
where into subjection to a Tyranny, and in every
case Monarchy laid violent hands upon them,
while the sternly aristocratic City States lived
on until the French Revolution. Of all these
none had so brilliant a history as Genoa and
Venice. Of the two, Venice shone with the
steadier light. In her, many aristocratic charac-
teristics were peculiarly prominent, the uncom-
promising division of classes, the ingrained
conservatism, and, not least, the ever -wakeful
spirit of suspicion. In spite of the expansion she
attained in later times, Venice was never anything
but a City State, repeating many of the conditions
of antiquity. Just as Rome had been the only
Urbs, so Venice was the ruling City among all
the others in her territories. Verona, Padua,
and the other subject towns upon terra firma
enjoyed complete municipal freedom, but their
nobility were not admitted into the aristocracy
of the ruling City. The Dalmatian coast was
arbitrarily governed, and farther east the de-
pendence was still more complete. When the
Peloponnese fell into Venetian hands, it, as well
as Candia, and later on the Crown of Cyprus,
were all governed as purely subject territories,
and real political rights were reserved solely for
the citizens of the ruling City.
The various communities established upon the
lagoons seem to have lived under democratic
conditions during a long period of their early
history, for we hear of all the dwellers in the
VENICE 261
islands being occasionally summoned to a common
Assembly of the people. From the end of the
seventh century they elected in common a
" Dux " as leader for the period of his life. The
year 997 saw certain conquests made in Istria,
and the Dalmatian coast towns coming under
the guardianship of Venice. About the same
time party-strife arose in Venice itself, and the
struggle brought a number of great merchant
families into prominence. The beginnings of
their aristocratic domination are only dimly
traceable, but from the very first they bear the
stamp which makes the history of Venice so much
finer a thing than that of Semitic Carthage, for
we never see her merchant Princes touched with
the repulsive spirit of the shopkeeper. The
whole character of the Venetian State was fearless
and noble from its youth up. Many poets have
sung of it ; our own Platen wrote, after the
Republic's inglorious fall :
Wo 1st das Volk von Konigen geblieben,
Das diese Marmorhauser durfte bauen ?
(Where tarries now the royal race
Who dared to rear these marble palaces ?)
Venice made everywhere the same impression
of mighty riches spent in truly princely fashion,
and it is this which distinguishes her citizens so
markedly from the Genoese, who were equally
wise politicians, but who always remained con-
firmed money-grubbers. They have indeed left
us a few fine monuments, but the whole tone of
Genoese history is on a lower plane of culture
than that of Venice.
262 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
In the thirteenth century Venice stood at
the height of her power, and in the fourth Crusade
her citizens captured the carrying trade of all
Europe. Her ships bore the Christian armies
to the Holy Land, and at the same time Venice
herself took active part in the great enterprise,
for the taking of Constantinople and the founda-
tion of the Latin Empire was carried out in 1204,
under the leadership of the blind Doge Enrico
Dandolo. The Duchies of Sparta, Athens, and
all the others which were carved out of the
ruins of the Byzantine Empire, lay, either directly
or indirectly, under the commercial domination
of Venice. The City had indeed become Queen
of the Adriatic in the true sense of the word ;
she Italianized the Orient, as far as such a thing
could be done, and she did it with marvellous
success. The fate of Trieste, and above all
of Dalmatia at the present day, shows to what
an extent it has been possible to impose Italian
speech and civilization even upon a Slavonic
foundation. These cities are as thoroughly
Italian to all outward aspect as the towns of the
mainland, although the type of their inhabitants
still bears clear witness of their Slavonic origin.
In the success of their methods with these races
the Venetian rulers were not unlike the German
Knightly Orders in their colonizing enterprises.
In her internal constitution, however, Venice
had entered upon the downward road which
eventually led her to oligarchy and ruin. In
1172 a Grand Council of 480 members was sub-
stituted for the Assembly of the whole people,
and assumed an increasingly oligarchical shape.
VENICE 263
Only certain families found admission into this
highest governmental authority, and in 1298
this practical exclusion was given legal form in
the Golden Book of the Senatorial Families.
Thenceforward the fall of Venice was assured.
By a natural process an Aristocracy so shut up
within itself was bound to ossify, and to dwindle
both in numbers and in vigour. The Doge
became a mere instrument in the hands of the
Senate of the nobles, and in all important matters
he was furthermore dependent upon the assent
of the governmental board or Signoria. For the
rest he was " King in nothing but the purple."
He lacked nothing in princely ceremonial, for
the whole wealth of the State was called up to
furnish the trappings for his golden ship.
Among the governing nobility suspicion was
always on the alert. In 1310 the Council of
Ten was added as a supreme authority over the
already existing governmental bodies. The
Doge, whose powers were now so completely
crippled, sought and found a natural ally in a
Demos as politically helpless as himself, but the
attempt made by Marino Falieri to upset the
constitution miscarried, and led, not only to a
further strengthening and development of the
Council of Ten, but also to the establishment of
three State Inquisitors, whose identity was
known only to the Ten. Thus one controlling
body was added to another, co-ordinated, and
re-divided, until the Venetian Constitution came
to deserve Ranke's comparison with the Church
of St. Mark whose five domes seem to be stuck
one beside the other, so that no eye can tell
264 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
which dominates its fellow. It is equally im-
possible to find the centre of government in the
Venetian State.
Every institution expressed the extreme spirit
of mistrust. The Lion's open mouth upon the
Giants' stair was placed there to receive secret
accusations, which were certainly followed by
results when their nature was political. The
attitude in State trials was always based on a
presumption in favour of authority. On the
other hand this aristocracy were peculiarly
successful in capturing foreign talent, and turning
it to the service of the State. The disappearance
of Venetian generals from conduct of military
operations in the later centuries is a significant
sign ; they might have been a danger to the
Republic. They were replaced therefore by
alien condottieri, who were heaped with riches
and honour, but their status as foreigners gave
them no hope of playing any decisive part in the
councils of the State. In other respects Venice
followed the practice of the Tyrants of antiquity,
and only mowed down the heads which reared
themselves too high ; the unswerving justice of
aristocratic government was meted out to all
the rest, and the mob were appeased pane et cir-
cencibus. The atmosphere was so rarefied upon
this great Venusberg of Europe, that the plain
man never attained the level of political ideas.
His life was a round of money - getting and
pleasure, and the nation was rocked into a slumber
of prosperous content so deep that it was long
before it awoke to consciousness of the rights
of which it had been so completely deprived.
VENICE AND GENOA 265
Here again, and even in this, how great is the
contrast with the vulgarity of the commercial
spirit in Carthage ! There we were repelled by
barbarisms in literature and art, here we find
an unerring aesthetic taste, and the life of the
intellect encouraged in every direction that did
not threaten danger to the State. Under the
rulership of Venice Padua was the leading
University of the world, and the home of many
a German student. Venice played another
unique role in history in her capacity as inter-
mediary between East and West. So long as
she kept this position she was a real influence
in the world. Her streets abound with signs of
the influence of Byzantine civilization, and in
St. Mark's we can trace clearly how Byzantine
architecture imposed itself upon the style of
Italy. When we turn to the Orient we see the
effects of Venetian rule persisting to this day :
the lingua franca of the Mediterranean coast is
nothing but a debased Italian. To this no
doubt the Genoese contributed, as well as the
Venetians. They established themselves farther
north, dominated the Black Sea, exploited the
mines in the Caucasus, and made their central
mart in the Crimea. Thus did the two great
rivals vie in spreading Italian culture in the east.
A mighty strain of majesty and strength
runs through the whole life of the Venetian
State. She was unique in her mastery of the
art of government, and in the marvellous brilliance
and understanding of human nature displayed
by her ambassadors, but there was at the same
time a tendency to despise all men, and still
266 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
more all talents, whose origin was humble.
Here lay the real canker at the root of the proud
Republic, which had disdained to do as Rome
had done and admit homines novi into the
governing class. In the early days good blood
had been allowed to enter from without, and
many a noble Venetian family came of Dalmatian
stock, but unfortunately this wise course was
entirely forsaken in later times, and the wall of
caste closed about the dwindling number of
rulers, until inter-marriages and the ensuing
physical and moral deterioration brought utter
ruin upon Venice. Great indeed was the fall of
these illustrious houses ! Their decay is well
typified in Manin, the last of the Doges, and the
pitiful part he played when Bonaparte came in
1797 to grind the ancient Queen of the Adriatic
with his heel into the dust, and offer the last
humiliation to the State which had once been
ruler of the eastern world. When the Republic
of St. Mark revived again for a moment in 1848,
and the old historic memories flickered up once
more, the supreme mockery of Fate placed
another Manin at the helm. This one was
the son of a humble Jewish family of Venice.
All the old aristocracy had been wont to gather
a train of little families of clients around them,
who often adopted their patron's name. From
one of these sprang Daniel Manin, the great
democrat whose defence of Venice against the
Austrians belongs to the sublimest deeds of the
nineteenth century.
The Netherlands Republic forms the most
remarkable of the few exceptions to the rule
THE NETHERLANDS 267
that in modern history Aristocracies are confined
to City States. In this instance the comparison
with Carthage is still closer than it was in the
case of Venice, although in it we are once more
confronted with the deep gulf between ancient
and modern civilization, for it shows us that no
Christian State can ever pursue the power of
money as exclusively as that old Semitic merchant
aristocracy did. As a commercial State the
Netherlands shared many of the characteristics
of Carthage, but morally it was vastly superior.
In spite of all its wealth it stood upon a high
level of scientific and artistic development ;
in fact it may be called the first modern State
which gave a systematic encouragement to
science and art. In the seventeenth century
Leyden was the real centre of University life
for the Protestant world, and Dutch scholars
stood at the head of men of learning in Europe.
The constitution of this Republic was
peculiarly complicated, inasmuch that it was
admittedly a Federal State, in which a very
sharp demarcation of classes was added to great
mutual exclusiveness of territories. The Union
was composed of seven Provinces. Membership
of one of the great aristocratic Corporations,
the Vroedschappen, made up of powerful
burgher-families, was an indispensable- pre-
liminary to a share in city government. The
Provincial Estates of the seven Provinces were
composed out of these City Councillors from
a certain number of privileged Cities, and out
of the provincial nobility, while from these again
were drawn the States General of the Union.
268 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
The liberum veto prevailed in these latter, as well
as in the Provincial Estates, so that the govern-
ment of the Netherlands lay ultimately in 6000
sovereign hands, and any single little town
technically had the right to stop the whole
machinery of State. The realities of political
power naturally prevented the practical exercise
of this theoretic privilege, and the small minority
was frequently dragged in the wake of the greater
number, but the constitution itself is all framed
in the spirit of an autocratic City aristocracy.
Despite the liberum veto the State thus con-
stituted kept its strength and power for more
than a hundred years, which is another proof of
how spirit may prevail over defective political
forms. The State was the product of the eighty
years' fight for freedom, and even at the acme
of its prosperity it could never belie the ideals
which gave it birth. One other safeguard stood
between these ruling gentry and the perils of
their wealth. The natural instinct for self-
preservation in the people had wrought a tower
of resistance for itself in the hero line of Orange.
Thus the extraordinary analogy with Carthage is
brought down even into details. Just as the
great soldier family of the Barcids had stood for
a democratic military opposition, and a latent
monarchic element against the ruling merchant
class, so in the House of Orange Holland had a
hereditary race of generals, who, with their
claims to the rank of Counts and Dukes of
the Provinces represented an embryo monarchic
power which looked to the masses for its support.
It is well known that when the weapon of the Jesuit
THE HOUSE OF ORANGE 269
assassin ended the great career of William the
Silent the Proclamation which named him heredi-
tary Count of Holland, Zeeland, and Utrecht was
signed and ready to be promulgated. It was
only withdrawn by the Provinces because the
tender years of his son Maurice forbade the
placing of so much power within his hands.
Hugo Grotius was right therefore when he
said that the Republic arose by accident because
no king was forthcoming at the moment. Never-
theless this uncompleted transference of the
hereditary Countship of the two most powerful
Provinces to the House of Orange gave the family
practical title to royal supremacy over the Union,
for the other Provinces would certainly have
followed the example of Utrecht's acquiescence.
By a marvellous turn of fortune the virtues of
a great ancestry were continued into the third
and fourth generation, for they were born rulers
one and all. The people bore them a love beyond
description. Wherever one of the House appeared
the masses of warriors who had fought under
his victorious banner flocked together to greet
him with the war-cry of his house. As a rule
they held the office of Stadtholder in five or six
of the Provinces ; they were seldom able to
unite all the seven.
Thus it was that a military and democratic
tradition grew up alongside of the burghers who
governed from the standpoint of merchants and
professors. It was the natural wish of every
man who had followed the banner of Orange into
countless battle-fields to raise the Captain-General
into a veritable king. The real life of the State
270 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
was to be found in the struggle between these
two great parties. The claims of both were
equal. The great commercial families were not
only the representatives of a world-wide trade,
but the patrons and champions of intellectual
culture as well ; among their adherents they
counted Spinoza and his like. The partizans
of Orange on the other hand kept a watchful
eye upon the place their country held in the
shifting of the balance of power in Europe ;
their minds were always turned to war while
commercial interests often inclined the States
General towards a craven policy of peace. The
preponderance of one party or the other meant
a decline of national life in Holland. When the
office of Stadtholder was abolished for a time
and the merchants ruled alone, the terrible
year 1672 made the Netherlands the prey of
France after an inglorious war, nor was it until
the House of Orange was reinstated, and the
flames of party strife broke out anew, that the
State recovered from the inward lethargy which
had overtaken it under the government of one
faction alone.
It is easy to learn from all this that history is
an eternal ebb and flow in which any man must
suffer shipwreck who tries to fit the life of a nation
into the formulae of politics. No sooner did
the House of Orange attain its hereditary status
under William III. than we see the State begin
to decline under its new reasonable and logical
Constitution. The victorious reigning house came
to an understanding with the government, and
the rule of cliques began. Moreover, fresh in-
AMERICA 271
centive to vigorous life was not forthcoming ;
thenceforward the nation was simply rich, simply
the capitalists of Europe. The Dutch have borne
witness to one of the noblest truths of history,
namely that no nation upon earth can bear up
for long under an excess of wealth, for when a
certain measure of prosperity is passed, its bless-
ings become a curse. Holland was choked by
its own fat at last. It lacked all the heroic
elements of a State, and finally perished ingloriously
at the same time and for the same causes as
Venice. To-day it is a well-organized monarchy
in the second rank of Powers, and its history
has lost all its deeper interest.
In quite modern times we have only once
seen an aristocratic Republic enjoy an ephemeral
existence in fact though not in law. I speak
of the Southern States in the North American
Union. Here again many of the advantages
peculiar to Aristocracies appear to evoke our
admiration. We see a really astonishing grasp
of the art of government. From the purely
technical standpoint this Aristocracy of slave-
owners was infinitely superior to the Democracy
of the North. The outbreak of war displayed
the wealth of their talents. Our officers all
speak with sympathy of the South because it
showed so much the most military capacity.
West Point, the only military college in the Union,
was attended only by the youth of the South,
for the North was too busy raking in the dollars,
and no military talent showed itself there until
the war called it forth. Yet this aristocracy
was imbued, like others, with a terrible hard-
272 THE ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC
heartedness, for it looked upon labour absolutely
in the light of capital. Labour in general will
always be despised where the greater part of
it is forced, for under these circumstances even
the free workman will command no respect.
The slave-owners embody this trait with hideous
clarity. They showed their contempt for human
life even in their brutal treatment of prisoners
of war. Nevertheless this aristocracy is one
more example of a power of governing and using
the human race which is quite beyond the
ordinary.
XX
THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
EVEN as a Theocracy is the most stagnant, a
Monarchy the most many-sided, and an Aristo-
cracy the most elaborately planned of political
forms, so a Democracy is the most easily compre-
hended and the most beloved by the people. Its
fundamental idea is the natural equality of all man-
kind. This notion has something of the sublime,
and it is not hard to understand why it has often
had an intoxicating effect. We know well enough
that it is only a half-truth which can never be com-
pletely realized, but it strikes its roots deep into
human nature. The ordinary vision cannot pene-
trate far enough to see that although we may all
be equal as men we are still unequal as individuals,
and the average human brain pictures an absolute
equality. Therefore, at a certain stage of national
development a Democracy may work in the
interests of civilization, and when presented in a
reasonable shape it is the best beloved of all
forms of government, and is regarded as so
natural in the countries where it prevails that
all other forms seem crudely tyrannical or devoid
of sense. Its character may vary widely with
social conditions, but its ideal always remains
VOL. II 273 T
274 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
the %i09 (jiovapxos. The people is always to be
sole ruler, and the aim is to extend their rights
in such a manner that all shall finally be equal,
at all events upon paper.
Nearly every Democracy begins with some
form of plebiscite. Universal suffrage is the next
step, and finally the citizens will even be paid
to fulfil their political duties, for it is the function
of the State to remove all distinction between
rich and poor, and there is no point at which it is
possible to call a halt, because the whole system
starts from a false principle. If great and small
are given legal equality in a Federal State, logic
sooner or later takes its revenge, and it is the
same with a Democracy. If we try to ignore the
differences between individuals and place them
all on one level, the contradiction must somehow
or other make itself felt, and we have to fall back
on violent measures like the exploitation of the
rich.
Artificial Democracies are comparatively com-
moner than artificial Monarchies or Aristocracies.
You cannot construct a nobility out of nothing,
and it is likewise impossible to make a dynasty
at pleasure, but it is quite feasible to introduce
democratic forms by an over-hasty revolution,
even into countries where manners and customs
present such sharp social contrasts that they
can find no natural soil. Once introduced, these
democratic forms can persist, because they are
very elastic, and an aristocratic element can well
accommodate itself to them. This is the case
in Berne to-day; or, to take another instance,
look at modern France. There, under a purely
SWITZERLAND 275
democratic Constitution, there flourishes in fact
a complete plutocracy, an oligarchy of a few big
banking houses, who avail themselves silently
of democratic forms in order to exploit them for
their own ends.
Thus the ideas of equality and of the natural
reasonableness of the average human being of
full age must have sunk deep into the habits of
a nation before Democracy pure and simple can
maintain itself. Even so it demands that a faith,
which is often founded on myths and delusions,
shall be given to its assurances of liberty, whereas
it is clear that a well-ordered Monarchy can
guarantee a much higher degree of freedom to
its subjects. Nevertheless this faith is a very
power in a Democracy, and works in the same
way as monarchical feeling and tradition in a
kingdom. Upon it is chiefly founded the patriot-
ism which comes so much to the fore in a moder-
ately well - organized Democracy. The Swiss
patriotism and pride of liberty which found
expression in the old saying, " We will not be
controlled," was really only negative. It is
undeniable that Swiss liberty is positively less
than, let us say, the Prussian ; particularly
with regard to Communal freedom, which is far
greater with us. It is because the populace were
flattered by the notion of being free when they
had no hereditary rulers that the idea has waxed
so strong in the course of centuries, and patriot-
ism has become a force within it. The direct
result is to give a nation a feeling of respect and
worship for its own institutions which will not
brook criticism. I should like to see the Swiss
276 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
writer who would dare to point out the faults of
Democracy at home with the same freedom with
which any one of us might mention the weak-
nesses of Monarchy. He would be stoned in the
streets !
This temper is at the same time the strength
of all passably good democracies. A sovereign
people will make untold sacrifices when it has
once recognized that its existence is at stake.
The Americans proved this in the Civil War,
which was not really fought at all upon the negro
question. The whole Union would have been
shattered if the South had won, hence the terrific
exertions and sacrifices which the North threw
into the struggle.
We may therefore regard the belief in freedom
as one of the living forces of this form of State,
but not freedom itself. Here once more we
stumble against the fallacy that Rousseau first
put words to, and upon which every Radical is
still nourished, which declares that every man
is obeying himself, and is consequently truly free
when he is obeying the people as a whole. This
is crudely untrue, as even Herodotus realized
when he said " in Democracies the majority is
taken for the whole." In political science, as
in so much else, we have to go back to the Ancients
for our guiding principles and our profoundest
ideas. From them you will learn what we should
come to if we threw aside our classical models,
and to-day we seem to be on the high road to this
folly.
This simple saying of Herodotus is the clue
to the whole thing ; the individual does not obey
MAJORITIES , 277
himself, he obeys the majority. When all men
are equal before the law the majority must give
the ultimate decision. It behoves us therefore
to be quite clear as to whether there is any
inherent reasonableness in this government by
the majority. The answer is simple : the
dominion of the majority does not give the
smallest guarantee for the dominion of reason
and law. " Majorities are folly," says Schiller,
" and reason has always lodged among the few."
There are certain questions, among them all
those which concern science or religion, which
no majority can ever be competent to decide.
It is obviously foolish to ask its opinion on any
point of history ; for here the judgment of some
one individual may be worth that of every one
else put together. The same applies to religious
discussions. It is both tragic and comic to
watch distinguished men disputing and putting
their decision to the vote, and then to hear the
inevitable assertion of the minority that they
have not been defeated. They are right, more-
over, for no vote can settle questions of principle.
A decision by the majority is only based on
reason when the question at issue concerns the
development of a real power, and the expression
of a Will. In a Democracy supremacy is derived
solely from the people, therefore its decisions
must bow to the will of the people, which can
only be ascertained by the voice of the majority.
The presumption is that the will of the majority
could be enforced by violence in the last resort,
consequently the majority decides, as representing
physical force. This is the true foundation of its
278
dominion, let democratic idealists say what they
like ; the will of the majority is the strongest, and
for this reason men give it the sanction of law.
Every unprejudiced historian will admit that it
is the only reasonable system by which a State
can proceed upon democratic lines, but we need
not delude ourselves into the idea that there is
anything inherently reasonable or ideal in a set
of circumstances in which the final constitutional
authority is not self -derived. There can be
absolutely no question of government by the
majority being in itself either reasonable or just.
We must envisage these matters only in concreto.
When the Committee of Public Safety sent people
to the guillotine just as they chose in the name
of the majority of the French nation, they were
just as much tyrants as Philip II. of Spain had
been. It made no difference to the victims in
whose name their heads fell into the basket, for
the one slavery was as good as the other. Are
we to call it liberty when decent people have to
bow before the mob, as we have known happen
in Zurich ? The Ancients had discovered long
ago that liberty, rightly understood, lies only in
la-ovofjiia, and that the word misconstrued leads
to ovcwaXtoT-io?, the dominion of mere brute force.
The rule of the majority, then, which is a
necessary adjunct of Democracy, is most cer-
tainly no security for political liberty. Each
citizen is given the right to make his voice heard
in the national decisions, but if he does not go
with the majority he must just put up with it,
and hope that his turn will come some day.
" One half of freedom is alternately to rule and
DEMOCRATIC FREEDOM 279
to be ruled," as Aristotle said long ago. He is
here describing political liberty, and this con-
ception of it finds no guarantee of fulfilment in
government by a majority.
When we turn to the social liberty which forms
the other half of freedom, we do not find a
Democracy affording it any particular security
either. " To live according to our own sweet
will " may be possible in a Democracy, but it
cannot by any means certainly be so. The idea
of the State was so predominant in the Demo-
cracies of antiquity that the individual citizen
was accorded absolutely no freedom of action,
but was early taken under the discipline of the
State, to whose brilliancy and greatness all
other considerations had to give way. Sharp
indeed is the contrast between this and the
modern Democracy, which as we know it, seems
particularly created for an economic age like
our own, which thinks only of getting on by
every means it can, and lives in the illusion that
the heights of civilization can be reached by
telephones and telegraphs. Modern Democracy
sets absolutely no restraints upon the commercial
intercourse between citizens. Life in the United
States is a terribly hard school, in which many
perish altogether, but there is absolute freedom
of action in every direction, and in this lies the
secret of the singular charm which this State
possesses for the average man of the present day.
What I have said suffices to show that we
cannot dismiss this particular political form with
a few general observations. Republican Demo-
cracy may show many different varieties of
280 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Constitution, even though Monarchies are still
richer in types. First of all there are the various
expedients for ascertaining the will of the majority.
The idea of popular government pure and simple
is most completely realized by allowing each
individual a direct share in decisions, and assem-
bling the citizens in the market-place upon sum-
mons of a herald, there to record their votes by
raising their hands. This is the ideal of a very
small City- State, or of little territories like Uri
and Appenzell-Inner Rhoden, and in them it is
direct democracy in its purest practical shape,
but in bigger States the town in which the voting
takes place gets a complete preponderance over
the rest of the country.
A Democracy with indirect representation is
more subtle, more complex, but also less demo-
cratic, for there is an aristocratic element in
every form of election. Outward circumstances
and considerations of distance compel this more
modern form of Democracy to have recourse to
representation by substitute. Inevitable it may
be, but it is still substitution, and is naturally
the cause of occasional discontents, for the
sovereign people murmurs that its delegates
have no powers given them to alter the Con-
stitution without more ado, and that it wishes
to make its own voice directly heard. This
leads up to the compromise which we find in
Switzerland at the present day ; there representa-
tion is the general rule, replaced by a referendum
in questions of particular importance.
Whether slavery is or is not the basis of society
makes a more essential difference in the nature of
DEMOCRATIC EQUALITY 281
democratic Republics. We have seen already that
an aristocracy combined with slavery appears
as an aristocracy intensified, while with a Demo-
cracy the case is obviously reversed, for it thus
belies its fundamental principle of equality in
one direction, and becomes an aristocracy of the
total number of the free citizens as against the
toiling and serving class of slaves. On the other
side, however, and herein lies the subtlety, these
very conditions may give a peculiar completeness
to the conception of equality among the free
citizens themselves. They are able to discharge
all the sordid cares of life upon the broad shoulders
of the slaves, and thus only the finer social
elements go to the making of the nation which
enjoys full rights and privileges. Under this
system Democracy may appear unusually fine
and noble.
A nation thus composed may not only carry
out the idea of legal equality to its ultimate
conclusion, but under certain circumstances it
may develop a delicacy of taste and a majesty of
intellect which are otherwise only found among
an aristocratic ruling class. This possibility is
of infinite importance in a Democracy, since ex
hypothesi the vote of the majority is decisive
and since it erects into a fundamental law of
the Constitution the dictum vox populi, vox Dei,
which can only have real validity in certain
moments of national excitement. This govern-
ment by the majority can be reduced in practice,
either into the vulgar dominion of money, or
else, where the masses are better educated and
more responsive to noble ideas, it can be modified
282 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
by the power of talent and of great patriotic
ambition. It is clear, however, that these finer
forces of the soul develop more easily in a society
which is based upon slavery. Without such a
foundation it is impossible to imagine a nation
like the Athenians, who allowed Pericles to
inspire them not only for great wars but also for
great artistic enterprises.
Here again, however, we must be on our guard
against generalizations. The historian knows
no worse enemy than system, which tempts him
to arrange life as it is lived to suit the headings
for the chapters of his book. Slavery is not a
necessary adjunct to fine and generous ambitions.
We must not forget that the Democracy of
Florence stood beside Athens to point the way
with the clearest certainty to the most ideal goal
of human endeavour. What a place of memories
is the Signoria in Florence to this day ! Yet the
Golden Age of this State was but short, and we
must suppose that it was due rather to the char-
acter of the people than to their political forms.
Nevertheless it is certain that where the majority
rules the national instinct finds its most direct
expression.
The political temper of a truly ruling Demos
is a very remarkable study. It is clear that it
must totally lack certain finer attributes of politi-
cal intelligence, and more especially the gift of
foresight, which is simply absent from popular
government. This applies particularly to its
foreign policy, a sphere in which it must always
act from a very limited range of vision. IS esprit
d'escalier is a pre-eminently democratic charac-
LEADERS 283
teristic. Besides this there is a singular con-
tradiction which always makes itself felt in the
inner nature of a governing Demos. On the one
hand we see that terrible demoniacal and base
passion envy, which plays an immeasurably
important part in the life of a Democracy. No
doubt if the inner heart of Germany stood re-
vealed it would be seen to have reached gigantic
strength even there, as was proved by the treat-
ment that Bismarck received. Now that he has
fallen he is beginning once more to find theoretic
admirers among his ancient enemies, because he
has come down to their level or so it seems.
They find an intense pleasure in the thought. 1 In
their institution of ostracism the Athenians had
absolutely set up a public means of gratifying
this passion, which they turned into a legal
weapon.
The Presidents of the United States, with a
few exceptions, have never been men of great
ability, because these are not of the stuff to make
head against the flood of slander which envy lets
loose over them. There will always be natures
of too rare a quality for the common herd to
understand ; for this reason Goethe will never
be as popular an author as Schiller. In the early
days of the North American Republic Alexander
Hamilton was the most remarkable figure, more
so in fact than Washington, yet the populace
regarded him as the proverbial dog looked upon
the glass of wine. He aroused the same senti-
ments as William Humboldt did at the Con-
federate Diet at Frankfurt, for he gave people
1 Lecture delivered in February 1893.
284 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
the uncomfortable feeling that they did not
understand him.
In strange contrast with this thoroughly
democratic passion of envy, every noble-minded
and independent nation will evince a capacity
for hero-worship in times of excitement, until it
may absolutely deify some individual great man.
It becomes evident at such moments that the
people really have an instinct which recognizes
outstanding greatness. It is impossible to decide
theoretically when it will display itself, for great-
ness alone is not the deciding factor. It must
be admitted that Bismarck has never really been
beloved by the mass of the nation, for only the
educated classes have properly grasped the unique
greatness of the man. Pericles, on the other
hand, although his character was essentially
lofty, attained through his marvellous gift of
eloquence to such an influence over the Athenian
people that Thucydides could say of him, " He
was not so much led by the people as himself
their leader." For a time he ruled Athens like
a king, and marvellous indeed were the home-
truths which he told that Demos to their faces,
for there was no trace of the flatterer in him.
This phenomenon of hero-worship appears
from time to time in every Democracy. It ex-
plains the alliance of the populace with the
Barcidae in Carthage and with the House of
Orange in the Netherlands. We meet it again
in the United States, when Washington had to
thrust from him the honours which were offered
him. His example did much to establish demo-
cratic institutions firmly in his country, but so
AMERICAN LEADERS 285
great did his fame become, and so devotedly was
he worshipped, that he had great difficulty in
waving aside the homage that was done him.
Later on General Jackson, the " Publicola,"
held a similar position for a brief period. He
was a thoroughly coarse -natured man, but he
was the conqueror of Texas, and his commercial
policy was very much in accord with popular
taste. Under him the State was perilously near
to becoming a dictatorship, although in the end
the good sense of the nation gained the upper
hand. Later on, the reverence of the masses
for President Lincoln rose to such a pitch that
he could perfectly well have attained to kingly
power among them had he so willed it. But he
was of the same stamp as Washington, and he
remained a convinced adherent of democratic
government. In spite of all these instances the
danger of a dictatorship is as constantly present
in a democratic Republic as in an aristocratic
one, although it is no doubt most of all to be
expected in Republics without republicans, as
France, with her two Napoleons, has proved to
us. Thus we find Democracies swayed by curi-
ously "contradictory elements ; on the one hand
envy, on the other a popular delight in great
heroic figures.
Where the foundation of slavery is lacking,
that is to say in all modern Democracies, one
may expect to find a dominant note of political
mediocrity. Really striking and distinguished
qualities are less comprehensible by the masses,
and we may look in vain to see Art and Science
encouraged by modern Democracy, which has
286 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
never known a second Florence. Switzerland
is a type of this form of government in our own
day. There we see national schools and public
health encouraged with praiseworthy eagerness,
but the establishment even of polytechnics has
been attended with the greatest difficulties, for
the Swiss nation could not be brought to realize
the usefulness of these institutions. Neither
have universities ever been able to take much
hold in Switzerland. They are the home of an
aristocratic form of culture, and the natural
inclination of a Democracy is to extend a modicum
of education and prosperity over the widest
possible circle, without any desire to exceed this
standard.
These tendencies stand in close connexion
with that appearance of economy which invests
a Democracy and endears it so much to the
popular imagination. Since it can have neither
the brilliancy of a Court nor the majesty of a
Senate to support, it seems that it must at all
events be cheaper than either a monarchical
or an aristocratic form of State, and absolutely
mistaken as the notion is it is used for the delusion
of the populace and the half -educated. Not
only has France been more expensively admin-
istered under its bureaucratic Democracy than
even under Louis XIV. himself, but in North
America also democratic government has proved
extremely costly. It only differs from a Monarchy
in that all the outgoings of the State are not
clearly set forth in the Budget, but a very simple
calculation suffices to show that the President
of the United States is a much more expensive
DEMOCRATIC FINANCE 287
official than the Emperor of Germany. A single
Presidential Election, with all the agitations
which accompany it in business circles and in
the Press, costs far more than the Civil Lists of
all our Princes put together. The expense is
voluntarily borne by the American people, and
no mention is made of it, but it must naturally
be counted in forming a judgment upon the
cheapness of government. A further comparison
between the budget of a big American town like
Cincinnati, and that of Berlin ofMamburg, would
show that the various unofficial associations ad-
minister far less economically than the German
Communes who have only the public interest
to consult, because they are each and all of them
limited companies who must consider the worthies
who hold shares in them. It is the same through-
out, and an examination in detail proves that
the whole theory of the cheapness of democratic
government has very little foundation in fact.
It is of course true that Democracies have a
tendency to exploit the rich for the benefit of
State, which accords with the principle of demo-
cratic equality. It is the business of the State
to do away with the difference between rich and
poor, therefore there may be no high - salaried
officials, and the lower grades of the Civil Service
are well paid in comparison. Finally, as in
Athens, the citizens themselves are remunerated
for exercising their political duties, and on the
other side the State reimburses itself in great
measure by levying contributions from the rich.
If the Athenians wanted a fleet, certain rich
burghers were simply requisitioned to supply
288 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
triremes. It is almost as if the wealthy must
purchase pardon for exceeding the standard of
universal equality. The same may be said of
the system which prevailed in Swiss Cantons
until the most recent times. The Swiss have
always been the most economical nation in
Europe, and the general frugality of habits,
admirable as it is in some ways, has also a
very petty side to it, which has reacted upon
the State ; while the old aristocracies of Berne
and others were in existence, there was a tendency
to niggardliness in questions of expenditure.
The Canton of the city of Basle, which broke off
from the Province of Basle in 1830, had a definitely
aristocratic government until quite lately in
spite of its purely democratic Constitution.
Members of the same old families, the Fischers,
the Burckhardts, the Sarrazins, etc., were elected
again and again, and they met the expenses of
the State out of their own purses, so that it was
like a tacit understanding between the sovereign
people and the old race of rulers. Thus the
cheapness of Swiss administration is not to be
explained by the forms of its government, but
by the customs of the people. When the nation
is not thrifty and close-fisted, but rather resembles
the citizens of the United States, then the cheap-
ness of democratic government is proved to be
an illusion.
The ugly reproach of fickleness is likewise
not applicable to Democracies without qualifica-
tion. City Democracies may indeed have an un-
settled element, because they lack an established
officialdom, and because their form of govern-
DEMOCRATIC CONSERVATISM 289
ment is unfavourable to the development of
a class of men who are politicians by calling
with inherited traditions. Where these are not
forthcoming, the unforeseen moods of fortune
may indeed produce unstable conditions. On
the whole, however, experience has justified the
French historian who said that liberalism does
not make its home among the people. The
people are peculiarly responsive to direct and
simple sensations, good or bad alike ; they are
easily roused by a skilful demagogue, but force
of habit will generally make them cling to their
old ways, and it is misleading to talk positively
of the restless fickleness of Democracies. Certain
party cleavages strike root very deeply in pure
Democracies, and are carried on from generation
to generation. Certain catchwords cast over
the average voter a spell which may remain un-
broken for centuries. Switzerland is not only
the most frugal of European countries, it is also
the most conservative. When we examine the
seven Cantons of the " Sonderbund " we find to
our amazement that they are the very ones
which in 1586 concluded the Borromean League
for the honour of the Catholic Church. It is
likewise impossible to call the Americans radical
in the political sense, although the word applies
to their social life. Rather have they held by
certain democratic principles with a reverence
which is rarely forthcoming in the swifter stream
of our older European civilization. Belief in
the infallibility of popular instinct and similar
theories are long-lived on the other side of the
Atlantic. In New York the mob are nothing if
VOL. II U
290 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
not reactionary, and are a hindrance to drastic
reforms in any direction ; they have struck a
bargain of reciprocal rascality with the Tammany
ring, for they feel at home under the rule of
brothel-keepers .
In spite of this conservative temper among
the masses it is not to be denied that demagogues
who understand how to flatter the people and how
to work upon their feelings may exercise very
dangerous influence in a Democracy. The real
demagogue is usually morally the inferior of the
courtly flatterer, for the man who lavishes im-
moderate praise upon princes may at least believe
that they stand above the common herd, whereas
the demagogue who burns incense before the
mob and declares that the real intelligence of
the nation lies in their horny fists, must know
that he is a liar. This is why the political
demagogue is one of the most repulsive figures
in history ; it is his hypocrisy which makes him
particularly disgusting. Brutal bullies like
Danton are the best of the breed ; there was at
least a touch of nature in his blatant lust for
blood. A beast himself, he sought to awake
the beast in other men. Robespierre, on the
other hand, was a humbug through and through,
and yet he was adored ; every fishwife of the
Halles swore that he was virtue personified.
Natures like his can upset all the calculations
of state-craft, for their influence upon the nerves
of an excitable nation can never be reckoned
with.
It is quite clear that the democratic equality
before the law can only represent sound conditions
FOUNDATIONS FOR DEMOCRACY 291
when there is an approximate social equality
among the citizens ; prosperity more or less
evenly divided is the right soil for a thriving
Democracy. Switzerland provided tolerably
natural foundations for this form of government,
up till a few decades ago, before the introduction
of railways. The difficulties arise when social
contrasts become marked and the power of
wealth threatens to master the democratic
machine. In America men rise and fall so
rapidly and so often upon the social ladder that
a potential social equality is really existent,
for it is so easy to imagine ; therefore to this
extent the premises are forthcoming on which
a legal equality may be constructed. Neverthe-
less America, like Switzerland, has now reached a
point where the wealth of its millionaires begins
to be a danger to the State. It is an open secret
that powerful rings are constantly being formed
there, who attempt to set the machinery of
government in motion to promote their own
selfish speculations. If this process of develop-
ment continues, as it seems likely to do, the
Constitution of the United States, which is
already on a downward path, may easily slide
into a fearful corruption.
A strong instinct for law is another essential
for the stability of a democratic equality. The
nation must place a superstitious faith in the
magical wisdom of a majority, and be swayed
by a real respect for the laws which are made
under its sanction. Without such support no
democratic government can keep even tolerable
order. Now it is quite evident that Democracy
292 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
contains many impulses in its very nature which
are not amenable to law. If the people is sove-
reign it follows that they can give the final
decision, and it was no great step from the
Kvpio<$ 6 vopos rov BtfjjLov of Athens to the 6 877/405
Kvpios rwv VO/MWV which came after it. Demos is
sovereign, therefore what is there to prevent it
from sweeping aside existing laws by a simple
^fnj(j)La-/j,a y as indeed was often done in Athens in
the later days ?
A still greater danger lies in the temptation
to the individual to commit crime in mere self-
defence. Legal institutions in a democracy are
apt to be very imperfect, because a sovereign
people is generally close-fisted, and begrudges
the expenditure needful for a well - organized
administration of justice. The appointment of
judges is another difficulty, for if they are to
enjoy real independence and respect they must
be given a relatively secure position and the
certainty of a long term of office, if not more.
This cannot exist in a Democracy pure and simple
which on principle demands rapidly recurring
elections.
The results of this system vary according to
national characteristics. We have all heard how
the inhabitants of the prison in the Schwyz
Canton suffer no interruption in their occasional
sorties in quest of liquor and the beauties of
nature, because the Confederation finds it too
expensive to guard the rascals properly. In
America the weakness of law, combined with the
reckless and anarchical temper of the nation,
lead to methods which have something imposing
DEMOCRATIC DISCIPLINE 293
in their very vileness. In the year 1891,
123 condemned criminals were executed by the
Sheriff's warrant, as against 195 alleged misdoers
by order of Judge Lynch. His procedure strikes
transatlantic democrats as alluringly straight-
forward ; he gets to work quicker than the Sheriff,
and above all he presents no costs. These are
terrible conditions for a country which has left
its first youth behind. The number of alleged
criminals illegally done to death is fully half
as big again as of those executed with the forms
of law ! Moreover, official accounts of these
happenings are published in every newspaper,
as if they were matters of course, and even with
a certain complacency. The Yankee likes his
country to go one better than the rest of the
world in everything, so in this direction at any
rate he ought to be content, for these figures
certainly outdo those of every other country.
Persons who pretend to disregard such matters
have not learned how to think scientifically.
This feebleness of law is closely connected
with the whole of the country's institutions, and
is assisted by the uncivilized conditions which
still prevail in the southern parts of the Union.
Of course no State can be founded on the negative
virtues of Christianity alone. Our own Saxon
forefathers punished horse -stealing with death
for the same reasons as prompt the Southern
States of America, and their procedure was
equally summary. It is a mistake to take up
a sentimental attitude upon these questions, but
still there can be no doubt that this manner of
administering justice must ultimately utterly
294 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
devastate the instinct for law in the nation and
react destructively on the Democracy itself.
This much we may safely say : if a firm and
reliable administration of law was the strong
point of such aristocracies as Berne and Venice,
it is the weak spot of Democracy.
This peculiar American custom of eking out
defects in the working of their laws by resorting
to violent measures on their own account leads us
to the further questions of how far Democracy
lays down a general principle of social freedom,
and of whether it is true that this form of State
gives more openings than any other to every
form of talent. From what we have seen, it
is clear that industrial and financial talents do
indeed take root and flourish, but that subtler
and deeper qualities find no natural soil, nor
indeed can they ever, for the natures which
possess them are aristocrats born. Bancroft,
formerly American Ambassador in Germany,
often told us that he loved his native land, but
that when he returned there he would miss the
kind of social intercourse he found amongst us.
There is a poverty of intellectual atmosphere
over there which is not only due to a young
colonial civilization. It is undemocratic if an
individual's talent rises above a certain level.
Real brilliance of intellect is coldly looked upon,
and dollar-getting is the only sphere in which
distinction is readily forgiven.
Democracy permits an absolute freedom of
competition in the sphere of economics, and it
is very singular to see side by side with this the
utter recklessness with which the sovereign people
DEMOCRATIC MORALITY 295
does not hesitate to meddle with the private
affairs of the individual and the family, when
incited thereto by persuasive demagogues. The
unlimited political freedom in many American
States is in sharpest contrast to the terrific
temperance laws which exist side by side with
it, and the conditions thus created are what the
German immigrants find hardest to bear. America
is a country of weak laws but stern morality.
There is still life in the Calvinism whose warring
sects were the real founders of the Union, for
the little States of New England were the model
on which the whole body politic was afterwards
formed. In Germany we are accustomed to
identify our political and religious parties, and
we should expect a liberal politician to be neces-
sarily a member of Evangelical Unions. In
Democracies, on the contrary, a stern dogmatism
is the rule, and its narrowness has proved a real
blessing in the United States, for there Sabbath-
keeping in all its repulsiveness is a real necessity.
Nothing could be more distasteful to German
feeling than this weekly day of rest and absolute
idleness. Our weakness lies rather in the direc-
tion of making Sunday too much of a high day,
and it would do us no harm to observe it rather
more strictly. God preserve us, however, from
the English -American Sabbath ! The six days
of labour must have totally exhausted every
nerve and muscle before such absolute lethargy
can seem welcome on the seventh. Thus the
hard and narrow Church membership of America
proves itself as a practical necessity there,
although it is so contrary to our free German
296 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
point of view. We recognize that Democracy
must be grounded on very strict observance of
religion if it is not to fall to pieces altogether.
The temperance laws of America are open to
the same criticism as its keeping of the Sabbath.
No doubt Germans often drink rather more than
they should, but upon the whole it is with us a
harmless pleasure, whereas if the American once
begins drinking he drinks himself blind drunk.
Therefore the legislative bodies have wisely
directed their attention to remedying the evil, and
their efforts have been supplemented by clerical
fanatics, preaching against drink in general, and
putting the innocuous German beer on the same
level as the fearful American spirits. Hence
the horrible temperance legislation in many of
the States, which would lead to a preposterous
inquisition into the privacy of every home if it
were to be carried into effect. It never could
be in a Monarchy, for every king would feel that
such an inquisition would be exceeding his powers.
The sovereign people has no such scruples. " I
may allow myself to do everything," it says,
" for I am everything, I am the great collectivity
of the State." These laws are evaded on a colossal
scale, they lead to intriguing and all manner of
deceit, but if the public morality which inspired
them were less active and energetic, the whole
State would fall to pieces from the looseness of
its political forms and its defective instinct for
justice. It is the instinct of self-preservation,
calling ethics to aid in correcting and supplying
the deficiencies of law.
You have only got to look at the New York
DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY 297
mob, which is composed of the offscourings of
the world, and yet how these lost elements of
society are compelled to exert themselves by
being thrown, as they are, upon their own
resources. Do you suppose that the Prussian
police could hold them in check half as effectively
as the stern law of necessity ? Every man among
them knows well enough that he may die of
hunger and no living soul will care. The Germans
in America have a proverb which the Yankees
themselves have adopted, which says that no
immigrant can strike luck till he has spent every
penny he brought out of Europe. Each must
go through a hard and cruel school before he can
hope to get his foot upon the ladder, and the
terror of starvation is the chief teacher in that
school.
Even good society is not particularly lax in
a Democracy, although it is often erroneously
supposed to be so. In America, as a matter of
fact, it is in many ways much stricter than in
the old countries of Europe. At a German Spa
one can generally find out the antecedents of
most of the people one meets there if they move
in good society, for they all carry their titles
about with them, and the pot can be constructed
from the handle. In America, where everybody
is Mr. So-and-So, one is as likely to be sitting
next a discharged convict as a great merchant.
Consequently the good families withdraw from
intercourse as sea-anemones shrivel at the touch
of a finger. It is much more difficult to form
anything but the most distant acquaintance-
ships in America than it is here, for the really
298 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
well-bred man feels an instinctive distrust of
strangers. Thus we find a very palpable social
exclusiveness existing side by side with a complete
political equality.
It is quite peculiarly difficult for Democracies
to find channels by which the will of the State
may be given a real practical effect, without
neglecting the principles of universal equality.
It is inherent in the system that officials should
be elected, and that at frequent intervals, for
were it otherwise the sovereign people would
cease to be really supreme, and yet it is impossible
to have a really efficient Civil Service without a
long - established code of honour, and certain
inherited principles of class tradition and outlook.
Moreover Government is an art which must
be learned, and has its trade secrets like any other.
In a Democracy the bureaucracy is invaded by
amateurs, and, worse still, by speculators, who
destroy its peculiar spirit. The question of
payment is a further difficulty. The innate
miserliness of a sovereign people found an un-
salaried Civil Service most to its taste, until it
discovered that it smacked strongly of an aristo-
cracy to have only rich men holding office.
Paid officials were therefore substituted, and
thus we observe the marvellous phenomenon
of an English local government serving as a
rule without payment, while in America all the
analogous posts are paid. It is clear to what an
extent this must arouse the vulgar spirit of
speculation, and the United States are in fact
examples of the principle that the victor claims
the spoil. The very instant a new President
THE CIVIL SERVICE 299
is elected all official posts are held to be vacant,
to be filled anew by the hangers-on of the success-
ful party. Recent history has clearly shown
how the whole Civil Service is thereby shattered,
and how the whole strife of parties degenerates
into a mere squabble over booty.
The way in which salaries are graduated is also
extremely significant. Its principal character-
istic is mediocrity. Clerks and subordinates are
much better paid than in the German Civil Service,
as this is the only way of filling posts which are
less sought after and enjoy less consideration
than those of waiters in a hotel. The President,
on the other hand, receives a salary ridiculously
disproportionate to the country's wealth, for the
scale on which we pay our Ministers and Generals
is considered undemocratic. Nevertheless these
high positions demand luxury and colossal
expenditure, which no American official can meet
out of his beggarly salary, and so here again the
result is the intriguing and corruption which has
already worked so much mischief to the Civil
Service in the United States.
The example of France by no means disproves
the rule that it is hard for Democracies to produce
an efficient Civil Service. The French still have
the monarchic bureaucracy of Bonaparte ; no
one can predict with certainty what the fate of
the old machine will be if the passage of time still
brings it no new monarch, but up till the present
it is not a republican organization.
A Republic is confronted with still more
serious difficulties in the matter of a standing
army. All history has shown that such an
300 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
army, whose commissioned ranks are imbued
with definite class feelings, will always be
monarchically inclined. A legitimate king has
much less cause than a Republic to fear a great
military leader. Even if a king cannot lead his
army himself, his historic rights and position
place him above the necessity to dread a rival
captain, but Republics look upon their victorious
generals with much greater apprehension, and
cast about how best to get rid of them lest they
should rapidly make hay with the Constitution.
The French Republic recognized this danger in
1848 when it decreed that its President should
never wear military uniform nor fill a military
post, although all military appointments were
in his control. We know how futile these
precautions proved, and how the man who
directed the destinies of the army used his power
to overthrow the Republic. We may say broadly,
that the happiest and most normal position for
a republican State is to be like the American
Union without any neighbours who can threaten
it from without. The United States have no
need to fear Mexico and the decaying Creole States,
and Canada gives them so little uneasiness that
their thoughts are much more turned towards
annexing the country themselves, an enterprise
in which I for one heartily wish them success.
There are thus peculiar difficulties incident
to the organization of the army and the Civil
Service in a Democracy. In Germany the State
can undertake many more enterprises than it
can possibly embark on in America, where it
has not been in a position to create a reliable
FRANCE 301
official class, and where the word " politics "
has unpleasant associations, just as the word
" political " was at one time synonymous with
" Machiavellian " in German ears. All great
social legislation is impracticable in the United
States because the best elements of society are
not enlisted in the service of the State, which
is here seen shorn of prestige or dignity. This
in itself is enough to account for the difficulties
which confront the supreme authority. There
is in addition the terribly hard question with
which every Republic must grapple, of how
this supreme authority shall itself be organized.
Any single individual elected by popular vote, as
Louis Napoleon was in France in 1848, is invested
with so much power that republican institutions
can scarcely withstand it. Napoleon could
truthfully remind the National Assembly that
he had more votes behind him than all the rest
of them put together. The present French
Republic has on this account hedged in the
office of President with safeguards most care-
fully devised. It was determined to place one
man at the head, but his power was not to exceed
certain limits, therefore he was to be elected,
not by the sovereign people but by the Repre-
sentative Assembly with its few hundred votes.
To this was added the really comic inconsistency
which I have referred to already, of making the
President rule through ministers whose responsi-
bility he is not to share, except in the case of a
coup d'Etat or violation of the Constitution.
In America, where republicanism is taken
seriously, the President is himself an official
302 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
and answerable for his own actions and those of
his ministers. Therefore he cannot be compelled
to follow counsels with which he does not agree,
as a monarch may, under certain circumstances,
be forced to do, and consequently parliamentary
government is here quite out of the question.
Thus the American President is very much more
powerful than the King of England, simply because
he is directly responsible. We must not fail
to notice that the first colonists of New England
had a very long monarchical history behind them.
Hence the custom which placed an individual
official, a governor, at the head of every colony, and
this governor was afterward simply transformed
into an official of the Republic. Thus the highest
posts were normally filled by a single individual,
and the system found its logical outcome in the
appointment of a President at the head of the
whole Union. In this instance his power was the
less dangerous because he presided over a Federal
State, and also because his activity was limited in
its scope, being confined to the postal system, the
coinage, and foreign policy, so that even a strong
man could hardly become a danger to the Demo-
cracy. The powers of the governors are likewise
restricted, since State interference is narrowly
limited, and political life within its boundaries
is at once primitive and provincial.
Where conditions are different, as they are
in a single State like France, the power of an
individual ruler may indeed be a serious menace
to a Democratic Republic, but the nomination
of a Council at the head of affairs may bring with
it the other danger of a Government divided
i
DOMINION OF MONEY 303
and disputing within itself. We have a terrify-
ing example of this kind of government in the
Directory during the French Revolution, which
was ended by the 18th Brumaire ; history has
seldom known a viler. In this matter also much
turns on the ancient custom and tradition of the
State. Government by a Council in Switzerland
is as old as the Confederation itself, and many
party antagonisms are stifled there in the blessed
name of peace.
Roughly speaking, the foregoing are the
characteristics common to all Democracies. It
is no easy task to disentangle them from the
multiplicity of forms which democratic States
assume.
It is important to remember that the demo-
cratic principle of free economic competition is
beginning to work radical changes in this form
of State, for it is leading to the practical dominion
of the Stock Exchanges. This state of things
has not so far become intolerable in America,
because the young country is still making such
gigantic advances in prosperity that the question
has not yet arisen of whether certain individuals
are acquiring a disproportionate share of it for
themselves.
No one who does not parrot-wise repeat the
emptiest phrases of Radical journals can fail
to see that both the great American parties are
merely greedy cliques. In like manner one
reality at all events in the France of to-day is
the dominion of the Bourse over the country,
and of the Rothschilds over the Bourse. This is
the actual condition of affairs, which is tolerated
304 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
because it affords an opportunity of enriching
himself to every one whose conscience is not over-
scrupulous. Enrichissez - vous was indeed the
motto of that July-Monarchy which was the
first real break in the old tradition, and opened
vistas of revolution without end.
All these are arguments enough to show why
democratic forms of State have never taken
root in the oriental world. With the exception of
the Phoenician settlements upon her coasts, Asia
has never known a Democracy. The peculiar
limitations of the eastern mind stand as the poles
asunder from democratic lack of restraints and
carelessness of consequences. The Greeks, on
the other hand, attained their zenith under this
form of State, and we are bound to say that the
Hellenic character, and the Ionic in particular,
was best expressed by a Democracy founded
upon slavery. In the Middle Ages this form of
State was checked in its development by the
old class divisions of society, and it only had
a brief age of greatness in the Italian cities,
particularly in Florence, which resembled ancient
Athens in so many ways. Yet even the Hellenic
Democracy soon had to bow before the military
monarchy of Macedon, and the towns of Italy
were the cradle of passions which foredoomed
their political forms to an early death. The
end came almost always in their subjugation
under a tyrant who had endeared himself to the
masses until he seemed to them no tyrant at all.
It would be foolish to draw an analogy between
Athens and the Democracies of modern times.
Conditions are quite different in the vast area
DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE 305
of Continental States, where economic freedom
for the individual is the most essential point,
and in those ancient democracies where the indi-
vidual was fully merged in the idea of the State.
Since the Democracy of the United States came
into being in the eighteenth century, the whole
Continent of America has resolved itself into
a bundle of Democracies, which are as a matter
of fact quite a suitable form of government for
all these peoples who have but a short history
behind them. The experience of Brazil has
proved that it is just as impossible to improvise
a monarchy as an aristocracy, if the nation has
no living monarchical tradition. An Emperor
who was not lacking in personal bravery was
dethroned by a contemptible little Revolution,
because his dynasty had no roots in the country.
Europe, on the other hand, does possess an
ancient history with monarchical tradition, there-
fore, if for no other reason, it affords less oppor-
tunity than America for the democratic form of
State. It requires further a much more far-
seeing policy than America at present has any
need of, being, as she is, without any powerful
neighbours, and consequently deserving of
Washington's boast, that she is ignorant of
national hatreds. Moreover the social contrasts
of Europe are much sharper than those of the
New World, therefore equality, that important
basis of Democracy, is lacking. Lastly, our old
Continent calls out for an active Government,
which is also difficult to reconcile with Democracy.
The European copies of this form of State,
and their relatively long continuance in France,
VOL. II X
306 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
are only to be explained by the total incapacity of
the old dynasties to rule.
Let us now seek for a few examples from history
to illustrate the nature of Democracies from
single instances. Between Athens on the one
side, and Switzerland and the United States
upon the other, lies the whole gulf which separates
modern from ancient life, the aristocracy of
the masses of antiquity from the real democracy
of the new age. Without doubt the Hellenic
idea found its noblest, truest embodiment in
Attica, and not at all in the crude military
State of Sparta. The Athenians possessed the
one Spartan virtue of courage in equal measure,
but in a more human and chivalrous guise. We
have learned from our excavations on Hellenic
soil that there was in very truth but one Athens.
Her only possible rival in the artistic sphere was
Olympia, and none of the monuments which have
there been brought to light, with the possible
exception of the Hermes and the Nike, can vie
with those of Attica. Antiquity itself felt the
intellectual and aesthetic supremacy of Athens
so strongly that after Greece lay politically in
ruins the alien races competed to preserve and
cherish this one city. Attalus, King of Pergamon,
added to her architecture, and again in much
later times Herodus Atticus sought to enrich
her crown of buildings in the new semi-Roman
style. Through all vicissitudes this town shone
forth as the jewel of the whole Greek civilization.
The Athenian State is unique in the world's
history, and the prosperity of this loose - knit
Democracy is all the more astounding because
ATHENS 307
of the immense difficulties which confronted it.
Athens is but one league distant from the sea,
and the soil of Attica was very unfruitful, bear-
ing no valuable crop but the olive. Everything
pointed to seeking fortune upon the sea ; the
rocky tongue of Munychia seemed formed by
nature for a lighthouse tower, and its bay for
a first-rate harbour. All this, however, men
either could not or would not see, and it required
the genius of Themistocles to bring home to the
unwilling mind of the nation that the natural
sphere of Athens lay upon the sea. For a long
time they remained impervious to his argument.
Those who have stood upon the historic soil, and
seen the geographical conditions with their own
eyes, realize when they hear of the restless activity
and fickleness of the Athenians that there is
another side to the question. It is no more than
half an hour's drive from the Acropolis to the
harbour ; ancient Athens had been as good as
destroyed in the Persian War ; and when Themis-
tocles carried his plan for a harbour it seemed
natural to make it the chief centre, and leave
the old Athens as its suburb. But the Demos
refused to be separated from the temples their
fathers had built, and from the Gorgon- slaying
Athene of the Acropolis. Therefore the harbour
was built a league away from the city, and the
artifice of the Long Walls was tried to join the
two together. Here we have the conservative
touch of the " 877/^0? ^wap/cos " clinging fondly
to ancient usages.
The physical conditions of the country were
not the only difficulties with which the Athenian
308 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
Republic had to contend ; it had the political
disadvantage of having no natural allies such
as Sparta found in the discontented aristocratic
elements in every town in Greece. Sparta was
the leading power in the Peloponnesus. Very
different was the position held by Athens. She
was indeed beloved in theory as the city of
freedom, but in theory only, for in her rising
star the rival Democracies saw a menace to them-
selves. This beautiful island world had indeed
common commercial interests with Athens as
against Sparta, but then all the trading centres
on the islands were also her rivals, so that the
Athenian Confederation was not nearly so strong
as the Spartan alliance with the aristocratic
factions. It is marvellous to see what great
political aims were kept in view under such
conditions, for Athens faced Sparta in the full
consciousness that she stood champion for the
principle of political independence.
For a time Athens steered a truly brilliant
course through her extremely difficult foreign
policy, owing her success not so much to her
form of government as to the noble character
of her people, which found its best development
in governing itself. We cannot but admire the
great heart, and the natural genius of an Athenian
mob, which yet was able to feel sentiment for
Greece as a whole.
Athens bled to death for the idea of a Greater
Greece. Her vision of her City State trans-
formed into a great Power could not be realized,
because her confederates were not dependable,
and because the state-craft of antiquity was not
ATHENS 309
capable of creating a Federal system, which can
take no real shape while every citizen has a
direct share in political life. The alliance of
which Athens was the head was not even given
a collective name, but was always spoken of as
Athens and her confederates. It became in
fact a hegemony of a very oppressive kind, for
the confederates were compelled to carry out
what the sovereign people upon the Acropolis
decreed. This, coupled with the natural in-
discipline of the other Greek races, and their
impatience of any strong control, was more
responsible for the tragic fall of Athens than was
the democratic form of her government. When
we understand this aright, her history is still
inspiring for us to-day, for in spite of innumerable
follies a strain of inspiring greatness runs through
Athenian politics. The Spartans recognized her
material and intellectual superiority, and resented
it fiercely ; their jealousy prompted their perfidi-
ous saying at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian
War, that the time was come to free the other
States from the Athenian yoke.
From the beginning the history of Athens
pointed towards democratic developments. The
note of mildness and humanity was sounded in
the very origin of the City, which was not founded
upon conquest like Sparta, but arose, as far as
we can tell its dim beginnings, through a gradual
influx of immigrants who sought their livelihood
upon its hospitable shores. This is the reason
why aristocratic forms struck no deep roots
within it. It, too, began with a monarchy, but
soon the uprise of the great families displaced
310 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
this form of government, which left no trace
upon the Constitution, except in the title of one
of the nine Archons. It was succeeded by an
aristocratic domination, but the arrogance of the
reigning families displayed itself first and foremost
in the despoiling of the Demos, and led to the
popular upheavals which took a democratic com-
plexion under the Constitution of Solon. The
influence of demagogues kept a tyranny in power
for a little while longer, but finally, after the
Tyrants had cut the heads off most of the nobles,
appeared the Democracy proper, as Cleisthenes
had reorganized it, and it at once assumed a
logical shape. The centre of sovereignty was
shifted more and more into the hands of the
whole body of free citizens, until at length it
lay directly and absolutely with the National
Assembly.
This Democracy was formless in the highest
degree. Its Civil Service was an example of
the dangerous principle of divided responsibility.
Even in Army leadership the supreme command
was placed in the hands of more and more
generals of equal status. The Command was
divided among three, or even four individuals.
For us this principle of Boards of Control is more
incomprehensible than any other part of the
whole system of the State. We can scarcely
imagine how the Romans managed to govern
through two Consuls at once, and we are quite
unable to understand how Greek armies could
ever have been led by three or four " Strategi."
No doubt it usually happened that one of the four
was so superior that in practice the other three
ATHENS 311
were subordinate to him. In the "
the Thousand were finally given direct participa-
tion in the sovereignty. It would seem impossible
for a State whose government was so radically
democratic ever to have had a great foreign
policy. In theory the thing was so incredible
that the Greek philosophers rejected it with
contempt.
It is on this very point that we must beware
of the professorial politician. Great as Aristotle
was, he still appears in the guise of a learned
schoolmaster in the newly discovered fragment
of his work on the Athenian State. It was
an ancient principle that political rights were
granted on a basis of military service. As long
as land forces only were employed, the right to
vote was founded on service with the hoplites,
and none but the well-to-do could enrol them-
selves among these heavy -armed troops. When
Themistocles led the Athenians from land to
maritime warfare the effect produced upon their
history was analogous to the introduction of
universal service into Prussia. The banks of
rowers for the triremes had to be supplied from
the lowest classes of the population, to whom,
by inevitable necessity, the suffrage had likewise
to be extended. To make this a reproach to
Themistocles would have been as foolish as it
was to blame Bismarck for introducing universal
suffrage into the North-German Confederation.
We know that this non-plus-ultra of political
rights gave Bismarck the weapon he required
to appease the great body of demagogues. The
nation was absolutely out of harmony with his
312 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
German policy. The desire for German unity
was indeed widespread, but its attainment by
a war between Austria and Prussia was by no
means the wish of the people. Therefore the
founder of the policy of Union was absolutely
compelled to grasp at these methods of despair.
Exactly similar was the position of Themis-
tocles, the man who in all history has been
the nearest intellectual parallel of Bismarck.
There is a tragic touch about universal suffrage
extended to all classes of the population, but
it is not a subject for the censure of pedants.
Circumstances were responsible for this radicalizing
of political rights, and in this case the crudest
forces of human nature were held in check by
the broad foundations of slavery on which the
Athenian State reposed. Another restraint was
the traditional reverence with which the Attic
Demos, for all its fickleness, continued to regard
certain of its great ruling clan. The position
which the two great tribes of the Philidae and
the Alcmaeonidae owed to their descent from
Ajax and Nestor was purely one of inheritance,
for they had no formal precedence over other
families in the State. But it was as if these two
powerful dynasties handed down certain traditions
from father to son, for they produced a line of
born rulers, who persuaded the Demos into a great
foreign policy, although of course it was liable to
constant relapses, and required the repeated
exercise of all the arts of oratory to knock it into
the hard heads of the mob.
Human eloquence has never wielded so great,
so demoniac an influence as in Athens. We
ATHENIAN DEMOS 313
could not wish modern nations to be so much
under the spell of the spoken word, for in us the
substance is more vital than the form. We have
to remember the almost super-refined sense of
beauty in the Athenians, and imagine a sus-
ceptibility so great that a single blunder on the
part of the orator would expose him to the
mocking laughter of his audience. Our modern
world can no longer realize such a capacity for
aesthetic enjoyment, or such a joy in sacrifice
upon the altar of beauty. Recollect the magni-
ficent speech in which Demosthenes says, " Our
City's task is to be the loveliest of any." Of
course this intense susceptibility to eloquence
on the part of the Athenian people created the
grave danger that the Demos would be carried
away into sudden decisions prompted by envy
or revenge, and often and often did this actu-
ally occur. It was when a man like Pericles
arose, a tyrant in the noblest sense, pre-eminent
as statesman, general, and orator all in one,
that the constitution of the Athenian State
became effective, through the very looseness of
its forms.
By the institution of ostracism as an emergency
measure the Demos had provided itself with
another weapon against men whose power might
threaten danger to the State. This was, as a
matter of fact, quite needful, and although no
doubt it sometimes gave scope for envy against
outstanding figures, and at times attacked men
whose presence would have been a boon to the
State, it is not possible to condemn it off-hand.
If the people wished to proceed to the motion,
314 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
the vote was taken, and each citizen wrote upon
his potsherd the name of the man whom he held
to be dangerous. Thus it was not denunciation
pure and simple, for it contained the element
of risk, as every person who put the motion
was naturally in a prominent position and ran
the risk of the people's judgment being turned
against himself.
The same considerations apply to other in-
stitutions of the State which at the first glance
seem to us like madness. Since there is some-
thing aristocratic in the nature of all elections,
it soon came to pass that the appointment to
all great offices of State was made by lot. The
illogicality of this method of election provided
the very means of safeguard against the one-
sided domination of a majority. There were
two great parties, and it became the rule for
both their lists of candidates to be submitted,
and the lot was drawn among the names upon
these lists. Thus it might happen that the
actual party in power might be in a minority
in certain administrative posts, and that the
rule of the majority could not be recklessly taken
advantage of.
Now, however, Democracy began to move
towards its ultimate conclusion, with that un-
canny logicality which is inherent in its nature.
Equality was to be actual, and to this end the
burdens of the State were laid with dispropor-
tionate heaviness upon the shoulders of the rich.
When a fleet was in construction the rich were
simply informed of the number of ships they
were expected to build, while on the other hand
CLEON 315
the lower classes had an allowance made them
for their hours of labour, so that they might be
able to attend the National Assembly.
Thus an attempt was made to equalize social
conditions artificially, and to place rich and poor
upon a level. The process went on in dulce
infinitum until finally the mob were even given
their " OemptKo, " or money for their seats in
the theatre. This Demos had its sycophants,
even as monarchs have their flatterers. Hand
in hand with political decline went the decay of
morals from the days of the sophists onwards.
Euripides is a magnificent type of the period of
the old Hellenic morality in its fall ; he is its
splendid fruit with the worm at its core. He
stands for the purely personal morality, " what
is then wrong, if to the doer it seems right ? "
The final fate of this development could not
be difficult to foresee, and the marvel is that the
end was so long in coming. There were great
men to stem for a little the inevitable tide, but
at length it brought with it the era of the dema-
gogue pure and simple. The opening days of
Cleon's rule keep their significance for all time.
They bear a very close analogy with modern
times, for the Athenian Democracy was equipped
with the same stock of phrases as we have heard
used in our own day. Cleon had already used
against Pericles that piece de resistance of the
demagogue's attack upon the statesman who
knows power to be the essence of State namely,
the accusation that he placed force higher than
law. Unfortunately he found a greater following
than did Bismarck's foes in the progressive ranks,
316 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
for the people of Athens began to lend an ear to
the counsels of sedition. Finally, when Cleon
had the inexplicable piece of luck of a successful
military campaign falling to his credit how
this came about Heaven only knows his reputa-
tion was established, and the State fell more
and more into the democratic groove. As Fate
willed it, there then arose in Alcibiades the ap-
pearance of a genius, but unfortunately there was
no reality, for he totally lacked the capacity for
judgment. Talents he had, in a superabundance
which drove him to try to make them shine in
every direction with a brilliance which was turned
far more towards illuminating his own personality
than the matter in hand. Natures such as his
rise easily to eminence on democratic soil. The
insensate Sicilian Expedition prepared the way
for the catastrophe of the Peloponnesian War,
and Athens never recovered from the blow she
then received. All the mighty eloquence with
which Demosthenes smote into the soul of the
nation now came too late. Yet, when all is said
and done, Athens remains unique in the world,
and her history will ever be rich in teaching,
because it illustrates once more the relative
worthlessness of all political forms.
In Florence, which was a pure Democracy,
resting upon a non-slave basis, the Middle Ages
produced a noteworthy aftermath of the culture
of ancient Athens. Here the old ruling families
of the City had been compelled at an early stage
in its history to swallow their pride and become
members of the guilds. To this day magnificent
monuments of architecture bear witness to the
SWITZERLAND 317
unforgettable period of the Florentine Democracy,
which placed its people upon the apex of culture
among the nations of the New Age. Unfortu-
nately it bore within itself the seeds of a quick
decay. Democracy was soon forced to yield
to Tyranny, for a strong government was im-
peratively demanded to restrain the turbulence
of the times, when one deed of blood followed
upon another, and conscience was flung to all
the winds of Heaven.
The Democracies of modern days stand in
absolute antithesis, both to the rich culture of
the Florentine Democracy and to the finely
tempered popular aristocracy of Athens. In
Athens we saw idealism exalted to an almost
giddy height, while in Switzerland and the
United States we find an energetic materialism
on economic lines, combined with an indifference
to the intangible possessions of intellectual life.
" No Swiss without money " and " Time is
money," such are the typical mottoes of these
Republics of our own day.
The strength of Swiss life undoubtedly lies
in its good practical efficiency. We must not
speak without qualification of the commercialism
of the Swiss, for this little country, whose in-
habitants do not exceed those of the kingdom
of Saxony in number, has produced two great
branches of the Protestant tree. Nevertheless both
Zwingli and Calvin became more international
figures, and any civilizing influence which is to
affect national character must bear a national
stamp, and the ethnographical conditions of the
country forbid the creation of any collective
318 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
national culture in Switzerland. Swiss Teutonism
is only a tiny twig of the Teutonism whose proper
home is in the German Empire, and Swiss
Gallicism is likewise nothing but a feebler offshoot
of the Gallicism of France. The marvel is that
in spite of these unfavourable ethnographical
conditions Switzerland has still managed to
maintain a relatively high intellectual level.
French Switzerland is the Protestant counter-
weight to France itself, just as German Switzerland
is the Republican counterweight to monarchic
Germany.
In spite of this it is, broadly speaking, true
that the whole position of the Swiss State is more
adapted to ensure a moderate share of fortune,
and a certain measure of respectable comfort
for industrious people than to produce the fine
flower of intellectual culture, and the future
will make this increasingly apparent. The highest
aims of policy are either shut off altogether,
or made difficult of attainment, and above all
a foreign policy on the great scale is altogether
impossible. Hence the decree of neutrality,
which is in fact self-mutilation for a State. It is
true that it is no longer unconditionally recog-
nized by treaty, but it is tacitly implied in every
war, for were it to be violated the foundations
upon which the Swiss State exists would crumble.
All its institutions are rooted in its neutrality,
above all the greatest limitation of its activity
in a small and inexpensive Army.
Old Switzerland used to be aristocratic through
and through. There were certain Democracies
around the Lake of Lucerne where as a matter of
SWITZERLAND 319
fact there was no government at all, but even
these had those aristocratic tendencies which
had been developed in the large Cantons in the
plain of Switzerland, and individual leading
families of peasant stock were the actual rulers of
their Cantons. The classifications of society in
old Switzerland were likewise purely aristocratic.
There were immigrants, whose only political
rights were to protection, but there were also
subjects who simply owed allegiance either to the
Confederation as a whole or to one or more
Cantons. The French Revolution was what first
put a radical complexion upon all these conditions,
and we can trace during that period in Switzerland
a decay of the old aristocratic forms similar to
what took place simultaneously in Venice and
the Netherlands. The internal conditions of
existence gradually disappeared, and the old
Constitution was tossed light-heartedly aside.
Then came the year 1798 with its attempt at
Helvetian unification. In 1803 Napoleon's Act
of Mediation brought into being a Constitution
which realized the idea of equality for every
Canton. A Confederation was formed consisting
of twenty-two Cantons, all with equal rights.
A brief reaction followed, but the great principle
of equality endured.
The succeeding period saw the beginning of
disputes in the various Cantons regarding political
forms. It is extraordinary how the old families
had decayed or disappeared in so short a time,
for the groundwork of a really aristocratic
government was no longer forthcoming. The
struggle for the sole supremacy of the Democracy
320 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
began in 1815, and the first great blow for it
was struck in 1830 when several of the larger
Cantons introduced a purely democratic Constitu-
tion. The Catholic Cantons were vanquished
in the " Sonderbund " war, and in 1848 a new
Constitution was proclaimed for the whole Con-
federation. Thenceforward none of its members
might have other than a democratic Constitution,
be it either direct or representative in form.
The Federal State is strongly centralized, and
therefore the political forms of its constituent
elements must be approximately the same. A
new radical movement began in the middle of
the 'sixties, which aimed at direct government
by the people. Experience had shown that the
National Assembly, or Grand Council, had not
always given full expression to the will of the
nation itself, and that it had made alterations in
the Constitution which were not properly in accord
with the wishes of the sovereign people. Thus
arose a movement, demagogic in form, but
justifiable in fact, which aimed at combining
direct government by the people with the repre-
sentative system. This vision has become a
reality in most of the Swiss States to-day. The
nation has the right of veto upon all constitutional
changes, which have to be laid before it for
decision by referendum. As a matter of fact
this arrangement has had very different results
from what were expected of it. The masses
show their suspicion of all reforms which cost
money, and all which require a certain amount
of education to understand, and to this must be
added the mistrust of the Government which is
SWITZERLAND 321
one of the features of Democracy. It was there-
fore quite erroneous to expect the referendum
always to work in a radical direction, for in many
cases its influence has been strongly reactionary, as
for example with the vaccination legislation. The
educated members of the central authority of the
Confederation in Berne were unanimous as to the
need for vaccination laws on the German pattern,
but the proposal raised an absolute storm through-
out the country. The Bull of Uri began to bellow,
and in the Grison compulsory vaccination was
rejected amid acclamation from the sovereign
people, and no one could understand how " the
Bismarck " of Berne could propose such coercion
of the free citizens. Thus the law was never
passed, and the incident has been the cause why
the machinery of universal referendum is now
so seldom set in motion. For the rest, the
Grand Council transacts current business through
a few officials, who are simply and solely a Com-
mittee ; and administration is everywhere carried
on by means of these Boards, and not through
individuals.
The whole of this system originates in innumer-
able local factions, and in a municipal feeling
more powerful than any foreigner can ever hope
to understand. So loose a form of Democracy
may answer tolerably well in these petty condi-
tions, but it proves a great obstacle to the really
important and civilizing enterprises of the State.
Army administration is starved by it, and as a
result foreign policy is hampered, and the whole
nation is deprived of military education and all
its incalculable moral benefits. In its soldiers
VOL. II Y
322 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
of fortune old Switzerland possessed an excellent
antidote to the dangers of neutrality, although
its methods were no doubt open to the attacks of
doctrinairism, and we can understand the fierce
objection made to them by Zwingli, who had
himself been an army-pastor, and who regarded
the State solely from the moral point of view,
for there is no doubt that these mercenaries
brought many vices back from their foreign
service into the simple home-land. Nevertheless,
from the political standpoint these troops were
a benefit to the Swiss State. It gained a magnifi-
cently trained body of men in all the innumer-
able officers who had been in the Papal, the
Imperial, or the Bourbon service, and the military
spirit was strengthened throughout the nation,
so that in those days the other countries of
Europe thought twice before they meddled with
Switzerland.
To-day no trace of this remains, and it is hard
to say whether the militia system has really
succeeded in creating a widespread military
efficiency. No doubt physical efficiency is still
held in high esteem, but on the other hand we
all know that Swiss manoeuvres have some very
comic characteristics. I once walked in the rain
over the Pragel Pass, along Suvaroff's old road,
between Schwyz and Glarus. The weather was
not exactly pleasant, still for an active walker
it was perfectly endurable. When we reached
Glarus we saw an Army order posted as a public
placard. It commanded a review on the follow-
ing Sunday, but it was expressly stated that
it was to be only weather permitting. At the
SWITZERLAND 323
present day such a proviso gives food for
reflection, but still, in the last war, during the
campaign which ended in Bourbaki's defeat,
the Swiss troops did well, and showed good
discipline. Old tradition seems still operative in
a thoroughly warlike people, who were once
considered the best soldiers in the world.
There is no doubt that the administration of
justice is much hampered in Switzerland by the
democratic Constitution. The election of judges
is in itself an obstacle, and we must add to it
the lack of a national jurisprudence. There is
no Swiss law, but in Zurich and Berne German
jurisprudence is taught with certain adaptations
to Swiss conditions, and in Neufchatel, Geneva,
and Lausanne it is French. There are only a few
ordinances of the Confederation in the nature
of Constitutional law, and applicable to the
whole country. Therefore no really national
jurisprudence can exist, and the intellectual
level of the body of judges is the lower in conse-
quence.
Not in these directions only, but also in its
more directly civilizing mission, is the State
obliged to limit its activity on account of its
political forms, for the Democracy has no taste
for education beyond the elementary and the
technical. The aristocratic Switzerland of Calvin
and Zwingli stood on a vastly higher level of
culture. Who could have believed that the
country as we" see it to-day could have brought
forth so rich a harvest of the intellect. Now
we see money catching the nation in its dismal
grip, and the great railway companies beginning
324 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
a monopoly of the most oppressive kind. We
mark the early stages of a corruption which will
have to grow much greater still before the sovereign
people begin to feel it and to see it. Yet, despite
it all, this little State must be regarded as a
necessity for Europe ; it is an enrichment both
of French and German life, and we cannot by
any means wish to see the suppression either of
this republican development of the German
spirit, or of this Protestant offshoot of French
civilization. Nevertheless it is clear that its
prevailing conditions could never be adopted
by nations which form a single whole.
Democracy has never played a great part in
the life of European States, and in Germany it
has never had the upper hand except in a few
of the Imperial Cities. It is in the young Colonial
States of America that it has found its second
bloom. These American Republics are essentially
different from each other, according to the nature
of their inhabitants in north and south. North
America is dominated by dwellers of Teutonic
stock, while Creoles and Spaniards rule the
southern continent, and here the word Liberty
carries a different meaning to that which it bears
in the north. In the United States each man's
desire is elbow-room for himself, but in the
south he wishes to impose his will on other
people. Hence the tranquil conditions which
we see prevailing in the north, and the unceasing
series of revolutions in South America, where
republican government is merely a makeshift
devised to supply the lack of a native dynasty.
Great as the North American Republic is,
THE UNITED STATES 325
it still does not belie the universal rule that
democratic government is only suited for little
States, and in the last resort the Union is only
a Confederation of many thousands of small
Republics. In forming a judgment upon them
we must always remember that in spite of all
democratizing of political forms, certain institu-
tions belonging to their previous monarchical
history have still survived. We can trace its
traditions to this day in the Constitution of the
State, even as we can perceive how the refugee-
spirit of the political malcontents, who saw the
State more as an enemy than as a protector,
is still extant, and how puritan protestantism,
with its defiant note of independence, has in-
fluenced even the forms of the Catholic Church
in America. The monarchic institution of govern-
ment through individual officials was not dis-
carded. Even as a President was placed over
the whole, so there was a Governor over each
State, whose position was of course only that
of an executive official under the orders of
the Democracy. The two-chamber system is
another monarchical institution which has sur-
vived in spite of the difficulty of constructing a
Senate differing in nature from the House of
Representatives in a State whose democratic
complexion forbade recognition of class distinc-
tions. A few outward divergences were made
the pretext for seizing the advantages which
accrue from the counterbalancing influences of
the two-chamber system.
These things are inheritances from the old
monarchical tradition, but after setting them
326 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
aside, the nature of this State is marvellously
adapted to the conditions of a growing and changing
society. Its institutions are so elastic that they
seem merely to indicate the direction that the
development should follow which takes place
so freely within the cadres they provide. At
its origin the Union comprised thirteen States, and
the increase of its present number of thirty-nine
has not required any alteration of the Constitu-
tion. Moreover, this same Union contains States
like Rhode Island, petty in the strictest sense
of the word, for it is no bigger than Brunswick,
and others such as Texas, which is fully as large
as Germany. City-States and States cut from
the primeval forest all come under the same
Constitution. The State of New York has more
inhabitants than the whole of Sweden, while
Nevada contains only about as many as Halle.
The Americans themselves do not exactly know
the number of their population at the present
time. In this instance the sketchy construction
which is characteristic of Democracies and so
distasteful to the instinct of the historian has
great advantages. It is all as little thought out
as it is possible to be, but its simplicity is the very
reason why it can be so rapidly improvised wher-
ever necessity requires, and there is something
imposing in the spectacle of this Union expanding
as if by a process of Nature itself. Any territory
which has gathered a population of about 100,000
has the right to constitute itself a State and to
ask for admittance into the Union. This is
accomplished in the simplest possible manner
the backwoodsmen, considering that the proper
THE UNITED STATES 327
moment has arrived, summon an Assembly,
elect a provisional government, send a deputation
to Washington, and the new State comes into
existence in the twinkling of an eye.
The life-force of the Union is very really centred
in the vision of an immeasurable future . Americans
forget that the earth is round, that the eternal
call of the West, which all their poets sing of,
will some day cease to sound, and that the problem
of their future should far rather be how to create
something upon their soil, which offers so many
material facilities for it, which can be called
civilization as the Old World understands the
word. In spite of their great material progress
the Americans have hitherto failed to contribute
anything to the great ideal possessions of the
human race, and this failure is the more striking
in comparison with their colossal productivity
in all technical spheres. The mediocrity of their
literature stands in sharp contrast to their
wonderful inventive capacity. The number of
their outstanding poets could scarcely be smaller
for a wealthy country possessing a developed
language throughout a century of unruffled
peace.
American life will bear the same stamp for
a long time to come, for all the signs of the times
point to further decades in which the material
exploitation of Nature will still be the chief pre-
occupation of the people. Washington and his
friends, the Fathers of the Union, trusted that
Art and Science might renew their glorious youth
in this young world of freedom, but hitherto their
noble hopes have been nothing more than a
328 THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC
dream. Washington reiterated his expectation
again and again, but he was a true son of the
unhistorical eighteenth century, and never realized
how deeply a civilization must strike its roots
into a country's soil before it will bring forth
such fruits. The obstacle does not lie in the
Democracy, but rather, as we have already seen,
in the fact that America is a colonial country.
Colonies do not attain, even remotely, to the
level of the mother-land's civilization, for a people
which has had no youth in the proper sense will
never show creative aesthetic genius unless it
remains in direct connexion with the cradle of
its race.
From the political conditions of America at
the stage they have already reached, we Ger-
mans can draw no lesson for ourselves, and the
excellent book which our compatriot Hoist has
written about the Union leaves us with the im-
pression that further study will profit nothing. As
wealth increases, and the inequalities within this
Democracy grow with it, the deceits and dissension
in the party life which is now thoroughly corrupt
must come ever more into prominence. What is
the real meaning in the party cleavages in North
America to-day ? Real divisions existed before
the Civil War, when the question of Emancipation
was a binding or a sundering force, but where
is now the bond between the parties who con-
front each other sometimes as Federalists and
Republicans, and then again as Republicans
and Democrats ? These titles themselves are
absolutely meaningless, and on both sides we
see nothing but ambitious men struggling to
THE UNITED STATES 329
get to the top for the sake of the spoil. History
has lost its meaning, and for the student of
human nature it has resolved itself into a series of
mere struggles for power, and since recent years
have given money so tremendous an influence,
it is natural that political weapons should be used
to further dirty money-grubbing interests.
For the rest, however, the foundations for
democratic institutions are so well prepared in
America that it is impossible to imagine how
any other form of State could exist there. Once
again we have to recognize that history cannot
sum up the value of Democracy by emphasiz-
ing that it pursues an unattainable goal. The
Florentine Democracy of the Cinque Cento
rendered unforgettable service to mankind, and
in the economic sphere at all events America
stands unsurpassed to-day.
XXI
STATE CONFEDERATIONS AND
FEDERATED STATES
SINCE the qualities of Power, Unity, and Sove-
reignty compose the essence of the State, it is
evident that all associations of States are artificial
productions, because they limit the sovereignty
of the individual State in one way or another,
and for this reason history does not record very
many of them. I need only refer briefly in this
lecture to the peculiar associations of different
States under one Head, which go by the name of
Personal Union and Real Union. The former
are usually denned as States whose bond of union
is represented by an individual, and who have
nothing in common but their ruler and their foe.
This definition, however, does not cover every
case. The union may be as firm as that which
once subsisted between Austria and the Crown
of Stephen, or it may be as loose as the bond
between England and Hanover, in which Hanover
concluded her independent treaties, and the
law did not even provide that the enemy of the
one should be the enemy also of the other.
No doubt England did invariably draw Hanover
into her own colonial wars, because she found the
330
PERSONAL UNION 331
Hanoverian forces such a priceless treasure for
her military power.
The association between Prussia and Neufchatel
affords us, side by side with this, an insignificant
example of a Personal Union. In this case the
only common bond was in fact the person of the
ruler. Prussia only appointed the Governor,
and the administration lay absolutely in the hands
of a Swiss Council of State ; and this Swiss
Canton had nothing whatever to do with the
Prussian State. The Neufchatel Musketeers, as
they were called, the forerunners of our Musketeers
of the Guard, were recruited in Switzerland,
just as were the troops of the Pope and the King
of Naples ; legally they stood to our Crown in
the same relation as all such foreign troops.
During the Seven Years' War many of the Neuf-
chatel nobility entered the French Army in
accordance with ancient custom, and a great
number were taken prisoner at Rossbach and
other battles ; by the orders of Frederick the
Great they were all treated with the honour due
to prisoners of war. There was no question of
their having in any way violated their duty as
subjects, for the Principality had no concern
with the King of Prussia's wars.
Here we have the loosest imaginable form of
Personal Union, but one which may lead to the
gravest complications. The two States whose
union is so purely formal must each go their own
way, especially if they are widely separated
geographically into the bargain, and one side
is bound to lose its fellow-feeling for the other.
Prussia's indifference to the fate of this lovely
332 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
Alpine province is an ugly page of her history.
All the well-born Swiss of the place were touchingly
royalist in their sympathies, and clung with
enthusiasm to the Prussian Crown, but Prussia
allowed a squalid popular rising to wrest the
little country from her grasp, without making a
single serious effort to win it back. Neufchatel
would mean a great deal to us to-day, for its
possession would give us a standing in the Swiss
Confederation. Here was a case of personal
union turning to our disadvantage from its very
flimsiness.
A quite peculiar form of Personal Union exists
in our own day between Norway and Sweden.
Firstly, the two are under the same dynasty
for all time, which was not the case with England
and Hanover, which had a different law of in-
heritance, while Norway and Sweden are always
to be ruled by the same King. They have cer-
tain other institutions also in common, and are
associated in their foreign policy, under an arrange-
ment whereby Sweden alone possesses a Minister
for Foreign Affairs. It follows naturally that
if the case arose they must also have their
enemies in common. For the rest they each
exercise an extremely wide independence, and
there is scarcely any trace of fellow-feeling between
the two. The whole family of Germanic races
scarcely offers any greater contrast than exists
between these two nations, whose coinage pro-
claims them to be sisters. A charming sisterhood
in sooth ! On the one hand we see Sweden,
aristocratic in the best sense of the word, with all
the unique charm of her social customs, and on
NORWAY AND SWEDEN 333
the other stands Norway, with all her intoler-
able churlishness, presenting a boorish version of
English characteristics.
Here we have two nations welded together,
whose nature, history, and speech are all totally
divergent. There is nothing natural about the
union beyond mere geographical position.
The relationships on the Scandinavian Pen-
insula are analogous to those of Belgium and
Holland after 1815. Nothing could have looked
better upon the map than the political union
of these two countries, and yet it was in-
tolerable in practice. It is the same to-day
with Norway and Sweden. Norway is demo-
cratizing, in the most perverse manner possible,
a peasant population, in which every churl is
a churl indeed, each man as coarse and unlovely
as his neighbour, and on the basis of this rough
peasantry is arising a city life in its extremest
development. The ground is prepared for a
corrupt and morbid literature, and it is little
wonder that minds like Ibsen's thrive upon it.
Now look at Sweden with her recollections of
days gone by when she was a great Power ; look
at her soldiery, sturdy still, and compare them
with the ridiculous figures strutting about
Christiania in their Bersaglieri head-dresses, and
calling themselves soldiers. The sharpness of
the contrast is patent everywhere. Nevertheless
we do find a commercial capacity in Norway
which compels our admiration, and her merchant
fleet is bigger than ours in Germany. Of course
the coast-line is such that communication between
places is only possible by sea. Sweden's commerce
334 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
is small in comparison. The modern Norwegian
peasant is possessed by the deep democratic
hatred of his class against Sweden, and it seems
as though an attempt to separate the two countries
will soon be made.
These forms of State association have less
importance for us than Federations in the proper
sense. We have already seen how the whole
character of the States of antiquity made them
incapable of tolerating an alien Power anywhere
near them, and how ancient history consequently
contains few instances of Confederations, and
then usually in the form of Empires. They are
usually transition stages in the complete subjuga-
tion of several States beneath one leading Power,
which is in process of devouring them entirely,
for the State of antiquity desired above all things
to conquer and to rule, and not to acquire
associates. Thus the great Athenian Confedera-
tion became nothing more than the subjugation
of the island world under the leading State,
which demanded nothing but soldiers, ships, and
money of the confederates, who were justly
called (Tvp.fia'xpt,. Athens finally came to grief
over her policy of a Greater Greece, while the
Latin Confederation, on the other hand, only
prepared the way for the complete incorporation
of the Latin races within the leading State of
Rome. It was only at the end of Grecian history,
when the living thought which guided Hellenic
policy had begun to weaken, that the instinct
of self-preservation induced the Hellenes to form
two alliances which had a certain amount of
strength ; one was the Aetolian Alliance, which
LEAGUES 335
has less interest for us on account of its half-
barbarian character, and the other was the
Achaian Confederation. This held the States
of the Peloponnesus together for a while, under
the necessity arising from the terrible pressure
of Macedonia and of Rome, but no one will seek
for the bloom of Greek life in these conditions.
It shows us clearly how impossible a free Con-
stitution of allied States was for the Ancients
who had not yet developed the idea of representa-
tion. This lack was decisive against any federate
life in antiquity.
The Middle Ages, on the other hand, were a
very arena for Confederations. Sheer instinct
of self- maintenance called them into being. When
we examine the subject more closely we are
astonished to find that the Swiss Confederation
is the only one of all the multitude which has
endured. The reason is that all the others were
on a class basis ; towns joined hands with towns,
as in the Hansa, the Swabian, and the Rhenish
City Leagues, and excluded the peasants and the
nobles. Sometimes the latter joined in defence
of their own interests, as in the " Lowenbund,"
or else the peasants made alliances among them-
selves ; but always it was one class trying to
secure itself against others. We know, however,
that the very essence of the State is universality,
and superiority to the TrXeoz/efm of classes. It
is for this reason that a purely class corporation
can never become a State, as we see in the striking
example of the Hansa League. This alliance
had become immensely powerful, and yet it could
as little stand against the increase of territorial
336 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
patriotism as could the Lombard City League,
which once seemed ready to subjugate the whole
Italian Peninsula. The little Swiss Confedera-
tion was territorial from its very outset, it em-
braced both town and country, and was therefore
capable of developing into a State. In the
transition period between mediaeval and modern
history we find one Confederation in the grand
style, bearing the stamp of both periods, namely
the Netherlands Republic, and finally on the
threshold of quite modern times the great Federa-
tion of the North American States arose. Here
it quickly became evident that the old forms
of confederation no longer sufficed for modern
political life, and thus America became the bridge
between State Confederations and Federated
States.
A Confederation of States, as we have seen
it in Switzerland up to 1848, in the Republic of
the United Netherlands, and in the North
American Union from 1778 to 1787, is recognized
by international law as an association of sovereign
States, who have bound themselves together,
without resigning their independence, to further
certain common ends, the chief of which is to
provide for defence against a foreign enemy by
means of contributions levied from all members
of the association. Since all these retain their
sovereignty the central authority must be divided,
both legally and actually, among the individual
members of the Confederation, and this has always
been done. A Parliament or Federal Diet
assembles, a Congress of ambassadors, who ex-
press no will of their own, but are merely the
SOVEREIGNTY OF MEMBERS 337
mouthpieces of their Governments, whose desires
they have of course helped to frame.
A Confederation of this kind is distinguished
from an international alliance pure and simple
chiefly by its long continuance. It is devised
to last for ever in the human sense of the word,
and is founded either on a living consciousness of
national comradeship, or upon common historical
traditions. The allied States feel their need of
each other in war, and they express it in their
political forms. Thus arose Switzerland, which
serves us as a general type of confederate Federa-
tions. Its members were pledged not only to
mutual support against the foreign enemy, but
also to bear each other's burdens at home by
consent or arbitration. This may lead on to
a further series of established institutions, but
the sovereignty of each individual State is
guaranteed through them all. Consequently the
members of a Confederation exercise their
natural liberum veto. No sovereign can be called
on to obey, and therefore each individual must
be given the right to object to the decision of
the majority. This was the case in Switzerland,
in the Dutch Republic, and in the German Con-
federation also. Unanimity was required for
any modification of the Act of Union, and for
all the so-called organic decrees which engaged
the associates to any fresh undertaking, and the
practical result of this was generally to prevent
the Federal Diet from arriving at any decision
on important matters, and to make it ever and
always a Council of Incompetence.
It is easy to see that the inner flaw in the
VOL. II Z
338 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
system was in giving equal treatment where
equality was non-existent, for all the Confederates
were upon the same footing, except upon certain
points of precedence. This enabled the weaker
members to take a most unreasonable advantage.
It was a citizen of the Dutch State, Spinoza
himself, who once pronounced that any man
who demanded equality among unequals was
asking for something against reason. In the
German Confederation Diet, Austria, Prussia,
Bavaria, Wurtemberg, and Hanover could theo-
retically be overridden by the smaller States.
In practice the thing was a sheer impossibility,
and the big States were forced to exercise their
power behind the scenes in order to secure support
in the Diet.
Thus within a Confederation a hegemony
may be formed, either in practice or in forms of
law, in order to give a definite direction to the
confusion of so many sovereign wills. This
happened in the Netherlands Republic. No
form of Constitution could have been looser than
that which bound this Confederation together,
for, as we know, the principle of the liberum
veto applied legally not only to the Estates General
of the Seven Provinces, but also to the Provincial
Estates from which these received their com-
mission. In theory these conditions would seem
almost unworkable, but they were made possible
in practice by two strongly centralizing forces
within the Confederation. Holland alone
possessed two-thirds of the total population of
the Seven Provinces, and about seven-eighths of
the national wealth, and the centre of gravity
HOLLAND AND GUELDERLAND 339
of the whole Union lay in her and her great
cities, Amsterdam, Harlem, Leyden, and the
Hague. This is the reason why in colloquial
speech the whole Republic of the Netherlands
went by the name of this one Province, which
seemed identical with the whole. The maritime
interests which concerned Holland and Zealand in
particular soon became far more important than
the home politics of the little inland Provinces.
" Hoch von Mut, klein von Gut, ein Schwert
in der Hand, das ist das Wappen von Gelder-
land " (" Courage and pride, nothing beside, but
a sword in the hand, these are the arms of
Guelderland "), as the old saw truly runs, but
this little Guelderland was indeed a pigmy beside
the world-power of Holland. The next step
was so to organize the outward forms of the
government of the Republic that the will of
Holland should usually prevail. The States
General held their sittings at the Hague in the
same building (the Binnenhof) as the Provincial
Estates of Holland. If any important question
arose, the Provincial Estates assembled to discuss
the proposals which were to be laid before the
States General, and their decision was usually
" taken over " by the other States as the
phrase ran.
In this way the actual preponderance of
Holland introduced a certain strength of unity
into the liberum veto. The living link between
the leading Province and the other members of
the Union was supplied by the remarkable office
of Grand Pensioner of Holland, which served as
a model for the institution of the Imperial
340 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
Chancellor in our own country. In this connexion
we must remember that Bismarck when a young
man had formed a friendship with Motley, the
gifted American historian, who had written
a book upon the Dutch Republic in which
Bismarck had studied the theory of Federalism.
In the Netherlands the connexion between the
first official of the leading State and the most
powerful official of the Union had been very
carefully thought out. Although it created the
hegemony of the Dutch Republic all outward
indications of the fact were studiously avoided ;
the Grand Pensioner sat unbonneted at the lower
end of the table round which the high and
mighty members of the States General debated
as sovereigns with covered heads, nor had he
even a vote in their discussions. Yet it was he
who directed the commerce of the Union, he was
Minister for Foreign Affairs, and all negotiations
with other nations were carried on through him ;
he was in fact the ruler, upon the principle that
the responsible agent is so to be regarded.
A second centripetal element entered into this
hegemony of a single Province in the shape of
that line of leaders of the House of Orange which
stood for a democratic-monarchical power as well
as for an active home policy, and always worked
ultimately towards promoting a firm centraliza-
tion, although it was often in conflict with the
Republic. Throughout the eighty years of the
War of Liberation its princes were always the
leaders of the Army, and in the continual wars
of later times they still held the Union and the
Army together.
SWITZERLAND 341
Thus it came about that the centrifugal
forces within the Seven Provinces were limited
by two institutions whose nature was nowhere
denned on paper ; moreover, there was no shrink-
ing from the use of anarchical weapons against
the liberum veto of the Provincial Estates. Threats
were sometimes employed, or else a Delegation of
Notables, as it was called, made up of Stadt-
holders, or other influential members of the
States General, was despatched to the recalcitrant
Provinces of the minority. This embassage
would set forth to soften the hard hearts of the
men of Guelderland or Friesland, generally by
filling their pockets.
Switzerland found other ways out of the
difficulty, and a study of them is as instruc-
tive as the rest of her former conditions are for
the history of Confederations in general. If a
unanimous decision was not forthcoming, those
Cantons who were in agreement with each other
could form a separate Union ; these are the old
rules of the Swiss Confederation. They then carried
for themselves the measure which had failed
to win the approval of the whole Confederation,
in the hope that the others would in time follow
their example. This expedient is thoroughly
characteristic of Confederations, but also funda-
mentally anarchical. It is simply a makeshift
system which may be said to work so long as it
does not break down. Sometimes the mere instinct
of self-preservation turns into a blessing in an
anarchy like this, and moral considerations also
may knit a Confederation so firmly together
that the legal weaknesses in its organization are
342 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
somewhat mitigated. This is the secret of the
long continuance of Confederated Switzerland ;
a moral bond of an absolutely personal kind held
every individual Swiss fast to the rest of the
nation. Again and again has strife between
two Cantons been appeased by a timely reminder
of their ancient brotherhood and the sacred
oath which all alike had sworn.
We find various forms of memberships existing
in the Netherlands Confederation, and still more
in Switzerland. To the Seven Provinces was
added the neighbouring territory of Drenthe,
which had a right to protection, but no vote in
the Assembly. Besides this there was yet a
third way of belonging to the Confederation,
as shown by the northern parts of Flanders and
Brabant, which were conquered during the
Spanish War, and held by the Seven Provinces
as State-Flanders and State-Brabant. These
territories reverted to Catholicism, and were
consequently excluded, both by the Constitution
of the Republic and the colossal prejudice of
the Dutch nation, from receiving equal rights.
They became subject to the United Provinces
and were taxed on their behalf by decree of the
States General.
Thus we find a confederation of States existing
in the Netherlands in a threefold form. The
same phenomenon, only more complicated and
more developed, confronts us in ancient Switzer-
land. There the original Cantons were, as we
have seen, aristocratic in their actual conditions ;
in Zurich, Berne, and Bale the Plain of Switzerland
also possessed Constitutions with the same ten-
SWITZERLAND 343
dency, and the transition to a pure democracy
was not made until the nineteenth century, after
the Revolution of 1830. The Confederation was
organized to harmonize with this former aristo-
cratic character, and its laws were framed with
all the variety and recognized distinctions which
an aristocratic society demands. The Confedera-
tion proper was made up of thirteen districts.
Of these the original eight had certain rights of
precedence over the more newly joined members,
but, upon the whole, all these thirteen were on
an equality. Below them, with the inferior
rights of Protectorates, stood the neighbouring
territories which were only raised to the dignity
of Cantons by the Helvetian Republic of 1798
and the Act of Mediation of 1803. Mulhausen
in Sundgau had formerly been one of them, as
well as the Swabian Rottweil, up to the time of
the Thirty Years' War. Beneath them again
came the ordinary bailiwicks (Vogteien), as much
the spoil of the sword as were the subject territories
of the Netherlands, being the conquest either
of the whole Confederation or of one or more
Cantons. They were administered through Land
Commissioners (Land Vogte), and in them the
will of their possessor reigned supreme.
Johannes Miiller, who has idealized the history
of Switzerland in most unpardonable fashion,
nevertheless admits that subjects have never
been so enslaved in any part of monarchical
Europe as in the Swiss bailiwick. The Ticino
was in those days one of the original Cantons ;
to this day the standard with the three Castles
of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald, which were held
344 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
by the garrisons of the master, floats over
Bellinzona. The ill-treatment by Berne of the
beautiful Pays de Vaud is still more a matter
of common knowledge, for in that district the
deadly hatred of the Bernese curs has become
absolutely traditional. Even now, although the
Revolutions already referred to have long since
made the Pays de Vaud a Canton with equal
rights to the others, the antagonism is so strong
that Berne and Vaud scarcely ever vote on
the same side. The domains which are now the
Cantons of Aargau and Thurgau used also to
be subject territories.
Here then we again find the threefold form of
membership, which is in itself enough to explain
the slow and cumbersome movement of the whole
national machinery. The government of Swit-
zerland under that system would have been
impossible if Berne and her great bailiwicks
had not had so strong a preponderance. In the
seventeenth century she ruled 235 square miles,
and the remaining Cantons only 225. As most
of the bailiwicks were in her hands as well
she wielded a power which came very near being
a hegemony to say the least of it. Zwingli, who
had something of the kind in his mind for the
larger Cantons, called Bern and Zurich the two
oxen who pulled the waggon along.
The distinctive feature in the relations be-
tween the Nation and the State in a Confedera-
tion is that the former are not directly subject
to the central authority, or, in other words, the
central authority has no power to lay down the
law. A Confederate Diet can pass decrees, but
THE UNITED STATES 345
they can only be given legal force by the individual
States amongst their own subjects. Thus did
matters stand with the German Confederation.
The nation as a whole was mediatized and stood
in no direct relationship with its central authority ;
nay, it had not even the right to acknowledge
the supremacy of that authority, for according to
the Constitution there were no Germans, only
Prussians, Bavarians, Schwartzburg-Sonderhau-
sians, and so forth, and none of these had any
obligations towards the Confederate Diet unless
it pleased their own rulers to ratify its decrees
within their own territories. As a rule this was
only done in the case of the political laws against
demagogues, and in many States of the Confedera-
tion years passed without any of the edicts of
the Diet being proclaimed as the law of the land.
The difficulty, nay, the impossibility of carry-
ing out any kind of consistent foreign policy
under such conditions is evident, and the history
of the North American Confederation affords
us an example, if one were needed. These
colonies had become dependent subject provinces ;
they summoned a Congress which declared a
rupture with the mother-country. This was not
accomplished by the thirteen Colonies as such,
but by the Congress. The nation was immature,
and was united only by the Congress, so that the
whole existed before the parts. Then followed
the War of Independence with its mostly mythical
legends of marvellous self-sacrifice and heroic
deeds on the part of the Americans. Calm
historical research reveals only a very small
number of really outstanding men, Washington
346 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
and his own immediate circle, who roused the
nation, which was for ever relapsing into its
Separatist grooves, to fresh united effort. During
the course of the war the thirteen colonies simply
usurped for themselves a sovereignty which they
had never previously possessed, and to which
they had no claim. As a result, a Confederation
of sovereign States organized itself, and upon it
followed the most disgraceful period of American
history, so contemptible that a short decade was
enough to bring the nation to its senses. Foreign
policy was absolutely in abeyance. Washington's
correspondence brings home to us the misery of
the time. After the Peace, one of the English
Ministers asked him : " How is it possible to make
treaties with you ? You are one nation to-day,
but to-morrow you may be thirteen." With the
exception of Prussia, who remained true to an
old friendship, no State would contract any
agreements with this Confederation. Credit
finally sank so low that a pair of boots cost 400
dollars, and conditions had arisen which an in-
dustrial nation could not possibly endure.
Our German Confederation was equally lacking
in any kind of foreign policy. Foreign Ambassa-
dors in Frankfort of course there were, to add by
their intrigues to the mad confusions of German
politics, but the Confederation itself only once
sent the Freiherr von Beust on a mission to a
foreign Court. He was despatched to London
in 1864 to do a bit of diplomatic jugglery, and
put a spoke in the wheel of victorious Prussia.
Further comment is superfluous.
All Confederations known to history, not ex-
THEIR IMPERMANENCE 347
cepting those in the Netherlands and Switzerland,
have shown themselves incapable of permanently
fulfilling the great civilizing tasks. Our own
was short-lived, and the sixty years of its existence
is one of the darkest pages in our history. It
is the only Confederation of Monarchies which
the world has ever seen, and it reminds us of
the sick horse whose every limb provided a dif-
ferent disease for the budding veterinary surgeon
to study. The North American Confederation
did not last ten years, and the Great Age of the
Republic of the United Netherlands was not a
long one. In this latter case the centripetal
tendencies were, as a matter of fact, very strong,
and the State developed on to monarchical lines,
which was a decided advance, as far as form goes,
yet in spite of it Holland has dwindled in size
and importance, because the essence of power
does not lie in forms. The Swiss Confederation
lasted much longer, but here too we find stagna--
tion setting in with the eighteenth century, and
after it there arose, after the pattern of North
America, a new and firmer kind of bond, namely
the Federal State.
Many theorists have tried to prove that the
difference between a Confederation of States
and a Federal State lies in the scope and power
of the central authority. A short examination
shows us that we must seek elsewhere for the
essence of the contrast.
The nerveless Government of the German Con-
federation had wider powers in many directions
than the modern German Empire, for it meddled
in many territorial affairs which our Empire
348 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
leaves to be settled by the discretion of its
members. It is not in this therefore that we
need seek for the fundamental distinction between
the two forms of federation, nor yet in the fact
that in a Confederation the central authority
leaves the individual States to give effect to its
decrees, whereas in a Federal State it always
carries them out directly through the medium
of its own servants.
This theory, fallacious as we shall presently
see, had its origin in America. When the heavy
years of the war with England had brought the
Union of the thirteen sovereign States under the
banner of the stars and stripes to such a pass
that they could not even liquidate their war
loan from France and Holland, and their prestige
was wholly gone, then the leading patriots took
heart and called the Congress of Philadelphia,
which, sitting behind closed doors, took the
course which had become imperative, and de-
stroyed the sovereignty of the member States.
For this was what it came to in practice, although
in theory American statesmen were not quite
clear about the issue. The action which they
took was prompted by that practical genius which
has always characterized the Anglo-Saxon nations.
Alexander Hamilton, the greatest American states-
man of that date, started a periodical, The
Federalist, with the primary object of persuading
the sovereign people of New York into agree-
ment. This diplomatic intention suffices in itself
to show that dealings were not quite above board,
but we must also allow for a confusion of theory
which the whole age shared, which concerned
DIVIDED SOVEREIGNTY 349
the nature of political power, and a belief that
power should be divided. This led to the Federal
theory which held that the sovereign members
should remain sovereign while surrendering a
portion of their sovereignty to the Union, so that
certain parts of the political whole, the army,
the taxes, the posts, and the coinage, should be
cut out of the functions of the individual States.
Certain spheres of activity were to be given
over entirely to the Union, certain others to the
States, and, properly speaking, both States and
Union were to be equally sovereign.
Thus ran the new doctrine. It was of immense
practical benefit, because it gained the assent of
the people of New York by glossing over the
real facts of the case. The Swiss believed in it
also, and in Germany all teachers of constitutional
law were set upon the adoption of this doctrine
of Federalism, if only to avoid having to tell the
German princes openly that we had the kind
intention of destroying their sovereignty and
dealing another blow at the work of our deadly
enemy Napoleon. No one dared to proclaim
this, so they tried to take refuge behind the
American theory of a division of power. Closer
reflection reveals the inner flaw in the notion of
a divided sovereignty, and shows that it is a
contradiction in terms to speak of an over-highest
and an under-highest authority. Moreover, when
we apply an unprejudiced judgment to the letter
and the spirit of the new Constitution of the
United States, as it was first passed and as it
exists unto this day, we can no longer doubt
who is really sovereign ; it is the people of the
350 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
United States collectively. The nation wields
the power, and the members of the Union have
only to obey. This becomes still plainer when
we consider how that fair division of political
functions which theory prescribed is both im-
possible and unnecessary in a Federal State. The
American Congress can please itself whether it
will have its decrees executed by its own officials
or by those of the individual States. If Switzer-
land wishes to construct a mountain road she will
either do so herself in the name of the Confedera-
tion, or require a particular Canton to do it in
accordance with plans given.
Thus here, too, it is not division but unity
of the supreme authority which appears. Of
course the conception of sovereignty is elastic,
like all political conceptions which belong to the
sphere of Will, but we have already seen how
it must have a firm centre. There must be an
ultimate criterion by which to discover the
essence of sovereignty. Its fixed and inalienable
property, without which no State can call itself
a State, is the right of arms, and the power to
determine for itself the scope of its own supreme
authority. The very nature of the State is its
ability to impose its will by physical force. If
it can no longer claim the right to wage war, and
allows itself to be protected by the military
strength of a greater Power, it becomes a subject
of that greater Power. The first decisive step
which America took at the Congress of Philadelphia
was to decree that henceforward a single Army
should be placed under the orders of the Union,
and this example was followed by Switzerland.
THE UNITED STATES 351
It is clear, then, that since the so-called States
of the Union are States no longer, the title is
nothing more than conventional. Lincoln did
not mince matters during the last war, but
declared that the States had their status in the
Union and none other whatever. This is the
fact ; they are subject territories, and when the
Southern States revolted against the collective
will they were rebels. Rebel States they were
called, which is, properly speaking, a contradictio
in adjecto, for only subjects can rebel. But in
politics names go for very little ; considerations of
piety or prudence may often lead to the retention
of titles whose meaning has been lost. This
happens especially often in Federations where
the vanity of former sovereigns has to be spared.
The American Colonies had broken away from the
mother -country so they could call themselves
Colonies no longer, and serious were the dis-
cussions of what their future name should be.
Finally, after the individual territories had seized
upon sovereignty for themselves in the anarchy
of the War of Independence, they were given the
title of " States," which was thoughtlessly adhered
to even after the former States had lost their
right to it in the Union. Look at the contrast with
the Seven Provinces of the United Netherlands.
They had been provinces in the greater Netherlands
who had owned obedience to the King of Spain as
their common sovereign. After they had broken
with him and had each achieved sovereignty for
themselves they still kept their title of Province.
It would have been folly to have abandoned it,
for they had not become sovereign States.
352 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
When we stick to facts it is clear that in
Federal States the individual members have
lost the right of arms, and with it the right
to define their own supremacy. Here again
America's procedure is typical. The Constitu-
tion of the North American Union begins with the
words " We, the people of the United States,
. . . give and decree this Constitution." Here
we have a clear declaration of who is sovereign ;
it is none of the individual so - called States,
but the people, the collectivity of the " United
States." It follows that this sovereign is at all
times free to extend its supreme rights in con-
stitutional form. The power to do this is what
the teachers of constitutional law described
in their jargon during the early years of the
North German Confederation with the appalling
phrase " Jurisdiction over Jurisdiction " (Com-
petent Competenz). The Constitution of every
Federal State permits the Union to extend its
jurisdiction, under certain forms, at any time,
and to transfer to itself certain powers which
have hitherto been vested in its members. Every-
one of these must be prepared to see itself deprived
to-morrow of some supreme right which it is
exercising to-day. Thus at the beginning of
the War of Independence an American states-
man was justified in saying that the individual
States were not really sovereign, for they stood
sub graviore lege. Under President Lincoln the
Federal Constitution was again remodelled, and
it was laid down that no State might tolerate
slavery within its boundaries. When the rebel
States had been defeated they were first put
FEDERAL STATES 353
under military government, and later were allowed
to summon constituent Assemblies, although
their Constitution was laid down for them by
the Union. Only those States which abolished
forced labour were thus recognized, and the others
continued to be under military law. It was only
through the Union and its authority that the
rebellious States were reinstated, and they only
existed in and through it. Here we have the
clearest possible lesson in constitutional law.
We find, then, that the radical difference
between a Confederation and a Federal State
lies in the fact that in the former the members
are sovereign, and the central authority is
subject to them. The central power can only
signify its will by decrees, and it is left to the
individual members to give effect to these laws
of the Confederation, as they are wrongly called,
by making them the law of the land. Since there
is no guarantee that this will be done, anarchy
often rules. In a Federal State, on the other
hand, sovereignty is withdrawn from the hitherto
independent members. They cease to be States,
even though courtesy may still give them the
title, and sovereignty is vested in the central
authority. Of course this latter can only frame
its decrees by sanction of the members, for the
Federal State is distinguished from the mono-State
(Einheits Stoat) by its members being directly
concerned in the framing of the will of the whole.
Here again the practical shrewdness of the
Americans has hit upon an admirable plan. The
idea of a two-chamber system was first outlined
by Sherman, the Connecticut delegate, at the
VOL. II 2 A
354 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
constituent Congress of Philadelphia. Beyond
the assembly of representatives of the nation
he demanded an Upper Chamber consisting of
Senators, to be nominated by the authorities of
each State, the same number for each, be they
large or small. Thus beside the Chamber in
which the whole sovereign people of America
were directly represented by capitation, there
existed another superior assembly in which every
State was represented as such, by an equal number
of directly commissioned delegates. This com-
bination fulfilled its purpose completely, and
Switzerland adapted it to its own condition in its
National Council (National Rat) and Council
of Delegates (Stande Rat), which were modelled
upon the House of Representation and Senate
of the United States.
The distinction between these two forms of
Federation is then one which strikes down to
their very roots, and therefore it is not difficult
to understand why the transition from a Con-
federation to a Federated State is generally only
accomplished after severe struggle and upheaval.
Although the very existence of the State is in
the balance, few are found to acknowledge it,
and as a rule a State stands on the defensive
and only consents to shift the basis of sovereignty
when the crisis is at its height. Nothing brought
America to the step except her general loss of
credit, and a Civil War was needed to break the
forces of particularism in Switzerland.
When we look further into the political con-
ditions which have seemed favourable to the
development of Federal States, we find that the
FEDERAL LAW 355
two which history has known hitherto, Switzerland
and North America, have been Democracies and
Republics. It is obvious that under this form
of government no one is an ultimate loser by
the transition from a Confederation to Federal-
ism ; the centre of gravity is moved, but no
subject has his rights curtailed. The inhabitant
of Uri or Lucerne still possesses all the rights
which were his under the old Confederation, only
now he exercises them not only within his own
Canton but in the Assembly which represents
the whole Federated Union. In such a case the
change demands no sacrifice of the individual,
but in a monarchy a very considerable one is
required from the King ; it is in fact a contra-
diction in terms to ask a sovereign to recognize
a legal superior.
The second and equally important factor
for the healthy growth of even the narrowest
forms of Federal life is the presence of a moral
force which we may call the instinct for Federal
law. A nation must have a sense of respect
for the boundaries which have been sacrificed,
and a living consciousness that the old landmarks
are still inviolable. Tiny as the original Cantons
were, they were the cradle of modern Switzerland.
It was upon the shores of the Lake of Lucerne
that the half mythical history of the Confedera-
tion was acted, and no other Canton would ever
dream of annexing this little community. In
North America the legal sense is very weak as
regards the foreigner, and the phrase about the
" manifest destiny " of the Union seems to its
citizens to cover every deed of violence towards
356 STATE CONFEDERATIONS
Mexico and other neighbouring States. And
yet within the Union this youthful nation, who
have not yet quite outgrown fist-law, evince a
deep respect for the law of the individual States,
so-called, and we find among them the living
sense that the State once founded may not be
infringed upon, but lives on as a product of the
people's sovereign will. A large State has never
once even attempted to swallow up a small one,
but, on the contrary, America, like Switzerland,
has seen its existing States split up. Maine and
Vermont were originally parts of other States,
and after the Civil War Virginia was likewise
divided. Here, then, we see a very strong natural
Federal instinct at work ; and in every State the
people is as sovereign as it is in its neighbour.
It is clear, furthermore, that a Federal State
can only remain vigorous and healthy when there
is an approximate equality of power among its
members. Switzerland provides us with a very
mine of illustrations of this. It is astonishing
to trace the working of the natural forces of
Federalism in Swiss history and to observe how,
as the Confederation became more and more
firmly knit, the excessive strength of the large
Cantons diminished. Berne, which had more
square miles in the seventeenth century than all
the other Cantons put together, is now so much
weakened by the independent organization of its
Bailiwicks (Vogteieri) that, although it is still
the biggest Canton, it is no longer in a position
to quarrel with the others or to swamp them in
any way.
The question is naturally one of a relative,
CAPITAL CITIES 357
not of a mathematical equality. Since the whole
system is built upon this relatively equal power
of the members of the Union, North America
has no natural capital city. There has been a
metropolis of New York since the year 1787,
but it was purposely not made a capital, but a
Federal Capital ad hoc was constructed instead.
Columbia, as being a small territory without a
vote, was selected as the site for this Federal
Capital. In Switzerland, of course, the capital
of the Confederation was bound to be Berne ;
there was no alternative, since Berne had led the
victorious party in the war of the Sonderbund.
Before that the seat of government had varied
between Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne. The most
careful precautions were taken to prevent Berne
from gaining any preponderance by this prefer-
ence. Thus not more than one citizen of the
same Canton is ever one of the highest officials
of the Confederation, in order that the idea at
any rate of Federal equality shall be maintained.
XXII
THE GERMAN EMPIRE
IN order to understand the difference between
our own Empire and the republican Federations
which we have been considering in the foregoing
chapters we must retrace the history of the
various developments of these States, and doing
so, we discover a contrast of the sharpest possible
kind. We have seen how, in the case of Switzer-
land, the separate provinces were gradually
drawn more closely to each other by the common
struggle for independence against their powerful
neighbours, and how this military alliance in
process of time became a firmer federative bond.
In America we have seen the same kind of military
union gradually forging a link between colonies
which had nothing in common except their
origin, and a more or less nominal dependence
upon the British Crown ; it has been said that
they were sisters only through their mother-
country. These processes are obvious and normal,
but who can discover any analogous federalistic
development in the history of our own Fatherland ?
What has Germany been these thousand years ?
Always an Empire, always a Monarchy, with
the exception of sixty years of a shameful federal
358
THE EARLY KINGDOM 359
anarchy, for which we have Napoleon to thank.
Is the history of ten centuries to be estimated
by this one exception to it ?
Germany has been a monarchy since the Treaty
of Verdun, although it was feudally constituted
and prone therefore to disruption. Nevertheless
the power of the Crown was so strong in the
beginning that all the princes were merely its
vassals. In the eleventh century we were much
nearer achieving unity than were the French,
for at that time their barons were much more
powerful than the German feudatories. Then
came the union of our national Kingdom with the
Holy Roman Empire which falsified the essence
of our monarchy, and the State was led into
paths which ran counter to the nation's inner
life. The internal cohesion of the Empire was
bound to be destroyed by a supreme authority
whose centre was sometimes in Germany, some-
times in Italy, and which hurled its decrees
suddenly out of the darkness. Germany was the
only great country of Europe which possessed
no capital city, and the attempts to make one at
Goslar were speedily doomed to failure. Thus
the power of the monarchy dwindled and indis-
cipline increased, territorial principalities arose
upon the ruins of the national Kingdom, were
formally recognized under Frederick II., and
gradually absorbed all the vigour of the nation.
Finally we have the catastrophe of the Empire
bound up with the territorial rulers of a country
which was not under its dominion. When the
Imperial Crown passed to the House of Hapsburg
the old institutions lost their meaning more and
360 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
more, and Germany lapsed unconsciously under
a disguised alien rule. The situation was first
cleared in some measure by the Peace of West-
phalia ; Germany had won religious freedom at
the cost of streams of blood. The great Peace
did not extend to Austria, for while Germany
celebrated it by rejoicings Austrian churches bore
the Pope's protest nailed upon their doors. The
territories of the Emperor had no share in the
freedom and toleration which were the sole
possessions which all Germany held in common.
Thenceforward the gulf was fixed between Austria
and ourselves, the spiritual life of the two countries
ran in different channels, and we may truly say
that all the real strength of German politics
had to lie in opposition to Austria. Germany
could only shape herself anew in a struggle against
a German Empire.
Let us now consider what the political forces
have been which have struggled for and against
each other in more recent history. We still
find the old monarchical ideas persisting, although
mutilated and misinterpreted. The so - called
" Caesareans " of the seventeenth century taught
that Germany was a monarchy, and its princes
subject to the Emperor. The forms of the
Constitution taken by themselves might seem
to bear this out, but a real political insight could
not fail to reveal how matters actually stood.
No doubt German princes still took the oath of
allegiance to the Emperor bareheaded and on
bended knee, and appeared as his subjects, as
far as outward ceremonial went, but the theory
of their vassalage was of the kind which leaves
SECULAR PRINCES 361
facts out of account. Federalistic tendencies were
always existent in Germany side by side with
the monarchical, and we have seen that the whole
Middle Ages were filled with abortive attempts
to realize them. The later Federations, through-
out the period of the Wars of Religion, became
a still greater menace to our national develop-
ment, for they were purely separatist in tendency.
The Schmalkalden Alliance was certainly no
matter for special congratulation, any more than
the League was later.
The only real force which was capable of
surviving this chaos lay undoubtedly in the
secular principalities. Their particularism shone
out as relatively the healthiest influence in the
welter of territories held by Church or town,
noble or princely Houses. They had the vigour
which the crumbling national monarchy had lost
and which the Federalistic tendencies failed to
grip. Nothing but the phrases of German politics
remained to the Regensburg Reichstag, but in
Dresden and Munich there was real government.
The die was cast in favour of the German princes
when they earned, in the days of Luther, their
undying honour as protectors of the Reformation,
and showed that the territorial principalities of
Germany were destined to rise above the chaos.
The only question was which of them would
succeed in establishing a government strong
and noble enough to make his province the
cradle of a new movement for German unity, to
fill the Imperial throne, and thus re-create the
monarchy from the heart of the nation itself.
If we can imagine in the place of Maurice of
362 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
Saxony a really high-minded Protestant statesman
with great ideas, daring enough to rebel against
the Catholic Emperor for the sake of German
unity, and to found a Protestant Empire, we see
that Electoral Saxony might have filled the place
that Prussia holds to-day. It seemed for a time
as if the gifted Palatine might build up some such
State. But it came to nought, and with the
Great Elector the race of Hohenzollern began
to rise, greater and more fortunate than all its
rivals, in Brandenburg - Prussia. The Hohen-
zollerns thrust their State so far into the van of
the national life that from the reign of Frederick
II. it was clear that Prussia must either rule
Germany or perish. Frederick the Great did
not create German dualism, for it had existed
since the days of Luther. The huge hypocrisy
of the " Reichsrecht " had become absolutely
ridiculous since Germany had become a Protestant
country to such an extent that all the most
characteristic productions of our national intellect,
and the whole of our art and literature, were
Protestant through and through. Yet still the
native land of Luther remained politically Roman
Catholic, ruled by an Emperor who was a Deacon
of the Church of Rome, for he was chosen by an
Electoral College where Catholic priests and their
co-religionists held a majority. A Catholic State
and a Protestant people here was the great lie
in the Constitution of the Empire, which Hegel
called " unreason legalized."
The whole future of Germany depended upon
getting rid of this Holy Empire and the States of
the Church. As the only vigorous power in the
THE REFORMATION 363
land it became the part of the territorial princes
to appropriate the outworn and corrupt States
of the ecclesiastical lords, as well as those of the
Imperial Orders and the little towns. Their day
was over, and it is clear how mistaken the patience
had been which arose from the intense feeling
for justice in the Germans. This instinct was
so strong, and pros and cons were so carefully
considered in our history, that vigour of action
was impaired. Yet despite it all the blessed
sixteenth century brought salvation in the shape
of the first decisive step towards secularization,
the " clearance " (Heimramschung), as the
true-hearted German people called it then. In
Prussia the Church lands were seized and turned
into a secular Duchy, to the lasting benefit
of the world. Unfortunately the great idea of
doing away with all ecclesiastical estates came
to nothing in 1525, and the second great clearance
only took place after the Peace of Westphalia.
It marked the great cleavage between North and
South Germany. In the north the political
consequences of the step were carried pretty
well to their logical conclusion ; Magdeburg,
Halberstadt, Kamin, and all the other great
ecclesiastical foundations were secularized and
incorporated with the domains of the neighbour-
ing territorial princes. Broadly speaking, this
was the beginning of modern conditions in
northern Germany, while the South, the Empire
" KO.T e^o-^rfv " still remained burdened by the
caricature of German political life.
Only hypocrites can deny that it had now
become the sacred duty of Germany to complete
364 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
by her own exertions the necessary and life-
giving process of simplifying her territorial con-
ditions. Unfortunately this could not be accom-
plished without the intervention of a foreign
Power. Frederick the Great had indeed opened
serious negotiations with Bavaria during the
second Silesian war, to bring about a fresh
clearance, and had thus given opportunity for
the rise of a Prussian party. If things had gone
as Frederick hoped, the separation from Austria
would have been accomplished then. He created
a non- Austrian Empire for the first time, and
placed the Bavarian Elector at its head by an
election in proper form. This Empire was in
a certain sense his work, and it was backed by
Prussian bayonets.
Frederick, however, was not yet strong enough
to carry through what he had begun. From
this point of view the second Silesian war turned
to tragedy, for it proved that Prussia was just
strong enough to defend her captured province,
but not to impose Imperial reform. Then a
terrible thing befell us, through the power of
an alien State. It was France who finally
dissolved the chaos of ecclesiastical States in
the revolutionary wars. Next came the Act of
the Diet which dissolved the Empire (Reichs-
deputationshauptschluss) in 1803, and crystallized
the result of all that had gone before. It was
a revolution from above, than which a baser has
been seldom seen. No glimmer of patriotism
animated the politicians who made it, not one
of them spared a thought for their great Father-
land out of the greed which utterly possessed
PETTY STATES 365
them. Nevertheless this revolution was a pure
benefit politically, for it only accomplished what
was necessary and should long ago have been
done. With one stroke it swept away all the
dirty little States of the Roman Church, which
existed to give fat livings to the Catholic nobility.
The year 1806 brought the downfall of the Holy
Roman Empire, and the last division of territory
was taken in hand. Then the constructed States
came into being, like the liberal model State of
Baden, which was able to contribute 95 men to
the Imperial Army when its new Grand Duke
mounted its throne.
When we call to mind the endless fluctuations
of frontier which conquests and secularizations
have brought about in Germany, we are bound
to admit that the respect for existing boundaries
which we have perceived in the Federal States
of Switzerland and North America has been
totally lacking. For the last three hundred
years our history has recorded an unceasing
series of annexations, which have made it im-
possible for any German to feel the federative
instinct for law which rightly characterizes the
Swiss. How can any one of us express with
sincerity the honour and respect for Saxon-
Altenburg, or for Schwarzburg-Sondershausen,
which a Swiss feels for Schwyz or Uri ? Every
honest-minded man must admit that there is no
reason why Schwarzburg and Reuss should be
spared, while Hohenlohe, Fiirstenberg, Stolberg,
etc., are mediatized. We can hardly be expected
to reverence the South German States who owe
their existence to Napoleon's favour. The men
366 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
of Heidelberg and the Electoral Palatinate, mind-
ful of their long and glorious history, still rate
themselves too high to condescend upon a patriot-
ism for the Grand Duchy of Baden.
It has therefore been impossible for us to
breathe that federalistic atmosphere which
emanates from the political forms of Switzerland
and America. The result of our whirlpool of
contending forces has rather been to give promi-
nence to the one among them all which was real
and living the Prussian State. No unprejudiced
person can deny that the whole political history
of Germany has been centred in Prussia ever
since the days of the Great Elector. Through
her was won back every clod of the land which
the sins of the ancient Empire had let slip.
Thenceforward she became the pivot of the
political strength of the German nation, as
surely as she had ignored and even repelled its
intellectual forces. After the tumults of the
war of liberation the new Germany was at first
nothing but a flimsy agglomeration of the little
monarchical States which had survived the
gigantic upheaval. Once again Prussia set to
work upon her task of creation. In her were
gathered all the real political threads of the
Confederation's history. Upon her soil grew
the nation in arms which was later to become
the possession of all Germany, and with its growth
her eight provinces were welded into one whole.
She was the living proof that a Government which
could bind Treves and Tilsit in an inward harmony
could also unite all Germany under her protect-
ing wing. Already the Prussian Zollverein began
PRUSSIA AFTER 1866 367
to mark the true frontier between Germany and
the world beyond, and the black and yellow
boundary posts, with their profligate Double
Eagle atop, remained beyond the pale. For
many centuries it had been our misfortune that
Germany's limits had never been clearly denned.
Now at last came the triumph of the old Emperor's
one -headed eagle, the insignia to which East
Prussia alone had held fast, over the Double
Eagle which had wrought us so much injury
and shame.
In the march of these events we see the secret
forces of Nature themselves at work, for Prussia's
Crown was not always a willing agent. Nothing
lay further from the thoughts of Frederick William
III. than that his Customs Union should pave the
way to separation from Austria, for in dualism
he saw only benefit to his Fatherland. The
final result was brought about by the very
nature of things, and it produced a real Germany,
united by common economic interests, while
Frankfort, like Regensburg in earlier days, was
ruled by the mere phrases of politicians. The
Austrian leanings of Frederick William IV. were
even more pronounced than his predecessor's,
for he displayed greater enthusiasm for Austria
than for his own State, and yet, despite all this,
the amalgamation of Prussian interests went on
and could not be checked. Although the Central
States would have gladly destroyed Prussia after
1851, not one of them dared disturb the Zollverein,
which held them without possibility of escape.
At last the men of genius arose who were able
to read the signs of the times William I.,
368 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
Bismarck, and Roon, and the decisive struggle
of 1866 began. How did it end ? Against the
will of all Germany the Prussian State carved
out with its good sword a Constitution which,
even if couched in mild and friendly forms, could
naturally be nothing but a complete subordina-
tion of the smaller States, a submission of the
vanquished to the victor. Here was no realization
of the dream of 1848, of a German nation elevating
Prussia almost against her own will to become
part of a united Germany. Thus did 1848
envisage the situation ; Prussia was a so-called
German State, and so was Schwarzburg-Sonders-
hausen. The future Empire of Germany was to
be the framework for Prussia's rise as much as
of Schwarzburg's fall. These were the visions
which inspired the makers of the Frankfort
Constitution. But Prussia was totally unlike
the other States, not only in size but in her
nature as well. She was a living entity, not
depending for her existence merely upon her
share in the common life of Germany, but boasting
a glorious history of her own. 1866 was to prove
the reality of her individuality. Prussia was
not swallowed up in Germany, although this
phrase is sometimes used to this day in flat contra-
diction of the visible facts. Prussia extended
her own institutions over the rest of Germany.
There is a theory set forth in almost every
text -book of German constitutional law which
is indeed characteristic of the infatuations of
German doctrinairism. It would have us believe
that Prussia rewarded herself for her victories
in Bohemia and on the Main by committing
UNIQUE CONSTITUTION 369
political suicide and placing herself on the same
level as the States which she had conquered.
Prussia, so it is said, was engulfed with all the
other individual States in the new German
Empire. An idea so magnificently comic could
not exist in any country of the world but ours,
which is so often drowned beneath a flood of
theory. There is a dream-world of the under-
standing of which our nation should especially
beware. This region of unrealities is the home
of all the superfine subtleties and system-seeking
of the majority of our political science teachers,
and from it come also the excuses which are so
rife among us to-day ; a thing may be legally
a piece of sharp practice, but politically it is
justified. Here is a testimonium paupertatis, if
ever there was one ! What kind of a constitu-
tional law can that be, which has to treat living
truth as its enemy ?
" Germany must be ruled in German fashion."
With these words the worthy John Jacob Moser
swept aside, a hundred years ago, the effort of
doctrinairism to cramp German State-construc-
tion within the limits of a ready-made catergory.
He then proceeded to draw a picture of the
Empire out of the store -house of historical
experience. The doctrinaire of to-day must be
made to realize the same old teaching, for the
new Empire is in this no different from the old.
In the forms of its Constitution this State is
unique its counterpart is nowhere to be found.
Ours is not the Constitution of a Federal State,
it is the Constitution of the German Empire.
Germany is a monarchy of immemorial age,
VOL. H 2 B
370 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
whose parts were beginning to fall asunder ;
then came a period of confederated anarchy
which ran counter both to our traditions and to
the whole character of our State, and brought
us nothing but shame and dishonour, until,
after sixty years of ignominy, we returned to a
monarchy under federative forms. It was the
monarchy of a territory which was fashioned
out of German particularism in its strongest,
noblest, most capable form, and which now
extended its dominion either directly or indirectly
over the whole of Germany.
It is easy to see that this new German Empire
as it actually stands, resembles republican
Federated States in some, at any rate, of its in-
dividual institutions. Firstly, there is a central
authority which stands above the members
and yet derives its political will directly from
the territorial powers working in concert. Every
State in Germany has its direct share, through
its representation in the Federal Council
(Bundesrat) in making up the collective will of
the nation. The Empire and the Federal State
both alike withhold from their members the
essential prerogatives of sovereignty. The right
of arms is not theirs, but belongs to the Empire
alone. The Emperor is the sole war-lord, and
no one of the German States is in a position to
impose its own will in matters lying outside its
own borders, but each is subordinate to the higher
power of the Empire. Finally and this is also
true of Switzerland and North America
the sovereignty of formerly independent States
has been destroyed by the Empire prescribing
ADMINISTRATION 371
the compass of their supreme jurisdiction, and
being always in a position to increase or to
restrict that compass.
A widely extended sphere of autonomy has
been left with the States, but only within the
limits set by the Imperial authority, and every
State must be prepared to see the sovereign
powers which it still possesses withdrawn in the
future by Imperial decree. We have an example
in the civil law, which was not originally under
the control of the Empire, but was made so by
an alteration in the Constitution, with which
the former defendants of particularism are now
in agreement. The United States employ even
more officials of the Federal Government than
Germany does Imperial civil servants, and the
reason for this is explained by the course of our
history. Like America and Switzerland, our
Empire exercises its functions either through its
own servants or through the servants of the
individual territories, according to circum-
stances. The principle that Imperial Law
breaks Provincial Law makes the Empire indif-
ferent as to whether its laws shall be carried out
by its own officials or by those of the provincial
authority. The history of the Zollverein was a
training of inestimable worth for Imperial policy,
for its long years taught the Prussian official
class, which was distinguished equally for its up-
rightness and for its disagreeable manners, the
necessity of establishing friendly relations with
their lesser associates, men who were free of all
evil intention, but vainer and smaller-minded
than themselves. Their great weakness is intoler-
372 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
ance of any strange official intruding upon their
sacred domain, and every attempt to establish
one Customs Service for the whole Zollverein
failed, for there was no agreement until the little
States were allowed to keep their own liveries.
It was not realized at first how much a cockade
meant to the soul of a petty State. As soon as
this was understood, the astonishing discovery
followed that these States who had striven so
ridiculously against the simple proposal to set
up a common Customs Service were prepared,
now that they had got their own way, to carry
out their obligations with a really touching
loyalty. It has practically never happened that
a State has swerved from its duties towards the
Zollverein.
We see from this that the Empire has good
reasons for setting a limit upon the number of
its officials. Experience has always shown that
we can rely upon our Confederates. A strong
Imperial Civil Service need only concern itself
with one or two departments of Government,
such as posts and telegraphs ; and for the rest
the Empire contents itself with making laws and
leaves the territorial authorities to carry them into
effect, and here the matter rests for every one
except the pedants of formality. No doubt there
are elements of the comic about the sentences of
the High Court (Landgericht) of Jena, which begin
in the name of the prince, or of the duke, or of
the king, according to whether the accused be a
subject of a prince, a duke, or a king. Nobody,
unless indeed he be a petty prince, need trouble
his head about whether people are made subject
PRUSSIA PARAMOUNT 373
to these laws in the name of the Empire, or of a
grand duke, and it is a matter of indifference
whether the cockade they wear be green and
white or black and white. These are the reasons
why the Empire keeps the number of its direct
officials as small as possible.
All these are characteristics which our Empire
has in common with both the Federal Republics,
and they are enough for most teachers of con-
stitutional law; but we historians have to con-
sider the historical foundations and the living,
spirit of Imperial politics, and then it becomes
clear as day that our Empire rests upon a prin-
ciple exactly opposed to that of these Federal
States. They are obliged to smooth over as far
as possible the inequalities among their members,
while our Empire is founded upon this very in-
equality, and upon the leadership of one State
which has subordinated all the others to itself in
a Federal bond. What would happen to Germany
if Prussia should cease to be ? There could
be no more German Empire. Out of this follows
a truth, unpleasant to most people, but which
contains no insult to a non - Prussian namely
that Prussia is the only one of the former States
within the German Empire who has preserved
her sovereignty. She has not lost the right of
arms, nor is she compelled to make her supreme
authority conform to the will of others. The
German Emperor is also King of Prussia ; he is
the leader of the nation in war, and it is only an
empty quibble to imagine cases in which conflict
might arise between the Emperor of Germany
and the King of Prussia. We sink to the level of
374 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
the silly joke which runs, " I would not advise
the German Emperor to meddle with the Prussian
King." We may leave it to theorizing professors
to talk about the "war-lordship in peace time,"
which our lesser kings still vaunt, and which
foreigners smile at. No doubt the outward
forms of it are treated with all manner of con-
sideration. Even the Prince of Reuss may boast
of his army on paper, and a courtly myth main-
tains that this battalion is the Reussian army.
Indulgence in these matters has been pushed
only too far, but the fact remains that in spite
of political provisos neither the King of Bavaria
nor the King of Saxony are able to set a single
man in the field. In war, the German Emperor
is the war-lord ; the right of arms has passed to
the Empire, and in the person of its bearer the
Empire is identical with the State of Prussia.
Prussia, too, is the only German State which
is secure from any diminution of the limits of its
sovereignty. The Imperial Constitution pro-
nounces that all constitutional changes are in-
valid if fourteen votes are recorded against them
in the Federal Council ; therefore Prussia's
seventeen votes are themselves sufficient to hinder
any curtailment of her sovereign rights. Thirdly,
and this is a point which is usually treated
with a curious silence the German Empire
demands as much obedience from its members
as does any other State. This is why our Imperial
law has for its ultimate weapon a bare sword,
which has never as yet been actually drawn, but
only once or twice rattled in the scabbard.
Fortunately loyalty is so strong among the associ-
" PRUSSIA EXTENDED " 375
ates that no more has hitherto been needed.
Nevertheless the weapon exists, and a con-
tumacious State can be compelled to submit to
the Imperial decree. The power of execution,
however, lies with the Emperor, and he will not
be likely to chastise the King of Prussia, for
science does not contemplate the possibility of
any person boxing his own ears.
The historical and political foundations of
the whole Empire rest upon the actual and formal
preponderance of Prussia, or upon " Prussia
extended," as the Emperor William once re-
marked to Bismarck. What is the German
army but the army of Prussia, constituted in
1814 as the nation in arms, and then expanded
over the Empire. The Imperial Posts and
Telegraphs and the Imperial Bank (Reichsbank)
are all old Prussian institutions. This is all as it
should be. Every Prussian will rejoice that the
best political institutions should be spread over
the rest of Germany, and every reasonable non-
Prussian must be glad that Prussia should bring
honour to the German name once more. Matters
are so arranged that the will of the Empire, in
the last resort, cannot be anything but the will
of Prussia.
Besides the Imperial Crown there is another
formal link which identifies this leading State with
the Imperial authority, namely the office of
Imperial Chancellor. I have already referred
to the analogy, by no means fortuitous, between
this office and the Grand Pensioner of Holland
in the Republic of the United Netherlands. A
short experience was enough to show us also
376 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
that the post of Imperial Chancellor can only be
filled by the Prussian Prime Minister.
When Prince Bismarck retired after the war
from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers,
only retaining the leadership of Imperial
politics, and was succeeded by Roon in the
former position, it was soon discovered that the
separation of the two offices was impossible.
The right to divide them was retained in spite
of this experience, with the resultant total con-
fusion of the present moment. 1 We must hope
that the natural union of the two has only been
dissolved for a very short period, a few months
at most ; it will undoubtedly be restored by the
very nature of things. If the German Empire
is really to be led by Prussia, the leading states-
men of Prussia and of Germany must be one and
the same person. The Imperial Chancellor is
the channel for the will of the monarchy, which
is the will of Empire and of the Prussian State
united in one person.
Here we have a great contrast with earlier
ages. Under the Saxon Emperors the Arch-
bishop of Mainz, who was Lord High Chancellor
of Germany, did indeed support the Emperor,
and became an instrument of the King against
the Princes of Germany. Afterwards, however,
his position gradually altered completely. The
Chancellor, who was himself chief among the
Princes of the Empire, and in whose hands lay
the direction of the business of Imperial Parlia-
ment (Reichstag) became the leader of the
German Princes in that assembly, and the natural
1 Lecture delivered in February 1893.
THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 377
head of all Federalistic movements within the
Empire. If he was a man of courage he repre-
sented the interests of the territorial rulers
against the Emperor. Of this type was Berthold
von Henneberg, who tried to reform the Empire
on Federalistic lines. We have him to thank
for the federated " Reichskammergericht " in
which one Imperial Judge sat together with twelve
other Judges representing the other Estates of
the realm (Reichstdnde), and him also for the
public peace of the country. The centre of
gravity here was in these Estates and not in
the Emperor. In old Germany the Imperial
Chancellor filled a Federalistic office, represent-
ing as against the Emperor the territorial
interests of the high nobility. At the present
day he is an official of the monarch, and
in the final instance his will must conform to
the Emperor's. The contrast between then and
now runs through everything ; the institutions
of the old Empire were outwardly more impres-
sive, but the modern Imperial power is greater.
The Emperor is no longer the feudal lord of his
vassals, but he has much more real dominion
over the Princes of Germany.
The acknowledged interests of particularism
are represented in the Empire by the Federal
Council (Bundesrat), and in it we perceive clearly
how complicated our German form of Federalism
is. The Federal Council is on the one hand
an Assembly of State representatives like the
American Senate; its function is to represent
and co-ordinate the particular desires of the
individual territories, and it is the historical
378 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
successor of the old German Imperial Diet
(Reichstag) of Ratisbon, and represents those
Estates of the Realm which have survived the
catastrophes of our history. Secondly, however,
it is undoubtedly an administrative authority
endowed with real powers of control. Thirdly,
it is a State Council (Staatsrat) composed of the
most important members of the German Civil
Service, in which the laws of a great nation are
prepared. It is an assemblage of men of talent
and great practical experience from every pro-
vince of Germany, well fitted to frame legislation
for a great Empire. The Federal Council exer-
cises all these functions together. It is not, as
was first feared it would be, and as Bismarck
expected it to be, a partizan representative of
the particular interests of the German Princes.
The Princes have always loyally fulfilled their
obligations towards the Empire, and they have
accommodated themselves to the new condi-
tions better than the middle class. Against all
expectation it is the Reichstag which to-day
represents particular, and the Bundesrat national,
interests in Germany.
Besides this complicated institution of the
Federal Council there is also a Council of Princes
(Furstenrat), an invisible body which produces very
visible results. The tact which goes with political
genius prompted Bismarck not to do away with
Prussian ambassadors at the small German Courts,
and every decree of the Federal Council is first
discussed between them and the petty princes.
The voice of the majority among the princes
must be in agreement with Imperial policy, for
COUNCIL OF PRINCES 379
the whole of their common political existence is
founded upon loyalty and mutual consideration.
In this way a Council of Princes is in latent
existence, as it were, and we feel the effects of it
every day. It is an old story how the Grand
Duke of Weimar once said to Bismarck in the
course of a dispute, " Remember that you are
my Imperial Chancellor too." Ridiculous as
this may sound, there is a grain of truth in it.
It is part of the special duty of the Chancellor
to maintain as close a personal relationship
as possible between himself and the German
Princes, and Bismarck was particularly successful
in his management of poor King Louis of Bavaria
with his colossal vanity. This institution of
Prussian embassies at the other German Courts
is the reason why the right of embassage has
been retained by our little States. The presence
of a Bavarian minister in Paris, where he has
nothing whatever to do, is in itself absurd, and
it is only permitted upon grounds of formal
equality, because Prussia, as such, does not wish,
in the interests of Imperial policy, to give up
sending her ambassadors to the little German
Courts.
This piece of inconsistency, permitted for
political reasons, which allows non- sovereign States
to retain their right of embassage, has been
partly responsible for certain misunderstandings
of actual facts. This brings us to a last con-
sideration, which has been a great stumbling-
block to teachers of constitutional law. There
can be no doubt that the former German States
have lost their sovereignty in the political sense,
380 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
but on the other hand it has been personally
retained by most of their rulers. Thus the King
of Saxony is personally in the peculiar position
of a sovereign lord, acknowledged as such by all
the Royal Houses of Europe, and subject to no
man, while the old princes of the Empire were
subject to the Emperor. Our modern Empire
has rightly been satisfied with giving the Emperor
in his own person only the position of primus
inter pares, and not that of an over-lord.
This has had an immeasurable effect in pro-
moting friendly feeling amongst the Princes.
Taken all in all, it is evident that the petty kings
and grand dukes are not only happier than
formerly, but that they also possess far more
political weight. How much was the war-lord-
ship of the King of Saxony worth in times past ?
His State had no influence whatever so long as it
stood upon its own feet, but now he has much
greater power, by reason of his voice in the
conduct of Imperial affairs. In addition, he and
the others are far more fortunately placed as
regards material things than they were. The
Empire has relieved them of all the odium attach-
ing to their office ; it levies the heavy blood tax
by its national Army, it levies the indirect taxes
also, and only the kindly and patriarchal func-
tions of government are left to the individual
rulers. All this explains why the widely-spread
and deeply -rooted hatred felt for princely rule
before 1866 has now totally disappeared. The
Princes of Germany now fill a very gratifying
place in popular opinion as benefactors of their
territories, and their lot within the new Empire
CENTRALIZATION 381
may well be described as happy. It is not to be
denied that the Empire is somewhat provincial
in character, and that while its organization is
strong as regards the Army, the administration of
law, and economics, it is less so as regards the more
intangible benefits of the nation. It is not to be
desired that it should undertake much in the way
of scientific or artistic enterprise, for it has no
Councils skilled in these subjects. The Ministers
of Public Worship and Fine Arts x in the indi-
vidual States have far more knowledge of these
matters, and therefore the Empire has rightly
concerned itself but little with intellectual or
aesthetic spheres, but has left these more delicate
tasks of popular government to the care of the
petty rulers.
Thus conditions have arisen amongst us which
are obviously quite different from those of all
Federal Republics. The divergence can be
traced in the whole spirit of our legislation.
Federal States are usually very averse to change
in their law-giving, for nothing but a strict con-
servatism will carry them over the difficulties
which beset them. In a hundred years America
has only made one quite unimportant change
in her Constitution. The legislative activity
of the German Empire, on the contrary, has
become almost feverishly great, for the new
Empire is a growing monarchy, even as the old
Empire was a declining one. Like a ball set upon
a steep slope where it must roll without possi-
bility of pause, our Empire is destined to travel
more and more towards a firm centralization.
1 Kultus Ministerien.
382 THE GERMAN EMPIRE
Every step in this direction is to the good. It
was a blessing even for the gallant officers them-
selves when we reached the point of abolishing
the Saxon and Wurtemberg Corps of officers,
and when Bavaria also lost its exceptional posi-
tion. Until then a Saxon officer had practically
no chance of ever becoming a general in command,
because there were so many princes at hand to
fill the post. Moreover, the prospect of being
always stationed somewhere between Zwickau
and Zittau cannot have been alluring. It was
impossible for the average man to enlarge his
mind under conditions of this sort.
A real capital city was the first demand of
the Empire's need of centralization, while the
Federal Republics, as we have seen, display the
very reverse of this requirement. Even although
the Berliner is the most insupportable person in
all Germany, Berlin must still grow larger, and
draw more of the national forces into itself.
Before 1866 there were many sturdy patriots
who were sincerely in favour of German unity,
but whose understandable dislike of Berlin
prompted them to wish to make Brunswick or
Nuremberg or Hildesheim the capital of the
Empire. Such mistakes seem inexplicable
nowadays, but at that time they were very
firmly rooted. The headquarters of Jewish
journalism could certainly never become the centre
of the national life of Germany, and, moreover,
the atmosphere of Berlin is too unaesthetic ever
to allow the noblest artistic achievements of the
German people to spring from there, for it can
be no home for any true artist. It has always
BERLIN 383
been incomprehensible to me how a man can be
a poet and settle in Berlin. Towns like Munich
and Dresden will always offer greater stimulus
to the artistic spirit than Berlin ever can. This
is one of the reasons why the Empire has always
shown a justifiable particularism in matters
aesthetic, and has left them in charge of the
individual States, thereby upon the whole bene-
fiting art itself.
For the rest it is evident that once the capital
is recognized it must be enriched by every
possible intellectual force. Federal policy made
a grave mistake, which, unfortunately, is now
irreparable, when it transferred the Supreme
Court of the Empire to Leipsig. Every advocate
pleading in that Court feels like a fish out of
water there. In all truly single States the seat
of the supreme Court has always been also the
capital. An increasing centralization in Berlin
is also unavoidable for our commercial life, for
it is obvious what power of attraction is wielded
by the Reichsbank and the other Berlin banks.
No change is possible. If Germany is to become
a true monarchy, the capital city of its Emperor
must also be the capital city of the nation ; and
this centralization is in the nature of things.
FOURTH BOOK
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE
STATE
VOL. II 385 2 C
WE are using the word " administration " in a
wider sense than that in which it is usually em-
ployed, for by it we mean the manifestation of
the will of the State towards living men, rulers
as well as subjects, that will being codified and
expressed in the decrees of the Constitution.
We have already discussed the indefinite
nature of the boundary between Constitution and
Administration, and seen that the fundamental
institutions of the Army are properly the concern
of the former. The theorist must judge separately
each of the State's great institutions, and discover
to which of these two great domains it most apper-
tains ; and with this approximate classification he
must rest content, for the world of actual fact
does not always consent to fall into the categories
of theory.
Taken in this broad sense the subject of ad-
ministration may be divided into the four head-
ings which we shall consider in this Book. First
comes the constitution of the Army, for without
an armed force the will of the State cannot be
effectual ; secondly comes the administration of
justice ; thirdly we find in every State some form
of administration of revenue, or system of
economics, which is existent even in the most
barbarous countries, which perhaps may not yet
have adopted a currency. Finally to these
387
388 ADMINISTRATION
three indispensable activities of every govern-
ment we must add a fourth, which flows in many
channels, and is not necessarily to be found ex-
isting everywhere, although its presence is a sign
that a nation is rising to a civilized level.
This is administration in the strict sense, the
whole great domain of the Police, as it was
formerly called, the care of the public welfare
and safety, as well as the superintendence of
education. We dealt with the matter of this last
division when we were considering the social
foundations of the State, therefore it only re-
mains for us hereafter to treat of the technicalities
of the subject.
XXIII
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
THE old political science was mistaken when it
regarded the Army as nothing but the servant
of diplomacy, and gave it only the subordinate
place in its political system of being a means
towards the ends of foreign policy. Such a con-
ception of the functions of the Army has vanished
from our age of universal military service ; for
we all feel nowadays that it is no mere aid towards
a diplomatic goal, but that the very Constitution
of the State reposes upon the nation's share in
bearing arms. It is the disciplined physical force
of the nation, in other words the Army, which
supports the State. If power, within and without,
is the very essence of the State, then the organiza-
tion of the Army must be one of the first cares
of the Constitution. The form which this organ-
ization will assume will be determined by the
real inward character of the State, whether it be
universal service, a territorial militia, or con-
scription with substitution.
The conception of the Army as the concen-
trated physical force of the nation leads on further
to its intimate association with the idea of the
oneness of the State. We may safely say that
389
390 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
an Army organized upon lines which truly express
national conditions brings home to the simple
man, more directly than any other institution can
do, the realization that the State is one and that
he himself is part of the whole. Trade, art, and
science are cosmopolitan, and lead their followers
beyond the limits of the nation. The possession
of a vote, and service on a jury or upon the
magistrates bench does indeed strengthen the
feeling that the State is a community, but parlia-
mentary life sunders the citizens by its unavoid-
able party hatreds quite as much as it unites
them in joint political work. An Army organized
on a really national foundation is the sole political
institution which binds citizen to citizen, for
there alone do all sons of the Fatherland feel
themselves united. There will be little more
conflict of opinion upon this point since our
experience of the new German Empire. It is
not the German parliament, as was formerly
hoped, which has become the real and effective
bond of national union, but the German Army.
We may rather say that our Imperial Parliament
brought a renewal of the old hatreds and calumnia-
tions, while the Army trained us to a practical
unity. The King is the natural leader in war,
therefore since the Army embodies the idea of
national solidarity in so striking a form, it is
peculiarly suited to the nature of monarchy.
In a Republic, with its unavoidably frequent
changes in the personnel of the supreme authority,
the relation between the civil government and
the commander of the Army is very much more
complicated, and is even attended by various
ENGLAND 391
dangers. We have seen how easily a victorious
general may himself become a menace to the
stability of the State, for the words of the poet
remain ever true, " A King worthy of the name
is mastered only by his peers."
Even those persons who look upon an Army
as an evil, must still regard it as a necessary
misfortune. If the existence of the State itself
is necessary and reasonable, it follows that it
has to assert itself in relation to other States.
We will prove further that a strong, well-equipped
Army is also the foundation of all political
freedom, so that no State is to be pitied which
possesses powerful military force. The weight
of facts has put vague theorizing to utter rout
upon this very matter. The whole Liberal
world looks forward to the disarmament of all
States as the ideal state of things, but the history
of our century teaches us that the very opposite
is taking place, armaments are everywhere
becoming stronger and more formidable, and a
phenomenon which is apparent in every country
without exception, cannot find its origin in mere
accident. There is, in fact, a radical error in the
whole Liberal argument. The State is no
Academy of Arts, still less is it a Stock Exchange ;
it is Power, and it would be gainsaying its very
nature if it neglected its Army. In this matter,
as in others, the quite peculiar position of England
has led Continental theorists into error. As
regards military affairs the situation of England
is abnormal. She can rely upon her fleet alone
as the national weapon, and need only use her
Army as the second line of defence, since she has
392 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
learnt to renounce a policy of continental con-
quest. The finest and most glorious Army
England has ever had were Oliver Cromwell's
God-fearing dragoons, a splendid body of men
both in efficiency and moral discipline, but these
troops were adherents of a particular religious
sect, and represented only a part of the nation.
The order which they enforced only received the
assent of their own Republican party, for the
country, as the Restoration was soon to prove,
was at that time still monarchically inclined.
The English view of the Army springs from their
experience of this Puritan domination. The
ancient liberties of the land were in very truth
enslaved and trampled upon by the continual
imposition of force, and England lay under
the heel of the Army. Cromwell could only
govern through his major-generals, and the first
task of the Restoration was to release the
country from the yoke of these psalm -singing
regiments.
Since that time the opinion has taken firm hold
in England that the Army is the tool of the State,
capable of being employed to thwart the will of
the nation, and when a second Revolution in-
stalled a shadow monarch existing by favour of
Parliament, the Mutiny Act was introduced
under William III. Its provisions were some-
what as follows : Whereas the institution of a
standing Army is against the law of this land, but
nevertheless the maintenance of a certain number
of thousand men is required in view of the up-
holding of the balance of power in Europe, and
the controlling of the Colonies, the Crown is em-
MACAULAY 393
powered to call out the requisite number, and
the soldiers will be put under the Mutiny Act
and outside the jurisdiction of civil law. This
shows us at once the ridiculous contrast between
England and Germany. With us the institution
of the Army is the direct consequence of the law.
The Army Law of 1814, one of the finest memories
in Prussian history, laid the foundation for
a more comprehensive legislation. Thus our
Army stands upon a basis of law, and is not an
anomaly as it is in England. These English
theories, particularly as presented by Macaulay's
polished pen, have infected continental Liberals.
Macaulay has a talent for narration such as few
historians can equal, but the thought under-
lying it is astonishingly deficient. He is for ever
dragging in the same few phrases, which, closely
examined, resolve themselves into Liberal party
prejudices. He displays a lack of philosophic
training which is absolutely disconcerting to
Germans, and gives utterance to opinions which
not one of our students would dare to express.
With a most polished style, a noble dignity of
mind, and a real enthusiasm for the freedom and
greatness of his country, he combines a most
evident lack of real intellectual power. When
we compare him with Ranke we see at once the
contrast between German depth and English
superficiality. Macaulay's leading principle,
which he has gathered from the experience of
England and tries to apply to the whole continent
of Europe, is that political freedom is incom-
patible with the maintenance of a standing
Army. It is the insular arrogance which pre-
394 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
supposes without more ado that the conditions
in its own islands are a measure for other States.
How about the Armies of Rome and of Athens ?
In Rome every citizen bore arms. How can we
so humiliate our Fatherland as to deplore the
advantage which a strong, well-organized Army
gives us over England !
The advantage which a nation derives from
such an Army is not only in possession of a
means to serve the ends of foreign policy, but
further because a noble nation with a heroic
history can for a long time use its Army as a
civilizing instrument, because it finds in it a
school for the real manly virtues which are so
easily lost in an age of commerce and luxury.
We have to admit that certain high - strung
delicate artist - natures cannot endure military
discipline, and from them a distorted view of
universal service often emanates. The judgment
of exceptional characters, however, ought not
to be accepted upon these weighty matters,
where we should abide by the old rule, mens
sana in corpore sano. This physical strength
is particularly important in times like our own.
It is a deficiency in English civilization that it
knows no universal service, although the lack
is supplied to some extent by the great size of
the Navy, and also by the perpetually recurring
small wars in the numberless colonies, which
occupy and sustain the manly spirit of the nation.
It is in great measure due to these colonial wars
that a large amount of physical energy still exists
in England. More closely examined, a great
deficiency becomes apparent. The want of
GREATNESS OF WAR 395
chivalry in the English character, which strikes
the simple fidelity of the German nature so
forcibly, is due to the fact that the English do
not take their exercise in the noble practice of
arms, but in acquiring dexterity in boxing, swim-
ming, and rowing. These have their value also,
but it is obvious that this whole system of
athletic sport must also encourage the athletic
spirit with its barbarism and its instinct for
external things, which ever leads it to strive to
carry off the prize.
It is then the normal and reasonable thing
for a great nation to embody and develop the
essence of the State, which is power, by organiz-
ing its physical strength in the constitution of
the Army. We live in a warlike age ; the over-
sentimental philanthropic fashion of judging
things has passed into the background, so that
we can once more join hands with Clausewitz
in calling war the forceful continuation of politics.
All the peacemakers in the world will never make
the political powers all of one mind, and until
they are, the sword will be the only arbiter.
We have learned to perceive the moral majesty
of war through the very processes which to the
superficial observer seem brutal and inhuman.
The greatness of war is just what at first sight
seems to be its horror that for the sake of their
country men will overcome the natural feelings
of humanity, that they will slaughter their
fellow-men who have done them no injury, nay,
whom they perhaps respect as chivalrous foes.
Man will not only sacrifice his life, but the natural
and justified instincts of his soul ; his very self
396 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
he must offer up for the sake of patriotism ; here
we have the sublimity of war. When we pursue
this thought further we see how war, with all its
brutality and sternness, weaves a bond of love
between man and man, linking them together
to face death, and causing all class distinctions
to disappear. He who knows history knows
also that to banish war from the world would be
to mutilate human nature. There could be no
freedom without military power ready to sacri-
fice itself for freedom's sake. It is ever necessary
to repeat that when scholars pronounce upon these
matters they always have in their minds the idea
that the State is designed only to be an Academy
of Arts and Science. This it should be also, but
it is not its primary function. A State which
neglects its physical strength and only cultivates
its intellectual powers perishes.
We must, above all, recognize that greatness
depends far more upon character than upon
culture, and that the driving forces in history
are to be sought in those circles where character
is developed. Only brave nations have a real
history. In the great crises of the life of nations
we see how the warlike virtues have weighed the
balance. Rightly does an old saying call war the
examen rigorosum of States, for in it they show
what they are capable of, not only in the way
of physical strength, but also in moral force and
to some extent in intelligence. There is a kernel
of truth in the well-known colloquialism which
has it that the Prussian schoolmasters won the
battle of Koniggratz. War brings to light the
achievements of the people in peace. The Army
WAR AND POLITICS 397
is not always upon active service, but the silent
labour of its preparation never ceases. The
world never realized what the reign of Frederick
William I. had done for Prussia until suddenly
the gigantic force which had been patiently
accumulated burst forth in the days of Frederick
the Great. The same applies to the year 1866.
For the reason that war is politics in terms of
force, it is never decided upon military grounds
alone, but by the policy which guides it. Highly
significant of this is the history of 1848 and 1849
when Wrangel and Prittwitz could quite well have
made an end of the Danes, but the King hesi-
tated, from a certain repugnance to the step, and
also from a dread of Russia. But no Army can
fight for compromises. Every war is by nature
radical, and staunchness in the troops can
seldom prevail against vacillation and aimless-
ness in the policy which directs them. Think
of the campaign in Champagne in 1792, when
the Prussian and Austrian troops still possessed
tremendous superiority over the Sans-culottes,
so that in the neighbourhood of Mannheim a
single battalion of the Wedell Regiment once
held the passage of the Rhine against two French
Divisions for a whole day. Yet, politically, the
result was a great defeat for the coalition. The
Allies were disunited ; here was a policy without
a certain aim, a campaign whose purpose had
disappeared. Political considerations are very
apt to hamper the wars which coalitions under-
take, and history has many times proved the
truth of the poet's words, " the strong are
strongest when they stand alone." During the
398 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
campaigns of the Allies in 1813 and 1814 it was
the unskilful Russian generals who sided with
the brilliant leaders of the Prussian Army in
fighting the war to its bitter end, while the more
gifted Austrians remained lukewarm, by reason
of their own unstable policy. Their indecision
could have found no better Commander-in-Chief
than Schwarzenberg. Many a war is lost before
it is begun, because it proceeds from a policy
which does not know its own mind.
It follows that a really great general is always
a statesman as well. Moltke's letters show us
the depth of his understanding of great political
questions, and we perceive the same qualities
in Blucher, that gifted child of nature. Blucher
was a political genius, at whose capacities we
never cease to marvel. His forte may not have
been orthography, but he always saw things
exactly as they were. He could see his way
clear through the most complicated conditions.
His demeanour at the beginning of the war of
1815 has become classical. Everybody believed
that another dragging, boring war was beginning,
in the style of the Schwarzenberg coalition
campaigns, and Blucher alone held a different
opinion. " We shall make short work of it this
time," he wrote. " I have the French in front
of me, glory behind me, and the guns will soon
begin their music, for the Bonaparte has nothing."
Napoleon was at the head of what was perhaps
the best Army he ever commanded, as far as
quality went, but it was too small, because his
rule extended over France alone. It seems to
us so easy to perceive this fact, but at that time
OBEDIENCE AND THE OATH 399
nobody realized it except Bliicher. He had the
quality which is essential to a great military
leader, political genius, which means seeing a
situation as it really is, and then constructing
from it, with creative imagination, a vision of
the developments to come.
If the Army is the organized political Power of
the State, it can be nothing but Power, and may
possess no will of its own, since its function is to
carry out the will of the State's supreme authority
with unconditional obedience. We cannot deny
that this subjection of the will to the decree of
the Head of the State is a very hard condition
to impose. All the radical chatterers decry it
as reactionary, but it is in reality the very corner-
stone of a nation's political freedom. Give the
Army a will of its own, and you destroy all
political security. The fate of Spain is a terrible
example of what a scourge an Army can become
if it argues and splits up into parties. It is im-
possible to say what the country suffered at the
hands of its soldiers who always took sides, first
supporting Carlos, and then the virtuous Isabella.
A stern military discipline is the only protection
against these political perils.
The duty of unconditional obedience leads
to the further necessity for a single oath of
allegiance, setting forth with unmistakable clear-
ness to whom that obedience is due. There
must be no reservations when a man pledges
himself to sacrifice his life. It is sheer madness
to make youths, who are mostly drawn from the
lower classes, promise to obey not only their
King, but the Constitution as well, thereby ex-
400 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
pressly setting before them the alternative of
doing one or the other in a given case. It would
be the end of all discipline to make the soldier
the judge of when the Constitution is infringed.
The danger of this theory is recognized to-day,
but in 1848 it had a great vogue, and it was
everywhere demanded that the Army should take
the oath to the Constitution.
When we thus discuss the obligations under-
taken by mankind we must not be blasphemous
enough to forget that none of them are absolute.
Nor should they be, for conscience sets a limit to
every human duty. No mortal man can offer an
unqualified submission, and our soldiers must not
be treated as if they were bound to strike their
parents dead at their officers' command. Are the
men of a standing Army to be levelled with the
infant -murdering mercenaries of Herod ? Our
beloved Professor Dahlmann taught us this, as
students, at Bonn University. No thinking being
can offer up his conscience, therefore it may happen
that for conscience' sake the individual may be
driven to disobey the oath of allegiance. This
must not, however, be set forth in the oath itself.
The cases in which a soldier may disobey should
no more be defined beforehand than the possible
causes for divorce should be embodied in the
marriage contract. The oath must be clear and
comprehensible, and make no provision for ex-
ceptional cases.
The honour of the soldier is bound up with
this energy and certainty of obedience. For
this reason the unconditional submission, which
we have developed almost to the point of hard-
ARMY AND LIBERTY 401
ness, has become the glory and the token of the
efficiency of our Army. The contempt, which
is so often expressed in radical circles for this
dog-like obedience, proves itself a sheer illusion.
Military training develops character as nothing
else can do. Capable old Army officers are often
superior in this respect to the average scholars,
because men of learning have much less oppor-
tunity of strengthening their character. Goethe's
immortal words in Tasso express this exactly.
The habit of silent obedience to superiors, joined
to a firm command of inferiors, calls forth an
independence of character which is highly to be
prized. Our Prussian generals have never been
other than frank, free-hearted men.
All this is so obvious that our amazement
grows at the obstinacy of the doctrine which
maintains that an Army sworn to uncon-
ditional obedience is an instrument of slavery ;
far more is it an instrument of liberty. The
man is ignorant of history who believes that a
national Army bound by its oath can be made
to serve every reactionary end. Was Cromwell's
Army, that bugbear of Macaulay, the finest
Army that England ever had, able to hinder the
Restoration of the ancient Monarchy ? Charles
II. returned unaccompanied by troops, but he
was able to gain a moral victory over the Army,
because he had the nation at his back. Certain
of the old generals of the Republic were indeed
bought over and entered into relations with the
Royalists, but the great majority were God-
fearing Republicans, and yet these thousands
of fine soldiers, firm-willed as they were, offered
VOL. II 2 D
402 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
no resistance, and the regiments simply laid
down their glorious standards and disbanded.
Thus the physical strength of the Army is far
less powerful against the expressed will of the
nation than the doctrinaires would have us
believe. The web of history is not so coarsely
woven as to allow fist-law to decide everything.
Look at the great coups d'Etat in France, when
the Army was always an instrument of the
nation's will. The French troops who obeyed
Napoleon's call on the 18th Brumaire owed
allegiance to the Republic, not to him ; therefore
they broke their faith. But behind them stood
the nation, and for it there was no political
idealism left but military glory and the fame of
the Tricolor. In this mood an able and powerful
Dictator was welcomed as a deliverer. In like
manner, in 1851, when France was wearied to
death by the eternal strife of parties, the people
were content to be enslaved once more ; their
feelings were expressed in the name they gave
to Napoleon III. " saviour of society." Only
the French lack of conscience could persist in
denying this fact. It is foolish to assert that the
King of Prussia could upset the Constitution
with the aid of an Army which dare not refuse
him its obedience. It is, on the contrary, im-
possible to rule for long against the will of the
nation in a country where universal military
service is established. The blind obedience of
the Army, then, is not dangerous to a well-
ordered State ; it is infinitely more perilous
when it displays a will of its own. A submission
so absolute might indeed bring about a slavish
MILITARY HONOUR 403
attitude unworthy of free men, if there were
not in every soundly constituted Army the
counterbalancing force of a strong feeling of
chivalrous personal honour. It was present with
the miles Romanus of the Legion, it ran through
the chivalry of the Middle Ages, and we find it
also in the proud military instinct of the modern
Army, not as a personal prejudice, but bound up
with its essence. This instinct is a blessing
with which we cannot dispense ; a valiant man
who has pledged himself to unconditional obedi-
ence would feel humbled in his own eyes if he
could not say to himself, " I am ready to sacrifice
my life upon the instant, and therefore I must
keep the shield of honour unstained." The
sceptic in these matters is depriving the soldier
of the only self which is still his own, for by
casting doubt he is violating the inner sanctuary
of the soul of man.
For this reason the military sense of honour
is sometimes too prone to take offence. The
feeling is wholesome in itself, although the abuse
of it should not be condoned. The practice of
duelling still goes on, even in civilian circles.
It is in fact the last barrier in a democratic
society against an absolute degeneration of
manners. Men are restrained to a certain extent
by the knowledge that they must stake their
lives for the sake of an insult, and it is better that a
promising life should be sacrificed now and then
than that the morals of the whole nation should
run wild. The great moral vigour, which is one
of the Army's greatest strengths, is bound up
with the class feeling of honour. Officers would
404 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
fall in the estimation of their subordinates if
they did not evince a refinement of manners in a
sensitive sense of honour. Brutality of manners
has increased in the English Army since the
abolition of duePing in that country, and officers
have even been known to come to blows with
each other in a railway carriage, in presence of
their wives. It is not difficult to see how the
prestige of the officer must be lowered in the eyes
of his men by such behaviour. Nothing could
be more untrue than the democrat's idea that
the lower orders will obey their equals more
readily than they will those in a higher station.
Respect is still paid to a real gentleman more
readily than to one of the old corporals. The
last war proved this to be the fact ; the French
officers had not the needful authority over their
men.
War is nothing but foreign policy expressed
in terms of force. From this it follows that the
lines on which the Army is constituted reflect
accurately the form of the State Constitution,
and further that the nature of the military
organization decides the method by which war
shall be waged. Because the Middle Ages were
aristocratic, their battles were fought by the
mounted arm, which has always been the weapon
of an aristocracy. The principle continues to pre-
vail in our own times. A strong preponderance
of cavalry is always a sign that the economic
circumstances of a nation are still immature,
and that the aristocracy has too much power
in the State. All highly civilized peoples are
obliged to limit the number of their mounted
ENGLISH ARMY 405
troops, for they lack space to develop this arm
in a cultivated country. Technical arms on the
other hand have always appertained to the
middle classes ; and commercial nations, by
reason of their capital and their technical skill,
have always produced the best military machines.
The Carthaginians were the foremost nation of
ancient history in the superiority of their weapons
of offence, but Rome was the victor neverthe-
less, not indeed because of the genius of her
generals, but because of the moral strength
which united her national Army.
The advantage in technical skill and appli-
ances, important as it is, is not the primary factor
in deciding the issue of a war. An Army cannot
be judged from the economic standpoint of the
perfection of its engines of war, nor according
to the principles of division of labour, although
the commercial States which give their prefer-
ence to professional Armies look at them in this
light. In war the ultimate decision is not
reached by a technical superiority but rather by
the superiority of morals and morale. On the
physical side, the English soldiery are very
efficient, they are trained in boxing, and ex-
tremely well nourished. But even in England
people are beginning to be aware that their
Army lacks something in comparison to a national
Army, because it excludes the moral strength of
the nation. The world is not so materialistic
as Wellington thought it when he declared that
enthusiasm was useless to an Army, and only
wrought havoc and confusion. In England,
however, the Fleet is the real national weapon,
406 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
and whatever the country possesses of true war-
like enthusiasm (and there is much more of this
than is generally supposed upon the Continent,
because the idea of Great Britain's dominion of
the world is very widespread among her people)
must be sought for upon its warships. In con-
sidering these matters, therefore, we must always
uphold the purely moral standards of valuation
for military institutions in opposition to the
purely economic. It is necessary to be quite
clear about the justification for the eternal
complaints of the great cost of the Army. With-
out doubt the blood-tax of the military burden
is the greatest which can be laid upon a nation,
but here again it must never be forgotten that
there are certain things whose worth is above
all price. Moral treasures are among them,
therefore it is unreasonable to apply a money
standard to such conceptions as honour and
power. Gold cannot pay for what we lost when
the flower of our youth fell upon the battle-fields
of France. It is unworthy to measure the moral
by the material. It is the normal and reason-
able condition when a great nation embodies
and develops the essence of the State, which is
in fact power, in the organization of the Army.
It is further to be remembered that without an
Army trade and commerce could not flourish.
The standing Army of a nation with a glorious
history behind it can guarantee a long period of
peace, but it is madness to begrudge the sinews
of war during such a period, and there is no
greater extravagance than undue economy in
Army expenditure.
THE RIGHT TO SERVE 407
When the conditions in a State are primitive
the right to bear arms is always looked upon as
the privilege of the free man. The Romans only
introduced the mercenary system in the very
latest stages of their history. With the excep-
tion of the officers, this soldiery was drawn from
the dregs of society, hence the notion that military
service carries a stigma, and its consequence, the
desire of the free citizen to escape it. The
centuries to come were hag-ridden by this bogy
of the hireling Army, which has come harshly
to light in our own day, in the creation of
the Citizen and National Guard, the most un-
reasonable and unmoral of all military inven-
tions. Citizens of the State supposed themselves
to be above bearing arms against their country's
foes, but they were not averse from a little parade
at home, and desired moreover to be in a position
to defend their money-bags from attack. Hence
the truly abominable invention of a National
Guard, set up with the preposterous legal proviso
that in the case of civil disturbance the blessed
rabble were to be dealt with first of all by this
Civilian Guard, and the military only to be
summoned when matters became serious. Here
we have a total misunderstanding of the moral
grandeur of military service. The right to bear
arms will always be an honourable privilege of the
free. Noble-minded men have always felt this,
more or less clearly. " The God who gave men
iron did not will them to be slaves " (Der Gott
der Eisen wachsen liess, der wollte keine Knechte).
It is the task of any policy guided by reason to
uphold the honour of this honourable right.
408 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
It is obvious from all the foregoing that the
study of the development of Army systems is
as important for the historian as it is for the
politician. It is remarkable how the progress
of military technique among the Greeks went
hand in hand with their political development.
First of all we see individual kinds of weapon each
confined to a particular tribe. Then as the tribal
history became merged in the national history, the
use of the weapons was united also, and we find
the chariot fighters of Homeric times, the nimble
Thessalian horsemen, the heavy -armed Doric
infantry, and the light -armed mariners of the
Ionic triremes all brought together into a com-
plicated Army system. In Alexander, the great
organizer of Hellenic military power, the apothe-
osis of the long development was reached ; the
rough valour of his mountain ancestry stood
him in good stead for the disciplining of the
Greeks.
We see the principle that bearing of arms
is a privilege of free-born men running through
the Roman Army also, for when Rome's power
was at its zenith the proletariat was excluded
from the Legions. The great military superi-
ority of these troops arose from their social
solidarity. The Emperors created the mercenary
system which improves the efficiency of Armies,
but injures their spirit. The real strength of
Roman armies was always their infantry ; cavalry
never held more than a subordinate position of
trifling tactical importance, although it was
composed of Patricians and wealthy citizens.
Not until they were brought in contact with
THE ROMAN ARMY 409
foreign countries who possessed more technically
trained forces did the Romans develop their own
upon the same lines. They learned much from
Pyrrhus and more from the Carthaginians, who
brought against them no national Armies, but
well-organized and well-drilled hireling troops.
The use of elephants by her enemies first taught
Rome how to employ large bodies of artillery.
Elephants undoubtedly took the place of our
modern guns, whose function is to crush the
enemy by mass. These arts were adopted by
the Romans, and further developed by their use
of throwing engines. They possessed a very
elaborate system of siege warfare. Our little
town of Boppard was their central artillery
depot for the provinces of Germany and Eastern
Gaul.
Even at this late period, however, the main
force of Roman Armies was concentrated in the
foot soldiery, whose favourite weapon remained
the short sword, so deadly in its use, and requiring
so much courage and physical strength to wield
it aright. Even as their early wars were, as
Livy describes them, duella non bella, so, later,
they still held to the theory that long-range
fighting should always be brief, and that no time
should be lost in coming to close quarters and
beginning the hand-to-hand struggle. A keen
sense of honour animated the Legions, hence
the relatively humane treatment of the troops,
the rarity of corporal punishments, and the gener-
ally high consideration enjoyed by the soldiery.
The Roman Army had but few officers in our
sense of the word, for we should only apply the
410 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
term to the legate and tribuni militum, as the
Centurion was, socially, on the level of our non-
commissioned officer. The fact that the social
line of demarcation was drawn so high, combined
with the respect felt by the people for the rank
and file, bred a noble spirit of independence even
in the common soldier.
In the Middle Ages we find at first the levy
en masse, that mighty national summons to a
free peasantry, but it soon gave place to the
unnatural form of Army which arose out of the
aristocratic influences which warped the national
life. We have already dealt with its evil results
in respect of political institutions, and seen
that a Monarchy limited by Estates, or, more
correctly, a polyarchy, is simply an organized
disorder. Its harmful effect is still more visible
when it touches the constitution of the Army.
The valiant German nations were fettered by the
feudal system which placed such unnatural re-
strictions upon the number of those who were
entitled to bear arms, that the armies were
virtually composed of the nobility. The flower
of the crusading Armies were the mail - clad
knights upon their war-horses panoplied in steel.
The great cost of this equipment prohibited the
mass of the population from sharing any longer
in the old delight of the sword ; they were
warriors no more.
In the fourteenth century we see the rise of
the mercenary system as a natural reaction
against this distorted order of things. As the
towns became rich, and began to be conscious
of their power, material interests gained such an
MERCENARIES 411
ascendancy that it came as a happy thought to
the citizens that they might buy themselves
soldiers. The Italian Communes were the first
to raise a force of well -drilled infantry, who
encountered the aristocratic cavalry with ever-
increasing success. These troops were as utterly
plebeian in origin as the mediaeval Armies were
aristocratic. Their technical superiority in
weapons over the latter soon began to tell after
the introduction of gunpowder. In the days of
Richard Coeur-de-Lion wars were still only com-
bats of the knighthood, but the end of the four-
teenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century
is rich in record of battles where peasant and
citizen armies overcame the nobles who opposed
them. A memorial still stands in the market-
place of Ghent to the Flemish burghers who
vanquished the chivalry of France and Brabant
with their heavy artillery ; then we have the
battles fought by the Ditmarsch peasantry against
the Danish nobility, the Hussite wars, and yet
another catastrophe, peculiarly characteristic of
the age, the battle of Tannenberg, where the
knightly orders, the flower of the German aris-
tocracy, were defeated by the peasant levies of
Cossacks and Hannaks from the east. All these
were the decisive combats which sounded the
death-knell of the old forces of feudalism.
As the power of the burghers increased they
hired mercenary soldiers, and a military class
arose whose sole profession was arms, and in
which all the drifting elements in society sought
refuge. Military service became a trade, and con-
forming to the mediaeval custom which bestowed
412 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
a fixed corporate form upon every craft, it soon
produced the pious Guild of the Orders of the
Landsknechts. These, with usages and jurisdic-
tion peculiar to themselves, were a natural check
upon the demoralization which could so easily
gain ground among a professional soldiery. Thus
the honour of the Landsknecht demanded that
he should be tried only by his equals, and, if
condemned, should expiate his guilt with his
own weapon. When any member of the Order
was accused, the standard was furled, and the
Court, consisting only of Companions, assembled
beneath it to try the offender at a drum-head
court-martial. If he was acquitted the Ensign
shook out over him the folds of the banner. All
these honourable and chivalrous customs contri-
buted to restrain the license of the homeless horde.
Their adventurous existence contained a wealth
of romance, and German bards have seldom sung
more glorious lays than in the days of the pious
Landsknechts. There was a Titan-like strain of
heroism in these wild companions -in-arms whose
trade was slaughter. It was not the men who
composed the fighting force in its magnificent
development in the sixteenth century under the
House of Austria, who made these Armies the
scourge of the country, but the dissolute horde
of camp-followers who followed in their wake. The
rabble of women managed the Commissariat by
plundering the houses as they passed. The scum
of the community flocked to the mercenary
armies, but at the same time the unquenchable
love of war in the martial German race drove
even men of illustrious birth to join their
MEDIAEVAL CONDITIONS 413
ranks as officers, as the nobility began to realize
that honour was no longer to be sought in the
heavy feudal cavalry, whose day was past. The
lofty idea of serving their native land could have
no hold upon such a nondescript host ; rather
they held themselves at liberty to sell their skins
to the highest bidder. An entirely distorted
notion of the proper composition of armies gained
ground. It did not exclude great personal
courage, which was abundant in the fighting
forces of that time, but the holocaust which the
Thirty Years' War made of German civilization
shows to what an appalling extent the ethical
standards of such Armies become vitiated.
The undeveloped finance of the period made
this hireling system excessively costly. It is
estimated that Charles V. paid rather more per
head, reckoned in our money, for his common
soldiery than we do to-day, officers included.
When we remember the vast difference in the
value of money, and the smallness of the taxes
which could be imposed in those days, it is easy
to see why armies were not large (more than
10,000 men were seldom united under one leader-
ship) and to understand the need for disbanding
them the moment peace was concluded. This is
to a great extent the cause why so many States
perished in the fifteenth century.
The flower of these troops of Landsknechts
was composed of a well-drilled infantry, armed with
muskets of doubtful accuracy. The Army marched
in a solid body, preceded by an advance guard
partly composed of pit-men (Bergleute), corre-
sponding to the modern sappers, whose business
414 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
it was to clear away the difficulties of the terrain.
In Napoleon's armies we still find the pioneers
marching in front of the drums. Then came
the main body, and the rearguard behind, and
the march went forward in a direct line. When
about to give battle the two forces took up the
simplest possible positions facing one another,
some cavalry were disposed upon the flanks, and
the fight began. There was no idea as yet of
any dramatic developments ; the opponents
sprang at each other, hewed and trampled the
foe, or were hewed and trampled themselves.
The numbers engaged were still so small that the
great Landsknecht leaders liked to place them-
selves on raised ground in the midst of their
troops, in a position whence they could overlook
the entire field. George Frundsberg always thus
made himself the living centre-point of his Army.
These were the simple little battles of the
sixteenth century. It is very interesting to trace
how the Thirty Years' War (here Germany is
once more the great school of war in Europe)
in some ways strengthened the Landsknecht
system, while destroying it in other directions.
It was evident that the Orders of the pious
Landsknechts could no longer uphold their free
proud existence and their peculiar forms of class
honour against the universal degeneration of the
age. The dissolute mob which now had to be
driven into the ranks could no longer form a
respected guild imbued with a pride of class.
We perceive a sharp distinction being made
between officers and men, of which there was
no trace in the previous century, when the
GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS 415
division between leaders and followers was much
less marked. The whole Landsknecht organiza-
tion had hitherto had a defiantly democratic
tendency, even duels between a captain and a
common soldier were not infrequent. All this was
now changed ; the lowest classes of the people
were incorporated in the Army in larger and
larger numbers. In fact, from the social point of
view, we may look upon the Thirty Years' War
as an elevation of the Fourth Estate. The long
down-trodden peasant now rubbed shoulders with
the well-born gentleman. The peasantry com-
posed the great mass of the new soldiery, who
were thus separated from their officers by an
ever-increasing gap, which we can measure by
the introduction of corporal punishments at this
period, which would have been an impossibility
in the sixteenth century.
We see this social decline of the old system
in some directions, but in others we observe great
technical advances. Gustavus Adolphus was the
genius who directed military science into new
paths. He was the first to introduce a regular
system of fire - control. He abolished the old
arquebuses, whose adjustment, by itself, took so
much time, and armed his troops with lighter
muskets. Instead of wooden cartridges he gave
them paper ones, which could be carried in a
pouch, and so greatly facilitated rapidity 'of fire
that they made volleys by whole battalions pos-
sible. Gustavus Adolphus was also the pioneer
of the three-rank position for infantry. The first
rank fired kneeling, the second standing, while
the third loaded. He likewise increased the
416 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
manoeuvring capacity of troops to a standard of
mobility which greatly exceeded that of the stiff
formations of earlier days. To us there seems
nothing very extraordinary in the manoeuvre
by which he moved the Swedes from the centre
of his line to out-flank the enemy who had
beaten the Saxons on his left wing at the battle
of Breitenfeld, but in his own day this was
regarded as a marvel of tactical skill, for an
evolution of this kind[ during the progress of the
combat had never been seen before. In these
wars cavalry once more became a very important
arm. The difficulties of the ground decreased
with the increasing devastation of the country,
until large bodies of horse could sweep from the
Danube to the Baltic. This altered the whole
character of the war.
In these ways the Thirty Years' War brought
great advances in military science. In the
Netherlands another great school for the art of
war was also offered upon German soil. Here the
eighty years of struggle against Spain produced a
long succession of great military engineers. The
whole of the technical resources of the period could
be brought into play during the sieges of Ostend,
Antwerp, Breda, etc. The Low Countries were
the classic home of the art of fortress construc-
tion ; they became the teachers of the whole of
Europe. A further development of military
science followed under Louis XIV. The Thirty
Years' War had already shown campaigns upon
a large scale, for at the battle of Nordlingen,
which was the greatest of its time, two of the
Imperial Armies were united and made a total
NATIONAL ARMIES 417
of 50,000 men on one side. Louis, however,
raised an army of about 120,000 men, in which
the best troops were those of Bernhard von
Weimar. Thus the French applied the lessons
they had learned from Germans, with German
soldiers against German soil. This mighty
Army of Louis compelled the other Powers
to keep larger forces on a war footing them-
selves ; and it became a universal problem
how to reconcile the necessity for these large
bodies of troops with the limited financial
resources of the various States. It is easy to
understand why there was so much discussion
of systems of national armaments during this
period. It is well known that the first advocate
of the idea of a people in arms in modern times
was Machiavelli. His writings have, however,
always left me with the impression that he
thought of it more in the light of a reminiscence
of antiquity than as an idea which he desired to
see realized immediately. In his books DelV arte
della guerra he describes the vigour of the old
Romans, in order to inspire his contemporaries to
recover the courage and determination of their
forefathers. In this way it is more a piece
of historical imagination than of practical
politics. We may say the same of Baruch
Spinoza, a quite unmilitary thinker who reverted
to the same subject in the time of Louis XIV.
He was a bookworm if ever there was one.
Neither his education nor training had given him
knowledge of warfare, for he was an adherent of
the commercial peace-party in the Netherlands,
but he cherished an enthusiasm for antiquity.
VOL. II 2 E
418 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
In his case also the notion of universal service
is nothing but a harking back to classical times.
Practical statesmen there were, however, Vauban
in particular, who took the question into more
practical consideration.
The whole period was busied with the problem,
but they were still far from a solution of it. By
means of a tumultuous compulsory recruiting
in the country the ranks of the hired foreigners
were completed. When gaps appeared in the
French Army the Intendants of the Provinces
were ordered to fill them up, and the dregs of the
people were gathered from the highways, and
taken from the houses of correction, for this
purpose. These generally sufficed, because there
were always so many German vagabonds who
took service in the French Army. With these
elements to deal with, discipline was bound to
become increasingly hard and cruel. The practice
of running the gauntlet was introduced, because
only such frightful barbarities could preserve
order among bands of men as depraved as these.
Small wonder that military service was again
looked upon as a disgrace. It is to the honour
of Prussia that she was the means of bringing
Europe back to a more natural and more moral
point of view. History must remember that
Gustavus Adolphus tried to create an Army
which could fight for its faith and its Fatherland,
but when the mighty hero of the North was no
more his work fell to pieces. King Frederick
William I. was the first to re-embody the idea
of universal service as a political principle, when
in the opening paragraphs of his District Regula-
PRUSSIAN SYSTEM 419
tions he sets forth that " every Prussian subject
is born to bear arms." He upheld the duty of
military service as the honour of every citizen.
The country was divided into cantons, and each
canton apportioned as a recruiting district for a
particular regiment. The young men were
chosen out betimes, decked with the red scarf
of the cantonists, and were eligible for service
when called upon. The nobility had legal
exemption, which, however, was not practically
applied, for they fulfilled their military service
still more completely than the peasant class
by furnishing the Army with officers. The Royal
Princes also were all in the Army. The colleges
for cadets were the training-ground for the non-
commissioned ranks. The only other exemp-
tions were for possessors of a fortune of 10,000
thalers, and such fortunate millionaires were
rare in Prussia in those days. Certain urban
districts were occasionally excused if the King
considered that their inhabitants would be of
more use to the State by continuing to ply their
trades than by carrying the musket. Thus
Berlin was always freed from military service,
and it caused a great deal of trouble after 1806
before this privilege, the wisdom of which was very
doubtful, could be withdrawn and universal service
introduced there. Exemptions in Prussia were all
founded upon the monarchical organization of
labour, the ancient suum cuique of the Hohen-
zollerns, which prescribed for every class its share
in the collective activity of the nation. We may
take pride in the knowledge that the base
bartering of souls, which we shall observe in
420 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
France under Napoleon, was never carried on in
Prussia.
The number of these legal exemptions was
still small in the reign of Frederick William I.,
but there was great passive resistance to com-
pulsory service, for the people met it with a real
revolutionary spirit. Even the King's iron will
never availed to bring up the number of his troops
to anywhere near the total for which he strove.
At one time the sons of the soil did compose two-
thirds of the Army, but as a rule they only pro-
vided half, and the remainder had to be recruited
in foreign lands. As a result the Prussian forces
were made up of two completely heterogeneous
bodies of men, one being of natives of the country,
who were compelled to serve, and who gradually
attained to a certain level of patriotic emotion,
the other was of the old professional soldiery,
who were encouraged to marry as soon as possible,
in order to keep them longer with the colours.
Colonies of them were started, in little villages
like Nowawes near Potsdam, where they might
settle with their wives and children and ply
civilian callings in the intervals of military duty.
These composed one element of the Army ; the
cantonists, who formed the other, had to serve
for twenty years, but were called up for so short
a time each year that each man's whole period
of service barely came to two years.
It is obvious that the system was still in its
infancy, and that in Prussia as elsewhere in the
eighteenth century the military organization still
followed the forms of the old mercenary Armies.
It is true that it was no longer a disgrace to wear
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 421
the King's coat, but it was still looked upon as a
misfortune. There was not much improvement
under Frederick the Great. It sounds like a
paradox, but it is none the less true that
Frederick's mind had a less commanding grasp
of the ethics of compulsory service than his
father had had. He wished to see the number
of professional soldiers increased, on grounds
of national economics. In his opinion " the
peaceful citizen should not be disturbed when the
nation goes to war," and it never struck him
that the peaceful citizen himself is part of the
nation. As an organizer the great King was not
the equal of his rough old father. Exemptions
were multiplied in his reign, and whole districts,
such as East Friesland, were excused from the
cantonal service. Finally, two -thirds of the
Army were once more hirelings, and in the Seven
Years' War the mercenary system was not yet a
thing of the past. It is curious to observe how
the element of the foreign soldiery forced a cer-
tain prudence of tactics upon the commanders of
these Armies also, which we have already observed
wherever mercenary troops were employed. The
first principle of war was once more to spare and
preserve the Army as much as possible, on
account of the difficulty of refilling the ranks.
It was most important for every leader to hinder
desertion by every means in his power, and troops
could never be billeted but were always kept
under canvas. After every lost battle whole
bodies of them made off at once. An Army
could not move more than ten miles from its
base without trailing its enormous baggage train
422 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
along with it. The issue of a whole campaign
might turn upon the arrival or non-arrival of a
convoy of provisions. In the year 1758, during
the Seven Years' War, the investment of Olmiitz
failed, because Laudon and his Croatians inter-
cepted a Prussian provision column. The King
was obliged to raise the siege, and the spring
campaign ended in failure. All this led naturally
to very slow methods of warfare. We have no
longer any idea of the importance which was
attached in those days to mere manoeuvring for
position. The War of the Polish Succession is a
case in point. It occupied nearly the whole of
Europe for five years, and yet there was not one
real battle in the whole course of the war. In
spite of this it had tremendous consequences.
France secured Lorraine, and Austria Tuscany,
while the Saxon dynasty was once more estab-
lished in Poland. The Italian frontier was
altered by it in a way which has influenced
history, for the Bourbons were set upon the
throne of Naples and the Piedmontese came
from Sicily to Sardinia. All these changes were
results of the five years of so-called war.
The proverb, " Genius breaks all rules," is
nowhere truer than in war. Frederick the Great
set rules aside as far as any mortal man can disre-
gard the limitations of the period in which he
lives. His Silesian campaigns were still marked
by the slowness which the composition of his
Army dictated, when we compare them with the
wars of our own century, but even in them the
daring of the royal commander stands out in
the marvellous battle of Hohenfriedberg, where
FREDERICK THE GREAT 423
his genius showed itself for the first time in its
maturity. The Prussian Army has won most of
its victories in taking the offensive, which is the
most suited to its character, and was also the
most expressive of the innermost nature of its
great King. In his own favourite phrase, " We
must preserve the proud privilege of the initia-
tive." Yet even he was still hampered by the
conditions of the armies of his date. The Seven
Years' War was relatively rich in pitched battles,
yet from beginning to end only twenty-two were
fought. Compare with that the number of de-
cisive conflicts in the year 1870 !
Yet, in spite of this, we are compelled to
admire the genius with which Frederick led his
cumbrous army to battle whenever any oppor-
tunity presented itself. This was what made
him so incomprehensible to the average military
leaders of his day. " My brother could do
nothing but give battle," as Prince Henry dis-
dainfully remarked about him, unconsciously
pointing out the very quality which gave him
his renown. We feel that in Frederick we are
witnessing the dawn of a new era, for already
he regarded the destruction of the enemy as the
first aim in war. In the second campaign of the
Seven Years' War the King's intention was to
deal a blow at the heart of the foe, but not to
follow the spirit of his age by occupying more
and more Bohemian territory until he forced
the Empress-Queen to come to terms of peace.
Then followed his reverse, the fatal battle of
Kollin, and from that time onwards Frederick
was too weak to be able to allow free play to his
424 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
natural audacity. The same year, 1757, contained
the two battles of Rossbach and Leuthen, but in
them the King did violence to his most inward
inclinations by assuming the defensive. We
must not discount the tremendous importance
of money in the conduct of military operations
in those days. The exhaustion of his resources
was an additional reason why Frederick was
forced to carry on the war with more caution in
the later years. He said himself, " The victory
will lie with the possessor of the last thaler."
This observation would be less true at the
present day. Bernhardi has discerned the root
principle of the Frederician strategy correctly in
his book upon Frederick the Great as a military
leader. The historical facts are these. Frederick
exemplified the axiom that genius is beyond all
rules, as hardly any other man has ever done.
In contrast to the great King, his brother Henry
was a General absolutely in the spirit of his age,
and for this reason he did his best work during
the last years of the long struggle. We must
look at these events in the cold light of science.
To modern ideas it seems absurd that Prince
Henry should have been able to hold all Saxony
right down to the south, year after year for the
last three years of the War, with his little Army,
which he disposed in an inordinately long cordon
all round the country. A modern Army would
naturally have cut this thin line at some point
or another. Did the Austrians ever attempt to
do so ? The question must be negatived, for it
never occurred to them to try. Daun was as
much one of the anxiously methodical Generals
FREDERICK'S METHODS 425
of the old school as was Prince Henry himself,
and the credit remains with the latter, as his
great brother always acknowledged, for having
defended Saxony for three years against the foe.
No part of it was lost, except Dresden itself, the
rest of the country remained as a source of revenue,
which the King could draw upon at will.
Duke Leopold I., the " alte Dessauer," had
already introduced a few technical improvements
into the Prussian Army. The unreliable wooden
ramrods had been replaced by iron, and the
bayonets bent outwards, so that the muskets could
be used for thrusting as well as shooting. Thus
more mobility had been attained, and the tactics
of Frederick's day show the dawn of a new era.
Dispositions were still substantially dominated
by the old line tactics, and armies advanced
straight against one another so that the course
of the battle was simplicity itself. Here, too,
Frederick was an innovator. He had as yet no
reserves in the modern sense, for although he
placed his troops in two lines they were both
very early engaged. He tried to supply the
place of a reserve by refusing with one wing at
the beginning of operations, in order to give the
decisive blow at the end with their husbanded
strength. This was the famous oblique order
which so many bunglers tried to copy. It is
well known what great success attended this
refusal of the wing at Leuthen, and how, on the
other hand, it led to the King's defeat at Kollin.
Already we can mark the transition to the
dramatic development of modern battles.
The Seven Years' War kindled, at all events
426 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
in the Prussian Army, a passionate and truly
national enthusiasm in which we can discern a
forecast of the Wars of Liberation. Upon its
heels followed the great upheaval of the French
Revolutionary period, which transformed at one
blow the entire existing system of warfare. It
brought the approximate realization of the idea
of universal service, which Prussia had long
possessed on paper, although the resistance of
the populace had prevented it being fully carried
out in the then existing economic conditions. In
France, however, the fearful disorder of the
Revolution had so shattered the old Bourbon
Army that it had to be constituted entirely anew.
Every man was forced to join the levee en masse
against the invading enemy, under the threat of
terrible penalties, and the looming shadow of the
guillotine. These terrorizing methods brought
together huge masses of men, the worst military
material which it is possible to imagine, but who
were still hundreds of thousands of human beings
through which the enemy must hack his way.
The Prussian and even the Austrian armies
were immeasurably superior to the Sansculottes ;
the Prussian soldiers carried away an immense
contempt for the " Katzenkoppe," whom they
always defeated when it came to fighting. What,
then, is the explanation of the loss of the Rhine
campaign ? One cause was the faulty policy
behind all the military operations, which did not
fix its gaze primarily upon the conquest of France,
but had an eye to a possible enrichment through
a slice of Poland or Bavaria. Above all, how-
ever, it was the alteration in the conduct of the
VALMY. CARNOT 427
war by France which made a decisive victory
impossible for the Allies. Even Goethe, than
whom no man was ever less a strategist, recog-
nized with the eye of genius the critical import-
ance of Valmy for the history of the world. Truly
upon that day a new world stood opposed to the
old. How many troops had the Duke of Bruns-
wick ? Forty thousand men. Even if he had
attacked and beaten the French at Valmy he
would certainly have been reduced to 25,000 men
before he reached Paris. To - day the idea of
taking and holding Paris with a force of that size
is ludicrous. The conquest of that vast crater
of the wildest passions with such a tiny body
of troops would be a senseless notion. Thus it
happened that the seasoned troops with all their
technical superiority were beaten in policy by
the hordes of Sansculottes, who, in those early
days, were still very awkward and unserviceable.
As time went on, however, we can trace in
them the dawn of a very remarkable improve-
ment. Carnot arose as the organisateur de la
victoire, and did for France what King William
and Roon did later for Prussia. Up to now the
fundamentally demoralized regiments of the old
Royal Army, wearing the white uniform of the
House of Bourbon, had fought side by side with
the new National Guard of the Revolution.
Carnot realized that these two differing elements
must be amalgamated. He combined them both
in the half-brigade system, and so founded the
popular Army, a democratic host, with the under-
lying principle that with good luck any one might
attain to the highest rank if he possessed real
428 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
individual talent, as Hoche, for instance, actually
did. Later, under the Directory, the leading
characteristics of the new Army Constitution
were crystallized, and the manner in which the
idea of universal service was limited and falsified
is significant of the French bourgeoisie. The
new law of conscription laid down that every
Frenchman was liable to serve, but that he was
permitted to buy himself free from this duty by
means of a remplagant or substitute. Oriental
fellow-citizens organized this commerce in human
flesh, and formed the honourable guild of " soul
merchants," as they were dubbed in our Alsace.
It is easy to imagine the disastrous reaction
of such a system upon the character of the nation
and the Army. It is better adapted than any
other to serve a policy of conquest and rapine, and
Napoleon realized when he became Dictator that
no instrument could better serve his ends. It
placed him in a position to make good his losses
continually, for a popular host of this kind can
never be destroyed, but on the other hand the
moral qualities of a truly national army, recruited
by means of a really effective compulsory service,
must always be lacking in such a force. All
were not required to serve, for the well-to-do
could buy themselves out, and the bulk of the
Army was drawn from the humbler folk, and
those classes of society who create public opinion
in the Press were represented only by the corps
of officers. Hence it comes that the Napoleonic
period was the time when the educated classes
were Chauvinists as a matter of course, and the
military enthusiasm of the Parisians reached the
NAPOLEON'S METHODS 429
pitch of exaltation. They listened with delight
to the accounts of the poor devils in the field
who were being slain for the sake of Paris and
gloire, and they were treated from time to time
to a triumph after the manner of ancient Rome,
and saw the long procession of prisoners of war
trail past the Vendome Column. It is small
wonder that Paris could never satisfy its appetite
for war, while it looked upon it as an end in
itself, rather than as a means towards the ends
of a well-considered policy. We can already see
clearly the effects of a really universal military
service in altering the temper of the French
nation. In words they swagger no less than of
old, but deeds do not bear out the outcry.
Frenchmen are less greedy for war now that
each of them has but one son, and war nowadays
means peril for the mother's darling. It was
otherwise when the substitute system secured
Napoleon against the risk of public opinion
proving any hindrance to his yearnings after
conquests.
He kept equally faithful to the other funda-
mental principle of the Revolutionary Armies
by allowing no obstacles to be placed in the way
of promotions, so that every drummer boy might
feel that he carried a Marshal's baton in his
knapsack. No Army can exist without a differ-
ence being made between the men who serve in
the ranks and the men who exercise command,
and the cleavage is, in fact, very marked socially ;
but it is in the exact point at which this necessary
dividing line is drawn that we can discern the
character of the different States. We have seen
430 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
that in the Roman Armies it was placed, accord-
ing to our notions, extremely high. The officers
proper were a very small number of individuals
belonging to the ruling families. Everybody
under the rank of Captain belonged to the
common herd, and the Centurion had no prospect
of being promoted to high command. In Armies
at later periods the nobility generally filled the
posts of officers. The French Revolution, how-
ever, proclaimed the principle of perfectly free
promotion throughout its Armies, thereby
weakening the sense of comradeship and chival-
rous honour in the ranks, but awakening on the
other hand a devouring ambition ; and the chief
need of these condottieri was a commander of
genius, who would be never weary of making
war. In practice, however, the constitution of
the French Army drew the frontier between the
officers and the men at a very high grade of rank.
It became a rule that the junior officers should
be taken from two widely different classes of
persons. Some, who were officers in our German
sense of the word, were drawn from the military
colleges, the institutions for the higher military
instruction, but the remainder had risen from
the ranks. The system continues in France unto
this day, and is bound to work havoc with com-
radeship, for a spirit of restless envy arises be-
tween the old officers who have worked their way
up, and their well-born young comrades. These
feelings are not soothed by the fact that as a rule
the younger officers, who have received a scientific
military training, are the only ones who attain
to Staff rank. Thus the dividing line is drawn
NAPOLEON'S STRATEGY 431
in quite the wrong place, because it is only from
the Staff-officer upwards that all the officers are
gentlemen.
For a character like Napoleon, however, all
these conditions were the best possible. He
could be absolutely certain that there would be
no public opposition to his lust for conquest.
His genius could venture upon gigantic military
operations which could never have been contem-
plated with the old Armies and the difficulties
which attended the replacement of their losses.
He knew himself to be able always to set fresh
Armies in the field, and therefore he could display
a marvellous audacity in his conduct of the first
Italian campaign of 1796. Think of the way in
which he turned the enemy in those operations.
He marched along the Riviera, crossed the
Apennines at their junction with the Maritime
Alps, and placed himself eastwards of the Pied-
montese and the Austrians. A defeat in that
position would have meant the loss of his Army ;
he fought, in the language of Clausewitz, with
reversed front. Later on he entered Milan, still
approaching from the east, although he had
started from the west. His circumstances
warranted such daring, which had indeed been
seen before, but only as a rare exception, as when
Prince Eugene of Savoy defeated the Lombards
in similar fashion, with reversed front.
Boldness of this kind is possible with national
Armies, from whom so much may be expected.
Napoleon always aimed at the heart of his enemy,
the capital of his country. Under him, too, the
progress of the battle itself became much more
432 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
complicated and more dramatic. He liked to
begin with a stubborn volley fire, then as soon
as he had discovered a weak point in the enemy's
line he directed a heavy massed artillery fire
upon it, and under this protection sent forward
his reserves, usually composed of the Old Guard,
carefully held back until this moment. The with-
holding of the reserve for a decisive blow was a
tactical manoeuvre which Frederick had already
employed occasionally in his own brilliant manner ;
Napoleon used it always. Under him the course
of the battle was more forcible and more com-
plex. Napoleonic methods of warfare reacted
upon his enemies both as a stimulus and for
instruction. Scharnhorst and Gneisenau were
both his disciples. Gneisenau's dispute with
Schwarzenberg in 1814 is indicative of the man,
and marks the contrast between the new school
and the old. Schwarzenberg wished to make
nothing more than a demonstration against Paris,
in the hope of frightening the enemy into making
terms of peace. Hence the elaborate advance
through Switzerland, a turning movement which
was expected to perform wonders, although
it actually only prolonged the campaign.
Gneisenau, however, pointed with outstretched
arm towards the enemy's capital ; in Paris only
could peace be concluded. He recognized aright
the spirit of a national Army, as Scharnhorst had
created it.
Scharnhorst, too, had learned much from
Napoleon, but he had at the same time developed
Napoleon's ideas along noble lines. When the
battle of Jena taught the Prussian State the
SCHARNHORST 433
bitter lesson that henceforward the old forms
must be discarded, and totally new ones take
their place, ninety-nine men out of a hundred
would have adopted the French system without
modification, even as the Armies of Europe were
modelled upon those of Germany after 1871
Prussia had been beaten by the French Army,
whose superiority could not be denied. But
Scharnhorst was a military genius, and in conse-
quence an originator. He had first seen service in a
small mercenary Army, in the English-Hanoverian
employ, later he had fought against the levee en
masse and the troops of the French Empire, and
finally in the service of Prussia he had had to do
with an Army which was partly national and
partly of hired troops. This was his practical ex-
perience, though he adopted none of the types for
his pattern, but going back to the almost forgotten
District Regulations of Frederick William I. he
at once brought forward the idea of universal
service without any exceptions. He asserted,
besides, the necessity of cadres for the Army,
which should apply not only to troops of the
line, but also to the reserve of time-expired men
(Landwehr). These were Scharnhorst 's proposals,
which he put forward first immediately after
1808, but they could not then be put in practice,
because Napoleon had forbidden the Prussian
Army to exceed 42,000 men.
Scharnhorst had instantly perceived that the
substitute system was fundamentally antagonistic
to the Prussian spirit. Economic considera-
tions had compelled us to grant exceptions from
the rule of universal service, but our nation had
VOL. II 2 F
434 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
never contemplated that any individual should
buy himself off from his bounden duty, and it
is significant that in all the long discussions no
Prussian officer of note ever recommended that
we should imitate this French expedient. Another
institution which Scharnhorst knew would go
against the grain of our good German customs
was a corps of officers upon the French model.
The Prussian Army had no use for the soldiers
of fortune who rose to prominence in France.
Nor was it desirable to allow the corps of officers
to be divided into the young educated gentlemen
on the one hand, and the old ex-non-commissioned
officers upon the other. The mixture of old
Captains and young Staff-officers, which Napoleon
liked so much, left but little room for the spirit
of comradeship and esprit de corps. Scharnhorst
himself was of humble origin, the son of a peasant,
but he had the aristocratic temper which no
genuine military leader can dispense with, and
he well knew that there must be a line of social
demarcation between officers and men ; he
thought, like Washington, that only gentlemen
should hold commissions, and while he discarded
their monopoly by the nobility, he wished to
create a corps of officers which should be inwardly
united by common social standards. This reveals
his profound insight into German character.
In what do Germans consider that class differ-
ences consist ? Somewhat prejudiced as we are
in the direction of idealism, we instinctively seek
them in culture, and every man amongst us can
tell the difference between those who are educated
and those who are not. Our Civil Service has
SCHARNHORST 435
long been organized on these lines, and the intel-
lectual test of examinations divides the superior
officials from their uncertificated subordinates.
Even admission to the corps of officers must
depend on proof of positive attainments being
given, and the rule should only be relaxed in
favour of quite exceptional services in action.
In time of peace Scharnhorst was inexorable in
requiring a barrier between officers and men,
in the shape of intellectual tests. Another even
more important feature of his scheme was that
the various corps of officers should have voice
in the selection of candidates for admission to
their midst. This made a very marked excep-
tion to the rule of unconditional obedience which
otherwise prevails throughout the Army, but in
this way the body of officers was protected from
the unwholesome elements always present in
periods where social conditions are in a state of
perpetual flux.
It is clear, however, that the responsibility
of military commands requires not only intel-
lectual training, but also a certain amount of
social education. Scharnhorst was not able to
foresee all the consequences of his fundamental
principle. We must always admire him for his
introduction of the intellectual tests, and the
moral standards alongside of them through the
medium of the officers themselves. A united
military aristocracy was thereby created, which
at the same time was as democratic as it was
possible to be. The subaltern is an officer like
any other, in spite of the modest position he
holds in the Army.
436 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
With the years 1813 and 1814 came the great
time of trial when the instrument thus created was
put to the proof. The old plans for the Landwehr
had never been able to materialize, and we all
know how a Landwehr was improvised, of a kind
of which Scharnhorst himself had never dreamed.
It was made up of all the material which had
found no place in the first line, old men and boys
were flung together impetuously into the troops
of this second line, and an improvised corps of
officers arose entirely upon its own initiative.
It became the rule for the landed proprietor, who
exercised a control in the district in virtue of
his social position, to take a commission and
continue to exercise a military command over the
same individuals as before. Thus was the valiant
Landwehr of 1813 constructed. It had all the
defects which arose from the hurry in which it
was brought together; for although it lacked
nothing in courage or in devotion, it was too weak
to withstand the fatigues which are attendant
upon the iron discipline of a trained Army on
the march, and Blucher's force, which was called
upon to make such terrific exertions, lost so many
of these second-line troops that only one-third
of them were still with York's Corps at the
battle of Mockern. The line regiments were
still, as ever, the backbone of our Army ; all the
leaders were with them ; nor could this be other-
wise than it was.
The Landwehr had originally only been in-
tended for service at home, and for the conquest
and occupation of fortresses taken from the
enemy. To Gneisenau the credit belongs for the
LANDWEHR OF 1813 437
insertion into the new regulations for these troops
of a modest clause, providing for their employ-
ment beyond the frontier in exceptional cases.
It soon was evident that the exception must
become the rule. Gneisenau had organized the
Silesian Landwehr upon a footing which would
enable them to take the field, but the war had
lasted from May until August before the Landwehr
regiments took part in the campaign. The
final result was much influenced by the fact of
these fresh troops being there to back up the
Northern Army under Bulow. They took part
in a comparatively large number of skirmishes
and battles, but then they had not been worn
down by the terrible wet - weather marches of
the summer of 1813 as the armies of Silesia and
Bohemia had been. Afterwards Bulow's Corps
was taken to Belgium for the comfortable winter
campaign, and it did not join Blucher in France
until later.
The valiant Northern Army had thus been
the luckiest in escaping the fatigues of the cam-
paign, and it was here that the Landwehr showed
itself to most advantage. This had a decisive
effect, for the Chief of the General Staff of this
Corps was presently appointed War Minister for
Prussia, and from these favourable experiences
he formed his sanguine opinion of the efficiency
of the Landwehr troops. However, an inno-
vator ought to be optimistic, and it was fortunate
in the long run that Boyen did over-estimate the
qualities of the Landwehr. Thus within a few
weeks, in September 1814, the new Prussian
Militia Law was enacted, which organized the
438 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
Landwehr as a reserve force which was to consist
of time-expired soldiers of the line. The fault
of the new organization lay in rating the number
of first-line troops at far too low a figure. The
line was so weak that it had to be made up from
the Landwehr every time it was put upon a
war-footing. In 1819 the Army was rearranged
so that a brigade of regular troops corresponded
to a brigade of Landwehr, and the latter troops
were made liable to be called up in times of peace
if required for a diplomatic demonstration. This
was not an arrangement which could continue
very long, if only on account of the difficulties
which arose regarding officers, for how was it
possible to allow a corps of Landwehr officers to
organize itself in peace time, as Boyen had
intended ? The veterans of the war died off,
and the question of the supply of officers became
more and more embarrassing.
The achievements of the Army, despite its
deficiencies of organization, and the loyalty with
which it confronted the trials of the year 1848
are astonishing, and worthy of all admiration.
Nevertheless his experience of the mobilization
during the Olmutz episode gave the Prince of
Prussia much food for thought. The Army had
suffered much through the prevalent desire for
peace. In 1833 a period of two years had been
fixed for military service, a measure from which
the Prince had early learnt to withhold his
approval. In 1852 the three years' service was
legally restored, and through it the stimulus of
ambition could be brought to bear upon the rank
and file ; for it held out to every individual the
LANDWEHR OF 1860 439
hope of gaining an earlier discharge by his de-
serving conduct. A moral force, for which there
is no other equivalent, was thus infused into the
Army. The Prince was obliged to postpone the
introduction of all the other reforms which he
had at heart until he succeeded to the throne. It
was then that universal military service was
really instituted for the first time. The organ-
ization of the Prussian Army in the year 1860
bears a striking resemblance to Carnot's reforms.
Its aim was to link the first and the second line
of defence firmly to one another. The number
of line regiments was increased, and the three
youngest Landwehr classes were transferred to
the first reserve of the line, which was thereby
so strengthened that it was no longer necessary
to deplete the senior classes of the Landwehr the
moment that the regular Army had to be made
up to strength. This brought about a great
lightening of economic burdens, which more than
made up for increased Army Estimates. Thence-
forward the Landwehr filled the subordinate
part for which it was designed. Its task and
position should not be so interpreted as to impair
the technical efficiency of the Army, or to dis-
organize the corps of officers. The reintroduc-
tion of the untested two years' system, with all
the increased difficulties and requirements of
to-day, would be an experiment all the more
fateful because harder to retract. In 1852 the
King could vary the time of service merely by
legal decree, but it must be apparent to any one
who is acquainted with the psychology of our
Diets that the Emperor is in a very much more
440 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
difficult position, for it would be impossible now
to revert without more ado to a previous system
on the failure of such an experiment.
There can be no question that the example of
the German national Army has had its effect upon
the rest of Europe. The gibes formerly hurled at
it have all proved fallacious. It used to be the
fashion abroad to dismiss the Prussian Landwehr
and the Prussian schoolboy army with a contempt-
uous shrug. Now it is far otherwise. Practical
experience has demonstrated that in war the
moral qualities of the troops outweigh their
technical training, and that increased efficiency
in this respect goes hand in hand with moral
deterioration of barrack life. The elderly French
sergeants did not, as the French had expected,
give their troops a superiority over the Germans.
We may safely say that Germany has been the
first country to grapple seriously with the problem
of drawing forth the resources of the nation by
means of universal military training, and of
giving them efficient value in war. Our Army
furnishes us with a peculiar and logical extension
of our school system. There are many for whom
it is the best education conceivable, and who
could ill afford to dispense with the drill, the
enforced cleanliness, and the stern and virile
discipline both moral and physical, especially
in a time like ours when other restraints are so
relaxed. Carlyle prophesied that the Prussian
idea of universal military service would per-
meate the world. Almost every great continental
Power has tried to copy it since the organization
of the Prussian Army stood its trial so trium-
PRUSSIAN SYSTEM 441
phantly in 1866 and 1870. It was not, however,
so easy to imitate as foreign nations assumed.
The Prussian Army system is the nation in
arms, and to that extent it is the embodiment of
national characteristics and virtues. Three con-
ditions are necessary to its success a modicum of
political freedom, satisfaction with the Govern-
ment, and considerable latitude in social adminis-
tration. Furthermore, an instinctive respect for
culture is required, without which the institution
of the one-year volunteer would be unthinkable.
This is designed to make service in the ranks
morally and economically endurable for the edu-
cated classes. In France the craving for an ex-
ternal egalite has barred the way to this volunteer
system, but in Germany we could hardly do
without it, because, quite apart from the fact
that the number of our regular officers is not
nearly enough for a war, the young men of educa-
tion who take commissions in the Reserve and
Landwehr at the end of their one year of voluntary
service are in many ways more in touch with the
people than the corps of professional officers can
be, and they form the natural link between these
latter and the rank and file.
The heavy burden of universal service can
be further eased by a certain amount of de-
centralization, which enables each individual,
broadly speaking, to put in his service in his
native province. Our provincial Army Corps
have as a rule given a very good account of them-
selves, and must continue to compose the bulk
of the Army, while the Guard furnishes their
wholesome counterpoise, in a corps drawn from
442 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
the length and breadth of the kingdom, forming
a body of picked troops to act as a spur upon the
remainder. Our system of provincial Army
Corps does not exist in the strictly centralized
French organization where Gascon and Norman
stand shoulder to shoulder in the same regiment.
We, on the contrary, rightly regard local feeling
as a strong cement to bind the comrades in a
regiment together. A certain degree of national
sentiment is naturally presupposed by the idea
of universal service if it is to have a consolidat-
ing effect. Small individual districts inhabited
by alien nationalities are of no great importance,
and can be dealt with by a few simple precau-
tionary measures. Austria is worse off in this
respect, for there the Reserve officers are the
weak point of the Army. They are good Czechs,
good Germans, good Magyars, everything except
good Austrians, and for this the future may hold
a bitter retribution.
Until a short time ago we were ahead of other
nations in all these matters concerning military
organization, but of late the neighbouring States
have so overstrained their military preparations
that Germany has seen herself compelled to go
yet further, and this time she is following in the
footsteps of foreign nations. By the nature of
things this cannot go on indefinitely, but in this
respect the immense vitality of the Teutonic
race will ensure its predominance over the less
prolific nations. The French are already danger-
ously near their limit, but the Germans have
still a much greater latitude in the number of
men they can call to the colours.
NATIONAL ARMIES 443
Once more let it be clearly understood what
effect these new military formations will have
upon the future conduct of war. Generally
speaking, their tendency is towards peace, for a
whole nation in arms is far more difficult to rouse
from its civil avocations to engage in a frivolous
war than a conscript Army would be. Wars
will become rarer and shorter, but at the same
time far more sanguinary. The longing to return
home will act as a strong incentive to advance.
The feeling which the Prussian soldiery expressed
in the summer of 1866 let us press forward
quickly to the Danube so that we come home the
sooner is the normal attitude of a brave but
peace-loving Army, and the daring tactics which
aim straight at the heart of the enemy have
become a commonplace of modern strategy. It
is not too much to say that when a people can
look back upon a glorious military past, nothing
is impossible for such a national Army. This is
borne out by the experience of our two most
recent wars, especially by the battles of Konig-
gratz and Mars la Tour. At Sadowa we saw
fourteen Prussian battalions holding their own
against forty-two Austrian battalions, and the
French war shows a succession of battles on a
reversed front, where defeat would have driven
us back into the heart of the enemy's country.
Under the national system the problem of sparing
the Army is of quite secondary importance in
comparison with the much weightier considera-
tion of annihilating the enemy. Here there is
no danger from desertion, and the troops can be
billeted anywhere.
444 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
Even Montecuculi's well-known saying, which
was still endorsed by Frederick the Great, that
war requires money, more money, and still more
money, is now completely antiquated. Doubt-
less the preparations for modern war entail vast
financial means, but during the war itself the
invader at least can do without money. He has
merely to tap the resources of the occupied
country, and can even leave his troops tempor-
arily without pay. When Blucher wrote an
order in France for a great war contribution
towards the needs of his famishing soldiers, a
counter-order arrived from the King, forbidding
him to embitter the French too much, and pro-
mising that the pay should be sent from Prussia.
Blucher replied, " Your Majesty's Army is not
a mercenary Army, and if I am not to take
money from the enemy, at least let us not be an
unnecessary burden upon our own country."
It is well known that Napoleon began the cam-
paign of 1806 with a war-chest of 40,000 francs,
and our straits in 1813 were much worse, for at
the beginning of the war we had only 2000
florins in cash, but we forthwith converted the
wealth of Saxony into ready money, and so were
able to proceed.
A certain independence of action in the sub-
ordinate commands is another essential of national
Armies, in view of the vast masses of men involved.
General Manteuffel once told me that on the
foggy morning preceding the battle of Noisseville
he was only able to give quite vague instructions,
and for the rest was obliged to rely entirely upon
the independence and trustworthiness of his
MODERN WAR 445
Generals. The evolution of strategy on a basis
of universal service is still incomplete, for the
world has not yet seen a struggle between two
national Armies. The last great war was the
struggle of a truly national Army, first against a
conscript Army and later against an improvised
militia. The spectacle of the clash between two
really highly trained national Armies is still to
come. It will be Titanic, and the world will
then behold losses and successes on a giant scale.
If we also take into account the quantity of new
mechanical appliances for war provided by recent
invention, it becomes obvious that future cam-
paigns hold many more surprises in store even
than the last war between France and Germany.
Modern methods of transport have so import-
ant a bearing upon military operations that a
State can never possess too large a railway
system from this point of view. The rapid occu-
pation of the enemy's territory is of paramount
importance, for it paralyses his means of con-
centration. Napoleon III. made a grave mistake
in 1870 in not occupying at least a part of the
left bank of the Rhine. In the first place we
could not have prevented it, as is openly ad-
mitted in the Introduction to the official history
of the General Staff, which was probably written
by Moltke himself. The movement would have
deprived our Field Army of two army-corps.
Therefore the more railway lines leading to
the frontier the better; but here, as elsewhere,
we must repeat that everything must have its
natural limitations, for though railroads do
greatly facilitate the massing of troops on the
446 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
frontier at the outbreak of war, they are of less
value during the progress of the campaign, and
it is easy for a single flying column to make one
of them useless for a long period of time. More-
over the effectivity of a railway is not unbounded,
and only a certain number of troops and muni-
tions of war can be transported daily by its
means. Our General Staff calculates that an
army of 60,000 men can cover a distance of thirty
miles as fast on foot as by train, and it is often
more practical for the troops to employ the
requisite time in marching. Hence it is clear
that the railway can only be used to advantage
by troops over long distances, and not always
then. If an advance is to be kept secret it must
be made on foot, as was shown by Bourbaki's
unfortunate move on southern Alsace. He as-
sembled his army on the railway, and attempted
to carry it thus to the Vosges. It is the opinion
of all our officers that, if the troops had marched,
the German outposts would not have noticed
the little bodies of men on the western spurs of
the range of hills in time. As it was, our vedettes
of Uhlans on the heights were able to report a
remarkable activity on the railway line in the
valley, and General Werder gained time to place
his troops in defensive order. The old view, that
much depends upon the marching capacity of the
infantry, still applies in modern warfare.
On the other hand, opinions have greatly altered
regarding the value of fortified places. The days
are long past in which every town was a fortress,
and when a prolonged war in the enemy's country
resolved itself into siege operations. The ques-
FORTRESSES 447
tion has already been raised whether fortifica-
tions are of any real value at all, and German
opinion is far more open to conviction on this
point than the French. France erected an
immense wall of forts from Sedan to Belfort, and
thought thus to sever herself from Germany as
if by the great Wall of China. Over a line so
extended, however, the engineer was bound to
leave some gap which the Germans could not
fail to find. There is besides another and still
more important consideration. Walls do not de-
fend themselves, and for the effective protection
of great fortresses a powerful body of troops is
required, who have to be withdrawn from service
in the open field. German opinion holds that,
as things are, the little Sperr-forts (forts d'arr&t,
so called), are still required, and may be turned
to good account. A little fortress of this kind,
situated in a mountain pass, can, under certain
conditions, bar a whole line of advance against
the enemy. Take, for instance, Konigstein in
Saxony. Impregnable it is not, but it cannot be
quickly reduced, and in 1866 the important line
of rail from Dresden to Prague was destroyed, and
rendered useless to Prussia for the whole of the
fourteen days, because it could not be repaired
under the artillery fire from the fortress. The
Prussian advance into Bohemia was greatly
hampered in consequence. The fortress of
Bitsch in the Vosges played a similar part, and
it appears that these small hill fortifications will
continue to have their value.
Large fortresses are nevertheless essential as
places of refuge for a whole Army, especially as
448 CONSTITUTION OF THE ARMY
enabling a beaten host to shelter and recuperate.
Strassburg and Metz serve this purpose, but all
our officers agree that the number of such places
should not become too large. Many deny their
usefulness altogether, for in war the decision
always lies in the open field, and there are great
drawbacks to every military system which
diminishes our strength in that sphere. Fortresses
of this size require a great number of troops to
garrison them, even when there is no enemy in
the neighbourhood. Everything leads us back
to the same conclusion, that national Armies are
so vitalized by moral force that they can be
more relied upon than any others for a daring
offensive.
I will, in conclusion, only refer briefly to the
Fleet, and to its increasing importance, not for
European war properly speaking because no
one now believes that a struggle between two
great Powers can be decided by naval battles
but for the protection of colonies and commerce.
The domination of Transatlantic territory is
becoming the first task of the Navies of modern
Europe, for since the goal of human civilization
will be the establishment of the aristocracy of the
white races over the whole globe, the importance
of each nation will ultimately depend upon its
share in that Transatlantic domination. This
is the reason why the Navy has grown in import-
ance in our own times.
XXIV
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
THE administration of justice is the second of
the State's great executive functions, and to
every State the scales are as necessary as the
sword. It is obviously idle to attempt to estab-
lish this necessity upon grounds of national
economics, as modern materialists now seek to
do. It is a self-contradiction to assert that the
State must have an organized system of law
because the State is the only protector of money
and the value of money. This is a va-repov irporepov,
because it is paradoxical to talk of money, or
money- value, without presupposing a system of
law. Law is not the supplement of money, or
devised to protect it, for it is only upon a basis
of law that property can be held or trafficked
with at all. The exercise of jurisdiction is a
supreme prerogative of the State, by virtue of the
State being in its essence the people legally united.
The right appertains to the State alone, and it
cannot renounce it without renouncing itself at
the same time.
For this reason, all healthy States whose
development is rapid have early centralized the
VOL. II 449 2 G
450 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
enactment and administration of law, and the
ordering and maintenance of justice. In this
respect England is the classical and enviable
model. The troubled history of our own
Fatherland, on the contrary, has experienced
the divided jurisdiction of many petty lords, and
has suffered much thereby. Wherever we find
the patrimonial system of law existing in a
State, it is a sign that the State idea is still un-
developed. In the same way the despatch of
legal documents to foreign faculties of law
in order to obtain their opinion was a token of
lack of political maturity, and Frederick the
Great knew well enough what he was about
when he forbade his judges to consult other than
Prussian Universities on these matters. All
administration of justice belongs to the sphere
of politics. The verdict of the judge must be
in harmony with the history and the spirit of
the State to which he belongs ; we should never
see in practice an abstract law of the schools,
resting upon clouds, and having no firm ground
beneath its feet. Judicial activities should be
more in touch than any others with the develop-
ments of knowledge, but they must remain
practical also, and in kinship with the institutions
of their native country.
The State's administration of justice comprises
three divisions. Firstly, there is the supremacy
of law, which everywhere belongs to the State
and to the highest authority in the State. This
supremacy is most natural when vested in the
monarch. In a monarchy justice is administered in
the King's name, the judge is usually appointed by
FUNCTIONS OF THE KING 451
him, or at all events the Minister of Justice is the
instrument of the Crown in its judicial capacity,
for superintending the trial of causes, and in his
name likewise the law - officers of the Crown
prosecute offences against public order. Thus
all justice emanates from the King, who, by his
prerogative of pardon, is further able to mitigate
the conflict between the stern requirements of
abstract justice and the condoning circum-
stances of the concrete case. The supreme
legal function must not be confused with the
actual enforcement of the law as embodied in
the office of judge. By the nature of things the
magisterial functions should only appertain to
officials, or to such unsalaried citizens as are in-
vested by the State with judicial responsibilities.
The third section of the State's jurisdiction is
the pronouncing of sentence. We shall examine
later how far it is possible and advisable to admit
inexpert opinion in finding the verdict ; but the
magisterial office should never appertain to any
but persons of standing.
We come next to the consideration of some of
the leading principles of legal policy, and we find
the first fundamental maxim of jurisprudence to
be that no one should be withdrawn from the
jurisdiction of his natural judge. In an age of
class divisions a man's equals are his natural
judges in the old German law every man was
tried per pares suos ; in an egalitarian age
jurisdiction can only be vested in the competent
Courts. The enduring principle is always
equality before the law, but it was infringed by
the system of extraordinary Courts of High
452 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Commission which our Kings were empowered
to appoint up to the year 1848, and which, at an
earlier date, were customary in Germany for
trying political causes. There is no violation of
principle, however, in the appointment of special
tribunals to deal with the cases of particular
professions, for reasons of technical expediency.
Thus we have Courts set apart for dealing with
commercial questions requiring a closer know-
ledge of mercantile conditions for their settle-
ment, and upon grounds of discipline special
military Courts have also been established, which
are composed of officers, with the collaboration
of a military assessor. These exceptions cannot
be regarded as fundamentally contradictory of
the axiom that the universal rules of justice
apply to all men alike.
The second principle upon which a system of
legal administration must be based is that of a
publicity of action which will enable every man
who is really interested to trace the connection
between the sentence and the guilt of the accused,
so that he may understand the verdict as a moral
necessity. For this reason the Courts of Justice
must be open to the public; but here, unfortu-
nately, the misbehaviour of the press works much
harm. This is the greater pity because the news-
papers are nowadays the principal medium for
the publicity of justice. In the Court itself a
few hundred persons at most can follow the
proceedings, but the press reports are read by
millions. Therefore, in spite of the scandalous
exploitation of law-cases in the newspapers, we
are forced to admit that the advantages of the
SECRET COURTS 453
system compensate for its drawbacks, but the
President of the Court must have the courage to
exclude the public and with them the reporters
from the hearing of indecent cases.
Once the idea of public trials is introduced
the demand for them spreads with the irresisti-
bility of a force of nature. Suspicion will always
attach, however undeservedly, to the conduct
of all cases heard in camera, so that the State
will be gradually obliged to suppress the practice
altogether. This applies equally to military
jurisdiction. I personally have no doubt that
in this sphere the interests of justice are con-
sulted. The aggrieved soldier will speak much
less frankly in open Court than if the proceedings
are conducted behind closed doors, where he
will more readily find courage to make his con-
fession to some officer in whom he has personal
confidence. It is undeniable, however, that once
the rule of the public administration of justice
is established, exceptions raise universal mistrust,
so that finally the reputation of secret Courts
suffers directly. It is of no use to try to resist
the tendency to publicity, but there must be no
tampering with the power of the military tribunal
to insist upon secrecy if the interests of discipline
demand it. Every Army would be ruined with-
out this provision. Think, for instance, of the
trial of Marshal Bazaine ; if the dirty linen of a
whole campaign is to be washed before the eyes
of the world, the spirit of the Army must suffer
accordingly. We Germans must always re-
pudiate the idea that our institutions should ever
be put, even approximately, to such a use, and
454 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
therefore the right must be retained for court-
martials to suppress publicity in any given case.
Apart from this exception, however, the necessity
for the public administration of justice is un-
doubted and unconditional.
The perfect certainty of obtaining justice is by
no means sufficiently secured by the two demands
we have named viz,, that no one should be
withdrawn from his natural judge, and that the
rule of publicity should be established for the
hearing of cases ; but its most effective bulwark
should be the type of men chosen to fill the office
of judge. Justice can only be dispensed aright
by a body of men who are both learned and inde-
pendent. The value of a man's political opinions
can be best measured by his opinion about the
class of men who should be called to perform
this service to the State. None of our monarchs
have shown more understanding in this matter
than Frederick the Great, who was the great
jurist among the Hohenzollerns. In the corre-
spondence called forth by Catherine II. 's desire
for reform in her Empire of Russia, he wrote to
her that everything depended upon the possession
of a good class of judges, who should be incor-
ruptible and really learned. He directed his
efforts in his own country to the same end. He
created for this purpose a respected body,
educated by a gradual system of promotion, who
should themselves have the training of their
younger colleagues on the bench, an arrange-
ment which has become so important for the
consideration enjoyed by the whole body of
judges. Their salaries under Frederick the Great
JUDGES 455
were very much higher than they are at present,
so that their material position was relatively
very independent, and they were men of learning,
whose activities in the scientific sphere of their
profession were much favoured and furthered
by those in high places. Much must always
depend upon such encouragement, for as the
magistracy is the living personification of the
law, it must try to keep pace with the develop-
ment of knowledge, with which, in a civilized
nation, the development of law goes hand in hand.
Sound administration of justice depends far more
upon the thoroughness of the previous training of
the judicial body than upon the letter of the law.
No precautions taken to procure learned and
upright judges can, however, be an absolute
guarantee for the just dispensation of law. All
law is form, and is liable to be ensnared by its
own forms, which may become hurtful to the
sense of justice. No legal constitution can be
protection enough against the summum jus,
summa injuria. It is a sign of political sound-
ness, and a support for the energetic administra-
tion of law, when a nation exhibits a living sense
of justice, and a jealous regard for law without
being dragged into frivolous litigation. The ex-
aggeration which he loves so well has led Ihering
into grave errors concerning this latter point,
in his Struggle for Justice. In life, as he repre-
sents it, our principal occupation would have to
be a perpetual disputing with our neighbours,
and he waxes enthusiastic over the Englishman
who stayed a whole month stuck in Heidelberg
on account of a quarrel with a cabman over two-
456 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
pence. I could show him greater ideals than
this abortive prank of an English tourist. Even
in Greek and Roman times heavy penalties had
been introduced for frivolous lawsuits. There
is quite as much need for a social forbearance
which will prevent men from being petty enough
to go to law for every little annoyance as there is
for the struggle for justice.
Finally, there is another clear demand, namely,
that the benefits of the law should be accessible
to every one, in practice as well as in theory. In
this England is as much behind the Continent
as she is in advance of us in other respects. A
civil suit is so expensive there that it is only
within reach of the rich ; the small tenant cannot
bring an action against his landlord, because its
costs are prohibitive. This aristocratic distor-
tion of life is a fundamental flaw in the organi-
zation of the English State, for it is evident that
such conditions are radically wrong, and that
where they exist the State will be compelled to
intervene to enable the poor to have access to
legal proceedings. Justice cannot be healthily
administered where access to it is not free to all.
The function of the State in the administra-
tion of justice is twofold : it seeks first of all
to uphold the law by penalizing the dolus of
the wrong-doer, and the culpa of the well-
intentioned. -In the second place the State
interposes its judicial decision to assert the
stability of law in cases where doubt and dispute
arise between the citizens regarding the inter-
pretation thereof. Here we have the age-long
difference between criminal and civil law. It
DEFINITION OF FRAUD 457
is not possible to define it scientifically and
unconditionally, and all attempt to do so is
simply a theoretical word-spinning. Between the
domain of penal law and the law of persons
properly speaking there lies a wide border-land
of actions for the recovery of damage, known
to the general public by the collective name
of fraud or "tort." Trade is unfortunately
never separable from quackery and deceit, but
the question is at what point do these become
punishable ? Is the limit reached by the posters
of certain advertising agencies which announce
some manifest new lie daily ? It is fraud,
morally, if a man recommends me some vin
ordinaire as a first-rate vintage, but is it
fraud in the legal sense ? Theory must be
content to leave such decisions to practical
legislation, for it is not possible to draw a fixed
line which shall apply universally and for all
time. In considering these questions we must
take the historian's standpoint, and remember
that it is the business of the State to keep in
harmony with the nation's conscience, and to
exercise an educative influence upon it. In a
time like our own, when swindling of all kinds
has increased to so tremendous an extent, trans-
gressions of this kind are particularly harmful to
the common weal, and the penalization of fraud
has not been extended without good reason. The
business relationships and moral conditions exist-
ing in the nation must be the lawgiver's final
guide in his practical consideration of the question
of what is to be regarded as fraudulent and
what is not.
458 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
It is plain, however, that the penal code and
criminal prosecution belong to the domain of public
law, and are not the affair of individuals. Civil
actions are rightly placed by all jurists within
the same public sphere. The question whether
this house belongs legally to me or to some one
else is a private affair, but whether in the present
state of the law I am able to prove my right in
Court, or whether difficulties are placed in my
way, is a question of the greatest public import-
ance. This is the reason why the whole practical
application of the theory of jurisprudence in civil
and criminal procedure belongs to the domain of
public law.
The penal code has the most importance for
the politician. In criminal law the national
conscience speaks with its most certain voice,
and the lawgiver is obliged so to mete out his
penalties as to some extent to satisfy these
moral susceptibilities. Naturally this does not
imply that they are to be slavishly followed, for
if we lay down the rule that only those acts shall
be punished which the national morality con-
demns, we do not thereby forbid the State under
certain circumstances to go in advance of the
nation in moral development. Take the case
of Corsica, for instance, where it is the clear
duty of France to call the vendetta methods by
their proper name of murder, unheeding of the
opinion of the population upon the moral aspect
of the question. In a great civilized country,
however, that penal code will be so closely bound
up with the nation's views of morality that we
may call it a crime against nationality if varying
PUNISHMENT 459
forms of the law are permitted to exist within
one frontier. Nothing is so apt to confuse a
people's conception of justice as an unequal
treatment for criminals. We can realise what a
curse particularism was amongst us only a few
decades ago, when we consider the fury with
which our Rhinelanders struggled until 1848 to
keep the privilege of their harsh and cruel code
penal. They had no feeling of shame that an
alien law should rule on German soil, and equally
little did they reck that in Barmen a criminal
should be punished who would have gone free
in Westphalia, a couple of miles farther east.
Uniformity is indispensable to a nation's penal
code if all sense of justice or injustice is not to be
obscured amongst the people.
Let us first consider the nature of punishment.
It is clearly not to be regarded as revenge. The
wrong-doer is not punished in order that he may
suffer, but he has to suffer in order that he may
be punished. The transgression of an individual
cannot affect the majesty of the State, therefore
there can be no question of the State taking
revenge for it. The idea is too foolish to be any
longer entertained by anybody. Another senti-
mental point of view endows the State with the
Christian idea that it is wrong to harm our neigh-
bour even if he is harmful, and concludes that
punishment is the State's means of defending
itself against attacks upon human society. This
effeminate notion was the foundation of our
modern penal code, promoted especially by
Lasker, who supported it with eloquence worthy
of a better cause. The folly of it is palpable.
460 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
What is self-defence ? Self-defence presupposes
a condition of pressure from without which
justifies the person threatened in committing
an action unallowable in itself. How can we
suppose the majesty of the State placed in such
a position ? Is fear of the criminal to force it to
do something which it has no right to do, and to
perpetrate an injustice by cutting off his head ?
Here is a confusion of ideas indeed ! What has
become of the majesty and moral sanctity of
justice ? This is where philanthropy leads us
when it forsakes solid ground, but we need not
launch serious arguments against such an idea
as this.
There is not much more to be said for two
other theories, which are equally nattering to the
sentimentality and false philanthropy of the
present day. The fundamental principle of all
punishment by the State lies in its obligation to
provide for the security of society. The question
to be decided is, what does it aim at in its in-
dividual penalties ? Many will answer with
Holtzendorff, " the improvement of the criminal,"
as if the State held a cure of souls, and was
bound to search the hearts of its citizens. By
its very nature the law is a protection only to the
visible order of the common life of men. The
State is content with an outward obedience from
its subjects ; it may not inquire into the temper
with which this obedience is rendered. If this
is so, we must not ask it to concern itself with
bringing about the reform of all its black sheep.
Besides, it is obvious that some punishments are
not designed for this purpose ; the death penalty
PUNISHMENT 461
certainly is not, and it would be hard indeed to
harmonize it with efforts for the criminal's im-
provement. The State is indeed acting in accord-
ance with the ideas of Christianity when it uses
its prisons as an opportunity for missionaries to
influence hardened hearts, but it is senseless to
make the reform of the criminal the real object
of all punishment, although it may, under certain
circumstances, be a side issue.
It is easier to defend the other theory which
holds that the aim of punishment is deterrence
from crime, although this effect of it will always
remain uncertain. We all know that some are not
deterred, but appear before the judge guilty of
the same transgression for which others have been
punished. But who can tell how many thousands
have strangled a criminal thought purely out
of terror of prison ? It is certain that there are
many men so brutish that only this fear can
restrain them. Undoubtedly punishment can
have this deterrent effect, but its working is
problematical, and therefore cannot be the thing
principally aimed at. Moreover the State is
bound to carry out its sentence, even if quite
aware that it will not act as a deterrent.
This leads to the conclusion that the absolute
theory of punishment, now regarded by all
enlightened people with such sovereign contempt,
is in fact the only right one. Here Hegel hit the
right nail on the head, and the idea was recog-
nized long ago in our German expression which
tells the plain man that " punishment must be."
Its necessity proceeds directly from the nature
of the State as order. The State, being the
462 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
lawful organization of the people, is bound to
thrust out crime, and to repair and expiate by
means of punishment the disturbance which
crime has caused to order guarded by law. The
criminal must be compelled, even against his will,
to recognize the moral majesty of the State.
Ihering has tried to dismiss this view of the nature
of punishment as a pedantic shibboleth, but the
idea within the words " punishment must be "
finds an echo in every human conscience, while
the deterrence doctrine is nothing but a bloodless
theory. Punishment is an end in itself : it is the
expiation of insult offered to the law. Incident-
ally it may act as a deterrent, or as an instrument
of reform, and the more it does so the better for
the State, but certainly it cannot and may not
do so always.
The public conscience has a direct bearing upon
the organization of a State's system of punish-
ments. The taxes, the penal code, and the
management of schools are the topics of every
ale house, for every man thinks himself entitled
to his say on these subjects. Most people have
children at school, and take a vital interest in
their treatment, while questions of criminal law
stir the depths of the national conscience. A
penal code must form itself upon the living
instinct for justice in the people, therefore the
public have a right to inquire whether the exist-
ing penalties and their application express the
national ideals of what is right and fair. When
punishments are too harsh human nature takes
its revenge by many unjust acquittals, wherever
trial by jury prevails, and the general instinct
THE PENAL CODE 463
for justice becomes incredibly confused. This
was experienced in England in the days when
common theft was there punished by the gallows ;
juries felt that the penalty was too severe, and
they often solved the difficulty by acquitting the
offender even when his guilt was clear as the day.
On the other hand, when punishments are too
light the masses degenerate visibly.
Thus the adjustment of the penal code stands
in a constant though invisible relation to the
sentiments of the people. The security of the
State, however, must always be the chief aim
of all punishment, and therefore its primary
standard of measure. There are such things
as moral epidemics, which contain a great national
peril and require the strongest suppression. A
frivolous and optimistic theory held almost
undisputed sway among intelligent people
about the middle of the nineteenth century, to
the effect that crimes of violence decreased in
civilized periods, and that crimes of fraud alone
gained ground. This seemed to be the case until
the beginning of the 'sixties, when the habit of
stabbing began. Workmen suddenly took to
carrying knives, and the brutal assaults, under
which we still suffer, grew and increased. Taste
for blood is a terribly infectious thing ; it is an
epidemic which the State must guard itself
against by special measures, and the same applies
to the shocking increase of shameless crime in
our midst to-day. Thus the injury done to the
common weal must be the touchstone of the penal
legislation of the State ; for since it is not a
shepherd of souls it does not mete out its punish-
464 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
merits according to the moral estimates of the
theologian. It is neither possible nor desirable
for the two to be always at one upon this matter.
False coining is rightly punished with great
severity by every State, and yet from the purely
moral standpoint the coiner is rather better than
other forgers, because he does not aim at injuring
any one person in particular, but at the same
time his penalty is made particularly hard, and
with justice, because his crime is so harmful to
the common good. In this case punishment is
measured by purely practical economic con-
siderations.
In common with all else that is human, every
penal code must have a final limit, a non plus
ultra which cannot be overstepped. Capital
punishment is thus shown to be necessary on
purely theoretic grounds ; as being the utmost
earthly penalty it becomes the indispensable
keystone of every organized penal system. None
of the objections brought against it can with-
stand serious criticism. We blush when we hear
it asserted that the State is committing an in-
justice when it lays hands upon the life of the
criminal. The State, which has the right to
sacrifice the flower of its youth for its own
protection, is to hold the life of a murderer
in such tender veneration ! Far rather must
power be assigned to it to do away with
individuals obnoxious to the common weal.
Remember also how the death penalty has to be
admitted for the Army in time of war, even by
the persons who would fain dismiss it with a
phrase under normal circumstances. War would
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 465
be impossible if a deserter could not be shot
forthwith, and yet the deserting soldier may
have many moral excuses for his conduct which
do not apply to a common assassin.
The Bible saying that authority must wield
the sword is deeply rooted in the conviction of
the simple man, and it is a transgression against
the straightforward moral instincts of the nation
to try to make this truth disappear out of the
world. The final problems of morality are solved
in the domain of practice, not of theory. The
conscience of every serious human being demands
the expiation of bloodshed by blood ; and if this
highest and ultimate penalty be not exacted,
the plain man will simply fail to recognize the
existence of justice in the world. Imagine the
case of a murderer, say after the fashion of Jack
the Ripper, who has murder in the blood, con-
demned to imprisonment for life. He escapes,
begins his butcheries again, and returns satiated
to the same prison, because the State has no
power to sentence him to any other punishment.
Would not such a State be doing violence to
every sentiment of morality ? By its inability
to put an end to the criminal's career it would
be making itself ridiculous and contemptible.
Mercy and indulgence, as well as law, must have
their final limit, and a point be reached at which
the State declares that humanity is possible no
longer. An ultimate penalty must be forth-
coming, and we find it in capital punishment.
Every argument brought against the death
sentence is sheer sophistry, including the famous
axiom that the State, the source of all justice,
VOL. II 2 H
466 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
must not be faced with the terrible possibility
of committing murder in justice's name, and of
slaying an innocent man in solemn form. It
would destroy all instinct for justice in the nation
if it were taught that the State was hereby com-
mitting an irremediable transgression, and ex-
posing itself to peculiar disgrace. It is obvious
that this objection takes far too much for granted,
and at the same time proves nothing at all. Of
course human frailty makes such a grave error
thinkable, but the same argument may be urged
against every penalty which the State can impose.
Heavy punishments will sometimes fall upon the
innocent so long as divine wisdom is denied to
the human race, nor will it ever be possible to
banish injustice from the world. Are we there-
fore to argue that there should be no punishments
at all ? This monstrous conclusion is the only
one possible to draw from HoltzendorfP s theories.
Thus we come into the cloudland of legal
phrase - mongers, wherein all the opponents of
capital punishment have their being. They
advocate a feeble philanthropy, out of harmony
with the healthy moral instincts of courageous
nations. Assuming punishment to be necessary,
is it really more humane to imprison a murderer
for life than to execute him ? No human being
has ever endured solitary confinement for more
than fifteen years without going out of his mind.
How is it kinder to kill him by inches than simply
to put him to death and leave the rest to God ?
We are here dealing with matters which are
inseparable from ideas of religion, but even persons
who are persuaded of the absolute mortality
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT 467
of human existence are still able to perceive the
necessity of capital punishment for the State.
How much more, then, should those who know
that our life does not end here be prepared to
concede to the State what is its own, and commit
the rest to God ? We men cannot take upon
ourselves to be the judge of all ; but the task of
the State is always the protection of its members,
and here the full significance of punishment
comes in.
If capital punishment is recognized as a
necessity, it is obvious that it must be inflicted
for the gravest of all political crimes. More-
over it is false sentimentality to treat political
criminals with special leniency. The man who
jeopardizes the whole State by high treason is
as dangerous to human society as the ordinary
murderer. We shall not forget to give to the
noble and unfortunate Emperor Frederick III.
the honour of having been the means of re-
instating the practical application of the death
penalty. Except in two States whose sovereigns
had strong nerves, it had nearly disappeared, and
for a long time no decapitation had taken place.
Then came the attempt at assassination by Hodel
and Nobiling. The then Crown Prince, despite
the gentleness of his natural sentiments which
inclined him the other way, showed firmness
during his short regency and allowed Hodel to
be executed. The step was necessary on account
of the moral sentiments of the masses.
This popular sentiment perceived in its naivete
what was right. No institution which general
feeling condemns as barbarous is ever reintro-
468 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
duced. No one thinks of restoring the rack,
for the public conscience spoke once and for all
when the torture was abolished. The death
penalty, on the other hand, has suffered its pleasing
vicissitudes because its abolition has been de-
manded only by the vapourings of philanthropists,
and by no moral necessity. The majesty of the
State is more clearly recognized in great nations
than in the smaller weaker countries, and it is
highly significant that Germany is the only one
of the great powers where the necessity of capital
punishment has been disputed. The French
are as aware of its indispensability as are the
English, and a witty Frenchman once observed
that it would be easy to abolish the death sentence
if the murderers would lead the way. In any
case, the right of pardon is not intended to do
away with existing punishments wholesale.
Our penal system has been too exclusively
limited to terms of imprisonment, and this is a
matter for serious consideration, because our
economic conditions cannot fail to make the
deprivation of liberty desirable in the eyes of
certain individuals. The State must board and
lodge its convicts healthily and sufficiently ; but
in every civilized State there are unfortunately
thousands of honest people who are unable to
provide themselves either with a healthy dwelling
or sufficient wholesome food, and thus we find
the injurious and distorted point of view, which
makes that which was intended for a punish-
ment appear to many as an object of desire.
Imprisonment as the sole method of punish-
ment is therefore dangerously one-sided, and
CORPORAL PUNISHMENT 469
the system should be employed in conjunction
with others, as, for example, heavy money
penalties, which exercise a far more restraining
influence upon many fraudulent persons than
a few weeks of captivity. Punishment by dis-
grace has unfortunately been entirely abolished
under our modern system. I can see no reason
why a swindling stockbroker should not be
placed in the pillory, and in fact the sole objec-
tion to doing so arises from the particular
affection in which the Stock Exchange is held
by a certain section of our Press. There are cases
in which flogging is a necessity, for some natures
are too coarsened to be impressed by anything
except physical pain. In the 'seventies the crime
of garrotting suddenly became prevalent in
England. In the thick fog wayfarers were set
upon, strangled, and robbed. The cat-o'-nine-
tails had a truly magical effect upon this class
of crime, which stopped altogether after the
penalty had been inflicted in four cases. Thus
it appears that corporal punishment is the only
really effective way of limiting some sorts of
misdemeanour.
As regards the prosecution of the criminal,
the self-evident and primitive principle, quisque
praesumitur bonus, must not be called in ques-
tion ; every accused person is to be treated as
innocent until his guilt is proved, and no one
may be compelled to give evidence against him-
self. The old inquisition system which forbade
the judge to condemn the criminal until he had
confessed his guilt has rightly been done away
with, because its logical result was torture ; if
470 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
the accused person persisted in obstinate denial
the only resource was to subject him to the rack.
The whole practice was consequently given up,
and convictions were obtained instead by calling
witnesses and adducing proofs of guilt, while at
the same time the criminal was granted by the
State every facility for his own defence. Only
once has this principle been infringed, and it has
been reserved for the French Revolution to add
the violation of it to its list of crimes. It was
Danton who declared, amid the noisy acclama-
tions of those who thought as he did, that when
society believes its existence threatened, or when
the rights of man are attacked, the State has
the right to sacrifice innocent blood, lest other-
wise the danger should arise of the guilty escaping
the punishment they deserve. The results of
this axiom are shown in the judicial murders
and the ghastly butcheries, which to this day
find some admirers upon German soil.
It is clear, from the very nature of the State,
that the indictment for crime must be prosecuted
as a rule by the State and the agents of the
State. This right of accusation, nevertheless,
requires limitation in one direction and exten-
sion upon the other limitation when considera-
tion for the feelings and sanctity of family life
demand that action should only be taken upon
the motion of the injured party ; these are what
are called private prosecutions. Every one to
whom the privacy of home is still sacred will
agree that a theft committed within the family
should not be dragged before a public tribunal
if the father prefers to exercise his right of dis-
PRIVATE PROSECUTIONS 471
ciplining his son himself. Parents should only
have recourse to the State's intervention when
they feel that the gravity of the offence requires
it. At the present day the only difficulty lies in
determining accurately where the family ends.
In former times it was held to include the whole
household, but the relations between servants
and their employers, particularly in the towns,
have now so completely assumed the shape of a
mere business contract, that any mention of a
bond of moral piety subsisting between them
appears out of place. Evil consequences may
ensue if the State is forbidden to prosecute for
any kind of domestic theft unless at the desire
of the injured person. Some time ago an officer
died in a Pomeranian fortress ; during his illness
he had been robbed by his servant, and at the
auction the thief bought in his master's effects
with the money he had stolen from him. Every
one was aware of it, but the State was powerless
to prevent the scandal, because at that time the
man could only have been prosecuted upon the
demand of his employer, now deceased.
It will never be easy to define legally the
limits of the family. There can be no doubt of
the Tightness of the principle that the State may
not intrude without necessity into the privacy of
the home. Therefore breach of the marriage
vow cannot be punished except upon the motion
of the husband. The law used likewise to put
offences against the modesty of women in the
same category of private prosecutions, so that
the perpetrator of the outrage could only be
brought to justice upon the accusation of his
472 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
victim. This was done with humane intention,
but its consequences were terrible, for the victim
of bestial lust might simply be paid to keep
silence. For this reason these over-sentimental
usages were discontinued. It is not right to give
too much consideration to the natural feelings
of a young girl. Terribly hard as it is for an
unfortunate creature to be compelled to acknow-
ledge her disgrace in open court, it is more
endurable than that these vile briberies should
be permitted to take place in private, and the
law be thereby made a mockery by the criminal.
The conception of private prosecutions is
thus extremely difficult to define, and it is a
matter in which the State must adapt itself
to the changing conditions of the national life.
It is still harder to determine how much elasticity
is required for the rule which limits criminal
prosecution to the State and its functionaries.
In England, until lately, it was the law that any
accidental witness of a crime could be compelled
to bring an indictment. This practice originated
before England possessed any organized police,
and it is evidence of the firm and lofty sense of
equality which has ever animated the English
within their own borders. But such usages
belong to a more primitive society, and even in
England public prosecutors have lately been
appointed to act as plaintiff in certain cases on
behalf of the Crown. With us, on the other hand,
complaints have been raised in the Radical camp
against the so-called monopolizing of the right of
indictment by the law officers of the Crown, and
it is claimed that, in view of the possibility of
RIGHT TO PROSECUTE 473
a partisan prosecution, any private individual
should have the right to appear as accuser.
This view took shape in the years which followed
1848, the golden age of public informers. So
many wrongs had been perpetrated at that time
that the public prosecutor became the tool of
numberless private animosities. A typical case
was the trial of Waldeck, who was, as a matter
of fact, quite innocent.
Therefore the demand which arose at that
time for an unrestricted right of indictment was
prompted by sincerity and easily defensible.
Nevertheless its drawbacks must not be over-
looked. The Romans had placed no check upon
indictments, and an odious system of delation
was the result. In England, in the reign of
James II. [sic], the professional informer, Titus
Oates, brought thousands of persons to ruin.
In our own country the so - called " revolver
Press " has wrought untold mischief. If a crime
is attributed to any individual a newspaper
article is hurriedly composed, and a proof sent
to the incriminated person, who is then com-
pelled to purchase its suppression. There have
been Viennese journals which subsisted on the
proceeds of this traffic only. Therefore terrible
abuses may arise if the right of public accusa-
tion is accorded to each and all, and the only way
out of the dilemma is to adhere to the rule that a
charge can only be brought by the public pro-
secutor. If the right is indefinitely extended to
the public the result might be disastrous. We
cannot go further than to say that in certain
serious cases individuals must share the privilege
474 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
concurrently with the State, but only under
strict limitations, as the danger of abuse is too
great to be run. A severe penalty must be
imposed upon frivolous prosecutions, as the
mere bringing of a charge carries with it a certain
amount of injury to the accused person. Upon
the whole our public prosecutors may be said
to be only too unwilling to follow up political
offences.
The further question then arises of how the
proceedings against the accused may best be
conducted so as to bring his guilt vividly home
to the moral consciousness of the community,
so that the sentence may not fall like a bolt from
the blue. For this is required not only publicity
of criminal proceedings, but also the collaboration
of unprofessional opinion in rinding the verdict.
The introduction of juries into legal proceedings
is a concession of the modern State in order to
assure to the Courts the confidence of the public.
The German magistracy has ever been distin-
guished by the devoted zeal with which it has
discharged the responsibilities of its office, but it
has sometimes been conspicuously lacking in
adaptability. It is also remarkable that trial by
jury, once regarded as the palladium of liberty,
has in recent times become unpopular, particu-
larly in North Germany. It has found more
favour in the bureaucratic south than amongst
the liberty - loving people of the north. That
fact, that our southern States have a blunter
sense of freedom, belongs to the category of
truths which ring in the ears of our average
hand-to-mouth politicians like the ravings of
TRIAL BY JURY 475
lunatics. Bavaria has no local government at
all, but instead of it a modified form of the
Prefecture system, differing radically from our
Prussian administration. Individual freedom is
given much greater scope in North Germany
than in the south, where Napoleonic methods
struck deeper roots.
If we inquire into the history of trial by jury,
we find that the practice originated in England,
although it does not go back to the ancient Anglo-
Saxon times. It used to be supposed that " the
good and just laws of King Edward " provided not
only for the jurisdiction of the Communal areas,
but for trial by jury as well. According to the
researches of my friend Brunner, however, juries
were introduced into England from Normandy,
and would therefore seem to be of Frankish
rather than of Anglo-Saxon derivation. Our old
German procedure is purely conventional in
type, for it does not aim at the definite establish-
ment of concrete facts, but is content with
producing a specified number of witnesses.
The etymology of our word for conviction
(Uberzeugung) is evidence of this point of
view. In England, juries were primarily a body
of twelve reasonable freemen, equal in standing
to the plaintiff, who pronounced a sworn opinion
upon the evidence laid before them. This
system was subsequently incorporated into
criminal procedure. To-day, juries are admitted
by common consent to be either useless or even
harmful in civil proceedings, but it is an histori-
cal fact that they were first of all employed in cases
of this kind, and were not used in criminal trials
476 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
until the thirteenth century. This development
was hastened by the Latin Council of 1215, which
prohibited the appeal to divine arbitrament by
means of single combat. This latter was also
a Germanic form which provided that God Him-
self should adjudicate if a sufficient number of
reasonable men were not forthcoming. The
conciliar prohibition abolished this old method
of allocating guilt, and it became all the more
convenient to adapt to criminal proceedings the
methods of proof till then peculiar to civil courts.
Ever since the thirteenth century trial by
jury has had a magnificent development in Eng-
land, where it is closely bound up with popular
ideals, and regarded as a pillar of English freedom.
Two circumstances have powerfully contributed
to this result. Firstly, the unique social and
economic position of the judges. Judges of the
highest grade are few in number, but they enjoy
an almost princely consideration, and travel
about the country holding Courts of Assize. The
exposition of the law involved in the judge's
charge to the jury has a powerful influence.
Their powers are extremely great, and a judge
may send back a jury to reconsider their verdict
if in his opinion it is unreasonable. Secondly,
English judges are obliged to observe a reticence
which is well suited to enhance the dignity of
the Bench, while French judges take up a hostile
attitude towards the accused and endeavour to
elicit a confession of guilt, thereby running
counter to all judicial impartiality.
To these extensive powers of the presiding
judge England alone adds the further feature of
ENGLISH JURY SYSTEM 477
the jury's unanimity, for which the French, who
adopted and mutilated the English jury system
at the Revolution, have substituted the verdict
of the majority. The English practice is un-
doubtedly the only right one ; majorities are as
incompetent to decide judicial as religious or
scientific problems. The question whether A
has murdered B cannot after all be settled by the
weight of numbers. In spite of its harshness
the demand for unanimity is sound, for in it
strength of character finds scope. It constantly
happens that an individual juryman decides
the waverers by force of his own personal
conviction. Englishmen have clung to this
principle till this day with a tenacity which
does them honour. We, on the other hand, have
much too great a regard for that kind of moral
cowardice to which the jury system gives so
much opportunity. It is far too pleasant, to
many people, to allow themselves to be over-
ruled, and such characters may be found every-
where, but most of all amongst the very people
who pride themselves upon their independence
of mind. The temptation to say " no," with
the secret hope of being outvoted, is a moral
danger to which jurymen are especially exposed.
Therefore the stern English rule of unanimity is
thoroughly justifiable.
This maxim, then, together with the powerful
influence exercised on lay opinion by a highly
esteemed body of judges, are the two causes of
the historic respect paid to the jury system in
England. For our misfortune we in Germany
did not receive this institution direct from thence,
478 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
but imported a distorted copy from France. We
have laboured to adapt it to some extent to our
own conditions, and are now beginning to deviate
from French models, and to strike out a course
for ourselves in criminal procedure which is
nearer to the English conceptions. Thus we
also have come to perceive that in these matters
political freedom is not the point at issue, and
men of integrity can only remember with shame
that German Liberals of the older type attributed
to juries the right of abrogating the laws.
The only question is, whether the co-operation
of laymen is needful to the course of justice, or
whether it merely does harm. The points in its
favour are obvious at once ; average men believe
that a verdict will be more reasonable when non-
professional opinion has been consulted, and that
the expert often lacks the experience of practical
life which is important in coming to a just
conclusion. These are undeniable advantages,
balanced, alas ! by grave drawbacks, one being
that jurymen are very apt to be swayed by sheer
sentiment, and another the danger which always
threatens the amateur. With regard to the former
of these points, it is not correct to say that juries
are always more prone to acquit than trained
judges. The majority of cases does support this
contention, but there will always be trials in
which juries will bring in too harsh a verdict
because they feel that their own social order is
threatened. Social - democrats, for instance,
would run great risk of such treatment, as was
shown by the notorious Leipzig Socialist trial of
1870, when the social-democrat was condemned
MENTALITY OF JURIES 479
upon evidence which was really insufficient. A
bench of competent judges would hardly have
done such a thing, but ordinary men, trembling
for their property, cannot fail to be partisan
when confronted with such a party.
Generally speaking, the inclination of laymen
is to give weight, not only to legal considerations,
but also to a number of others which appeal more
specially to sentiment. A judge is therefore
often placed in the awkward and humiliating
position of pronouncing a sentence from which
he personally dissents. It is always difficult
for the untrained mind to grasp the distinction
between objective law and subjective morality,
and to perceive that a legal crime may be con-
doned by conscience. Amongst many examples
let us choose one which is typical of the mentality
of juries. When Louis Napoleon played his first
prank at Strassburg, and tried to suborn the
garrison, the conspirators were caught red-
handed. The thing was patent, although Louis-
Philippe thought it politic to pardon the ring-
leader. His accomplices were tried before a
jury who were sworn to speak the truth, and
yet pronounced them all innocent because they
thought it unjust to convict the accessories when
the principal had been excused. That was not
their affair at all, but such is the logic of laymen.
We have still to deal with the second draw-
back amateurishness. It is no more than an
empty phrase to say that questions of fact are
for the jury, and questions of law for the judge.
The guilt is not so easily separated from the act.
Every finding of the jury must deal with three
480 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
questions : Was the act committed ? Was it
committed by the accused ? Thirdly, was it
committed by him in a criminal manner ? This
third point involves a whole group of legal
problems, even when the issue is of the simplest.
Let us suppose that some one has signed a pub-
lication by an assumed name. It may only be
a bad joke, it may belong to the vast category of
offences described as nuisances, but it may also
amount to falsification of a document, and to
determine this point it is necessary to settle
what constitutes a document, which only a lawyer
can do.
The penal code risks most at the hands of the
amateur. It is an advantage for any science to
possess a technical terminology quite different
from that of ordinary speech. Chemists and
astronomers share this enviable privilege ; they
employ terms of art unfamiliar to the general
public " chlorine," " bromide," etc., are words
with which the layman dare not meddle. On the
other hand, such words as "intention," "purpose,"
" responsibility," " negligence " have a distinct
significance in penal law, and compose ^ : cientific
vocabulary in the true sense, but are also con-
stantly used in daily life in a general and collo-
quial sense. The layman fancies he understands
their meaning when he really does not, and half-
knowledge has always been the worst enemy of
truth in every department of intellect. Its
dangers are well known to those who have
studied or written the history of modern Germany,
and nowhere has the amateur played a greater
part than in the jury system.
FAULTS OF JURY SYSTEM 481
The last factor which must be reckoned with
is class prejudice. The prosecution has justly
been given the same right as the accused, of
rejecting individual jurymen whose impartiality
they have reason to doubt. Significant is the
opinion of an old and learned counsel, who once
said to me, " I always strike all doctors and
lawyers and shopkeepers off the list, but old
soldiers suit me exactly." Lawyers always think
they know better than the Court, doctors assume
that all crime is due to insanity, and shopkeepers
generally have an elastic conscience over ques-
tions of mine and thine, whereas an old half-pay
colonel can keep a whole bench of jurymen in
order with a look of command when they begin
to waver.
Taken all in all, we must recognize that the
modern form of lay co-operation in criminal pro-
cedure is not very successful. It is either too
much or too little. The jury alone decide the
so-called questions of fact and guilt, but they have
nothing to do with the degree of the penalty,
which is determined by the learned judge only.
Thus proceedings which should be one connected
whole are divided into two parts. This draw-
back is overcome in practice by the presiding
judge's wide powers of instructing the jury, and
a certain degree of influence is thereby ensured to
him in questions of fact and guilt. None the
less it remains true that the share of laymen in
criminal trials goes either too far or not far
enough. Broadly speaking, it is evident that
our modern criminal practice is quite indefensible,
and that it lives from hand to mouth without
VOL. II 2 I
482 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
any guiding principle whatever. These questions
were only half hatched when the rules which
are still binding were laid down. These are the
result of innumerable parliamentary compro-
mises, of which the Lasker motions are instance
enough. We only employ juries to try grave
offences, and the mass of petty offences are tried
at the County Court (Landgericht) before experts,
without any form of lay co-operation. The
most trivial offences of all are dealt with by a
single magistrate, and, in order to prevent
tyranny, he is surrounded by a whole crowd of
Assessors (Schoffen). This is pure makeshift.
There can be no reason why the mass of medium
offences should be tried without juries, while the
gravest and the pettiest crimes are tried with
them.
We shall probably sooner or later adopt some
form of trial by Assessors (Schoffengericht) by
which the technical knowledge of the judge will
be called in to influence the decision on points of
fact and guilt, while lay opinion will also be
consulted in the fixing of the sentence. We
need not fear that these Assessors will allow
themselves to be intimidated by the judge,
for experience shows that a wholesome, strong,
sometimes even too strong, self-reliance is the
rule among them. If they were called to sit
with judges in a Court of Justice they would
find their proper level. They would take counsel
with the judges upon an equal footing, and not
as rival forces, and there would be an interchange
of mutual advantages, the learning and technical
knowledge of the judge and the worldly experi-
CIVIL LAW 483
ence and practical ability of the non-professional
element would both contribute towards an
equitable sentence. Consultation would infall-
ibly reveal the superiority of the expert, even if
the lay element were allowed a slight preponder-
ance in these Courts (Schoffengerichte).
In civil procedure the State only intervenes
to restore, by judicial pronouncement, a right
violated by one or other of the litigants, and only
concerns itself with doubts or difficulties concern-
ing the interpretation of law. In this sphere,
therefore, lay co-operation is of such doubtful
advantage that it may be called positively per-
nicious in a well-ordered State where the magis-
tracy commands the confidence of the public.
Even in England this co-operation is very much
restricted. Without a legal training it is im-
possible to judge questions of civil law, and be-
sides this, the practice of the Courts in these
questions has altered so much, and the law has
become so complex, that the taking of lay opinion
in civil suits can only lead to mistakes.
In dealing with the momentous subject of
civil procedure it is of vital importance to under-
stand correctly the place assigned to advocacy
by the law. Prussian legislation used to be
imbued with suspicion and dread of the legal
profession. This was prejudice, no doubt, but
prejudice which we honour our Kings Frederick
William I. and Frederick II. for having shared.
It led to the strictest supervision of the whole
body of lawyers, who were regarded as State
functionaries, and only allowed to practise their
profession within the limits of a definite locality.
484 THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE
Taken all in all, it must be admitted that this
old system was much better than the so-called
freedom of practice allowed to-day. Strange
indeed have been the results of this vaunted
free competition. Free competition in the
domain of intellect has always been a delusion.
It may be valuable as a stimulus in the market-
place, but it is a more dubious advantage to the
stage. Our drama was better served in Berlin
when we had only one Opera-House and one
Play-House, and a couple more theatres besides.
Remove the restrictions upon the right to open
private schools to-day, and there is no saying who
might not venture to undertake the education of
the young. One cannot help smiling grimly at
the thought of all the Socialist scum who would
immediately open schools. No thoughtful man
could seriously welcome such developments. In
like manner the legal profession must be restrained
from using their technical skill to fleece the
public, and must be made to conform to the
exigencies of public policy. Contemporary
effort is directed with more or less success to
correcting former errors, and it is very gratifying
to see the Assessors' Courts of Honour (Ehren-
kammer der Anwdlte) doing their utmost to
restrict the worst abuses. When we remember
the Heinze trial (1891) we realize that our bygone
kings had good reasons for keeping a tight hold
over lawyers.
This view, though right in itself, very soon
caused the advocate to be regarded, under the
older procedure, as a fifth wheel to the coach.
Upon the whole the tendency in the eighteenth
JUDGE'S FUNCTIONS 485
century was to regard civil suits with disfavour,
and prevent them as much as possible. Hence
all the voluminous casuistry of Prussian Pro-
vincial Law (Landrecht) to which Savigny rightly
objected that pregnant brevity should be the
first requisite for every code. The functions of
counsel were so confined under the old law that
in every case the judge had to adopt the stand-
point of either litigant in turn. This old method
was too complicated, especially under the system
of written pleadings, and finally proved to be a
physical impossibility. The demand made upon
the judge at that period was beyond the power
of man to fulfil, for every advocate who has
pleaded a cause for a certain length of time
undergoes a real change of sentiments, and at
last becomes so identified with it that he is no
longer capable of impartiality. Modern pro-
cedure is quite different. The judge now lets
counsel speak or write without hindrance, and
only settles the order in which evidence shall be
taken. His function is therefore of a purely
formal nature, and the parties themselves decide
how their case shall be conducted, while he
remains to form an independent opinion. This
change marks a distinct advance upon previous
conditions.
XXV
PUBLIC ECONOMY
WE know already that it is foolish to speak of the
State as absolutely unproductive economically,
because without it and its law, trade and com-
merce could not exist at all ; but, on the other
hand, the work done by the State is not of a kind
to be measured by economic standards. The
ideal blessings brought by law and order, the
tokens of the visible power of the State, cannot
be valued by their money's worth. It is impos-
sible to compute in these terms the benefit which
it is to be a Prussian and to live under the pro-
tection of the Prussian State. The favourite
saying, that the State creates unembodied wealth,
makes no difference to this truth, for it is only
degrading to spiritual and intellectual labour to
describe its result in these words. It would be
admitted by most people that Goethe's Tasso
cannot fairly be so described. Where do we find
the unembodied wealth which an unfortunate
but inevitable war brings to the State ? What
were the abstract values gained by France in
1870 and 1871 ? No more than a certain amount
of self-knowledge, at the most. Therefore it is
quite wrong to apply the same standards to the
486
DUTY OF CITIZENS 487
State as we apply to private property. The
individual tax-payer, thinking only of himself
and his private budget, is justified in reckoning
the taxes he pays among his costs of production
and in opining that the fewer taxes there are the
better ; but the politician who surveys the State
as a whole can by no means share this view ; for
him the question is not of how much does the
State do for each of its citizens, and how much
has each one of them to pay back in proportion,
because this would lead to the conclusion that
the pauper in the workhouse should contribute
the most because he owes the whole of his
physical existence to the State. The person of
private means, on the other hand, who only cuts
the coupons off his foreign bonds, receives very
little from the State, and would consequently be
expected to pay very little.
This way of reckoning is absolutely false. It
is wrong to start with the idea that the citizen
shall repay the State, through the taxes, for
benefits he has received ; the proper way of
looking at it rather is that it is the duty of all
citizens to contribute, according to their means,
towards the collective costs of administration.
Because the State is the people legally united,
it becomes both its right and its duty to draw
upon the resources of its members for its own
maintenance. In the last resort the wealth of
the nation is identical with the wealth of the
State, and when two States are engaged in a life-
and - death struggle the national assets decide
practically which of the two can hold out the
longest.
488 PUBLIC ECONOMY
Here once more, however, it is impossible to
lay down clear scientific rules. Questions of
taxation may undeniably present such contrasts
between the financial resources of the people and
those of the State that the expenditure and
undertakings of the latter may rise very markedly
during a period when the income of the nation
is sinking ; this happens during every war.
Therefore no rational relation between the two
can be fixed, although the rule will always stand
that the State must demand of its subjects upon
compulsion the revenue required for its activities
which are above all price. The modern doctrine
of finance is right to this extent when it calls
the State an economic tyrant, but the expression
is dangerous, because it leads so easily to the
conception of the State as concerned only with
economics. The State is not what so many of
the teachers of political theory would make it
appear, the collective profit-sharing association
of individual private associations. The State,
as such, is not a money-making concern, but it
encourages its subjects to make fortunes. It is
a corporation, which as a rule resorts to com-
pulsion for the satisfaction of its economic
requirements, because it is not in a position to
offer a specific return to the individual citizens.
The revenue of the State differs from all private
finance by reason of the law which obliges it to
regulate its income by its expenditure, and not
vice versa. The proverb which bids us cut our
coats according to our cloth can never apply to
the State, and for it the first question must be,
How much is required to maintain its established
PRINCIPLES OF EXPENDITURE 489
position in the world, with due regard to the
claims of its Constitution and its civilization ?
It is only after the outgoings have been thus
determined that it becomes possible to consider
regulation of the intakings, and to decide what
method of raising the indispensable sum will do
least harm to the economic activities of the
nation. The English are not nearly so thrifty
as the French, or even the Italians, but they do
understand the art of producing more than they
spend. We must not start from the assumption
that the State should only embark upon abso-
lutely necessary expenditure, for very often its
scruples over needful expenses are quite as
foolish as extravagance could be. Prussia was
plunged into dire catastrophes as a consequence
of her false economy before the year 1806.
The attitude taken by any average man
towards the administration of revenue by the
State is the test of his political understanding.
Let us recall the years after 1815. It was quite
a new light to the inhabitants of the miserable
little States who had had the good luck to become
Prussian that the State could make serious
inroads upon their purses. This was the cause
of the universal outcry among the good Swedes
of Pomerania and the good Frenchmen on the
Rhine. Political literature of that date is abso-
lutely astounding in its ignorant dilettanteism ;
the only exception was the Rhinelander Benzen-
berg, the friend of Hardenberg. He defended
the Prussian Customs Law of 1818 in his book
upon Prussia's Finance and New System of
Taxation (Preussens Geldhaushalt und neues
490 PUBLIC ECONOMY
Steuer system), in which he was the first to raise the
question, What does our State really require ?
He took the intelligent point of view, but his
contemporaries thought his ideas servile, and
talked at random themselves, although there
were shrewd and prudent men among their
number. A true Prussian patriot like David
Hanseman, leader of the Rhenish Liberals, a
first-rate financier, and afterwards the founder
of our Discount Company, tried in his book on
Prussia and France, published as late as 1833,
to prove the ridiculous statement that France is
more cheaply governed than Prussia ; then he
simply struck out one-third of the administrative
expenses and declared that the process must be
carried further.
We start then from the principle that the
revenue of the State must be in conformity with
the needful expenditure, and it now remains for
us to consider what the sources of its income are.
The outgoings in every State depend upon its
aims and desires, consequently its income must
be here our chief concern. Clearly it cannot
hope to supplement it to any great degree by its
own direct economic activities. No doubt it is
an advantage for Germany that her State still
holds a fairly large extent of territory, while the
large States of Western Europe have lost their
Crown lands through the extravagance of the
monarchs and the ensuing civil wars. In Spain,
France, and England these lands have totally
disappeared, but Germany has always kept a
Crown property, which is still very considerable,
and although infinitely too little even approxim-
CROWN LANDS 491
ately to cover the costs of the State, is great
enough somewhat to lighten the burden on the
tax-payer.
The more the old methods of barter were
replaced by dealings in money, the less the
importance of the old Crown lands became, and
the more necessary did a system of taxation
show itself to be. The government of these
territories also required reforming as popula-
tion increased, for the local government through
territorial officials became harmful from the
moment that speculation in agricultural land
began and the officials came into conflict with
the direct interests of private owners. An attempt
was first of all made under the Great Elector
to bring about some arrangement between the
Government and the lease-holders of the domains.
By it the officials were given a personal interest
in the prosperity of the Crown estates, and this
led directly towards the new plan, universally
in force to-day, of farming out the land.
This led to the belief, which was undisputed
in my youth, that the final consequence of these
events would be the sale of the domains, because
in no department of agriculture could the State
compete to advantage with the private person.
This conclusion is as false as the other which
makes men suppose that because wars become
shorter and rarer with the increase of civilization
they will soon cease altogether. When it is a
question of some bold speculation, or the rapid
seizing of a favourable opportunity, the State
official who has no personal interest in the matter
will be less effective than the man whose own
492 PUBLIC ECONOMY
profits are at stake. On the other hand, where
punctuality and order are the chief consideration,
the State will always be a better administrator
than the individual. No objections can be raised
on grounds of national economy to the plan of
a sound system of leasing, provided a part of
the domains, particularly in the less cultivated
provinces, is turned into model farms. The
farming of large areas under one management,
as is done in our north-eastern provinces, is
unquestionably an abuse, and could be amelior-
ated by the State breaking up its large estates
and leasing the land to small settlers. There
is no reason at all to recommend the sale of the
Crown lands, since they are a nest-egg for the
State and a saving to the tax-payer. The
growing energy of the State-idea within the last
decade has displayed itself with regard to them,
for in the 'sixties the demand for the sale of the
domains was always being brought forward in the
Chamber, while nowadays it is never referred to.
There is one great department of agriculture
in which the technical superiority of the State
is evident ; namely, in forestry.
Since forest land is always more backward
than arable in its economic development, it
follows that it must also lag behind in the forms
of its administration, which may continue to be
suitable to it long after they have been discarded
for agricultural land. Intensive cultivation is
only possible on relatively rich soil ; forest land,
on the other hand, is intended by nature for ex-
tensive cultivation, therefore the management on
a large scale by the State in forestry is necessary
FORESTS 493
and usual. The long period needed for the
growth of high forest, sometimes as much as
eighty years, constitutes another reason for State
ownership, since the private individual cannot
undertake this most productive kind of forest-
cultivation unless he is unusually rich. It is
suited to the undying State, but the private
owner will always be tempted to cut down his
forests in times of temporary financial embarrass-
ment, and to resort to the cultivation of under-
wood, which is too frequently harmful. Even
communities are worse administrators than the
State in this respect. There are woods on the
left bank of the Rhine which, to be sure, are still
very extensive under this kind of ownership ;
they consist, however, of underwood intended for
the purpose of having its bark stripped and used
in tanneries. These woods are now being well
administered by the communities which own
them, but only under the State's supervision.
Our beautiful left Rhine bank has been the
very means of showing us what may be the fate
of forests left to unskilful hands. The French
are like all the Latins, without understanding
either of the beauty or the management of woods ;
they have always been bad foresters, and on the
Rhine they demolished wholesale the glorious
woods on the heights of the Hunsriick and the
Eifel, which once deforested cannot so speedily
be replanted. To this day we are still forced
to work hard to repair the damage done. I have
already spoken of how the peasants of the Moselle
valley have still to suffer from the heights above
their vineyards being now bare of the mossy
494 PUBLIC ECONOMY
forest soil which absorbs sudden falls of rain or
snow. Thus it comes about that the prosperity
of whole districts depends upon the administra-
tion of forests, and we may lay down the rule
that the State alone is capable of safeguarding
their future, and of training a body of reliable
and technically instructed officials. In this way
it can also indirectly protect the interests of
privately owned forests.
There are other trades besides which belie
the doctrine formerly laid down by the Man-
chester school of the State's incapacity to con-
duct business of any kind. The manufacture of
the coinage is one great industry which pre-
supposes an unquestioning confidence on the
part of the public and of other countries. It is
not necessary to demonstrate that the Mint must
be under the control of the State. The same
applies to Posts and Telegraphs, and State
railways may also become a necessity in the
public interests. The postal conditions in
Thurn and Taxis under the old German Empire,
and up to the time of the German Confederation,
show us what may happen if this department
is left to private enterprise. These Counts, who
had " torn and taxed " Germany for so long,
looked upon the Post-Office merely as a milch-
cow, but the State thinks less of financial gain
than of facilitating intercourse. State -owned
railways make the encouragement of communica-
tion and the opening up of whole districts their
primary object, and money profits have to take
the second place. We have ourselves had an
instructive experience in the matter of the postal
TAXATION 495
system. The North German legislature removed
the strict monopoly of former days, but the
Imperial Post-Office committed the mistake of
making the postal rates in urban districts much
too expensive, so that rival companies arose,
who carried letters much more cheaply, but were
never able to train their employes to the standards
of honesty and punctuality kept by the officials
of the State. The whole arrangement was a make-
shift, not a benefit, and only arose because the
rich State Department of Posts was too stingy
to meet the public half-way in their perfectly
justified demands.
We see then that the State should have
relatively little direct participation in trading
concerns, outside of those which it keeps in its
own hands, and that the modern State-finance
is at bottom State-taxation.
Here we open a subject which cannot be
approached without depression, for in no other
do the limitations of the human mind strike us
with more overwhelming force. Let us admit,
once and for all, that a really good tax is an
Utopian dream ; all taxes are evils from the
standpoint of the private exchequer, and evils
they must remain. Nevertheless, as we are
none of us private individuals and nothing more,
we must all sacrifice something for the common
good. On paper no tax is good, and the only
thing to be done is so to arrange the fiscal system
as to make it as little oppressive as may be.
There are doctrinaires who would set higher
aims for it, by trying to use it to adjust the
inequalities of wealth by making the rich
496 PUBLIC ECONOMY
relatively poorer, and the poor richer, but all
this is purest moonshine. Frederick the Great
found the idea attractive at one time, but he
was far too wise to put it into practice. Human
imperfections bar the way at once, and the
State must rest content when it has approxim-
ately succeeded in distributing taxation so that
no individual is poorer in comparison with his
neighbour than he was before. It is vain to
strive after a redistribution of property by these
means.
We have seen that the taxes are not to be
regarded from the standpoint of the do ut des,
and that they must not be looked upon as re-
muneration for services rendered by the State.
The means by which the State chooses to cover
the cost of any public undertaking are a mere
question of expediency, and not at all of law. If
it constructs a road it is at liberty to pay for it
either out of its own resources or from a special
highway rate. It is the same with education,
for this is a matter which concerns us all equally
as citizens. Special fees, however, should be
collected from persons who receive direct indi-
vidual benefits from the State. Lawsuits are a
case in point, if only to avoid the unnecessary
multiplication of them, but in every instance the
State reserves to itself the choice of extracting
the costs from the defeated party, or of bearing
them itself. The whole system of stamp-duties
constitutes an exception within the fiscal system.
The payment of taxes, politically speaking, is
part of the common obligations of all members
of the State, therefore the taxable capacity of the
TAXATION 497
citizens must be the sole standard for the guid-
ance of the State in this matter. The greater
the capacity of the individual, the greater should
his share of the burden be.
It is at this early stage of the argument that
the factor of human frailty comes in. How is
the taxable capacity of the individual to be dis-
cerned accurately through the labyrinth of men's
lives ? The economic circumstances of persons
living in apparently similar conditions may vary
very much ; two officials may be living in the
same town upon the same salary and yet not be
upon the same footing, for one may be a bachelor,
and the other the father of ten children. We
have to deal with a variety of individual con-
ditions, in face of wHich any fiscal system must
always seem too rigid. It would be folly there-
fore for the State to seek to standardize taxation,
for nothing could bring the natural injustice of
every scale more clearly into view. The State
must not be like the vegetarian who offers only
one kind of food to the human body which
requires nourishment of many sorts.
In every civilized nation there is far greater
need for a complicated system of taxation.
There must be different kinds of imposts, because
no one of them can distribute the burden justly
by itself. On paper it seems unreasonable that
one person should pay income-tax and property-
tax, and land-tax and tax on his business, all
at once, but nevertheless in practice this is per-
fectly right, for they thus collectively counter-
balance their respective imperfections that the
one-si dedness of them all can to some extent be
VOL. II 2 K
498 PUBLIC ECONOMY
modified. It is impossible to devise any tax
which has not some moral or economic imper-
fection. Taxation, direct or indirect, must
measure the capacity of the citizen by two prin-
cipal standards, the one being the amount of his
possessions and his annual income, and the other
the sum of his expenditure. The two taken
together constitute an approximate valuation of
his taxable capacity.
No just estimate can be formed either from
a man's income or his fortune taken by them-
selves. The financial position of individuals
depends upon the size of their families, the wealth
of their relations, and so forth, but the State is
neither able nor willing to inquire into all these
circumstances. Taxes are already an evil in
themselves, and if they were to carry with them
too searching an inquisition into a man's private
affairs they would become so distasteful to the
nation that the bonds of obedience would be
snapped. The English, acting upon an impulse
which we cannot blame, took off these direct
taxes a few years ago ; they preferred a higher
indirect taxation to having the privacy of their
homes invaded by the State. We are now in the
act of reforming our financial system. 1 Our
Finance Minister is, regarded from the purely
intellectual standpoint, the most efficient member
of the present Government ; the income-tax is
as well adjusted as it is humanly possible for it
to be. Nevertheless the State can never make it
a single tax, for if the rate per cent were to be
raised the unavoidable injustice would become
1 Lecture delivered in February 1893.
INDIRECT TAXATION 499
so glaring that it would not be tolerated. In
these matters nothing is more dangerous than
doctrinairism, whose theories are always proved
false and often ridiculous. For years the Radi-
cals maintained that a progressive income-tax
was the only true tax, and that it, and it only,
ought to be introduced. The experiment was
tried in the Canton of Zurich, as far as the Swiss
fiscal system admitted of it. The result was the
driving out of capital which had been thus intoler-
ably over-burdened. This would be the universal
and inevitable consequence.
If this is admitted, the need for a complex
system of taxation must be admitted also.
Taxable capacity must be estimated first and
foremost by the expenditure of the individual,
and it is clear this is a much juster standard by
which to measure than the standard of income.
It will always be the case that the burden of
all direct taxation, without exception, can be
shaken off by those on whom it is meant to fall,
but cannot be evaded by all tax-payers, and not in
proportions accurately ascertainable by the State.
We all know that every good man of business
reckons his taxes as part of his costs of produc-
tion, and repays them to himself out of his
customers' pockets. In the case of indirect
taxation this will be the rule, though here again
it is not invariable. It is undeniable that at
least a part of a properly adjusted protective
tariff is paid by the foreign producer and not by
the native consumer. The producer abroad is
compelled to reduce his prices and to content
himself with smaller profits.
500 PUBLIC ECONOMY
There are endless ways of shifting fiscal
burdens, and no human intelligence can foresee
what taxes will lay themselves most open to the
process. It is only possible to point to certain
classes of persons who are not in a position to
evade their taxes. We who are officials and
men of science are among the number. I should
be puzzled to show how I could avoid my fiscal
obligations, but it can be done by any one, even
the ordinary workman, who has wares of any
kind to offer in the material traffic of the world.
It is quite undeniable that in the long run the
taxes on necessaries of life will be paid by the
employers of labour, and therefore the working
classes can eventually, even if only gradually,
shift a portion of their taxation from themselves.
The position of the working class in those dis-
tricts of England where economic conditions are
healthy is an instance of this. Colossal sums
are paid in indirect taxes, but they are covered
by the price of labour. This much is clear.
Some taxes are evaded, but not all, nor any
completely, and not in a manner which can be
guarded against beforehand.
This is the reason for the perfectly natural
advantage of old imposts over new ones, which
makes a conservative tendency so wholesome
in the levying of taxation. People have become
accustomed to the existing system, prices and
conditions have adjusted themselves to it, and
the distribution of its burdens is usually com-
pleted. Thus the old taxes become so tolerable
that reforms may have a bad effect in practice,
even if they appear correct in theory, and the
RINGS 501
legislator himself is often uncertain what their
results will be. Remember the duty formerly
levied on our meal and meat, and the typical
effects of its abolition. Theoretically it was
hard to defend, for it seemed quite irrational to
tax the primary necessaries of life in the towns.
It was accordingly removed, and what happened
in consequence ? The shortage in the municipal
budgets had to be covered by new taxation and
the direct communal imposts had to be increased ;
but there was no essential fall in the price of
bread and meat. Wages in these towns had
gradually risen to a height which took the cost
of these commodities into account, so that they
had almost ceased to be a burden on the
working classes, and the bakers and middlemen
were the only people who benefited by their
repeal.
The principle of free competition can only be
fully applied to international trade. The absolute
necessaries of life are few in number, therefore
only a small number of producers share in the
profits. Our bakers perceived that they would
do better by combining to keep prices up to a
certain level than by underselling each other.
It would be more difficult to do this in the world
market, although we have seen such rings formed
even there. In a town, however, such a corner
is really very easily organized. In this case,
therefore, the old tax, because it was old, was more
beneficial in its working than the new reform.
The same truth is even more patent in the
matter of land-tax which is assessed on the sale
of the property, so that after some time the repeal
502 PUBLIC ECONOMY
or modification of the duty is apt to be an in-
justice or a gift to the landowner. These are
subjects where radical theories avail less than
anywhere, and fact remains that a complex and
widespread system of taxation is more just and
less oppressive than the imposition of any single
general tax could be.
Let us first examine the difference between
direct and indirect taxes, and we see that the
latter have the advantage, because the payment
of them is approximately voluntary, since every-
body can deny themselves many of the luxuries
which are indirectly taxed, and also because
they are levied in small sums which pass almost
unnoticed in the household budget. There are
many illusions current upon this head no doubt,
but the man who underrates the power of illusion
in matters of finance has little knowledge of his
subject. The mood of the tax-payer is of infinite
importance to the State, and it is a very good
thing that the plain man should pull at his pipe
with unruffled brow and forget that the State
has shared his fill of tobacco. Therefore we
must not fall in with the Radicals' favourite abuse
of indirect taxes, nor call them the special burden
on the poor, for their introduction was in reality
the dawn of common law. The smaller land-
owners were not in a position to impose direct
taxation upon the nobility, for the Diets would
never have sanctioned the measure. It was
a fixed principle that only copyholders should
pay taxes, and the upper classes were first made
to share the common burden by means of the
indirect duties. Here in Brandenburg it was
INDIRECT TAXES 503
done by the beer tax, which nobody could evade,
and the noble toper least of all.
Nowadays to be sure, since the system has
become so immensely complex and so widely
developed, the doctrinaire is ready with his query
whether the millionaire can drink his hundred
cups of coffee to the poor man's one. This is
the sheerest sophistry, to which we reply that
the rich man does not himself drink a hundred
times as much coffee as his neighbour, but he
keeps house, entertains, and maintains a number
of servants ; in addition to the necessaries which
he thus consumes he has to pay duty on a quantity
of luxuries which never come the poor man's way
at all in short, when everything is summed up it
will perhaps appear that the poor are hit some-
what harder than the rich, but that there is no
glaring injustice, especially when we take into
consideration the direct taxes which fall more
heavily upon the owner of property.
Indirect taxes have the great primary advant-
age of sheltering the poor from the danger of an
execution on their goods, that most palpable
example of the evils attendant upon taxation.
Let us imagine the situation of some worthy man
who is unable to meet his taxes when they fall
due. This is no easy matter for a person without
financial resources, and I had been married for
several years before I was able to say that my
taxes had ceased to worry me. The lower you
go in the social scale the harder it is to have
the required money ready on the given day,
and it is quite possible for a good honest man
to fail with his punctual payment. What then
504 PUBLIC ECONOMY
happens ? The State proceeds to distrain, and
thereby produces an effect quite the reverse of
what it desires, for by seizing furniture and the
like it lays hands on capital and not on income.
This is what makes a recovery of taxes so un-
speakably odious ; it is only necessary to have
some experience of the misery which the collection
of them sometimes causes to the poor.
If the levying of these imposts can be made
more indirect and less painful, it must be a blessing
for the sake of public peace. It is not well for
the State to appear to the lower classes always
in the guise of a tax-collector ; it is far better
that the common man should scarcely be aware
that he also bears his part of the common burden.
People are very fond of defending direct taxation
for small householders on the ground that every
individual ought to be made conscious of his
financial obligations towards the State. Univer-
sal military service, education, and taxation
are the advantages of the Prussian State, and
it is asserted that they must be brought home
to the consciousness of the humble citizen.
Personally I cannot follow the reasoning. No
danger threatens these three great political duties,
and it is not necessary to thrust them under the
nose of every individual until he has acknow-
ledged the truth of them in words : "I am a tax-
payer."
Politically there is a further difference between
the two classes of taxes, inasmuch as it is only
direct taxation which can be raised in times of
war or of distress with any hope of result. With
indirect duties it is otherwise ; up to a certain
DIRECT TAXATION 505
point they will be paid voluntarily. I can deny
myself a luxury, and thus refrain from paying a
tax, for instance, on tobacco, which at another
time I would have paid. In bad times, however,
self-denial in these ways is practised on a large
scale, therefore good results do not follow on the
heightening of indirect taxation. Only direct
imposts remain for the State to fall back upon in
time of need, and consequently any State whose
position in the world may engage it in war has
to treat its nest-egg with some consideration. It
does not do to put direct taxation too high in
time of peace, lest the screw should fail to turn
tighter when war breaks out.
The whole political complexion of a govern-
ment can be judged of by the nature of its fiscal
system. As an usurper Napoleon had to spare
the limitless egotism of the wealthy classes in
France, but his foreign policy was what gave
the keynote to his taxation. A conqueror he
was, a conqueror he wished to be, and most con-
scientiously did he keep his oft-reiterated promise
of making continuous war. Therefore he made
indirect taxation the pivot of French finance.
Under his government direct imposts were kept
very light, as they continue to be in France to
this day. His was the policy of the conqueror,
reserving the power of increasing them heavily
should need arise. Let us compare with this
the policy of Frederick William III. after the
Wars of Liberation. The reforms carried out in
1820, which were truly marvellous considering
their date, were framed by a State believing
itself entering upon an era of lasting peace, and
506 PUBLIC ECONOMY
they embodied at the same time the eminently
peace-loving character of the King. Here we
find the stress laid so heavily upon direct taxation
that it is hard to say whether further increase in
this direction would have been possible in time of
war. This by itself made it necessary to raise
the level of indirect taxation in the German
Empire, in order that the bolder and freer spirit
which guided Bismarckian policy might to some
extent remove the disproportion existing between
the two classes of imposts.
If a fiscal system is to be uniform throughout
a country, it is clear that the State must keep
the ultimate actual direction of it in its own
hands. It cannot permit the Commune to impose
taxes at will, but it must prescribe by law which
duties may be thus levied and which not. In-
direct taxes should not be imposed both by the
State and by the local authority. It is self-
evident that the State cannot allow these bodies
to retain the power which it has itself assumed.
Neither should the Commune be left a free hand
in the matter of direct taxation, or be allowed
to make additions to the burdens laid on by the
State, without question asked, for this would be
destructive to the whole fiscal framework of the
State. Every one who knows anything of life
is aware that the economic strength of the nation
suffers if real income is burdened higher than 4
per cent, but the whole system would be falsified
if the local authorities could impose as much
more as they liked at the discretion of the city-
fathers. There is no hardship for any one if his
actual payments do not exceed the 3 per cent
COMMUNAL IMPOSTS 507
laid down by the reformed income-tax, but con-
ditions would become impossible if it were left
within the power of the Communes to add five-
fold to the taxes levied by the State. No one
can pay 18 per cent in hard cash to the State
and the Commune, and some legal definition is
required of the imposts which may be levied by
the latter without detriment to the fiscal system
of the State.
This leads us on to examine the relation
between certain direct taxes and various forms
of economic production which have to be con-
sidered by the legislator. Some taxes restore
the original outlay automatically. Communal
imposts upon owners of houses or established
industries repay themselves by services rendered.
The contribution levied upon a town for the
laying on of its gas or water gives a direct and
adequate return to the owners of the land and
the independent tradesmen. If a man builds
a house in the outskirts of Berlin its value rises
as soon as gas and water are brought into the
street where it stands. The ground landlord
and the merchant look upon their Communal
taxes as the equivalents of the benefits offered
them by the municipality, and have no cause to
complain of them as burdensome. But what
do we officials get in return for the doubtful
privilege of living in the capital of liberty of
opinion ? Materially speaking, Berlin brings
us nothing but charges ; we could live within
our incomes far better in Marburg or in Bonn.
The extremity of unfairness is reached when
persons who get nothing but burdens out of the
508 PUBLIC ECONOMY
life of the metropolis are included in its dispro-
portionately high taxation. Officials stand every-
where in the same relation to men who are en-
gaged in industries. When a district builds a
new road every landowner can calculate by his
waggon-loads how much profit he is receiving
from the improvement. The country pastor is
much less benefited by it, and it would be unfair
to make him share an equal part of its expense.
When the reforms in our fiscal system are com-
plete this class of taxes must be given over, as
far as possible, to the local authorities, and in
return they must yield up to the State income-
tax the right of levying general additional
taxation.
This simple principle of justice is strongly
enforced in England. There the " local visible
profitable property " 1 is subject to local rates.
Inexperience led Prussian legislation into
grave faults of omission in this respect. The
first attempt at framing these laws in 1820 had
been preceded a few years before by the new
urban regulations.
No one had realized as yet how expensive
local government would prove ; in fact, the pre-
vailing idea was that liberty was cheap. The
same old delusion was cherished about the Con-
stitutional forms of German unity, and it proved
as erroneous there as it did when applied to
municipal government. Nobody foresaw how
much more rapidly and impetuously public
opinion would make itself felt through these new
channels, nor the irresistible force of the new
1 Note English in the text. '\
COMMUNAL IMPOSTS 509
demand for better lighting, improvement in the
conditions of the poor, and so forth. In addition
there were the new direct taxes, from which our
income-tax originated later on. These were
still extremely unpopular. In the Rhine district,
which had hitherto only paid ecclesiastical dues,
the right of the State to levy imposts was not
admitted, and more outcry was made over it in
this the wealthiest province than anywhere else.
Thus the State had a great body of passive
resistance to contend against, and it was glad
when the Communes availed themselves of their
right to supply their needs by making their own
additions to the class-taxes.
Thus it came about that this kind of Com-
munal taxation attained ever greater dimensions.
The well-meaning city-fathers, themselves for the
most part owners of house property or estab-
lished tradesmen, found it convenient to shift
most of the burden on to the shoulders of those
who were actually under least obligation to
carry it. Here lies the weak spot of the Prussian
fiscal system. Officials, work-people, all those
who derive least direct benefit from the under-
takings of the Commune, have to pay a dispro-
portionately large share of the cost, while house-
owners and tradespeople, who profit directly by
the administration of the town, contribute too
little towards it. The State, however, demanded
too much for itself from the tax on land and
buildings, so that scarcely anything was left over
for the Commune. We have now perceived that
the tax on income is the due of the State, and
the tax on land and industries should go to the
510 PUBLIC ECONOMY
local authorities, but it is hard to say whether
this necessary reform can be carried through.
A great deal of moral courage is required by the
man who would stir up this hornets' nest.
Nevertheless the imposition by the Com-
munes of taxes other than those on land and
houses should be forbidden outright by the State,
and none more absolutely than the duty on rent,
which it is the melancholy privilege of our worthy
metropolis to pay. 1
It penalizes residence in a sanitary house, it
penalizes marriage, in short, it is one of the most
disgraceful taxes conceivable. There is some-
thing to be said in defence of a tax on bachelors,
but a duty on rent is a crying injustice. It is
naturally very convenient for a municipality,
because every well - organized Commune has
accurate knowledge of the rent paid for the
various houses, and as these statements are
rarely erroneous, the advantage for the local
authorities is obvious. But when we remember
how disproportionately high the rents of little
dwellings in big towns are, and must be, on
account of the great demand, we say at once that
it is inhuman to lay a further big tax upon them.
The rent duty cannot be too harshly condemned
by any one who knows the moral value of a good
house which keeps a man at home with his family
in the evening instead of driving him to the gin-
palace. The abolition of this utterly harmful
tax is an unqualified necessity. The State, as
we know, is not a schoolmaster, but nevertheless
within certain limits it does aim, and rightly aim,
1 Lecture delivered in February 1893.
CREDIT 511
at moral ends in its fiscal legislation. Very high
duties are purposely laid upon articles of con-
sumption such as spirits, which are a temptation
and a danger to the mass of the people, in order
to place a restraint upon the lower classes.
Our brandy-tax was necessary on this account,
for a reform was certainly required when a man
could drink himself under the table for twopence.
This whole subject bristles with difficulties, for
which theory can only prescribe a few general
principles and leave the rest to practice.
Imposition of taxes, however, is not the only
way in which the State can attract private capital
for its undertakings ; it is justified, and in fact
bound, to use its credit for its financial ends ; it
concerns us to be clear on the subject of the
justification of the national debt. Even as the
modern State was compelled to follow the great
revolution in national economics in the sixteenth
century, and to substitute money for exchange
in kind, so to-day it sees itself obliged to re-
constitute its financial arrangements, and to
proceed from a currency to a credit basis. It
is well known that before the Revolutionary
wars France and England were the countries
most able to contract a large national debt, as
their economic civilization was more developed.
During the Seven Years' War Frederick the
Great was obliged to have recourse to depreciating
the currency, because he was unable to raise a
loan. During the war the public had to be
content with this bad coin, which was restored
afterwards to the former standard. This was a
compulsory loan in its crudest form. Even the
512 PUBLIC ECONOMY
treasure which Frederick accumulated during
the ensuing years of peace was quickly exhausted
during the Revolutionary wars, and Frederick
William II. had no means of renewing it by a
war loan.
Everything was altered by the tremendous
upheavals of the Napoleonic wars, and every
State was compelled to raise war loans. They
all emerged from the gigantic struggle burdened
with heavy debts, and in Germany the opinion
naturally arose that this condition was as un-
desirable for the State as for the private indi-
vidual. It was thought that Governments should
pursue a frugal policy in peace time, and gradu-
ally pay off all debts contracted during war.
This view finds its theoretical expression in
Nebenius' classic work on Public Credit (1820).
Here the astutest brain among the Baden fin-
anciers of his date asserts that the nation's debt
is the worm gnawing at the root of the political
tree, and that it must be liquidated gradually
and as soon as possible.
This Philistine doctrine was echoed by the
honest thrifty Prussian officialdom of the old
school, and our legislation of 1820 with regard
to the national debt started from the hope of
paying off all the liabilities of the State by 1860,
and the liquidation proceeded upon the lines laid
down. Now, however, it became evident that
States like France and England, whose debt was
far larger than Prussia's, were increasing in
prosperity faster than she. England had a bigger
debt than any country in Europe, and yet,
though little of it was liquidated, her prosperity
NATIONAL DEBT 513
grew and waxed immeasurably. Consequently,
after the cancelling of Prussia's debt had gone on
for a number of years, the old Minister Rother
himself grew startled. In 1843 he drew up a
memorandum in which he submitted to Frederick
William IV. that it was not advisable to continue
too long with the paying off of the national debt.
By the year 1852 the amount would only stand
at 100,000,000 florins, and should not be allowed
to sink lower. There were capitalists in Prussia,
he said, desirous of finding a safe security for
their money, who would place it abroad if oppor-
tunities were denied to them at home. Experi-
ence had taught this representative of the old
Prussian official school of thought the hollow-
ness of every theory. Nevertheless he did not
yet perceive that the national debt stood in
need of a large increase, for this point of view
was too far ahead of the ideas of his time.
In contrast to these theories held by the
German official world, we find England and her
allies developing an audacious and magnificently
frivolous attitude towards their national liabilities
during the Napoleonic wars. Their ideas found
a very adroit champion in Germany, in the person
of Frederick Gentz, who undertook the justifica-
tion of the English theory. He was the mouth-
piece of English policy against Napoleon, and not
being scrupulous in his choice of methods he
accordingly included a defence of the English
national debt, treating the subject with his usual
genius, but also with an unmistakable levity.
The English theory was as follows : the national
debt is not to be regarded as a burden on the
VOL. II 2 L,
514 PUBLIC ECONOMY
present, but rather as a means of shifting the
present burden on to the shoulders of the future.
This was the principle, and in stepped Doctor
Price, the well-known Radical and the champion
of North America, with his discovery of the
sinking-fund which was to reveal the secret of
how to make a debt liquidate itself automatically.
It was a theory which proved only one thing,
namely, that mathematical truths may be non-
sense in practice. What Price said was this : Let
a State raise a loan of a hundred million pounds
and put four millions of it aside to form a sinking-
fund ; allow this fund to go on increasing by
interest and compound interest, and in a given
number of years it will have become large enough
to pay off the debt. It is exactly the same as
the well-known exercise in arithmetic which
many of you will remember. Supposing that
Adam had lived 6000 years before Christ, and
had invested one penny at 6 per cent interest
and compound interest, that penny would to-day
have produced a heap of gold as big as the globe.
This is quite correct as a sum in pure arithmetic,
but pure arithmetic does not as yet regulate the
world; and what would the actual process be
by which the penny so multiplies itself ? Are
children born to it, for instance ? The cause of
its huge increase is to be found in the fact that
Adam's successors, their children, and children's
children have had to save and save in an ever
rising progression in order to pay back the penny
and the interest thereon. Labour and thrift are
the two forces of production which have oper-
ated here. Precisely the same applies to a sinking-
NATIONAL DEBT 515
fund. If I keep back four million, out of an
issue of a hundred million Treasury bills, and put
them in the safe, I might just as well burn them.
Their presence there with an official watching
over them has no effect at all ; the actual liquida-
tion of the debt will not be effected through a
secret magic of its own, but through the efforts
of the tax-payers.
In considering the other assertion that the
burden of the present can be transferred to the
future, we have to remember the simple fact
that, in the real world of history, miracles do not
occur. Before Pitt raised the first great war
loan in 1801 England possessed the capital which
was thus appropriated and turned into muni-
tions of war, soldiers' pay, cannon, powder, and
shot.
Then when the war was over these equivalents
for the money had disappeared, and the amount
of the loan had really been consumed. There-
fore it is clear that the national prosperity of the
generation then alive was diminished, and more-
over that their descendants had still to bear the
burden of the interest due. Thus we see that
there is no justification for the fundamental
principles on which this frivolous theory is based,
and yet no person endowed with political insight
can fail to perceive that Gentz and his school
had a much less fettered conception of what the
State should be, and a truer political instinct
than the upright, narrow-minded official world
of Germany, whose only recipe was an eternal
round of cutting down expenses.
In order to find a scientific measure for the
516 PUBLIC ECONOMY
credit system of a State we must first consider
the various purposes for which the money is
borrowed. All State loans are a means of draw-
ing private capital into public undertakings, but
the character of the loans differ. We may divide
them into three principal heads. First, we have
the debts which the State contracts by bad
management, and these we may look at from the
standpoint of civil law and pronounce that they
had better not have existed, for it is clear that
the affairs of the State should be as well ordered
and thought out as those of any private person.
Liabilities which it incurs through pure extrava-
gance and negligence do as much harm to its
finance as they would do to any individual
budget. Austria has transgressed unspeakably
in this respect, because she was too lazy and
thoughtless to provide herself with new sources
of revenue at the proper time, and also by reason
of the general corruptibility of her officials.
Debts such as these, which arise from extra-
vagance in management, are an absolute evil.
Therefore it is important that the floating debt,
which no State can be without, should not become
too large. It is absolutely impossible for any
State always to meet its current expenses by
cash payments, and it must therefore have a
floating debt, in the same way that every business
man has his credit at some Bank ; but it must
not be too big, nor stand out of proportion with
the State's resources.
To this extent then the principles of private
thrift apply also to the State. Now, however,
in the second place, we have a form of loan
STATE LOANS 517
which the State may raise, in order to turn the
private capital of its citizens into fixed capital,
which shall serve some great purpose for the
common good. This can hardly be called a debt
in the strict sense of the word, inasmuch as that
the State gives the individual a proprietary
interest in the equivalent for his capital. A State
railway loan is so arranged that the holders of
consols become co- proprietors of the State-
owned railway. The real point, as we have seen,
is not primarily the financial one, it is rather
in the question Do the conditions of intercourse
in this State call for a State railway system ?
Political considerations, and questions of com-
munications are the deciding factors, and if the
answer be in the affirmative the contracting of
the debt need not be considered financially,
always supposing that everything is carried out
in the proper way. The property of the State
remains ultimately identical with the property
of the nation, and the question can only be
whether a disproportionately high price is being
paid ; nothing is lost, for the fixed capital of the
State railroad represents in pounds, shillings, and
pence the full value of the loan. For the State
the question is as purely one of political and
administrative expediency as if a large land-
owner were debating whether he should under-
take extensive improvements upon his estates by
means of a loan, the interest of which should be
paid by the increased value of the soil, or whether
he should do it with ready money, or not at all.
The issue of such a loan is for him, as for the
State, a matter simply of expediency, and heavy
518 PUBLIC ECONOMY
debts of this sort may even be advantageous for
a nation.
The real difficulty only manifests itself when
we come to consider the third class of debts :
those which are contracted by a State under
circumstances of exceptional pressure, particu-
larly in time of war. The State has in this case to
decide whether it will meet its unusual require-
ments by an increase of taxation, or by the use
of its credit. From the commercial point of view
it would be cheaper to defray costs by taxation
rather than by borrowing money, but the State
has to consider the economic life of the nation as
a whole, and must ask itself where it can most
easily find available capital. For the State,
taxation and loans are both methods of attracting
private capital to serve public ends, but there
is an immeasurable difference, which has to be
reckoned with, between invested and free capital.
For it is clear that a loan only attracts the avail-
able capital which the public can dispense with,
and war is the very time when a great deal of
capital is available. A State which enjoys the
public confidence will find enough capital volun-
tarily put at its disposal. These are matters in
which very many moral and political influences
are at work. The energy of the national pride
is of the first importance, and everything depends
further upon the kind of people who control the
national capital. The contrast between France
and Germany in this respect still remains morti-
fying to our self-esteem. The very modest war
loan raised by the North German Confederation
for the last war was not once fully underwritten by
WAR LOANS 519
our wealthy Stock Exchanges, while the French
loan was taken up ten times over, and to this
day our Exchanges still reserve their enthusiasm
for Argentine investments. We may seek the
explanation in two causes : firstly, our instinct of
national pride is not yet enough developed,
despite the valour of Germany upon the battle-
field; and secondly, our Stock Markets are so
peopled with representatives of the Jewish race,
whose sympathies are by nature international
and not national.
In contrast to the war loan which draws in
nothing but capital voluntarily subscribed, war
taxation takes it by force, regardless of whether
it is uninvested or of whether it may be yielding
a 10 per cent return. Thus we arrive at the
conclusion that a reasonable employment of the
national credit is economically more correct than
the cheaper method of raising taxation. When
we consider the circumstances under which
England contracted her gigantic national debt,
we realize that at that time even England could
not have supported the pressure of taxation
which had become needful. The policy was
undoubtedly correct, although the details were
occasionally mismanaged, when in the Napoleonic
wars credit was made to take the place of the
capital which was left undisturbed to yield a
better interest in private investments. Thus
is explained the growing wealth of England in
spite of the colossal increase in her national debt.
We can only laugh when it is argued that these
war loans have been unproductive, even if only
in the strictest economic sense. It was a queer
520 PUBLIC ECONOMY
kind of unproductiveness which brought the
Cape of Good Hope, and who knows how much
else, into England's capacious pocket. Her
war policy gave her the richest spots upon the
earth.
We are further led to perceive how a whole
class of capitalists arises with the economic
growth of a nation, and that it becomes a vital
question for the State how best to bind these
capitalists to itself. For if it relinquishes the
use of its credit it drives them to place their
money abroad or in all sorts of private enter-
prises, many of which are fraudulent. Thus the
astonishing truth appears that the interests of
public order and solidarity compel the State to
have a large debt. We may go further still.
My old friend Karl Mathy used always to say,
" I wish nothing better for Germany than a good
big Imperial debt, for there could be no firmer
bond of union." It is impossible to deny the
truth of these words, but we recognized it far
too late. No one who remembers 1866 can for-
get how South Germany was affected by the fact
that all South German capitalists held Austrian
bonds.
France has much cause to be grateful to her
national debt. Her fine national spirit, which
we can never admire too much, has led every
Frenchman who saves (and what Frenchman
does not ?) to place his capital in the 3 per
cent consols, and only to withhold a specified
sum for speculative investments. This is an
invaluable bond of national unity, and, together
with many moral causes, has been the obvious
FRANCE AND PRUSSIA 521
material reason why the State has always been
so quickly on its legs again after its count-
less convulsions. The idea which, ever since
the rise of " young Germany," we have formed
of France is totally incorrect. The French are
closer reckoners, more thrifty, more niggardly
than the Germans. The German nature has not
only a heroic daring, but also a heroic careless-
ness of consequence, which is less visible in the
shrewd and prudent Latin. For the economical
Frenchman, Government stock is a link which
binds him very closely to his State ; its welfare is
his own.
Thus calm inquiry shows that in an age where
credit is universally employed, the State is not
only justified in turning its own to useful ends,
but is even acting wrongly when it neglects to use
the inwardly uniting forces of the national credit to
establish a living political sense among its citizens.
It follows that an unnecessary liquidation of debt
may be a serious political mistake at the present
day. Prussia was instantly proved to be wrong
when she put aside part of the windfall of the
French milliards for paying off old debt. The
capital thus liberated, which had hitherto lain quite
secure in Prussian Government bonds, was now
flung into all manner of speculative investments
at home and abroad. What was really gained
by the liquidation ? The burden of taxation
was diminished by a scarcely noticeable mini-
mum, which was instantly swallowed up by
fresh undertakings on the part of the State.
No one now denies that the five milliards ought
to have been immediately applied to starting the
522 PUBLIC ECONOMY
network of railways which were begun some
years later under circumstances essentially less
favourable.
We may say with certainty that the modern
State requires a permanent national debt, and it
follows naturally that this should take the form
of a funded debt, or Government stock. Since
the State, humanly speaking, is eternal, its nature
is expressed by a consolidated debt, not by a
loan contracted for a specified time. As a
logical outcome of this system the debt is simply
entered in the ledger of the nation, and the State
undertakes no general obligation to repay the
principal but only binds itself to produce the
interest. The creditors cannot call in their money
directly from the State itself, but they can sell
their stock. This is a familiar operation in our
modern Stock Exchanges, and consols are the
best stock, because they represent capital in-
vested in a safe security and not subject to
essential alteration.
Thus has the lapse of time conquered the old
theory based on the economy of the private
individual, and solved the riddle of the most
debt-burdened of European nations being at the
same time the wealthiest. So far as we ourselves
are concerned, the German States are in no
danger of any serious indebtedness, because the
vast majority of German liabilities consist of
railway loans, so that they have their equivalent
at hand in the form of fixed capital.
XXVI
ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
THE main part of the subjects with which this
chapter deals, such as the protection and pro-
motion of national welfare and education, which
political science formerly regarded as its outlying
provinces, have been discussed earlier, in our
section on the Social Foundations of the State.
We shall now treat only of the technical side
of administration, of the co-ordination of the
authorities empowered to carry out the will of
the State, of the Civil Service and its substructure,
and of Communal self-government.
We have seen how the Roman Empire in-
fluenced future ages by the organization of its
official system. It borrowed from the Byzantine
Church the outward forms of its hierarchy, even
as the Church of Rome in the Middle Ages also
served as a model for the modern State in the
arrangement and distribution of its offices, until
the time came when every nation took its own
line. The mediaeval State had absolutely no
organized Civil Service, and it was left to the
modern world to develop and systematize one
as the weight and importance of political aims
523
524 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
continued to increase. The place at which the
line is drawn between subordinate and higher
officials is of particular importance for the char-
acter of the Civil Service ; it is of no less moment
than the nature of the division between officers
and men has been proved to be for the Army.
The various forms which the organization assumes
in the three countries reflect for us plainly the
tendencies of aristocratic England, bureaucratic
France, and scholarly Germany, standing as it
were between the two.
In England the line between officials proper
and " clerks " so called is drawn, according to
our ideas, extremely high. At the most favour-
able estimate there are not more than eighty
officials, in our sense of the word, all the rest
being clerks, who merely carry out instructions
without attaining to the higher positions in the
Service. The English official class is not held in
the same universal esteem as our own, and
" clerks " who come of good family are chiefly
to be found in India. Rowland Hill was never
actually Minister nor independent Director of
the English Post- Office, but he always held the
position of Head Clerk in the Department. This
dependent position held by Civil Servants in
England " subaltern " in the worst sense of the
word is, as we have seen, part and parcel of the
whole character of the old English State, which
was aristocratic through and through. In France
also the boundary is drawn high between the
small number of fonctionnaires and the vast
majority of employes., who are liable to be dis-
missed without pension, and with as little con-
GERMAN CIVIL SERVICE 525
sideration as an ordinary clerk in a counting-
house. In this case, however, the system was
not formed to protect the aristocracy of Parlia-
ment, but was designed in order that the tem-
porary head of the State should be able to control
the great mass of the officials, so that a whole
crowd of them might be swept out at any moment,
ad nutum principis.
In accordance with its eminently scientific
character, Germany tries its Civil Servants by
intellectual tests. The notion that a certain
level of education carries with it a capacity for
government is thoroughly German and deep-
rooted in the somewhat theoretic idealism of our
race. On the whole, however, it has proved
itself to be true. In Germany the division
between real officials and subordinates is to be
found at the point where university education
ceases. It is only recently that the magnificent
development of technical training has produced
fresh types of official, who may be placed on a
level with those who have studied at our univer-
sities. The cleavage is far deeper with us than
either in France or in England. It is carried
down into the lowest ranks of the Service, and
from it the whole German official hierarchy
receives that character which is democratic in
the good sense of the word. This trait notwith-
standing, the official class have developed a
whole series of ideas of honour peculiar to
themselves, and unshared by any foreign nation.
A grave misfortune for us at present is the
disproportionately large number of persons
holding preliminary posts whose salaries are too
526 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
small to ensure independence of action. The
disadvantages are both moral and material, for,
on the one hand, the higher grades, already
bearing more than their share of the burden of the
whole Service, are still more unfairly overtaxed,
while on the other the worst kind of com-
petition may easily be aroused. Apart from this,
a certain amount of independence has always
been secured to our officials. Restraints were
first imposed by modern Constitutional Govern-
ment ; Regierungsrdte (Government Councillors)
and Landrdte (Provincial Councillors) found
their former powers curtailed, and themselves
made liable to be deposed for Service reasons.
Upon the whole, however, the rule which forbids
a man to be removed from office applies through-
out Germany, although not unconditionally.
Only thus can a Civil Service develop the char-
acteristics of trustworthiness and honour. In
no country is the pension system better organized
than in our own, even though it still leaves much
to be desired. Taken all in all, the German
Civil Service may safely be called the best in
Europe.
In Prussia, which became the model for the
rest of Germany, the system upon which authority
was delegated arose gradually in the course of
history. It was the Elector Joachim Frederick
who created in 1604 the Privy Council (Geheime
Rath). At that date the Hohenzollerns had had
accessions of territory both in the east and west,
and this new central authority was at first the
only one possessed in common by the scattered
domains. This body, however, became larger,
PRUSSIAN SYSTEM 527
and more and more unwieldy, until at length its
subdivisions were past all counting. Then
Frederick William I. stepped in as reformer of
the administration, and brought into being the
General Direktorium, or central administrative
authority, which has been the germ of all future
developments.
Our nation was extremely slow in adopting
a currency in place of the old system of exchange
in kind, but finally the State could subsist no
longer upon the revenues of the old Crown lands,
and in the time of the great Elector the collection
of taxes became the rule in Brandenburg, instead
of, as formerly, the exception. Thus an admini-
stration of taxes arose side by side with the old
patriarchal administration of the Crown Estates,
which till then had been controlled by the Crown
Estates Office (Domdnen-Kammer) ; the War
Commissions (Kriegscommissariat) were appointed,
so called because the permanent taxes were
appropriated to military uses. Thus did the
mediaeval State stand side by side with the
modern, pursuing a system of dual control,
whose respective parts bore no defined relation
to each other, the Crown Estates Office (Domdnen-
Kammer) representing tribute in kind, and the
War Commissions (Kriegscommissariat) represent-
ing tribute in money. It is to the honour of
Frederick William I. that he amalgamated the
two groups of officials and created the War
Department and the Royal Domains Depart-
ment (Kriegs- und Domdnen-Kammern) which
together controlled the whole fiscal system.
From this arrangement sprang the eccentric
528 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
title of Kriegsrat (War Councillor) given at
that time in Prussia to the Government Coun-
cillors (Regierungsrat) as they are now called.
These new intermediate posts were placed by the
King under the control of the General Direk-
torium, the terms of whose commission were
drafted with his own unsurpassed practical
ability.
At first the work even of that authority was
not logically subdivided according to the subjects
with which it had to deal, and the provincial
Department was mixed with the Department
which administered the State as a whole in a
marvellous medley. The Minister for the Province
of Magdeburg was also Minister of Mines for the
whole monarchy, because nearly all the State's
mines happened to be in the Province of Magde-
burg. The Minister for East Prussia and Lithu-
ania superintended the drainage and cultivation
of the whole kingdom for the same reason.
Silesia, which at the time it was acquired was
about a third of the monarchy, lay quite outside
the administration of the General Direktorium
and was directly under the King in person.
Inconsistent as all this was, it represented the
immature and growing conditions of the State.
The eaglet still carried the fragments of the shell
upon its head, and even in 1806 some officials of
the old school still spoke of Prussia as a Federal
State. Only the reforms of Stein and Harden-
berg reduced this chaos to order. Stein copied
from France what was worth copying, that is to
say, the creation of special Departments for special
business. Thenceforward every Minister of the
FRENCH SYSTEM 529
Crown had his own Department. It is char-
acteristic of the Prussian Bureaucracy that it
employed only a relatively small number of
independent officials, and generally preferred a
Board. If despatch was thus somewhat sacri-
ficed, the individual citizen was compensated by
greater security for his rights. The reputation
for equity enjoyed by Prussian Civil Servants was
well deserved. After the catastrophe of Jena our
Civil Service was recast, although with caution,
and the old Boards were retained with some
modifications.
In France, on the other hand, bureaucratic
administration remained as Napoleon I. had left
it. It had always lain in the hands of individual
officials. Under the old regime the Provinces
were governed by thirty Intendants, whose
functions were never strictly defined. A con-
tinual struggle raged between them and the
aristocratic owners of the soil. The Intendants
derived their strength from above, and could
always count upon the King's support, but
they had no independence whatever. They were
always drawn from the tiers etat, and fought the
battles of the bureaucracy against the agrarian
nobility with a marked class prejudice. France
had become identified with this state of things,
and when Napoleon reorganized the administra-
tion of the country by the law of 28 Pluviose of
the year VIII. he had only to develop the existing
system of centralization more logically and com-
pletely. Local institutions were all made to
conform to the central pattern with a mechanical
regularity, and officials were given definite powers.
VOL. II 2M
530 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
They were omnipotent as regards their subordin-
ates, but as dependent as ever upon their
superiors. The apex of the system was the
Council of State. From it alone the Prefect
received his orders, and was protected from all
intervention on the part of the Courts.
A centralized bureaucracy, however, is never
entirely adequate to the needs of a cultured
people, and it must be supplemented by local
self-government. To understand this properly
it must be realized that the Commune (Ge-
meinde), representing the interests of the local
corporation, stands half-way between the State
and the individual. Most political writers place
the Commune amongst the social institutions of
the State. This is not an error but an irrele-
vancy. Strictly speaking, the Commune is a
division whose character is mainly political. Both
State and Commune are on a territorial basis,
and share the further characteristic of being
paramount within their respective spheres. The
Commune is a microcosm of the State, it embraces
all classes and callings, and is to that extent
universal in character. This must not be taken
too literally, since the limited area of the Com-
mune prevents the co-existence of every type
within it, although great cities do actually include
all classes of the nation. There is another
respect in which the Commune appears less
perfect in contrast to the genuine universality
of the State, for the preponderance of certain
industries must markedly modify its conditions,
and the contrast between town and country may
be softened but never abolished. The intrinsic
COMMUNES 531
relationship of Commune and State, and the
political rather than social nature of the former,
is made plain by the fact that if a Commune
could be isolated it would form a State, and, in-
versely, that if a City-State is subjected to a higher
authority it would decline into a mere Commune.
This cannot be said of other purely social com-
munities, because they lack the material attri-
butes of independence. A totally independent
Church is a chimera, for it can only become a
State by being sole possessor of definite territories.
The Commune, on the other hand, is homogeneous
with the State, and differs only in being smaller
and more one-sided.
We Germans have always felt the claims of
local rights too strongly, but there are some
nations, especially those who were herded under
the hierarchy of Rome, to whom strict con-
sistency and practical efficiency of administra-
tion (which are both better realized under a
centralized system) seem more important than
the unhampered expansion of local life. We
may say, however, that wherever this ideal of
logical order is strongly felt, true political freedom
will be slow to develop. When a people is un-
equal to managing the most ordinary and trivial
affairs for itself it will still less be capable of
solving the greater political problems by its own
independent judgment. It is of the essence of
political freedom that the will of the State should
assert itself not only through its authorized
officials but also through the machinery of local
government.
We must now define what the term " local
532 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
government " (Selbstverwaltung) exactly means.
Autonomy will not express its full content,
rather the contrary, for legislative power must
remain in the hands of the central authority,
and we find that Communal liberties are only
possible when this centralization has existed
for a long time past. England is the best ex-
ample. There all local government is founded
upon the central legislature, and has therefore
been able to mature without detriment to the
Common Law. French Communes, and German
towns, on the other hand, enjoyed only too long
the dangerous privileges of autonomy. For this
reason the French State in particular was com-
pelled to crush this independent spirit, and to
subdue and shepherd Communal life too much.
Legislative authority must not be conceded to
Communes, which should only have power to
issue local regulations under the approval of the
State, like the by-laws of the English local
authorities. Otherwise the consistency of national
legislation will be marred by the interference of
local bodies. Nor is the essence of self-govern-
ment contained in the election rather than the
appointment of officials to unsalaried posts.
Both these methods are possible, but not indis-
pensable. To take the most illustrious example
for no less than five hundred years English
Justices of the Peace have been appointed by
the Crown, and yet nobody doubts that their
offices are in the nature of self-government.
Furthermore, every one feels that our own salaried
Town - Councillors (Stadtrdte) and Burgomasters
are officers of the local, and not of the central,
LOCAL GOVERNMENT 533
government. In the United States all local
officials are paid, while in Germany we have a
complicated system of stipends.
It is not then in such outward forms as elective
or honorary posts that the essence of local
government is to be found. Local government
is first and foremost the executive of the State's
sovereign will, imposed not through the officials
of the State, but through local bodies who are
empowered to conduct affairs with a legal,
though relative, independence, either through
their own members or agents of their own appoint-
ing. The functions of these governing corpora-
tions are not exhausted when they have carried
out the will of the State within the narrow circle
of urban areas, for the management of purely
local matters, with special reference to local
taxation, also falls within their scope. Here lies
the reason why so many political thinkers have
maintained that Communes only exist for pur-
poses of finance. The laying on of water and
the lighting and cleaning of streets are important
parts of urban administration, and in the country
districts it is even more apparent that the chief
function of Communal government lies in the
sphere of economics. In the old days of forced
labour the details of agriculture were settled by
the Communal authorities, and, although this
system is now discontinued, the attention of a
peasant community is still chiefly engaged by
the economic side of existence. Nevertheless
the village Syndic is at the same time the servant
of the State, responsible for the custody of vaga-
bonds and so forth, so that the dual character
534 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
is never absent from Communal administration.
The aim of healthy political life is to combine
the independence of Communes and Communal
Unions with a really vigorous central authority.
By the nature of things all local government
is aristocratic in character. It is quite impossible
to entrust the first comer with offices which
landlord and citizen administer side by side, and
therefore it is perfectly just and normal that
such appointments should be given to men
of property and standing. In our country of
course the limit is placed very low, but, even so,
local government can never lose its aristocratic
nature, and here we have the reason why it
commends itself so little to any radical party,
and why universal suffrage must be absurd when
applied to Communal elections. By it power
would pass out of the hands of the classes who
wield it to-day.
If such a system is wrong for the Communes
it cannot be right for the State. It is the great
merit of self-government that it diffuses through
a wide circle the sense of personal responsibility
and a certain measure of political experience. In
countries like France, where it does not really
exist, the citizen is merely a critic of the State.
Honest peasants and townsfolk, who co-operate
in government, acquire some idea of its diffi-
culties and responsibilities, and men who are
not State officials usually get their political
training only through this practical school.
The seamy side of the system is that it appeals
directly to the selfish social ambition of the
governing classes. There is danger of social
DEFECTS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT 535
injustice and of too much favour being shown
to the interests of the classes who do the political
work. No doubt the average official often suffers
from an imperfect sense of proportion, but he is
not concerned to vindicate the interests of his
own class against the great forces of society ; his
object is to safeguard the authority of the Govern-
ment with which he feels himself identified.
Moreover our German Civil Service is recruited
from such various sources, and presents such
different types of education that generally we
may safely expect social justice at the hands
of this monarchical bureaucracy. Our officials
could have no object in preferring a nobleman
before a peasant. Local government, on the other
hand, is administered by the local land- and
property-owning classes, hence it is natural that
the simple man has less confidence in the local
magistrate (Amtsvorsteher) than in the Pro-
vincial Councillor appointed by the King (Konig-
liche Landrat). Here lies the danger of all self-
government, and the rock upon which even the
time-honoured English institution of Justices
of the Peace finally foundered. It had become
too exclusively aristocratic, and the poor man
no longer relied upon receiving his rights when
they clashed with those of the gentry. Thus in
England the old office has become almost nominal.
A further defect in local government is its
amateurishness. While some theoretic know-
ledge at least may be expected from a State
official, the representatives of self-government
are always prone to a crude and light-hearted
empiricism. Herein lies the reason why those
536 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
persons who everywhere look only on the material
side of things are so hostile to the system. The
genuine disciple of the Manchester school who
believes that buying cheap and selling dear is
the goal of all existence is perfectly correct from
this point of view in arguing that a scientific
classification of Government work would serve
local interests better than the system of local
government itself can do. Technically there is
much to be said for this. It cannot be denied
that a bureaucrat like Baron Haussmann can
achieve great practical results, and that a man
of his energy could organize town-planning with
a dexterity and speed which was quite beyond
the contentious City Council of Paris, but the
real question is politico-moral, and concerns the
political education of the people. For the
Teutonic nations at any rate there is no doubt
that daily contact with the business of govern-
ment has had a highly educative influence. A
certain training in theory is indispensable to
parliamentary usefulness, but in our case the
real political strength of the nation has always
been found among those men who have learned
the practical art of government in the towns and
in the country.
The particular organization of local govern-
ment is a matter of the greatest moment to
every State. In England the county and not
the parish has always been the administrative
unit, and the country has never possessed that
natural basis for rural self-government on de-
mocratic lines, a Landgemeindeordnung. Even
urban administration fell into decay at an early
ARISTOCRATIC ENGLAND 537
date, and is far from being a model at the present
day. The country districts are comparatively
thinly populated, and the villages have not suffi-
cient vigour to assert themselves. The more
independent elements among the country people
have been drifting for centuries to the towns
or the colonies. Peasant proprietors have only
survived in the extreme north-east of the island,
and in all other districts they have been bought
out by the gentry. The whole country is broken
up into some thousands of large estates, which
are again subdivided and handed over to the
tender mercies of tenant farmers. Briefly stated,
the social conditions of English country life have
been distorted by aristocratic influence. Ger-
many has the advantage of possessing millions
of free peasant owners, but this yeoman class is
totally extinct in England, and its absence gives
a servile tone to country life. Social conditions
such as these naturally left the gentry an over-
whelming preponderance, and so long as they
were unchanged the cumbrous aristocratic form
of local government remained intact.
The administrative areas are the counties,
immemorial historical units, reaching back to
Saxon times. Their average size is about that
of our Altmark, and, relatively at any rate, they
have a stronger individuality than the French
Departments. Above all, each of them has a
long history of its own, filled with popular heroes
like Robin Hood of Lincolnshire, who are closely
bound up with national tradition. Here we
have the provincial spirit in the best sense of the
word. It is evident that the gentry are the only
538 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
possible leaders of local affairs in these counties.
The middle class lack both the leisure and the
means to undertake the task, and consequently
the chief office of English local government, the
Commission of the Peace, has been, from its
institution in the fourteenth century (1360),
exclusively in the hands of the great landlords.
Justices of the Peace were intended to deal with
petty offences in rural districts. Every young
gentleman of good county family who had finished
his studies and made the grand tour was put on
the list of magistrates when he came home to
pursue sport and enter Parliament. Professional
men who had made their money in the towns
and had then retired to the country were also
eligible, but otherwise only scions of the gentry
were as a rule enrolled.
In 1850 this system was still flourishing, and
in that year the total number of landowners
amounted only to about 17,000 (so abnormal
had the conditions of land tenure become), and
of these nearly 8000 were magistrates and
most of them actually exercising their func-
tions. They were appointed without regard to
political party, and all the J.P.'s of the county,
or later of the county division, had concurrent
jurisdiction. Illogical as this plan was, it had
good results, for, although the method was un-
scientific, it provided a safeguard against political
partizanship. So long as industrialism had not
invaded the rural districts the average country
gentleman was quite capable of grappling with
the simple problems of the locality. Technically
speaking, not much was to be expected of such
ENGLISH J.P.'S 539
a system. Vade-mecums of every kind, arranged
alphabetically or otherwise, were provided to
guide the perplexed J.P. through the intricacies
of law and punishment. Quarter Sessions forms
a Court of Appeal from these inferior tribunals,
where all the " usually attending " Justices of
the Peace assemble. Erroneous judgments of
individual magistrates are here reversed, and the
gentry are thus made to sit in judgment on them-
selves, which is a solace to their pride. There
is a touch of the grand manner about all this,
which is eminently aristocratic. It goes without
saying that J.P.'s are irremovable so long as
they commit no penal offence. In order to under-
stand the English system completely we must
bear in mind the tremendous burdens which
self-government laid upon the landowning class,
and it was regarded as a point of honour to defray
the expenses of their office themselves. In this
way the English aristocracy continued to renew
its social influence.
This state of things was clearly incompatible
with the increase of available capital and the rise
of the middle class. The old methods of local
government no longer admitted of genuine social
justice ; they were harshly aristocratic and were
therefore doomed. Conditions first became
intolerable in the towns, and it was soon evident
that great cities could not be administered by
Justices of the type we have described. In 1830
Sir Robert Peel created a salaried police force
for London, which like its continental counter-
part was placed under the direct control of the
Home Secretary. The new spirit was also em-
540 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
phasized by the Reform Bill of 1832, which
brought some professional and popular elements
into Parliament. We see in the collapse of the
aristocratic forms of local government the first
symptom of that democratic movement which
broke out in 1830, and within two years led to
Parliamentary Reform.
The next step was to mend the crying scandal
of the Poor Law. The Act of Queen Elizabeth
in 1601 was still in force, and in spite of great
outlay of money very little was actually done
for the lower classes. The influence of the new
middle-class elements in the House of Commons
led to the establishment of a new Poor Law
authority in 1835, a highly centralized bureau-
cratic body, consisting, however, of well-trained
experts. The whole kingdom was divided into
large Poor Law areas, which are administered
by new methods of local government, much less
aristocratic, but also less free than the old. The
landowners elect a Committee, which does not
itself carry out details, but appoints subordinate
salaried officials, called Poor Law officers, whose
function it is to administer the Poor Law under
the direction of the Committee. Thus in dealing
with pauperism, a more democratic and bureau-
cratic system, which governs by proxy, arose
alongside of the old aristocratic system, which
acted without intermediary. Subsequent reforms
were on the same lines. In 1848 a much-needed
Act for dealing with Public Health was passed,
and a Board set up in London to enforce it. The
need for the reform was glaring, but neverthe-
less the destruction of the old self-government
COUNTY COUNCILS 541
was thereby continued, and this sphere of it also
was invaded by subordinate officials acting under
the control of a Committee.
Finally, towards the end of the year 1886 the
agitation for a change in county administration
began. J.P.'s were not entirely abolished, but
their powers were made almost nominal, and
since that time their functions have been little
more than an honourable sinecure. It is still
thought the proper thing to be a J.P., in the same
way that the most prominent of the great landed
aristocracy still aspire to become Lord-Lieu-
tenants, although the most onerous duties of
this office now consist in giving expensive
dinner-parties. Thus the office of Justice of the
Peace has sunk into one of ceremonial only,
and the centre of gravity has shifted to the
County Councils, which are Committees chosen
by the county ratepayers on a fairly liberal
electoral basis, which includes women who own
property. But even the County Councils do
not govern directly, like our local magistrates
(Amtsvorsteher) ; they appoint paid officials, who
carry on business on bureaucratic lines.
Such a Committee has no real vigour, and it
marks the beginning of a new era in which English
public life became much more democratic, but
also much less free. A government which does
not govern directly is not worthy of the name,
and thus England, in spite of her magnificent
national history, may at last fall into the same
bureaucratic groove as France. It is still too
early to pronounce, but it is safe to say that the
democratization of England, which began with
542 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
the Reform Bill of 1832, took a great step forward
with the establishment of County Councils, and
given the narrowness of English Radicalism it is
impossible to foretell what the future may have
in store. These phenomena are more instructive
than encouraging, for they prove that Democ-
racy and Liberty are not always synonymous,
but often contradictory terms.
It is obvious that England has been influenced
in these respects by French example. In other
spheres her history is thoroughly insular, but
since the middle of the nineteenth century there
have been developments in which continental,
and particularly French influences have made
themselves felt. Just as the Reform Bill would
certainly never have passed without the Revolu-
tion of July, so certain bureaucratic ideas have
been imported from France into England.
France has a system of self-government, which
according to our ideas is not worthy of the name.
This can best be explained by saying that here
again Germany stands half-way between France
and England. Formerly, in England, officialdom
kept quite in the background and only made
itself felt at headquarters ; France has its bureau-
cracy disguised as self-government, while Ger-
many displays a combination of Royal officials
and self-government, which corresponds to our
conditions, and has been justified in practice.
I have already explained how the indiscipline
and turbulence of the aristocracy compelled
the old French monarchy to centralize the
Government wherever possible. Thus in the
Middle Ages the kings sent their " baillis " with
FRENCH SYSTEM 543
indefinite powers to keep what order they could
amidst the chaos of contending aristocratic forces
in the Provinces. This method was developed
more and more, and under Richelieu centraliza-
tion almost reached its zenith. The despotic
rule of his Intendants and sub - Delegates was
only restricted by expediency. All this was in
the nature of things. It is undeniable that the
old French nobility showed an anarchical spirit
which had to be repressed, but all Communal
liberty perished in the process. When Napoleon
I. reconstituted the Administration he took his
stand on historical precedent and completed the
work of previous centuries by instituting bureau-
cracy pure and simple.
The Revolution had abolished the ancient
Provinces of France. What a contrast to
England with its immemorial county boundaries,
and to Prussia with its Provinces, new indeed in
form, but rooted in history. The Revolution
broke the chain of tradition so completely that
everything which happened before the storming
of the Bastille has been wiped from the people's
memory. The Breton, the Norman, or the Gascon
may indeed still be distinguished by their manners
or their speech, and some small districts show a
marked individuality, but, politically speaking,
the Revolution has swept the old divisions away
for ever, for it scented danger in the old inde-
pendence of rural life. Everything that smacked
of local independence was denounced as Federal-
ism by the National Assembly and the Conven-
tion, and thus the Girondins fell most unjustly
under the same suspicion.
544 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
Suffice it to say that the old territorial divisions
were wiped out, and the country divided upon
the map into Departments, originally eighty-
three in number, which were too small ever to
give the central authorities a quaver of anxiety.
Sieyes, who drew up the Constitution, even recom-
mended that they should not be named, but
merely numbered. This proposal was even then
considered too foolish, but the alternative actu-
ally adopted of calling the new units after moun-
tains and rivers is really quite as ridiculous.
Who could feel loyalty to a Department which
is named after a river ? A man may be proud
to call himself a Norman or a Provencal, but
how can he wax enthusiastic over the Depart-
ment of Seine Inferieure, or Bouches du Rhone ?
Obviously such latter-day administrative areas
can have no real political life. Their geographi-
cal area is diabolically planned. If the Provin-
cial Governments (Regierungsbezirke) in Prussia
were the biggest administrative units, they also
would be too small to have a life of their own.
Nature always finds an outlet, even under un-
natural conditions, and it is true that some French
Departments already have their history. Efforts
are made to arouse a feeling for history in un-
historical conditions, because the instinct to
link the past with the present is ineradicable in
human nature. Broadly speaking, however, the
object has been attained, and the old historical
provincial life has gone.
The elimination of all distinction between
town and country is also typical of the unhistorical
spirit which animates the system, and this in a
FRENCH CENTRALIZATION 545
country where the majority of the Provinces
show a very marked contrast between the two.
Many of the country villages are made up of
dens hardly fit for human habitation, while hard
by lie towns noted for their wealth and beauty.
The law ignores this difference, and recognizes
nothing but the municipality, which applies
equally to urban and rural districts. All dis-
tinction between the two has been abolished,
and the whole country has 40,000 municipalities,
constituted alike, with Paris alone excepted.
By a fundamental principle of all French
government, initiative and responsibility are
both kept solely in the hands of the Civil Service.
The present method of dividing the country has
fostered a firmly centralized bureaucratic ad-
ministration, ably served by the inexorable logic
of a masterly system. At the head of each
Department is placed a Prefect, who is irremov-
able, entirely dependent as regards his superiors,
and well-nigh omnipotent as regards his sub-
ordinates. Next to him comes a sub-Prefect
for each arrondissement, and then a Mayor for
each municipality. Formerly the State ap-
pointed even the Mayor ; he is now elected by
the Parish Council (Gemeinderat), but experience
has shown that there is no practical difference.
The Mayor is, as he always was, a notable of
the district, who has to exercise his authority
in the name of the State, and, in spite of his
title, he is more an official of the State than of
the local administration.
This system knows no parochial or Communal
areas with independent corporations in our
VOL. II 2 N
546 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
German sense. A controlling and criticizing
body does indeed exist beside the Prefect, a
general Council, elected from the highest-rated
inhabitants of the Department. Its function
is to communicate its advice and opinion,
and to bring forward gravamina against the
Administration ; in short, it bears no responsi-
bility. A body which is not called upon to
answer for what it does or advises can have no
authority, politically speaking, for in politics
responsibility is inseparable from power. In the
same way the sub-Prefect is flanked by an
arrondissement Council, and the Mayor by a
municipal Council. The fiscal system affords
an example of how little weight Communal self-
government carries in France. Communal
burdens are covered simply by supplementing
the State taxes, by means of the " additional
centime." The amount of these supplements is
characteristic. In Berlin we are satisfied if we
are let off with a supplementary rate amounting
to 100 per cent of the Imperial taxes. Towns
in industrial districts are often in a much worse
plight, and pay five times as much to the Munici-
pality as to the State, for our local government
has many tasks allotted to it. In France, on the
other hand, the " additional centime " usually
amounts to one, or, in rare cases, to 3 per cent
of the State taxes.
These figures illustrate the contrast between
French local government and our own. France
is divided into the governors and the governed,
into omnipotent officials on the one hand, and
submissive subjects on the other, who retain the
PREFECTURAL SYSTEM 547
right of criticism without responsibility. These
are the actual facts, and they reflect the national
character. The drawback to this mechanical
and inanimate but business-like system is the
secret log-rolling and jobbery amongst so-called
notables which plays such a sinister part in
French life, and whose evil influences we have
experienced in Alsace. No capable nation is
content to let itself be administered without
sooner or later claiming a share in the manage-
ment of its affairs, and if that is denied it will
seek an outlet in bribery and intrigue. The
notables try to gain their ends by backstairs
influence at the Prefecture. It is a point of view
which we cannot understand, but which we must
accept as the eccentricity of a great people. It
has taken us a long time to wean our population
on the left bank of the Rhine from its fondness
for these French practices. Until 1848, the
Rhinelanders, with David Hansemann at their
head, were filled with an enthusiastic respect for
the glorious French system of Prefects. They
reckoned on their fingers that a Prussian Pro-
vincial Government involved so and so many
Councils, while the Prefect was content with one.
Therefore, they argued, the French system must
be cheaper a conclusion which was not borne
out by a comparison of the achievements of the
two systems. The first result of the French
method is to enslave the spirit of the people,
and to prove how unfit the French are for real
political liberty.
A relative ability for self-government dis-
tinguishes the Italians amongst all the other
548 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
Latin peoples, who were so thoroughly impreg-
nated with the spirit of Ancient Rome that a
hierarchy in things temporal as well as spiritual
seemed quite natural to them. But Italians
have so much Teutonic blood in their veins,
and in the Middle Ages their municipal life
flourished so proudly that we can trace its effects
amongst them to this day, although they proved
themselves to be true Latins after all in 1861,
when the kingdom of Italy came into being.
The problem then was the reconstruction of the
Provinces. Piedmont had been divided into
Departments on the French plan, Turin, Genoa,
etc., which formed obvious units in so small a
State, but the transference of this organization
to Italy would have led to the adoption of the
whole French system. The project was opposed
by distinguished men who demanded the forma-
tion of Provinces on the German pattern,
" Regions," as Minghetti, then Minister of the
Interior, wished to call them. Italy possessed
great areas with a long-standing history, such
as Tuscany, Lombardy, or Venice, and why
should they not be organized on independent
lines ? Minghetti wished to reproduce the
Prussian arrangement in his own country. Italy
would then have had twelve " Regions," each
with its own traditions, and a certain measure of
independence in its relations with the capital.
The measure met with insurmountable obstacles.
Firstly, French influence was so strong that the
Prefect system seemed the only solution, and
secondly, there was a dread of separatist tend-
encies. To avoid this rock, it was decided to
ITALIAN MUNICIPALITIES 549
have only little Departments (for the so-called
Provinces are in reality nothing else), which have
no historical roots and no prospect of developing
a healthy independence from central authority.
At the head of each is a Prefect, only slightly
controlled by a Prefectural Council.
Happily the sub-structure is healthier than
in France, for the sturdy old municipalities were
not so easily brought under the bureaucratic
yoke. The mediaeval history of Italy is civic,
the whole character of the nation has become
urban, the nobility have everywhere emigrated
to the towns, so that a gentry in the true sense
scarcely exists. To - day it is the ambition of
the dukes and princes to become Syndics of
the great cities Rome, Milan, and the like. In
addition there is the gradual depopulation of the
rural districts by the great towns. Every town
is surrounded by suburbs planned on urban
lines, so that villages are only to be found in
the remote districts. The old Roman axiom still
holds good, " the child of the village is child also
of the Mother City of the village." The traveller
arriving in Genoa cannot distinguish where the
suburbs end and the town begins. This belt of
hamlets encircling the town proper is very
ancient, and gives to the first administrative
grade its peculiar character all over the country.
Communes, presided over by men of standing,
and taking a healthy pride in their independent
administration, very nearly balance the central-
ized Prefectural system.
Germans may truly claim that no other
country has grasped the idea of self-government
550 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
so fully as our own. In the Middle Ages we per-
mitted civic freedom to grow even to excess,
and a great number of our cities received the
freedom of the Empire and exercised all the
functions of sovereignty within their own walls.
German city life attained a wonderful bloom in
consequence. It is an open question whether
the splendid development of Municipal govern-
ment at the close of the Middle Ages should be
regarded as the apotheosis of the mediaeval Com-
mune or as the germ of the modern State. There
is much to be said for both views. The con-
sciousness of ethical duties began to dawn upon
the authorities in the small autonomous munici-
palities, and led them into manifold activities
which had lain far beyond the reach of all States
in their period of primitive economics. The
inevitable reaction followed; and the Imperial
cities fulfilled the old French saying, of which
France had already felt the force : " the search
for too much freedom leads to slavery." The
growing power of the central authority cot Id not
tolerate such autonomous communities. Their
subjugation began, and in the eighteenth century
the once flourishing towns were stagnant and
decaying. The miserable condition of the
Imperial cities and of their leading families only
finds a parallel in England.
Once again, it was Frederick William I. who
laid the foundations of a new Prussian freedom
which he neither guessed at nor desired. Nothing
was further from his thoughts than to confer
fresh liberties upon his Prussian towns, in restor-
ing the order which was his chief concern. He ap-
STEIN'S REFORMS 551
pointed Royal Commissioners to purge municipal
finance and to sweep nepotism away, and these
" regulated " towns of the Monarchy were those
who entered most willingly into the subsequent
Edict for the government of towns (Stddte-
ordnung), because in them the sense of justice
and outward order at any rate had been restored.
This new Prussian Town Edict was the creation
of the Freiherr von Stein, that great man whom
my master Dahlmann called the founder of
German civic life in a deeper sense than King
Henry. The splendid expansion of German
cities in the nineteenth century is essentially a
product of freedom combined with an effective
self-government under monarchical guidance.
It is characteristic of the practical genius of Stein
that he saw at once where to find the fulcrum for
the lever. It was impossible at that moment
to reconstruct the rural Communes and Dis-
tricts, because the emancipation of the peasantry
had only just been begun. The newly-liberated
vassals were so suspicious of their former lords
that co-operation between the two could hardly
have been brought about at that time. Social
cleavage was less marked in the towns, but even
there the hard lessons of the War of Liberation
were needed before the idea of the collaboration
of the middle classes in the Administration could
be realized. During the war whole Districts
were left without any Royal officials at all, for
they were all serving with the colours, and the
Communes had to look after their own govern-
ment. Taken all in all, Stein so exactly hit on
the right plan that his arrangement has served,
552 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
either directly or indirectly, as a model for
German Communal government ever since.
Before 1848 self-government had become a sort
of fetish amongst us, and in the 'thirties the
Stddteordnung was called " Prussia's political
Bible." A generous rivalry arose amongst the
great towns as to which of them should be best
administered.
Stein's work was thoroughly original, for his
experience was limited to his own county of the
Mark. The fundamental characteristics of the
Edict of November 1808 are of the simplest
nature. It starts from the principle that the
town should control its own finance as well as
public safety in the fullest sense, and that these
functions should be exercised jointly by the
Chief Official (Magistral) and elected repre-
sentatives of the city. Town Councillors (Stadt-
rdte) and Corporations (Stadtverordnete) have a
direct share in city government through their
Committees and Corporations, and are not merely
a body intended to supervise the Burgomaster.
It was a particularly happy thought to compose
the Municipal Council partly of paid and partly
of unpaid members, and this combination has
proved eminently useful, for the conditions in the
greater Communes are so complex that they re-
quire permanent expert officials to manage them.
One consequence of this legislation was unforeseen
by its author himself. The general freedom to
settle, and the increased facilities of communica-
tion which are characteristic of modern life could
not fail to produce a sort of nomad bureaucracy
of which Stein could never have dreamt. Look
PRUSSIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT 553
at our own municipal magnates ; Herr von
Forckenbeck was Burgomaster first at Elbing,
then in Breslau, and finally in Berlin, and he is
no exception to the rule. Taking recent events
into account we find that not even this shifting
bureaucracy has been able to break the whole-
some spirit aroused by the Stddteordnung.
Every Commune still keeps its special character-
istics, even though it may have called into its
administration many men who were not born
within its boundaries.
The problem of incorporating the country-
side completely in the system of local govern-
ment was far more difficult than re-organising
the towns. The first obstacle was the natural
resistance of the old territorial gentry, who till
then had policed the district, and as landowners
had wielded a patrimonial jurisdiction, and since
they had incurred considerable expense in the
exercise of a right which they looked upon
as bound up with the honour of their class,
they were not inclined to exchange their feudal
prerogative for a Communal duty. In 1810
Hardenberg laboured in vain at his Rural Edicts.
The extension of the kingdom after the War of
Liberation gave rise to a second difficulty, in
the shape of the vast contrasts in the local life of
east and west. If we go back to 1815 we do
indeed find among the 25,000 Communes of the
eastern Provinces a number of big, town-like
villages, especially in the rich industrial valleys
of the Riesen Gebirge, but in the north-east we
still find predominant the little, old village
colony nestling round its manor-house. In the
554 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
west this connexion between the hamlet and the
hall had almost entirely disappeared, and left
only the big ancient villages which had sprung
from the powerful border communities (Mark-
genossenschaften) of old Germany. In the busy
Rhineland the distinction between rural and
urban life had become so faint that the inhabitants
clamoured for a uniform administration of town
and country. It was on this question that the
projected Prussian Constitution of 1821 was
wrecked ; the failure to agree upon Communal
organization made it impossible to proceed with
the superstructure. It is only quite recently
that any general scheme of Communal adminis-
tration has been created for our seven western
Provinces.
Beyond the Commune came the administrative
District (Kreis), which was at first controlled by
the nobility alone. The Provincial Councillor
(Landrat), in his capacity of Lord of the Manor
(Rittergutsbesitzer), was both in the confidence of
the District and in the service of the King. This
dual role was amply justified by results, because
the towns were withdrawn from the jurisdiction
of the Provincial Councillor, and placed under
the immediate control of the Crown communities
of peasant proprietors were the exception, the
countryside was made up of large estates, and
the normal thing was for the District to be
represented by one of its ruling class. This, too,
had to change with the extension of the monarchy.
The western Provinces, which lacked the material
for Provincial Councillors forthcoming in the
east, were now divided, as the others had been,
PRUSSIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT 555
into administrative Districts, which, however,
were from the beginning of a different type. In
them the Provincial Councillor (Landrat) was a
Royal official out and out, and the whole system
was manipulated in a far more bureaucratic
spirit than in the east, where the Councillor really
was a native of the district which entrusted its
affairs to his keeping.
The local government legislation of 1872
attempted to re-organize District administration.
The rural police, which had been in the hands of
the landed gentry, was transferred to the charge
of the Amtsvorsteher. These men selected from
the District Committee (Kreisausschuss), are con-
fidential officials to an extent which the land-
owners never were. The District Councillor
(Landrat) was originally primus inter pares, and
even at the present day he is still generally
a native of his own District. He is nominated
by the local assembly (Kreistag) and his appoint-
ment is confirmed by the King. He collaborates
with the local assembly, and polices the District
jointly with the Communal officials (Gemeinde-
vorsteher).
It is very interesting to trace how the system
of Provinces, or superior local bodies, standing
above the Districts, was created in Prussia. In
1815 we were confronted with the task of organiz-
ing many newly-acquired dominions, and as
these were a veritable chaos of formerly inde-
pendent territories it seemed an obvious ex-
pedient to divide the whole country into equal
Departments of moderate size, modelled upon
those of France. Hardenberg's sympathies in-
556 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
clined towards the French Prefectural system,
and he had seen his ideal realized in the new
Kingdom of Westphalia. This was the great
difference between him and Stein. Stein was
a reformer along the lines of aristocratic self-
government, Hardenberg along those of an
enlightened bureaucracy. Stein was the first
to see the necessity for large administrative
areas, like those which a long process of develop-
ment had made normal in the Eastern Provinces,
and Frederick William III. had the historic
insight to perceive that his Minister was right.
Thus, despite the outcry in the Rhineland, and
in face of Hardenberg's opposition, 1815 saw that
admirable division of the country into provinces,
which is still in being, and still holds the happy
balance between centrifugal and centripetal forces.
It was no more than an official endorsement of
actual facts, to recognize the fidelity of East
Prussia by making it a province on the same
footing as West Prussia, and on the same prin-
ciple which prompted the reamalgamation of
Pomerania into one whole. The same is true
of Silesia, Brandenburg, and Westphalia. There
is definite meaning as well as gratification in
calling oneself a Pomeranian, a Westphalian, or a
Brandenburger. These are as a matter of fact
historical provinces, which have had traditions in
common, and are bound together by racial char-
acteristics, and community of economic interests.
The only badly constructed province is Saxony,
but here the responsibility does not lie with
Prussian statesmen, but with the wiseacres at
the Congress of Vienna, who left Meissen and the
PRUSSIAN LOCAL GOVERNMENT 557
heart of the country in the possession of the old
dynasty. Hence compromise was inevitable,
because the whole District was not available.
This apart, the division has been most successful,
and an acute historical instinct merely established
what history itself had already created.
By means of the old Provincial Diets and new
Provincial Committees, a form of local govern-
ment has been created which, though modest
in scope, carries on without ostentation an in-
valuable work in town-planning, care of the poor,
and institutions for the deaf, dumb, and blind.
The transformation of the Provinces from mere
administrative areas into social bodies set up a
concurrent jurisdiction of rural District Directors
(Landesdirektoren) and Provincial Presidents
(Oberprdsidenten) which does no doubt sometimes
lead to friction. The Governmental sub-divisions
within the Provinces did not require to be
erected into self-governing bodies, for they only
serve to facilitate the State administration. This
administration, however, became rather cumbrous,
because it was confided to Boards whose lengthy
deliberations delayed the course of business.
Generally speaking, it is the defect of our system
that it multiplies Committees, but this will right
itself in course of time.
The fundamental idea of these Boards was
sound, because it contained a certain guarantee
for constitutional rights. Their proceedings re-
sembled those of a Court of Justice, and all the
probabilities pointed to an unbiassed decision in
doubtful cases. Time, however, proved that it
was quite impossible to leave the Governmental
558 ADMINISTRATION IN PRACTICE
sub-divisions in enjoyment of their former inde-
pendence. A Minister who is responsible to
Parliament for action taken by his Department
must be able to rely upon his subordinates.
These Boards therefore ceased to be Courts of
Equity, and gave place to more stringent admini-
strative methods.
At the same period Ministers with expert
knowledge (Fachminister) attained a quite undue
influence in Civil Service Courts. This led to a
pressing demand that once for all a regular Civil
Service Code should confer the right of appeal
upon the members of that Service, and since 1875
we have had a whole gradation of Civil Service
Courts, specially created for the purpose of
settling all disputes relating to administrative
questions.
Provincial local government can therefore
show a respectable record of public service, but
even to-day the centre of gravity of German
self-government lies in the Communes, and this
is consonant with the democratic tendencies of
modern social life. Although it is true that local
government is essentially aristocratic owing to
the inability of the lower classes to share in it,
then the effect of this is bound to be much modi-
fied in the smaller communities where even the
humblest artisans may fill posts under the local
authorities. Germans display a great readiness
for self-sacrifice, and aptitude for local govern-
ment when opportunity is given them, and all our
experiments in this direction have been amply
justified.
FIFTH BOOK
THE STATE IN INTEKNATIONAL
RELATIONSHIP
559
XXVII
HISTORY OF THE COMITY OF
NATIONS
THE history of the comity of nations is an
enchanting subject, well worthy of the attention
of a great historian, for in few other regions of
historical research is the general improvement
of mankind so traceable, or the influence of free
moral forces upon history so clearly to be seen.
Religion, science, and commerce bind the
nations to each other, and, although each State
is the supreme power within its own sphere, these
forces lead it beyond itself to take its place in
the international mosaic. In the antique world
this tendency was repressed by the intensive
strength of the national idea. Every people of
antiquity looked upon itself as the chosen race,
and all were equally sunk in the fathomless ignor-
ance which accompanies such an arrogance. The
differences in the various State religions formed
the first stumbling-block in the way of a comity
of States, and war was the normal condition,
for the ancient State was incapable of tolerat-
ing any neighbour who was not either an
enemy, or an absolutely subordinate Confederate.
The saying of Euripides, @ap/3dpcov
VOL. II 561 2 O
562 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
lKot, is spoken from the depths of the
Hellenic soul. With them all international
law was positive law, in the narrowest sense of
the word. The individual Greek tribes to be
sure, whose hostility to the barbarian made
them feel akin to one another, were^ united
by the Amphictyonic Confederation, which was
originally a purely religious bond, and also by a
few political axioms held in common, a Hellenic
KOIVOS i>o/u,o5. Here already we find certain
conditions set forth, like the one which forbids
the destruction of an Amphictionic town, which
dimly foreshadow the possibility of a law which
shall go beyond the law of the individual State,
and be a link between nation and nation. In
actual practice, however, the international policy
of the Hellenes continued to be extremely harsh.
After the conquest of Platea during the Pelo-
ponnesian war the Spartans destroyed the town
itself, after putting all its male inhabitants to
death ; Mitylene was once totally annihilated
by the Athenians in the same way. Policy was
dictated by reasons of State, pure and simple, and
Thucydides himself, perhaps the most independ-
ent mind that Hellas ever produced, was able
to declare that, for the State, utility was justice.
Increasing commerce inevitably brought with it
commercial treaties, and a distinction was made
between eva-Trov&oi and eico-Trov&oi. The most
arbitrary dealings were still held permissible to-
wards persons outside the scope of the treaties.
Foreign merchants desirous of transacting business
under cover of the treaty had to be represented
by a citizen of the country.
HELLENIC PERIOD 563
It was a long time before the Greeks enlarged
the narrowness of their mental horizon, which,
as far as Europe was concerned, was practically
limited to the Balkan Peninsula, and it was not
until the period of national decay had set in
that Hellenism widened into a Hellenic cosmo-
politanism in the States of the Diadochi, as they
are called, which were bound to each other by a
common speech, and common forms of worship.
These States arrest the attention of the political
student, because in them we can trace the first
feeble attempt to maintain a kind of balance of
power between the sovereign States. Macedonia,
Syria, and Egypt were rivals for the mastery of
the Eastern Mediterranean. The arrangement
was that one of the three, generally Egypt, should
remain neutral, and try to restrain the other two.
This is already a step forward in political history,
for the appearance of the idea of the balance of
power shows that mankind was beginning to see
that States do not exist for the purpose of mutual
destruction, but rather in order to co - operate
towards the progress of civilization.
The history of Rome, however, proves how
little this idea had penetrated the general con-
sciousness of those times. Rome did not belie
the innermost characteristics of the antique
State. It was against her real wish that she
was dragged into a policy of world conquest,
but it was in accord with the politics of antiquity
which led a State, after every fresh conquest, to
enter into a new contest with its new neighbour,
and thus gradually to extend upon all sides.
The worthy, if somewhat limited patres con-
564 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
scripti, had none of the width of vision which
guided the conquering policy of Alexander, but,
according to the ancient point of view, every
nation which was not the friend of the Roman
people was bound to be their enemy. This was
the guiding principle from the time of the Twelve
Tables until the reign of Justinian, and it forced
the Roman Senate into conquering the world ;
under the dominion of Rome all the Mediter-
ranean States fell into a kind of perpetual
state of siege (Belagerung-Zustand).
Like every other aristocracy, that of Rome
sought the sympathy of the ruling classes in
other countries. In spite of their rapacious
policy the Romans, in their jus fetiale were
the first people to develop the forms of an inter-
national law, although these institutions were
still imperfect in many ways. After the Mediter-
ranean races had been incorporated within the
Empire, the truly magnificent characteristics of
Rome's political development began to display
themselves under her monarchical rule, and
Roman jurists attempted to interpret the idea
of the jus gentium as being positive public law,
embracing the whole Empire.
The tendency to expansion gave way before
considerations of stability and security upon the
frontiers. Under the Emperors, the legal in-
equalities between subjects were levelled more
and more. Even in Cicero's day several pro-
vincials had taken their seats in the Senate, and
in the time of Caracalla every man received the
rights of Roman citizenship. By this time the
jus gentium had become more than a mere
GERMAN INFLUENCE 565
phrase, and side by side with the conception of
it we find the idea of a natural right which was
thought of as beyond and above all positive law.
Nevertheless the Romans wavered in regard to
their definition of natural law. Some held that
it was a right which Nature had bestowed upon
the human race, while others spoke of it as
common to all living creatures (proprium om-
nium animalium). This latter opinion found
advocate in a jurist of great distinction. Great
as was the legal acumen of the Roman people,
they had not yet attained to a firm grasp of
the philosophical idea of law.
When the dying Empire began to fall asunder,
and political power passed more and more away
from the decrepit centre to the fresh vigour of
the provinces, the orbis terrarum was gradu-
ally romanized. The Germans, into whose hands
Rome's heritage now fell, brought two new
political forces into the development of history
a real monarchy and the germ of a representa-
tive assembly. But even though they added to
those many other of the qualities of mind which
go to the up-building of an international code,
and although they yielded a naive admiration
to the superior civilization of Rome, they still
had not the strength to amalgamate politically
such a variety of national elements. In many
of the German States which arose out of the
ashes of the Roman Empire, a system of personal
rights prevailed ; that is to say, the ruling
Germans were tried by German law, and the
subjugated Romans or provincials by the law
of Rome. These embryonic legal conditions
566 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
were, however, as favourable to the peaceful
intercourse of nationalities as they were destruc-
tive to the idea of political unity.
Next came the mighty influence of Christianity,
with its belief in a universal brotherhood, and
in this Christian conception lay the real force
which brought a law of nations into the world.
The cosmopolitan tendencies of our religion were
clearly shown in the Pope's claim to all un-
apportioned heathen territory, in virtue of his
position as the ideal ruler of Christendom. Thus
did the German Knightly Orders receive the land
of Prussia from the Pope. This legal axiom
retained its practical application until the end of
the Middle Ages ; in 1494 Alexander VI. had
just completed that great partitioning of the
seas which had led to so many contests, and
which dragged to light so many errors in the
geographical knowledge of the infallible Pontiff.
Thus did Christianity early prove to be one of
the strongest bonds to draw the nations together.
The young community of European States reposed
thenceforward upon three foundations : upon a
common faith ; upon that Roman civilization
which they all had profited by, and from which
had proceeded the Roman law which had had
a restraining influence upon all of them alike ;
and, thirdly, upon the kinship by blood between
the German state - building races. When we
remember how the feudal system, in particular,
assumed a nearly similar form in every country,
we can understand how intimate the national
relationships must have been, in spite of all
barbarisms of manners.
THE MIDDLE AGES 567
From the twelfth century onwards we have
in addition the struggle of the Latin races to win
the Holy Sepulchre. It is impossible to express
how great was the uniting influence of the
Crusades upon the Western nations. Nor was
it only among themselves that an international
code of gallantry and chivalry arose, but a kind
of international intercourse came into being
between Crusader and Musulman as well ; a
knightly opponent like Saladin could only be
treated in knightly fashion. The idea asserted
itself nevertheless that an international code
could only apply between Christian nations. No
bond could be entered into with any heathen
State, if only for the reason that every such bond
was always sworn upon the Host. The sanctity
of the law of nations was therefore not yet sought
for in the thing itself, but subsisted in religion.
It was an important step in the progress of inter-
national intercourse in the Middle Ages when
the Pope first instituted the custom of permanent
Ambassadors. His example was followed by
the theocratic State of the German Orders, which
sent a Procurator to represent it in Rome. This
was the beginning of a settled diplomacy. The
other Powers, however, as yet felt no necessity
for anything of the kind ; nobody troubled about
his neighbour unless there was some dispute
regarding a frontier to be fought out. Although
the mediaeval Christian world possessed the
vision of an ideal unity, the interests of the
different States were in actual fact severed by
difficulties of communication and backwardness
of civilization. A community of interests, or a
568 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
system of States, were still undeveloped. A war
might go on for a hundred years between Ger-
mans and Italians, quite distinct from a con-
temporaneous struggle between English and
French, without the remaining Powers having
any idea of intervening. The idea of a practical
comity of States had not yet penetrated into the
flesh and blood of the nations.
In the sixteenth century the Reformation
brought a great forward stride in this direction.
It contributed towards forging closer the links
between nations, by emphasizing community of
faith more than community of race. Thence-
forward German Princes have often sinned against
German unity, by allying their arms with foreign
Powers of like religion to their own. In the
Thirty Years' War German and Swedish Pro-
testants stood side by side against German and
Spanish Catholics. Even the French Catholic
feels himself nearer to his Spanish co-religionist
than he does to the French Protestant. Thus
the Reformation created a cleavage of religions on
the one hand, and on the other drew the different
nations together under the banner of the same
faith, and in the sixteenth - century religious
loyalties attained a power which overshadowed
nationalities entirely. The contentious faith of
Calvin exercised a particularly cosmopolitan in-
fluence, which could not entirely disappear when
the religious antagonisms were modified in later
times. We must not forget, however, that the
Reformation was the very means of breaking
the nation-uniting power of the Papacy.
The discovery of the New World had the effects
THE PEACE OF WESTPHALIA 569
of tightening the bonds which connected the
peoples of Europe. It is true that the founding
of colonies beyond the seas gave occasion for
many conflicts, but it had a unifying effect as
well ; the feeling of fellowship was quickened
among the European States when the Caucasian
race began to form a great aristocracy for the
subjugation of the savage peoples. The efforts
of the House of Hapsburg to form a single State
were a further factor in the development of a
comity of nations.
Terror of the world-power of the Hapsburgs
led the sixteenth century into the most unheard-
of alliances, which even included the power of the
Turk. France's most Christian King sought the
friendship of the unbelieving Sultan. On all
sides the Holy Roman Empire began to crumble,
and the unreason which prompts every attempt
at universal monarchy was revenged in the re-
vival of the inextinguishable idea of nationality,
which, with a certain one-sidedness, now took
possession of each individual State.
From the sixteenth century onwards we find
States maintaining permanent Embassies. The
Venetians improved upon the example set them
by the Pope, and became masters in the diplo-
matic art. Thus in the seventeenth century the
Congress of the Peace of Westphalia offered the
astonishing spectacle of a Conference of Ambas-
sadors from every State, laying down the frontiers
for the individual countries. This Peace of West-
phalia came to be looked upon like a ratio scripta
of international law ; every one uttered thanks-
giving that some sort of statics quo had now been
570 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
established. People began to feel themselves
part of an organized European society, and all
the sovereign States began, as it were, to form
one great family. Then, just as every member
of a well-ordered household must have his allotted
place, so the different countries disputed about
theirs, often in a most ridiculous fashion. No
one dared as yet to contest the theoretic pre-
cedence of the Emperor and the Pope. After
them came all the States which ranked as Kings,
Venice among them, as being Queen of Cyprus,
then followed the Netherlands Republic, and
finally the cloud of petty German Princes.
We are now entering upon the period of the
so-called "reasons of State," which followed the
teaching of Machiavelli, and held everything right
and justifiable which the interests of the State
dictated. This theory was entertained by every
Government, and led finally to the notion of the
balance of power in Europe. The system was not
quite new ; it had existed in the fifteenth century,
on a small scale, among the States of Italy, when
five Powers Naples, the Pope, Tuscany, Venice,
and Milan had tried to hold the balance of
power between them. This idea spread through-
out Europe, and became a doctrine, as mechanical
as it was the fashion of that age to make it, which
is often represented in pictures by the image of
Europe as a great pair of scales, whose poise had
to be carefully preserved. The whole idea is
crude, and as thoroughly unpolitical as the notion
of an eternal peace, for, as we have already seen,
the frontiers of States must be continually liable
to fluctuation, and may not be thrust into narrow
LOUIS XIV. 571
fetters. Nevertheless the point of view was
wholesome for that period, for it acted as the
only check upon the encroachments of some one
powerful State, which were otherwise unre-
strained. The theory persisted still in the
eighteenth century, and the three great partitions
of Poland are the last evidences of its influence.
The disappearance of elective monarchies in
favour of hereditary States was advantageous
to political development, for the reason that the
local conditions prevailing in the former easily
led to wars and interference from without, for
which there were far fewer opportunities in here-
ditary Monarchies and well-established Republics.
All the larger States began to be permeated by the
principles of primogeniture and indivisibility of
territory. Thus there were not so many occa-
sions for Wars of Succession, and the gradual rise
of standing Armies also contributed towards
keeping the peace. It was one thing to impro-
vise a campaign with a few hastily assembled
troops, but quite another to conduct a war with a
standing Army and adequate finance.
The Peace of Westphalia was supposed to have
established the status quo for Europe. It
humbled the world monarchy of Spain, which
reposed upon firmer foundations than did the
mediaeval Empire, and which had been a danger-
ous menace to the liberty of Europe. The
Peace of the Pyrenees in 1659 had put an end to
the long conflict with France and had destroyed
the power of Spain. Its place was filled by France
and the rising sun of Louis XIV. and his " ex-
orbitant " Court, a source of danger to the other
572 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
Powers because it followed a wider orbit and
pursued unattainable aims. The ambition of
Louis was tP place France at the head of the
Roman States, and to win back for his country
its natural frontiers, so called. Now for the first
time was witnessed the hitherto unheard-of spect-
acle of uninterested Powers being dragged into
the contest between two States, in order to uphold
the status quo. The intervention of the neutrals
and the Triple Alliance of Holland, England, and
Sweden forced Louis to make peace earlier than
he had intended.
The international relationships of the seven-
teenth century were unnatural nevertheless, in-
asmuch that Germany, the heart of Europe, lay
in an impotence for which she had only herself
to blame, and the Fatherland of Luther was in no
condition to stand as a compact Power in defence
of the Protestant Faith. The whole disgrace of
the situation was exemplified by the small part
which the two deciding Powers, Brandenburg and
Electoral Saxony, took in the Thirty Years' War.
Neither of them took an active share for more
than four years, and they remained neutral for
the other twenty-six. Two States stepped into
the breach in our defences ; they were Holland and
Sweden, which were both too weak, by reason of
their scanty population, to hold permanently
their unnatural position among the Great Powers
of Europe. The Hague became a centre for diplo-
macy, and it is significant that Hugo Grotius,
a Dutchman, was the father of the science of
international law. We owe to Holland, not only
the maintenance of Protestantism, but also the
THE PEACE OF UTRECHT 573
breaking of the naval power of Spain ; hers is the
honour of restoring the preponderance at sea to
the Protestant Germans, by wresting it from the
hands of the Catholic Romans. Towards the
end of the century the military policy of Louis
XIV. was directed towards conquest of the Rhine
frontier, and the great coalition was formed
against him which finally terminated in the War
of the Spanish Succession, and after a long
struggle destroyed the undue weight which France
had for a time possessed, and relegated her once
more to the rank of the other Powers. The
great drama of the Scandinavian War was being
played out at the same time in the eastern half
of Europe, but the two contests had no connexion
with each other, and are therefore not to be
described as European. They were followed by
the great treaties of Utrecht and Nystadt, whose
decisions were held inviolable through many
years to come, for men thought once more that
they had found the status quo for Europe, and
began to dream again of an eternal peace ; it was
supposed that the world had been brought to a
standstill by the latest peace Congresses. When
we examine more closely how nearly the map of
Europe at the time of the Peace of Utrecht ex-
pressed the real requirements of the different
countries we see how far it was from realizing
the hopes which were entertained. The com-
munity of States was divided into two groups,
whose interests made them antagonistic to each
other. Southern and Western Europe struggled
over the remains of the old Lotharingian Empire,
and disputed for power on the Rhine, in Italy
574 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
and in Switzerland, while the North and East
fought for the dominium maris Baltici, and
whether it should fall into German, Polish,
Russian, or Scandinavian hands. To us it seems
monstrous that two great wars could be waged
for so many years side by side, and yet remain
entirely separate ; it proves that as yet there was
no unity in international politics. As before,
the reason lay in that lack of any concentrated
will-power which prevented Protestant Germany
from taking her rank among European States.
While the political conditions of Central Europe
were still thus immature, we perceive how the
two Powers who had been raised unnaturally to
the first rank in the seventeenth century with-
draw gradually into the background. Sweden
ceased to be a really great Power, and her land-
power was transferred to Prussia ; while Holland
experienced the stern truth of the old sic vos,
non vobis, and was smothered under the tender
embraces of her friend England. From the
moment that one monarch reigned over the two
countries Holland was exploited in all amity to
serve English ends, and gradually became the
second of the Sea Powers, after having so long
been the first.
The cleavage between East and West was
never fully bridged, until a genius arose in
Prussia, and taught her to be conscious of herself.
On this Prussia's greatness reposes, and she was
called by Providence to span the gulf. Since the
days of John Sigismund the geographical position
of the State had made it part of both systems.
Frederick I. had failed to understand this, and
THE SEVEN YEARS' WAR 575
had thrown the whole of his power in with the
West ; his hosts had fought desperately and
victoriously at Malplaquet and Turin, and ad-
vanced to the Alban hills and the walls of Rome,
even while the forces of the North were sweeping
unhindered through Prussia, and treating it as
conquered territory. The country was sacrificed
to Austrian policy, for not in vain did a Guelph
Princess sit on Prussia's throne. Frederick the
Great was the first person to see in what direction
the importance of Prussia really lay ; young as
he was when he wrote his brilliant Considera-
tions sur Vetat present du corps politique de
VEurope, he expressed in it his consciousness
that he had the power within him to break the
stagnation which he depicts so strikingly as
settled upon Europe after the Peace of Utrecht.
The Seven Years' War was in fact the first Euro-
pean War in the proper sense of the word. The
whole of Europe took part in the struggle, and,
as the victorious outcome showed, Prussia had
at last infused Central Europe with a political
will of its own, so that the comity of nations began
to assume coherent shape, and it became apparent
that Prussia's fight for existence had at the same
time been a fight for a reshaping of international
relationships. Five great Powers thenceforward
become arbiters of the fate of Europe ; the
importance of the second and third rank States
dwindles more and more relatively as well as
absolutely, and their participation in Congresses is
only requested when their interests are directly
concerned. Only two of these five great States
were Catholic, two others were Protestant, and
576 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
one schismatic. The European world had thus
diverged widely from its mediaeval aspect, and
it is not hard to understand why the Vatican
hated Prussia who had been the foundress of the
new order of things.
The rapid development of maritime law in the
years that followed is a proof of how closely
the interests of this Pentarchy were intertwined.
There was a connexion between the Seven Years'
War and that great colonial struggle between
France and England which finally decided whether
the dominion of the seas should rest with the
Latin or the Teutonic race. England's victory
was so complete that her maritime preponderance
endures to this day. She made every fresh
triumph over France a new occasion to trample
upon international law, and monstrous injustices
to neutrals were perpetrated at sea in the name
of justice and fair policy. A feeling of malicious
pleasure swept over every country when the
American Colonies, who had fought so valiantly
on England's side in the French war, at length
shook off her rule. During the Seven Years'
War England's anxiety about her own material
interests and the Russian timber trade had pre-
vented her from protecting our Baltic coasts
or making war with our enemy, Russia. In
1780, however, Catherine the Second concluded
a treaty with the small northern Kingdoms,
and afterwards with Prussia and Austria, which
aimed at securing freedom for legitimate trade to
neutrals in time of war. The defection of the
American Colonies had somewhat shattered the
preponderance of England on the sea, even as
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 577
the War of the Spanish Succession had lowered
the position of France. The mere existence of the
young Power forced England to moderate, at all
events outwardly, her claims to naval supremacy.
A fact of no less importance was that a
non-European State was now for the first time
acknowledged as civilized, and recognized by inter-
national law. In this also Prussia led the van.
It was owing to Frederick the Great, and his
commercial treaty with the United States, that a
nation dwelling beyond the western horizon was
now admitted as having equal rights with the
peoples of Europe. Till then, the New World
had been regarded as the servant of the Old.
This point of view now slowly began to alter,
but in spite of this the Law of Nations was still
confined to Europe. The dreamers' hopes were
falsified, and it was proved that the other quarters
of the globe were not in a position to create a
civilization which could compete with the culture
that was innate in Europe and coeval with her
growth. Colonial life is as a tree without roots,
and therefore Europe remains the heart of the
world, while we, who know that world, may safely
prophesy that so it will always be.
The French Revolution caused a sudden inter-
ruption, and a reaction for the worse, in the
development of international relationships. The
mad attempt to found a universal Empire was
once more seriously undertaken. The Revolution
was from the beginning cosmopolitan in char-
acter. The French imagined themselves as the
Messiah among nations, and the supposition was
inevitably accompanied by a policy of conquest.
VOL. II 2 P
578 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
We know now how Napoleon, as heir of the Revo-
lution, tried to realize the monstrous plan of a
world monarchy, which he, almost cynically,
dubbed a Federative System. His ideal was of
a France surrounded by her satellite States. At
first Fortune favoured the gigantic adventure,
but it was wrecked at last on the rock of its
own unreason. Napoleon's universal Empire was
shattered by the War of Liberation, and the
centrifugal tendencies regained all the more
strength because the enterprise of this human
being had mocked at history and trampled on
the development of centuries. Thus we mark
the rapid return to pre-Revolutionary paths in
the Congress of Vienna, which was to lay the
foundations of the new ordering of Europe.
Thenceforward its fate was decided by the five
great Powers, who once more graciously in-
cluded defeated France among their number.
Their preponderance was heavy, sometimes even
oppressive. Alexander I. of Russia saw the
world as a great Christian brotherhood, and the
idea of a unity among the States of Europe was
driven to death in the notion of the Holy Alliance,
merely theoretic though this was. It made
demands upon the individual States which no
sovereign State could grant. Nevertheless the
long peace which followed did bear fruit in the
development of international law ; the far-reach-
ing trade relationships came into being, which
all such alterations must of necessity call forth.
The rights of aliens and an international civil
law were now for the first time established and
organized.
VIENNA CONGRESS 579
The world believed, as it had done a hundred
years before, that the normal and abiding con-
ditions had been created by the decrees of Vienna.
These were quoted and appealed to on every
hand, and it seemed once more as if the wheel
of history was expected to stand still. Yet,
when we look at the map as it then was we are
as much amazed by the shortsightedness of
statesmen in the Congress of Vienna as Frederick
was by the lack of vision in the Utrecht decisions.
The weakness of Italy and Germany was the
cause of the unnatural predominance of France,
which could therefore never be rectified until
these countries were strengthened ; Gneisenau
had stated as much before the Congress met, and
his conviction was shared by Stein. Neverthe-
less this problem of Central Europe was the very
one which the Congress left unsolved. Germany
still lay powerless beneath the nominal unity of
a Federation, and all our neighbours took a
tacit oath in Vienna to hold Prussia down.
Italy too was left unstrengthened by any firm
bond. The system of buffer- States was devised
to prevent mutual contact between the great
Powers, by interposing those of the third rank,
like Piedmont in the south, or the Dutch-Belgian
State in the north, put together out of two quite
inharmonious ingredients. The whole concep-
tion of the life of States and nations was mechani-
cal in the extreme, and the great dormant
antagonisms between Prussia and Austria, and
between the alien yoke of the latter and Italian
aspirations, were entirely disregarded.
It was therefore very soon apparent that the
580 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
Vienna Treaties were not the ratio scripta
which Metternich and the partisans of the
Hofburg had proclaimed them to be. They
were followed by revolutions in Spain, in Italy,
and in Greece, and finally by the revolution of
July, which, in dethroning the Bourbons, struck
down one of the pillars of Legitimacy. After
a struggle Belgium once more regained her
independence, separated from Holland, and be-
came at once the Paradise of priests and the
home of the phrase-makers of Liberalism. To
all this we must add the new antagonisms which
arose in Europe. The States of the liberal West
took their stand upon the one side, those of the
reactionary East, with the Czar Nicholas at
their head, upon the other. Moreover, the period
was dominated by the unreasonable notion that
international differences must follow the same
lines as internal politics. It is always a sign
of political doctrinairism when the party cleav-
ages within the various States determine the
antagonisms of foreign policy. Palmerston, well
knowing the folly of continental Liberals, mas-
queraded before them as the champion of liberty,
whereas he was really thinking only of his bales
of cotton ; the Czar Nicholas was in the same
way a doctrinaire on the subject of Legitimacy.
These differences were brought into prominence
in the follies of the celebrated disputes over inter-
vention or non-intervention. The States in the
Holy Alliance had driven the idea of interference
with the party quarrels of their neighbours much
too far. They had declared that the interests
of public order required that the Great Powers
INTERVENTION 581
should be entitled to intervene if the peace of a
State were disturbed from beneath, by popular
risings. What could be more unjust than this
principle, which allowed interference in the case
of a national upheaval, but withheld it if a
Government was attacked from without ? The
Quadruple Alliance came to be looked upon,
justly, in the light of a police force, oppressive
to the liberty of nations. The opposite Liberal
doctrine of non-intervention was, however,
equally untenable. No sovereign State can
engage itself beforehand never to interfere in
the internal dissensions of a neighbouring State,
for these might at any time become a menace
to its own existence. The character of certain
parties, socialistic or ecclesiastical, will always
be cosmopolitan and international, and no
sovereign Power can ever undertake to abstain
from interfering with them. We can only say
that any State which mixes itself in the internal
affairs of its neighbours does so at its peril, and
that experience has proved how highly dangerous
such intervention may be.
In those years the contests between States
were fought round this disputed point. Mean-
while the structure of the Vienna Congress began
to crumble stone by stone. It was an irony of
history which forced Metternich in 1846 to pull
down the Republic of Cracow, a State which he
had himself set up. It was at the same time the
suicide of the old system, for it was an admission
of the coming shadow of great events. With
the year 1848 they came. France once again
witnessed the collapse of authority ; slumber-
582 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
ing forces of nationality were roused in Italy
and in Germany, and in both countries the
movement towards unity began. The Prussian
Zollverein had paved the way for it in Germany,
but in Italy nothing had yet been done.
With us, as with them, the first attempt to
erect a national State was frustrated. The
conservative Powers were able once more to
suppress national sentiment in Italy, and to
prevent the antagonism between Prussia and
Austria from coming to a head. To all appear-
ance the old balance of power, which had rested
upon the weakness of Central Europe, was again
restored. Italy smarted under a visible foreign
dominion, and the same yoke pressed on Germany
in a concealed form. The misfortune which
hindered our development lay in the fact that
part of our nation looked upon Austria as
primarily a German State.
The problem of how Central Europe should
be organized as a national Power continued to
be the real great crux for the European system
of States. A new turn was given to the question
by France, or, to speak more correctly, by
Napoleon III., a man whom posterity will judge
more fairly, for the French still know him only
as a scapegoat. When we remember how little
influence France had had upon European history
since the fall of Napoleon I., and how Napoleon
III. raised her again to the rank of a first-class
Power, even although she lacked the physical
and intellectual force to maintain that position,
we shall not be able to dismiss this man with a
couple of phrases. It was he who devised the
MARITIME LAW 583
entanglement of the Crimean War whereby Russia
was deposed from her leading position among
the Great Powers, and her place was filled by
France. Another important result of this war
was the total dislocation of the European
alliances. Austria and Russia had been so closely
bound together that their friendship had become
a dogma of reactionary faith, but Austria now
adopted a half hostile attitude towards Russia,
although her interests did not compel her to do so.
In other ways as well, the Paris Peace Congress
of 1856 had an important bearing on international
relationships. The liberal predilection for Turkey,
a confusion of thought arising from hatred of
Russia, led to the unreasonable attempt to in-
clude the Porte among the European States,
although a Power which was neither European
nor Christian could not possibly take its place
in a system which was based upon those two
attributes. Therefore the equal status which
was accorded to Turkey by the Paris Congress
remained one of name only, and in actual fact
she continued as heretofore, under the guardian-
ship of other Powers. Finally, an attempt was
made in Paris to modify maritime law. England
granted certain concessions, and recognized the
principle which was demanded by the navies of
the second-class Powers that the flag should
cover the cargo. Her own demand for the aboli-
tion of privateering was, fortunately, frustrated
by the objection raised by America. Humane
in appearance, it was fundamentally selfish, for,
since England is stronger than any other Navy
upon the sea, privateering is the only way of
584 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
doing anything against her superiority ; England
can only be seriously injured in a naval war by
the infliction of as much damage as possible to
her mercantile marine.
The great Civil War which soon afterwards
arose in America, and its resultant Mexican
complications, had an important influence upon
the law of nations. The Monroe doctrine,
" America for the Americans," stood its test,
and Napoleon's attempt at intervention in
Mexico failed.
Finally the great national movements in
Central Europe came also to their fulfilment :
in 1859 the Italian rising, which led in a short
two years to a United Italy, and from 1866
onwards, the decisive events in Germany. The
victory over France was the death-blow of the
old system. After the battle of Sedan France
showed herself as incapable thenceforward of
ruling the world as Spain had been after the
Peace of the Pyrenees. From then onwards the
map of our Continent has been much more in
accordance with nature. The middle was
strengthened, and the brilliant idea which put
Europe's centre of gravity in its right place,
was made a reality. The founding of the German
Empire works automatically for the calm of the
system of States, inasmuch that the ambition of
Prussia may now be soothed, for, in all essentials
she has attained the power which she requires.
The menace to the peace of Europe to-day is a
reaction on the part of those surrounding States
which have been gradually driven into the back-
ground, and which cannot console themselves for
1866 AND AFTER 585
the loss of their former power. This rise of
Germany to the rank of a real Power is the one
great change in the political conditions of Europe
which began with the year 1866 ; the other,
whose results are not yet fully matured, is the
entrance of Italy, as a sixth Power, into the
European Pentarchy. Spain's pretensions to the
title are merely formal, and based purely upon
vanity. We may say of Italy, on the other hand,
that she is beginning to figure as a Great Power,
without actually as yet being one. If she wishes
to assert her position in reality she must fight
for it ; the day must come when she will once
more remember her destiny as a Mediterranean
State. Her first victories will raise her to the
rank to which her brilliant talents undoubtedly
give her a claim.
Such, then, is the position of Europe itself.
Beyond its borders conditions have been astonish-
ingly altered, and changes have taken place in
the course of little more than half a century
greater than the world has ever seen before.
China and Japan, countries hitherto hermetically
sealed to Europeans, began to open their ports.
Australia, too, may be said only to have been dis-
covered fifty years ago, for up till then it had been
nothing more than a penal Colony. The proud
prophecy of 1860, " the Pacific is awake," has
been fulfilled to-day. England, in her role of
advocate for Liberalism, set all Europe by the
ears, and under cover of the latent discontents
which she herself had fostered, she conquered half
the world. If she continues to succeed in keeping
restlessness alive upon the Continent, still more
586 THE COMITY OF NATIONS
territories will be thrust into her capacious pocket.
It almost seems as if our nineteenth century
were the executor to the Will and Testament of
the sixteenth, for only within it has the New
World which Columbus discovered become a
practical reality. The world beyond Europe is
bulking larger and larger upon Europe's horizon,
and there is no doubt that the European nations
must go out to it and subdue it directly or in-
directly to themselves. We see the great process
of expansive civilization going forward with all
the resistless might of a natural force, nor can we
yet discern the faintest trace of a balance of
power. No one but a fool could imagine that
such a development would ever come to a stop,
and yet believers in an eternal peace must believe
in this doctrine also. No partitioning of the map
could be devised which would guarantee it.
Moreover, the nations themselves are alive and
changing, and no one can say absolutely whether
a small nationality will shrivel and perish, or
whether it will blossom with an unexpected
vigour. Upon this the course of events must
depend, but it is obvious that the reshaping
process can never cease. Moreover it is precisely
in the changeful course of its history that man-
kind has shown its own greatness, and the fairest
fruits of human civilization and culture have
ripened.
XXVIII
INTERNATIONAL LAW AND INTER-
NATIONAL INTERCOURSE
WHEN we ask, does an international law exist
at all ? we are met by two extreme and con-
tradictory conceptions, both alike untenable,
of the international life of States. The first,
the naturalistic, whose chief champion we already
know to be Machiavelli, starts from the principle
that the State is absolute power, and may do
anything which serves its ends, consequently it
can bind itself by no law in its relations with
other States, which are determined by purely
mechanical considerations of proportionate
strength. This is an idea which can only be
disproved by its own arguments. We must
admit that the State is absolute physical power,
but if it insists upon being that, and nothing
else, unrestrained by conscience or reason, it will
no longer be able to maintain itself in a position
of security. Even the naturalistic school will
allow that the State aims at producing order
within its own boundaries, but how can it do so
if it will be pledged to no law beyond those bound-
aries ? A State which went upon the principle
of despising faith and loyalty would be con-
587
588 INTERNATIONAL LAW
stantly threatened by enemies, and would conse-
quently be unable to fulfil its purpose of being
physical power. This is borne out by the experi-
ence of history, and we see how Cesare Borgia,
Machiavelli's own ideal of a Prince, fell finally
into the pit which he had digged for others. The
State does not identify itself with physical power
for its own sake ; it is Power, in order to protect
and to further the highest welfare of the human
race. Taken without qualification, the doctrine
of Power, as such, is quite empty of meaning,
and unmoral as well, because it can find no justi-
fication within itself.
It is opposed by another, as false as itself, the
moralizing doctrine of Liberal theorists. Here
we find the State regarded as if it were a good
little boy, who should be washed, and brushed,
and sent to school, who should have his ears
pulled to keep him obedient ; he, on his side, is
expected to be grateful and good, and God knows
how much else. All this is German doctrinairism
once again, working mischief in this direction
also. All our political transgressions have been
caused by the idea which comes so naturally to a
highly educated people, that a scientifically in-
controvertible principle is in itself sufficient to
give a new direction to the world of historical
fact. To this belief the Germans owe, not merely
their spirit of scientific research, but also their
manifold errors of practice. Our doctrinaire
professors of international law think they have
only to formulate a few axioms, and the nations,
as reasonable beings, will be bound to agree to
them ; it is again and again forgotten that
UNTENABLE THEORIES 589
stupidity and passion have been among the great
powers in history. Yet who can fail to see what
a real force the passions of nationality have
once more become in the nineteenth century ?
By what authority do individual men, such as
Rotteck, Bluntschli, or Heffter, arrogate to them-
selves to utter such a " Thou shalt ! " to the
State ? No human being stands in a position
to place positive binding commands upon all
governments alike ; he must realize that the
reasons on which his precepts are based are liable
to be modified and overcome by life as it is lived.
This deals the death-blow to the false conception
of some imaginary law. Only a positive law, then,
remains, and no amount of theorizing can lay
down principles for it, unconditionally and with-
out more ado. All the labour of science can
only prepare the way, until the truth and reason
in certain principles of law become a living
conviction in the nation. The abstract concep-
tion of the State, if it is to be carried to its
logical conclusion, requires the existence of some
supreme power on earth, endowed with external
authority. Thus we are inevitably led to St.
Peter's Chair, for this supreme authority cannot
be vested in any earthly body, but only in the
Representative of Christ, who claims to speak
in the name of God. No such power, however,
ought to exist here below, for our world of beauty
ought to be a world of liberty as well. It is
evident that this effeminate sentimental concep-
tion of the law of nations has only been logically
formularized by ultramontane thinkers. The
great Code of the Jesuits has carried it to its
590 INTERNATIONAL LAW
correct conclusion ; the world is there seen as an
Ethnarchy and the nations therein as an ideal
community, presided over by an Ethnarch,
the Pope, who, by his spiritual exhortations
and influence, can coerce the individual States,
and set limits to the sphere of each, and thus
uphold the law among them all. There can be
no other logical practical conclusion to an argu-
ment which regards the State as a personality
acting under orders. There can never be an
international law which will impose itself upon
the Great Powers as a practical restraint, by the
mere fact of its theoretic scientific existence.
We must recognize, then, that these extreme
views are both of them untenable, but we need
not despair of establishing a doctrine of inter-
national law which is workable, because based
upon the facts of history. In doing so it is
above all important not to make greater demands
upon human nature than its frailty can satisfy.
The idealist who loses sight of this principle may
all too easily become a disappointed enthusiast.
One may be sure that any one who declaims that
brute force is the only arbiter in the rivalries of
nations is one of the sentimentalists undeceived
who once smoked the Pipe of Peace, and who now,
having seen that his dreams cannot be realized
in this world, has rushed to the other extreme,
and sees a crude cynicism in everything. It is
true that all the really great political thinkers
do cherish a cynical contempt for mankind in
general, and with justice, provided it is not
carried too far. Those who do not ask too much
of human nature are the most successful in calling
ITS DEVELOPMENT 591
forth the really great gifts which it possesses
amidst all its bestiality and liability to err.
Therefore we must start from the historical
standpoint, and take the State as it really is;
physical power indeed, but also an institution
designed to co-operate in the education of the
human race. As physical power, its natural
inclination will be to seize as many of the neces-
saries of life as it thinks useful to itself; it is
acquisitive by nature. Every State, however,
will of its own accord pay a certain respect to the
neighbouring Powers. A more definite feeling
of law will be evolved by time out of the dictates
of reason and a mutual recognition of personal,;
advantage. Every State will realize that it is
an integral part of the community of other
States in which it finds itself placed, and that it
must live with them on some kind of terms, bad
or good, as the case may be. These reflections will
arise from very real considerations of reciprocity,
and not from love to mankind.
The formal side of international law, dealing
with such matters as the inviolability of the
person of Ambassadors, and the ceremonial there-
with connected, was fixed comparatively early,
and in modern Europe diplomatic rights are
absolutely settled. It is safe to say that this
department of the law of nations is much less
often infringed than the internal legal ordinances
of the average State. Nevertheless the existence
of international law must always be precarious,
and it cannot cease to be a lex imperfecta,
because no power higher than the States them-
selves can be called upon to arbitrate. Every-
592 INTERNATIONAL LAW
thing has to depend upon a mutual give-and-
take, and, since the supreme compelling authority
is lacking, the co-operation of science, and above
all, the force of public opinion, will have an
important influence. Savigny declared that
international law was no strictum jus, but
continually in process of development. But this
is a long way from asserting the impotence of
the law of nations, for changeful as it is, its
influence is palpable, and we can follow its con-
sequences step by step at the present day.
There is no doubt that the development of
modern international law has been quite particu-
larly modified by Christianity, and the cosmo-
politanism, in the noble sense of the word,
which Christianity has introduced, and which
goes beyond and above the State. It was there-
fore quite reasonable and logical to exclude the
Porte, for many hundreds of years, from the
scope of European international law. The govern-
ment of the Sultan had no claim to a full share
in its benefits so long as the Porte was dominated
by a Mohammedan civilization. Only in later
times, when Christianity had gained strength
enough in the Balkan Peninsula to drive Moham-
medanism somewhat into the background, was
Turkey included in the international negotiations
of Europe.
History shows us how great States spring to
life from the ashes of their smaller brethren.
These great States finally attain to a measure
of strength which enables them to stand upon
their own feet and to become sufficient for them-
selves. When they have reached this point they
BALANCE OF POWER 593
are anxious to secure peace, for the safety of
their own existence and the civilization of which
they are the guardians. Thus an organized
comity of nations, or so-called system of States,
arises out of the mutual guarantee of law. This
necessarily presupposes the existence of at least
an approximate balance of power between the
States. We have seen how very mechanical this
idea became at one time in its application to
European polities, but nevertheless it contains a
kernel of truth. We cannot think of it as a
trutina gentium with its scales exactly sus-
pended, but any organized system of States
must assume that no one State is so powerful
as to be able to permit itself any license without
danger to itself. Here the superiority of Europe
to the unripe political world of America at once
becomes apparent. Nothing obliges the Union
to place any restraint upon its actions, and the
small South American Republics have only been
spared a direct interference with their affairs
because the connexion between them and their
greater neighbour is still slight.
Gortschakoff was perfectly right when he said
that the last International Congress would pro-
mote the interests neither of the nations which
always fear attack, nor of those unduly powerful
countries which believe themselves strong enough
to take the offensive.. The observation hit the
mark, as may be proved by an actual example.
Countries like Belgium and Holland, which, to
the great detriment of that science, have un-
fortunately so long been the home of international
jurisprudence, adopted a sentimental view of it,
VOL. II 2 Q
594 INTERNATIONAL LAW
because they lived in constant fear of aggression.
In the name of humanity, demands were made
upon the victor which were unnatural, and un-
reasonable, and irreconcilable with the power of
the State. The Peace Treaties of Nymegen and
Ryswyk both show how Holland was regarded
in the seventeenth century as the arena of la
haute politique. Switzerland held the same
position later, and few persons nowadays reflect
how ludicrous it is for Belgium to look upon her-
self as the chosen centre for the science of inter-
national law. As it is certain that all such law
must be grounded upon practice, so it is equally
certain that a State whose position is abnormal
will also be the occasion for an abnormal miscon-
struction of the principles which should govern
it. Belgium is a neutral State, therefore incom-
plete by its very nature ; how is it possible to
expect a sound and healthy law of nations to
proceed from such a source ? I must ask you
all to keep this in mind when in time to come
you are confronted with the voluminous Belgian
literature on this subject. There is, on the other
hand, a State in our midst to-day which believes
itself to be always in the position of the assailant,
and which is consequently the fountain-head of
barbarism in international law. It is the fault
of England, and of England only, that in time
of war the maritime law of nations continues on
the level of privileged piracy. Thus we see that,
between nations, all law is grounded upon mutual
give-and-take, and that it is useless to hold up
the phrases and doctrines of a vaguely general
humanity for the edification of the countries
SOVEREIGNTY 595
concerned. In this matter theory must be rooted
in practice, and practice presupposes a real reci-
procity, or, in other words, a real balance of power.
In order to make no mistake as to the real
meaning of international law, we must always
remember that it must not run counter to the
nature of the State. No State can reasonably
be asked to adopt a course which would lead it
to destroy itself. Likewise every State in the
comity of nations must retain the attributes of
sovereignty whose defence is its highest duty
even in its international relations. We find the
principles of international law most secure in
that department of it which does not trench upon
questions of sovereignty ; that is in the domain
of etiquette and of international civil law.
In times of peace these agreements are seldom
encroached upon, or if they are, the offence is
expiated at once. Any insult offered, even if
only outwardly, to the honour of a State, casts
doubt upon the nature of the State. We mistake
the moral laws of politics if we reproach any
State with having an over-sensitive sense of
honour, for this instinct must be highly developed
in each one of them if it is to be true to its own
essence. The State is no violet, to bloom un-
seen ; its power should stand proudly, for all
the world to see, and it cannot allow even the
symbols of it to be contested. If the flag is
insulted, the State must claim reparation ; should
this not be forthcoming, war must follow, how-
ever small the occasion may seem ; for the State
has never any choice but to maintain the respect
in which it is held among its fellows.
596 INTERNATIONAL LAW
From this it follows that all the restraints to
which States bind themselves by treaty are
voluntary, and that all treaties are concluded on
the tacit understanding rebus sic stantibus. No
State ever has, or ever will exist, which is willing
to hold to all eternity to the agreements which
it signs. No State will ever be in a position to
pledge its whole hereafter to a treaty, which
cannot fail to be a limitation of its sovereignty ;
it always intends that the contract shall eventually
be annulled, and shall only apply so long as the
present circumstances are not totally altered.
This principle is often called inhumane, but its
logical conclusion shows it to be the contrary.
Only if the State is aware that all its treaties only
apply conditionally will it go to work prudently
in the making of them. History is not meant to
be looked at from the point of view of a judge
hearing a civil suit. According to that standard,
Prussia, having signed the Treaty of Tilsit, would
have been wrong in attacking Napoleon in 1813.
But this treaty, like others, had been concluded
rebus sic stantibus, and, thank God, those res
had been radically altered some years before.
A noble nation was given the chance of shaking
off an intolerable yoke, and as soon as a people
is aware tha"t their time is come, they have the
right to make the attempt.
Politics must never discount the free moral
forces in the national life. No State in the
world may renounce the " I " in its sovereignty.
If conditions are imposed upon it which impinge
upon this, and which it is unable to prevent, then
" the breach is more honoured than the observ-
NECESSITY OF WAR 597
ance." It is one of the fine things about history
that we see nations more easily consoled for their
material losses than for injuries to their honour.
The loss of a province can always be accepted
as an inward necessity, but a brave people feels
continually insulted when it has to endure a
servitude, so called. By keeping his troops per-
petually upon Prussian soil, Napoleon I. filled
the most patient hearts with burning hatred.
When a State has been hurt in its honour, the
breaking of its treaties is only a question of time,
as England and France discovered in 1870, when
in their Crimean arrogance they closed the
Black Sea to the war-ships of exhausted Russia.
Russia was fully justified in using the favourable
opportunity of the Franco-Prussian War to set
aside this agreement with the tacit consent of
Germany.
When a State recognizes that existing treaties
no longer express the actual political conditions,
and when it cannot persuade the other Powers to
give way by peaceful negotiation, the moment has
come when the nations proceed to the ordeal by
battle. A State thus situated is conscious when
it declares war that it is performing an inevitable
duty. The combatant countries are moved by no
incentives of personal greed, but they feel that the
real position of power is not expressed by existing
treaties and that they must be determined afresh
by the judgment of the nations, since no peaceful
agreement can be reached. The righteousness
of war depends simply and solely upon the con-
sciousness of a moral necessity. War is justified
because the great national personalities can suffer
598 INTERNATIONAL LAW
no compelling force superior to themselves, and
because history must always be in constant flux ;
war therefore must be taken as part of the
divinely appointed order. Of course it is possible
for a Government to be mistaken about the
necessity which drives them to declare it ; " War
creates no right which was not already existing,"
as Niebuhr truly said, and, for this very reason,
isolated deeds of violence are justified by their
successful accomplishment, witness the achieve-
ment of German and Italian unity. On the
other hand, since not every war is caused by an
inward necessity, the historian must keep his
vision clear, and remember that the life of States
is counted in centuries. The proud saying of
the defeated Piedmont ese, " We are beginning
again," will always have its place in the chronicles
of noble nations.
No Courts of Arbitration will ever succeed in
banishing war from the world. It is absolutely
impossible for the other members of the group
of nations to take an impartial view of any
question vitally affecting one of their number.
Parties there must be, if only because the nations
are bound together, or driven apart by living
interests of the most various kinds. What Euro-
pean country could have taken a totally un-
biassed attitude towards the question of Alsace
and Lorraine, supposing that Germany had been
foolish enough to submit it to an Arbitration
Court ? The wildest imagination cannot picture
a detached Tribunal in this instance. Here we
have the explanation of the well - known fact,
that international Congresses are quite capable
NECESSITY OF WAR 599
of finding legal formulae for the results of a war,
but that they can never avert the outbreak of it.
A foreign State can only pronounce impartial
judgment on matters of third-rate importance.
We have already seen that war is both justi-
fiable and moral, and that the ideal of perpetual
peace is not only impossible but immoral as well.
It is unworthy of man's reason to regard the
impracticable as feasible, but a life of pure intellect
is all too often enervating to the reasoning faculty.
War cannot vanish from the earth as long as
human sins and passions remain what they are.
It is delightful to observe how the feeling
of patriotism breaks involuntarily through the
cosmopolitan phrases even of the apostles of per-
petual peace. The prophet Joel prayed that
before its day should dawn Israel might call all
the heathen to a bloody reckoning in the valley
of Jehoshaphat, and Victor Hugo likewise de-
manded that the Germans should get their
drubbing first. Yet again we must repeat the
arbitrament of force is the logical outcome of the
nature of the State. The mere fact of the exist-
ence of many States involves the necessity of
war. The dream of eternal peace said Frederick
the Great is a phantom, which each man rejects
when the call of war rings in his own ears. It
is impossible to imagine he went on to say
any balance of power which can last.
War, however, is the very sphere in which
we can most clearly trace the triumph of human
reason. All noble nations have felt that the
physical forces which war unchains require to
be regulated, and thus an international military
600 INTERNATIONAL LAW
law has been developed, based upon mutual
interests. This department of international
jurisprudence, which fools dismiss as unworthy
of a civilized people, is where the science has
achieved the most ; in modern days we rarely see
crude violations of the laws of war. There is
nothing in international law more beautiful, or
showing more unmistakably the continual pro-
gress of mankind, than a whole series of principles,
grounded only upon universalis consensus and
yet as firmly established as those of the Common
Law of any given country. It is evident that
the law of nations must always lag a few steps
behind the law of the individual States, for certain
principles of civilization and law must first be
developed at home before they can be put in
practice in intercourse abroad. Thus it was im-
possible to have international legislation against
slavery until respect for the individual had become
as universal as our century has made it. In the
course of centuries the instinct for justice between
countries has become so strong, that at any rate
the formal side of international law may be
looked upon as quite secured. The publicity of
modern public life has done much towards this
end. The days of the English Blue-books are
indeed at an end ; Blue, Green, or Yellow, they are
all alike intended to befog the Philistine in a
cloud of incense ; nor is it ever difficult for an
adroit diplomat thus to throw dust in the eyes of
Parliament. Still, the whole trend of political
life has come into the open to such a degree that
any gross breach of international law immediately
causes great irritation in every civilized country.
FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES 601
We will now examine a few of the funda-
mental principles which have been legally denned
primarily by the peaceful intercourse of nations.
Every people without exception must nowadays
be allowed to pursue uninterruptedly the trade
and commerce, the arts and sciences, which are
such a bond between different countries. The
races of antiquity sometimes forbade other nations
to practise some particular industry, whose
secrets they looked upon as their own private
possession. Even in the time of the later Roman
Empire it was forbidden to instruct the barbarians
in the art of shipbuilding, and similar monopolies
were still practically enforced at the date of the
Hanseatic League. In modern days this could
no longer happen. No State may deny free com- v
petition in trade to its fellows, and this principle
is guarded by a system of treaties.
In ancient times, moreover, almost every
nation laid claim to some sort of monopoly with
regard to the navigation of a sea. In later days
it was still held that particular seas, which were
not exactly the ocean itself, belonged to certain
States, as the Adriatic to the Venetian Republic,
the Ligurian Sea to Venice, the Gulf of Bothnia
to Sweden, and so forth. Now the sea is only the
property of the countries upon its shores as far as
their military domination of it extends, that is,
within cannon range from the shore, and this
limit has been altered again quite recently by
the advance of technical science. All such ques-
tions are finally decided, however, by the realities
of power ; if a State is in a position to dominate
any sea, no amount of well-meant theorizing
602 INTERNATIONAL LAW
will make that sea free. The Caspian is nomin-
ally controlled by two States which border it,
Russia and Persia, but the power of the former is
such that we may call the Caspian a Russian Sea.
If a Government were established in Constanti-
nople which was really able to shut the Bosphorus
against every Navy, it could mock at all the
declamations which might be hurled against it.
For the rest, the ocean is free to every ship sailing
under legitimate colours. The policing of the
high seas is provided by the Navies of every
country, for every ship of war has the right to
stop a merchant vessel and inspect her papers.
This is the result of an endlessly long and difficult
process of development, but all the Powers are
now agreed that an occasional inconvenience to
their merchantmen is a lesser evil than sea-
piracy.
All international rights are guaranteed by
treaties between States. It is clear that these
must differ in many ways from the contracts of
civil law.
The first distinction is that they can only be
concluded upon a basis of faith and loyalty, as
there is no judge who can enforce their observ-
ance. The Athenians were guided by a true
instinct when they contracted their agreements
only for a limited time. Christian nations think
otherwise, and make their treaties for eternity,
but, as we have seen, they are made on the under-
standing that they are only to endure while the
conditions of power between the contracting
parties are not totally altered. The more this
is [insisted upon, and the more soberly each
TREATIES 603
State reflects upon it, the more secure will their
treaties be.
There are, furthermore, such things as com-
pulsory treaties. No agreement made by
sovereign States in time of peace can ever be
so described little Switzerland, for instance,
is perfectly at liberty to make or to refuse a
peaceful treaty with ourselves but, on the other
hand, every peace imposed by the victor on the
vanquished must be compulsory. Here again
we are confronted with the question of who can
be arbiter endowed with legal authority to
pronounce whether a treaty is freely made.
Neither does the law of nations admit of lapse
by superannuation, for this is in the nature of
a juridical make-shift. For instance, when the
law decrees twenty years to be the prescriptive
period for theft, the legislator is acting a pretence
for the practical reason that it does not pay to
go on inquiring into trivial matters after so
great a lapse of time. The life of nations, how-
ever, is counted by centuries, so that a pre-
scriptive period can only enter into it after long
ages have gone by. Frederick the Great was
absolutely within his rights when he claimed
the four Silesian Duchies for his State, although
the treaties which secured them to his House had
been made more than two hundred years before.
In international treaties great stress should
be laid upon the cautious use of terms, and in
this respect also we can trace a great progress in
the course of history. In former times it some-
times happened that a treaty which was apparently
concluded got no recognition because the pleni-
604 INTERNATIONAL LAW
potentiaries had ostensibly exceeded their powers.
Ancient States got out of the difficulty by deliver-
ing up the plenipotentiaries, but to-day this is
no longer possible. The contracting States are
now not only obliged to bind themselves specific-
ally, but a definite period is also laid down for
the ratification of all treaties by the supreme
authorities concerned, and until this ratification
is accomplished the contract is not completed.
As a secondary point, States are now bound by
their treaties, no matter in whom the supreme
authority is vested. The French Republic is
pledged to the treaties made by the French
Empire. It is therefore important that contracts
should be worded as clearly as possible, and, as
a general rule, should contain no secret clauses,
for these confuse the legal issue by leading the
nations, which are ignorant of their contents,
to form a false estimate of the obligations for
which they are mutually responsible ; and they
may in consequence become a danger to their
own Government.
Old-fashioned Cabinets thought that secret
clauses gave them an opportunity of tripping
up a rival State, but the weapon was double-
edged. Exceptions, of course, there are. When
Prussia made terms of peace with the conquered
States of South Germany in 1866, an offensive
and defensive alliance was secretly contracted,
which was kept dark for a time. There were
good reasons for this, for when France, in the
following year, made her desire for war evident it
was publicly announced that North and South
Germany would stand together.
CIVIL LAW 605
There is one subject above all others in which
international law may be set upon a firm footing,
namely, international civil law, the treatment
which a State metes out to aliens. An immeasur-
able step in advance was made when the foreigner
was made absolutely secure of the protection
of the law in every civilized country. It is an
insult to the human race to say that the law of
nations still rests upon mere force. This is
untrue, but still men must not demand the
impossible of one another. The difficulties spring
to light the moment the subject of international
civil law is closely studied, for we are faced again
with the reservation which all these obligations
contain, and we see them subject to each nation's
care for its own security. Let us make as many
treaties as we like about international civil law,
but they must all presuppose that the alien is
not troublesome to ourselves. Should he be-
come so, the State must have power to expel him
without giving reasons, even if it has signed a
treaty which, as a rule, ensures security of resid-
ence to the subjects of another Government.
It is thus that persons are got rid of who are
suspected of being spies or unauthorized agents ;
discussions of such cases would usually be very
unpleasant and injurious to the friendly relations
between the countries. It is therefore a perfectly
reasonable principle that every foreigner may be
immediately driven out with no explanation
beyond that his presence is not desired. There
must be no tampering with this right, for other-
wise honest dwellers in a foreign land will not
be left free from annoyance, and consequently
606 INTERNATIONAL LAW
what seems harsh at first sight turns out to be
the truest kindness. It is impossible, on the
other hand, for the State to be legally empowered
to banish its own subjects. If we were to expel
the Jesuits, we might at least be sure that they
would find an asylum everywhere; but if the
State tried to do the same by ordinary criminals,
it would simply have to blow them into the air,
for no other country would receive them. Strictly
speaking, the right of banishment is inconsistent
with an organized political society.
The process of time has connected a reciprocal
support in the prosecution of criminals with the
mutual defence of civil law, and with it a whole
series of the most difficult problems have come
into being. It is easy enough to state the theory
that the whole human race is concerned in pro-
secuting crime, and among noble nations this
principle presents no difficulties until we come to
the definition of what crime is. The distinction
between ordinary and political crime at once be-
comes of primary importance. Every State must
make the prosecution of persons accused of high
treason by another Government dependant upon
its own interests. A state of war may be latent
between two countries who are outwardly friendly,
as is the case with France and Germany at the
present time. Again, it may often happen that
a man whom the law of his own country regards
as a political traitor may be the welcome guest of
another nation, and it would be unreasonable to
require that they should deliver him up. Agree-
ments can be made in respect of the extradition
of common offenders, though no State will engage
GREAT POWERS 607
itself to refuse its protection to political criminals,
but will always reserve the right of judgment for
each case. This applies to political offences in
general, although there are certain bomb-throwing
Anarchists pure and simple about whom a mutual
arrangement might be possible.
The exact degree of ordinary crime which
involves extradition can, of course, only be
settled by positive treaties ; but it should in
any case be limited to really serious offences.
The great differences of legal procedure in the
various countries make it imperatively necessary
to try offenders as much as possible by their own
laws, and experience has shown that this expan-
sion of the powers of courts, as far as can be
managed, has had good results.
Out of the joint maintenance of law has sprung
an ordered comity of nations, or system of States,
which has also received its settled outward
forms. The disputes over etiquette in the seven-
teenth century which seem so ludicrous to us
now had the right idea at the back of them in
spite of their lack of good taste. Even to-day
a difference exists between royal majesty and
petty princes, and none the less because unwritten,
between the Great Powers and second- or third-
rate States. A State may be denned as a Great
Power if its total destruction would require a
coalition of other States to accomplish. The
preponderance of Great Powers is felt on all
hands to-day, yet it has been the very means of
ensuring a certain security in international traffic.
The Congress of Aix - la - Chapelle in 1818 set
diplomatic relations on so firm a footing that
608 INTERNATIONAL LAW
all civilized countries now differentiate exactly
between the various classes of diplomats. Another
result of the undue preponderance of the leading
European Powers in modern history has been to
exclude the smaller States from taking a part in
Congresses unless they are directly concerned in a
disputed point. If, however, one of these small
countries is consulted, its opinion is given the same
weight as that of one of the Great Powers. More-
over, a Congress is not ruled by a majority, but by
the liberum veto of natural Law. I have spoken
already about the unreasonableness of deciding
by the vote of a majority when the question at
issue is not one of power in which physical strength
supports the decision by the many against the
few. It is not logical to proceed on this basis in
a Congress which is not waging war, but is formu-
lating the results of war, and of whom unanimity
must consequently be demanded.
It is not possible to lay down any fixed
principles for international policy, for, as we
have seen, the unconditional doctrine of inter-
vention is as false as its antithesis. Every
State may be placed in a position where the
party strifes of another country are a menace
to its own freedom. Thus we may find that a
cosmopolitan party at the helm of a neighbour-
ing State may lead to consequences so important
for ourselves that we are bound for our own sake
to interfere. Such intervention is always fraught
with danger, for the worship of national in-
dependence has waxed so strong in our own
day that any meddling with it will produce a
strong reaction in other countries beyond the
IN TIME OF WAR 609
one directly concerned. Stern experience has
taught modern States to hold themselves aloof
as much as possible from the private affairs of
their neighbours. No dogmas can decide these
problems, but when its own safety is at stake a
State should, and will, take action.
When a war is actually in progress its guiding
political idea is to bring about new conditions of
international law which will express the real
relative strength of the contending parties and
be recognized by both of them. It is, therefore,
perfectly equitable to wage war in the most
effective manner possible, so that its goal of peace
may be reached as quickly as may be. For
this reason the blow must be aimed at the enemy's
heart, and the use of the most formidable weapons
is absolutely justifiable, provided that they do
not inflict needless suffering on the wounded.
Philanthropists may declaim as much as they
like against explosive shells fired into the powder
magazines of wooden battle-ships, but still facts
remain unchanged. States in conclave have
decided what weapons are to be forbidden ; the
use of explosive bullets for small arms was pro-
hibited at the instance of Russia. It is per-
missible to take advantage of all the enemy's
weak points, and a State may turn treason and
mutiny within its enemy's borders to serve its
own ends. Nothing but the rapid march of
events prevented us in Prussia from making a
compact with Hungary in 1866.
It is equally impossible to deny to a belligerent
State the right of employing all its troops in the
field, whether they be savages or civilized men.
VOL. II 2 R
610 INTERNATIONAL LAW
It is important to take an unbiassed view of
ourselves in this question, in order to guard
against prejudice in respect of other nations.
The Germans raised a fearful outcry against the
French for letting loose the Turcos against a
civilized nation in the last war. It was a natural
accusation in the passion of the moment, but
our calmer judgment can find no violation
of international law in what was done. The
principle stands that a belligerent State may,
and must, throw all its troops and all its physical
resources into the struggle. Where is it possible
to draw the line ? Which of the charming races
which make up its Empire is Russia to withhold
from the field ? A State is obliged to make the
fullest use of all its material strength, but it must
do so in accordance with the honourable usages
which have been settled by the long experience
of war. Yet with all this, the employment of
the Turcos places the claim of France to be the
leader of civilization in a peculiar light. Thus
a whole series of complaints arise because de-
mands are made upon a State which it cannot
possibly satisfy, (in the national wars of the
present day every honest subject is a spy, and
therefore the banishment of 80,000 Germans from
France in 1870 was not in itself a violation of the
law, but was only indefensible because it was
carried out with a certain brutality.^
There is one rule of humanity in war which is
theoretically of universal application, although
it is only practically recognized in land cam-
paigns ; namely, that it is States who are fighting,
and not their individual citizens. Certain definite
SOLDIERS AND CIVILIANS 611
signs there must be, therefore, to distinguish
those persons who are entitled to fight by author-
ity of the State, and who are to be treated as
soldiers. It is an ugly gap in international law
that no universal agreement has as yet been
reached on this point, although it is the founda-
tion of all humanity in war. A soldier must feel
that he has no foe but the soldiers of the enemy,
and that he need not fear that the peasant who
has met him in peaceful fashion will be shooting
at him half an hour later from behind a bush.
The behaviour of soldiery in an enemy's country
is sure to be unfeeling and cruel if they do not
know who they should treat as soldiers like them-
selves, and who as highway robbers. No one
can be recognized as a soldier unless he has taken
the oath of allegiance, stands under the Articles
of War, and wears some kind of badge which
need not be exactly a full uniform. It goes
without saying that the irregular levies who
hover round the enemy, and do not stand under
the Articles of War, should be treated with un-
relenting severity. It is urgently necessary that
an international agreement should be come to
over the forms which make an armed person a
real member of a lawful army. The question
was discussed in Brussels in 1874, when the
difference of interests at once became apparent.
Small States like Switzerland had no desire to
bind themselves by any obligations.
For the time being every State continues to
decide for itself alone which of its opponents it
will consider as belonging to the enemy's army,
and which are to be regarded merely as robbers.
612 INTERNATIONAL LAW
Many of the francs-tireurs of 1870-71 deserve our
moral respect by their despairing efforts to save
their country, but from the point of view of
international law they were highway thieves. As
such, Napoleon justly treated Schill and his
companions. Schill was a Prussian staff-officer
who deserted, who tempted his men to do the
same, and who then began a war against France
as chief of a band of robbers in the eye of the law.
The King's anger against his action knew no
bounds, for it was the end of all political cohesion
if every staff-officer were at liberty to collect
a little army and fight upon his own account.
Nevertheless when Napoleon held to the letter of
international law he perpetrated an unexampled
piece of cruelty, and did a very imprudent thing
into the bargain. Every noble feeling was nat-
urally on SchilPs side, even as Schenkendorf made
him prophesy :
Und mein KSnig selbst wird sagen :
Ruh in Frieden, treuer Schill !
(For my king himself will tell me,
" Sleep in peace, true-hearted Schill.")
Yet with all this the action of the enemy was
absolutely in accordance with the law of nations.
When it is quite clearly defined who is part of
the army, and who may claim honourable treat-
ment as a prisoner of war, it becomes possible to
spare the private property of a hostile country
to a very great extent. But here again it is im-
portant to understand that national pride must
not be insulted in the name of humanity. At
that same Congress in Brussels, Prussia proposed
CONQUERED PROVINCES 613
that a conquered hostile province should be
administered ipso jure by the military authorities
of the enemy. This would in many ways be
an advantage for material existence. When a
general knows that he will have the support
of international law in requiring the obedience
of the enemy's officials he will impose stricter
discipline upon his own troops, and altogether he
will be able to act more humanely. Nevertheless
there are more important things to be considered
than trade and commerce. The German pro-
posal expressed the confidence of a nation accus-
tomed to conquer, but could we seriously desire
that Prussian officials should be legally compelled
to obey the orders of a Russian general ? Such
an excess of humanity would not only lead to
dishonour but would also be inhumane. We
expect our countrymen to resist the enemy by
every means allowed. Let us call to mind our
experiences in the past. No East Prussian sub-
ject can forget how President Dohna wrought
against the enemy, and during the Russian occupa-
tion, collected the taxes for the rightful king.
Are such acts to be forbidden in the name of
philanthropy, and does not patriotism count for
more ? It matters more that a nation should
keep its honour unsullied than that a Russian,
incensed by such opposition from the sturdy
men of Prussia, should burn a couple of villages
which he had meant to rule over with his knout.
International law must not meddle in kindness'
name with the moral possessions of a people.
Private property may be respected to the widest
extent, even when the enemy is in actual and
614 INTERNATIONAL LAW
purely military possession, so long as the limits
of the hostile army are clearly defined. Requisi-
tions are permitted, and it is a universal practice
to give bons in exchange ; the business of getting
these repaid is naturally the concern of the con-
quered party. The wanton burning of villages,
and attack upon private property as such, of
which the devastation of the Palatinate by Melac
is such a terrible example, is looked upon by all
modern civilized States as a breach of international
law. Private property may only be injured to
the extent rendered inevitable by the exigencies
of war. It is mere mockery, however, to apply
these principles to warfare against savages. A
negro tribe must be punished by the burning of
their villages, for it is the only kind of example
which will avail. If the German Empire has
abandoned this principle to-day it has done so
out of disgraceful weakness, and for no reasons
of humanity or high respect for law. 1
The standard of forbearance expected even of
civilized nations should not be higher than the
feeling for law which is common to all nations,
and the State should not be used for experiments
in philanthropy. We had a striking example of
this truth in the Franco-Prussian War, when,
in an access of false kindness, we undertook to
respect the private property of France upon the
seas. The impulse was noble and humane, but
we forgot that among the other States stood
England, turning a deaf ear on principle to
generous ideas, and moreover we never reckoned
that France would not pay us back in our own
1 Lecture delivered in the winter of 1891-92.
PRIVATE PROPERTY 615
coin. Our unreciprocated generosity relieved
France of the necessity of protecting her com-
merce against our ships of war, and enabled her
to keep her whole fleet free for the war. Her
marines, and her first-class naval artillery were
all brought ashore, and in the course of the
winter we constantly had to fight against these
naval troops. Thus our action only put weapons
into the enemy's hands. Every forward step
in international humanity must be founded upon
reciprocity.
We must now consider a number of cases in
which doubt arises whether the property in ques-
tion belongs to the State or to private owners.
It goes without saying that all the property of
the State is the spoil of the victor, and this applies
first and foremost to military stores in the widest
sense, as State railways, etc. A more difficult
question arises with regard to the depots of the
railways owned by private companies, but never-
theless accorded a practical monopoly by the
State. There is no doubt that the enemy may
make use of the rolling stock during the war, but
may he keep the waggons besides ? The nature
of the French railways fully justified our decision
in the last war : they were State-owned, and we
kept the waggons we had taken, in order, when
the settlement came, to return them in part pay-
ment. The problem of Banks is still harder to
decide. There are Banks, such as our own
Reichsbank, in which a Board of bankers have
an interest as well as the State. Commercially
this is an advantage, for it brings the Bank
more in touch with the big businesses, and places
616 INTERNATIONAL LAW
it in the front rank of contemporary commercial
life. It is, however, an illusion to suppose that
it is thus secured from confiscation at the hands
of a foreign conqueror. An enemy must un-
doubtedly treat it as a State Bank, and will not
consider the smaller share in it held by private
persons. Modern international law lays down
that those great treasures of a State which serve
the ends of Science and Art are to be regarded as
the common property of all mankind and immune
from the hand of the spoiler. Formerly this prin-
ciple was systematically trampled upon.
As regards treatment of the standing army,
and of all persons connected with national defence,
each individual can claim honourable treatment
as a prisoner of war, and all attempts to place
such persons in the ranks of their enemy's army
is contrary to international law. It is doubtful,
however, whether this principle applied to past
centuries, for it is one which depends entirely
upon the sense of justice of a given age. The
mercenary system showed so total a disregard
of the finer feelings at the beginning of the
eighteenth century that one French Regiment, of
German nationality, was taken from the French
by the Saxons at Hochstadt, and again later
from the Saxons by the Swedes ; from the
Swedes it passed over to the Prussians at Stral-
sund, and finally remained with them as the
" Young Anhalt " Regiment. Nevertheless, when
Frederick the Great put the captive Saxons in
the Prussian ranks at Pirna, it was felt that a
proceeding which had once been undisputed
was now no longer possible. The Saxons de-
ENGLAND'S NAVAL POWER 617
serted in herds, and a repetition of the experi-
ment in modern days would palpably be madness,
as well as a breach of law.
No one contests the right of every State not
only to make war, but to declare itself neutral in
the wars of others, in so far as material conditions
allow. It is mere boasting when a State declares
a neutrality which it is not in a position to uphold,
for neutrality needs defence as much as does
participation with one of the belligerents. The
neutral State must disarm every soldier who
crosses its frontier, and should it fail to do so the
belligerents are justified under some circumstances
in refusing to recognize its neutrality, even if it
has only permitted the armed enemy to enter a
single one of its villages.
Unhappily the laws of war are still very differ-
ently interpreted on land and on the seas, and it
is here that the mischievous influence of English
power over civilization and universal law cannot
fail to strike any one who chooses to see it. The
melancholy saying of Schiller still holds good :
Auf den Wellen ist alles Welle,
Auf dem Meer ist kein Eigentum.
(There is nothing stable among the waves,
Where no man calls anything his own.)
Deeply mortifying as this is to our pride, it is
true, because even to-day there is no balance of
power at sea, and for this we have no one to blame
but England. Her superiority is so immeasur-
able that she can do whatever she pleases. A
balance of naval power must be brought to pass
before the ideals of humanity and international
618 INTERNATIONAL LAW
law can hope to be realized upon the seas. The
modern infatuation of public opinion is often
astonishing ; again and again countries are
belauded which are following false paths ; again
and again the sentimentalities of Belgian teachers
of international law and the barbarisms of the
English maritime code are held up to admiration.
Every other State would be ready, under certain
conditions, to respect merchant shipping in time
of war, but England alone holds by the principle
that at sea there is no distinction to be made
between the property of the State and the pro-
perty of the individual. So long as one State
takes its stand upon this all the others must
imitate its barbarism. Of course maritime con-
ditions cannot be quite the same as those on
land, because there are many commodities which
serve the purposes of war. Therefore freedom
for private property cannot be so widely extended
at sea, but this is no reason why ocean warfare
should to all eternity remain ocean piracy, or
why belligerents should be authorized to despoil
one another of all merchandise without distinc-
tions made.
Up till now all progress in maritime law has
been brought about by the second-class navies.
Again and again we see how the Powers are
driven for their own sakes to make humane regu-
lations, and in this we have the explanation of
the efforts made by the smaller countries to soften
the maritime law. We must not suppose that
the English are worse individually than anybody
else, and if we were in their position we might
perhaps act as they do. In the League of armed
ENGLAND'S CONCESSIONS 619
neutrality in 1780 the second-class navies laid
down, firstly, that the flag should cover the goods,
and the enemy's non-military merchandise should
pass free in neutral bottoms ; and secondly, that
all blockades must be effective, and no Power be
given the right to declare a blockade of a whole
coast which was not actually closed by hostile war-
ships. Treaty after treaty tried to give effect
to these principles. England has now at last
acknowledged that the flag covers the goods, a
concession forced from her by the rise of American
sea-power. If it had depended upon Germany,
the question of freedom for private property
at sea would have been settled long ago by
international discussion; but theory has no in-
fluence over the law of nations, unless it expresses
to some extent the actual relative power of the
different States.
From whatever angle we view political science
we find that its proper function lies in dealing
with that only true humanity which is rooted in
the actual facts of history, and that the dreams
of fancy are beyond its scope. The destinies of
States are accomplished by processes of attrac-
tion and repulsion whose final consummation is
hidden from mortal eyes, and whose tendencies
can only be dimly guessed at. There is no need
for us to become critics of history, for the real
point is to understand how the Divine plan has
unfolded itself little by little in all the variety
of actual existence. A practical politician is
great if he can read the signs of the times, and
foresee more or less the trend of history at a given
moment. No quality beseems him better than
620 INTERNATIONAL LAW
modesty. He must not stray with blind un-
certainty among the many complex circumstances
which he has to handle, but he must concentrate
upon the attainable and keep his goal clearly
before him. It is my hope that you may have
learned from these lectures how many factors go
to the making of history and how carefully con-
sidered all our political judgments should therefore
be. If what I have said has taught you this
modesty of true science, I shall be well content.
INDEX
INDEX
Aargau, Canton of, ii. 344
Achaian Confederation, ii. 335
Achill, Albrecht, i. 201
Adam, Madame, i. 244
Addispn, i. 37
Adelaide, Madame, i. 244
Advertisements, i. 171-2, ii. 457
Aegidian Constitutions, ii. 47
Aetolian Alliance, ii. 334
Africa, theocracy in, ii. 9
Agamemnon, i. 328, ii. 80, 83
Ahrens, i. 73
Ahriman, worship of, ii. 22
Aix-la-Chapelle, Congress of, ii.
607
Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Prince
Consort, ii. 148
Albornoz, Cardinal, ii. 47
Albrecht, Professor, i. 190
Alcibiades, ii. 316
Alcmaeonidae, ii. 312
Alexander I., of Russia, ii. 106,
140, 578
Alexander II., of Russia, ii. 137-
140
Alexander III., of Russia, ii. 140
Alexander III., Pope, i. Ill, ii.
48
Alexander VI., Pope, institution
of the censorship by, i. 167 ;
partition of the seas by, ii.
566
Alexander the Great, i. 290, ii.
28, 209, 408, 564
Alkaios, i. 114
Alphonso XII., of Spain, ii. 68
Alsace, i. 14, 122, ii. 428, 547
Alsace-Lorraine, i. 29, 203, ii.
598
Ambassadors : Institution of, ii.
567, 569-70 ; inviolability of,
ii. 591
Amelia, Regent of Hesse-Cassel,
j. 253
America, South : Revolutions in,
ii. 324 ; republics of, ii. 593
America, United States of. See
United States of America
American Civil War, ii. 271-2, 276,
584
American Declaration of Inde-
pendence, i. 158-9, 192
American War of Independence,
i. 159, ii. 345-6, 576
Americans : " smartness " of, i.
114
Americans, South, frivolousness
of, i. 128
Amsterdam : Council house, ii. 235
Anacreon, ii. 210
Anarchists, i. 103
Anglo-Saxons, Kings of, ii. 84
Anne, Queen, i. 254
Appenzell-Innerrhoden, ii. 280
Arabs, i. 281
Aragon, association with Castile,
ii. 18
Arbitration, courts of, ii. 598
Archangel, i. 209
Archimedes, i. 115
Aristocracy, i. 53, 306, 308-10,
ii. 7, 8, 231
Aristocratic Republic. See Re-
public
Aristogeiton, ii. 210
Aristotle, ii. 196, 241 ; theory of
the State, i. x, 10, 32, 71, 81,
107, 199, 282, ii. 3, 248, 311 ;
definition of liberty, i. 153 ;
on slavery, i. 158 ; on women,
i. 234 ; on the working classes,
i. 323 ; on the priestly offices,
i. 328 ; classification of types
of constitution, ii. 6-11 ; on
monarchy, ii. 70 ; on aris-
tocracy, ii. 236, 237
Armies, ii. 72-3, 97-8 ; constitu-
tion, ii. 389-448 ; martial
623
624
INDEX
law, ii. 453-4, 464-5 ; mer-
cenary, i. 309, ii. 410-15, 421,
616-17; riseof standing armies,
ii. 571 ; transport, ii. 445-6 ;
universal service, ii. 394,
419-20, 428
Arnim, Bettina von, i. 256-7
Arnolfo, architect of the Duomo,
i. 381
Art, and the State, i. 380-87
Asia Minor, ii. 31
Athens (ancient) : ii. 262, 334 ;
encouragement of art in, i.
380-82 ; democracy in, i. 149,
ii. 235, 246-8, 282, 284, 287-8,
292, 304-17 ; education in,
i. 363 ; polygamy in, i. 240-41 ;
sea-power of, i. 212, 213 ;
treaties of, ii. 602
Athens (modern), number of stud-
ents at, i. 44
Attalus, King of Pergamon, ii.
306
Atticus Herodes, ii. 306
Augsburg, i. 226 ; Council house,
ii. 229, 235
Augsburg, Peace of, i. 51, 125,
345
Augustin, St., De civilale Dei, i.
339-40, ii. 42
Augustus of Saxony, ii. 129
Australia, i. 117, ii. 585
Austria, i. 89, 96-8, 123, 218-19,
343, ii. 50, 128, 241, 246-7,
330, 338, 582 ; and the War
of the Polish Succession, ii.
422 ; hostility to Russia, ii.
583
Aristocracy, i. 318-19
Army : reserve officers, ii. 442
Constitution, i. 108-9, 293-5,
ii. 91, 118, 123
Finance : mismanagement of, ii.
516
Population, i. 226, 273, 297-8
Separation from Germany, ii.
360, 364, 367
Austro-Prussian War of 1866, i.
129, ii. 246-7, 368, 443, 447
Bacon, Sir Francis, i. 142
Baden, i. 129, ii. 365, 366
Balance of power, ii. 570-72, 593
Bale, radicals of, i. 360 ; con-
stitution of, ii. 288, 342
Balkan Peninsula, condition of
under Turkish rule, i. 205-6
Ballot, secrecy of, ii. 198-200
Bancroft, George, i. 78, ii. 294
Banks, confiscation of, in time of
war, ii. 615-16
Barbarossa, i. 246
Barcidae, ii. 14, 15, 252, 268,
284
Bastiat, i. 46
Bavaria, i. 129, ii. 338, 364, 382,
475 ; petty nobility, i. 315 ;
concordat with the papacy,
i. 342 ; first Protestant mini-
ster, i. 345 ; ambassador of,
ii. 379
Kings of, i. 31, ii. 168, 187, 374 ;
right of resistance to, ii. 90
Bazaine, ii. 172, 453
Becker, i. 102
Belgium, i. 33, 113, 129, ii. 580 ;
Freemasons in, i. 180, 291,
349 ; relations with Holland,
ii. 333 ; and International
Law, ii. 593-4, 618
Church, i. 291, 348-50
Constitution, i. 136, ii. 14, 90,
162, 183
Bellinzona, ii. 344
Benedek, ii. 247
Benedetti, i. 101
Benzenberg, Professor, i. 138, ii.
489-90
Berlin, i. 78, 217, 401, ii. 191,
382-3, 419, 484; architec-
ture of, i. 386 ; culture of,
i. 223-4 ; Victoria Lyceum,
i. 257-8 ; stock exchange,
i. 405 ; taxation in, ii. 287,
507-8, 510, 546
Berlin University, foundation of,
i. 39, 362
Bernadottes, i. 131
Berne, ii. 237, 357 ; aristocracy,
ii. 288, 294 ; bailiwicks, ii.
344, 356 ; democratic govern-
ment in, ii. 274, 321, 342 ;
jurisprudence, ii. 323
Berrihardi, Theod. von, book on
Frederick the Great, ii. 424
Bernstorff, Count, i. 292
Beust, Freiherr von, ii. 346
Bismarck, Prince Otto von, i. xv,
25, 31, 151, 309, 317, 342,
ii. 108, 154, 283-4, 315, 368,
375, 376 ; character, i. 90-91 ;
negotiations with Benedetti,
i. 101 ; opinion of the Press,
i. 173 ; policy, i. 283-4, ii.
62 ; popularity, i. 324 ; in-
stitution of health insur-
ance, i. 401 ; introduction
of universal suffrage, ii. 311 ;
INDEX
625
friendship with Motley, ii.
340 ; tactful treatment of
small German courts, ii.
378-9
Bitsch, fortress of, ii. 447
Bliicher, i. 105 ; genius of, ii.
398-9 ; army of, ii. 436-7,
444
Blumenbach, i. 7
Bluntschli, i. xi, ii. 589
Bodin, Jean, i. 27, ii. 120
Bohemia, monarchy in, ii. 106,
123
Boleslav, ii. 107
Bologna, i. 384, ii. 120
Boniface, i. 335
Bonn, i. 223, ii. 57
Boppard, ii. 409
Borgia, Cesare, i. 85, ii. 588
Borne, i. 140
Borromean League, ii. 289
Bourbaki, ii. 323, 446
Boyen, von : secession to Russia,
i. 105 ; organization of the
Landwehr, ii. 437-8
Brabant, ii. 342, 411
Brahmins, i. 308, ii. 25, 27
Brandenburg, i. 114, ii. 127, 556 ;
communal administration, i.
120-21 ; territory of, i. 201, ii.
101 ; and the Thirty Years'
War, ii. 98, 572 ; nobility of,
ii. 99
Brasidas, King, ii. 247
Brazil, ii. 305
Breitenfeld, Battle of, ii. 416
Brescia, i. 245
Bretons, i. 281-2
Bromberg, ii. 112
Brunner, ii. 475
Brunswick, ii. 326, 382
Brunswick, Duke of, ii. 427
Brunswick- Wolfenbuttel, i. 368
Brussels, Congress of, 1874, ii. 611,
612
Buckle, History of Civilisation,
i. 204
Buda-Pesth, i. 297 ; hot baths,
ii. 37
Buddha, teaching of, i. 307, ii.
27-8
Bulgaria, i. 155
Billow, Count F. W., i. 105, ii. 437
Bunsen, ii. 48
Burckhardt, Jacob, Culiur der
Renaissance in Italien, i. 56
Burckhardts, the, ii. 288
Burgher class, development of, i.
306
VOL. II
Burgsdorf, Ludwig von, ii. 99
Burgsdorff, Konrad von, i. 155
Burke, ii. 161
Byron, i. 37
Byzantine Empire, ii. 32, 86, 169,
262
Caesaro-papalism, i. 337-42
Calchas, i. 328
California, i. 109
Calvin, i. 186-7, ii. 317, 568
Cambridge, Duke of, marriage of,
ii. 165
Canada, probable secession from
the British Empire, i. 117 ;
female suffrage in, i. 253 ;
designed annexation of, by
the United States, ii. 300
Candia, ii. 260
Cape of Good Hope, ii. 520
Capet, House of, ii. 75
Capet, Hugh, ii. 75
Capital, danger of amalgamations
of, i. 404-5
Capital punishment, i. 95-6, 161,
ii. 464-8
Carlsbad, Congress of, ii. 90
Carlyle, Thomas, ii. 440
Carnot, ii. 427, 439
Caroline of Darmstadt, i. 253
Carthage : republic of, ii. 14, 19,
240, 248-68 ; merchant aris-
tocracy of, ii. 233 ; army,
ii. 409
Casimir the Great, of Poland, ii.
107
Caspian Sea, control of, ii. 602
Caste, i. 305-8
Castile, i. 110 1 ; association with
Aragon, ii. 18
Catherine II., of Russia, i. 253,
254, ii. 140 ; attitude towards
the Jesuits, ii. 132 ; corre-
spondence with Frederick the
Great, ii. 454 ; international
treaties of, ii. 576
Catholic emancipation, i. 146
Cato Uticensis, ii. 249
Cavour : i. 58 ; union of factions
under leadership of, i. 143 ;
indifference to attacks in the
Press, i. 175 ; friendship with
the Countess of San Germano,
i. 245
Celsus, i. 186
Censorship, i. 167, 170-71
Charles I., of England, ii. 171
Charles II., of England, ii. 401
Charles III., of Spain, ii. 68
2 s
626
INDEX
Charles V., Emperor, i. 83, 109 ;
policy of, i. 293 ; contro-
versies with Clement VII.,
ii. 49 ; mercenary troops of,
ii. 413
Charles VII., Emperor, ii. 106
Charles X., of France, proceed-
ings against the ministers of,
ii. 172
Charles the Great, i. 237
Charles Augustus of Weimar, ii.
129
Charles Eugene of Wurtemberg,
ii. 129
Charles Frederick of Baden, ii. 129
Charles Martel, i. 335
Charles of Lorraine, Prince, i. 109
Chatham, William Pitt, Earl of,
ii. 151
Chaucer, i. 37
China, ii. 585 ; state-recognized
hierarchy in, i. 319-20
Chinese, sense of comfort, i. 275 ;
lack of religious conviction,
ii. 32-3
Christian I., of Denmark, ii. 103
Christian IV., of Denmark, ii. 64
Christianity : and War, i. 67 ;
decay of a nation hindered by,
i. 132-3 ; idea of personal
liberty awakened by, i. 157-8 ;
contrasted with Buddhism,
i. 307, ii. 27-8
Ethics of, i. 93-4
Influence : on the conception of
the State, i. 61 ; on the status
of women, i. 242-3 ; on the
law of nations, ii. 566-8, 592
Relations with the State. See
Church
Church : censorship of, i. 167 ;
influence on language, i. 291 ;
constitution, ii. 13
Relations with the State : i. 108,
328-61, ii. 24 ; conflicts with
the State, i. 25-8, 54, 93-4, 98,
332-3 ; right of freedom of
conscience, i. 178 ; right of
resistance to the State, i. 185-
187 ; establishment of State-
supported churches, i. 343 ;
conception of the sovereign
as head of the Church, i. 344 ;
ritual and dogma, i. 352-4 ;
Church property, i. 354, 357-
358, 392 ; religious processions,
i. 354 ; Church discipline, i.
355 ; education of the clergy,
ibid. ; religious orders, i. 163,
356 ; Church patronage, i.
357 ; Church tax, i. 358 ;
religious instruction in State
schools, i. 358-60, 363-7;
tribunal for deposition of
clergy, i. 360 ; scientific
progress, i. 360-61
See also Christianity, Roman
Catholic Church
Cicero, i. 136, 311, ii. 16, 238, 252,
254
Cincinnati, Budget of, ii. 287
Cisleithanians, i. 297
Civil Law. See Law
Civil Service, ii. 73, 523-31
English, ii. 524-5
French, ii. 529-31
German, ii. 525-9
Class-system, i. 303-20
Clausewitz, i. 65, 105, ii. 395, 431
Cleisthenes, ii. 310
Clement VII., ii. 49
Cleomenes, King of Sparta, ii. 245
Cleon, ii. 315, 316
Cleves, i. 119, ii. 100
Climate, influence of, i. 210-11
Coburg, House of, ii. 71-2, 147, 149
Cologne, See of, ii. 55-7 ; council
house, ii. 235
Colonies, as a factor in State con-
struction, i. 113-22 ; types
of (agricultural, plantation,
mining, trading), i. 116-21 ;
importance of, i. 231
Columbia, ii. 357
Commerce, international, freedom
of, ii. 601
Companies, legislation concerning,
i. 404 ; joint-stock, i. 405
Concordats, immorality of, i. 342
Confederations of States, i. 30, ii.
18-19, 334-57
Conservative government, tend-
encies of, i. 140
Constant, Benjamin, ii. 5
Constantine, Emperor, conver-
sion of, i. 337
Constantinople, i. 44, ii, 137,
143, 602 ; disputes between
Church and State in, i. 337 ;
dogs of, ii. 41 ; conquest of,
by Enrico Dandolo, ii. 169,
262
Constitutionalism, i. 136
Constitutions, various forms of,
ii. 1-20
Copenhagen, i. 120
Corday, Charlotte, i. 103
Cordova, ii. 37
INDEX
627
Corpus Christi, Feast of, ii. 45
Corsica, vendetta in, ii. 458
Coup d'etat, i. 128
Cracow, i. 90, ii. 108, 581
Crete, i. 108
Crimean War, ii. 583
Criminal jurisdiction, i. 64, 160-5,
ii. 456-83 ; political crimes,
i. 152 ; nature and aim of
punishment, ii. 459-62 ; the
penal code, ii. 462-4; capital
punishment, i. 95-6, 161, ii.
464-8 ; corporal punishment,
ii. 469 ; prosecution, ii. 469-
474 ; trial by jury, ii. 475-83
Croatia i. 296
Cromwell, Oliver, i. 37, 193, ii.
10, 51; army of, ii. 392,
401-2
Crown lands, ii. 490-92
Crusades, influence of, ii. 567-8
Culture, i. 36-43, 69 ; influence
of climate and natural con-
ditions on, i. 223
Customs Union. See Zollverein
Cyprus, ii. 260
Czartoryski, ii. Ill
Dahlmann, i. 171, ii. 104, 149, 184
400, 551 ; Politics, i. xi ;
Danish History, i. 205
Dalai Lama, ii. 29
Dalmatia, i. 288, 297, ii. 262
Dandolo, Enrico, Doge of Venice,
11. 169, 262
Dante, ii. 48
Danton, ii. 290, 470
Darmstadt, i. 129, 143
Daun, ii. 424-5
Dauphiny, Estates of, ii. 122
Debreczin, ii. 108
Decalogue, i. 93
Delia Scalas, ii. 212
Delia Torre, ii. 213
Demagogues, ii. 290
Democracy, i. 53; ii. 259-60;
tendency towards in colonies,
i. 115 ; and political freedom,
i. 154-5 ; nature of, ii. 6-8 ;
democratic republics, ii. 273-
329
Demosthenes, ii. 313, 316
Denmark, monarchy in, i. 129 ;
history of, i. 149, 292 ;
elective kingship in, ii. 106 ;
Royal Code of 1665, ii. 119
Diadochi, States of, ii. 209, 563
Diesterweg, educational reforms
of, i. 371
VOL. II
Diocletian, ii. 32
Dionysius of Syracuse, ii. 70
Diplomacy, development of, ii.
569
Disraeli, Benjamin, i. 278
Divorce, Law of, i. 266
Dogma and ritual, right of the
State to interfere in, i. 352-4
Dohna, President, ii. 613
Dollinger, i. 353
Drenthe, ii. 342
Dresden, ii. 361, 425
Duelling, ii. 403-4
Dutch : deterioration of, i. 50-51 ;
colonization of, i. 116 ; lan-
guage, i. 279
East India Company, ii. 240
Eberhard of Wiirtemberg, ii. 129
Education and the State, i. 358-
387 ; of Princes, ii. 71-2
Edward the Black Prince, i. 37,
152
Egypt, ii. 563 ; theocratic govern-
ment in, ii. 28-9
Eichhorn, i. xii, 4
Eifel Forest, abolition of by the
French, ii. 493
Elizabeth, Queen, i. 253, 254
Elizabeth of Russia, i. 254
Engels, i. 239
England. See Great Britain
English, the : national prejudices,
i. 179 ; narrow outlook, i.
275 ; hypocrisy, ii. 145-8 ;
want of chivalry, ii. 394-5
English Blue-books, ii. 600
English language, the, i. 286
Ennius, ii. 220
Equality, doctrine of, i. 182-4
Ernest Augustus, King of Hanover,
ii. 169
Estates, definition of, i. 303-5
Estes, the, ii. 214
Esthland, colonization of, i. 122
Esthonia, i. 121
Etruscans, i. 285
Eugene of Savoy, Prince, i. 109,
ii. 431
Eugenie, Empress, i. 244
Euripides, ii. 315, 561
Examinations, i. 172
Exchequer, i. 70
Falieri, Marino, ii. 263
Falk, i. 353
Family, the, i. 234-69
Federal States, i. 30, ii. 347-57,
381
2s2
628
INDEX
Federalist, The, ii. 348
Ferdinand II., Emperor, ii. 123
Feudalism : in France and Prussia,
i. 393 ; in England, ii. 87-8
Fichte, i. 25 ; on patriotism, i.
15 ; on national self-con-
sciousness, i. 284
Finance, ii. 487-522. See also
Taxation
Finland: nature of union with
Russia, ii. 18
Fischers, the, ii. 288
Fiume, i. 212
Flanders : conquest of, ii. 342 ;
burghers of, ii. 411
Florence: culture of, i. 38, 381,
ii. 235, 316-17 ; democratic
government of, ii. 282, 304,
329
Forckenbeck, Herr von, ii. 553
Forestry, ii. 492-4
Forests, influence of on climate,
i. 206
Fortresses, utility of, ii. 446-8
France : i. 12 ; under Napoleon,
i. 97, ii. 222-5 ; evolution of
the State, i. 110, 129 ; domina-
tion by the Rothschilds, i.
131 ; Academies of Art, i.
384 ; and the American War
of Independence, i. 159 ;
feudalism in, i. 393, ii. 88 ;
under the Directory, ii. 303 ;
ecclesiastical states dissolved
by, ii. 364 ; and the War of
the Polish Succession, ii. 422 ;
disappearance of Crown lands,
ii. 490 ; demolition of forests,
ii. 493 ; alliance with Turkey,
ii. 569 ; under Louis XIV.,
ii. 571-3 ; colonial struggle
with England, ii. 576 ; under
Napoleon III., ii. 582-3 ;
after Sedan, ii. 584 ; latent
state of war with Germany, ii.
606 ; and international law,
ii. 597, 604
Aristocracy, i. 312-17
Army, ii. 73, 300, 402, 411,
416-18, 426-34, 440-42
Bourse, dominion of, ii. 303-4
Church, i. 341, 344-5, 360
Constitution : i. xvi, 26-7, ii.
13-14, 74-5, 100, 102, 160-61
179-80, 240 ; right of resist-
ance to, i. 191 ; oath of
allegiance to, i. 194 ; right
of veto, ii. 182 ; parliament-
ary system, ii. 189-91 ; actu-
ally a plutocracy, ii. 275 ;
bureaucracy, ii. 299, 524-5,
529-30 ; presidency, ii. 301-2
Finance : wasteful expenditure,
ii. 184, 286 ; taxation, ii.
505 ; national debt, ii. 511-12,
520-21 ; war loan, ii. 518-19
Fortresses, ii. 447
Geographical conditions, i. 217
Jurisdiction : law of inherit-
ance, i. 268-9 ; judges, ii.
476 ; verdict by majority, ii.
477
Local government : ii. 532, 534,
542-7
Monarchy : i. 132, ii. 60, 63, 76,
105, 119-31, 172
Population, decrease of, i. 230-31
Social conditions : female domi-
nation, i. 243-4 ; marriage,
i. 264-5 ; middle class, i. 322 ;
working classes, i. 325 ; peas-
ant class, i. 404
Francis I., King of France, i. 83
Francis I., Emperor of Austria,
ii. 233
Francis Joseph, Emperor of
Austria, experiments in gov-
ernment, i. 294
Franco-Prussian War, i. 141-2, ii.
584, 597, 610, 612, 614-15
Frankfurt, Confederate Diet of,
ii. 283
Frederick I., King of Prussia:
encouragement of art by, i.
386 ; emulation of Louis XIV.,
ii. 127 ; misunderstanding of
Prussia's position, ii. 574-5
Frederick the Great, i. xv, 68,
ii. 60, 66, 362, 496, 579 ;
opinion of Machiavelli, i. 87-8 ;
character, i. 90, ii. 63, 68-9 ;
employment of spies, i. 101 ;
and Jesuits, i. 181, ii. 132 ;
interior colonization encour-
aged by, i. 233 ; establish-
ment of inter-provincial code
of rights, ii. 100 ; descrip-
tion of the Holy Roman Em-
pire, ii. 110 ; denunciation
of Rousseau's constitutional
theory, ii. 114 ; the ideal of
an absolute monarch, ii. 118,
127-8 ; conception of mon-
archy, ii. 127, 129, 131 ;
Mirror of Princes, ii. 129 ;
Anti - Machiavelli, ii. 127;
policy of, ii. 130 ; financial
measures of, ii. 132 ; betrayal
INDEX
629
of, by George III., ii. 148 ;
work of, for German unity,
ii. 364 ; military organization
of, ii. 421 ; campaigns of,
ii. 331, 364, 422-4, 432; on
the necessity of money for
war, ii. 444 ; administration
of justice under, ii. 450,
454-5 ; prejudice against the
legal profession, ii. 483 ; de-
preciation of the currency by,
ii. 511-12 ; Considerations sur
Vttat present du corps poli-
tique de F Europe, ii. 575 ;
belief in the future of Prussia,
ii. 575 ; commercial treaty
with the United States, ii. 577;
on the impossibility of last-
ing peace, ii. 599 ; claim to
the Silesian duchies, ii. 603 ;
treatment of captured Saxons,
ii. 616
Frederick I., of Brandenburg :
Act of General Pacification,
ii. 101
Frederick II., Emperor, ii. 47,
359
Frederick III., Emperor, re-in-
stalment of the death-penalty
by, ii. 467
Frederick Christian of Saxony, ii.
129
Frederick William I. of Prussia,
ii. 397 ; compulsory service
introduced by, i. 368 ; sense
of duty of, ii. 127-8 ; royal
domains of, ii. 186; district
regulations of, ii. 418-20,
433 ; prejudices against the
legal profession, ii. 483 ; fiscal
system reformed by, ii. 527 ;
municipal organization, ii.
550-51
Frederick William II. of Prussia,
i. 167, ii. 512 ; incapacity of,
ii. 134, 135
Frederick William III. of Prussia,
ii. 132, 556 ; uprightness of,
i. 90 ; encouragement of art
by, i. 386 ; royal domains of,
ii. 187 ; customs union of,
ii. 367 ; taxation policy of,
ii. 505-6
Frederick William IV. of Prussia,
i. 95, ii. 513 ; character, i.
58 ; attempt to copy English
aristocracy, i. 312 ; Catholic
leanings, i. 350 ; failure to
encourage art, i. 386 ; over-
rated in public opinion, ii. 67 ;
illness of, ii. 167 ; adminis-
trative failures, ii. 133, 191 ;
Austrian leanings, ii. 367
Frederick William of Branden-
burg (" The Great Elector "),
i. 154, ii. 127, 128
Freedom, political, i. 151-6 ; per-
sonal, i. 153, 156 ; industrial,
i. 165 ; the right to work, i.
166 ; of the Press, i. 166 ; to
form associations, i. 179-81 ;
of the seas, i. 219, ii. 601-2
Freemasons, i. 180, 291, 349
Free Trade, i. 46, 175, 402-3
Freiburg, ii. 62
French, character, i. 66 ; cyni-
cism, i. 91 ; racial origin, i.
121, 281, 288-9 ; frivolity, i.
128 ; thriftiness, ii. 521
French Revolution, i. 131, ii. 94,
186 ; and abolition of serf-
dom, i. 162 ; and emigration
of French aristocracy, i. 314 ;
outcome of the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, ii. 126 ;
abolition of the old French
provinces by, ii. 543 ; in-
fluence on international re-
lationships, ii. 577-8
Frundsberg, George, ii. 414
Fiirstenberg, ii. 365
Gagern, Heinrich von, i. 143
Gambetta, i. 244
Garibaldi, i. 195
Gauss, i. 380
Geibel, Emanuel, i. 331
Geneva, i. 226, ii. 323
Genoa, history of, ii. 237, 260-1,
265 ; suburbs of, ii. 549
Gentz, Friedrich, i. 140, ii. 161,
241 ; on representative gov-
ernment, ii. 90, 91 ; on the
English National Debt, ii.
513, 515
George I. of England, ii. 147
George II. of England, ii. 147
George III. of England, ii. 148,
167
George IV. of England, ii. 167
George V. of Hanover, ii. 169
George William, Elector of Bav-
aria, ii. 98
German Confederation, i. 127, ii.
246-7, 345-9 ; diet of, ii.
337, 338, 345
German Emperor, ii. 370, 373-5,
377, 380
630
INDEX
German language, i. Ill, 270-71
Germans : national characteris-
tics, i. 19-20, 273-5, ii. 258,
434, 521 ; North Germans
more civilized than South
Germans, i. 67-8 ; conception
of freedom, i. 152 ; absence
of national prejudices, i.
178-9 ; racial origins, i. 280-
90 ; resistance to Rome, ii.
256-7 ; compared with the
English, ii. 395
Germany : subordination to Eng-
land, i. 24 ; evolution of the
State, i. 25, 78-80, 97-8, 110-
111, 124-5, ii. 358-83 ; must
become a power beyond the
seas, i. 33-4 ; and the Con-
gress of Vienna, i. 69 ; rail-
way system, i. 75 ; emigra-
tion from, to America, i. 106,
118, ii. 295, 297 ; revolution
of, 1866, i. 131 ; universal
suffrage, i. 155, ii. 195-9, 311 ;
relations with Poland, i. 212,
ii. 109 ; growth of popula-
tion, i. 231, 232-3 ; Jews in,
i. 301-2 ; Polish provinces of,
i. 367 ; Teutonic Order, ii.
53-4 ; medieval cities of, ii.
108 ; and the Baltic Pro-
vinces, ii. 141 ; democracy
in, ii. 324 ; and international
relations, ii. 565-6, 572-6,
579-85 ; latent state of war
with France, ii. 606 ; and
international law, ii. 588-90,
604, 612-14
Aristocracy, i. 304, 312-7, ii.
191-2, 379-81
Army : universal service, i.
138 ; administration, ii. 201 ;
officers, ii. 382 ; organiza-
tion, ii. 390, 393-4, 401, 406,
410-48 ; Landsknechts, ii.
412-15; Landswehr, ii. 436-41 ;
three years' service restored,
ii. 438-9 ; one-year volunteer
system, ii. 441 ; provincial
army corps, ii. 441-2
Church, i. 79, 82, 334-5, 344-8,
361, ii. 54-7, 362-3
Climate and geographical con-
ditions, i. 206, 209, 213-18 ;
forests, ii. 493
Colonization, i. 116-22
Constitution, i. 159, 184-5, 191-
193, ii. 59, 82-3, 88-105, 149-
50, 155-6, 162-3, 178, 182-7,
370-3 ; political parties, i.
150 ; code of rights of 1848,
i. 160 ; Civil Service, ii. 154,
179, 299, 371-2, 434-5, 525-9,
535 ; ministerial impeach-
ments, ii. 172-5 ; Reichstag,
ii. 178, 182-4 ; Imperial Diet,
ii. 178 ; Federal Council, i.
31, ii. 178-9, 370, 377-8 ;
royal right of assent and
veto, ii. 182 - 3 ; Imperial
Chancellor, ii. 339-40, 375-7 ;
Council of Princes, ii. 378-9
Culture in, i. 39, 381-2, 386-7
Education, elementary, i. 365-
71 ; training colleges for
teachers, i. 370-71 ; secondary,
i. 371-8 ; universities, i. 376-
380; appointment of teachers,
i. 379-80
Finance, ii. 287, 489-511;
Crown revenues, ii. 184-8,
490-2 ; national debt, ii.
512-13, 515, 520-2
Jurisdiction, i. 17, ii. 450-52 ;
punishment of political crimes ,
i. 152-3 ; criminal jurisdic-
tion, ii. 459, 482-3 ; trial by
jury, ii. 474-5, 477-8 ; civil
law, ii. 483-5
Local government, ii. 531-3,
542, 546, 549-58
Police, discretionary powers of,
i. 173
Press, restrictions on, i. 169-73 ;
Jewish influence in, ii. 31
Social conditions, i. 51 ; home
life, i. 234 ; marriage, i. 238,
265 ; position of women, i.
245-8 ; middle class, i. 321-2 ;
working classes, i. 326 ; evo-
lution of the homestead, i.
391-2; importance of peasant
class, i. 403-4 ; observance
of Sunday, ii. 295 ; drinking,
ii. 296.
See also Prussia
Gervinus, i. 98, 401, ii. 65, 211
Ghent, ii. 411
Ghibellines, i. 341
Gibbon, i. 14
Glarus, ii. 322
Gneisenau, ii. 432, 436-7, 579
Goethe, i. 39, 43, 67-8, 323, 374 ;
ii. 283, 427 ; opinion of the
Press, i. 176 ; visit to the
Rhineland, i. 220 ; mother of,
i. 247 ; Tasso, i. 40, ii. 401,
486
INDEX
631
Golden Bull, ii. 169
Gortschakoff, ii. 593
Goslar, ii. 359
Gotha, compulsory education in,
i. 368
Gottingen Seven, the, i. 171, 190
Granada, ii. 37
Great Britain, i. 24, 33-4, 53, 75,
162, 288, 394 ; perpetually
at war, i. 65, ii. 394 ; rule in
India, i. 100, 307 ; evolution
of, i. 110, 123-4, 280-81 ;
relations with Holland, i.
112, ii. 574 ; and the aboli-
tion of slavery, i. 162 ; free-
dom of the Press in, i. 168 ;
under the Commonwealth, ii.
10 ; union with Hanover,
ii. 18, 330-32 ; commercialism,
ii. 19-20 ; Norman Conquest,
ii. 87 ; and the Seven Years'
War, ii. 132, 576 ; Regency
conflicts, ii. 167 ; acquisi-
tion of the Cape of Good
Hope, ii. 520 ; maritime
supremacy, ii. 576-7 ; and
international law, ii. 583-4,
594, 597, 614, 617-19
Aristocracy, i. 311-13, 317, ii.
122, 150-51, 160, 239, 258
Army, ii. 201, 391-4, 404-6
Church, i. 344
Climate and geographical con-
ditions, i. 207-8, 211, 220-3
Colonies, i. 116-17, 331-2, ii.
585-6 ; magnificent admini-
stration of, i. 78
Constitution, i. 146-7, 184-5,
ii. 90, 100-102, 120, 145-50,
241 ; Montesquieu's appre-
ciation of, ii. 4 ; based on
theory of contract, i. 188 ;
Parliament, i. 102, 137, 312-13,
ii. 150-60, 183, 188-9, 201,
258, 541-2 ; illegitimacy of
the Crown, i. 129 ; party
government, i. 145-8 ; minis-
terial impeachments, ii. 173-
174 ; secret balloting, ii. 199 ;
Civil Service, (ii. 152-4, 524 ;
Cabinet, ii. 153-4 ; Board of
Public Health, ii. 159, 540;
poor law administration, ii.
159, 540 ; powerlessness of
the Crown, i. 254, ii. 177-8,
302 ; right of royal veto, ii.
181-2
Finance, ii. 489 ; Crown lands,
ii. 185-7, 490 ; taxation, ii.
498, 500, 508,; national debt,
ii. 511-15, 519
Jurisdiction, i. 125, ii. 450, 456 ;
criminal law, i. 152, ii. 463,
469 ; law of entail, i. 268 ;
law of high treason, ii. 101 ;
criminal prosecutions, ii.
472-3 ; trial by jury, ii. 475-7;
status of judges, ii. 476 ;
civil law, ii. 483
Literature, i. 37, 323
Local government, ii. 298, 532,
535-42 ; Justices of the Peace,
i. 313, ii. 152, 159, 532, 535,
538-41 ; County Councils, ii.
159, 540-42
Navy, ii. 405-6
Police, restrictions of discre-
tionary powers of, i. 157, 164,
173 ; institution of, ii. 539
Population, growth of, i. 227,
231-2
Press, freedom of, i. 168
Royal family, ii. 64, 68
Social conditions : family life,
i. 248 ; lack of a peasant
class, i. 404 ; rise of the
middle classes, ii. 157 ; country
life, ii. 536-8 ; observance of
Sunday, ii. 295
Greece (ancient), colonization of,
i. 114, 116 ; class system, i.
308 ; education, i. 363, 373 ;
theatres, i. 382 ; tyrants of,
ii. 77, 209-11 ; monarchy in,
ii. 79-83 ; compared with
Sparta, ii. 240-41 ; democracy
in, ii. 304 ; confederations
of, ii. 334-5 ; army, ii. 408 ;
international relations, ii.
562-3 ; national character,
i. 273, 289-90
Greece (modern), i. 144, 155
Gregory VII., ii. 44
Grillparzer, i. 141
Grimm, the brothers, ii. 210
Grimm, Hermann, i. 58, 251
Grimm, Jacob, i. 171, 286, 370,
379
Grimm, William, i. 379
Grote, ii. 247
Grotius, Hugo, i. xiii, 202, ii. 269,
572
Guelderland, ii. 339
Guelphs, the, i. 147, 188, ii. 68, 70,
169, 186
Gunpowder, introduction of, ii.
411
Gustavus Adolphus, i. 28, ii.
632
INDEX
96-7 ; and the Thirty Years'
War, ii. 49 ; military reforms,
ii. 415-16, 418
Hague, the, ii. 572
Halberstadt, ii. 363
Halle, ii. 326
Haller, Ludwig von, ii. 93, 96
Hamilcar, ii. 251
Hamilton, Alexander, ii. 283-4,
'**848
Hannibal, ii. 14-15, 251, 252
Hanover, association with Eng-
land, ii. 18, 330-32
Hanover, House of, ii. 64, 146,
147, 149
Hanseatic League, i. 279, ii. 335
Hansemann, David, ii. 547 ;
Prussia and France, i. 138,
ii. 490
Hapsburg, House of: ii. 359;
matrimonial treaties of, i.
108-9 ; inland policy, i. 213 ;
family resemblance, ii. 64 ;
efforts to form a single state,
ii. 569
Hardenberg, Carl August von, i.
103, 162, ii. 99, 489, 528,
553-6
Harmodius, ii. 210
Hasdrubal, ii. 251
Hassenpflug, ii. 172-3
Hastings, Warren, trial of, ii. 174
Hat-i-Sheruf of Gulhane, ii. 41
Haupt, i. 99
Haussmann, Baron, ii. 536
Heffter, ii. 589
Hegel, i. 22, 53, 121, ii. 362, 461
Heidelberg, i. 223, ii. 366
Heine, i. 299
Heinze trial, ii. 484
Helmholtz, i. 18
Henneberg, Berthold von, ii. 377
Henry VI., Roman Emperor, ii.
105
Henry VIII., of England, ii. 165
Henry III., of France, i. 187
Henry IV., of France, i. 126, 187,
264, ii. 124
Henry V., of France, i. 132
Henry, Prince (of Prussia), ii.
423, 424, 425
Henry of Plauen, ii. 26
Herder, i. xi, 39, 114
Herodotus, historical method, i.
55 ; on democracies, ii. 276
Herwegh, i. 143
Hesse, Electorate of, ii. 172-3
High Treason, i. 53, ii. 101, 467
Hildesheim, ii. 382
Hill, Rowland, ii. 524
Hindus, caste system of, i. 305,
307-8
History : must be primarily politi-
cal, i. 55-9 ; qualifications for
writing of, i. 139-40
Hobbes, Thomas, i. 5
Hoche, ii. 428
Hochstadt, ii. 616
Hodel, i. 96, ii. 467
Hofer, Andreas, i. 287
Hohenfriedberg, Battle of, ii. 422
Hohenlohe, ii. 365
Hohenstaufen, ii. 49, 105
Hohenzollerns : followers of Cal-
vin, i. 346 ; institution of
compulsory education by, i.
369 ; patronage of art, i. 386 ;
legitimacy of.ii. 11 ; character,
ii. 63, 65 ; glorious history of,
ii. 150 ; elevation of Prussia
by, ii. 362 ; organization of
labour by, ii. 419 ; accessions
to territories of, ii. 526
Holland: i. 33, 113 ; rivalry with
England, i. 112 ; rise of, i.
122-3 ; entrance into German
Customs Union indispensable,
i. 216 ; elementary educa-
tion in, i. 365 ; constitution,
ii. 15 ; under the House of
Orange, ii. 67 ; aristocracy
of, ii. 229 ; political union
with Belgium, ii. 333 ; pre-
ponderance of, in the Nether-
lands Republic, ii. 338-41 ;
decline of, ii. 347, 574 ; inter-
national relations, ii. 572-3 ;
and international i law, ii.
593-4. See also Netherlands
Hoist, ii. 328
Holstein, i. 292-3, ii. 103
Holtzendorff, ii. 460, 466
Holy Alliance, the, ii. 578, 580
Holy Roman Empire, i. 68, 75,
ii. 110
Homer, ii. 63, 79-80, 210
Horace, i. 57, 310, ii. 220
Hosius, Stanislas, ii. 112
Hugo, Victor, ii. 599
Huguenots, i. 12, 105-6, 118, 345,
ii. 126
Humboldt, Alexander von, i. 92
Humboldt, William, i. 7, 112, ii.
283-4 ; on the limits of the
State's activity, i. 71-2 ; on
the establishment of Berlin
University, i. 362
INDEX
633
Hundred Years' War, ii. 121
Hungary : acquisition by the
Hapsburgs, i. 89, 109 ; har-
bour of Fiume restored to,
i. 212 ; rule by the Turks,
i. 294, ii. 37 ; racial diffi-
culties in, i. 295-8 ; aris-
tocracy, i. 319 ; elective
kingship in, ii. 106 ; lack of
towns in, ii. 108 ; suggested
compact with Prussia in 1866,
ii. 609
Hunsriick, forest, i. 206, ii. 493
Hussite Wars, ii. 411
Ibsen, ii. 333
Ihering, i. 45 ; Struggle for Justice,
ii. 455 ; on the nature of
punishment, ii. 462
India, i. 277, ii. 143 ; castes of,
i. 307-8 ; monarchies of, ii.
25 ; East India Company, ii.
240
Indian Civil Service, ii. 524
Indian Mutiny, i. 100
Individualism and the State, i.
71, 104-6
Inheritance, Law of, i. 268, 308
International Law, i. 28-9, 96,
ii. 576, 587-620. See also
Treaties
International relations, ii. 561-86
Inventions, influence of, i. 56-7
Ireland : conquest of, i. 110 ;
rebellion in, i. 164 ; growth of
population, i. 227 ; payment
of tithe by Catholics of, i.
344-5, 358
Irish, i. 278 ; members of Parlia-
ment, ii. 158
Isle de France, i. 110
Israelites, hereditary priesthood
of, ii. 25
Istria, i. 288
Italian language, origin of, i. Ill
Italian Renaissance, i. 56
Italians, i. 27, 287-8 ; dilettant-
ism, i. 51 ; racial origin, i. 121
Italy: culture of, i. 38, 384; and
the Congress of Vienna, i. 69 ;
and the Rising of 1859, i. 96-7,
ii. 584 ; prevalence of assassi-
nation in, i. 103 ; origin and
development of the State, i.
110-11, 125 ; revolution in, i.
130 ; disappearance of forests
of, i. 206 ; geographical con-
ditions, i. 214 ; position of
women in, i. 244-5 ; distress
caused by free trade in, i, 403 ;
tyrants of, ii. 77, 119, 208,
209, 211-14 ; city states of,
ii. 260 ; democratic republics
of, ii. 260 ; medieval army
of, ii. 411 ; and the War of
the Polish Succession, ii.
422 ; local government, ii.
547-9 ; movement towards
unity in, ii. 582 ; entrance
into the European pentarchy,
ii. 585
Aristocracy, i. 312, 318
Church, i. 345, ii. 48-53
Constitution, ii. 14, 102 ; re-
forms in, ii. 130 ; govern-
ment based on party majori-
ties, ii. 183 ; monarchy, i.
129, ii. 162
Jack the Ripper, ii. 465
Jackson, General, ii. 285
Jagellons, ii. 110, 112
Jahdebusen, i. 213
James II., of England, ii. 146
Janissaries, ii. 36, 40
Japan : transformation of con-
stitution, ii. 33 ; develop-
ment, ii. 585
Jena, Battle of, ii. 432
Jena, High Court of, ii. 372
Jesuits : ii. 606 ; attack on
Machiavelli, i. 87 ; incom-
patible with a modern State,
i. 181, 356 ; doctrine of, i.
187 ; seventeenth - century
missionaries, ii. 29 ; toler-
ance of Frederick the Great
and Catherine II. of Russia
towards, ii. 132; code of, ii.
589-90
Jesus Christ, religious genius of,
i 323
Jews : i. 81-2, 278, ii. 29-31 ; in
Europe, i. 298-302 ; in Ger-
many, i. 334, ii. 31 ; Polish,
ii. 109
Jezidi (Kurdish tribe), ii. 22
Joachim Frederick, Elector, ii.
526
Joel, the prophet, ii. 599
John II., of France, ii. 69
John Casimir, of Poland, ii.
115
John Sigismund, Elector of Bran-
denburg, i, 346, ii. 574
Johnson, R. M., President of
U.S.A., ii. 179-80
Joseph II., Emperor, i. 352
634
INDEX
Journalists, i. 172-3
Julius Caesar, i. 300, 311, ii. 256,
257
Julius II., Pope, ii. 49
July Revolution, ii. 580
Justices of the Peace. See Great
Britain, Local government
Kaisersberg, Geiler yon, i. 14
Kalkstein, General, i. 155
Kalksteins, the, ii. 99
Kamin, ii. 363
Kant, i. 15, 39, 40, 114, 158;
The Foundations of the Meta-
physics of Ethics, i. 61 ; cate-
gorical imperative, i. 93 ;
Natural Law, i. 189 ; defini-
tion of religion, i. 329
Keller, Gottfried, i. 223
Kleist, Heinrich von, i. 103
Kollin, Battle of, ii. 423, 425
Koniggratz, Battle of, i. 144, 368,
ii. 396, 443
Konigsberg, ii. 99
KOnigstein (Saxony), fortress of,
ii. 447
Koran, the, ii. 34, 35, 37
Kotzebue, i. 102
Krause, i. 73
Kreuz-Zeitung, i. 321
Kshatryas, i. 308
Kurland, i. 121, 122
Lachmann, i. 99
Lafayette, Marquis de, i. 159
Lamprecht, i. 238
Landon, ii. 422
Language, i. 286-7
Languedoc, Provincial Assembly,
ii. 122
Languet, i. 188
Lasker, Deputy, i. 137, ii. 194,
459, 482
Lassalle, Frederick : conception
of property, i. 391, 393 ; on
wages and labour, i. 399,
400
Latin Confederation, the, ii. 334
Latin Council of 1215, ii. 476
Lausanne, ii. 323
Law : administration of, ii. 449-
485 ; principle of equality
before the law, ii. 451-2 ;
judges, ii. 454-6 ; public
trials, ii. 452-4 ; civil law,
i. 63-4, ii. 456-8, 483-5 ;
criminal law. See that title
Leibnitz, i. 154, ii. 15
Leipzig : transference of the
Supreme Court to, ii. 383 ;
socialist trial of 1870, ii. 478-9
Leo XIII., Pope, ii. 52
Leo : treatise on the physiology
of the State, ii. 19
Leonardo da Vinci, i. 383, ii. 208
Leopold I., of Anhalt-Dessau :
army reforms of, ii. 425
Leopold of Coburg, King of the
Belgians, ii. 162
Leopold, Prince of Bavaria, ii. 168
Lesezinski, ii. Ill
Lessing, i. 40
Leuthen, Battle of, ii. 424, 425
Ley den, University, i. 279, ii.
267
Liberals : view of the Army, ii.
391, 393
Liberum veto, ii. 115
Lichtenstein Dragoons, ii. 123
Lieber, Franz, i. 89
Lincoln, Abraham, ii. 70, 179, 285,
351, 352
Literature, produced by the
middle classes, i. 321
Livonia, Germans in, i. 122, 284
Livy, ii. 409
Local government, i. 156, ii.
530-58 ; value of, i. 52, 139
Locke : doctrine of the division of
powers, ii. 3
Lombard City League, ii. 336
London, i. 70, 164 ; police organi-
zation, ii. 159
Lords-Lieutenants, i. 313, ii. 541
Lorenz, of Jena, i. 240
Lorraine, ii. 422
Louis I., Emperor, i. 300
Louis II., King of Bavaria, ii. 379
Louis XIV., of France, i. 12, ii.
124-7, 129, 286, 416-17, 571-3
Louis XVI., of France, ii. 68
Louis Napoleon, ii. 301, 479
Louis Philippe, i. 244, 322, 325,
ii. 190, 479
Louis the Bavarian, Emperor, i.
341
Louvois, ii. 125
Louvre, opening of Art Galleries
in, i. 384
Ldwenbund, ii. 335
Lucerne, ii. 357
Liineburg, monarchy of, ii. 90
Lusiads, the, i. 38
Luther, Martin, i. xv, 5, 187, 359,
366 ; catechism of, i. 93 ;
home life of, i. 246-7, 262 ;
religious genius of, i. 323 ;
intolerance towards Zwingli,
INDEX
635
i. 331; compared with Mel-
anchthon, i.331 ; work for the
liberation of the State, i. xii,
83, 341, 343; on national
education, i. 364
Lutheran Church, cleavage of,
from Reformed Church, i.
331
Lynch, Judge, i. 110, ii. 293
Macaulay, i. 55, 73, 144-5, ii. 393,
401
Macedon, monarchy of, ii. 304
Macedonia, ii. 563
Machiavelli : admiration of the
Ottoman tyranny, ii. 35 ;
theory of the State, ii. 570,
587-8 ; The Prince, i. 83-8 ;
Tyrants Codex, ii. 211 ;
Deir arte delta guerra, ii. 417
MacMahon, Madame, i. 244
Magdeburg, ii. 363
Magna Charta, i. 164
Mago, Dissertation on Agriculture,
ii. 249
Magyars : i. 293, 295-7 ; incapacity
for founding towns, ii. 108
Mahmud II., Sultan, ii. 40
Mahommed, lack of appreciation
of, i. 332
Maine, ii. 356
Malplaquet, ii. 575
Mai thus, Doctrine of Population,
i. 228-9
Manchester School, i. 65, ii. 494,
536
Manin, Daniel, ii. 266 ; Letters
from Paris, i. 103
Mannheim, i. 102
Mairteuffel, General, ii. 444
Manure, discovery of use of, i. 57
Margaret of Denmark, i. 253
Maria Theresa, i. 240, 253, 254,
295, ii. 129
Maritime Law, ii. 576, 583-4, 594,
617-19
Markgrave, office of, i. 121
Marks, i. 120
Marriage, i. 193, 235 ; group
marriage, i. 238 - 40 ; mar-
riage law, i. 261-9
Mars-la-Tour, ii. 443
Marwitz, Baron von der, ii. 99
Marx, on wages and labour, i. 400
Mathy, Karl, ii. 520
Matriarchy, i. 238-40
Maurice of Nassau, Prince of
Orange, ii. 269
Maurice of Saxony, ii. 361-2
Mazarin, Cardinal, ii. 124
Mecca, ii. 38
Mecklenburg : weakness of royal
authority in, ii. 91 ; Law of
Succession of 1755, ii. 91-2 ;
administration, ii. 92 ; Treas-
ury system, ii. 96 ; nobility,
ii. 99 ; blind duke of, ii. 170
Medici, the, ii. 214
Meiningen, i. 201
Meissen, ii. 556
Melac, ii. 614
Melanchthon : compared with
Luther, i. 331 ; on the rela-
tions of Church and State,
i. 344 ; promotion of com-
pulsory education by, i. 368
Mendelssohn, Moses, i. 278
Mennonites, i. 334
Mercenary armies. See Armies
Merovingians, i. 237
Metternich, ii. 48, 123, 580, 581
Metz, fortress of, ii. 448
Mexico, i. 109, ii. 356, 584
Middle Ages : social conditions of,
i. 53 ; arts and crafts of, i.
383
Middle classes : power of, i. 177-8 ;
counterpart of, in the castes
of India, i. 308 ; social well-
being of a nation dependent
on, i. 320-21 ; the producers
of national literature and art,
i. 321 ; economic activity of,
ibid. ; attempt to educate
lower classes, i. 324-5
German, i. 321-2 ; French, i.
322
Milan, ii. 212, 213
Mill, John Stuart, i. 255
Milton, i. 37, 257 ; Areopagitica,
i. 168 ; absence of fanaticism
in, i. 331
Minghetti, ii. 548
Minos, i. 108
Mint, the, ii. 494
Mirabeau, ii. 182
Mississippi, i. 206
Mitylene, ii. 562
Mockern, Battle of, ii. 436
Mohl, ii. 176
Moltke, ii. 172, 398, 445 ; popular
conception of, i. 324 ; view
of, regarding the future of
Turkey, ii. 41
Monarchomachen, i. 187
Monarchy : nature and advant-
ages of, i. 151, ii. 8-20, 58-77 ;
possibility of political free-
636
INDEX
dom under, i. 154 ; theo-
cratic formulae and cere-
monies retained in, ii. 32 ;
right of resistance to, ii. 89-
90; hereditary principle, ii.
163-4 ; royal marriages, ii.
164-5 ; insane monarchs, ii.
165-8 ; regencies, ii. 165-7 ;
blindness an incapacity for
rule, ii. 168-70 ; ministerial
responsibility for acts of the
monarch, ii. 170-77 ; royal
power of assent and veto, ii.
181-3 ; royal revenue, ii.
184-8 ; jurisdiction under,
ii. 450-51
Types of: ii. 76-7 ; early types,
ii. 78-143; absolute, ii. 76,
77, 117-43 ; legendary, ii.
76 ; feudal, ii. 76, 87 ;
elective, ii. 76, 571 ; tyranny
and Caesarism, ii. 77, 207-25 ;
constitutional, ii. 144-206
Mongols, i. 275
Monogamy, i. 235-7, 240
Monroe doctrine, ii. 584
Montana, ii. 51
Montecucpli, ii. 444
Montesquieu, i. xiii, ii. 84, 148,
160-62, 238 ; three separate
authorities in the State dis-
tinguished by, ii. 3-4 ; differ-
entiation of| constitutional
forms, ii. 7 ; on the English
constitution, ii. 145
Montfort, Simon de, ii. 188
Montmorencys, i. 314
Moral Law, relation of the State
to, i. 92
Morgan, L. H., researches on
marriage, i. 238, 239
Mormons, i. 334
Moro, Ludovico, ii. 214
Moser, John Jacob, ii. 369
Moser, Justus, i. 7
Motley, J. L., ii. 340
Miilhausen, ii. 343
Muller, Adam, i. 61
Miiller, Johannes, ii. 343
Munich, ii. 361
Minister, ii. 119
Munychia, ii. 307
Museums, establishment of, i.
384-5
Mutiny Act, ii. 392-3
Nantes, Edict of, revocation of,
i. 264, ii. 126
Napoleon I., i. xvi, 70, ii. 28, 161,
209, 266, 349, 359, 365 ;
army of, i. 97, ii. 398, 402,
419-20, 428-34 ; and Prussia,
i. 105, ii. 597 ; condemnation
of the frnigrts ; Catholic
processions forbidden by, i.
354 ; art treasures stolen by,
i. 385 ; senate of, ii. 190 ;
policy and administration,
ii. 222-4, 529 ; survival of
monarchic bureaucracy of,
ii. 299 ;j Act of Mediation of
1803, ii! 319 ; tactics of, ii.
431-2 ; war-chest of, ii. 444 ;
taxation of, ii. 505 ; dream
of a world-monarchy, ii. 578 ;
treatment of Schill, ii. 612
Napoleon III., i. 141 ; coup d'etat,
i. 86, 91 ; France raised to a
first-class power by, i. 142 ;
" saviour of society," ii. 402 ;
and the Franco-Prussian War,
ii. 445 ; misjudgment of, ii.
582-3
Nassau, Duke of, i. 201
National debts, ii. 511-22
Nationality, i. 270-302
Natural Law, theory of, i. xii
et seqq, 5, 71, 104, 157, 390,
402, ii. 226
Navies, increased importance of,
ii. 448
Negroes, i.\275-6
Nelson, i. 37
Neo-Guelphs, ii. 50
Netherlands : revolt of, i. 127, 193 ;
marriage law in, i. 263 ;
nationalities in, i. 279 ; middle
classes of, i. 322 ; compulsory
education in, i. 368 ; brilliant
history of, ii. 19 ; seven pro-
vinces of, ii. 230, 351 ; army
of, ii. 251 ; constitution of,
ii. 266-71, 319, 336-42, 347 ;
and the House of Orange, ii.
284 ; development of mili-
tary science in, ii. 416
Neufchatel, ii. 323 ; association
with Prussia, ii. 331
Neuss, ii. 46
Nevada, ii. 326
New York, ii. 357 ; population
of, ii. 296-7 ; and the Con-
gress of Philadelphia, ii. 348,
349 ; reactionaries in, ii.
289-90 ; State of, ii. 326
Newspapers. See Press
Nice, i. 204
Nicholas I., of Russia, ii. 140, 580
INDEX
637
Niebuhr, i. xii, 4, 67, 190, 357, ii.
247, 253, 598
Nihilists, i. 180
Nimwegen, Peace of, ii. 594
Nobiling, ii. 467
Nobility. See Aristocracy
Noisseville, Battle of, ii. 444
NOrdlingen, Battle of, ii. 416
Norfolk, Duke of, ii. 147
Norman Conquest, i. 124, ii. 87
Normandy, Provincial Assembly
of, ii. 122
North American Confederation, ii.
345-7
North German Confederation, ii.
352
Norway : constitution, i. 190;
association with Sweden, ii.
18, 332-4
Nowawes, ii. 420
Nuremberg, ii. 382 ; council
house, ii. 235 ; geniessende
Familien of, ii. 259
Nystadt, Treaty of, ii. 573
Gates, Titus, ii. 473
Oath, the, i. 194, 334
Odoacer, ii. 85-6
Odysseus, ii. 80
Oettingen, i. 89
Ofen, i. 297
Oldenburg, House of, ii. 64
Oligarchy, ii. 7
Olmiitz, ii. 422, 438
Olympia, monuments of, ii. 306
Ommayades, ii. 37
" Optimates," origin of, i. 311
Orange, House of, ii. 15, 67, 268-
70, 284, 340
Original Sin, doctrine of, i. xviii
Orleans, House of, ii. 71-2
Ostracism, ii. 313-14
Otho IV., Emperor, ii. 46
Otto, King of Bavaria, ii. 168
Ottoman Empire. See Turkey
Padua, ii. 260 ; university of, ii. 265
Palmerston, Lord, ii. 580
Pambasileus, ii. 31
Papacy. See Roman Catholic
Church
Papal States, the. See States of
the Church
Paraguay, Jesuit State in, i. 62-3
Paris, ii. 427 ; foundation of Art
Academy in, i. 384
Paris Peace Congress of 1856, ii.
583
Party, i. 142-51
Patriotism, i. 14-15
Paul I., of Russia, ii. 140
Pauline of Lippe - Detmold, i.
253
Peace, idea of eternal peace a sign
of degeneracy, i. 68-9
Peel, Sir Robert, ii. 539
Peloponnesian War, ii. 246, 309,
316, 562
Periander of Corinth, ii. 210
Pericles, i. 204, 380-81, ii. 282, 284,
313, 315
Persia, theocratic government of,
ii. 31-2 ; and the control of
the Caspian Sea, ii. 602
Peru, States of, i. 276
Peter the Great, i. 284, 338, ii.
137
Petersburg, i. 320
Pfizer, Paul, i. 25
Phidias, i. xix
Philadelphia, Congress of, ii. 348,
350, 353-4
Philidae, ii. 312
Philip of Macedon, i. 154, ii. 209
Philip II. of Spain, i. 92, 355, ii.
68, 122, 131
Philip the Fair, of France, i. 341,
ii. 120
Phoenicia, ii. 28 ; colonization of,
i. 116, ii. 304
Piacenza, ii. 214
Piedmont, i. 33, 281 ; and the
war of 1859, i. 96-7, 143, ii.
598 ; division into depart-
ments, ii. 548 ; territorial
aristocracy of, i. 318 ; statute
enacted by in 1848, ii. 14;
kings of, ii. 67
Pindar, i. 18
Pirna, ii. 616
Pisa, ii. 214
Pisistratus of Athens, ii. 210
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham.
See Chatham
Pitt, William, the younger, ii. 155,
157, 186, 515
Pius IX., Pope, ii. 26, 45, 50
Platea, ii. 562
Platen, ii. 261
Plato, i. xix ; on education, i.
363 ; definition of ideal king-
ship, ii. 70 ; admiration of
Sparta, ii. 241-2
Plauen, Heinrich von, ii. 232
Poland, i. 132-3, ii. 163 ; enmity
with Germany, i. 212 ; aris-
tocracy of, i. 319 ; lack of a
middle class, i. 319 ; pro-
638
INDEX
tection of Teutonism in Po-
lish provinces of Germany,
i. 367 ; monarchy in, ii. 76,
106-17 ; Parliament, ii. 114-
116 ; War of the Polish Suc-
cession, ii. 422 ; partitions of,
ii. 571
Poles, annihilation of, i. 12 ; con-
ception of liberty, i. 152 ;
Riparian, i. 226 ; of Posen,
i. 290 ; in the Austrian
Imperial Parliament, i. 297
Police, discretionary powers of,
i. 157, 165, 173
Polignac, ii. 172
Political assassinations, i. 102-3
Political economy and the State :
i. 388-406 ; taxation, i. 389 ;
property, i. 390 et seqq. ; the
working classes, i. 397 et
seqq, ; wages and labour, i.
399-400 ; co-operative indus-
trial associations, i. 400-401 ;
health insurance, i. 400-401 ;
free trade and protective tariffs ,
i. 402-3 ; capitalism, i. 404 ;
company legislation, i. 404-5 ;
stock exchange, i. 405-6
Political idealism, i. 50 ; fostered
by war, i. 67
Politics, general definition of, i.
ix et seqq.
Polybius, ii. 16, 252, 256
Polycrates of Samos, ii. 210
Polygamy, i. 236, 237, 240
Pomerania, i. 112, ii. 556
Pope. See Roman Catholic
Church
Population, growth of, i. 226-33
Portsmouth, ii. 155
Portugal, i. 38, ii. 130 ; coloniza-
tion of, i. 116 ; political
freedom in, i. 155
Posen, i. 283, 290
Post Office, administration by the
State, ii. 494-5
Press, freedom of, i. 166-78, 352 ;
and advertisements, i. 171-2 ;
effect of, upon individual
culture, i. 176
Price, Dr., ii. 514
Priesthood, the, i. 308
Prittwitz, ii. 397
Privateering, ii. 583-4
Professional classes, rise of, i.
305-7
Protestantism : defects of, i. 247 ;
ministry of, i. 308 ; compared
with Catholicism, i. 352, 361
Prussia, i. xv-xvi, 39, 129, ii. 338,
582, 609 ; sovereignty of, i.
30-31, 49 ; ii. 373-9 ; ex-
aminations in, i. 34-5 ; en-
franchisement of serfs of,
i. 49 ; after the Peace of
Utrecht, i. 68 ; and the
treaty of Tilsit, i. 96, ii. 596-
597 ; and Napoleon, i. 105 ;
evolution of the State, i.
112-13, 127, ii. 366-9, 574-7,
584 ; in the Middle Ages, i .
114 ; German invasion of,
i. 121-3 ; Roman Catholics
of, i. 350-51, ii. 48, 56-7 ;
agrarian laws, i. 389, 393 ;
free trade party in, i. 402 ;
unjustly accused of militar-
ism, ii. 20 ; the Teutonic
Order, ii. 26, 54 ; Provincial
Diets, ii. 118 ; class divisions
in, ii. 130 ; under Frederick
William IV., ii. 167 ; associa-
tion with Neufchatel, ii. 331-
332 ; and the North American
Confederation, ii. 346 ; and
the second Silesian War, ii.
364 ; province-system in, ii.
556 ; and the war of 1866, ii.
604
Aristocracy, i. 315, ii. 192
Army, ii. 36, 418-26, 433-44
Church: i. 247, 346, 350-51,
357-9 ; Church lands, ii. 363
Constitution : ii. 14, 175 ; par-
liamentary system, ii. 191-2,
195
Education, i. 367-8
Finance, i. 138
Geographical conditions, i. 218,
219, 222
Monarchy in : i. 136-7, ii. 4, 62,
67, 76, 118, 126-35, 178, 402 ;
royal revenue, ii. 185-7
Prussia, Western : under the do-
mination of Poland, ii. 103 ;
disaffection of the Polish
aristocracy in, ii. 119
Prussian Customs Law of 1818,
ii. 489
Prussian League, ii. 103
Prussian Poland, ii. 116-17
Prussian Town Edict, ii. 551
Public opinion, i. 141-2, 151
Pufendorf, i. 154
Pyrenees, Peace of, ii. 571, 584
Pyrrhus, ii. 409
Quadruple Alliance, ii. 581
INDEX
639
Querfurt, Meinhard yon, ii. 232
Quetelet, i. xvii-xviii
Racial antagonisms, i. 275-8
Radicals, i. 106, 143, 158, ii. 276
Radziwill, the, ii. Ill ; Elise, ii.
164
Railwa 
