stand out for privileges which certainly are inconsistent with general federal principles. The result is the insertion in the German Constitution of such a curious proviso as the following, for which in the merely North-German Constitution there was no place. In describing the functions of both the Houses of the Federal Legislature, the Bundesrath and the Reichstag, provision is made for certain cases where matters shall be discussed which are not common to the whole League. In these cases the members for those States which are not concerned are not to be allowed to vote. Thus the 28th Article of the NorthGerman Constitution stood thus:

'Der Reichstag beschliesst nach absoluter Stimmenmehrheit. Zur Gültigkeit der Beschlussfassung ist die Anwesenheit der Mehrheit der gesetzlichen Anzahl der Mitglieder erforderlich.'

In the new Constitution the following restriction has to be added::

'Bei der Beschlussfassung über eine Angelegenheit welche nach den Bestimmungen dieser Verfassung nicht dem ganzen Bunde gemeinschaftlich ist, werden die Stimmen nur derjenigen Mitglieder gezählt, die in Bundesstaaten gewählt sind, welchen die Angelegenheit gemeinschaftlich ist.

The constitution of the Reichstag-a body answering to the Nationalrath in Switzerland and to the House of Representatives in America-is in no way remarkable, though its mode of election for three years by secret and universal suffrage (der Reichstag geht aus allgemeinen und direkten Wahlen mit geheimer Abstimmung hervor') certainly is remarkable when we think of its author. It is in the Bundesrath that the monarchic nature of the Confederation comes out. This body does not answer to the Swiss Rundesrath, which is the Executive of the League, but to the Swiss Ständerath or the American Senate. All these bodies represent the States as States, while the other House of the Legislature in each case represents the Confederate nation as a nation. But the constitution of the German Bundesrath differs in two important points from the constitution

XX.]

THE BUNDESRATH.

395

of the Ständerath and the Senate. In both the Swiss and the American systems each State, great and small, has the same number of votes in the Upper House of the Federal Assembly. This is, of course, the true federal idea. The American States and the Swiss Cantons differ widely among themselves in extent and population. Therefore in one House of the Legislature each has a number of representatives in proportion to its population. But, as independent and sovereign States, united by a voluntary tie, the rights, powers, and dignity, of all the States are equal. Therefore in the other House of the Legislature the smallest State has an equal number of representatives with the greatest. But the Swiss and American Confederations were in their origin really voluntary unions of independent States which have since admitted other States to the same rights as themselves. In Switzerland indeed the original Cantons which formed the kernel of the League are now among the smallest of them all. The political equality of Bern and Uri, of New York and Rhode Island, is therefore among the first principles of the two Confederations. It would be childish to expect that the same sort of equality could be established between Prussia and the conquered enemies or dependent allies out of which she made a nominal Confederation after her victories in 1866. The Confederate nation, as a nation, might have, just as much as Switzerland and America, equality of representation throughout its extent; but it could not be expected that the States, as States, should have the same equality of representation. It could not be that Prussia should have no greater voice in the Federal body than Schaumburg-Lippe and Schwarzburg-Sondershausen. And in truth there was the precedent of the old League which the new one supplanted to go upon. Each State therefore of the North-German League kept in the new Bundesrath the number of votes which it had held in the Plenum of the old German League, Prussia adding to its own number of votes those of Hanover and the other States which it absolutely incorporated. As this

gave Prussia not more than seventeen votes out of fortythree, the proportion can hardly be called unfair. Since the accession of the Southern States, Prussia has seventeen votes out of fifty-eight. Here then is one obvious and unavoidable difference between the Senate of the new Confederation and those of the two older ones. Another, equally unavoidable, is a still more direct consequence of the monarchic character of the German League. The Swiss Constitution simply provides that the members of the Ständerath shall be chosen by the Cantons; the American Constitution prescribes that the Senators shall be chosen by the Legislatures of the several States. It would not have come into any man's head to make the Ständerath consist of the chief magistrates of the several Cantons or their representatives. But in a Confederation whose States are monarchies, it would be hardly possible wholly to shut out the Executive Governments of the several kingdoms or duchies from some direct place in the federal body. The German Constitution therefore makes the Bundesrath consist of representatives of the several States ('Vertretern der Mitglieder des Bundes '), who may seemingly be either the princes themselves or their ambassadors. Each State may send as many representatives as it has votes, but the votes of each State must be given as a whole (' Jedes Mitglied des Bundes kann so viele Bevollmächtige zum Bundesrathe ernennen, wie es Stimmen hat; doch kann die Gesammtheit der zuständigen Stimmen nur einheitlich abgegeben werden'). Bavaria may send six representatives; it has in any case six votes, but the six votes must all be given in the same way. This is going back to the arrangements of the ancient league of Lykia, and is unlike those of America and Switzerland, where each member of the Senate or the Ständerath has an independent vote.

One most important provision appears in the Constitution of the Empire which did not appear in that of the North-German League. In the latter the President-that is, the King of Prussia-had the absolute power of making

XX.]

POWERS OF THE EMPEROR.

397

war and peace. He had to obtain the consent of the Legislature only when the articles of a treaty concerned matters which came within the competence of the Legislative body to deal with. (Insoweit die Verträge mit fremden Staaten sich auf solche Gegenstände beziehen, welche nach Artikel 4 in den Bereich der Bundesgesetzgebung gehören, ist zu ihrem Abschluss die Zustimmung des Bundesrathes und zu ihrer Gültigkeit die Genehmigung des Reichstages erforderlich'). By the new Constitution the Emperor can declare war only with the consent of the Bundesrath, except in cases of sudden invasion (Zur Erklärung des Krieges im Namen des Reichs ist die Zustimmung des Bundesrathes erforderlich, es sei denn dass ein Angriff auf das Bundesgebiet oder dessen Küsten erfolgt). The power of the Emperor, thus limited with regard to war, is much the same as that of the President of the United States with regard to peace; but the powers of the Executive with regard to war and peace are quite different in the three confederations. Switzerland vests the power of making war and peace wholly in the Federal Assembly. In America the Congress declares war, but the President makes peace with the assent of the Senate. In Germany the Emperor makes peace with the limitations above mentioned, but he can make war only with the consent of the Bundesrath.

We have by no means gone through all the articles of the Constitution; we have only picked out those which seemed most important in themselves and best suited for a comparison with the other two chief federal states, and especially for marking those points in which a confederation of principalities necessarily differs from a confederation of commonwealths.

XXI.

NOBILITY.*

THE word 'nobility' is one of those words which are constantly misapplied. It is misapplied by way of confusion with things with which 'nobility' may have something in common, but which are essentially distinct from it. In England nobility is apt to be confounded with the peculiar institution of the British peerage. Yet nobility, in some shape or another, has existed in most places and times of the world's history, while the British peerage is an institution purely local, and one which has actually hindered the existence of a nobility in the sense which the word bears in most other countries. Nor is nobility the same thing as aristocracy. This last is a word which is often greatly abused; but, whenever it is used with any regard to its true meaning, it is a word strictly political, implying a particular form of government.† But nobility is not necessarily a

[This essay, the more part of which is reprinted with little change from the Encyclopædia Britannica, is brought in at this stage mainly with reference to the more substantial essay which follows it. Before dealing with the subject of peerage, as part of the subject of the House of Lords, it was well to have a definition of nobility to refer to. I need hardly say that an article in the Encyclopædia was necessarily somewhat different in point of style from most of the pieces collected in these volumes.]

[The use of the word 'aristocracy' to express, not a form of government, but a social class, is essentially a vulgarism; but there is something instructive in the way in which the use came about. The word 'aristocracy' was used in order that it might take it something wider than 'nobility,' as nobility is commonly understood in England. And that peculiar use of nobility' is itself a fruit of our special institution of the peerage, to which we shall come presently. But if