practical industrialists. Under present conditions such discussion could best be assured by the creation of a national deliberative assembly, in which Capital and Labour enjoyed equal representation." We are again under the regime of the Second-hand in thought and representation, of chance majorities in the Commons, of Whips, of the unco-ordinated thoughtprocess and creative suggestion of Fleet Street, Downing Street, Montagu House, the Board of Trade, the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Union Congress, the Committee-rooms and the Lobby of the House of Commons. We still talk of representative democracy when there is neither representation nor democracy, and it is clear that new solutions are necessary.1 Perhaps the origin, the constitution and the work of the German Federal Economic Council during the last two and a half years may help towards a better perception of our own problems and towards their solution. In an environment of institutions and ideas in many respects similar, in some respects poles asunder, we shall see the growth of theories and the rise of instruments of government, if not overwhelmingly commanding, at least fruitful in suggestion. 1 Cf. Essays in Liberalism, p. 120 et seq., “The Machinery of Government" (Ramsay Muir), in which an analysis of English political and administrative institutions is made, and a National Industrial Council suggested as a body required for the "most serious and systematic discussion of such (important industrial) questions," and to "satisfy the demand for interest-representation." See also the same author's Li'eralism and Industry (1920), passim. CHAPTER I GENESIS FAFNER. Ich lieg' und besitze :— Lasst mich schlafen! Siegfried. THE history and general social environment of the German Economic Council are as important for an appreciation of its character as its mere constitution and functioning. More: the underlying ideas, the ancestral and contemporary tendencies which united to its establishment, distinguish it as being no passing institution. For it is the result of elements in the German State which exhibit signs of permanence and stability. They possess, too, marked similarity to political conceptions and forms outside Germany. A review and appreciation of these elements is therefore undertaken in this chapter and the next. Once again let insistence be placed upon this fact that any argument in relation to the German Economic Council, and particularly to its adaptability to the needs of other countries (e.g. England), is useless unless due allowance is made for these elements. THE POLITICAL BACKGROUND Until the Revolution of 1919 Germany was not possessed of a system of free government. Her rulers, Emperor, Imperial Chancellor, Ministers and Federal Council (Bundesrat), were not constitutionally liable to popular control.1 True, the Reichstag was founded upon universal male suffrage, but this was merely Bismarck's concession to the liberal elements in the Empire in return for their adhesion to the idea of Imperial unity. It was not a recognition of the theory that government should be directed by the wishes of the governed.2 Its apparent promise was falsified by continual governmental assertion of the divine right of the Monarchy,3 by the manipulation of elections, during which the Liberal and Socialist forces were combated by Government propaganda, and by the successive Imperial Chancellors securing the biggest Reichstag majorities through coalitions of parties at the cost of the least possible concessions in policy. The government of the country was not directed, it was directive. The party policies were not the effective sources of creativeness in government; the leaders in the Reichstag and the country simply gave lectures on political subjects. The source of creativeness was in the bureaucracy, aided occasionally, but not publicly, by the method of deputation and petition from various associations, and by private conversations with great industrials.5 The governmental institutions as inventors of means to securing the satisfaction of the nation's needs showed the same signs of failure in Germany as in England. The criticism of the party system as the vehicle of representation of these needs possessed the same characteristics that have already been noted of England in the earlier part of this study. The process in Germany is instructive, and demands attention. 1 Cf. Finer, Foreign Governments at Work, chap. iv., and Barthélemy, Les Institutions politiques de l'Allemagne contemporaine, Paris, 1915. The first work referred to gives numerous references to evidence used by the present author. 2 Cf. Richard Angst, Bismarcks Stellung zum parlamentarischen Wahlrecht, Leipzig, 1917. 3 Cf. Bülow, Imperial Germany. 4 The term Redeparlament, speech-parliament, was the constant term of criticism of their parliamentary system, used by all parties. 5 Dawson, Evolution of Modern Germany, chap. v. |