Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 8.djvu/321

 THE NORTH SLESWIC QUESTION 309

The position of these three members is in many respects a unique and a difficult one. Until 1882 the two Landtag repre- sentatives declined to take the oath of the Prussian constitution prescribed by the regulations of that body. As long as Art. V was still in existence, and there was prospect of a speedy solution of the national problem, they would not weaken their attitude by the theoretical recognition of Sleswic's incorporation into the Prussian state which such an act would be interpreted to imply. As a consequence they were denied the privilege of participating in the debates of the chamber. In the Reichstag, on the other hand, the one member let slip no opportunity of vigorously demanding justice for his constituents.

With the abrogation of Art. V the situation was at one stroke altered. All hope of a quick settlement now had to be aban- doned. The struggle threatened to become long and obdurate. Judging it unwise to jeopardize the material interests of their districts by a continuation of the " policy of the empty chairs," without voice or vote in their own affairs, the Landtag mem- bers, with the approval of a majority of their electors, decided to change their tactics of passive protest, and took the oath.

To those at all familiar with the composition of the parlia- mentarian bodies in the German capital the precariousness of the position of a couple of members, without direct party affiliation, the sole burden of whose one and oft-repeated message is a demand for considerate treatment of a small but troublesome element of irritation within the state organism, is obvious beyond need of explanation. Liberal Germany, so conspicuous and wholesome an influence in the domains of science and abstract thought, and so stanch a defender of individual rights in the daily rounds of private life, is a negligible quantity in the Kaiser's law-making assemblies, and the more so in his advisory councils. Political Germany has not kept pace with cultural or commercial Germany. The liberal parties in the Reichstag, and still more in the class-elected Landtag, are numerically weak and split up into a number of factions. By effecting a union of all the conservative groups an impregnable government major- ity is secured for all reactionary measures, at whose hands any