Page:Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire (1899).djvu/353

1867] ever, that Bismarck had always intended that voting should be open; the Parliament in revising the Constitution introduced the ballot. He gave his consent with much reluctance; voting seemed to him to be a public duty, and to perform it in secret was to undermine the roots of political life. He was a man who was constitutionally unable to understand fear.

We have then the Council and the Parliament, and we must now enquire as to their duties. In nearly every modern State the popular representative assembly holds the real power; before it, everything else is humbled; the chief occupation of lawgivers is to find some ingenious device by which it may at least be controlled and moderated in the exercise of its power. It was not likely that Bismarck would allow Germany to be governed by a democratic assembly; he was not satisfied with creating an artificial Upper House which might, perhaps, be able for one year or two to check the extravagances of a popular House, or with allowing to the King a veto which could only be exercised with fear and trembling. Generally the Lower House is the predominant partner; it governs; the House can only amend, criticise, moderate. Bismarck completely reversed the situation: the true government, the full authority in the State was given to the Council; the Parliament had to content itself with a limited opportunity for criticism, with the power to amend or veto Bills, and to refuse its assent to new taxes. In England the government rests in the House of Commons; in Germany it is in the Federal Council, and for the same reason,—that the Council has both