Page:German Social Democracy - Six Lectures by Bertrand Russell.djvu/107

History of German Socialism 87 Not a single Social Democrat sits in the Prussian Diet.

When I add that the Ministers, in fact as in theory, are directly appointed by the Crown, that they are always Conservative, whether they have a majority to back them or not, and that there is thus no connecting link between the popular assembly and the administration, it will be seen that the powers of the people are reduced to a minimum, and that the brief description of the real forces in the State, with which I began, was in no way exaggerated. The danger of war, the army, and the police, make this constitution absolutely rigid and unalterable; there seems no hope of amelioration, as some of the Socialists themselves assert, except from a second Jena—unless, indeed, by a miracle, there should arise an Emperor with some common-sense and common humanity.

It must be remembered also, that trial by jury, the right of coalition, freedom of speech and of the press, exist only in a very limited degree. People accused of political crimes are hardly ever tried by juries; when they are so tried, the State can appeal to a court where there is no jury, as in Lassalle's first trial, in May 1849. Freedom of the press exists, it is true, in so far that anything may be published without previous permission; but the police can always, when it seems good to them, find some pretext for suppressing a newspaper and imprisoning its editors, so that Socialist papers keep a highly-paid responsible Sitz-Redakteur, or gaol-editor, who has no real connection with the editorial work, but acknowledges himself to be responsible.