The Reichstag, or lower house, is elected by universal suffrage in electoral districts which were originally equal, but as we have noted are far from equal now. This house has three hundred and ninety-seven members, of whom two hundred and thirty-five are from Prussia. It sits for five years, but may be dissolved by the Bundesrath with the consent of the Emperor. All members of the Bundesrath, as well as the chancellor, may speak in the Reichstag. Nor the chancellor, nor any other executive officer, is responsible to the Reichstag, nor can be removed by its vote, and the ministers of the Emperor are seldom or never chosen from this body. This Reichstag is really only nominally a portion of the governing body. It has the right to refuse to pass a bill presented by the government, but if it does so it may be summarily dismissed, as has happened several times, and another election usually provides a more amenable body. Of the various political parties in the Reichstag we have written elsewhere. It is, perhaps, fair to say that such powerful parties as the Socialists and the Centrum must be reckoned with by the chancellor. He cannot actually trample upon them, nor can he disregard wholly their wishes in framing and in carrying through legislation. It would be going much too far in characterizing the weakness of the Reichstag to leave that impression upon the reader. None the less it remains true that it is the executive who rules and has the whip-hand, and who in a grave crisis can override the representatives of the people assembled in the Reichstag, and on more than one occasion this has been done. It seems highly unnecessary to announce after this description of the imperial constitution that there is no such thing in Germany as democratic or representative government. But this fact cannot be proclaimed too often since in other countries it is continually assumed that this is the case. All sorts of deductions are made, all sorts of illustrations used, all sorts of legislative and social lessons taught from the example of Germany, without the smallest knowledge apparently on the part of those who make them, that Germany to-day is no more democratic than was Turkey twenty years ago.