Firstly, they insisted, Prussia is no longer what it was before the Revolution. Formerly it was a powerful state enjoying all the advantages of hegemony and all the privileges which came from the fact that the German Emperor was the King of Prussia. To-day, said they, Prussia, whose military backbone is broken, finds itself economically and financially ruined and all its ancient prerogatives taken away. Furthermore, its former electoral system based on a class suffrage is gone and all the elements, including those of the Rhine, can make themselves equally felt thereafter. Prussia as it now exists should be maintained, they went on. Its dismemberment would hurt the Reich more than it would serve it. Only powerful states, in command of important financial resources, can discharge the innumerable duties that to-day are incumbent on public organisms. Not only is Prussian culture necessary for the development of German culture, but the downfall of Prussia would involve the downfall of Germany; for Prussia is the cement that holds together the unity of the Reich, and renders services proportional to its greatness. Then, too, what would be the result of a dismemberment of Prussia? Aside from the fact that the advocates of dismemberment are absolutely unable to indicate the number and extent of the states into which they would carve Prussia, its parcelling out would involve a considerable loss in power and spirit, in time and in money. For each new state will want to have new administrative apparatus complete in every respect, a separate constitution, a separate parliament, a separate legislature, and so on. These states by reason of their weakness will be unable to discharge the obligations that would fall upon them. Still further, nothing was more illogical than to create new states if one wants to realize some day or other the unity of the Reich; for, each of these states will constitute later on just one more obstacle to such a unity. Finally, said the Prussians, Prussia, which has already given all and sacrificed all to the greatness of the Empire, is ready to renounce still more, for the benefit of the Reich, what still remains of its independence, provided, _that the other states do as much_. But it was precisely this demand that made the proposition impossible of acceptance by the others. In “sacrificing to the Reich all that remained” of the ancient rights of Prussia, the latter in reality sacrificed nothing; on the contrary, it gained a great deal. For, mistress of the Reich as it would be, it would secure thereby not only everything it brought to it, but also all that the other states contributed to it. It was thus, therefore, that Preuss always came back to the same dilemma: either a Germany under Prussian hegemony or a Prussia dissolved into the Reich.