In the course of this work two tendencies clashed: the necessity for the development and strengthening of the unity of the Reich; and the necessity, on the other hand, of assuring the states a sufficiently individual existence. A compromise was effected; but more than ever before perhaps the centralizing tendency was accentuated; and it has gone as far as possible without completely suppressing the reason for the existence of the states. The authority of the Reich is more or less extended according to circumstances. It can be, to use the technical expressions employed in Germany, exclusive, concurrent, and normative. 1. The competence of the Reich is _exclusive_, when _it alone has the right to legislate_, in the respect that the states cannot pass laws on the matters touching this authority of the Reich, even if the Reich abstains from using that right. These matters are enumerated in Article 6, which contains, as compared with the former constitution, important innovations. The relations with foreign nations are hereafter the exclusive province of the Reich. The states lose the active and passive rights of legation, and they cannot enter into relations with foreign states except through the intermediacy of the Reich. However, Article 78 gives them the right to conclude treaties with foreign powers on matters which belong to their own proper legislative domains, policing of the frontier problems, for example. But these treaties must secure in addition the consent of the Reich. Another novelty is the unification of the army. In place of the former contingents there is hereafter an army of the Reich in the hands of which is concentrated all the means of defence of Germany. The army is hereafter from this point of view placed on the same basis as the navy. In the same way there is an increase in the authority of the Reich over the interior situation, the provisions according to which the Reich only has the power to legislate on posts, telegraphs, and telephones. It is true that the former constitution had put forward the principle that the posts and telegraphs of the German Empire should be organized and administered in a uniformed manner; but this provision and principle was nullified by the fact that it was not applied in Bavaria and in Wurtemberg, these states having in virtue of special treaties “particular” rights. But these rights were annulled by the present constitution. Finally it must be noted that Articles 89 and 97 of the Constitution granted the Reich the right to administer the railroads and the waterways that served the general commerce. This right the Reich made use of in appropriating in April, 1920, the railroads belonging to the various states.