The Constitution embodies several important provisions affecting this question. Prussia has lost all the advantages it derived from the fact that the German Emperor was the King of Prussia; the privileges it enjoyed in the legislative initiative, in military matters and in fiscal affairs have disappeared; the Bundesrat, in which it played a preponderant rôle, and which was in itself the most powerful organ of the Empire, is now reduced to a Reichsrat which can no longer prevent anything. There is no longer a Chancellor nominated by an Emperor-King and chief of all the _politique_ of the Empire and of the entire administration; the powers of the Emperor have been transferred to the President of the Reich elected by all the people; Prussia may even against its will--though not for two years, it is true--be deprived of several sections of its territory and see them erected into new states or attached to still other states. All these diminutions of right have been consented to by Prussia itself. Are they sufficient to suppress totally the political domination which Prussia exercised over the German states, small and great? It does not seem so, for there still remains this paramount fact: _Prussia represents four-sevenths of the total population of the Reich_; that is to say, Prussia alone has the majority. The Reich being a democracy wherein the majority is sovereign Prussia is assured in important questions of the opportunity to impose its will always on Germany. The remedy is evidently to divide Prussia into several states. But the Constituent Assembly did not have the desire--or the force--to resort to this; so that to-day Prussia is still above the Reich. Perhaps another remedy is possible; and it is on this that those who wish to place the Reich above Prussia base all their hope. That is to give to Prussian provinces a very broad autonomy in such a way that their powers being progressively increased, they will join little by little the states whose powers are diminishing. There must be effected a decentralization as complete as possible, in such a way that these provinces while still remaining in the state of Prussia will have sufficient means to be able to live individual lives and to impress their special temperaments on the different acts of their political life. It would be necessary--and it is there that the problem is most difficult--to maintain in these provinces Prussian legislation and at the same time give them the right also to legislate and assure them a sufficiently independent administration. These are only projects and one cannot tell to what extent they are realizable. We shall see, however, that the Constitution of Weimar has timidly commenced an effort to realize them. CHAPTER III THE DEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLE