In England government passed centuries ago from the dynasty to the people, and there are people in England to-day who could not name the dynasty that occupies the English throne. Such ignorance in Germany is hardly conceivable. In Prussia government has always been the appanage of the Hohenzollerns, and the Emperor is resolved that, supported by the army, it shall continue to be their appanage in the Empire. Government means guidance, and no one is more conscious of the fact than the Emperor, for he is trying to guide his people all the time. Frederick William IV once said to the Diet: "You are here to represent rights, the rights of your class and, at the same time, the rights of the throne: to represent opinion is not your task." This relation of government and people has become modified of recent years to a very obvious degree, but constitutionally not a step has been taken in the direction of popular, that is to say parliamentary, rule.
England and Germany are both constitutional monarchies, but both the monarch and the Constitution in Germany are different from the monarch and the Constitution in England. The British Constitution is a growth of centuries, not, like the German Constitution, the creation of a day. The British Constitution is unwritten, if it is stamped, as Mary said the word "Calais" would be found stamped on her heart after death, on the heart and brain of every Englishman. The German Constitution is a written document in seventy-eight chapters, not fifty years old, and on which, compared with the British Constitution, the ink is not yet dry. In England to the people the Constitution is the real monarch: in Germany the monarchy is to the people what the British Constitution is to the Englishman; and while in England the monarch is the first counsellor to the Constitution, in Germany the Constitution is the first counsellor to the monarch.
The consequence in England is representative government, with a political career for every ordinary citizen; the consequence in Germany is constitutional monarchy, properly so-called, with a political career for no common citizen. Neither system is perfect, but both, apparently, give admirable national results. And yet, of course, an Englishman cannot help thinking that if Herr Bebel were made Minister to-morrow, Social Democracy would cease to exist.