been, in this period, any notable change in the status of the older parties, aside from the slow augmentation of Radical strength. Sudden party shifts — break-ups, re-groupings, unprecedented victories such as are common enough in other lands are unknown. "Counting the Radicals of to-day," says a recent writer, as an outgrowth from the Liberals of a generation ago, it may be said that the republic has been under the control of a single party from its foundation in 1848." Party life is vigorous, party organization strong, and party influence considerable. Yet party activity is subdued and party rivalry comparatively free from bitterness. For this state of things - the more remark

able when one recalls the keenness of factional strife and the frequency of civil war in earlier times several explanations suggest themselves. There is little federal patronage to whet the party appetite. There is practically no body of unattached voters which the parties can strive to attract. The people do not elect the federal executive. The referendum and initiative operate on essentially non-partisan lines. Legislative sessions are brief. Finally, professional politicians are almost unknown.

In organization, the parties are very similar. All are, in effect, unions of partly autonomous party groups. The supreme authority is a diet, which meets at least once a year, and is composed of delegates, three or four hundred in number in the case of the larger parties, representing the local organizations. The business of the diet is to hear reports of the party officials, scrutinize the actions of the party's representatives in the Federal Assembly and the Federal Council, and adopt resolutions, following discussion, for the guidance of the party's spokesmen and covering all of the important issues of the day. The diet does not make nominations. Candidates for the Federal Council are named, rather, by caucuses participated in by the party members in the legislative houses; candidates for the Council of States (where the people elect) and for the National Council are selected by local caucuses in which, theoretically at least, all of the party members take part. To carry on the work of the party during the intervals between meetings of the diet, a central committee, usually of thirty to fifty members, is elected, either by the cantonal organizations or by the diet itself; and this committee has a president, secretary, and treasurer, besides, ordinarily, a sub-committee which can meet more frequently and act in the general committee's stead. Party organization, therefore, closely reflects the organization of the state itself. It is built 1 Lowell, Governments and Parties, II, 314-332.

on the twin principles of federalism and democracy; and it is no exaggeration to say that party spirit and methods are on a plane which has been reached in few other countries.1

1 For brief accounts of Swiss political parties see Brooks, Government and Politics of Switzerland, Chap. xiii; Lowell, Governments and Parties, II, Chap. xiii; J. Macy, The Swiss and their Politics," in Amer. Jour. of Soc., July, 1896. A valuable monograph is G. Chaudet, Histoire du parti radical suisse (Bern, 1917).

The German Political Heritage. "Liberty, that incomparable blessing," wrote Montesquieu in the eighteenth century, "was discovered in the wild forests of Germany." Like most glittering statements, this is but a half-truth. Before the Germanic peoples are heard of in history very substantial liberty was attained in the Greek world, and to a less extent among the early Romans. None the less, by all accounts the Germanic peoples who, between the fifth and tenth centuries, poured into the lands we now know as England, France, Italy, and Spain, and there contributed powerfully to the creation of new racial stocks and new political forms, were above all things jealous of their personal, family, and tribal freedom. Similarly notable for their strong sense of independence were the kinsmen who remained north of the old Rhine-Danube frontier and became the direct ancestors of the Bavarians, Badeners, Württembergers, and Prussians of the present day. It was not to be expected that these peoples -Franks, Saxons, Burgundians, and later Norsemen - would, on account of their impatience of restriction, set up, in either their old or their new homes, republican governments. Wholly apart from the consideration that republican government calls for a high degree of political experience and capacity, the conditions of disorder, war, conquest, and feudal rivalry prevailing throughout the Middle Ages made inevitable the development of kingship and, indeed, the gathering of governmental power largely into autocratic hands. In England, however, this development never went so far as to extinguish all popular elements in the control of public policy and the administration of public business. Even under the strong government of the Norman-Angevin kings, the representative principle made steady headway in justice and finance, and gained a footing which enabled it presently to become the cornerstone of the scheme of national legislation. In France likewise—although the popular element failed to

maintain itself as a working factor outside the domain of local affairs the idea that the people should have a voice in the determination of national policy repeatedly flared up, notably during the Hundred Years' War (1340-1453), and again in the eighteenth century.

The Germany of the later Middle Ages and of early modern times was by no means without manifestations of a surviving spirit of liberalism. At the close of the fifteenth century there were vigorous attempts to reorganize the Holy Roman Empire (now consisting practically of the German states) on a more popular basis. During the Lutheran Revolt certain elements, especially the peasants of the south, loudly demanded freer forms of government.1 In the eighteenth century the most illustrious and influential of Prussian kings, Frederick the Great, wrote three treatises admonishing his brother princes that they were not in their positions by any special favor of God, assuring them that the only justification of their occupancy of their thrones was the contribution that they could make to the welfare of their subjects, scoffing at the prevailing notion that the people were merely the private property of the prince, and sharply attacking the Machiavellian doctrine that the ruler is not to be bound by the ordinary principles of morality in promoting the ends of the state. The practical effect of these various movements and arguments, however, was nil. The effort to put the Empire on a more popular basis totally failed. The peasant reformers of 1524 were ruthlessly suppressed, Luther himself openly encouraging the princes in the bloody business. There is no record that any ruler was led to mend his ways by Frederick's lecturings; while the latter, by a remarkable series of high-handed acts during his prolonged reign (1740–86) cast grave doubts upon his own sincerity.

The condition in which Germany came down to the nineteenth century was, indeed, deplorable. The Holy Roman Empire lost all vitality, and the German-speaking world was left without the semblance of unity. The three hundred or more states were ruled by despots, petty and great, who cynically disregarded all demands for popular participation in government and ferociously resisted all suggestions that they should subordinate their interests to those of a united nation. Economic life was shackled by a network of gild, town, provincial, and royal regulations. Half of the people were serfs. Militarism and bureaucracy blocked every avenue of reform; popular ignorance and apathy 1 See E. B. Bax, The Peasant's War in Germany (London, 1899).

were, if possible, even greater obstacles. All told, the political heritage which the German people carried into the new century afforded scant basis for governmental development of the sort which already was far advanced in England, and which had been so dramatically inaugurated in the past decade in France.

Autocracy versus Liberalism, 1815-48. Interest in German political history in the first half of the nineteenth century centers around two interrelated movements, the one looking toward national unity, the other toward constitutional government. The period of the Napoleonic wars made some contribution in both directions. The ground was cleared for a future unification, first by the extinction of more than five sixths of the petty states of earlier times, and second, by the replacing of the nondescript and obsolete Holy Roman Empire (terminated by decree of Napoleon in 1806) by a German Confederation created by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. It is true that the immediate effect of reducing the number of states was merely to strengthen the surviving kingdoms and duchies and stiffen them against any attempt to establish an effective common control. It is true, also, that the new Confederation, whose Bundestag, or Diet, was hardly more than a congress of ambassadors, was so weak as to be ridiculous. Nevertheless, if the German-speaking world was ever to be united, the number of independent states must be gradually reduced, and a common German government must be set up, which, although at first a sham, might be capable of conversion by degrees into a reality. The contribution of the Napoleonic period to the cause of liberal government in Germany took the form chiefly of a great Prussian Municipal Edict of 1808 sweeping away the gild oligarchies, broadening the suffrage, and setting up elective executive boards and town councils, at the same time giving the municipalities a larger degree of independence in the management of their own affairs. It is interesting to note that Baron von Stein, who was the author of this reform, desired to introduce the representative principle in the central, as well as the local, government; and he proposed a national elective congress with fairly extensive legislative powers. But the plan met with no favor in princely circles.2

In anticipation of the prospective abolition of the dignity of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the Emperor Francis II, in 1804, assumed the title of Emperor of Austria, under the name Francis I.

2 On Germany during the Napoleonic period see Cambridge Modern History, IX, Chap. xi; J. H. Rose, Life of Napoleon I (new ed., New York, 1910), II, Chaps. xxiv-xxv; A. Fournier, Napoleon I, a Biography, trans. by A. E. Adams (New