English Grand Committees, the French Commissions report on questions of policy, not merely of detail. They differ from the American Congressional Committees because these are not set to control the Executive's legislative proposals. They can control the Executive because they are informed on the action of the Departments and become potent instruments of criticism. With experience they become specialists to some extent, and endeavour to direct the Departments. To sum up, the Commissions are very important to a country which, traditionally afraid of an executive body controlling a strongly centralized administration, finds proper control in open Parliament ineffective.1 Republicans in France consider them essential; members of the Right consider them too interfering with ministerial freedom.' Suggestions for the creation of such Commissions in England have recently been made.'

The Interpellation is a kind of question not used so much to get information as to put the Government on its defence, for a particular act of a Minister, or for its general policy. Only on foreign affairs can an Interpellation be altogether refused. The Interpellation opens a debate, which is closed by a division and the expression of a definite opinion. If a résolution of the order of the day pure and simple,' is passed, the Government still lives; if the resolution is motived,' that is, expresses a judgement on the Government, and that judgement is of 'no confidence,' the Government resigns. This is a common way of defeating a Government, and gives the individual Deputy tremendous power. Three out of every five Ministries have fallen after an Interpellation; it is during the debate, usually at an exciting juncture in political affairs, that the loyalty of groups is withdrawn.‘ The Interpellation is an instrument of destruction, and therefore of stringent control; yet, as things are, this is

1 Cf. New Europe, August 1, 1915, p. 56. Article by Étienne Fournol, 2 Cf. Bryce, Modern Democracies, vol. i, p. 297.

Cf., especially, Report of Machinery of Government Committee, p. 15 et seq., cd. 9230; cf., too, Mr. Lloyd Geroge, Hansard, December 19, 1916, cd. 1343 et seq.

Cf. Zola's Paris, Book III, chapter v, for a fine account of an interpellation scene in the Chamber.

necessary, for the power of the Ministry in France, at the head of a powerful centralized administration, to oppress the individual citizen is very great. A good many Interpellations are, of course, frivolous; complaints are made of the atmosphere of excitement in which the debate takes place, and the large proportion of sessions devoted to Interpellations.1

Control of the Executive is much stricter in France than in England, and France suffers from not having a convention of dissolution and appeal to the country: such a convention would tend to the organization of bigger parties, which would gradually cultivate a new sense of responsibility to the people.

III

The central Departments comprise now the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Justice, Interior, War, Marine, Finance, Public Instruction, Agriculture, Commerce, Public Works, Colonies, Labour and Public Relief, Pensions, Public Health, and Liberated Regions, the last four being products of the war years. Each is supposed to be under the guidance of the amateur' political Minister, who is responsible to Parliament for the administration, and takes a part in the general responsibility of the Cabinet. The authority of the Departments extends all over the country, owing to the centralization of power in the hands of a Civil Service whose origin dates from Richelieu and Louis XIV, and to the fact that there is little local self-government, but only localized ('deconcentrated') administration by agents of the central Government. After the chaos produced by the first optimism of the Revolution, Napoleon reinforced the power of the central Administration, so that it has been said that each Minister is now one-twelfth of an Emperor. Though the proportion of civil servants to the population of France is the highest in the world-something like 1,000,000 in about 40,000,000 —the conditions of recruitment, promotion,

1 Cf., for an analysis of interpellations, Le Temps, April 5, 1920. Cf. Lefas, L'État et les fonctionnaires, p. 38; also Cahen, Les Fonctionnaires.

and discipline are fifty years behind those of Great Britain, and twenty-five years behind those of the United States; they can hardly be compared with those of Germany. From 1844 constant attempts have been made to secure a general status for officials, but all that has been attained is a slight modification of the arbitrary appointment, and dismissal, first exercised by King and Emperor and then by the Ministers. In the matter of recruitment, a law of 1882 left the Ministers power to set out conditions by ' rules of public administration'; since then a flood of such rules, arbitrary and often changed, set out for each Department the courses of study, the technical diplomas, and less frequently the competitive examinations which are the necessary preliminaries to appointment. There are no common regulations and governing body like the English Civil Service Commission which originated in 1853. There is a traffic of places and promotions between the Minister and interested Deputies who have votes to offer (this is a cause of the general disrepute of the Chamber); promotion is therefore a matter of luck and seniority, sometimes of ability. 'We pretend to be apostles of justice and law, and we erect favour and intrigue as a system of government.' Dismissals are

virtually in the hands of the higher official in the hierarchy, so that discipline is strict and initiative a dangerous quality. The result of these conditions on the officials is, as an employé of 1840 said, discouragement, demoralization, and disgust.' Authority is too overshadowing, reward too uncertain, scope for free action and zest in taking responsibility too limited for the Civil Service, which means so much to France, because its ramifications are so wide, to give good service. When Lord Bryce calls it a strong and competent bureaucracy' he is right only as to its strength, because tradition and corrupt politicians have left it imperial, though the form of government is republican. It is decidedly not competent.

During the course of the nineteenth century successive generations of civil servants rebelled against their servitude, and their constant struggles, combined with extrava1 Cf. Demartial, Le Statut des fonctionnaires, an important work. 2 Cf. Lefas, op. cit., p. 65 et seq.

gance of the Government, and inefficiency, resulted in several small reforms. Ministers were compelled to stand by the rules in existence relating to appointment, promotion, and dismissal; protest in the administrative court against appointment of unqualified persons is possible; a civil servant must be informed of the grounds of his dismissal; promotions are made from lists called ' tableaux d'avancement,' drawn up by 'conseils d'administration,' composed of representatives of the hierarchy and the civil servants' delegates-of course, the high official view has major representation; mixed' conseils de discipline' give the officials an opportunity to put their case, and to hear the evidence for entries on their secret indivi

dual dossiers. But, though the Conseil d'État, the supreme administrative court, has in the last twenty years shown a steadfast regard for the claims of the official against arbitrary action by the superior Cæsars of the services, central and local, the whole situation is still confused and inimical to the official. The Law on Associations of 1901 stimulated the formation of officials' associations, and their collective action forced their grievances on the attention of the Government. In the strong flow of the syndicalist movement many desire to become autonomous syndicates, freely amending and executing the general directions of the politicians. But the majority of the politicians still consider that Parliament is, or ought to be, sovereign, and that public servants who strike are 'mutineers'; bloody repression of such strikes in 1906 and 1910, wholesale dismissals and harsh treatment, still give substance to this sterile theory of sovereignty, against the more fruitful theory of economic and social federation put forward by thinkers like Paul Boucour, Cahen, Duguit, and Leroy. The Departments are assisted, at their will, by Consultative Councils composed of official and outside experts-e.g. Superior Council of Public Jurisdiction, Superior Council of Commerce and Industry. This has not been carried far in England, but the Ministry of

1 Cf. Fribolin, Die Frage der Deutschen Beamten; and cf. Lefas, op. cit., p. 78 et seq.

2 Lefas, op. cit., p. 146 et seq.; and Demartial, op. cit.

• Cf. especially Laski, Authority in the Modern State, chapter v.

Agriculture Act, 1918, and the Ministry of Health Act, 1919, provide for such consultative councils to give representatives of the producers and experts an opportunity of influencing the counsels of the Ministry.

Lastly, the Conseil d'État stands at the head of the centralized system; gives sanction to certain of the executive decrêts which are and have always been so largely used to add the details of laws passed by the Chambers; and, as final court for that branch of law, droit administratif, by which the citizen on the Continent can appeal against the State for acts done by its officials, in their capacity as officials, and through which officials themselves are judged in their mutual relations.'

2

Altogether, France has made many attempts to secure liberty, and has frequently expressed its splendid aspirations in well-phrased declarations: yet her institutions do not realize them. It is more important for democracy to organize itself than fervently to declare its faith.

CHAPTER IV

GERMANY: THE NEW SYSTEM

A STUDY of German Government falls naturally into two broad divisions: first, a brief analysis of the institutions prior to the abdication of Emperor William II and the break-up of the old Empire; second, a commentary on the structure of the Constitution of August 11, 1919. The true extent of the change since the war cannot be understood without considering pre-1919 institutions.

I

Analysing German government before the war, we notice three remarkable features: the Federal character 1 Cf. Chardon, op. cit., p. 99 et seq.

? Cf. Dicey, Law of the Constitution; and Ashley, Local and Central Government.

• Cf. Chardon, op. cit.

4 Cf. Lowell, Governments and Parties in Continental Europe; and Barthélemy, Les Institutions politiques de l'Allemagne contemporaine. Paris, 1915.