unit rule"
prevails. The seventeen delegates from Prussia must vote as instructed
by the Kaiser, and if there chanced to be but one member present he
still would cast seventeen votes for the delegation. The members of the
Bundesrath are referred to quite frequently as ambassadors. There is no
need for discussion in the body since the delegations vote, in any
event, as a unit.

The power of the German Bundesrath is, however, astonishing. Usually the
lower house is supposed to be the one in which originates legislation,
such as finance, affecting the people. But in Germany it is the
Bundesrath which has the power to tax, and the lower chamber, the
Reichstag, merely has the vetoing power.

This makes the taxing power in Germany primarily the privilege of the
crown.

The financial program is prepared by the Chancellor, who is the direct
representative of the Kaiser, and responsible only to him. In other
governments members of the ministry are appointed by the legislative
bodies, but the Chancellor is personally named by the Kaiser, and is not
even a member of the Reichstag. He has the right, however, to address
this body, as the privilege of a member of the Bundesrath of which, as
the personal representative of the Kaiser, he is the presiding officer.

Since the Bundesrath, as already shown, practically controls the German
Empire, and the King of Prussia, with his seventeen votes in the
Bundesrath holds sway in that body, it is easy to see how the Kaiser is
the dominating figure in the German Empire.

THE KAISER'S DUAL PREROGATIVE.

A unique provision of the German constitution is that fourteen votes in
the Bundesrath can defeat any proposed amendment, and since the Kaiser
controls seventeen votes, as King of Prussia, besides several others, he
has a voting strength which can block any attempt to change the regime.
Also, as King of Prussia, he can instruct his Chancellor to prepare laws
to be introduced in the Bundesrath.

It is the power which the Kaiser possesses, as the King of Prussia,
which gives him his control as the German Emperor. Prussia is the
largest of the German states, and when the Kaiser, as King of Prussia,
says that he is master in Prussia, he speaks the truth.

There is a ministry in Prussia, and the head of this body is usually the
same person who occupies the position of Imperial Chancellor, and the
Kaiser appoints this Minister as well as his associates, whom he can
remove without reference