ial resident, under the threat of penalties, and compelled to
burden his fellow-citizens in his district with lists, notifications,
and inquisitions as the political hierarchy thinks good. The governed
_contribuens plebs_ no longer possess, in the court of the provincial
president, that guarantee against blundering encroachment which, at an
earlier period was to be found in the circumstance that people resident
in the district who became provincial presidents as a rule resolved to
remain so in their own districts all their life long, and sympathized
with the joys and sorrows of the district. Today the post of provincial
president is the lowest step in the ladder of the higher administration,
sought after by young "assessors" who have a justifiable ambition to
make a career. To obtain it they have more need of ministerial favor
than of the goodwill of the local population, and they attempt to win
this favor by conspicuous zeal, and by "taking it out of" the official
commissioners of the so-called local administration, or by carrying out
valueless bureaucratic experiments. Therein lies for the most part the
inducement to overburden their subordinates in the local self-government
system. Thus self-government means the aggravation of bureaucracy,
increase in the number of officials, and of their powers and interference
in private life.

It is only human nature to be more keenly sensitive to the thorns than
to the roses of every institution, and that the thorns should irritate
one against the existing state of things. The old government
officials, when they came into direct contact with the governed
population, showed themselves to be pedantic, and estranged from the
practical working of life by their occupation at the green table; but
they left behind them the impression of toiling honesty and
conscientiously for justice. The same thing cannot be assumed in all
their degrees of the wheels in the machine of the self-government of
today in those country districts where the parties stand in acute
opposition to each other; goodwill towards political friends, frame
of mind as regards opponents, readily become a hindrance to the
impartial maintenance of institutions. According to my experiences in
earlier and more recent times, I should, for the rest, not like to
allow impartiality, when comparing judicial and administrative
decisions, to the former alone, not at least in every instance. On the
contrary, I have preserved an impre