more chambers to represent the several estates or sometimes--as in the
German Diet--subdivisions of these estates, the representatives were
composed of members of the privileged orders, the clergy and nobility,
and of the elected representatives of the city aristocracies. The
majority of the population, the poor, were unrepresented. That this
class had as great a stake in the commonwealth as any other, and that
they had a class consciousness capable of demanding reforms and of
taking energetic measures to secure them, is shown by a number of
rebellions of the proletariat, and yet it is not unfair to them, or
{479} disdainful, to say that on most matters they were too
uninstructed, too powerless and too mute to contribute much to that
body of sentiment called public opinion, one condition of which seems
to be that to exist it must find expression.

[Sidenote: Influence of the Estates General]

The Estates General, by whatever name they were called, supplemented in
France by provincial bodies called Parlements partaking of the nature
of high courts of justice, and in Germany by the local Diets (Landtag)
of the larger states, exercised a very real and in some cases a
decisive influence on public policy. The monarch of half the world
dared not openly defy the Cortes of Aragon or of Castile; the imperious
Tudors diligently labored to get parliamentary sanction for their
tyrannical acts, and, on the few occasions when they could not do so,
hastened to abandon as gracefully as possible their previous
intentions. In Germany the power of the Diet was not limited by the
emperor, but by the local governments, though even so it was
considerable. When a Diet, under skilful manipulation or by
unscrupulous trickery, was induced by the executive to pass an
unpopular measure, like the Edict of Worms, the law became a dead
letter. In some other instances, notably in its long campaign against
monopolies, even when it expressed the popular voice the Diet failed
because the emperor was supported by the wealthy capitalists. Only
recently it has been revealed how the Fuggers of Augsburg and their
allies endeavored to manipulate or to frustrate its work in the matter
of government regulation of industry and commerce.

[Sidenote: Public finance]

The finances of most countries were managed corruptly and unwisely.
The taxes were numerous and complicated and bore most heavily on the
poor. From ordinary taxes in most countries the pri