"If the population of a district wish to secede from their allegiance and join one or more German Free States, or form a Free State, a plebiscite is necessary. The plebiscite will be initiated by the Government of the Land or of one or more autonomous bodies comprising at least a quarter of the population concerned. It will be instituted by the Government of the Realm and enforced by the local authority."
The general effect of the Constitution combined with present political conditions is that there will be no change of any importance in the composition of the countries constituting the Realm. See also Art. 167 suspending operation of pars. 3 to 6 of this article for two years.
[19] ART. 20.--In the first draft the Sovereign Reichstag consisted, not, as here, of the popular Chamber only, but of the Volkshaus--the popular Chamber, and the Staatenhaus--the representatives of the States. The latter, now known as the Reichsrat (see Art. 60), is no longer part of the sovereign body and has merely a suspensory veto against it (see Art. 74).
[20] ART. 25.--The President's power of dissolution was unrestricted in the early drafts.
[21] ART. 34.--This article, a late addition, constitutionalises a procedure that strengthens democracy as against bureaucracy.
[22] ART. 35.--The institution of a permanent Committee on Foreign Affairs for which our advocates of democratic diplomacy have laboured in vain for twenty years has been commented on above, see p. 253.
[23] ART. 48.--It was in virtue of the article corresponding to this in the provisional constitution that Berlin attacked and suppressed the Council Governments set up in Munich, Brunswick, Bremen, and elsewhere.
[24] Art. 55.--The Chancellor is consequently no longer the sole responsible Minister, but merely as elsewhere in democratic constitutions _primus inter pares_, the Premier. Moreover, he has, of course, lost his special authority from the Crown and his special association with Prussia. It would have been better in the circumstances to have dropped the title of Chancellor.
[25] Art. 60.--The Reichsrat is the much reduced remains of the Bundesrat. (See p. 252 and Arts. 1 and 20.)
[26] Art. 61.--For the importance of this restriction in respect of Prussia, see p. 251.