resentatives from each of the circles into which the province is divided, the number of representatives depending upon the population of the circles.1 These representatives are elected by the circle diets of the rural circles and the municipal authorities of the urban circles. The latter, it will be remembered, are all cities of 25,000 or more inhabitants.2 This method of election assures the larger cities a fair representation in the provincial diet; and the method of electing members of the diets of the rural circles, as will be shown, is such as to guarantee to the smaller cities and the other social interests a voice in the selection of the members of these diets and, as a result, representation in the provincial diet also. The term of office of the members of the provincial diet is six years; and the qualifications of eligibility are German citizenship, residence in the province or the possession of landed property therein for at least a year, good moral character and solvency.3 The diet is called together by the king once in two years and as many other times as its business makes its meetings necessary. The governor of the province attends to this matter for the king and, as the royal representative, opens its sessions and has the right to speak therein.5 The functions of this body relate almost exclusively to the purely local matters of the provincial administration. It decides what local services shall be carried on by the provincial corporation in addition to those which have been positively devolved upon it by law, and it raises the funds necessary for the support of the provincial administration. Its decisions, says Dr. Gneist, affect the construction and maintenance of roads; the granting of moneys for the construction and maintenance of other means of public communication; agricultural improvements; the maintenance of state almshouses, lunatic asylums, asylums for the deaf and dumb and blind and others, artistic collections, museums and other like institutions. . . The provincial diet votes the provincial budget, creates salaried provincial offices and deliberates upon provincial by-laws.7 8 Ibid. § 17. 1 Provinzordnung §§ 9, 10. 4 Ibid. § 25. 2 Ibid. §§ 14, 15. 5 Ibid. § 26. 6 Ibid. §§ 34-44. 7 Gneist, in Révue générale du droit et des sciences politiques, Oct. 1886, p. 262. These by-laws, it must be added, simply regulate minor points in the organization of the province which have not been already fixed by law, such as the details regarding the elections. They must be approved by the king. In addition to the duties imposed upon the province by law, the diet may assume such other duties as it sees fit which are not in direct opposition to the purposes of the provincial organization.2 Finally, the diet elects all the executive officers of the province regarded as a municipal corporation.3 From this description of its duties it will be seen that the provincial diet determines largely what the character of provincial administration shall be. The law of course imposes certain duties upon the province which it must perform and which it may be compelled to perform, but the law does not limit its competence. On the contrary, the law allows it to do almost anything which falls within the scope of what is recognized as proper for provincial administration. There will naturally be great variety in the various provinces. A province situated on the seacoast needs different institutions from one that lies inland. The social conditions in the various provinces are so different that great differences in their institutions will result from these causes alone. The manufacturing provinces in the West will need institutions quite other than those of the agricultural provinces of the East. Under the new system, which imposes upon the province much of the work formerly done by the central administration and leaves it free to do as much more as it will, the widest opportunity is given for development in accordance with particular local needs. The Provincial Committee. This is the executive authority of the province as a municipal corporation. The number of its members varies, according to the by-laws of the different provinces, between seven and thirteen. They are elected by the diet from among those citizens of the empire who are eligible to the provincial diet. The term of office is six years, half of the members retiring every three years. The members of 2 Loening, Deutsches Verwaltungsrecht, p. 219. 5 Ibid. § 47. 6 Ibid. § 48. 1 P. O. § 119. 3 P. O. § 41. 4 Ibid. § 46. this committee (and the same rule applies to the members of the provincial diet) receive no pay or salary of any kind for the performance of their duties: the province only repays their necessary expenses.1 The duties of this committee are to carry on the administration of the province in accordance with the general principles laid down by the provincial diet in its resolutions. Its subordinate executive officer, on whom the detailed or current administration falls, is the provincial director, who is elected by the diet and must be approved by the king, and who is a salaried officer. His position is that of a superintendent of the entire provincial civil service for purely local matters. He has no discretionary powers: the provincial committee is the discretionary executive of the province, and the director simply carries out its decisions. Service as provincial officer, it should be added, is never obligatory. Such are the officers of the province as a municipal corporation. The original draft of the bill which afterwards became the provincial law made this provincial organization less complicated than it now is, providing that the provincial committee should also perform the duties which have been devolved upon the provincial council; but the Conservative party in the House of Lords, whose interests were at stake, felt that this plan would not allow them sufficient independence in the management of purely provincial affairs, and insisted upon a complete separation of the general and local functions of administration in the province. The result was the formation of the separate authorities described above.4 Before closing this account of the administration of the province, it should be noted that the greater part of the revenue of the province as a municipal corporation comes from the funds or grants in aid which were given by the central government to the province at the time of the reorganization of the provincial administration. The purposes for which such grants shall be spent are designated in the laws. In order, however, to permit the provinces to develop in accordance with their particular 2 Ibid. § 45. 8 Ibid. § 87. 4 Stengel, p. 150. 1 P. O. § 100. needs, the law provides that the provinces may raise other money by levying taxes. These taxes shall consist of lump sums of money, which the circles forming part of the province are to pay into the provincial treasury, and whose amount is to be fixed in accordance with the amount of direct taxes paid to the central government by the people residing within the circles. The circle and not the individual is the taxpayer in the provincial system of finance, just as the circle and not the individual is the voter for representatives to the provincial diet. In order, however, to prevent the provincial diet from overburdening the circles, it is provided that where the province shall demand from the circle more than fifty per cent of the amount of state taxes levied in the circle, the consent of the supervisory authority of the central government (the ministers of the Interior and Finance) shall be obtained. The making of loans is subject to the same limitation. This is the method which has all along been adopted to restrict the actions of the provincial diet, viz. a central administrative control. Thus the by-laws which the provincial diet may issue, filling up details in the law, need for their validity the approval of the central government, often the approval of one of the ministers. Again, if any provincial authority endeavor to do anything which is outside of its competence, the supervisory officer, viz. the governor, has the right to suspend its action. Finally the king may dissolve the diet, and the governor may open an appropriation and levy the necessary taxes for all provincial charges for which the diet has neglected to make provision. The provincial authorities may usually appeal from the decision of the supervisory authority to the superior administrative court at Berlin. The central control is thus prevented from becoming arbitrary. II. The Circle Authorities. While the law recognizes, in the case of the circle as in the case of the province, that there is a sphere of local and a sphere 1 P. O. § 105. 8 Ibid. § 119. 5 P. O. §§ 121 and 122. 137 of central administrative action which are quite distinct, it still has not seen fit to provide separate authorities for each of these different spheres of action, but on the contrary has conferred on the same authorities the right to act in both spheres. But when these authorities act in purely local matters they are not subjected to the same strict control as when they act for the central administration. It must further be noted that while in the province the authorities for the central administration are more important than the authorities for the local administration, the functions of the circle authorities which relate to the sphere of local administration are more important than those which relate. to the sphere of central administration. The work of the circle is essentially local in character, while the work of the province affects rather the country as a whole. As the law governing the organization of the circle authorities was the model on which was formed the law governing the provincial administration, it is only natural to find that the same general principles lie at the basis of both laws. That is, there is the same combination of professional and lay elements which has already been pointed out in the foregoing description of the provincial authorities. The only difference is that one set of authorities performs all the duties in the circle which two sets of authorities perform in the province. The circle authorities are the landrath, the circle committee and the circle diet. The Landrath is the agent of the central administration, discharging in the administrative district of the circle about the same duties that are performed in the province by the governor and in the government district by the government and the government president. He is the subordinate of the government president. He is at the same time the executive for the current administration of the circle as a municipal corporation. In this capacity he is the subordinate of the circle committee, of which he is also president.1 He is a professional officer, i.e. he must be qualified for the higher administrative service. He is appointed by the king, as a rule, from a list of proper persons diet and presented to the king for his drawn up by the circle 1 K. O. § 76. |