Note (Back) — Chapter XIII

285. The Reforms of Bismarck.—Throughout the middle portion of the nineteenth century the administrative system, modified but slightly by legislative enactment, continued to present a curious combination of elements which were popular and elements which were narrowly bureaucratic and, in some instances, essentially feudal. Beginning in 1872, Bismarck addressed himself to the task of co-ordinating, strengthening, and to a certain extent liberalizing, the local institutions of the kingdom. The ends at which he aimed principally were the abolition of conditions by which it was made possible for the whole machinery of local government to be captured from time to time by a single social class for its own benefit, and the establishment of a system under which all classes of the population might be admitted to participation in the management of purely local affairs. In the course of the reform which was carried through numerous features of English local institutions were copied with some closeness. In a number of scholarly volumes appearing between 1863 and 1872 the genius of these institutions had been convincingly expounded by the jurist Rudolph Gneist, whose essential thesis was that the failure of parliamentary government in Prussia and the success of it in Great Britain was attributable to the dissimilarity of the local governmental systems of the two countries;[391] and by these writings the practical proposals with which Bismarck came forward were given important theoretic basis. Neither Gneist nor Bismarck sympathized with the ideals of democracy, but both believed that the local administrative authorities should be made to include not only a paid, expert bureaucracy but a considerable element of unpaid lay or non-official persons, drawn, however, principally from the large landowners and taxpayers. The obstacles to be overcome, arising from public indifference, the opposition of the existing bureaucracy, the apprehensions of the Conservatives, and sectional differences and antipathies, were enormous, but by proceeding slowly and in a conciliatory spirit the Government was able eventually to execute the larger portion of its plans. The first enactments, for the circles in 1872 and for the provinces in 1875, were applied only to those provinces which had formed the old monarchy, but during the ensuing ten years similar measures were extended to the remainder of the kingdom, and, finally, after the dismissal of Bismarck, the task was rounded out by a great Landgemeinde-Ordnung issued for the seven eastern provinces in 1891. By this series of enactments the administrative methods and machinery of the kingdom were reduced to substantially the character which they to-day possess.