Prussia part two
Prussia had two houses of parliament. The king alone exercised the executive power, had the supreme command of the army, and was head of the protestant church; however, the king shared the legislative power with the Prussian parliament. The legislative assembly or Landtagconsisted of two chambers. The consent of both houses, as well as the king, was required before a measure could pass. The chambers had control of the finances and controlled taxes. The upper chamber, Herrenhaus,containedboth hereditary and non-hereditary members. The hereditary members were the adult princes of the house of Hohenzollern, the important princes and counts of the old imperial nobility, and the heads of the great territorial nobility. The non-hereditary members were chosen for life by the king from the ranks of the rich landowners and manufacturers. The elevation into the Herrenhaus was usually accompanied by granting the honorary title of aKommerzienrat(Commercial Counselor); sometimes elevation to nobility followed soon after. The lower house, or Abgeordnetenhaus,consisted of 433 members who were elected for periods of five years by indirect suffrage that included all male citizens who were at least 25. This system used the Prussian three-tier system of elections. Based on the election of 1908, if all of the votes had been of equal value, the Social Democrats would have had 113 of 443 seats. With the three-tier system, the SPD won only seven.
The three-tiered system of voting that the Junkers wielded inside the kingdom of Prussia was enormously influential. Basically, all male voters over the age of 25 were divided into three classes based on the amount of tax revenue they provided. The richest five percent, which included the Junkers, was Class One. The next richest 15 percent was Class Two. The remaining 80 percent was Class Three. Each class had an equal share of the vote for representatives to the Landtag or Prussian territorial parliament—the top five percent had as much clout as the bottom 80 percent; however, only 20 percent of the possible voters in Class Three turned out to vote.
Obviously, the Junkers were not willing to cede this advantage, as the Landtag was responsible for legislation covering commerce, tariffs, and banking. They benefited disproportionately from the tariff protectionism especially in the 1890s. The three-tiered system of voting kept the Class One members in charge of the Kingdom of Prussia. In exchange for these privileges, the Junkers were to give blind loyalty and fealty to the King of Prussia. When the King of Prussia became the Kaiser under the Kleindeutschlandunification, the power of the Junkers grew. In 1894, these estate holders did support the founding of an agrarian league, but they supported neither socialism nor the mechanized wonders of the Industrial Revolution. As rural landowners, they distrusted workers in the big cities.
It is essential to remember that the Kingdom of Prussia and the German Empire were separate entities. The King of Prussia was at the same time German Emperor, and the Prime Minister of Prussia was also the imperial Chancellor. The ministries of war and foreign affairs were the same as those of the empire. It was sometimes difficult to determine which hat the individual was wearing. The imperial government administered the customs, postal, and telegraph services. Prussia had seventeen votes in the Bundesrat and sent more than half of the members to the Reichstag.Many individuals were deputies of both the imperial and Prussian parliaments. The imperial Reichstagand Prussian Landtagwere often in session at the same time, and legislation in the Kingdom was often accorded a lower priority.The Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia often shared diplomats.
The population in 1914 was 42.1 million, of whom 68 percent was Protestant. Prussia comprised 12 separate provinces that were internal parts of the Kingdom of Prussia. Frequently they are confused with separate states. This is especially true of the Prussian state of Saxony, which was adjacent to the Kingdom of Saxony. The kingdom was 348,657 km². The capital of the Kingdom of Prussia was Berlin.