Compromise Debates on the Kreis Estates

** Cologne, 25 July. (Compromise sitting of 18.)  
No. 56, 26 July 1848  
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.  

Among the many confused, pointless and purely personal documents and negotiations that occur at the beginning of every sitting, we single out two points today.

The first is the statement, submitted in writing to the president and repeated from the tribune, by the former minister Rodbertus: he had, it is true, put his name down to speak against the Jacoby motion, but he had nonetheless intended to speak only against the first part of it, which disapproved of the Frankfurt decision, and at the same time against the relevant declaration made by the ministry on 4 July. As is known, the debate was adjourned before Mr Rodbertus could take the floor.

The second is a declaration by Mr Brodowski on behalf of all the Polish deputies, made on the occasion of a casual declaration by the German-Polish deputies: he refused to recognise the incorporation of part of Posen into the German Confederation as having any legal validity; he based himself on the treaties of 1815 and on the declaration of the provincial estates against its admission, which the king had provoked. “I know of no subsequent legal path, for the nation has not yet been consulted on the matter.”

Then follows the final debate on the Address. The Address was, as is known, rejected, amid cries from the Left: “Twice the question of confidence!” and general laughter.

Now it was the turn of the commission report on the motion of 94 deputies to deprive the Kreis estates of the power of levying taxes.

We enter deliberately into this subject. It once again brings to our mind a piece of genuine old Prussian legislation, and the mounting reaction keeps presenting this legislation to us more and more as an inimitable model, while the Ministry of Action, which refuses to represent itself as the Ministry of Transition, daily sets itself up with increasing lack of embarrassment as the eulogist of the Bodelschwingh ministry.

The Kreis estates have, through a number of laws all dating from after 1840, obtained the power to impose taxes with binding effect on the inhabitants of the Kreis.

These Kreis estates are a magnificent specimen of old Prussian “representation”. All the larger landowning peasants of the district send three deputies; each town sends as a rule one; but every owner of a knight’s estate is a born member of the Kreis estates. Quite unrepresented are the workers and a section of the petty bourgeoisie in the towns, and in the countryside the small property owners and the non-resident inhabitants, together the immense majority. These unrepresented classes are nonetheless taxed by the representatives, and especially by the gentlemen “born members of the Kreis estates”, and how and for what purposes, we shall see shortly.

These Kreis estates, which moreover have completely independent control over the Kreis property, are bound in their tax decisions to the approval, now of the chief president, now of the king, and, in addition, when they have split into separate estates and one estate has given a separate vote, to the decision of the minister of the interior. One sees how cunningly old Prussia knew how to safeguard the “well-earned rights” of the big landowners, and at the same time the supreme supervisory right of the bureaucracy.

But that this supreme supervisory right of the bureaucracy exists only to prevent any encroachments by the Kreis estates on the rights of the green table, and not to protect the inhabitants of the Kreis, particularly the wholly unrepresented, from encroachments by the gentlemen of the Kreis estates, is expressly acknowledged by the central commission’s report.

The report concludes with the motion to repeal the laws which grant the Kreis estates the right of taxation.

Mr Bucher, rapporteur, elaborated the motion. It is precisely those decrees of the Kreis estates which weighed most heavily on the unrepresented and embittered them most that have been preferentially confirmed by the governments. “It is precisely a curse of the police state, which has fallen in principle but unfortunately still continues in fact to this hour, that an official or an authority, the higher they stand in Mandarinism, believe they understand everything, even such detailed measures, the better, although they are just so much more remote from local needs.” – The proposal recommends itself all the more as it is not constructive but merely destructive; “it cannot be denied that the Assembly has not been fortunate so far in its attempts at productive activity … it might therefore be advisable for us for the time being to devote ourselves more to a destructive activity.” The speaker accordingly advises in particular the repeal of the reactionary laws enacted since 1815.

This was too much. The rapporteur had not only declared old Prussia, the bureaucracy and the Kreis estates reprehensible; he had even cast an ironic side-glance at the previous products of the compromise debates. The opportunity was favourable for the ministry. Besides, out of regard for the court it could not permit that precisely the laws enacted under the present king were repealed alone.

Mr Kühlwetter therefore rises. “The Kreis estates are so composed that their constitution will undoubtedly be changed, since” – is the estate system in general a contradiction of equality before the law? On the contrary! Only “since every owner of a knight’s estate is still a born member of the Kreis estates, while a town, even if it encloses ever so many knight’s estates, is entitled to send only one member of the Kreis estates, and the peasant communes are represented only by three deputies.”

We cast a glance into the hidden plans of the Ministry of Action. The estate system had to be abolished in the central popular representation; that could not be altered. But in the smaller districts of representation, in the Kreise (perhaps also in the provinces?), an attempt will be made to preserve estate-based representation, merely eliminating the most gross advantages gained by the nobility over the burghers and peasants. That Mr Kühlwetter’s statement cannot be interpreted otherwise is shown by the fact that the central commission’s report directly called for the application of equality before the law in district representation. Mr Kühlwetter, however, passes over this point in the deepest silence.

Mr Kühlwetter has no objection to the content of the motion; he merely asks whether it is necessary to put this motion into effect “through the legislative channel”. “The danger that the Kreis estates might abuse the right of taxation is perhaps not so great … The supervisory right of the government is by no means so illusory as has been represented; it has always been exercised conscientiously, and in particular ‘the lowest class-tax bracket has as far as possible been exempted from contributions’.”

Naturally! Mr Kühlwetter was a bureaucrat under Bodelschwingh, and even at the risk of compromising the whole Ministry of Action, the past heroic deeds of Bodelschwingh’s bureaucracy must be defended. We note that Mr Hansemann was absent when his colleague Kühlwetter thus allowed him to fraternise with Mr Bodelschwingh.

Mr Kühlwetter states that he has already instructed all governments to confirm no further Kreis estate taxes until further notice, and that thereby the purpose is surely achieved.

Mr Jentzsch spoils the game for the minister by remarking that it is the fashion among the Kreis estates to apportion the highway contributions, which mostly benefit the knight’s estates, according to the class tax, from which the knight’s estates are entirely exempt.

Mr Kühlwetter and Mr von Wangenheim, an interested party, seek to defend the Kreis estates; in particular, Mr Oberlandesgerichtsrat von Wangenheim, Kreis estate member for Saatzig, delivers a great eulogy on this glorious institution.

But Deputy Moritz again frustrates the effect. What is the use of Mr Kühlwetter’s decree? If the ministry were once to resign, the governments would ignore the decree. If we have laws as bad as these, I do not see why we should not repeal them. And as for the denied abuses: “not only have the Kreis estates abused the power they possess to impose levies in such a way that they have allowed personal favours to come in, that they have resolved upon expenditures which did not serve the common good of the district, but they have also resolved on highway constructions in the interest of individuals, of a privileged estate. The district town of Ruppin is to be connected with the Hamburg-Berlin railway. Instead of laying the road via the town of Wusterhausen, although this town has declared itself ready to provide the extra costs from its own resources, the government has refused this small, destitute town the construction of the road, and instead the road has been routed through three estates of one and the same knight’s estate owner”!!

Mr Reichenbach draws attention to the fact that the ministerial decree has no influence whatsoever on the completely free disposition over the Kreis property left to the Kreis estates.

The minister replies with a few lame phrases.

Mr Bucher declares he considers the minister to be not at all empowered to issue decrees which de facto repeal existing laws. Only through legislation could a remedy be found here.

Mr Kühlwetter stammers a few more incoherent words to defend himself and then a vote is taken.

The Assembly adopts the central commission’s motion: that the laws through which the Kreis estates are granted the right of taxation and the control over the Kreis property be repealed, with the rider: “without prejudice to the Kreis estate decisions taken on the basis of these decrees”.

One can see that the “deeds” of the Ministry of Action consist of police attempts at reaction and parliamentary defeats.

(The conclusion follows.)