solely as agent and (p. 216)
assistant of the Emperor; and, although according to the letter of
the constitution responsible to the Reichstag, he is, in practice,
responsible to no one save his Imperial master.

Prior to 1870 the administrative functions of the Confederation were
vested in a single department, the _Bundeskanzleramt_, or Federal
Chancery, which was organized in three sections--the "central office,"
the postal office, and the bureau of telegraphs. For the time being,
affairs pertaining to the army, the navy, and foreign relations were
confided to the care of the appropriate ministries of Prussia. In 1870
there was created a separate federal department of foreign affairs,
and in the following year a federal department of the marine. One by
one other departments were established, until in 1879 the process was
completed by the conversion of what remained of the Bundeskanzleramt
into a department of the interior. The status of these departments,
however, was from the outset totally unlike that of the corresponding
branches of most governments. They were, and are, in effect but
bureaus of the Imperial Chancellery, and their heads comprise in no
degree a collegiate ministry or cabinet. Each official in charge of a
department owes his position absolutely to the Chancellor, and is
responsible, not to the Reichstag, nor yet to the Emperor directly,
but to the Chancellor. Some of the more important officials bear the
title of "secretary of state," but in any case they are legally
nothing more than expert and essentially non-political functionaries
of the administrative hierarchy, answerable to the Chancellor for all
that they may do.[312] Of the principal departments there are at
present seven: the Foreign Office, the Colonial Office, the Imperial
Home Office, the Department of Justice, the Imperial Treasury, the
Imperial Admiralty, and the Imperial Post-Office. In the nature of
things some are more important than others; and in addition to them
there are several Imperial bureaus, notably those of Railways, the
Bank, and the Debt Commission. Throughout all branches of the Imperial
administrative service appointments and dismissals are made regularly
by the Chancellor, in the name of the Emperor, and by the same
authority all administrative regulations are promulgated.[313]

[Footnote 312: At the same time it is to be
observed that, in practice, the more important