6] Every minister possesses the right to appear on the (p. 255)
floor of either chamber, and to be heard at any time when no member of
the house is actually speaking. In the exercise of this privilege the
minister is the immediate spokesman of the crown, a fact which is apt
to be apparent from the tenor of his utterances.

[Footnote 375: Art. 44.]

[Footnote 376: Art. 61. Robinson, Constitution of
the Kingdom of Prussia, 40. In the words of a
German jurist, "the anomaly continues to exist in
Prussia of ministerial responsibility solemnly
enunciated in the constitution, the character of
the responsibility, the accuser and the court
specified, and at the same time a complete lack of
any legal means by which the representatives of the
people can protect even the constitution itself
against the most flagrant violations and the most
dangerous attacks." Schulze, Preussisches
Staatsrecht, II., 694.]

*272. The Ministry: Organization and Workings.*--The Prussian ministry
exhibits little solidarity. There is a "president of the council of
ministers," who is invariably the Minister for Foreign Affairs and at
the same time the Chancellor of the Empire, but his functions are by
no means those of the corresponding dignitary in France and Italy.
Over his colleagues he possesses, as president, no substantial
authority whatsoever.[377] In the lack of responsibility to the
Landtag, there is no occasion for an attempt to hold the ministry
solidly together in the support of a single, consistent programme. The
ministers are severally controlled by, and responsible to, the crown,
and the views or policies of one need not at all be those of another.
At the same time, of course, in the interest of efficiency it is
desirable that there shall be a certain amount of unity and of
concerted action. To attain this there was established by Count
Hardenberg a Staats-Ministerium, or Ministry of State, which occupies
in the Prussian executive system a position somewhat similar to that
occupied in the French by the Council of Ministers.[378] The Ministry
of State is composed of the nine ministerial heads, together with the
Imperial secretaries of state for the Interior, Foreign Affairs, and
the Navy. It ho