[Footnote 416: Repeated attempts to bring about a
modernization of the Mecklenburg constitutional
system have failed. Several times the liberal
elements in the Reichstag have carried a proposal
that to the Imperial constitution there should be
added a clause requiring that in every state of the
Empire there shall be an assembly representative of
the whole people. On the ground that such an
amendment would comprise an admission that the
constitutions of the states are subject to revision
at the hand of the Empire, the Bundesrath has
invariably rejected the proposal. In 1907 the
grand-duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin inaugurated a
movement for political reform, and in 1908 there
was drafted a constitution providing for the
establishment of a Landtag whose members should be
chosen in part by the landed, industrial,
professional, and official classes and in part by
manhood suffrage. Late in 1909 the Ritterschaft
(i.e., the estate comprising owners of knights'
fees) rejected the proposal, as, indeed, it had
rejected similar ones on earlier occasions.]

*302. Hamburg.*--The three free cities of Hamburg, Bremen, and Luebeck
are survivals of the ancient Hanseatic League. All have republican
forms of government, differing in only minor details. The constitution
of Hamburg came into operation January 1, 1861, and was revised in
1879 and in 1906. The principal organs of government are the Senate
and the Buergerschaft, or House of Burgesses. The Senate consists of
eighteen members elected for life by the House of Burgesses, but in
accordance with an indirect method so devised that the Senate itself
exercises a preponderating influence in the elections. A senator (p. 281)
is privileged to retire, if he so desires, at the end of a six-year
period, or at the age of seventy. Of the eighteen, half must have
studied finance or law, while of the remaining nine at least seven
must belong to the class of merchants. The House of Burgesses is
composed of 160 members, elected for six years by voters whose
qualifications are based upon property,