ates were persuaded to join in equalizing their tariffs. Between
1834-5 Prussia, Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Saxony, Baden, Hesse-Nassau,
Thuringia, and Frankfort agreed upon a common standard for customs
duties, and a few years later they were joined by Brunswick, Hanover,
and the Mecklenburgs. German industry and commerce had their
beginnings in these agreements. The hundreds of different customs
duties became so exasperating that even jealous little governments
agreed to conform to simpler laws, and probably this commercial
necessity did more to bring about the unity of Germany than the King,
or politics, or the army.

With the struggles of the various states to obtain constitutions we
cannot deal, nor would it add to the understanding of the present
political condition of the German Empire.

Prussia, after riots in Berlin, after promises and delays from the
vacillating King, who one day orders his own troops out of the capital
and his brother, later William I, to England to appease the anger of
the mob, and parades the streets with the colors of the citizens in
revolt wrapped about him; and the next day, surly, obstinate, but ever
orating, holds back from his pledges, finally accepts a constitution
which is probably as little democratic as any in the world.

Of the sixty-five million inhabitants of the German Empire, Prussia
has over forty millions. The Landtag of Prussia is composed of two
chambers, the first called the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, and the
second the Abgeordnetenhaus, or Chamber of Deputies. This upper house
is made up of the princes of the royal family who are of age; the
descendants of the formerly sovereign families of Hohenzollern-
Hechingen and Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen; chiefs of the princely houses
recognized by the Congress of Vienna; heads of the territorial
nobility formed by the King; representatives of the universities;
burgomasters of towns with more than fifty thousand inhabitants, and
an unlimited number of persons nominated by the King for life or for a
limited period. This upper chamber is a mere drawing-room of the
sovereign's courtiers, though there may be, and as a matter of fact
there are at the present time, representatives even of labor in this
chamber, but in a minority so complete that their actual influence
upon legislation, except in a feeble advisory capacity, amounts to
nothing. In this Herrenhaus, or upper chamber, of Prussia there are at
this writing among the 327 membe