Such is not the view of the German Emperor nor of the German people.  To both the monarch is no “shadow-king,” as both are fond of calling the King of England, but an Emperor of flesh and blood, commissioned to take the leading part in decisions binding on the nation, responsible to no one but the Almighty, and the sole bestower of State honours.  There are, it is true, three factors of imperial government constitutionally—­the Emperor, the Federal Council, and the Imperial Parliament; but while the Council has only very indirect relations with the people, the Parliament, a consultative body for legislation, is not the depositary of power or authority, or an assembly to which either the Emperor, or the Council, or the Imperial Chancellor is responsible.  It must be admitted that, while such is the constitutional theory, the actual practice is to a considerable extent different.  The Emperor is no absolute monarch, even in the domain of foreign affairs, as he is often said to be, but is influenced and guided, certainly of late years, both by the Federal Council and by public opinion, the power of which latter has greatly augmented in recent times.  Whether the Reichstag really represents public opinion in the Empire is a moot-point in Germany itself.  It can hardly be denied that it does so, at least in financial matters, since with regard to them it has all the powers, or almost all, possessed by the English House of Commons in this respect.  Where its powers fail, it is said, is in regard to administration; for though it deliberates on and passes legislation, it is left by the Constitution to the Emperor and his Ministers to issue instructions as to how legislation is to be carried into effect.  The result is to throw excessive power over public comfort and convenience into the hands of the official class of all degrees, which naturally employs it to maintain its own dignity and privileged position.

Towards one class of the population, and that a highly important and exceptional one, the Emperor’s attitude of unprejudiced goodwill has never varied.  Israelites form only a small proportion—­about 1 per cent.—­of the whole people, and are to be found in very large numbers only in Berlin and Frankfurt; but to their financial and commercial ability Germany owes a debt one may almost describe as incalculable.  There is a strong national prejudice against them in all parts of the Empire, as there probably is in all countries, and it must be admitted that the manners and customs of the lower-class Jew, his unpleasant and insistent curiosity, his intrusiveness where he is not desired, his want of cleanliness, his sharpness at a bargain, his oily bearing to those he wishes to propitiate and his ruthless sweating of the worker in all fields when in his power, are all disagreeable personal qualities.  There is also, as a concomitant of the nation’s growth in wealth of every sort, and mostly perhaps to be found in the capital a class of Jewish parvenu, remarkable for snobbishness, ostentation, and affectation.