To what extent I am ready to submit to the Bundesrat I have already tried to explain, and I have closed with these words “sub judice lis est” (the case is still in court).  I need not say now whether my constitutional conviction would make me yield to the majority of the Bundesrat, if they should demand it.  This question has not yet arisen; the majority has not demanded it.  Whether I shall maintain my opposition, if the demand is pressed, to this question I reply:  non liquet (it is a moot-point); we shall see what happens.  Such things are eventually decided by the old law which the Romans were astonished to find with the Germans, and of which they said, “They call it usage.”  Such a usage has not yet developed in connection with the interpretation of our constitution.

Finally, Mr. Richter has found in me too much independence in a third direction.  He has been pleased to believe—­if I understood him correctly—­that the law concerning ministerial deputies would give me the welcome opportunity of withdrawing to a more ornamental position, to use his own expression, and to leave the duties and activities to those who are deputed to represent me, establishing thus also in the imperial government the famous arcanum of decisions by majorities.  But here, too, I must say that Mr. Richter will have to change the constitution before I shall be able to subordinate myself to the highest officials of the empire.  How can I appear before you saying:  “Well, gentlemen, I am very doubtful whether I can advocate this measure, but the secretary in whose bureau it was worked out thinks so, and following Mr. Richter’s advice I have yielded to his authority.  If you do not adopt this measure you will gratify me, but not the secretary?” This, too, would be an altogether impossible position, although Mr. Richter is expecting it of me.

The chiefs of the bureaus are not responsible for me, except in so far as the law of deputies substitutes them for me but I am responsible for their actions.  I have to guarantee that they are statesmen in general accord with the policy of the empire which I am willing to advocate.  If I miss this accord in one of them, not once but continually and on principle, then it is my duty to tell him:  “We cannot remain in office, both of us.”  This, too, is a task which I have never shirked when it has presented itself.  It is simply my duty.  I have never had need of such artful machinations and pyrotechnics as people claimed I instituted very wilfully last week.  You need not think that ministers stick to their posts like many other high officials, whom not even the broadest hints can convince that their time has come.  I have not yet found a minister in these days who had not to be persuaded every now and then to continue a little longer in office, and not to be discouraged by his hard and exhausting labor, due to the simultaneous friction with three parliamentary bodies—­a House of Representatives, a House of Lords, and a Reichstag—­where one relieves another, or two, without waiting to be relieved, are in session at the same time.  And when the fight is over and the representatives have returned home well satisfied, then a bureau chief comes to the minister on the day after, saying:  “It is time now to get the recommendations for the next session into shape.”