[p. 489]
|489| its defence [is] quite as unreliable and contingent as the co-operation of any foreign power.
With the large contingents — not including the Austrian, which the Emperor, as monarch of other kingdoms, because of the weakness and unreliability of the army liable to service, is compelled to raise far above his obligations as an estate, and to let Germany enjoy the exertions and the extent of his other power — the Empire can count neither on their lawful strength, nor on their being furnished at all, nor on the estate which has also furnished its contingent not entering, in the midst of the war and at the most dangerous moments, into treaties of neutrality and peace with the enemy of the Empire for itself, and abandoning the attacked fellow estates to their own weakness and the devastating superior force of the enemy.
Although the right, by the laws of the Empire, of the estates to conclude alliances with foreign powers and to make the choice between foreigners and Germany is restricted by the clause “in so far as such alliances do not contradict the duties towards Emperor and Empire”, this clause has been made ambiguous, or rather eliminated, by practice as a principle of right, and thus not merely the deed, but the votes of the estates in the Diet of the Empire, can go to the effect that their other connections do not permit them to take part in the raising of a contingent of the Empire and in the payment of the contributions to the war.
This withdrawal of the more considerable estates from their share in the general defence places others in a condition of helplessness which compels them likewise to withdraw from need and danger, and thereby also from their obligations towards the whole. It would be altogether unnatural to demand that they should rely on a protection, and contribute
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