[p. 492]
The great objects and problems of the state concerning the most just and least costly kind of levies, pressing on no estate more than another, public debts, public credit — these and other things, which in other states demand the expenditure of the greatest talents and in which errors have the most terrible consequences — these cares do not plague Germany. There is found neither, in general, the superfluous interference of the state in every public expense — but a village, a city, the guild of a city, and so on, attends itself to the financial matters that concern only it, under the general supervision but not under the commands of the state — nor yet [is there found] any arrangement of finance that would concern public power itself.
The ordinary finances of Germany are actually confined solely to the chamber taxes, which are paid by the estates for the maintenance of the Imperial Chamber Court. They are accordingly very simple, and no Pitt is required to direct them.
The regular costs of the other supreme court of the Empire are in any case borne by the Emperor. In more recent times a beginning has been made of founding a fund for this by the auction of reverted fiefs of the Empire.
Even on account of that sole arrangement of finance, the chamber dues, frequent complaints arise that they are badly paid, and remarkable for the characterisation of the German constitution is the ground on which Brandenburg does not pay the increase of them that was enacted several years ago: namely, because it is doubtful whether in such matters, as general contributions to the needs of the state, the majority of votes is binding on the individual. Where this is doubtful, that is lacking which alone constitutes a state: its unity in relation to public power.
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