The Reichstag’s decorative scheme is panelled oak and gilt-paint.  The members’ seating space spreads fanlike round the floor, with individual seats and desks exactly like those used by schoolboys, which is not an inappropriate simile.  On the extreme right are the places of the Conservative-Junker—­landowners—­Party; to their left sit, in succession, the Roman Catholic Clericals (who occupy the exact centre of the floor and are thus known as the Zentrum, or Centre Party).  The “Centre” includes many priests, mostly Rhinelanders and Bavarians.  Then come the National Liberals, the violently anti-British and anti-American Party, the Progressive People’s Party, and the Social Democrats.  The latter are on the “extreme left.”  That is why they are often so described in reports of Reichstag proceedings abroad.  The Socialists comprise 111 out of 397 members of the House, so their segment of the fan is the largest of all.  Next in size is the Centre Party, with eighty-five or ninety seats, the Conservatives, National Liberals, and Progressives accounting for the rest of the floor in more or less equal proportions.

The outstanding aspect of the Reichstag is the tribune for speakers, which faces the floor and is elevated above it some five or six feet.  It is flanked on the right by the Government “table,” consisting of individual seats and desks for Ministers.  In the centre of the tribune the presiding officer, who is “President,” not Speaker, of the House, sits.  On his left is a row of seats and desks, like the opposite Government “table,” for the members of the Federal Council.  The Federal Council, I may remind my readers, consists of the delegates of the various States of Germany.  They are not elected by the people, but are appointed by the rulers of the several States.  They constitute practically an Imperial Upper Chamber, and are the real legislative body of the Empire.  Bills require the Federal Council’s approval before submission to the Reichstag.

On so-called “big days” in the Reichstag a host of small fry from the Departments collects behind the Government and this dominent Federal Council.  The Chancellor, whose place is at the corner of the Government “table” nearest the President, is always shepherded by his political aide-de-camp, Dr. Wahnschaffe.  There is always a group of uniformed Army and Navy officers on the tribune, too, and to-day, of course, as the Army discussions were on the agenda, there was an unusually brave array of gold braid and brass buttons.  Herr von Oldenburg, a prominent Junker M.P., once said if he were the Kaiser he would send a Prussian lieutenant and ten men to close up the Reichstag.