Nature of Federal Government.— This long experience of federal government, which has been continuous in one part of the world or another for 700 years, has brought out clearly the advantages and conditions of fed eral success and the drawbacks of the federal system as compared with the unitary system. In fact some federations, such as South Africa, are little more than one state divided into dis tricts which enjoy self-government upon some subjects. Thence the character of the federa tion varies till at the other pole may be found a government like the Confederation of the United States from 1781 to 1788—a group of states which have committed certain general functions to a central authority.
An effort has been made by German publi cists to classify federations into the two types of staatenbund and bundesstaat — league of states and federal state. The importance of this classification is that it calls attention to the relative influence of the two forces, centrifugal and centripetal, which act against each other in every combination of states.
It is impossible to bring all the various fed erations within these two types; some writers have set up a third type, the staatenstaat or union of states, thereby intending to set apart combinations in which the federal tie is strong but concerns itself with communities and not with individuals. There is no fixed criterion for deciding whether a given composite state is a weak centralized power, a true federation or a live combination of small sovereign states. The Austria-Hungarian Empire with its sharp division into two great states, each of which is made up of several communities, which are neither states nor administrative districts, cannot be brought within any of the common definitions of federal government, yet is cer tainly not unitary.
All federations attempt to make their status clear by a formal subdivision of the powers of government between the national and the state governments. The lack of clearness and defi niteness in this regard is one of the main rea sons for the decay of the mediaeval confeder ations, all of which had constitutional docu ments, but none of them a well-jointed division of powers. In the 18th century the presumption was that all governmental powers were vested in the states, unless the federation could point to specific grants of power. This principle was carried over into the Federal Constitution of the United States; only here the specific grants were large and included independent authority over foreign affairs, war, finance and commerce.
The principle that the federal government has only delegated powers is also that of the Swiss and German constitutions. In the Canadtan colonial federation, however, the opposite prin ciple was adopted: the Dominion exercises all the powers that are not specifically assignedto.
ri the provinces; and this principle is less explic- itly followed in the South Africa constitution; while the Australian enumerates 39 federal Powers whit* include, a grat parr of the field of government.
Power over Individuals.— One of the dis tinctions drawn between a staatenbund and a bundestaat is that the former establishes rela tions between the central government and the states as units; while the latter type includes also direct governmental relations with indi viduals, such as the obligation of military serv ice, of taxes and in some federations of direct responsibility to the civil and criminal laws of the federation. Furthermore all the federa tions have a federal citizenship, which includes federal control of naturalization and over aliens. Some, relics of state citizenship are still to be found, such as the protection of the persons and property of aliens by our state gov ernments instead of the national governments. In general, however, all federations have the acknowledged power to compel the allegiance and service of all citizens within their bounda ries. This includes authority over immigration in all the existing federations, which is vital in the American and British colonial unions. Race questions, such as the status of negroes and Asiatics, are also decided by the federal governments.
Foreign and War Powers.—Two fields of authority in which the federations go far are foreign relations, and war and defense. In all federations worthy of the name, external rela tions are in the hands of the central power, which makes treaties, commissions diplomatic representatives and decides upon a foreign pol icy. Several of the German states still have the nominal right to send ministers and consuls, but they do not exercise it. In the three Brit ish colonial federations, the foreign powers are in the hands of the home government, but it has become the practice to call in a representa tive of the federations in negotiations which especially concern them, and to consult their interest in treaties.