Unique among the governing bodies of the world today, controlling in large measure about thirty-one thousand square kilometers of the former German Empire with a population exceeding six million inhabitants, the Interallied Rhineland High Commission, the supreme representative of the Allied and Associated Powers within the occupied territory, presents to the student of administrative law much that is enlightening, interesting and valuable. In this branch of jurisprudence, so highly developed among continental European nations, America has not specialized to any marked degree, and indeed the same may be said of Great Britain. The High Commission— referred to hereinafter for the sake of brevity as the Commission— is the antithesis of the legal doctrine enunciated by Montesquieu and so readily accepted by the framers of our own Constitution: the triune distribution of power, the separation of governmental authority into executive, legislative and judicial departments, each distinct and independent of the others, yet all so correlated as to make one consistent, harmonious and logical system of government. The Commission itself exercises executive, legislative and judicial authority, and not infrequently issues its administrative mandates, enacts important and far-reaching ordinances, and reviews, as would an appellate court, the action of a German civil or criminal court at one and the same sitting. And it must be said with entire frankness that it does all these things well. Perhaps its limited personnel—men, however, of exceeding high mental and statesmanlike qualities—is responsible for much of its success. Be that as it may, the excellence of its administration is another proof that the “ form” of a government is not the thing which counts, but the results of that government's action.
