The equality of all religious denominations guaranteed in Art. 12 needs to be emphatically safeguarded. Improving the teaching system in primary school as well as in secondary school and in the Gymnasium can only take place by finally enacting the Instructional Law after eliminating unconstitutional ministerial regulations and standards. With respect to this Instructional Law, as well as in regard to urgent marriage legislation, the separation of state from church must be upheld and completed (where the latter is concerned, by adopting obligatory civil marriage).
The unexpectedly large burdens that were imposed on the country in the foregoing legislative period absolutely demand that the economic energies of the country be unfettered, and that consequently the revision of the trade legislation, as has already been laid down in resolutions from the current Chamber of Deputies, be brought to life.
Whenever the honor and position of power of our Fatherland need to be preserved or attained through a war, no sacrifice will ever be too great; in the interest of sustainable warfare, however, it strikes us that the greatest thrift is advisable for the military budget in peacetime. We entertain the conviction that the maintenance of the militia, the general introduction of physical education for youth, [and] the intensified conscription of able-bodied men for a two-year period of service would provide for the complete military prowess of the Prussian people at arms.
But achieving these goals will [ . . . ] remain a pious wish so long as there is no thoroughgoing reform of the current House of Lords* along a constitutional path. Above all, therefore, this must be energetically sought as the beginning of all reforms [ . . . . ] "
*The upper house of the Prussian parliament – ed.
Source: Wolfgang Treue, Deutsche Parteiprogramme seit 1861 [German Party Programs since 1861], 4th ed. Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt Verlag, 1968, pp. 62-63.
Translation: Jeremiah Riemer
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