VI. 1871. CHAP. majority was abolished. Questions which involve some fundamental alteration in the laws of the Constitution are rejected if fourteen voices vote against them. Owing to the increase in the number of the Federal Council, Prussia could not veto as formerly such questions with her seventeen votes; and so some other means had to be found for giving her this power without increasing the number of her votes. In the absence of the Chancellor one of the representatives of Bavaria takes the presidency of the Council. The existing Committees of the Federal Council were not altered. Bavaria has a permanent seat in the Committee for the Army and Fortresses, while the other members are named by the Emperor. By the Treaty with Bavaria of November 23, 1870, a special Committee for Foreign Affairs was formed, consisting of the representatives of Bavaria, Saxony, and Würtemberg, under the presidency of Bavaria. In the countries where Bavaria maintained diplomatic representatives these latter were to be charged with the affairs of the Empire during the absence of the Imperial representatives. I am unaware that this privilege has ever been exercised by Bavaria. The Federal Council has also to prescribe the necessary orders and regulations for the enforcement of the laws, unless these laws contain some express provision to that effect. The Federal Council under the last Constitution did not possess so general a power, it being vested in the hands of the King of Prussia, from whom it was now withdrawn. A new, and by VI. no means an unimportant, field for legislation was CHAP. 1871. 71181 From the above it will be observed that some encroachment on the prerogatives of the head of the past Confederation was made by the Federal Council. The Reichstag, or Parliament, now consists, with Reichstag. the fifteen Alsace-Lorraine deputies, of 397 members, of whom Prussia returns 235, Bavaria 48, Saxony 23, Würtemberg 17, Baden 14, Hesse 9, and the other States in a smaller proportion. The elections are conducted according to the Electoral Law of May 31, 1869, which has been mentioned elsewhere. The summoning, proroguing, and dissolving of Parliament, the mode of conducting the business, the formation of Committees and their functions, the elections of the President and other officers, and the manner of voting are all governed by precisely the same regulations as existed in the Reichstag of the North German Confederation. A similar rule to that which was introduced into the Federal Council-that votes on subjects which did not affect the whole Empire were given only by those members who were concerned in those questions-was applied also in the Parliament. A change was made in the rules respecting petitions, as the Parliament now has the right of forwarding the petitions which are addressed to them, to the Federal Council. Thus every subject of the Empire, if his representatives think fit, can CHAP. 1871. Office of the Im come into direct communication with the Federal Council. The office of the Imperial Chancellor has now to deal with the following subjects: 1. All the affairs Chancellor. of the Empire are centred in it which do not come perial Posts and telegraphs. เ within the province of the Foreign Office. 2. It prepares the subjects which have to be laid before the Federal Council. 3. Questions of commercial policy. 4. The posts and telegraphs of the former North German Confederation and of Baden and Hesse. Those of Bavaria and Würtemberg remain at present under the administration of their own Governments. Article LII. of the Constitution lays down that the legislation respecting the immunities of the posts and telegraphs, respecting the legal relations of both these departments to the public, and respecting the postage, is in the hands of the central power. But the regulations and the tariff rules for the internal postal and telegraphic communication in Bavaria and Würtemberg are laid down by these countries themselves.' 'The regulations for the postal and telegraphic communication with the exterior are also under the central power, with the exception of those affecting the immediate communication of Bavaria and Würtemberg with the non-German States bordering on them, which are settled by Article 49 of the Postal Treaty of November 23, 1867.' These two countries, therefore, enjoy the revenues accruing from their posts and telegraphs, but they have no share in the revenues which the |