Page:Messages of the President of the United States on the Relations of the United States to Spain (1898).djvu/105

 76 (3) The following persons may likewise he elected or designated: Land owners whose names appear in the list of the 50 largest taxpayers on land held by them, or in that of the first 50 for trade, professions, industry, and arts.

The appointment of the members of the council whom the Crown may designate shall take place by special decrees, in which the ground on which the appointment is based shall always be stated.

The members of the council thus appointed shall hold their office during life.

One-half of the elective members of the council shall be renewed every five years, and al] shall be renewed whenever the Governor-General shall dissolve the council of administration.

The requirements necessary to be appointed or elected councilor of administration may be changed by a law of the kingdom at the request or in accordance with the suggestion of the insular chambers.

Members of the council of administration shall accept no office and no title or decoration while the sessions last, but both the local and the central government may confer upon them, within their respective office or categories, such commissions as the public service may require.

The office of secretary of the government shall be excepted from the provisions contained in the foregoing paragraphs.

The chamber of representatives shall be composed of the persons named by the electoral boards in the manner provided by law and in the proportion of one to every 25,000 inhabitants.

In order to be elected a representative it is necessary to be a Spaniard, not in clerical orders, of full age, to be in the enjoyment of all one's civil rights, to have been born in the Island of Cuba, or to have resided there for four years, and not to be under a criminal prosecution.

Representatives shall be elected for five years, and may be reelected indefinitely.

The insular chamber shall decide with what functions the office of representative is incompatible, and shall determine in what cases a representative may be reelected.

Representatives upon whom the central or local government shall confer a pension, an office, a promotion out of the regular course, a commission with salary, honors or decorations, shall cease to hold their office, without the necessity of any declaration if, within the fifteen days immediately following their appointment, they do not inform the chamber that they decline to accept the favor conferred.

What is contained in the foregoing paragraph does not include representatives who are appointed government secretaries.

The chambers shall meet every year, It shall be the duty of the King, and in his name of the Governor-General, to convoke or suspend them, to close their sessions, and to dissolve separately or simultaneously the chamber of representatives and the council of administration, with the obligation to convoke them again or to renew them within three months.

Each one of the colegislative bodies shall draw up its own regulations and shall examine both the qualifications of the persons who compose them and the legality of their election.

Until the chamber of representatives and the council of administration shall have approved their regulations, they shall be governed by the regulations of the congress of deputies or by those of the senate, respectively.

Both chambers shall choose their president, vice-presidents, and secretaries.

One of the two legislative bodies shall not be in session unless the other is also.

The ease is excepted in which the council of administration shall perform judicial functions.

The insular chambers shall not deliberate together or in presence of the Governor-General.

Their sessions shall be public, although in cases in which secrecy is required each one may hold a secret session.

It shall be the duty of the Governor-General, through the governmental secretaries, just as it shall be that of each one of the two chambers, to initiate and propose the colonial statutes.

The colonial statutes concerning taxes and public credit shall be first laid before the chamber of representatives.