Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/132

96 5. Patents of invention.

6. The protection of books and all kinds of intellectual productions from spurious imitations.

7. The protection of German navigation and the appointment of Federal Consuls.

8. Railways and other means of communication.

9. Inland navigation and water tolls.

10. Post and telegraph.

11. The carrying out of judicial decisions and requisitions in every State alike.

12. The legalisation of public documents.

13. The legislation on criminal law, commercial law, as likewise the law on bills of exchange and obligations, and common rules of judicial procedure in matters civil and criminal.

14. Army and Navy.

15. The action of the sanitary and veterinary police departments.

16. The Press laws, and the right of forming associations.

The legislative power of the Empire is vested, as it was in the former North German Confederation, in a Federal Council, and a Diet of the realm, the latter numbering 382 members, elected by universal suffrage and ballot. In the Federal Council, representing the twenty-five states of the Empire, Prussia has seventeen votes, Bavaria six, Würtemberg four, Saxony four, Baden three, Hesse three, Mecklenburg-Schwerin two, Brunswick two, and the rest of the states one vote each, the total number of votes being fifty-eight.

The executive is entrusted to the Emperor, and a ministry selected by him, presided over by the Chancellor of the Empire. The ministers are not responsible for their actions either to the Federal Council or the Diet of the realm, but only to the Emperor.

Chancellor of the Empire. — Count Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen, born April 1, 1814; studied jurisprudence at Berlin and Göttingen; member of the Constituent Assembly of Prussia, 1848; Minister Plenipotentiary of Prussia at the Diet of Frankfort, 1851-59; Ambassador to the Court of St. Petersburg, 1859-62; Ambassador of Prussia to the Emperor of the French, 1862; Minister of Foreign Affairs, and chief of the Council of Ministers of Prussia, September 23, 1862; Chancellor of the North German Confederation, l867-70; Chancellor of the Empire, December, 1870.

The Emperor is the representative of the nation; he has the right to conclude treaties, and to accredit as well as receive envoys. He also declares war in the name of the Confederacy, but unless the national territory is attacked he requires the consent of the Federal Council for the exercise of this latter right. In addition to its legislative functions, the Federal Council represents also a supreme administrative and consultative Board. It prepares Bills, and issues such supplementary provisions as may be required to insure the enforcement of the Federal laws. The better to superintend the