Page:Statesman's Year-Book 1871.djvu/218

 1 82 GEIIMANY — LUBECK.

XXIV. LUBECK.

(Freie Stadt Lubeck.)

Constitution, Revenue, and Population.

The free city and state of Lubeck is governed according to the constitution oi' Dec. 29, 1851. The main features of this charter are two representative bodies, the Senate, exercising the executive, and the Burgerschaft, or House of Burgesses, exercising the legislative authority. The Senate is composed of fourteen members, elected for life, and presided over by two burgomasters, who hold office for tAvo years each, and retire in rotation. There are 120 members in the House of Burgesses, chosen by all citizens who are members of any of the twelve colleges, or guilds of the town. A committee of thirty burgesses, presided over by a chairman elected for two years, has the duty of representing the legislative assembly in the intervals of the ordinary sessions, and of carrying on all active business. The House of Burgesses has the initiative in all measures relative to the public expenditure, foreign treaties, and general legislation ; while the Senate, entrusted chiefly with the executive government, has also to give its sanction to the passing of every new law.

The high court of appeal for the three Free Cities of Germany, reorganised by treaty of Nov. 30, 1866, after the incorporation of Frankfort-on-the-Main Math Prussia, is established at Lubeck. It is composed of a President, nominated by the Senates of the three cities, and six councillors, three of whom are chosen by Hamburg, two by Bremen, and one by Lubeck. The direction of the Court is in tlie Senate of the three cities, passing in rotation from one to the other on the 22nd July of every year.

The budget of Lubeck for the year 1868 exhibited a revenue of 1,852,000 marks current, or 122,125/., and an expenditure to the same amount. Nearly one-third of the revenues are derived from public domains, chiefly forests; another third from excise duties ; and the rest mostly from direct taxation. Of the expenditure, one-half goes for the interest and reduction of the public debt, the latter amounting, at the commencement of 1868, to 19,403,800 marks current, or 1,212,737/. Rather more than one-fifth, 3,985,300 marks, of the liabilities were contracted in 1806, at the time of the French occupation ; of the rest, 7,385,500 marks, borrowed at 4%, date from 1850, and 8,070,000 marks, at H%, from the year 1863.

According to the census of December 3, 1867, the state com- prises a territory of 127 square miles, with a population of 48,538, including a Prussian garrisou of 615 men. The city