tailed provisions of the Military Convention of 21-25 November 18701 (Bundesgesetzblatt, 1870, p. 658).

XII. FINANCES OF THE EMPIRE.

ART. 69. All receipts and expenditures of the Empire shall be estimated for each year, and included in the imperial budget. The latter shall be fixed by law before the beginning of the fiscal year, in accordance with the following principles.

ART. 70. For the defrayal of all common expenses there shall serve first of all the joint revenues derived from customs duties, from common taxes, from the railway, postal and telegraphic systems, and from the other branches of the administration. In so far as the expenditures are not covered by such receipts, they shall be met by contributions from the several States of the Confederation in proportion to their population, such contributions to be fixed by the Imperial Chancellor, with reference to the total amount established by the budget. In so far as these contributions are not used, they shall be repaid to the States at the end of the year, in proportion as the other regular receipts of the Empire exceed its needs.

Any surpluses from preceding years shall be used, in so far as the imperial budgetary law does not otherwise provide, for defraying the joint extraordinary expenses.2

ART. 71. The general appropriations shall, as a rule, be granted for one year; they may, however, in special cases, be granted for a longer period.

During the period of transition fixed by Article 60, the properly classified budget of the expenditures of the army shall be laid before the Bundesrat and the Reichstag merely for their information.

ART. 72. For the purpose of discharge an annual report of the expenditure of all the revenues of the Empire shall be presented, through the Imperial Chancellor, to the Bundesrat and the Reichstag, for their approval.

ART. 73. In cases of extraordinary need, a loan may be contracted or a guaranty assumed as a charge upon the Empire, by means of imperial legislation.

FINAL PROVISION OF SECTION XII.

Articles 69 and 71 shall apply to expenditures for the Bavarian army only according to the provisions of the Treaty of 23 November 1870, mentioned in the final provision of Section XI; and Article 72 shall apply only to the extent that the Bundesrat and the Reichstag

1 English translation in the British and Foreign State Papers, 61: pp. 131-135.

2 As amended by the Laws of 14 May 1904 and 3 June 1906.

shall be informed that the sum necessary for the Bavarian army has been assigned to Bavaria.

XIII. SETTLEMENT OF DISPUTES AND PENAL PROVISIONS.

ART. 74. Every attempt against the existence, the integrity, the security or the Constitution of the German Empire; finally, any offense committed against the Bundesrat, Reichstag, a member of the Bundesrat or of the Reichstag, an authority or a public officer of the Empire, while in the execution of their duty or with reference to their official position, by word, writing, printing, drawing, pictorial or other representation, shall be judged and punished in the several States of the Confederation in accordance with the laws therein existing or which may hereafter be enacted, by which provision is made for the trial of similar offenses against any one of the States of the Confederation, its constitution, its legislature or estates, the members of its legislature or its estates, its authorities and officers.

ART. 75. For those offenses against the German Empire, specified in Article 74, which, if committed against one of the States of the Empire, would be considered high treason or treason against the State, the Superior Court of Appeals of the three free Hanse cities, at Lübeck, shall be the competent deciding tribunal in the first and last instance.

More definite provisions as to the competency and the procedure of the Superior Court of Appeals shall be made by Imperial legislation. Until the passage of an Imperial law, the existing jurisdiction of the courts in the respective States, and the provisions relative to the procedure of these courts shall remain as at present.1

ART. 76. Disputes between the several States of the Confederation, so far as they do not relate to matters of private law, and are therefore to be decided by the competent judicial authorities, shall be adjusted by the Bundesrat, at the request of one of the parties.

In disputes relating to constitutional matters in those States of the Confederation whose constitution does not designate an authority for the settlement of such differences, the Bundesrat shall, at the request of one of the parties, effect an amicable adjustment, or, if this can not be done, the matter shall be settled by imperial law.

ART. 77. If justice is denied in one of the States of the Confederation, and sufficient relief can not be procured by legal measures, it shall be the duty of the Bundesrat to receive substantiated complaints concerning denial or restriction of justice, which shall be proven according to the constitution and the existing laws of the respective States of the Confederation, and thereupon to obtain judicial relief

1 The criminal competence of the Superior Court of Appeals at Lübeck disappeared with the creation of the Supreme Court of the Empire.

from the State government which shall have given occasion to the complaint.

XIV. GENERAL PROVISIONS.

ART. 78. Amendments of the Constitution shall be made by legislative enactment. They shall be considered as rejected when 14 votes are cast against them in the Bundesrat.

The provisions of the Constitution of the Empire, by which certain rights are secured to particular States of the Confederation in their relation to the whole, may be amended only with the consent of the States affected.

GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND.

There is no Constitution in England, if by this expression is meant a fundamental law organizing the powers of the State and fixing the bases of public law. At no period in their history have the English considered it necessary or expedient to present their political system under the form of a solemn act, setting forth abstract theories or containing the construction of an entirely new political edifice. There are, it is true, certain famous historical documents, each of which marks a step in the progress of English institutions. Such are notably the Great Charter of Liberty, the Petition of Right, the Bill of Rights and the Act of Settlement. But it must be noticed that none of them herald the settlement of anything new; on the contrary, it is repeated with a peculiar insistence that the rights and liberties which it has seemed necessary to proclaim anew are ancient rights which the English people have always enjoyed.

The rules of the English Constitution can be found in no single written document, for it is built upon old laws and precedents. Therefore, it would be manifestly impossible to include all such laws in a work of this character. Besides the laws which are printed here in text or translation, it will be sufficient to enumerate certain Acts of Parliament upon constitutional matters:

The 39 articles governing the Constitution of the English church voted by the clergy in 1562 and converted into law of the realm in 1571 [13 Elizabeth, c. 12].

An Act for an Union of the Two Kingdoms of England and Scotland of 16 May 1707 [6 Anne, c. 11].

An Act for rendring the Union of the Two Kingdoms more intire and complete of 1707 [6 Anne, c. 40].

The Act for Union of Great Britain and Ireland of 2 July 1800 [39 & 40 George III, c. 67, amended by 21 & 22 Victoria, c. 26, and by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1871].

An Act for the Relief of His Majesty's Roman Catholic Subjects of 24 June 1829 [10 George IV, c. 7].

An Act to amend the Representation of the People in England and Wales of 7 June 1832 [2 William IV, c. 45], of the People in Scotland of 17 July 1832 [2 William IV, c. 65], of the People in Ireland of 7 August 1832 [2 William IV, c. 88].

An Act further to amend the Laws relating to the representation of the People in England and Wales of 15 August 1867 [30 & 31 Victoria, c. 102].

An Act to amend the Law relating to the Representation of the People of the United Kingdom of 6 December 1884 [48 Victoria, c. 3]. This was followed by a series of laws passed in 1885 of which the chief ones are: The Registration Acts [48 & 49 Victoria, c. 15, 16 and 17] and the Redistribution of Seats Act [48 & 49 Tictoria, c. 23].1

1

GREAT CHARTER OF LIBERTIES OF 11 FEBRUARY 1225.2

[PREAMBLE.]

Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Guyan, and Earl of Anjou, to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, sheriffs, reeves, servants, and all bailiffs and his faithful subjects, which shall see this present Charter, greeting. Know that by the suggestion of God, and for the salvation of our soul and the souls of our predecessors and successors, to the exaltation of Holy Church and improvement of our realm, of our own free good will, we have given and granted to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, and to all of our realm these liberties written below, to be kept in our Kingdom of England for

ever.

ARTICLE 1. In the first place we have granted to God, and by this our present Charter have confirmed, for us and our heirs forever, that the English Church shall be free and shall have all its rights entire and its liberties uninjured. We have granted also and given to all free men of our realm, for us and our heirs forever, these liberties written below, to be had and be holden by them and their heirs from us and our heirs forever.

ARTS. 2-6.3

1 These introductory paragraphs are based upon F. R. DARESTE ET P. DARESTE, Les Constitutions modernes (3d edition, Paris, 1910), vol. I, pp. 46–51. Since the present work contains only documents of a constitutional nature, and since an adequate outline of the Constitution of Great Britain is to be derived from such a multitude of sources, the reader is therefore referred to an article in English by LOUIS HAMILTON in PAUL POSENER, Die Staatsverfassungen des Erdballs (Charlottenburg, 1909), pp. 601-629, to the authorities there cited and to the authorities cited in DARESTE, op. cit., pp. 70-72.

2 of the 37 articles composing the Great Charter of Henry III, 22 are now considered as repealed and have been so declared by the Statutes of Parliament, notably by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863 [26 & 27 Victoria, c. 125.] The Great Charter has been confirmed a number of times, but these confirmations all carry forward the text of 1225, the Charter of 1215 containing provisions not reproduced in subsequent confirmations. The translation given here is based upon the Latin text and English translation of the Charter of 1297 [25 Edward I], confirming the Charter of Henry III [9 Henry III), in The Statutes: Second Revised Edition, vol. I (London, 1888), pp. 44–53. French translation of this and the following documents appears in DARESTE, op. cit., pp. 52-70. 3 Repealed by the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863.