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Treatment of International Questions

concerned, from whom the greater part of the information contained in the report has to be derived.

'The report on foreign affairs of the Budget Committee is a valuable annual record of French policy. It is published generally towards the end of each year.

'Interpellations respecting foreign policy by individual deputies on their own initiative, or in the character of spokesmen of their political group, are frequent in the French Parliament. In many cases, the Minister for Foreign Affairs accepts an immediate decision; in others, he requests the permission of the House to postpone it to some later and unspecified date, or to join it on to other questions of which notice has been given so as to form a general debate on foreign policy.'—Treatment of International Questions by Parliaments in European Countries, the United States, and Japan. Parliamentary Papers, Miscellaneous, No. § (1912), [Cd. 6102], pp. 7–8.

II. Germany:

'Parliamentary participation or intervention, actual or possible, in the conduct of the foreign affairs of the German Empire, could be fully defined only by an exhaustive examination of the theory and working of the Federal and State machineries. The considerations most necessary to bear in mind are:

'1. The powers expressly reserved by the constitution of the German Empire to the Emperor, as laid down in article 11 of the constitution, which runs as follows:

'"The Presidency of the Federation is vested in the King of Prussia, who bears the name of German Emperor. The Emperor has to represent the Empire internationally; to declare war and to conclude peace in the name of the Empire; to enter into alliances and other treaties with foreign Powers; to accredit and receive Ambassadors.

'"The consent of the Federal Council is necessary for the declaration of war in the name of the Empire, unless an attack on the territory or the coast of the Federation has taken place.

'"Tn so far as treaties with foreign States have reference to affairs which, according to article 4, belong to the domain