Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
In view of this declaration on the part of Great Britain toward neutral commerce Count Hatzfeldt contended that his Government was "fully justified in claiming the release of the Bundesrath without investigation by a Prize Court, and that all the more because, since the ship is a mail-steamer with a fixed itinerary, she could not discharge her cargo at any other port than the neutral port of destination."
Legislative power was to be invested in two bodies, the Reichstag, representing the people; and the Bundesrath, composed of delegates from the allied governments, the perpetual presidency of which was invested in the king of Prussia. He was also acknowledged as the commander-in-chief of the united armies; and the standing army, on a peace footing, was fixed at one per cent of all the inhabitants.
Although instructions had been issued on the first of January that neither the Herzog nor any other German mail steamer should be arrested "on suspicion only" until it became evident that the Bundesrath, which was then being searched, really carried contraband, the Herzog was taken into Durban as prize on the sixth by the British ship Thetis.
On the twenty-ninth of the same month the Bundesrath was taken into Durban, about three hundred miles from Lorenzo Marques, under the escort of the British cruiser Magicienne. The German Government demanded the immediate release of the steamer upon the assurance made by the Hamburg owners that she carried no contraband.
If a Ministry, responsible to Parliament, had existed, the executive power would have been taken away from the Bundesrath, and the Princes of the smaller States would really have been subjected to the new organ; the Ministers must have been appointed by the President; they would have looked to him and to the Reichstag for support, and would soon have begun to carry out their policy, not by agreement with the Governments arrived at by technical discussions across the table of the Council-room, but by orders and decrees based on the will of the Parliament.
The legislature, as stated, consists of two bodies, the Bundesrath, representing the states of the union, whose members, 58 in number, are chosen for each session by the several state governments; and the Reichstag, representing the people, whose members, 397 in number, are elected by universal suffrage for periods of five years.
The Reichstag is a kind of Upper and Lower House in one; the Bundesrath or Federal Council, with somewhat arbitrary powers, has its private Council-room; but the Chancellor of the Empire is its presiding officer, and, with the members of this Council, occupies the elevated platform at the right of the President of the Reichstag.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking