*342. The Senate as Originally Established.*--Having determined that the parliament should consist of two branches, the National a.s.sembly, in 1875, faced the difficult problem of const.i.tuting an upper chamber (p. 316) that should not be a mere replica of the lower, and yet should not inject into a democratic const.i.tutional system an incongruous element of aristocracy. The device hit upon was a chamber, seats in which should be wholly elective, yet not at the immediate disposal of the people. By the const.i.tutional law of February 24, 1875, it was provided that the Senate should consist of three hundred members, of whom two hundred twenty-five should be elected by the departments and colonies and seventy-five by the National a.s.sembly itself.[473] The departments of the Seine and of the Nord were authorized to elect five senators each, the others four, three, or two, as specified in the law. The senators of the departments and of the colonies were to be elected by an absolute majority and by _scrutin de liste_, by a college meeting at the capital of the department or colony, composed of the deputies and general councillors and of delegates elected, one by each munic.i.p.al council, from among the voters of the communes.

Senators chosen by the a.s.sembly were to be elected by _scrutin de liste_ and by an absolute majority of votes. No one should be chosen who had not attained the age of forty years, and who was not in enjoyment of full civil and political rights. The seventy-five elected by the a.s.sembly were to retain their seats for life, vacancies that should arise being filled by the Senate itself. All other members were to be elected for nine years, being renewed by thirds every three years.

[Footnote 473: Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, I., 288.]

*343. The Senate: Composition and Election To-day.*--The system thus devised continues, in the main, in effect at the present day. The princ.i.p.al variations from it are those introduced in a const.i.tutional law of December 9, 1884, whereby it was provided (1) that the co-optative method of election should be abolished, and that, while present life members should retain their seats as long as they should live, all vacancies thereafter arising from the decease of such members should be filled within the departments in the regular manner, and (2) that the electoral college of the department should be broadened to include not merely one delegate from each munic.i.p.al council, but from one to twenty-four (thirty in the case of Paris), according to the number of members in the council.[474] By the same law members of families that have reigned in France were declared ineligible; and by act of July 20, 1895, no one may become a member of either branch of Parliament unless he has complied with the law regarding military service.

[Footnote 474: Ibid., I., 310.]

Few of the life members survive to-day. When they shall have disappeared, the French Senate will comprise a compact body of three hundred men apportioned among the departments in approximate (p. 317) accordance with population and chosen in all cases by bodies of electors all of whom have themselves been elected directly by the people. The present apportionment gives to the department of the Seine ten members; to that of the Nord, eight; to others, five four, three, and two apiece, down to the territory of Belfort and the three departments of Algeria, and the colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Reunion, and the French West Indies, which return one each. From having long been viewed by republicans with suspicion, the Senate has come to be regarded by Frenchmen generally as perhaps the most perfect work of the Republic.[475] In these days its membership is recruited very largely from the Deputies, so that it includes not only many men of distinction in letters and science but an unusual proportion of experienced debaters and parliamentarians. A leading American authority has said that it is "composed of as impressive a body of men as can be found in any legislative chamber the world over."[476] The sittings of the Senate, since 1879, have been held in the Palais du Luxembourg, a splendid structure on the left bank of the Seine dating from the early seventeenth century.[477]

[Footnote 475: J. C. Bracq, France under the Republic (New York, 1910), 8.]

[Footnote 476: Lowell, Governments and Parties, I., 22. But compare the view set forth in J. S. C.

Bodley, France, 2 vols. (London, 1898), I., 46-60.]

[Footnote 477: O. Pyfferoen, Du senat en France et dans les Pays-Bas (Brussels, 1892).]

*344. The Chamber of Deputies: Composition.*--The 597 members of the lower legislative branch are chosen directly by the people, under conditions regulated by a series of electoral measures, princ.i.p.ally the organic law of November 30, 1875.[478] The franchise is extended to all male inhabitants who have attained the age of twenty-one, and who are not convicts, bankrupts, under guardianship, or in active military or naval service. Of educational or property qualifications there are none. The only requirements are that the voter shall have his name inscribed on the electoral lists and shall be able to prove a residence of six months in the commune in which he proposes to cast his ballot. The conditions of the franchise are prescribed by the state; but the keeping and the annual revision of the electoral lists devolves upon the commune, and the lists are identical for communal, district, departmental, and national elections. The French registration system is notably effective and, as compared with the British, inexpensive.

[Footnote 478: Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, I., 302-308.]

*345. Electoral Unit and Parliamentary Candidacies.*--The electoral area in France is the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, an administrative subdivision of (p. 318) the department. Each arrondiss.e.m.e.nt returns one deputy, unless its population exceeds 100,000, in which case it is divided into single-member const.i.tuencies, one for each 100,000 or remaining fraction thereof. A fresh apportionment is made after each quinquennial census, when to each of the eighty-six departments is allotted a quota of representatives proportioned to population. The present method of election, under which the individual elector votes within his arrondiss.e.m.e.nt or district for one deputy only, is known as the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_. Established in 1876, the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ was employed until 1885, when, at the behest of Gambetta, a change was made to a system under which deputies for an entire department were voted for on a general ticket, as, for example, presidential electors are voted for in an American state. This system--the so-called _scrutin de liste_--was maintained in operation only until 1889, when the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ was re-established.[479]

[Footnote 479: Laws of June 16, 1885, and February 13, 1889; Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, I., 316-318.]

The full membership of the Chamber is elected simultaneously, for a four-year term, save in the event that the Chamber shall be sooner dissolved. No nomination, or similar formality, is required of the candidate. To be eligible, however, he must be a qualified voter and as much as twenty-five years of age. By law of November 30, 1875, state officials are forbidden to become candidates in districts where their position might enable them to influence elections, and by act of June 16, 1885, members of families who have ever reigned in France are debarred. All that is required of a person who, possessing the requisite legal qualifications, wishes to be a candidate is that five days before the election he shall deposit with the prefect of the department within which the polling is to take place a declaration, witnessed by a mayor, of the name of the const.i.tuency in which he proposes to seek election. Even this trifling formality was introduced only by the Multiple Candidature Act of 1889, by which it is stipulated that no person shall be a candidate in more than one district. The French electorate is proverbially indifferent concerning the exercise of the suffrage, but the methods of campaigning which have become familiar in other countries are employed systematically, and no small measure of popular interest is occasionally aroused.[480]

[Footnote 480: "During the electoral period, circulars and platforms signed by the candidates, electoral placards and manifestoes signed by one or more voters, may, after being deposited with the public prosecutor, be posted and distributed without previous authorization." Organic Law of November 30, 1875, Art. 3.]

*346. The Conduct of Parliamentary Elections.*--The electoral (p. 319) process is simple and inexpensive. Voting is by secret ballot, and the balloting lasts one day only. As a rule, the polling takes place in the _mairie_, or munic.i.p.al building, of the commune, under the immediate supervision of an electoral bureau consisting of a president (usually the mayor), four a.s.sessors, and a secretary. The state does not provide ballot-papers, but one or more of the candidates may be depended upon to supply the deficiency. The count is public and the result is announced without delay. If it is found that no candidate within the district has polled an absolute majority of the votes cast, and at the same time a fourth of the number which the registered voters of the district are legally capable of casting, a second balloting (the so-called _ballottage_) is ordered for one week from the ensuing Sunday. No one of the candidates voted for drops out of the contest, unless by voluntary withdrawal; new candidates, at even so late a day, may enter the race; and whoever, at the second balloting, secures a simple plurality is declared elected. By observers generally it is considered that the principle of the second ballot, in the form in which it is applied in France, possesses no very decisive value. Through a variety of agencies the central government is accustomed to exert substantial influence in parliamentary elections; but all of the more important political groups have profited at one time or another by the practice, and there is to-day a very general acquiescence in it, save on the part of unsuccessful candidates whose prospects have been injured by it.

IV. THE PROBLEM OF ELECTORAL REFORM

*347. Scrutin de liste and scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt.*--Within recent years there has arisen, especially among the Republicans and Socialists, an insistent demand for a thoroughgoing reform of the electoral process. Those who criticise the present system are far from agreed as to precisely what would be more desirable, but, in general, there are two preponderating programmes. One of these calls simply for abandonment of the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ and a return to the _scrutin de liste_. The other involves both a return to the _scrutin de liste_ and the adoption of a scheme of proportional representation.

The arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, many maintain, is too small to be made to serve satisfactorily as an electoral unit. Within a sphere so restricted the larger interests of the nation are in danger of being lost to view and political life is p.r.o.ne to be reduced to a wearisome round of compromise, demagogy, and trivialities. If, it is contended, all deputies (p. 320) from a department were to be elected on a single ticket, the elector would value his privilege more highly, the candidate would be in a position to make a more dignified campaign, and issues which are national in their scope would less frequently be obscured by questions and interests of a petty and purely local character. Professor Duguit, of the University of Bordeaux, who is one of the abler exponents of this proposed reform, contends (1) that the scheme of _scrutin de liste_ harmonizes better than does that of _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ with the fundamental theory of representation in France, which is that the deputies who go to Paris do so as representatives of the nation as a whole, not of a single locality; (2) that the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ facilitates corruption through the temptation which it affords candidates to make to voters promises of favors, appointments, and decorations, and (3) that the prevailing system augments materially the more or less questionable influence which the Government is able to bring to bear in the election of deputies.[481] It does not appear that in the period 1885-1889 when the _scrutin de liste_ was in operation the very desirable ends now expected to be attained by a restoration of it were realized; indeed the system lent itself more readily to the menacing operations of the ambitious Boulanger than the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ could possibly have done. It is but fair, however, to observe that the trial of the system was very brief and that it fell in a period of unusual political unsettlement.

[Footnote 481: L. Duguit, Traite de droit const.i.tutionnel, I., 375-376.]

*348. Proportional Representation.*--In the judgment of many reformers a simple enlarging of the electoral unit, however desirable in itself, would be by no means adequate to place the national parliament upon a thoroughly satisfactory basis. There is in France a growing demand for the adoption of some scheme whereby minorities within the several departments shall become ent.i.tled to a proportionate voice in the Chamber at Paris. And hence a second programme of reform is that which calls not merely for the _scrutin de liste_, but also for proportional representation. Within the past two decades the spread of the proportional representation idea in Europe has been rapid. Beginning in 1891, the device has been adopted by one after another of the Swiss cantons, until now it is in use in some measure in upwards of half of them. Since 1899 Belgium has employed it in the election of all members of both chambers of her parliament. In 1906 it was adopted by Finland and by the German state of Wurttemberg. In 1908 Denmark, in which country the system has been employed in the election of members of the upper chamber since 1867, extended its use to elections in (p. 321) the munic.i.p.alities.[482] In 1907 an act of the Swedish parliament (confirmed after a general election in 1909) applied it to elections for both legislative chambers, all parliamentary committees, and provincial and town councils. In France there was organized in 1909, under the leadership of M. Charles Benoist, a Proportional Representation League by which there has been carried on in recent years a very vigorous and promising propaganda. The princ.i.p.al arguments employed by the advocates of the proposed reform are (1) that the effect of its adoption would be greatly to increase the aggregate vote cast in parliamentary elections, since electors belonging to minority parties would be a.s.sured of actual representation; (2) that it would no longer be possible, as is now regularly the case, for the number of voters unrepresented by deputies of their own political faith to be in excess of the number of electors so represented;[483] and (3) that a parliament in which the various parties are represented in proportion to their voting strength can be depended upon to know and to execute the will of the nation with more precision than can a legislative body elected after the principle of the majority system.[484]

[Footnote 482: The first English-speaking state to adopt the system was Tasmania, where, after being in partial operation in 1896-1901, it was brought fully into effect in 1907. By an electoral law of 1900 j.a.pan adopted it for the election of the members of her House of Commons. The plan was put in operation in Cuba April 1, 1908, and was adopted in Oregon by a referendum of June 1, 1908.]

[Footnote 483: It is the a.s.sertion of M. Benoist that this situation has existed unbrokenly since 1881. An interesting fact cited is that the notable Separation Law of 1905 was adopted in the Chamber by the votes of 341 deputies who represented in the aggregate but 2,647,315 electors in a national total of 10,967,000.]

[Footnote 484: Duguit, _op. cit._, argues forcefully in behalf of the proposed change. For adverse views, cogently stated by an equally eminent French authority, see A. Esmein, Droit Const.i.tutionnel (5th ed., Paris, 1911), 253.]

*349. The Government and Reform.*--During upwards of a decade the successive ministries of France have been committed to the cause of electoral reform. In March, 1907, a special committee of the Chamber of Deputies (the _Commission du Suffrage Universel_), appointed to consider the various bills which had been submitted upon the subject, reported a scheme of proportional representation whereby it was believed certain disadvantages inherent in the "list system" of Belgium might be obviated. Elections were to be by _scrutin de liste_ and the elector was to be allowed to cast as many votes as there were places to be filled and to concentrate as many of these votes as he might choose upon a single candidate.[485] In November, 1909, the Chamber of Deputies pa.s.sed a resolution favoring the establishment (p. 322) of both _scrutin de liste_ and proportional representation, but no law upon the subject was enacted, and at the elections of April-May, 1910, the preponderating issue was unquestionably that of electoral reform.

According to a tabulation undertaken by the Ministry of the Interior, of the 597 deputies chosen at this time 94 had not declared themselves on electoral reform; 35 were in favor of no change from the existing system; 32 were in favor of a slightly modified _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_; 64 were partisans of the _scrutin de liste_ pure and simple; 272 were on record in favor of the _scrutin de liste_ combined with proportional representation; and 88 were known to be in favor of electoral reform, though not committed to any particular programme. The majority favoring change of some kind was thus notably large.

[Footnote 485: The text of the proposed measure, in English translation, will be found in J. H.

Humphreys, Proportional Representation (London, 1911), 382-385.]

*350. The Briand Programme.*--June 30, 1910, the Briand ministry brought forward a plan which was intended as an alternative to the proposals of the Universal Suffrage Committee. The essential features of it were: (1) a return to _scrutin de liste_, with the department as the electoral area, save that a department ent.i.tled to more than fifteen deputies should, for electoral purposes, be divided, and one ent.i.tled to fewer than four should be united with another; (2) an allotment of one deputy to every 70,000 inhabitants, or major fraction thereof; (3) the division of the total number of electors on the register within a department by the number of deputies to which the department should be ent.i.tled, the quotient to supply the means by which to determine the number of deputies returned to the Chamber from each competing ticket; (4) the determination of this number by a division of the foregoing quotient into the average number of votes obtained by the candidates on each competing ticket, thus introducing the element of proportional representation; (5) the making up of tickets in each department from candidates nominated by one hundred electors; (6) the restriction of each elector to a vote for but a single ticket; and (7) an extension of the life of the Chamber from four to six years, one-third of the members to be chosen biennially. In the ministerial declaration accompanying the announcement of this scheme Premier Briand declared that the effect of the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ had been to narrow the political horizon of the deputies; that the electoral area must be broadened so that the interests of the nation may be made to predominate over those of the district; and that, while in a democracy the majority must rule, the Government was favorable to proportional representation in so far as the adoption of that principle can prevent the suppression of really important minorities.

*351. The Electoral Reform Bill of 1912.*--In February, 1911, while the Briand Electoral Reform Bill was pending, there occurred a change (p. 323) of ministries. The Monis government which succeeded maintained, during its brief tenure (March-June, 1911), the sympathetic att.i.tude which had been exhibited by its predecessor, and at the beginning of the period the _Commission du Suffrage Universel_ laid before the Chamber the draft of a new bill whereby the details of the proportional plan were brought back into closer accord with those of the Belgian system.

During the period of the Caillaux ministry (June, 1911, to January, 1912) there was continued discussion, but meager progress. The Poincare ministry, established at the beginning of 1912, declared that the nation had expressed forcefully its desire for far-reaching reform and promised that, in pursuance of the work already accomplished by the parliamentary commission, it would take steps to carry a measure of reform which should "secure a more exact representation for political parties and lend those who are elected the freedom that is required for the subordination of local interests in all cases to the national interest." During the earlier months of 1912 consideration of the subject was pressed in the Chamber and July 10 the whole of the Government's Electoral Reform Bill was adopted by a vote of 339 to 217. At the date of writing (October, 1912) the measure is pending in the Senate. The bill as pa.s.sed in the Chamber comprises essentially the Briand proposals of 1910.[486] Through the revival of _scrutin de liste_, with a large department or a group of small ones as the electoral area, and with the device of representation of minorities added, (p. 324) the measure, in the event of its probable final enactment, will largely transform the conditions under which the parliamentary elections of to-day are conducted.

[Footnote 486: The most systematic account of the electoral franchise in France since 1789 is A.

Tecklenburg, Die Entwickelung des Wahlrechts in Frankreich seit 1789 (Tubingen, 1911). The French electoral system is described at length in E.

Pierre, Code des elections politiques (Paris, 1893); Chaute-Grellet, Traite des elections, 2 vols. (Paris, 1897); M. Block, Dictionnaire de l'administration francaise (5th ed., Paris, 1905), I., 1208-1244. The literature of the subject of electoral reform is very extensive. Mention may be made of C. Benoist, Pour la reforme electorale (Paris, 1908); J. L. Chardon, La reforme electorale en France (Paris, 1910); J. L. Breton, La reforme electorale (Paris, 1910); C. Francois, La representation des interets dans les corps elus (Paris, 1900); F. Faure, La legislature qui finit et la reforme electorale, in _Revue Politique et Parlementaire_, Dec. 10, 1909; Marion, Comment faire la reforme electorale; ibid., Feb. 10 and March 10, 1910; M. Deslanders, La reforme electorale, ibid., July 10, 1910; A. Varenne, La reforme electorale d'abord, ibid., Nov. 10, 1910; G. Lachapelle, La discussion du projet de reforme electorale, ibid., May 10, 1912; F. Faure, Le vote de la reforme electorale, ibid., Aug. 10, 1912 (contains the text of the Electoral Law); L.

Milhac, Les partis politiques francais dans leur programme et devant le suffrage, in _Annales des Sciences Politiques_, July 15, 1910; G. Scelle, La representation politique, in _Revue du Droit Public_, July-Sept., 1911; L. Marin, Le vote personnel, in _La Grande Revue_, March 25, 1911; and G. Trouillot, La reforme electorale au Senat, ibid., Sept. 25, 1912. The text of the bill of 1912 is to be found also in _Revue du Droit Public_, July-Sept., 1912. On the question of proportional representation see G. Tronqual, La representation proportionnelle devant le parlement francais (Poitiers, 1910); F. Lepine, La representation proportionnelle et sa solution (Paris, 1911); N.

Saripolos, La democratie et l'election proportionnelle (Paris, 1900); G. Lachapelle, La representation proportionnelle (Paris, 1910); ibid., Representation proportionnelle, in _Revue de Paris_, Nov. 15, 1910; ibid., L'Application de la representation proportionnelle, in _Revue Politique et Parlementaire_, Dec. 10, 1910. See also Anon., La sophistication du suffrage universel, in _Annales des Sciences Politiques_, July, 1909, and May, 1910; E. Zevort, La France sous le regime du suffrage universel (Paris, 1894). The subject of proportional representation in France is fully discussed in a Report of the British Royal Commission on Electoral Systems (1910). Report, Cd.

5,163; Evidence, Cd. 5,352.]

CHAPTER XVII (p. 325)

PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE--POLITICAL PARTIES

I. ORGANIZATION AND WORKINGS OF THE CHAMBERS

*352. Sessions.*--By the const.i.tutional law of July 16, 1875, it is required that the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate shall a.s.semble annually on the second Tuesday of January, unless convened at an earlier date by the President of the Republic, and that they shall continue in session through at least five months of each year. The President may convene an extraordinary session, and is obligated to do so if at any time during a recess an absolute majority of both chambers request it. The President may adjourn the chambers, but not more than twice during the same session, and never to exceed one month. The sessions of the Deputies are held in the Palais Bourbon, situated in the immediate neighborhood of a group of ministerial buildings at the end of the Boulevard St. Germain, directly across the Seine from the Place de la Concorde; those of the Senate, in the Palais du Luxembourg. The sittings are by law required to be public, though there is provision for occasional secret sessions. Since January 1, 1907, deputies have received 15,000 francs a year (increased by law of November, 1906, from 9,000); and they are ent.i.tled, on payment of a nominal sum, to travel free on all French railways. The emoluments of senators are identical with those of deputies.

*353. Officers, Bureaus, and Committees.*--The presiding officer of the Deputies is known as the president. He is elected by the Chamber and, far from being a mere moderator, as is the Speaker of the British House of Commons, he is ordinarily an aggressive party man, not indisposed to quit the chair to partic.i.p.ate in debate, and therefore bearing an interesting resemblance to the Speaker of the American House of Representatives. Besides the president, there are four vice-presidents, eight secretaries, and three questors, all chosen by the Chamber. The vice-presidents replace the president upon occasion; the secretaries (of whom half must always be on duty when the Chamber is in session) supervise the records of the meetings and count the votes when there is a division; the questors have in charge the Chamber's finances. Collectively, this group of sixteen officials comprises what is known as the "bureau" of the Chamber. It manages (p. 326) the business of the body during a session and, if need be, acts in its name during a recess.

Every month during the course of a session the entire membership of the Chamber is divided by lot into eleven other bureaus of equal size.

These bureaus meet from time to time separately to examine the credentials of members, to give formal consideration to bills which have not yet been referred to a committee, and, most important of all, to select one of their number to serve on each of the committees of the Chamber. In the case of very important committees, the bureaus may be instructed by the Chamber to designate two members, or even three, each. Thus, the Budget Committee contains three representatives of each bureau. This committee and another const.i.tuted to audit the accounts of the Government are created for a year. Others serve a single month. Theoretically, indeed, every measure is referred to a committee const.i.tuted specifically for the purpose; but practically the consequence of such a procedure would be confusion so gross that the greater committees, as those on labor, railways, and the army, are allowed to acquire some substantial measure of permanence. Committee positions are quite generally objects of barter on the part of party groups and leaders.[487]

[Footnote 487: A. de la Berge, Les grands comites parlementaires, in _Revue des Deux Mondes_, Dec. 1, 1889.]

*354. Procedure.*--Immediately upon a.s.sembling, each of the chambers validates the elections of its own members, chooses its bureau of president, vice-presidents, secretaries, and questors, and adopts its own rules of procedure. At an early date the premier communicates orally a "ministerial declaration," in which are outlined the policies to which the Government is committed; and certain of the measures therein proposed are likely to take precedence in the ensuing deliberations. The hall in which each body sits is semi-circular, with as many seats and desks as there are members to be accommodated. In the centre stands a raised arm-chair for the use of the president, and in front of it is a platform, or "tribune," which every member who desires to speak is required to mount. On either side of the tribune are stationed stenographers, whose reports of the proceedings are printed each morning in the _Journal Officiel_. The first tier of seats in the semi-circle, facing the tribune, is reserved for the Government, i.e., the members of the ministry; behind are ranged the remaining members of the Chamber, with the radicals on the president's left and the conservatives on his right.

Of the bureaus into which, at the beginning of each month, the members of each chamber are divided, there are, as has been said, eleven in the Deputies; in the Senate there are nine. When a bill is (p. 327) introduced it is referred first of all to these bureaus, each of which designates one or more commissioners, who, acting together as a committee, are expected to make a careful examination of the measure.

The report of this committee is printed and distributed, whereupon general discussion begins in the chamber. Every measure must pa.s.s two readings in each chamber, with an interval of five days, unless otherwise ordered by a majority vote. A member wishing to take part in the debate indicates his desire by inscribing his name on lists kept by the secretaries. On the motion of any member, the closure may be applied and a vote ordered. The division may be taken by a show of hands, by rising, or by a ballot in which a white voting paper denotes an affirmative, and a blue one a negative, vote. Voting by proxy, long permitted, has been recently abolished. No decision is valid unless an absolute majority of the members (151 in the Senate and 299 in the Deputies) has partic.i.p.ated in the vote. In the upper branch proceedings are apt to be slow and dignified; in the lower they are more animated, and not infrequently tempestuous. The duty of keeping order at the sittings falls to the president. In aggravated cases he is empowered, with the consent of a majority of the chamber, to administer a reprimand carrying with it temporary exclusion from the sessions.[488]

[Footnote 488: A. P. Usher, Procedure in the French Chamber of Deputies, in _Political Science Quarterly_, Sept., 1906; J. S. Crawford, A Day in the Chamber of Deputies, in _Gunton's Magazine_, Oct., 1901; M. R. Bonnard, Les modifications du reglement de la Chambre des Deputes, in _Revue du Droit Public_, Oct.-Dec., 1911. The standard treatise on French parliamentary procedure is J.

Poudra et E. Pierre, Traite pratique de droit parlementaire, 8 vols. (Versailles, 1878-1880.)]

*355. Powers and Functions: the National a.s.sembly.*--Speaking broadly, the functions of the French chambers are three-fold--const.i.tuent, elective, and legislative. The first two are required to be exercised by the two houses conjointly. By the const.i.tutional law of February 25, 1875, there is provided the only means whereby the const.i.tution of the Republic may be amended. "The chambers," it is stipulated, "shall have the right by separate resolutions, taken in each by an absolute majority of votes, either upon their own initiative or upon the request of the President of the Republic, to declare a revision of the const.i.tutional laws necessary. After each of the two chambers shall have come to this decision, they shall meet together in National a.s.sembly to proceed with the revision. The acts affecting revision of the const.i.tutional laws, in whole or in part, shall be pa.s.sed by an absolute majority of the members composing the National a.s.sembly."[489]

The power of const.i.tutional amendment is therefore vested absolutely in the parliamentary chambers, under the requirement simply that (p. 328) it be exercised in joint session. The only limitation that has been imposed on parliamentary omnipotence in this direction is a clause adopted in an amendment of August 13, 1884, to the effect that "the republican form of government shall not be made the subject of a proposed revision."[490] As in the British system, const.i.tuent and legislative powers are lodged in the same body of men; and not merely the powers of const.i.tution-making, but the exclusive right to p.r.o.nounce upon the const.i.tutionality or unconst.i.tutionally of legislation. The princ.i.p.al difference is that, whereas the British Parliament exercises the sum total of its powers in an unvarying manner, the French, when acting in its const.i.tuent capacity, follows a specially designed procedure.

[Footnote 489: Art. 8. Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, I., 288.]

[Footnote 490: Art. 8. Dodd, Modern Const.i.tutions, I., 294.]