xecutive and the legislative branches of the government
the relation is quite as close as it is in a parliamentary system, but
the relation is of a totally different sort.[621]

[Footnote 620: The resignation, in 1891, of M.
Welti, a member of the Council since 1867, by
reason of the fact that the people rejected his
project for the governmental purchase of railway
shares occasioned general consternation.]

[Footnote 621: For interesting observations upon
the advantages and disadvantages of the Swiss
system see Lowell, Governments and Parties, II.,
204-208. See also Vincent, Government in
Switzerland, Chap. 16; Dupriez, Les Ministres, II.,
188-203.]

*470. The Council's Functions.*--The functions of the Council are at the
same time executive, legislative, and judicial. On the executive side
it is the duty of the body to "execute the laws and resolutions of the
Confederation and the judgments of the Federal Court"; to watch over
the external interests of the Confederation and to conduct foreign
relations; to safeguard the welfare, external and internal, of the
state; to make such appointments as are not intrusted to any other
agency; to administer the finances of the Confederation, introduce the
budget, and submit accounts of receipts and expenses; to supervise the
conduct of all officers and employees of the Confederation; to enforce
the observance of the federal constitution and the guaranty of the
cantonal constitutions; and to manage the federal military
establishment. In respect to legislation it is made the duty of the
Council to introduce bills or resolutions into the Federal Assembly
and to give its opinion upon the proposals submitted to it by the
chambers or by the cantons; also to submit to the Assembly at each
regular session an account of its own administration, together with a
report upon the internal conditions and the foreign relations of the
state.[622] The Council possesses no veto upon the Assembly's
measures. The judicial functions of the Council are such as arise from
the fact that there are in Switzerland no administrative courts, (p. 426)
so that the varied kinds of administrative cases which have been
withheld from the jurisdiction of the Federal Tribunal are in practice
dealt with direc