sident and vice-president are chosen at the opening of the first
session following a general election for a temporary term of four
weeks, and upon the expiration of this period an election takes place
for the remainder of the session. At the opening of each succeeding
session an election of these officials for the session takes place at
once. The secretary is chosen at the beginning of each session for the
entire session.

[Footnote 336: Mention has been made of the
regulation that, following a dissolution prior to
the end of the five-year term, the chamber shall be
convoked within ninety days. It will be recalled,
also, that the Bundesrath may be convoked without
the Reichstag.]

[Footnote 337: Nominally by a resolution of the
Bundesrath, with the consent of the Emperor. Art.
24. Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I., 333.]

[Footnote 338: Art. 27. Ibid.]

*240. Abtheilungen and Committees.*--At the opening of a session the
entire membership of the Reichstag is divided by lot into seven
Abtheilungen, or bureaus, as nearly equal as it is possible to make
them. The bureaus of the French Chamber of Deputies are reconstituted
once a month, and those of the Italian once in two months, but those
of the Reichstag are maintained unchanged throughout a session, unless
upon motion of as many as thirty members the body decides upon a fresh
distribution. The functions of the bureaus comprise, in the main, (p. 227)
the passing upon the credentials of members of the chamber and
the designating of members of committees. There is in the Reichstag
but one standing committee--that on elections. It is perpetuated
throughout a session. All other committees are made up, as occasion
requires, by the appointment by ballot of an equal number of members
by each of the seven bureaus; although, in point of fact, the
preparation of committee lists falls largely to the party leaders of
the chamber. The function of committees is the preliminary
consideration of measures and the reporting of them and of evidence
relating to them, to the chamber, Bills are not, however, in all cases
referred to committees.

*241. Methods of Business.*--Measures proposed for enactment pass
through the three readings which have come to be customary among
modern legislative assemblie