he upper,
by the president. In both instances it is made once for an entire
session, not monthly as in France, or bi-monthly as in Italy. The
function of the Abtheilungen is to appoint committee members, and, in
the lower house, to make preliminary examination of election returns.
In each house there are eight standing committees. For the
consideration of particular measures special committees are
constituted as occasion demands.

*283. Powers.*--The Landtag is, of course, primarily a legislative
institution. But the powers of independent deliberation which it
exercises are distinctly inferior to those exercised by the British
House of Commons, by the French Chamber of Deputies, or by any one of
a half score of other European parliamentary bodies. This fact arises
from the relatively preponderating influence which is exerted by the
Government in its proceedings. In theory each chamber possesses the
right to initiate legislation; in practice, virtually all bills are
introduced by the Government, and the chambers content themselves with
discussion and the proposing of amendments. It not infrequently
happens that, as in the case of the Electoral Reform Bill of 1910, the
lower house so emasculates a measure as to compel the Government to
withdraw it. But, speaking broadly, it may be said that the
legislative acts of Prussia are projected and formulated by the crown
and the ministers and merely ratified by the Landtag. There is still
some question as to whether the stipulation that all laws require the
assent of the two houses covers, under every circumstance, the
appropriation of money. In practice, appropriations are regularly
voted in the chambers, and in fact it is required that the budget and
all fiscal measures shall be presented first to the lower house and
shall be accepted or rejected as a whole by the upper; but during the
years immediately preceding the Austrian war of 1866 the Government
asserted and exercised the power of collecting and expending the revenues
of the state on the basis of standing laws, thus virtually (p. 265)
suspending the legislative appropriating power, and the question has
never been finally settled by Prussian jurists as to whether such a
thing might not again be done.[387]

[Footnote 387: Lowell, Governments and Parties, I.,
298.]

On the side of administration the powers of the Landtag are but
nominal. Under provisions of the constitution