The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-04-19
HOW CONGRESSES VOTE.
Various Methods Employed in Euro
 pean and Other Countries.

| Various Methods Employed Tn Euro-
 pean and Other Countries
 A parliamentary paper issued yester- day contains reports to Lord Lans-
 downe by His Majesty's representatives
 abroad as to how divisions are taken in foreign legislative assemblies. Thus the ! mother of parliaments" is looking to | her children throughout the world for | hints as to the reform of her domestic
 aairs The European countries dealt l with are France Germany, Italy, Aus
 tria, Spain, Portugal Belgium, Dem
 mark, the Netherlands, Sweden and
 Switzerland In addition there are re-
 ports from the United States and Ja- l pan.
 In nearly all these countries, all in I fact but the United States the prelim-
 mary vote by calling out aye and
 mo" is absent. The primary method of
 voting, except in Sweden and the Neth-
 erlands, is by the members on one or
 both sides of question to rise and be
 counted while standing In case of 1 doubt, or on the demand of d specified
 number of members, a roll call of mem
 bers is generally the next step the
 names being marked off on printed
 lists. But for special circumstances more
 elaborate methods are often provided l In the French Chamber of Deputies | voting by rising from the seat, par | assis ct leve, is replaced by scrutin publique If the result of the first vote
 has been doubtful or is challenged by single Deputy. Scrutin publique is also | the method if twenty Deputies have previously signed requsition for it, and it is obligatory in regard to all bills concerning loans and taxation It is, in fact, the method almost invariably followed in any division of importance, and is carried out as follows:
 The President requests the Deputies to take their seats. Each Deputy has two voting tickets, on which his name
 Is written, one white and one blue the
 former being yea" the latter nay"
 The ushers, one of whom is allotted to
 each section of the chamber, then take around urns into which each Deputy drops his voting ticket When all the votes have thus been collected the Pres ident declares the ballot closed The urns are taken to the tribune, where the votes are counted by the secretaries and the result proclaimed by the Pres ident.
 If forty members request 1t, Deputies must advance to the tribune to deposit their own voting tickets. The roll call is occasionally adopted to insure great | CT accuracy.
 When a division takes place in the | German Reichstag a full quorum of 397 | members must be present. Members I stand for the first vote, and the semi | circular form of the chamber enables | them to be more easily counted. In case of doubt members leave the chamber and vote by entering through opposite doors much as in our own House of | Commons. On am otion supported by fifty members the voting must be by alphabetical roll call
 The Italian Chamber of Deputies first votes by count of members standing in their places. But ten members can demand a division of the type familiar in this country; fifteen can demand a roll call and twenty may insist on a vote by ballot Demand for a ballot supersedes that for ar oil call, as the latter overrdes the demand for sim pie division. The ballot is secret, being taken by white and black balls drop ped into two urns. The final vote on every bill must be by ballot. To save time ballot may be taken on three at once, of course with pre- cautions against any Deputy using more than one white or one black ball in each case
 In the Austrian Reichstag both houses vote in the same way. first by members standing in their places-the President Cnly declaring the exact num- { Der if required, and then. in case of 1oubt, or on a demand of fifty members 1y an alphabetical roll call, which occu- . oies about half an hour; and lastly. on he order of the house by ballot papers deposited in an urn. Members either irop their papers in any order, which { aken ten minutes, or are called up al- { to do so, when the time talk | n is over half an hour Pairing is un- $ ,nown. Almost all business is carried m by the first method of voting The I oil call was only used seventy times | n the session which lasted from 1891 4 o 1897. and the ballot is practically con- a med to elections. In Spain the vote by standing is re- 2 'laced in certain cases by paper slips l r ballot balls dropped in an urn In r 'ortugal the vote by rising is replaced q y roll call on the request of a single I member, and this is the common q nethod of voting. In Belgium the roll F all is used where there is doubt of I, Ount tlp demand of five ,,a,,, ,