It must be noted first that the Constitution does not give control over the Cabinet to any but the Reichstag. It is to the Reichstag only that the Ministers are politically responsible. The other assemblies that the Constitution has created, in particular, the Reichsrat, have in this respect no power. On the other hand, the confidence of the Reichstag is absolutely indispensable to the Cabinet. If the Reichstag withdraws its confidence in a Ministry or in a Minister, especially if the Reichstag expresses its lack of confidence, the Ministry or the Minister must resign. (Article 54.) To give to the vote of the National Assembly a complete guarantee of execution the Constitution provides that the Reichstag may prosecute the President and the Cabinet before the National Judicial Court and demand that the people pronounce on the removal of the President. (Article 43.) The means by which the Reichstag exercises its control over the Cabinet are, with some minor differences in procedure, the same in Germany as in most parliamentary governments. The Reichstag may, first, demand the presence of the Chancellor or the Ministers at its meetings, whether in committee or in full session. The Chancellor, the Ministers, and the Commissioners have the right to be present at all the meetings of the Reichstag and its committees. The representatives of the Cabinet have the right to be heard on their own demand at the deliberations of the Reichstag even contrary to the order of the day. They are subject to the disciplinary power of the President. * * * * * The members of the Reichstag may address _questions_ to the Cabinet. The question must be addressed in writing, and if the author of it agrees, the Cabinet may respond to it in writing. On the other hand, it must not be taken up in public session of the Reichstag except on a Tuesday or Friday at the head of the order of business. It is then read by its author. The Minister interrogated or some one commissioned by the Cabinet replies. But no discussion or motion whatsoever may thereupon at once result on this reply. Only the author of the question may take the floor after the Minister, and then only to complete or to rectify his question. There is naturally no vote taken immediately after the question and it is not permitted to transform a question into an interpellation, as it may be done, for instance, in France. The parliamentary question seems to play a much smaller rôle in Germany than in England or even in France, if one compares the German procedure on the written question with that of the French. During the first six months of its existence, the National Assembly addressed about 280 questions to the Cabinet, most of them in open session. Most of the Tuesday and Friday sessions commence with a series of questions; some of them with as many as fifteen to twenty questions. * * * * *