branches of cantonal administration that are placed under its control. It administers the finances of the Confederation, introduces the budget, and submits a statement of the accounts of federal income and expenditure. It supervises the conduct of all the officials and employés of the federal administration. It submits to the Federal Assembly at each regular session a report of its administration, and a statement of the condition of the Confederation, internal as well as external; and recommends to its attention such measures as in its judgment are desirable for the promotion of the common welfare. It also makes special reports when the Federal Assembly or either branch thereof requires it. 9. The business of the Federal Council is distributed by departments among its members. This distribution has the purpose only of facilitating the examination and despatch of business; every decision must emanate from the Federal Council as a body (a single authority). 10. The Federal Council and its departments are authorized to call in experts on special subjects. In the exercise of several of its most important functions the action of the Federal Council is essentially judicial. This is conspicuously so in its right to examine the agreements made by Cantons among themselves or with foreign governments; and to judge of their conformity with the federal constitution. Under the name of “administrative law,” it passes in a judicial capacity upon the validity of numerous cantonal laws and ordinances, such as school affairs, freedom of trade and commerce, patent rights, rights of settlement, freedom from military service, rights of religious bodies, validity of cantonal elections, votes, etc. But there is no efficient instrumentality for the enforcement of the decrees of the Federal Council against the Cantons in these cases. If a Canton adopts a measure which the Council on appeal holds to be unconstitutional, and it declines to conform to the Council’s order, the latter has no direct way of enforcing it. The two methods of coercing a refractory Canton, so far tried, have been,--to send a special agent to negotiate with the cantonal authorities, and should his efforts fail, to quarter troops and the expense of their maintenance upon the offending Canton, until it yields; the other method is to keep back from the Canton subsidies which are to be provided for local purposes from the federal treasury. Both of these methods have been found efficacious. The Federal Council retains, however, under all circumstances, a very affectionate, if not reverential, tone in its communications to the Cantons, addressing them as “Faithful and dear confederates,” and closing, “We embrace this occasion, faithful and cherished confederates, to commend you with ourselves to divine protection.”