Full resolution (JPEG) - On this page / på denna sida - XI. The Government of Finland and its Future
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Diet work in a manner which would hardly be thought
possible for so heavy and complicated a machine.
A procedure born of experience in Sweden has been
followed and improved upon. One feature of it is the
standing committees which prepare matters for the
Estates, and which continue to sit while the separate
Estates treat the matters sent up to them. Thus we
have the Law Committee, the Committee for Economic
and Industrial Questions, the Taxation Committee, the
Bank Committee, the Committee of Finance or of
Ways and Means, and the Committee for “Expedition”
or tabulating the results of the Diet. Another
important feature is the decision of matters which have
to be decided when the Estates do not agree and there
is not the usually necessary majority of three Estates
to one, or, in some of the cases which require the
unanimous decision of all four Estates, such as new
taxes, or fresh expenditure. Such questions are
decided by a two-thirds majority of the committee
which it concerns, and which is increased to a larger
body by each of the four Estates sending fifteen
representatives. It is especially the Finance
Committee which has to be “strengthened” in this
way, and has to decide questions in which there
is a difference of opinion between the Estates. This
is a feature which might be imitated with advantage
in certain other countries where the two houses too
often find it difficult to agree. The franchise for two
Estates, those of the citizens and the peasants, might be
made more liberal. In itself personal representation,
such as that of the heads of families who sit in the
House of Nobles, is, of course, against strict constitutional
principles, but, like the English House of Lords,
Finland’s House of Nobles is a very liberal, capable,
and far from exclusive assembly. As in the case of
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