REICHSTAG'S FATE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19097, 19 August 1936, Page 13

REICHSTAG'S FATE

"DEAD LIMB" REMAINS NO PART IN NAZI RULE LONDON, July B. Is the Reichstag on the eve of total disappearance? It would seem, according Lo the Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, that even as a purely demonstrative body there is no place for the Reichstag in the scheme of Reich reform, and this dead limb of the present German constitution may be. removed. As a legislative body, the Reichstag ceased in practice'to exist as soon as the Nazis obtained power, the parly's aim having been tho suppression of all other political parties in (he destruction of Parliamentary government. An enabling Act gave the functions of the Legislation to the Government, which afterwards legislated by decree. Since the Weimar constitution continued a nominal existence, the Reichstag had to be called to vote by a unanimous show of hands on amendments necessary for the alteration of the constitution, but now it has no function other than as an audience for certain of Ilerr Hitler's major speeches.

Tho Reichstag has no home, the old Reichstag building) having been turned into a sort of museum, and it meets in an opera house. Not merely is it homeless and deprived of its functions, but it is doubtful whether it legally exists any more. IF HITLER WISHES As one of the leading and best informed of the Nazi weekly reviews points out : "According to the dead Weimar constitution, the Reichstag must, within a limited period following its election, he solemnly convoked. The period running from March 27 has already exceeded that limit. We do not know even to-day when it will meet. "All wo know is that it will meet in Berlin or in some other place if Hcrr Hitler wishes for some special reason to speak to the representatives of flic nations as a. whole. Parliament, which in its form is a. mere survival of the past, but in its spirit is an institution of tho present, has no other purpose than this. Therefore, there is no occasion to dawdle away time with the empty ceremony of its procedure." The paper points out that Cabinets are sufficiently largo for legislative purposes in themselves, but goes on to show that even, their limited sizo is unnecessary, for it reveals that the recent law making kidnapping a capital offence, was promulgated because. Herr Hitler had given an instruction for tho drafting of a law to that effect.