Note A2-6-13 — Chapter III

Napoleon III. had a preference for commercial treaties, because these, as acts of foreign politics, lay in the plenitude of his imperial power (art. 6 of the constitution of 1852; senatus consultum of Dec. 23, 1852), while in legislation, his free trade tendencies were limited by popular representation. And so also Prussia, by its commercial treaty with him (1862), was actually freed from the hindrances which the free veto of the Zollverein-conferences would have opposed to its reform. Opposition to the treaty-form because too binding. (Chaptal, De l'Industrie Française, II, 242 ff.) The free-trade party lauds it precisely on this account. See the report of the Leipzig Chamber of Commerce for 1874-75, p. 41.]