Civic body · also Foreign institution
Weisshafen merchant senate
Also called the senate · Weisshafen Chamber · the merchant senate · free-port senates
The elected civic chamber of Weisshafen, model for the other free ports' senates. Matters are referred to committees of owners, reported and argued, so decisions take weeks; the ports regard that slowness as armour against capture.
The merchant senate of Weisshafen, one of the free ports of the White Lands, whose politics run between merchant senates and their harbour guilds.
Named with it
- Senator Clara Boeck
Ties
- hears the yard fraternities
- works through port syndics and yard masters
At the table
The free ports' old anxiety is how to stay free among powers that find their freedom expensive; they resent Prussland's retained trading and mooring privileges. It fears a protector above all and is split by old war loyalties. It enforces the bonded-yard bond rigidly, limits the size of armed parties admitted, hires foreign companies for yard-watching and burial-ground work, and refuses anything touching Prussland. The four senates correspond about firms that take Pruss money.