The Council consists of a President, Vice-President, not more than fifty Councillors, two Secretaries, and four Clerks. The Councillors are appointed by the Crown on the recommendation of the Premier, and must either be men of rank, or those who have done good service to the State, or are experts in politics, law, or economics. The Privy Council is prohibited from having any correspondence on public matters with private individuals, or with any officials but Ministers and Vice-Ministers. The President presides. Two-thirds of the members must be present to form a quorum. Votes are given openly, resolutions are carried by a majority, and any Councillor dissenting from a resolution so carried has a right to have his reasons recorded in the minutes. In the autumn of 1896 some important changes were made. A Decree of the 24th of September condemned in strong language the action of “disorderly rebels, who some three years ago revolutionized the Constitution,” and changed the name of the King’s advising body. The decree ordained that the old name, translated Council of State, “should be restored, and declared that new regulations would be issued, which, while adhering to ancient principles, would confirm such of the enactments of the previous three years as in the King’s judgment were for the public good.” The Council of State was organized by the first ordinance of a new series, and the preamble, as well as one at least of the sections, marks a distinctly retrograde movement and a reversion to the absolutism renounced in the King’s Oath of January, 1895.[45] It is distinctly stated that “any motion debated at the Council may receive His Majesty’s assent, without regard to the number of votes in its favor, by virtue of the Royal prerogative; or should the debates on any motion not accord with His Majesty’s views, the Council may be commanded to reconsider the matter.” Resolutions which the King approves, on publication in the _Gazette_, become law. Thus perished the checks which the Japanese sought to impose on the absolutism of the Crown, and at the present time the Royal will (or whim) can and does override all else. This _Eui-chyeng Pu_ or Council, like the _Nai Kak_, its predecessor, is both a Council of State, and a State Department presided over by the Chancellor. The members of the Council of State are the Chancellor, the Home Minister, who is, _ex officio_, Vice-Chancellor, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Finance, War, Justice, and Agriculture, five Councillors, and the Chief Secretary. As a State Department under the Chancellor, the staff consists of the “Director of the General Bureau,” the Chancellor’s Private Secretary, the Secretary, and eight clerks.