Members cannot waste time over the pork-barrel, log-rolling, riders, or minor fiscal questions. Since they all have the same constituency at law, and that constituency--the C. E. C. of the Kuomintang--asks nothing of them except representation of their moral constituencies--the groups and areas from which they derive, Councillors are untroubled by constituents or appropriations. The budget is submitted by the government to the Council for approval, not enactment. Salaries of the Councillors are nil. Each is given Ch. $350.00 (about U. S. $20.00) per mouth for expenses, without regard to mileage, and even overseas Chinese representatives receive no further emoluments. Since government officials are excluded from membership, use of a Council seat for purposes of preferment is precluded. A liberalization of representation and of procedure occurred early in 1941. A new Council--involving the first turnover in membership since 1938--was elected. Educational and other unofficial representatives obtained an additional twenty seats on the Council. The changes were scarcely sufficient to compensate for the further postponement of the promised Constitution, but they indicated a willingness of the government to meet demands for democratization. Procedural changes increased the effectiveness of individual members. A minor but characteristic feature was the increase in number and importance of women members. Partisan organization in the Council, although elementary, has begun to function. Each clique has informal caucuses; careful scrutiny discloses the presence of whips from these caucuses on the floor. The groupings in the Council are so fluid that they can be variously classified by persons with different viewpoints. (Formally, of course, everyone is either Kuomintang or non-Party, even though _The Chinese Year Book_, under informal Chungking government sponsorship, proudly lists the high rank of the Communist members of the Council--"Chen Shao-yu (Wang Ming), [age] 33, [province] Anhwei, [remarks] Member, Presidium, Central Executive Committee, the Third International.")[8] The popular classification of the Council cliques, commonly seen in the press, is based on the Four Parties (_Ssŭ Tang_) and the Four Cliques (_Ssŭ P'ai_). The four parties are the Kuomintang, National Socialist, Communist, and _La Jeunesse_.[9] The Four Cliques, which according to popular credence, formed soon after the first meetings of the Council, are based on intellectual sympathy and the interplay of temperaments, and not on dogma. [Footnote 8: _1938-39_ issue, p. 351.] [Footnote 9: Described below, p. 159 _ff._]