The second permanent committee provided by the Constitution has as its purpose the control of the activity of the Cabinet of the Reich when the Reichstag is not in session, between the last meeting of one Reichstag and the opening of a new one. This committee, which is formed on the model of an institution already in existence before the Revolution in the Grand Duchy of Baden, is supposed, during the period which the Reichstag is not assembled, to safeguard the right of popular representation against the Cabinet of the Reich. It must see to it in a permanent fashion that administration is conducted in conformity with laws, with the decisions of the Reichstag, and the will of the people. It may not sit except when the Reichstag is not in session. It has also the powers of an investigating committee. When the Constitution was being discussed, prior to its adoption, this committee, too, was the subject of much lively opposition. Some held that the Cabinet, so long as it enjoyed the confidence of the Reichstag, did not require a special organ of surveillance. This committee, its opponents went on, was only an application of the conception that assumed an opposition between the Cabinet and popular representation. It was incompatible, therefore, with the principle of parliamentarism that rests on a harmony of the Cabinet and the Parliament. But the majority of the National Assembly held, on the contrary, that this committee would correspond fully in character to the Reichstag as an organ of control, and would be consistent with the confidence and the good will on which the Cabinet depends. SECTION II THE PRESIDENT OF THE REICH The parliamentary system assumes, by the side of the Parliament elected by the people, a titular chief of state with executive power who, himself not responsible politically but assisted by ministers who are responsible, co-operates with Parliament in the different functions of the state. Basing itself, therefore, on the principle of parliamentary government, the German Constitution places at the head of the Reich a President whose situation corresponds generally to that of all the chiefs of state in parliamentary countries. The Constitution also attempts to create within the general framework of the parliamentary system, a new type of chief of state. It is important therefore to examine precisely the principal characteristics of these provisions. 1.--THE NEED FOR A STRONG PRESIDENT The dominant idea, which guided the constituent assembly when they drew up the provisions relative to the President, was this: the German parliamentary republic requires that its President shall be powerful.