The existence and the activity of free vocational associations, that is to say, the unions of workers and employers, are not affected by the institution of Councils. Article 165, par. 1, expressly recognizes vocational organizations of workers and employers. In theory the spheres in which the Councils and these organizations respectively move are distinct, and the differences between them naturally result from the difference in the aims of the two organizations. After the Constitution, as well as before, these unions of employés and workers had as their function the regulation of the conditions of labour and of wages with the aid of collective agreements; whereas the Workers Councils and the Economic Councils are concerned with questions other than the contractual determination of the conditions of labour and wages. But we shall soon see that in practice this separation is extremely difficult to maintain and that it gives rise to considerable difficulties between the Councils and the unions. 3.--FACTORY WORKERS COUNCILS. I.--Of the different organisms provided by the Constitution, which shall be created first? Some wanted to start from above. They wanted, said these, to organize first the National Economic Council, and to charge it immediately with the important functions attributed to it by the Constitution, as in the conditions prevailing in Germany at present these powers should not remain without titular direction. They desired also that the National Economic Council prepare and propose the bills necessary for the organization of inferior councils. In other words, the National Economic Council was asked to be the Constituent Assembly for the future Economic Constitution. Others wanted to commence from below, so as to erect the edifice progressively, and not to construct an upper story before the one below it was sufficiently built to afford a solid foundation. It was the latter opinion that prevailed. On August 9, 1919, the Cabinet announced a bill creating the Factory Workers Councils. It was urgent, said the Cabinet, that these Councils be created first, because there already existed in many enterprises Workers Councils; some of them had been created by the provisions of collective contracts, others by the will of the workers which had made itself felt during the Revolution, but both kinds of Workers Councils lacked altogether a legal standing. The bill expressed the idea that the power, hitherto accorded to the Committees of Salaried Employés and Wage-Earners should be transferred to the Factory Workers Councils, but that these powers should be considerably enlarged. This bill was such as could be expected from a Cabinet in which there co-operated, in addition to the Social Democrats, the Centre and Democrats. It corresponded to the economic and social ideas of the trade unionists of all shades, ideas evolutionary and not revolutionary. From Right and Left the most strenuous criticisms were directed against this bill.