It does not deserve this name, for it has no power of decision. It is purely and simply a technical Council that advises the Cabinet on principal economic questions. It differs from ordinary technical Councils in that instead of being appointed most of its members are elected. One cannot therefore criticize it from the point of view of formal democracy, in the way that any parliament composed according to the parity principle can be criticized, viz., that each employer-member represents much fewer electors than the worker-members. As it is here a matter of a council of experts, the most important thing was to gather the best qualified authorities of the whole country. It is evident, therefore, that in the present state of affairs such authorities are found much more easily among employers than among workers. The relative proportion of these two elements within the Provisional Economic Council matters little since decision lies exclusively with the assembly elected by universal suffrage. Meanwhile, however, the importance of the services that the Economic Council can be called upon to render must not be underestimated. It is undeniable that, as at present composed, it has gathered together nearly all the men considered in Germany to-day as the most experienced and trained authorities in economic matters. It must not be lost sight of also that a great number of these men, aside from their individual importance, have behind them the support of the whole force of the extremely powerful vocational and economic associations by which they were elected. One immediate danger menaces the Economic Council. It is that the men who compose it will let themselves be guided on the technical questions they are to examine by party considerations. It may be divided--as is natural--into groups of employers, groups of workers, groups of agriculturalists, industrialists, and merchants. If it turns out to be an assembly of conservatives, democrats, Catholics and socialists, it is doomed to sterility. If, however, the Economic Council avoids this danger it will render, first of all, the service of clarifying the political atmosphere itself. The members will defend very legitimately only the interests by which they were charged with representation. In this way economic groups will not need to act indirectly through the intermediate agency of political representatives. They will be able to express their point of view clearly and support their interests directly. The political parties, too, will gain thereby; for they will be freed of all considerations of interest and they will no longer have to complicate technical problems by imposing on them their general political conceptions. As for the authority that will accrue to the Economic Council, it depends entirely on itself whether it will be nullified or preponderant, and its future lies in its own hands.