The first, that of Lederer, signed by ten out of twenty-one members, demanded _immediate expropriation and nationalization of all the mines_. The owners of the mines would receive an indemnity in the form of bonds bearing a fixed interest, and the ownership of these mines would be transferred to an autonomous body, called “The German Coal Corporation.” This corporation is to be governed by the National Coal Council, which appoints a “directorate” to administer affairs. The right to appoint industrial heads, as well as the responsibility for the technical exploitation, passes to the National Coal Council and to the Directorate. Bonuses for production are to be given to directors, salaried employés and workers. The authors of this proposition insist on the fact that they are not instituting state socialism for mines with all its attendant fiscal and bureaucratic dangers; and to emphasize what it is they are aiming at, they propose that the mines now owned by the Reich and by the States be taken away from them and transferred to the German Commonwealth of Coal. Prices will be fixed by the Reich, to whose budgets will be accounted the profits of the exploitation--and undoubtedly the losses. The second proposition, that of Rathenau and signed by eleven members out of twenty-one, does not go as far along the road of nationalization. The present owners of mines, according to this plan, provisionally retain their property, but their rights therein are strikingly reduced. The distribution and the sale of products cease to be guaranteed by the National Coal Association--which is, in fact, done away with--and are given over to the National Coal Council and to a Directorate, four out of five of whose members are elected by the Council; the fifth, the President, is appointed by the Minister of Public Economy. The principal innovation consists in this. Whereas formerly the sale of coal was made on the basis of the individual exploitations, according to this project every mine transfers to the National Coal Council its whole output, and the net price is averaged according to the books. The National Council, therefore, has a monopoly on the wholesale trade and it fixes the selling prices. In addition to the net cost the Council credits to the mine (1) the cost of delivery and the interest and amortization of bonds of the enterprises; (2) the interest and amortization of new investments; (3) the normal fixed interest on the operating capital employed in the exploitations; (4) bonuses, fixed according to a schedule, for the increase of output of each exploitation; or deductions in case of decrease of output.