As a matter of fact the referendum and initiative await the law which is to organize them. What will these institutions produce in a country as vast as Germany? It is easy to see that they will strikingly increase the burden of governmental machinery, and one asks oneself whether they will not incur the risk of completely impeding its functioning. For the success of these institutions, we must suppose a sufficiently firm political education and intelligence, a public that knows its wishes and how to make them prevail, a Parliament and a Cabinet skilled in recognizing the wishes of the nation and ready to submit to them. Because of the mistrust of parliamentarism, it has been decided that the President shall be elected directly by the people. He is endowed with power by the nation and placed near to the Reichstag in order to control it. But may he not become too strong, and is there not a danger that he will abuse his powers to the great injury of liberty and democracy itself? The present President has been elected by the National Assembly. Considerable as are the powers which the Constitution gives him, he is actually one of the least powerful chiefs of state in the world. Will matters be different when he is elected by the whole people? Will he be strong enough, or too strong? This democracy which does not fear the plebiscite, has expressly excluded the _monarchical form_ for the Reich and for the States. There are, nevertheless, here and there, particularly in Bavaria, monarchical plots. Will the Constitution have here, too, enough force to command obedience? It does not seem for the moment that a monarchical restoration, no matter of what dynasty its pretender, would have any serious chance of succeeding. For, until some new state of affairs, the working class, which would permit a dictatorship exercised by itself, will probably oppose every attempt at a return to the abolished personal régime. * * * * * The Economic Constitution departs much more from old customs than the political Constitution. _The idea of the Councils_ is probably the only really new idea that has appeared in the public law of modern states since the war. German law has given this idea solemn consecration and has embodied it in the Constitution. But up to now it has given it only the most restricted application. The Factory Workers Councils have hardly begun to function, and the working class has not yet any clear notion of the manner in which it will use the power given by the law to these new organisms.