Following the position which they took on this question, the members of the Committee on the Constitution supported either the text adopted by the conference of States or the project put forward by the government. It became indispensable to know who in the last instance would decide on the territorial distribution. The conference of states replied, that only the states concerned should have the decision, otherwise there remains no such thing as states. The government insisted that it alone should be the deciding power, for it was the natural arbiter between the states, and only it controlled the situation sufficiently to resolve the problem in accordance with the political and economic considerations that were involved. Only the Reich can accomplish the necessary redistribution according to a consistent plan. Such a redistribution would have to be regulated by a law. A third current of opinion in this question came particularly from the champions of the creation of a Rhine republic, who pressed for the submission of the question of territorial redistribution to popular referendum and insisted that the will of the population thus expressed should be the ultimate guide for territorial redistribution. After a preliminary examination of the question the committee to which it had been submitted presented a project according to which territorial changes would be regulated by a law, which, however, would have to be demanded either by the people involved or by a predominant general interest. It would be the Reich that would decide this in the last instance. Against this first project of the committee, objections were raised on March 29 by the states of south Germany; and negotiations began between the government, the representatives of these states and those of the majority parties. On May 29, a compromise was signed which, after slight alterations on June 5 by the Committee on the Constitution, provided that territorial changes must be accepted in principle by the states involved, and approved by the Reich. If the states refused their consent these changes could not be effected except by a law that took the form of a Constitutional provision; but this law could not be enacted unless the populations affected demanded it or unless the preponderant general interest required it. This new version increased the rôle of the states but also augmented the difficulty of procedure in any dismemberment whatsoever. It did not, however, exclude the hypothesis of a dismemberment effected in opposition to the wishes of the interested states.