became the weapon of the producers in their battle with the consumers. Against this the consumers' organisations 1 began to point out that the Industrial Alliances would exploit the consumers, and that a policy of priceraising could be easily pursued without the workers understanding what was occurring, because they knew nothing of the facts of costings. In the National Assembly a member of the German People's Party rejected the claim for consumers' representation on the ground that the task of the Economic Council was to ensure increased production, and here the consumers could not help; the best protection of the consumers is always and will always remain the increase of production." According to what policy, in what directions, in what qualities and quantities, production was to be increased, was not discussed in this speech. Yet such questions were the essential of consumers' Socialism.

2

In the Sixth Committee of the Constitutional Assembly in February-March 1920 came the main onslaught of the producers' organisations on the consumers' representation. The Imperial Associations of German Industry, asking for more representation, said it could be given without an increase in the total membership of the Economic Council, by the mere elimination of the consumers, for Parliament, the workers, and the mutual claims of the various groups safeguarded their interests sufficiently. Agriculture, too, wanted the complete abolition of consumers' representation; so did the Central Industrial Alliance, and various commercial organisations.

Against these tactics the various consumers' associations, the Federal Committee for Consumers' Interests, the Federal Association of German Consumers' Societies 3 (Co-operative), the Central Association of German Consumers' Societies (Co-operative), petitioned for more

1 Cf. Schloesser, Der Konsument in Rätesystem. 2 Cf. Heilfron, vol. ix. p. 92. 3 Representing, the petition said, 16 million consumers.

representation than was already accorded them. Through the influence of the Secretary of State for Economic Affairs in Committee and Sub-Committee, the consumers' group rose in number from twenty to thirty; yet fell slightly in proportion to total membership through the great increases accorded to other groups.

a

Whatever there was of conflict in the establishment of

Provisional" (changed from preparatory" by the Sixth Committee for Economic Affairs) Federal Economic Council centred mainly on the numbers of the groups and the consumers in relation to the producers. The other articles passed the various stages of discussion with little controversy or alteration.1

We have now to turn to an analysis and appreciation of the constitution, status and procedure of the Provisional Federal Economic Council (Der vorläufige Reichswirtschaftsrat).

1 The following is a table showing the representation of the groups in the Council, according to the Government project of December 4, 1919, and the final form of the decree of May 4, 1920:

CHAPTER V

THE FEDERAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL, ITS COMPOSITION,

STATUS AND PROCEDURE

The rights and interests of a nation can only be preserved by institutions. It is not the spread of knowledge or the march of intellect that will be found sufficient sureties for the public welfare in the crisis of a country's freedom.—

DISRAELI. Half-truth

THE decree of May 4, 1920,1 called into life the Federal Economic Council, which met for the first time on June 30, 1920, in the former Prussian Upper House in Berlin. Though it is not a governmental body whose constitution, powers and status are definitive, and though it exists partly to establish a new constitution and substructure for itself, the conflicts which were solved with so much difficulty at its birth, the general satisfaction with the division of seats among the various groups, the services it has rendered, and the extreme difficulty of finding any more precise and intricate basis for its composition, make it difficult to imagine any speedy change of system for Germany, or any very much better model for argument for other countries.

The full translation of the decree has been reserved for a place in the Appendices,2 and in this chapter we shall be concerned only with a general description of the constitution of the Council, together with a commentary thereon, and a discussion of its internal organisation and procedure.

1 Verordnung über den vorläufigen Reichswirtschaftsrat vom 4 Mai, 1920; Reichs Gesetz-Blatt, Nr. 99, s. 858. 2 Appendix VI., q.v. It is an integral part of this chapter.

It will be seen from the apportionment of seats and rights to nominate representatives,1 that the assembly on June 30, 1920, must have presented a very fair picture of the whole German nation as grouped in its pattern of smaller economic and social communities. The most prominent organisations in agriculture, industry, commerce, banking, insurance, transport, municipal and national enterprise, handicrafts, consumers, officials, liberal professions, and people generally concerned (some as lifelong students of economics and politics), were represented by their best men.2 Former high officials in the Federal and State Departments and the great local government authorities, burgomasters, secretaries of important Chambers of Commerce, Agriculture and Industry, economists practical and theoretical, estate, factory, brewery and mine owners, trade union leaders, professors of almost every description, farmers, gardeners and artists, engineers, merchants, journalists (but few), bankers, shippers, lawyers, telegraphists, not to mention butchers, house-decorators, bakers, doctors and authors, met together with a purpose, energy, variety and an allinclusiveness irresistibly reminiscent of the concourse of children following the Pied Piper. In dignity, understanding, social creative power, representativeness, and potentiality of service, it is fair to say there was no parallel to this in any Parliament in the world. The electoral political process had not marred the choice of representatives. It contained such men as Cuno, Stinnes, Rathenau, Legien, Umbreit and Wissell.3

How had these men and women been chosen? They had been (save for Groups IX. and X.) chosen directly by the executives of the organisations mentioned in Article

1 Appendix VI., Art. 2.

2 To be discovered from a study of the membership list in Schäffer, op. cit. p. 186 et seq.; and Vorläufiger Reichswirtschaftsrat, Mitgliederliste, Nrs. 1 and 2, 1922.

3 There were five women members, four in Group VII., representatives of housewives' and domestic servants' organisations; and one member of Group IV., a shopassistant, nominated as representative of the Trade Union of business employees' associations.

2 of the decree.1 In this way the choice had rested with a number of men, themselves elected to office, or selected for office, after many years of service to their particular organisation. It was a method admirably adapted to secure the man best fitted by eminence of understanding a place in the Economic Council. The test could not but be rigid and searching in comparison with the method of choice by political party executives. The Federal Minister for Economic Affairs then ratified the choice of the organisation in respect of the credentials of the person submitted. The age limit of twenty was put into application for eligibility of both men and women.2 Some members were members of the Reichstag at the same time. To this the decree made no objection.3 Indeed, the intention of the decree was to foster a warm relationship between the two assemblies. The clause framing this intention had come through the debates from the Government project of December 4, 1919, which thus argued its case: "Because the preparatory Federal Economic Council is not a Chamber equally empowered alongside the Reichstag, there are no objections to allowing members of the political Parliament to be members of the preparatory Federal Economic Council. Such double mandates can, of course, result in certain incompatibilities, as when the two bodies sit at the same time, or in the question of payment of members; but the keeping open of this possibility is absolutely necessary, in order not to keep away leading intellects from one or the other body. We can even take it that the activity of the same man in the political and the economic body will serve to promote a beneficial co-operation of both and to avoid friction."

It has already been seen how the principle of territorial representation was forced into the composition of

1 Q.v., App. VI.

2 More precisely (see Art. 3) persons eligible for election to the German Constituent National Assembly can be appointed members of the Federal Economic Council.

3 Art. 3, App. VI.