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other matters concerning its own function and organization, it initiates legislation in comparatively few cases. Nearly its entire time is taken up with considering the measures proposed to it by the executive council, to which it either gives or with- holds its consent, or may propose amendments, as it pleases, and in criticising the administration of city affairs by the mem- bers of the executive council. Even if it desires legislation in regard to some specific subject, it is more likely to request the executive council to prepare and submit an ordinance upon the subject than it is to intrust a committee of its own membership with that function.
It exercises, however, in another way, a very direct and immediate control over city administration, since it is repre- sented on nearly all the boards and commissions through which the actual administration of city affairs is conducted. In this way each individual member of the council becomes acquainted with the practical administration in some one or more depart- ments of the city government, and the body itself is thus kept in touch with all the measures to be proposed by the executive council, and with all the acts of the various branches of the civil service.
With the exception of the growing influence given to the large taxpayers in the constitution of the city council and the control of city business, public sentiment in Berlin seems to be fairly well satisfied with the existing system, and I found what I did not find to the same extent in other cities in Germany a feeling that it was a good thing for the welfare of the city that a considerable number of social democrats should be elected to membership in the city council ; for in this way it was pos- sible to keep track of the desires and wishes of a large and influential class of the population ; in this way, moreover, it was possible to intrust their leaders with a certain participation in public administration, a participation which made them more conservative, less revolutionary, both in their thought and their actions.
EDMUND J. JAMES.
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.
