A study of the history of China would serve to reveal the fact that notwithstanding the great duration of Chinese political life there has been comparatively speaking little change in the political organization of the country. With the exception of the abolition of, to use a European expression, the “feudal system” which existed for several centuries before about 200 B. C., Chinese history presents no instance of any important change in political forms.

The character of the political organization which existed both prior and subsequent to the abolition of this “feudal system” was absolute monarchy, what is sometimes called autocracy. In this respect China differed little if any from other Asiatic peoples, whose great contribution to the political development of the human race has been the conception of an all powerful king or monarch in whom all the functions of government were concentrated.

The march of events has vindicated the reasoning of those who, for many years, in innumerable books and magazine articles, have been warning the western world of the perils lurking in the “danger zone of Europe,” and the present European war is nothing more nor less than the Armageddon which has at last been removed from the realm of obscure apprehension to that of pitiless reality.

The Balkan question cannot be finally settled by the outcome of military operations alone, however decisive they may appear. If the solution imposed by military force is also the solution dictated by justice, it may be reasonably relied on for permanency. If on the contrary it merely represents the triumph of might over right the decision will be sure to be contested and we must look forward to future wars. Consequently the powers which will determine the form of the treaty of peace should seek a solution in harmony with justice first of all, in a steadfast desire to secure the peace and stability of Europe.

The rise of Japan within the span of one generation from the condition of a weak feudalized state, shut off from all contact with the western nations, to the position of a world power dominated by a desire to shape the destinies of Eastern Asia and ready to dispute with other powers the control of the Pacific, constitutes one of the most dramatic stories in the whole range of history. The rapid assimilation of western ideas and the successful appropriation of all the material elements of western civilization are without a parallel.

Dr. Nitobé, whom we are glad to recognize not only as a great scholar but as a great writer of English, in his remarkable book, Bushido, the Soul of Japan, describes with great power and beauty the idealism of the Samurai, or gentlemen of Japan of a generation ago, but while the old spirit still flashes out occasionally as in the spectacular, and to us meaningless, suicide, on the occasion of the funeral of the late Emperor, of one of his most distinguished subjects, General Nogi, we cannot help believing that the Japanese have outgrown their idealism; that they cast it aside when they discarded their mediaeval weapons and abandoned their self-complacent exclusivism. The Japanese are the greatest materialists in the world today, for it is the material elements of western civilization that they have appropriated and to which they owe their success in two wars. A nation of materialists, fired with ambition and military ardor, are going just as far in their aggressiveness as sheer force will carry them. That is why Japan with her present ambitions is so generally regarded as a menace to the peace of the world.

Scarcely have we become accustomed to the thought that commission government for American cities, unknown fifteen years ago, has taken a permanent and important place in our municipal development when we hear on all sides discussion of a still newer form called the city manager plan. To judge from present indications it seems not unlikely that the phenomenal spread of the commission form will be repeated in the case of this latest development. It becomes a matter of interest therefore to examine into this innovation in American municipal government and to see what elements of strength and weakness it may show and how it is related to our other forms.

If we regard as the essential characteristics of commission government the union of all powers of the city, legislative and administrative, in the hands of a small body of men, each one charged with the responsibility for the proper administration of one of the departments, we may characterize the city manager form by stating that the immediate duty of directing the administration of the city's affairs is imposed upon a single, professional official chosen by the representative body of the city.