The greatest need in the field of labor legislation is the establishment of scientific standards. The chaotic condition of such legislation in this country is everywhere recognized. This lack of uniformity is due partly to the fact that, where England, for instance, has one body enacting legislation, we have fifty bodies politic, each with different industrial conditions and with different ideas as to what is constitutional. It is significant that this lack of uniformity has led to the organization of a special national association to promote scientific study of labor legislation. Forty-two states held legislative sessions during 1909. A flood of labor bills were introduced and nearly four hundred were enacted into law.

An inexhaustible topic for political discussion in the Island of Porto Rico is that of citizenship. Every Porto Rican who occupies himself in the slightest degree with public affairs declares it as one of his chief grievances against our government, that it has failed to make the Porto Ricans citizens of the United States. Many features of the Spanish rule he recalls without regrets but he never fails to impress it upon you, especially if you are an American, that before 1898 he was a citizen of Spain, and that his representatives sat in the Spanish cortes. Republican United States he declares has been less generous to him than monarchical Spain. It seems to him a plain matter of justice that he should be made a citizen and he cannot understand the apathy of the United States towards the entire question, and least of all the active antagonism to his aspirations which appears when the matter is galvanized into life by executive recommendation or congressional proposal.

There are two obvious reasons for welcoming a new and revised edition of Sir William Anson's “Law and Custom of the Constitution.” The first edition was issued twenty-four years ago. The preface is dated March, 1886; so that the book must have been passed for the press within a few months after the first general election that followed the extension of the franchise and the redistribution of seats due to the legislation of 1884 and 1885. In the intervening years—1885–1909—there have been great changes in the general political conditions of England—changes which mainly affect the constituencies. There have also been large additions to the permanent work of many of the state departments—notably the home office, the local government board, the board of trade, the department of education, and the department of agriculture. Moreover resulting from these additions to the permanent work of the state departments and the increasing complexity of political conditions in the constituencies, there have been sweeping changes in the procedure of the house of commons—changes which by 1909 had made the cabinet practically dominant in that chamber.