“In the government of this commonwealth, the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them: the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them: the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them: to the end, it may be a government of laws, and not of men.”

So runs the thirtieth article of the constitution adopted by the people of Massachusetts in their town meetings in the year 1780; and still a part of the fundamental law of this Commonwealth. The fine and sonorous phrase states two important principles: that in every proper government there should be three balanced departments; and that a government of laws must control not only the people but those charged with government—that is, that the rule is stronger than the rulers.

Let me begin with a quotation:

As is well known, the Canadian system of government belongs to the British type of responsible parliamentary government in which there is the most intimate connection between the legislative and executive functions, and in which also the constitution is a flexible combination of laws and usages, many of the latter more binding, and in some cases even more unalterable than the laws. However, the Canadian system of government was not always of this character, and even yet it differs in many more or less essential features from the central type. In the first place, the line of historic arrival in Canada, while presenting certain interesting though unconscious parallels with the development of the mother of parliaments, yet differs materially from the long, slow and tentative process by which the British government and its constitutional mechanism were worked out. In the second place, the colony of Canada, after its conquest from France, was first of all a definite dependency of the mother country, to which constitutional privileges were granted from time to time, and later the Dominion of Canada was a combination of several practically independent provinces and territories in varying degrees of economic and political realization. This involved a written constitution apportioning and defining the divided sovereignty assigned to the Dominion and the provinces, leaving that element of sovereignty which pertains to the mother country indefinite and debatable, a tide of imperial influence which ebbs and flows from day to day, and is subject to the high and neap tides of imperial sentiment.

The growing strength of the various political movements for limiting judicial authority over constitutional questions has aroused a new interest in the origin of the courts' power. Wherever the source be found, or however the practice may have developed, the authority now exercised by the United States supreme court does not determine the proper function of state courts in local cases, which is now the chief issue; but its study throws some light on the attitude that each of the three departments of government—legislative, executive and judicial—ought to assume toward the subject of constitutional law, and is of particular interest to the many citizens whose opinion of the new proposals will be more or less favorable as they appear to bring us back nearer to original ideals or to carry us farther away. The historical study is interesting also in showing that our forefathers in their discussions by no means adopted the viewpoint of most of the modern writers—of assuming that whenever a law is declared unconstitutional, the court is always right, and is performing a public service in so deciding.

The recent publication, within a few months of each other, of two independent works on the President's cabinet serves to call attention to an important political institution in this country, which has hitherto failed to receive adequate recognition. Mr. Bryce has stated that, in the government of the United States, there is “no such thing as a cabinet in the English sense of the term;” and the larger part of his short chapter discusses what the President's cabinet is not rather than what it is. But if the cabinet in the United States is not the same thing as the British cabinet, it is a significant factor in the operation of the government deserving more consideration than it has received.

Mr. Learned disclaims any attempt at a complete history of the cabinet; and, as indicated in the sub-title, presents a series of studies on the origin and formation of the cabinet—its anatomy rather than its functions. But in tracing the development of the composition of the cabinet, approximately half of the text is devoted to chapters on the origin and formation of the executive departments, whose heads have been added to the cabinet as first organized. A second series of studies on cabinet practices and personnel is expected to follow.

It is generally considered a sort of natural law in the political world for conservatives to govern and for radicals to criticize. In France the opposite is true; there the Left and Right have changed functions, as it is the former, not the latter, which controls the destinies of the nation. This is due primarily to the fact that conservatism in France has neither a habitation nor a name; for the French Revolution, by cutting the jugular vein of the inherited traditions of the country, had established revolution itself as a tradition. So completely has the radical spirit taken possession of the French people that even the reactionaries are dominated by it; for what is a coup d'état if not a revolutionary method of establishing a conservative government? The aristocratic spirit, driven from the body politic, has found refuge in literature; there French tradition still rules, unbroken and unchallenged. Anatole France, Socialist in politics, is yet the hardest and straightest of classicists and a legitimate descendant of the eighteenth century masters. France is unique in harboring at the same time the two master-spirits of aristocracy in arts and letters, and democracy in society and politics.

Revolutionary traditions have made France the protagonist of of political progress. To her history has assigned the rôle of proclaiming the newly-born thought of the world, for it is now accepted as a truism that what France thinks today the world will think tomorrow. And because new ideas always take on strange forms and speak a Quixotic language, France has been decried as fantastic when she has been only original. The history of the nation since the great Revolution has been a constant struggle between ideas and conditions.

Governments seldom fall in a day or wars break out without some previous “laying of the mines.” When General Savoff, commander-in-chief of the Bulgarian army, was questioned in 1911 before the national assembly on the condition of the military forces, he replied: “Excellent. Ready for any emergency and capable of defeating the Turks.” The Sobranje was pleased, but a smile went around the European capitols. For over a quarter of a century Europe and Turkey lived on in almost complete indifference to the steady growth of the small Balkan states in resources, in economic powers, and in military strength, and with a total disregard of the vital interests of these lesser powers in the settlement of that most vexing of all problems—the Macedonian question. The remarkable development in Germany and Italy along commercial, industrial and political lines in recent times is well known; but the equally astonishing progress of these Balkan nations during the same period has been little noticed by the world at large. And, while Bulgaria, Servia and Greece, in spite of their own personal jealousies and ambitions, made stead and splendid progress in the work of national development and of preparation for the crisis that every year became more imminent, the Ottoman government procrastinated and evaded responsibility.

At present neither the prospect of home rule nor the danger from Germany nor the mighty design of imperial federation assails the public mind of England so insistently as the demand for the enfranchisement of women. Since 1905 it has come to be realized that British men and women are face to face with a change of profound importance, and that the veil of the future hides immense possibilities of good or of ill soon to come.

Allowing British women to take part in the government of the realm is a question of the last century and particularly of the years since 1867, but the antiquarian traces the elements of the problem in the feudal law of the earlier middle ages, when tenure and service rather than persons furnished the basis of organization, and when instances occur of women taking part in local affairs and holding office and jurisdiction. For the most part, however, these instances are valuable now merely as the slender basis for legal argument.

There is no more significant commentary on the growth of international law, both in precision and in comprehensiveness, than an estimate of the relative authority of the name of Vattel in the world of international relations a century ago and in that of today. A century ago not even the name of Grotius himself was more potent in its influence upon questions relating to international law than that of Vattel. Vattel's treatise on the law of nations was quoted by judicial tribunals, in speeches before legislative assemblies, and in the decrees and correspondence of executive officials. It was the manual of the student, the reference work of the statesman, and the text from which the political philosopher drew inspiration. Publicists considered it sufficient to cite the authority of Vattel to justify and give conclusiveness and force to statements as to the proper conduct of a state in its international relations.

At the present day the name and treatise of Vattel have both passed into the remoter field of the history of international law. It is safe to say that in no modern controversy over the existence and force of an alleged rule of international law would publicists seek to strengthen the position taken by them by quoting the authority of Vattel. As an exposition of the law of nations at a given period of its growth, the work can, it is true, lose nothing of its value, but in saying that it has thus won its place irrevocably among the classics of international law, we are merely repeating that it has lost its value as a treatise on the law of the present day.

Presidents, governors and mayors certainly cannot be experts in all the matters with which they are called upon to deal, nor, as a rule, are they thoroughly expert in any of them; and in fact this is generally true of officers elected to administer public affairs. We cannot, therefore, avoid the question whether they do, or do not, need expert assistance if the government is to be efficiently conducted. The problem is not new, for the world struggled with it two thousand years ago. The fate of institutions has sometimes turned upon it, and so may the great experiment we are trying today—that of the permanence of democracy on a large scale. Americans pay little heed to the lessons taught by the painful experience of other lands, and Charles Sumner expressed a common sentiment when he remarked sarcastically his thankfulness that they knew no history in Washington. Our people have an horizon so limited, a knowledge of the past so small, a self-confidence so sublime, a conviction that they are altogether better than their fathers so profound, that they hardly realize the difficulty of their task. We assume unconsciously, as a witty writer has put it, that human reason began about thirty years ago; and yet a candid study of history shows that the essential qualities of human nature have not changed radically; that men have little more capacity or force of character than at other favored epochs. Some improvement in standards has, no doubt, taken place, and certainly the bounds of human sympathy have widened vastly; but there has been no such transformation as to justify a confidence that the men of the present day can accomplish easily and without sacrifice what to earlier generations was unattainable.

Since the separation of church and state in 1905 the paramount question of French internal politics has been that of electoral reform. No other question has been so much discussed in parliament and in the country, or has been the subject of so many reports, books, brochures and magazine articles. It has occupied a leading place in the ministerial declarations of the last five cabinets and has caused the downfall of one. It was one of the paramount issues in the parliamentary elections of 1910 and an overwhelming majority of the deputies in the present chamber were chosen upon programs which pledged them to the support of electoral reform. Furthermore, the present chamber, elected in 1910, has on four different occasions by large majorities voted in favor of electoral reform and on July 10, 1912, it passed a bill by a vote of 339 to 217 embodying the more important reforms demanded by the country. But so far the senate has refused its concurrence.

At the meeting of the Political Science Association last year, in the general discussion, on the subject of the recall, I was surprised and I must admit, a little shocked to hear our recall of judges compared to the English removal of judges on address of the houses of parliament.

If we must compare unlike things, rather than place the recall beside the theory or the practice of the joint address, I should even prefer to compare it to a bill of attainder.

In history, theory and practice the recall as we have it and the English removal by joint address have hardly anything in common, save the same general object.

Though I may not (as I do not) believe in the recall of judges, this paper concerns itself not at all with that opinion, but only with the history and nature of the tenure of English judges, particularly as affected by the possibility of removal on address. I believe a study of that history will show that any attempt to force the address into a close resemblance to the recall, whether for the purpose of furthering or of discrediting the latter, is utterly misleading.

In the history of the tenure of English judges the act of 12 and 13 William III, subsequently known as the Act of Settlement, is the greatest landmark. The history of the tenure naturally divides into two parts at the year 1711. In dealing with both parts, for the sake of brevity, I shall confine myself strictly to the judges who compose what since 1873 has been known as the supreme court of judicature.

The dominant fact in foreign affairs in the year 1912 was the existence of the wars against Turkey. Turkey in Europe, and the entire Balkan region, had long been looked upon as the powder barrel of Europe. Anxiety concerning the future of this region had become a constant fear in European diplomacy, and although scares were of frequent occurrence, the nerves of Europe did not seem to get accustomed to them. Every war-cloud arising in that region seemed to threaten a storm that would sweep the entire continent. It was, therefore, natural that when Italy became involved in a war with Turkey, European policy should be full of apprehensions, and should exert itself to the utmost to tide over the dangerous situation. It did secure the limitation of the area of hostilities during the war over Tripoli, but its efforts to prevent the Balkan states from taking advantage of the opportunities afforded were fruitless, and the future seemed very uncertain, indeed. But when war had been begun, the action of the Balkan allies revealed an organization so effective, a management so capable, that a new status was almost immediately created in the Balkan region.