Students of history and political science have watched with great interest the course of British politics during the past two years. To American students a certain similarity in the character of the constitutional and economic questions before both countries has appealed with special interest; for the central problem in England, dominating all others, is how to deal with new perils and tendencies and with inherited problems and traditions in the face of the demands of an increasing democracy. These matters naturally have many aspects and include a variety of topics. Furthermore, historical perspective and the use of sources now naturally denied to the investigator will give the historian in a later generation certain advantages; yet by limiting this article merely to certain impressions of recent party politics, recognizing always that the future historical student will undoubtedly be able to supply corrections, it may be possible to make use with caution of a small portion of such material as is now available to the writer. In any case it is, impossible because of lack of space and unnecessary for the readers of this journal to attempt a chronicle of events and analyses of documents already familiar.

There is something anomalous in the spectacle of the nations of the earth, great and small, making prodigious sacrifices in their zeal for military and naval armaments, while at the same time they are coöperating in a campaign to further the effectiveness of peaceful arbitration as a solution of international differences. In considering only the eight leading military powers, it is found that the vast total of nearly two billion dollars is spent annually by them for army and navy. The lesser powers are also spending more lavishly than ever before. Yet, notwithstanding the fact, as stated by Lord Rosebery, that never before has there been, in the history of the world, “so threatening and overpowering a preparation for war,” monarchs and statesmen are perpetually indulging in platitudes on the blessings of peace. Arbitral tribunals are steadily gaining in prestige, peace societies are extending their influence, and public-spirited citizens, notable among whom is Mr. Carnegie, are endowing the cause of international peace.

The life of society is a struggle for law. Where life is fixed in unalterable grooves, where it moves from day to day without change or thought of change, law is also, of course, stationary, permanent, graven upon the face of affairs as if upon tables of stone. But where life changes law changes, changes under the impulse and fingering of life itself. For it records life; it does not contain it; it does not originate it. It is subsequent to fact; it takes its origin and energy from the actual circumstances of social experience. Law is an effort to fix in definite practice what has been found to be convenient, expedient, adapted to the circumstances of the actual world. Law in a moving, vital society grows old, obsolete, impossible, item by item. It is not necessary to repeal it or to set it formally aside. It will die of itself,—for lack of breath,—because it is no longer sustained by the facts or by the moral or practical judgments of the community whose life it has attempted to embody.

As a legal concept jurisdiction may be considered the right to exercise state authority. Story says that it may be “laid down as a general proposition that all persons and property within the territorial jurisdiction of a sovereign are amenable to the jurisdiction of himself or his courts; and that the exceptions to this rule are such only as by common usage and public policy have been allowed, in order to preserve the peace and harmony of nations, and to regulate their intercourse in a manner best suited to their dignity and rights.” (Santissima Trinidad 7 Wheat. 354) It is fully recognized that all land and the marginal sea, to a distance of a marine league at least, is subject to territorial jurisdiction and that the open sea is not within the jurisdiction of any state though vessels sailing upon such seas are within the jurisdiction of the state whose flag they rightfully fly. As Story says exceptions to this rule of exclusive jurisdiction are such “as by common usage and public policy have been allowed, in order to preserve the peace and harmony of nations, and to regulate their intercourse, in a manner best suited to their dignity and rights.”

One of the unsettled questions in direct primary legislation is the test of party affiliation. Upon what terms should the voter be permitted to participate in the selection of partisan candidates? Should he be required to prove past action with the party whose primary he would attend, or should a mere declaration of present intention to give it his future support suffice?

The former requirement may take the form of an oath that the voter has generally supported the candidates of the party in the past, or at least at the most recent election. Such a test of party affiliation has the apparent advantage that it protects the party primary from invasion by members of other parties for improper purposes, and thus preserves the purity of the partisan nominating system. This advantage, however, is more apparent than real. There is no effective way of discovering a case of perjury without at the same time violating the secrecy of the general election ballot. An oath which can be neither gainsaid nor corroborated excludes only the conscientious voters, who do not need it, and admits the unscrupulous members of all parties.

A less objectionable test of party affiliation may take the form of a declaration that the voter has not participated in the primary election of any other party within a prescribed interval. This declaration may be enforced by a system of party registration, which will impose material obstacles to capricious or dishonest changes of party affiliation.

Although the peace movement is still a movement of intellectuals it is no longer confined to idealists. That fact is amply illustrated by the personnel of the congress held at Washington, December 15–17, 1910, under the auspices of the American Society for Judicial Settlement of International Disputes.

The various groups of practical men in close touch with affairs—legislators, statesmen, educators and business men—who addressed the congress were likewise liberally represented in the crowded and interested audiences of the congress.

The explanation of this change in the personnel of the peace workers lies partly in the fact that the growing waste of armaments has projected this question into the arena of practical politics; partly in the actual results accomplished by certain existing institutions, notably those set up at The Hague; together with the manifest need of additional institutions of a simple nature which it is folly to continue without. Among the latter that which in the minds of many men will do more to make war difficult than any institution thus far existing or suggested is a true international court of justice.

The conclusion of a definite treaty of diplomatic alliance between France and Morocco, in February, 1910, marks one of the last steps in a long series of moves to establish for France a vast colonial empire in the Dark Continent. Between the years 1830 and 1850, France acquired the whole of Algeria and Constantine. In 1881 she annexed Tunisia; and, in the ten years that followed, she participated with Germany, Great Britain and Italy, in the race for territory in Africa. But it is only within the past twenty years that she has successfully created a great colonial state there.

French colonial enterprise in Africa began in 1637, when Claude de Rochefort built fort St. Louis at the mouth of the Senegal river on the west coast and explored the interior for 100 miles. He was followed during the 18th and early 19th centuries by other intrepid explorers who made settlements at Millicourie on the Guinea coast and at Assinié and Grand Bassam on the Ivory Coast, and who penetrated further and further into the interior until the valiant Réné Caille, after marvelous adventures, reached Timbuktu, near the Upper Niger, in 1837. The French holdings on the Senegal were extended and consolidated into an effective base for future operations by the energetic General Faidherbe from 1854 to 1865, who added the Oulof country as far south as Cape Verde and the kingdom of Cayore, and built the harbor at Darkar. He was the first to recognize the possibilities of West Africa as a colonial center. “Our possession on the West Coast,” he wrote to the Colonial Office, “is possibly the one of all our colonies that has before it the greatest future; and it deserves the whole sympathy and attention of the Empire.”

The year 1910 continued the era of peace and comparative quiet in international affiairs which the world has enjoyed since the end of the Russo-Japanese War. The electoral and party struggles in Great Britain, involving fundamental constitutional issues, the revolutionary changes in Portugal, the political and social unrest in Spain, the development of the constitutional régime in Turkey, are indeed all facts which considered separately are of the highest interest and which in their joint effect will exert a profound influence also in the field of international relations. But as to these latter themselves, they were free from startling features and dramatic climaxes such as delight the journalist and the war-scare monger. This is not to say that things of the highest significance were not accomplished, that understandings of moment were not given definite form during this year; even some unexpected things came about, but, on the whole, international relations were placid and followed the quiet course of natural development. Yet to the careful observer of international affairs the situations and tendencies that have appeared to the view during this year are of the highest significance. Indeed it may almost be said that some entirely new principles in the action of world politics have been revealed through the groupings and relations of the powers as effected in 1910.

The term “public utilities” embraces all properties devoted to a use in which the public has an interest. As currently employed in this country today, it includes water, light, heat, power, and telephone plants; urban, suburban and interurban electric railways; steam railways; the telegraph, express companies and several minor organizations connected with transportation. In a narrower and more local use of the term, its scope is restricted to water, light, heat, power and local telephone utilities, and urban and suburban electric railways.

Central utilities commissions are administrative bodies appointed or elected for the purpose of carrying out legislative acts with reference to public utilities. In the widest sense of the term a central commission is a federal or national commission, of which the Interstate Commerce Commission is the best-known representative. Central Commissions, in the narrower sense of the term, are illustrated by state utilities and railroad commissions. Like many other terms central and local have relative meanings with shifting and overlapping circumferences.

Since the Middle Ages Spain has been continuously established within the boundaries of Morocco, and at the present time Spain is the only foreign power possessing a foothold on Moroccan soil. The three island presidios, Penon de Velez de Gomera, the Alhucemas, and the Zaffarines, lying off the coast, and the two cities, Melilla and Ceuta, clinging with desperation to the mainland, comprise the Spanish possessions.

Ceuta is by far the most important of these possessions. The fortress is built on a headland extending into the sea toward the east. On the west only, can it be approached by land. As at Melilla, a strip of neutral territory separates the walls of the city from what may be called by courtesy, Makhzen territory, although actually Ceuta, like Melilla, is shut in on the land side by the independent tribes of the mountains. Ceuta has a population of about 14,000, its commerce is unimportant as yet, but there are possibilities of very considerable increase. From Tangier, thirty miles to the west, and from Tetuan, about twenty-five miles to the south, the roads are difficult and dangerous, and there is little communication. Ceuta is kept in touch with Spain by a boat service which makes the trip to Algeciras and return each day.

The question of the constitutionality of government aid to the needy classes in the community may arise because of the existence of the rule which forbids the exercise of the power of taxation for any but a public purpose.

The general principle that the purposes for which this power may be exercised must be public is perfectly clear, but the principle is to be applied in the light of our history. Thus from a very early time in the history of both England and this country the taxing power had been used to provide funds for the support of the poor. The poor laws, as they were called, have been regarded as constitutional notwithstanding the general rule of constitutional law to which allusion has been made.

As new conditions have appeared to make necessary attempts on the part of the legislature to accord aid to various classes of individuals in the community, the courts have been called upon to determine whether such attempts are forbidden by the principle requiring that the purpose of the legislature shall have been public or whether they fairly come under the exception to the rule which has been shown always to have existed.

To appreciate the real significance in municipal affairs of the lately inaugurated movement toward city government by commission some knowledge of the general trend of American municipal development is necessary; for it is as a phase of a general tendency and not as an isolated experiment that the movement is to be properly regarded. Like most of our institutions, our city government, both in form and substance, was transplanted from England to the colonies, where it underwent the usual differentiation under the influence of changed conditions. This differentiation, however, did not proceed to any marked degree during the colonial period, and at the beginning of the national era the general form of municipal government, with the exception of the New England town-meeting system, was that of the English borough. Then began a new period, during which the influence of the federal and state governments dominated the organic development of the municipalities. That the “federal analogy” should have thus become the controlling factor in this development was due partly to a widespread belief in the efficacy of the governmental principles which it involved, and partly to a misconception of the functions of the municipality. A cardinal feature of the federal plan was Montesquieu's principle of the separation of powers, having for its object to safeguard the interests of the people against the arbitrary and ill-advised acts of public officers.

The Illinois constitution of 1870 contains several specific provisions for state-wide referenda. In addition to a popular vote on all proposed changes in the fundamental law, a referendum is required on the question of disposing of Illinois and Michigan Canal lands, on incurring state indebtedness above a certain sum, on acts or amendments thereto creating banking corporations, and on additional appropriations for the state house. The Public Opinion law of 1901 enlarged the field of the referendum by providing for the submission of questions of public policy, the result to be considered merely as an expression of public sentiment. This law and the constitutional provisions mentioned above constitute the sum total of all sources for referenda affecting the entire state.

The constitutions of 1818 and 1848 provided for even fewer opportunities for a popular vote on public measures. The earlier of these documents contained only one section relating to a referendum of any sort, and it dealt with the question of calling a constitutional convention. The second constitution enlarged the total number of possible questions so as to include two others.

When asked, “How far do you regard the present constitutional system of the Empire final?” Bismarck is said to have replied, “Final it is not. Doubtless we shall pass through the stages which you in England have passed through. But it will be a slow, gradual process, and we cannot foresee the direction which development will take.” That judgment expresses a strong belief in the evolution of constitutional government,—an evolution, moreover, which in general must follow the course of English political development, but which will doubtless unfold very slowly and reflect in its details the influences of special circumstances and local tendencies. To the general propositions which the Iion Chancellor stated, the student of comparative political institutions must give assent. Ever more clearly are we coming to see that the changes in the forms and organization of governments follow an orderly, developmental sequence.

The belated evolution of parliamentary government in Germany is entirely explicable from the peculiar centrifugal forces which prevented absolutism, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, from accomplishing its great mission of national unity. That work was left to the nineteenth century. The results of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic era were; first, the widespread acceptance of the most advanced doctrines of constitutionalism and the adoption, in most of the smaller states of Germany, of constitutions more or less closely modeled on the French Charte; and, second, the dissemination of the idea of German national unity as the only secure protection against foreign aggression.

Liberia will long be a source of permanent interest to the government and people of the United States, not only because it was founded and fostered by American citizens, but because there is going on there in the interest of the African races one of the unique struggles in modern state-building, in an endeavor to perpetuate in West Africa a government fashioned after the American democracy in which liberty shall be limited and regulated by law.

Under the most unfavorable circumstances the Liberian people have entered upon a grave and stupendous undertaking. The high political ideas and principles which they represent, the ardor and fidelity with which they have maintained them for nearly three quarters of a century against European opposition and in the midst and in the presence of the overwhelming numbers and dissimilar civilization of their African kinsmen, entitle them to the sympathetic consideration and good will of all liberty-loving nations.

There is no aspect of contemporary politics more significant than the remarkable growth and extension of the movement for direct legislation in America. While various phases of the referendum, such as advisory voting, the adoption of constitutions and their amendments and of local charters and laws have been of common use since the colonial period, the unrestricted use of the initiative and referendum whereby the people are given unlimited control of machinery for the enactment of constitutional and statutory law, is a very recent development. Prior to the last decade it was scarcely looked upon as a permanent feature of our governmental system. It smacked of Populism and found its supporters chiefly among certain faddists who sought by this means to secure, at least in a limited degree, the adoption of their political nostrums.

But the problem of the referendum in America is no longer an academic one; for scarcely is there a state in the Union but must seriously consider the incorporation of this principle into its fundamental law. From its beginning in the single state of South Dakota, ten years has seen its spread through ten western commonwealths and the question of its adoption is now pending before the people in as many more states.

A leading English economist once said, “It matters nothing to the seller of bricks whether they are to be used in building a palace or a sewer; but it matters a great deal to the seller of labor, who undertakes to perform a task of given difficulty, whether or not the place in which it is to be done is a wholesome and a pleasant one, and whether or not his associates will be such as he cares to have.”

This statement strikes the keynote of the activity in the field of labor legislation during 1910. All down the ages the worker has been protesting against being required to sell his life or his health in addition to his labor, even though he was assured by most political economists that he was getting higher money rewards for dangerous or disagreeable work; and the moralist, too, was telling him that accident and disease were acts of God to be met by prayer and fasting.

In the summary of foreign constitutional developments, published in this Review for August, 1910, some attention was paid to the movements in Hungary and in Prussia for an extension of the suffrage. With respect to these movements it is sufficient now to say that nothing has yet been accomplished. In Prussia there seems to be no immediate prospect of reform; and the Prussian government, relying as it does for support in the Landtag upon the conservative parties which would suffer through an electoral reform, has declined to bring forward any further proposal for the liberalizing of the suffrage. In Hungary the Khuen-Héderváry ministry won the election of June, 1910, largely upon the program of electoral reform, but no project has yet been presented, and the delay is explained on the ground that it is necessary to await the results of the new census which was begun early in 1911. Although no announcements have been made it now seems that Count Andrássy's plan of plural voting will be abandoned, and that the “Magyar character of the Hungarian state” will be preserved by a scheme of apportioning members of the house of representatives in such a way as to give the Magyars a greater power than their numbers would justify.