Everyone has heard the gibe that the specialist is a man who knows more and more about less and less, while a sociologist is one who knows less and less about more and more. Another quip has it that while psychology is all data and no conclusions, sociology is all conclusions and no data. Political science itself has not escaped a certain amount of cheap disparagement from those who know little or nothing about it. Thus a political scientist has been described as one who among politicians is reckoned a scientist, and among scientists is reckoned a politician; or, indeed, as one who is called a political scientist because he is neither—an obvious paraphrase of Voltaire's famous sarcasm regarding the Holy Roman Empire. At any rate, the time has come when a certain group of political scientists have wearied of such gibes, to say nothing of that condescension which they think they detect in the attitude of laboratory scientists toward them; and they have registered a vow to convert political science from a “normative” or “telic” science, as it has been variously called, into a natural science, into a science which will hereafter be printed in lower case instead of in upper, and will, moreover (the height of ambition of all true sciences) be able to predict the future just as astronomy, physics, and chemistry are able to do—not to mention astrology, alchemy, and palmistry. Nor is this newly conceived ambition the product merely of discontent; it is rather more, perhaps, response to the beckoning of opportunity—the opportunity spelled by the rise of the behavioristic psychology.

The first of these papers carried a warning against conceiving social order in an absolute sense. It does not mean suppression of all forms of competition and defeat, but only the protection of selected human interests at the expense of others. Even taking order in this limited sense, it was found that custom and voluntary adjustment furnishan incomplete apparatus for its furtherance. The effectiveness of custom was seen to be connected with the auxiliary activity of an organ of leadership to serve as a focus for the radiation of custom, and a pivot for change. Voluntary adjustment, while capable of resolving many interest-conflicts beyond the reach of custom, was also found to rely largely on the initiatory activity of an organ of mediation. Finally, we have thus far considered social order primarily from the point of view of the prevention or adjustment of direct conflicts of interests between individuals.

The functioning of a social group requires more than that its members should refrain from what other members resent as invasions of their interests. If the advantages of group life are to be reaped, it is necessary that at many points the group should, aswe say, act as a unit, which means that each member should so shape his conduct with reference to the conduct of others that the acts of all, when thus geared together, will produce an aggregate or group result. This gearing together of the acts of separate individuals is what is commonly called “coöperation.” Coöperation has value only as it furthers interests which belong to individuals.

The purpose of this article is to describe the principal provisions of the Local Government Act recently passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, and to give some account of the forces behind the changes, without in any way touching on the controversies of political parties. The hand and brain of man have speeded up life; social conditions change ever more rapidly, and social institutions must change with them, those of government included, though some seem to believe that they are as the rocks of the ages. The Local Government Act contains 138 sections and 12 schedules, and there is room in this paper for only the more important of its provisions.

There has been in Britain for many years a steady stream of discussion, indeed at times floods, on needed changes in the structure of local government. Minds were prepared, therefore, for reforms, even if some people had almost come to the conclusion that the obstacles would prevent more than proposals. Whatever the differences of political parties, there has been a current of continuity in the development of local government throughout the big changes of the last century. Political wind and weather may have given a twist to a branch here and there, but the main outline of the old tree has been fixed by deeper causes; the big changes have been produced by underlying social conditions, independent of party; and the Local Government Act, in most of its provisions, will be found to be in line with this continuity, whatever the conflicting views on matters of detail.

The rapid development of administrative law during this century has meant a multiplication of administrative tribunals. The functions of these bodies vary widely. Some have regulatory powers, others only fact-finding authority. The Interstate Commerce Commission may fix rates; the Tariff Commission may only investigate differences in costs of production.

In all such cases, however, there is fundamentally the same motivation behind their creation. The complexity, technicality, constant fluctuations, and expanding scope of the problems that confront Congress have compelled it to devolve some of its authority upon other bodies, and in some cases to set up agencies for the collection of data as a basis for decision. These very same factors have made our traditional trial courts unsuitable agencies for the exercise of powers thus devolved, and politically controlled bureaus unfit for the investigation of politically significant facts. Congress, therefore, has set up specialized bodies, which are to be manned by experts in particular fields, supplied with elaborate means of research, and authorized to act upon the best obtainable information and opinion. The purpose is thus clearly to cause scientific methods and expert judgment to be brought to bear to the maximum extent possible.

It is submitted that for this purpose to be carried out—for the duties of these tribunals to be performed under the influence of the “judicial habit of thought”—it is essential that the members be guaranteed independence in the exercise of their personal judgment, uninfluenced by direct pressure from political superiors or special interests. And it is a matter of common experience that independence of tenure is a prerequisite of independence of judgment.

In 1803 the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Marshall, refused to enforce an act of Congress on the ground that it conflicted with the Constitution. This decision was noteworthy in that it was the first occasion on which the Supreme Court asserted such a right, and it has since come to be looked upon as the cornerstone of judicial supremacy.

The accuracy of the Chief Justice's reasoning has been attacked on various grounds, and it has been pointed out that every argument used by him in favor of judicial review begins by assuming the whole ground in dispute. Very few authorities who have taken this view have asserted that the courts have usurped this power. Obviously nothing could be farther from the truth. A course of action which had the backing of nearly every influential member of the Constitutional Convention, which was frequently stated, generally without opposition, in the various ratifying conventions, and which was very clearly set forth in the Federalist, cannot be said to be a “usurpation of power” in any sense of the term. However, authorities do point out that the true explanation of this power of our courts is not to be found in the mere fact that we have a written constitution which is the “supreme law.” Marshall himself recognized this shortly after the Marbury case, when he gave equal weight to the “general principles which are common to our free institutions” along with “the particular provisions of the Constitution of the United States,” on the theory that “the nature of society and of government …. prescribe some limits to the legislative power.”

The special Senate committee investigating presidential campaign expenditures presented its report on February 28, 1929. The report contains five pages of explanatory material and recommendations, and twenty-five pages of tabulations. The recommendations are not very sweeping, but they strike at four existing defects in our present federal corrupt practices act, namely, the failure to regulate the conduct of conventions and primary elections for the nomination of presidential candidates, to extend the law to political groups operating in individual states, to require careful and accurate itemization of every party expenditure, and to regulate the borrowing of money by political committees. The committee does not argue the constitutional points involved in its first two recommendations, and it does not reach the real problem involved in party deficits with its fourth recommendation. It leaves many vital problems to future committees.

The information collected by the committee, by means of hearings and correspondence principally, has been set forth in fourteen tables. There is much useful material in these tables, and several angles of the problem of party finance are clearly brought out by the figures. But there are some serious errors, especially in the tabulation of totals. Tables IV and V dealing with the national committee accounts are inaccurate and misleading. The proof of this statement is as follows. The accounts filed by the two national committees, both with the clerk of the House (according to law) and with the Steiwer committee, show that the Republican national committee received for its own purposes the sum of $3,814,000. On page 8 of the report we find the figure $5,715,000.

Those who have followed the progress of administrative reorganization in Minnesota will recall that the reorganization act in that state established a commission on administration and finance similar to the commission with the same name in Massachusetts. Large powers of supervision over the financial affairs of the state are conferred. Among them is a provision that the state auditor may approve no warrant upon the state treasurer for an expenditure from an appropriation unless the object of the disbursement is one which has been approved by the commission. Every department, officer, agency, and institution is required to present for the commission's approval, each three months, an estimate of its needs for the following quarter.

The regents of the University of Minnesota, pursuant to the requirements of the act, had submitted to the commission for its approval in one of their quarterly estimates a request for authority to expend $40,000 to provide group insurance for the faculty and employees of the university. The commission declined to approve the item, on the ground that it might be taken as a precedent upon which to base demands for similar insurance for the employees of other state agencies. The regents were advised to apply to the legislature for specific authority. This they declined to do, as they claimed to have control of sufficient funds aside from legislative appropriations to carry the project through. The regents employed actuaries to prepare a preliminary report on the form of insurance contract to be used.

No new constitution was adopted in any state in 1928–29, and relatively few legal problems concerning the amending process were decided during the year. The South Carolina court upheld an amendment proposed by the legislature and ratified by the voters notwithstanding attacks based on the inclusion of several subjects in the resolution proposing the amendment, the failure of the officers charged with the preparation of the ballots to print the amendment in full, and the absence of the title of the amendment from the journals of the legislature, the title being entered on the journals only as part of the resolution proposing the amendment. Such a provision as that contained in Article in, Section 17, of the constitution of South Carolina providing that “every act or resolution having the force of law shall relate to but one subject, and that shall be expressed in the title,” might well be held not to apply to resolutions proposing amendments to the constitution, but to be restricted in application to ordinary acts of legislation, thus distinguishing acts of legislation from constituent acts. The court did not consider this distinction, but settled the case on its merits, deciding that the resolution did not contain separate subjects, that the ballots need not contain the entire text of the amendment, and that it was sufficient if the resolution proposing the amendment containing the title was printed in the journals of the two houses.