Like other neutral nations of Europe, Spain has been tremendously affected by the war. Though she has not been brought into such close contact with the great struggle as have Holland and the Scandinavian countries, because of her distance from the battlefields and the comparative insignificance of her commercial interests, she has nevertheless felt and is still feeling a great strain, the chief characteristics of which are economic. The cost of living in Spain has increased several fold. This is due in part to the difficulty in obtaining both manfactured articles and coal for her own industries and in part to the great scarcity of agricultural products: the result of the short-sighted policy followed up to the present of exporting food products which should have been retained at home. Though possessed of a greater arable area in proportion to her population than any other country in Europe except Russia, the methods of agricultural production in Spain are wofully deficient. As a result of her own backwardness and her failure to develop either her industrial or her agricultural resources, Spain is now suffering, to a lesser degree possibly, the same inconveniences which are disturbing Germany, France and England: namely, a scarcity of food; and she does not possess the artificial stimulus which those countries have to aid in overcoming it.

Local self-government has so long prevailed in English constitutional practice, and in recent times has been so generously extended to colonies and dominions, that it might seem an anomaly for Home Rule to be ardently desired in Ireland, yet bitterly contested and thus far withheld. Many favorable generally to the idea of autonomy without special reference to the condition of Ireland have believed this to result from a stubborn obstinacy and blind perverseness, perpetuating in tragic fashion a tragedy of olden times. But it might be suspected that such reluctance arose in part from circumstances of a great while ago, which continue or have bequeathed consequences not to be neglected; and an examination of the controversial literature which appeared just before the war reveals many objections which, in so far as they were actual and honestly held, were undoubtedly valid and potent. Certainly a great many people believed that Home Rule was not only unnecessary for the interests of Ireland, and really to the detriment of the Irish people, but that whatever might be the results with respect to that country, without doubt self-government, so far as it tended to separation and the erecting of an independent or hostile government, would be fatal to some of the largest interests of England and the British Empire.

There is no question of national policy so firmly established as the merit system, and on it must finally rest our political and administrative fabric. The system is fundamental, as it underlies all other political reforms. Its processes, therefore, should be adequate and be made to ensure results which will keep pace with the ever increasing functions of government. These processes are especially important in supplying the needs of appointment to the higher technical and administrative positions. The extension of the merit system to higher positions is a logical development of its application to lower positions. The same reasons which require tests of fitness in the latter apply even more strongly to such of the higher positions as have nothing to do with the policies of the administration. Such an extension would have the additional and great advantage that the more important the office affected the more effective must the extension necessarily be in divorcing the office from politics. Character and capacity are being secured in the great body of public employment, and it only remains to take the higher officials whose duties are purely administrative, federal, state and municipal, out of politics, to establish finally in the minds of the people the fundamental truth that positions under a democratic government belong to the people and not to the political party temporarily in power. The higher subordinates in the government employ have administrative control of the work on which our economic structure and our industrial success largely depend; and it must follow that their selection should be made upon proved merit, if that degree of administrative success is to be obtained which the people of this country have a right to expect. It is through the highest officials down to the humblest employees that the government serves the people.

The term “veto” has been traced from the power of the tribune of the plebs in ancient Rome to annul or suspend the acts of other public authorities. From the establishment of the Roman tribune, that official had the right of intercession (intercessio), to cancel any command of a consul which infringed the liberties of a citizen; and this was gradually extended to other administrative acts and even to decrees of the senate. The word veto (I forbid) was at least occasionally used by the tribune in such cases.

But historically what is called the veto power of American executives is derived from the legislative power of the British Crown. Until the fifteenth century statutes in England were enacted by the king on his own initiative or in response to petitions. From that time parliament presented bills in place of petitions; and statutes were enacted by the king “by and with the advice and consent of the lords …. and the commons …. and by the authority of the same.” The king's assent was still necessary; and without this assent a bill was not law. For two hundred years the Crown continued to exercise the negative power of declining to accept bills, not by any formal act of disapproval, but by the polite response in old Norman French, “le roy s'avisera.” Since the beginning of the eighteenth century no bill which has passed parliament has failed to receive the royal assent; but the old form of enacting laws is still in use.

Governor Hughes first made the direct primary a state-wide issue in New York. It was in no gentle terms that his speeches and annual messages arraigned the nominating system then in vogue. His message to the legislature in 1909 gave wide publicity to the flagrant evils of the primaries and added a constructive plan of reform. Apart from his suggestions for important changes in the methods of administering the primaries, his plan included a system of direct nominations which combined responsibility in the party machine and initiative in the party membership. Designations were to be made by elected party representatives meeting as a party committee for this purpose; but if their designations proved unsatisfactory to the members of the party, ample opportunity was to be afforded the latter for nominating contesting designations by petition. The final choice of the party nominee was to be decided by a direct vote of the members of the party.