Whether or no it be true, as someone has said, that with words we govern men, it is at least certain that when a name has once passed into common speech it becomes a fact and a power. The term Political Science seems now generally accepted and your Association has by its very title expressed the opinion that Politics is a science. Nevertheless, to prevent misconception, we may properly ask “What sort of a science is it?” The mathematical sciences are described as exact sciences: and so too are such departments of knowledge as mechanics and physics. The laws and conclusions of these sciences can be expressed in precise terms. They can be stated in numbers. As the facts which these sciences deal with are the same everywhere and at all times, so the relations of those facts which we call Laws are of universal application. That being so we can predict their action and rely upon them to be the same in the future as they have been in the past.

In 1905 the storm-center of European politics shifted definitely to Morocco, and from the Moroccan situation resulted a new alignment of the powers based primarily upon the political necessity of France.

To comprehend the North African situation and its relation to European politics we must understand that upon the future of Morocco depends the future of a French colonial empire approximately the size of Europe.

In his preface to the Voyages au Maroc of de Segonzac, Eugene Etienne, Député d'Oran, Vice-President de la Chambre des Députés, Président du Comité du Maroc, says, “Il est de toute évidence que de la solution qui sera donnée a la question Marocaine dépend l'avenir même de notre pays. Il ne s'agit pas ici d'un de ces territoires plus ou moins riches, plus ou moins désirables, au sujet desquels les transactions et les partages sont possibles. Les énormes sacrifices que nous avons faits en Algérie et en Tunisie peuvent se trouver annulés si la solution qui intervient n'est pas conforme a nos intérêts et à nos droits. Ces droits, a la fois historiques et vivants, nous les tenons de Bugeaud et de Lamoricière, de notre armee d'Afrique et de nos colons d'Algérie. Quelle puissance européenne pourrait en présenter de semblables?”

The close of the war with Spain in 1898 and the cession of the Philippines to the United States brought to this country a number of serious and difficult problems in the islands other than those immediately connected with the exercise of governmental control over them. Not the least among these problems was that which concerned the presence of the Chinese and the question as to their future admission or exclusion from the islands. An attempted solution was reached in the extension to the islands in September, 1899, of the exclusion laws of the United States. These laws are based upon the limited treaties of 1880 and of 1894, both of which modified the general treaty of 1868. The latter treaty provides for the free admission of Americans to China and also for the unrestricted entrance of the Chinese to the United States. At the time of the agitation against the incoming of the Chinese in the seventies, negotiations were commenced with China which in the treaty of 1880 secured her consent for a limited suspension of the admission rights of the Chinese to the United States. A similar concession was obtained from China in 1894, limited to ten years in its operation. Since the expiration of this treaty China has claimed that the provisions of the treaty of 1868 obtained, while the United States has contended that the treaties of 1880 and of 1894 abrogated the rights of the Chinese to free admission to United States territory. This contention of the United States is obviously forced and without sufficient basis either in theory or in fact, and the interpretation is maintained solely because of the weakness of China and her inability to prevent the United States from ignoring her protests. This attitude of inattention would hardly be assumed toward a more able and aggressive nation.