The British parliamentary system presumes a working government majority, or else an appeal to the electorate, with the inevitable confusion of issues involved therein. Hence, in studying the conduct of foreign relations throughout the British Commonwealth, little profit is to be gained from analysis of anomalous instances where governments and parliaments are found to have been at variance on external policies. Whatever familiarity with the “checks and balances” tradition may incline us to assume, such cases are no adequate criterion of democratization of control. On the contrary, this is to be found in the degree to which parliaments not merely are called upon to ratify governmental acts and policies, but are taken into the confidence of governments and consulted before decisions are conclusively formulated. In the second place, “external relations” should, in the case of the Dominions, include relations with other members of the Commonwealth, especially the mother country. These still comprise the bulk of their external contacts; and from the standpoint of the problem now under discussion, no actual difference in kind exists between them and truly foreign affairs. Moreover, it is upon the procedural foundation of the one that the principles governing the conduct of the other have been based.

As it happens, the issue of parliamentary control has been agitated most zealously in connection with representation at the Imperial Conference, the supreme council of the British League of Nations.

Since the last decade has witnessed an unparalleled outlay of energy in discussing public opinion, and in inventing devices intended to add precision to the discussion, it is not untimely to take stock of our present position in the matter. If this paper can be said to support a single thesis, it is that the problem of measurement can be considered most profitably in relation to a set of nuclear concepts about public opinion. To measure is to render more precise; measuring efforts which undertake to render faulty concepts more precise are foreordained to be more precisely faulty. I shall begin by passing certain general conceptions in review, and we shall see whether the upshot warrants us in believing that we shall thereby achieve a sounder view of the measurement problem.

Political changes come to pass by unreflecting innovation, by private planning and adjustment, and by acts which involve the attention of many people at some stage of their elaboration. Much of the etiquette of public administration has come into being without anyone taking thought of it. Much has been devised by a single person, who quietly transmitted his innovation to a limited circle, and ensured its permanence. But some of the features of political life have a more extended history. Men have argued, and even bled, for national independence, for the extension of the franchise, for the devolution of authority, for the qualified independence of the judiciary.

State activity in the amendment of constitutions seems to fluctuate between off-seasons in odd years and periods of expansion in even years. In 1927, when this annual survey was inaugurated, seven states were included. In 1928, attention was directed toward eighteen states. The number was reduced to five in 1929, only to swell to a new height of twenty-one in 1930. As heretofore, the constitutional changes are reviewed by states rather than by subject-matter, and the effect of each amendment upon earlier constitutional provisions is indicated. A word is said concerning the amendment process in each state surveyed.

Massachusetts. Commencing in 1935, and continuing every tenth year thereafter, a census of the inhabitants of each city and town is to be taken and a special enumeration made of the legal voters therein for the purpose of determining the representative districts for the ten-year period beginning with the first Wednesday in the fourth January following the special enumeration. Districts established in 1926 continue in effect until the first Wednesday in January, 1939. Provision is made for the division of towns of twelve thousand population and over into representative districts; but no precincts in such towns may be divided. In taking the census, the enumeration of legal voters must specify the number residing in each precinct of the town. Towns of less than twelve thousand inhabitants may not be divided into representative districts. County commissioners are authorized to create representative districts and to apportion representatives among them. The total number of representatives (240), senators (40), and councilors remains unchanged (new Articles 21 and 22 in substitution for old Articles 21 and 22). It is necessary that constitutional amendments be approved by a majority of the Senate and by two-thirds of the House of Representatives in two successive legislatures, and by a majority of electors voting thereon at a popular election.

The constitution of California—filling one hundred and sixty-five pages of fine print—has been the object of so much criticism, and even ridicule, that the people of the state are fairly well agreed that it ought to be given an overhauling. As to the nature and extent, as well as the method, of the proposed reconstruction, there is, however, little or no harmony of view. The fact that the state electorate has on a number of occasions declined to sanction the calling of a constitutional convention does not indicate that it is content to leave things as they are. But what, it is asked, might such an assembly do? Should it tamper with those sections dealing with the initiative, referendum, or recall, its work would come to nothing. Should it impair the powers of the railroad commission, or abolish the judicial,council, or set up a new basis of taxation, or lessen the independence of the regents of the state university, or raise the salaries of legislative and executive officials, or take any one of a dozen other courses of action, large sections of the electorate would oppose the revised instrument. It is a fairly safe assumption that a constituent assembly that radically revised the present constitution would see its work discarded by the people. Therefore, since a constitutional convention could do nothing effective, why waste money on a futile adventure?

Since the adoption of the present constitution in 1879, there has been no studied revision. Californians have changed the instrument when and as they have seen fit, acting largely on proposals of the legislature. They have followed no systematic plan; yet in most instances they have acted wisely. Piecemeal, sporadic, and unscientific modifications are not likely to produce a document of sufficient symmetry of form to be admired; nevertheless, the government thus established may prove quite workable, and, as American state governments go, highly successful.

The education department of the state of New York, which is charged with the administration of the literacy test law of 1923, has recently submitted a report on the workings of the measure from 1923 to 1929. The document furnishes some very illuminating evidence, not only on the operation of the literacy test for voters, but on other phases of political action.

These figures indicate a steady increase of interest in voting in the state of New York, if the presidential years are not included. Despite the peak applications of 1928, a larger number of new voters applied in the off-year 1929 than in the gubernatorial year 1926. The figures for 1928 are particularly significant. The Hoover-Smith campaign brought out a record number of non-voters who had never participated, and it must be recalled that these 163,299 persons had either become of age or had been naturalized since January 1, 1922. They do not include persons who were qualified but had never voted before the literacy test law became operative.

The first constitution of Ohio was framed in 1802, and was not submitted to popular vote for approval. Fashioned by followers of Thomas Jefferson, the new government had as its cardinal principle the doctrine of legislative supremacy. With no power over patronage, and with the veto power denied to him as well, the governor was but a “shadow executive.” Since the judges were appointed by the legislature for the limited term of seven years, the judiciary also played a subordinate rôle.

Although the fundamental character of the constitution was conceded, it was a question in the mind of many as to who should determine the nature and scope of that instrument. To ardent Jeffersonians, this matter presented little difficulty; in their judgment, the legislature was fully competent to settle any question that might arise as to the nature of the constitution.

The last election to the Reichstag brought the unexpected and rather extraordinary rise of the National Socialist German Labor party from twelve to 107 seats. It is the party of the extreme right. In nationalistic radicalism, it compares with the German National People's party, led by Hugenberg, much as in social radicalism the Communist party compares with the Social Democrats. Until recently, the National Socialists could be passed over as a negligible group of fanatics. But the party's present importance as the second strongest in the Reichstag, and the contradictory and confused ideas that are current about it, make worth while some inquiry into its nature and the causes of its rapid advance.

To start with, the party differs from its rivals in that personal leadership and military discipline are at its foundations. Besides having contributed more than any other single man to the building up of the party, Adolf Hitler is also its leader in the strictest sense of the word. A few facts about his life may show how it was that he could become the exponent of so large a number of German people.

Hitler was born in Austria in 1889 and until his fifteenth year lived in modest bourgeois surroundings, his father being a lower state official. This explains why he always has been, and still is, at heart a man of the middle classes. After the death of his parents, he was forced to earn his living as an unskilled laborer, and for some five years he lived the life of a proletarian among proletarians, completely cut off from his former middle-class environment.

From the election of the National Assembly in February, 1871, to the fall of the Briand cabinet in October, 1929, France had eighty-two cabinets and 349 cabinet ministers, under-secretaries excluded. Although French ministers ordinarily neither wield the power of English ministers nor leave behind them a deep impression upon governmental policy, they nevertheless constitute, ensemble, the governing class of the nation. Every deputy and senator looks forward to the day when he can inscribe the words ancien ministre after his name. Of the 349 who have held a portefeuille, 110 are still living. They constitute a large field for selection whenever a new cabinet is formed, and it is seldom necessary—or even advisable—for an incoming premier to go far outside their ranks in making up a new list for the approval of the president of the Republic.

What type of Frenchman has risen to the ministry under the Third Republic? Whence does he come? What has been his education, his occupation, his previous political experience? If there has been a “type,” has it changed as the Third Republic has come to be more and more firmly established? Do the heads of certain ministries depart from the general type? Are there personalities that demand special attention and study? These are some of the questions that arise concerning the political personnel, not only of French, but of other modern national governments.

The government of Ceylon presents several points of interest to the student of political institutions. The island is the most important of the British crown colonies, and has been governed in recent years under a dual system, with an appointed executive and a legislative council, a majority of which is elected. A new constitution, which will go into effect during the present year, provides for a novel system with a very large measure of responsible government, on the basis of universal suffrage, for a population overwhelmingly Asiatic, but of several stocks, and with a small European element. This experiment should throw light on the larger problem of the government of India.

Some data—geographical, historical, economic, and social—seem essential to an understanding of the political situation. Ceylon is an island of 25,000 square miles (about half the size of the state of Illinois), lying south of India and just north of the equator. The largest element in the population is the Sinhalese, descendants of an Aryan race that came from North India about the sixth century B.C., became Buddhists in the third century B.C., and retain that religion. Later came other peoples (Tamils) from South India, Hindu in religion, who occupied the northern part of the island. In the sixteenth century, the Portugese gained control of the coasts; and in the seventeenth, the Dutch conquered the Portugese districts. In 1796, during the Napoleonic wars, the Dutch sections were conquered by the British; and after a brief period under Madras they became a separate colony in 1802. After a war with the Sinhalese in the interior hill country, the whole island came under British control.

It is a well recognized fact that government publications are frequently the most valuable, and sometimes practically the only, reliable source of information on many phases of political, social, and economic life. Every bibliographical aid to their use, therefore, is to be highly welcomed by the student of government; and, fortunately for him, these aids are being rapidly multiplied. A noteworthy illustration is the List of Serial Publications of Foreign Governments, 1815–1929, now being prepared by Miss “Winifred Gregory under the general direction of a joint committee of the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Eesearch Council, and the American Library Association. Under each country will be listed, in a classified arrangement, the reports and other serials which record governmental activities since 1815. Section two of the preliminary checking edition of the List is devoted to the British Overseas Empire (except Canada).

Angus Fletcher, librarian of the British Library of Information in New York, points out that “the publication of official documents is a relatively recent development in English parliamentary history. It was not until 1837 that official documents were finally made available to the public, in the form of the regularly issued Parliamentary Papers as we know them today. The publication of Non-Parliamentary Papers is of stilllater origin.” The establishment of His Majesty's Stationery Office was a result of Burke's Act for Economical Reform in 1782, prior to which time the service of this office had been granted as a monopoly to persons in favor at court. The student entering on a study of British public documents can well afford to review the very readable and valuable historical account of the records of Parliament given by Sir Courtney Ilbert, wherein he traces the development of the written reports of the journals and debates from their beginnings.

The majority of the early schemes for a general international organization, or League of Nations, before the Covenant envisaged its functions as principally negative—chiefly the general function of preventing war by peaceful settlement of international disputes. Little or no attention was paid before the Covenant to potentialities of positive and coördinated international action. This is all the more remarkable in view of the growing number of spheres to which international action had already been extended. Apart from Schücking and Mr. L. Woolf, only the proposals of the triumvirate of the “Union des Associations Internationales,” M. Fried, M. Paul Otlet, and M. La Fontaine, seriously urged the necessity of rational coördination and positive coöperation. Unfortunately, before the war these proposals failed to receive the serious attention which they merited. The object of the Union was well founded. Already by 1914, there existed over twenty “public unions” and nearly 150 “private associations;” while the growth in the number of international conferences revealed the volume of international activity. Moreover, the dispersion of this activity and the lack of coördination had led to unfortunate overlapping. Three active organizations were occupied with the international regulation of railways, and two with agriculture. The scientific unions worked independently of any comprehensive plan.

But the absence of coördination was not the only weakness apparent in the pre-war situation. The independence of each organization and the lack of a central authority increased the difficulties of working. Elaborate negotiations necessarily preceded the summoning of an international conference, even though the conventional constitution provided for periodic but regular meetings. Further, with the exception of one or two of the most powerful unions, the force of the influence which could be brought to bear on governments was weakened by the isolation.of each union. Finally, the absence of a collective political authority often barred the way to progress in international technical organization.

The International Labor Organization has become one of the most active of all the international institutions of the post-war period. According to the treaty of Versailles, international labor conferences, composed of delegates from countries which are members of the International Labor Organization, are to meet annually to consider and adopt recommendations and conventions applicable to labor problems and conditions throughout the world. The subjects for a number of possible agreements are suggested in the Versailles treaty, and include the right of association of laborers, the establishment of the eight-hour day, the adoption of the weekly rest period, the abolition of child labor, and various related matters. In drafting conventions and recommendations, the conferences are to be guided by a number of principles laid down in the Versailles treaty, and are asked to recognize that “differences of climate, habit and customs, of economic opportunity and industrial tradition, make strict uniformity in the conditions of labor difficult of immediate attainment.”

Economic difficulties alone were recognized, at first, by the makers of the treaty of Versailles as standing in the way of the attainment of “strict uniformity in the conditions of labor.” It was, however, soon brought to the attention of the Peace Conference that governments might not all prove equally competent constitutionally to deal with labor problems, and that some might prove totally lacking in legal capacity to adhere to the proposed labor conventions. This legal limitation was felt to be especially likely to arise in the case of federal governments, in many of which all matters of labor legislation are reserved to the member-states, and hence are beyond the legislative powers of the central governments. It was predicted by some that these legal difficulties would prove more stubborn obstacles to the uniform regulation of labor matters than differences in climate, habits and customs, and economic opportunity.