The purpose of salary standardization is briefly:

To furnish a simple and logical classification of all employments, with general descriptions of duties, appropriate titles and rates of compensation, qualifications and conditions governing advancement, for purposes of appropriation, financial and civil service control, information to present and prospective employes and to the public. Salary standardization would be a relatively simple thing if a single government agency, backed by a strong executive, were empowered to develop a new classification and put it into effect.

The British colonial services include the government appointments in the tropical African colonies, British Malaya, Hong Kong, Ceylon, the islands in the Western Pacific, and occasional vacancies in Cyprus and Palestine. The services fall into two groups, the Administrative and the Specialized or Technical Services such as police, education, medical, engineering, agriculture, forestry, and irrigation. The Administrative Service includes virtually all appointments concerned with the formation or supervision of policy from the probationer at about $2,000 to the colonial secretary whose salary varies between $7,000 and $13,650 according to the importance of the colony.

It has been said that political thought of the sixteenth century can be classified into two types—an attempt to find a juristic basis for the raison d'état exemplified in the work of Bodin, and the antithetic point of view found in the Vindiciae and concerned with the establishment of abstract right.

There is, however, yet another trend of political thought observable at the time—a political theory which combines the two trends of political thought mentioned above, but which goes beyond the “long research into the terms of political obedience,” in its attempt at a synthetic view of the state and society. And one of the best expressions of this way of thinking is found in the writings of Andreas Fricius Modrevius (Andrzej Frycz Modrzewski), the most notable political author of sixteenth-century Poland.

The great significance of Fricius' writings to a modern student lies largely in the way in which they mirror the thought of the Renaissance and the Reformation, and in the successful combination that Fricius achieves of a predominantly Aristotelian analysis of the state with a Christian idealism which he imparts to his discussion of a “good state” and its ends. His ability to combine the best features of the ancient political thought and to adapt them to the realities of sixteenth-century Europe brought Fricius to the attention of such writers as Bodin, Althusius, and Grotius.

The political scientist found various aspects of World War II of professional interest. Perhaps there were no fields as intimately related to political science as radar and atomic energy in the case of the physical sciences, though such agencies as the War Production Board, the Office of Price Administration, and the Office of Civilian Defense presented many problems of vital concern. Of the strictly military programs, it is probable that none involved so many aspects of political science as military government. Military government programs of some elaborateness were drafted for North Africa, Sicily and Italy, the Pacific Islands, Japan, Korea, and Germany and the countries which had been occupied by Germany. The military government activities in the European Theater of Operations surpassed all others in scope in that they involved both combat and post-hostility operations of great magnitude, necessitated dealings with both conquered and liberated peoples, required the establishment of a system of government from the bottom up through the state level in Germany, and were participated in by all four of the major Allied Powers. The European Theater of Operations also saw the widest use of officers who had been assigned on the basis of their specialist knowledge of various aspects of military-government activities. It may therefore be of some interest to the political science profession to comment on the general record of military government in the ETO.

When Congress convened in January, 1939, the neutrality legislation of 1935, 1936, and 1937 had been weighed in the balance and found wanting. Ethiopia, Spain, and China had proved unsatisfactory testing grounds, and the President, in his annual message to Congress, hinted that certain changes would be designed (1) to enable the United States to act less favorably vis-à-vis aggressor nations, (2) by means of giving the executive more discretion in the conduct of foreign affairs under the neutrality laws.

When Canada set up a federal system of government in 1867, she had nearly eighty years of American experience to build upon. Consequently, she was able to evade many of the problems in which we find ourselves entangled today. When Austria provided for judicial review in her constitution of 1920, she could profit from more than a century and a quarter of American experience, as well as from the various modifications of the American plan to be found in the British Dominions and elsewhere. Hence, we should not be surprised to learn that in the opinion of Dr. Hans Kelsen the theory and practice of judicial control of legislation reached a more complete development in Austria than in any other nation.

Exceptionally rapid and drastic changes in the functional and structural aspects of the executive branch of the national government of the United States since the advent of the Roosevelt administration tend to leave the observer in a condition of bewilderment, from which he may to some degree be rescued by the guide furnished below. The outline was prepared by the staff of the Institute for Government Research of the Brookings Institution of Washington, and covers all major units of the Executive Departments with the exception of those in the Department of Justice and in the Post Office Department and those supervising the military and naval activities in the War and Navy Departments. For the Department of Justice and the Post Office Department, the supervisory units headed by the assistant attorneys-general and the assistant postmasters-general are included in the terms “Legal Services” and “Postal Services.” For the War and Navy Departments, the designations “Military Services” and “Naval Services” include all of the units supervising these branches. The outline includes also the independent establishments, and in some cases subordinate units are listed. The emergency organizations listed include only units specifically authorized by law or established by the President under general authority vested in him. There are also boards, corporations, and committees which operate with or are advisory to many of the units listed, and in addition some duties have been delegated to existing agencies which have not created separate units for extra work.