republics, which he treats in the second volume, embracing the United States in its federal organization, Switzerland and France. As is quite natural in view of the fact that the monograph was submitted to a French jury, he treats most fully of the institutions of France, devoting to them more than half of one volume. M. Dupriez's classification, while a perfectly obvious one, is, at the same time, hardly the most scientific that might have been adopted. At the present time, the governments of states are differentiated rather according to the relation of the executive to the other branches of the government than from the point of view of the hereditary or non-hereditary character of the executive. The author recognizes this fact in the concluding remarks which are appended to the second volume, where he says that the nature of the rôle played by ministers depends very little upon the form of the government. And in these concluding remarks he adopts a much more scientific classification, including in his first class only the United States, where the principle of the separation of powers has been most powerful, and in his second class, the Prussian and German constitutions, where the powers of government are distinguished, it is true, but not so thoroughly, and where the royal power is preponderant. This latter class he calls personal government. In his third class he includes those countries which have adopted parliamentary government, that is, a system where no emphasis has been laid upon the separation of powers, and in which the parliament, rather than the crown, is the preponderant power. The government of England is the type of this class, and under it are included also France, Belgium and Italy. In his fourth class, he places the constitutions whose type is Switzerland, where the powers of government are completely confused. This classification seems to be one of the most valuable features of the work, and it is to be regretted that more emphasis is not laid upon it. Had it been made the basis of the work; had the treatment of the various countries been made in accordance with it: a far greater impression would have been made upon the mind of the reader. M. Dupriez has, however, in the classification which he has adopted, treated the subject with great thoroughness; indeed, he has gone, in some cases, quite far afield, and has embraced, not only the rôle of the ministers, but also, with a clear sense of what is necessary to an adequate comprehension of their powers, a sketch of the entire system of administration. He thus treats in all cases of the relations of the central administration to the various localities, and gives, for the space which it occupies, a most satisfactory description of local institutions. It is scarcely surprising that in covering so great an amount of ground, he has been guilty of faults both of omission and commission. Thus in his treatment of the local governmental institutions of England, he fails to lay sufficient emphasis upon the administrative control which has been adopted as a result of the new system of local administration inaugurated by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, and developed in various subsequent acts. On page 147 of Volume I, he seems to have forgotten that the Local Government Act of 1888 still provides for a governmental certificate of efficiency in order that the subsidies granted by the central government may be distributed by the new county councils. Again, on page 148, he says that "the local authorities are almost free from central control, with the exception of the school board and the sanitary authorities and some others." As a matter of fact, there is probably no country where the central administrative control over matters of central interest is stronger than it is at the present time in England. Again, in speaking of the annual budget of Prussia, and of the necessity of the annual vote of taxes, he forgets that Article 109 of the Prussian constitution, to which he makes no reference, provides that in case of disagreement between the crown and parliament, the taxes shall continue to be levied in accordance with the provisions of the permanent law by which they are established. In regard to the United States government, he has made a serious mistake where he says that the President of the United States is, like any other officer, responsible before the courts (II, 46). As a matter of fact, the United States courts have, in several instances, either strongly intimated or positively held that the President of the United States is, during his presidential term, free from any judicial control; that the only control in our system of government which may be exercised over the president is that provided for by the power granted to the House of Representatives to impeach him, and that given to the Senate to convict him on impeachment. mistakes as these are not numerous, however, when the immense amount of work which M. Dupriez has done is considered, and they do not detract very largely from the value of the book. As a rule, the style is clear and attractive, and the author has taken considerable pains, in various parts of his work, to sum up the result of his study. Perhaps no better example of this could be given than his analysis of the position of the Italian ministry. He says: The Italian ministry has evidently not fulfilled efficiently the triple mission of the parliamentary cabinet. It exercises the executive power in the name and under the authority of the king, but it does not always know how to keep the parliament within the limits of its legitimate control, and is obliged to submit to the interference of deputies in administration. It starts the work of the legislative power by the exercise of the right of initiation, and by the intervention of the ministers in the work of parliament, but it often does not possess the necessary authority to bring to a successful issue the reforms which it has undertaken, and the parliament escapes easily from its direction. It attempts to maintain harmony between the two powers, but the repeated checks which it has suffered show how much the work is hindered by the disorganization of parties. [I, 291.] The author is perfectly impartial in his treatment of the subject, though he frankly indicates his preference for the government of the land in which he lives, and considers that Belgium has made the most happy application on the continent of the principles of parliamentary government. At the same time he acknowledges as frankly that every government must be adapted to the manners and habits of the people, and recognizes as well that what may appear to be a fault from the point of view of pure theory, may be so modified by the peculiar habits and customs of the people of a country as to lead to no evil results. These points are brought out particularly in the concluding remarks, to which reference has already been made. Nothing that he says will give a better idea of his attitude of mind than his comparison of the institutions of the United States and Switzerland: A consideration of the system of separation of powers and of that of the confusion of powers, if combined with nothing else, would lead one to believe that the former must result in a complete paralysis of the political mechanism, while the other must bring absolutism and the ruin of liberty; nevertheless, the American government has been able to continue more than a century without too great a shock and too sudden a stoppage, while the Swiss institutions have generally given satisfactory results. . . . We believe that we must recognize that the traditions and political education of the people, when combined with happy circumstances, may be sufficient to prevent the dangers of institutions poorly organized, and may supplement their defects and even guarantee to them a permanent success. I can recommend all who are interested in the study of political science to read carefully the volumes which M. Dupriez has put forth. F. J. GOODNOW. RECORD OF POLITICAL EVENTS. [From May 11 to November 5, 1894.] I. THE UNITED STATES. - FOREIGN RELATIONS. — No striking incident in this field has characterized the period under review. Affairs in Hawaii developed quietly to a conclusion that ended the tension which had previously prevailed. A convention under the auspices of the provisional government, and from which all adherents of the monarchy were excluded, framed in June a constitution, which was proclaimed to be in force on July 4, with Sanford B. Dole as president. On the 7th of August President Cleveland, in an official letter to President Dole, gave formal recognition to the Republic of Hawaii. The new constitution expressly empowers the president at any time to negotiate a treaty of political or commercial union with the United States. — The treaty with China, regulating the immigration of Chinese laborers, which was submitted to the Senate last March, was ratified by that body, August 13, by a vote of 47 to 20. The revolution in Salvador, by which the existing government was overthrown in June, gave rise to some new incidents in the familiar practice of asylum. Several adherents of the unsuccessful party, including the brother of ex-President Ezeta, took refuge on the United States cruiser Bennington, which brought them in August to San Francisco. Here they were arrested on charges of murder and robbery brought by the new government of Salvador, which demanded their extradition. On examination before the federal court, however, all but one of the prisoners were released, on the ground that the offenses charged, having been incidental to the war then flagrant, fell fairly within the category of political offenses. - The Canadian sealers who, under the decision of the Paris arbitration, had claims against the United States on account of seizures of their vessels, agreed in September to accept the offer of $425,000 in full settlement. On the 9th of May the president communicated to the Senate, in response to a resolution of that body, a report of the secretary of state on the condition of affairs in the Samoan Islands. This report presented a review of our policy toward Samoa both before and since the adoption of the General Act of Berlin, of June 14, 1889, by the United States, Germany and Great Britain (see this QUARTERLY, V, 357). After declaring that "it is in our relations to Samoa that we have made the first departure from our traditional and well established policy of avoiding entangling alliances with foreign powers in relation to objects remote from this hemisphere," the report maintained that nothing had been gained by this departure "beyond the expenses, the responsibilities and the entangle ments that have so far been its only fruits." The events of the last five years were narrated, showing a chronic state of war and civil disorders in the islands. The government established under the General Act of Berlin was exhibited as cumbersome, expensive, inefficient and destructive of Samoan independence and autonomy; and the secretary declared that that arrangement, “besides involving us in an entangling alliance, has utterly failed to correct, if indeed it has not aggravated, the very evils which it was designed to prevent." The latest advices from the island are to the effect that war still continues. INTERNAL ADMINISTRATION.-The condition of the treasury during the summer excited some uneasiness. Heavy exportations of gold during May and June drained away all the proceeds of the bond issue of the preceding February, and on June 22 the gold reserve was down to less than $62,000,000. At this juncture the New York banks, whose gold holdings had increased as the treasury's diminished, came to the aid of the government and voluntarily supplied from their own vaults the export demand. The general cash balance of the treasury was also very low at this time and rumors gained currency that the payment of matured obligations was being postponed by the administration. On June 25 President Cleveland made a public denial of the truth of these rumors and asserted that there was no cause for apprehension as to the treasury's prospects. So long as the uncertainty over the Tariff Bill lasted, customs receipts continued to be very small, and the narrowness of the cash margin caused more or less embarrassment. In the latter part of July, however, the taking of whiskey out of bond to anticipate the increase of the tax swelled the revenue considerably. The gold reserve, meanwhile, was reduced to about $54,000,000 but in August the demand for export gold died out, and the balance on October 31 was again at about $62,000,000. The expenditures at that date, however, were still running much ahead of the receipts. — At the end of the fiscal year, June 30, it appeared that some $25,000,000 out of the pension appropriation of $165,000,000 remained unexpended. This was taken as an indication that the maximum expenditure under existing law had been passed. The expenditure of the preceding year was $158,000,000. 39,085 new names were added to the roll in 1894, but the net increase was only 3532. In July the secretary of the interior reported to Congress that up to May 10 the suspension policy of the present administration had resulted in about 15,000 suspensions, of which some 2600 were dropped, 3014 were restored at reduced rates, and about 9500 were restored at the old rates. - A general amnesty to Mormons guilty of polygamy was granted by a proclamation of the president September 27. The pardon was based on the action of the Mormon Church in withdrawing its sanction from polygamy and on evidence satisfactory to the president that the adherents of that church generally abstained from plural marriage; and the amnesty was granted subject to the condition of future obedience to the laws on that subject. - Postmaster-General Bissell issued in June a circular |