Why Should We Change Our Form of Government? By NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER. (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1912. Pp. xiv, 159.)

The six addresses composing this small volume have been delivered upon various occasions during the past five years. The first is entitled, Why Should We Change Our Form of Government? This is the only one which is devoted primarily to answering the title of the book. The other five addresses, which incidentally answer the title, are: Business and Politics, Politics and Business, The Call to Citizenship, Alexander Hamilton, and The Revolt of the Unfit. The author sees the United States changing from a representative republic to a socialistic democracy. This he deplores. Instead of making our representatives mere mouth-pieces of their constituents, he would have them the brains. By giving power and dignity to legislators, he would attract men of brains and honor to the legislatures. History teaches him that no other form of government equals the representative republican type. He believes that principles of government were never understood by a body of men as they were understood by the framers of our federal constitution; and that a departure from the principles there embodied is not progressive but reactionary, a change to the principles which history teaches us to be false. The initiative, referendum, and recall are condemned because they "strike the heaviest possible blow at representative institutions." "The principle of the recall, when applied to the judiciary," he considers "much more than a piece of stupid folly." And even when applied to executive officers he sees no good in it. If our constitution had provided for the recall, he says, "George Washington would have been recalled at the time of the Genet episode ; Abraham Lincoln would

almost certainly have been recalled in the dark days of 1862 and 1863; Grover Cleveland would have been recalled by an overwhelming vote in the summer of 1893 when he was making his fight for a sound financial policy and system."

Throughout, the views of the author are extremely conservative. The Sherman anti-trust law, be holds, should not be amended but supplemented, because "it has been subjected to twenty years of the most careful . . legal and judicial examination." "The man who attempts to amend that law will make it worse," he continues. Again, "Troubles do not arise from the size of the corporations,

but they arise from individual delinquents; and we need no more

law than we now have to get at individuals who commit immoral offenses, dishonorable acts, whether in trade or out of it."

F. A. MAGRUDER.

The Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation. By W. JETHRO BROWN. (London: John Murray. 1912. Pp. 331.)

Professor Brown has prepared an essay which, in some respects, is similar in purpose to Dicey's Law and Public Opinion in England in the Nineteenth Century, and, impliedly at least, criticizes the analysis of that work. His title refers to underlying principles. His thesis is, however that one fundamental principle has underlain legislation in England during the last hundred years-a principle deeper than the antagonisms of parties or the differences of political schools. This single dominating influence or ideal which unconsciously rather than consciously has given unity to the laws of modern England is declared to be that of liberty. "Broadly speaking," he says, "the legislation of the Nineteenth Century may be divided into three groups of statutes according as the immediate purpose of the legislature has been to establish democratic institutions, to secure to the citizen an immuniity from undue state interference, or to extend social and individual responsibility. These purposes are to some extent concurrent, but they acquire their maximum influence in the order indicated-Each of these purposes is no more than a special phase of a general movement towards liberty-that liberty is sought at one time in a form of polity, at another time in the protection of the subject from the tyranny of political institutions, and yet another time in various forms of state control." In thus predicating a single underlying principle, Professor Brown is clearly criticizing Dicey, for he says in another place: "We have to deal, not, as one eminent writer suggests, with successive and unrelated currents of opinion, but with a single movement, in the course of which there has been a progressive realization of the nature of the goal towards which the national life is slowly traveling."

Starting with the very broad definition which he gives to the concept liberty, namely, that it consists "less in the form of government or in the number of laws that control the action of the citizen, than in the extent to which the citizen is assured the means of self realization," and that, in consonance with its aims the few may be restrained in the interests of the liberty of the many, that the many may, in some cases,

be restrained in the interest of the few, and that, indeed, the freedom of the individual may be promoted by legal restraints imposed in his own interest-giving such a connotation as this to the idea of liberty, the author has little difficulty in establishing his principal thesis. The careful analysis of modern legislation which follows is of undoubted value in interpreting, from this single point of view, the legislative activity of modern times. In the reviewer's opinion, however, it does not tend in any serious degree to demonstrate that Dicey in his treatise has failed to exhibit the real Tendenz of this legislation.

In a concluding chapter entitled "The Outlook," the problems of today and tomorrow are considered, the trust, unemployment, the non-living wage, and the protection of the child receiving especial attention. The future does not appear to Professor Brown as free from dangers. Indeed, he sees upon the horizon "the dark menace of grave dangers which are rapidly taking shape"-dangers which can only be escaped by the wisest statesmanship. To resist successfully the forces which he finds now actually at work, it is declared that there is needed a truer civic education of the citizen; one that will arouse his sympathy, create a social spirit, and beget a better co-operation of all classes.

By way of a Prologue there is a chapter entitled "The Challenge of Anarchy," which, however, seems to bear no very intimate relationship to the body of the work. A careful analytical table of contents is provided, but no index.

The Political Theories of Martin Luther. By LUTHER HESS WARING. (New York: Putnams. 1910. Pp. vi, 293.)

After a description of the Germany of Luther's day, the author enters upon various important topics in political science and endeavors to show by citations from Luther's writings the positions taken by that reformer. His views are not formulated in any connected treatise on the theory of the State but a compilation of detailed expressions exhibit the principles upon which he seemed to act. The author organizes the matter in a final summary, by which it appears that Luther was of the opinion that the State was of divine origin but its form was a matter for human determination. The sovereignty of the State is exclusive, not shared by the Church, and, furthermore, the State is not simply a sword in the interest of the Church. The object of the State is to maintain peace, and its powers should be used in the interest of all,

not for the benefit of special classes. It is the duty of the State to educate youth both in secular and religious matters. It should care for the poor, protect the people against monopolies and extortion, and should suppress gambling and immorality. Freedom of conscience, liberty of speech and of the press are inalienable rights of every individual.

It is important to know the political views of the man who wrought such changes in religious associations, and the author has performed good service in assembling Luther's expressions, but it is difficult to count him as a contributor to political science. The book attempts this by giving a resumé of the various topics from Aristotle to the present, but remains, to say the least, unconvincing.

J. M. VINCENT.

RECENT GOVERNMENT PUBLICATIONS OF

POLITICAL INTEREST

BY CARL HOOKSTADT

Library of Congress

UNITED STATES

Acts of Congress, Treaties, Proclamations, Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and opinions of the Attorney General relating to noncontiguous territory, Cuba and Santo Domingo, and military affairs, enacted during 61st Cong. 1912. xxxii, 726p. 8°. War Dept. Bureau of Insular Affairs. (S. doc. 306.)

Alien and Sedition Laws. Debates in the House of Delegates of Virginia, in Dec. 1798, on resolutions before the House on the acts of Congress called the alien and sedition laws. 1912. 187p. 8°. Congress. Senate. (S. doc. 873.)

Changes in the Laws Regulating and Controlling Corporations, persons and firms engaged in interstate commerce. Hearings before the Committee on Interstate Commerce, U. S. Senate, 62d Cong., pursuant to S. Res. 98, a resolution directing the Committee on Interstate Commerce to investigate. v. 3, pts. 28-33 and index. 1912. 2503-2799p. Senate. Committee on Interstate Commerce.

Citizenship of Porto Ricans. Hearing before the Committee on Pacific Islands & Porto Rico, U. S. Senate, 62d Cong., on H. R. 20048, an act declaring that all citizens of Porto Rico and certain natives permanently residing in said island shall be citizens of the United States. 1912. 43p. 8°. Senate. Committee on Pacific Islands and Porto Rico.

Committee on the Judiciary, Detailed résumé of work of

Representatives during the 1st & 2d sessions of the 62d Cong. 1912.
House. Committee on the Judiciary.

House of

105p. 8°.

Co-operative Land-Mortgage Banks. Hearings before the Committee on Agriculture, House of Representatives on S. J. Res. 75, May 29, 1912. 1912. 83p. 8°. House. Committee on Agriculture.

Distribution of Alsop Award by the Secretary of State. Opinion by the Solicitor for the Dept. of State. 1912. 87p. 8°. Dept. of State.

Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation. Hearings before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, 62d Cong., on H. R. 20487 (S. 5382.) v. 1. 1912. 359p. 8°. House. Committee on the Judiciary.

Expatriation of Citizens. Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives on H. R. 21358. 1912. 26p. 8°. House. Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Impeachment, Articles of, presented against Robert W. Archbald, additional circuit judge of the United States from the 3d judicial district. 1912. 12p. 8°. Congress. Senate. (S. doc. 874.)

All numbered documents and reports refer to the 62d Congress unless otherwise specified.