Not long ago, a distinguished political scientist called attention to “the law of the pendulum” in politics. No sooner, he argued, does a broad political tendency establish itself than tendencies of opposite direction set in and gather force until the original tendency is reversed. As applied to relatively short periods of time and to movements which reflect temporary trends, a plausible case can be made out for the law of the pendulum. It seems doubtful, however, whether it can be proved with like plausibility for tendencies which are truly secular. Take as an example the steady trend toward enlarging the size of the independent political unit, or state. Since the feudal age, the tendency has run in the same direction, sometimes more slowly and sometimes more rapidly, but with seldom a check, and never a retreat, from the feudal state to the national state, from the national state to the colonial empire, and in recent years from the colonial empire toward some larger goal of world organization. Barring accidental destruction of modern machine civilization, a recurrence to a world of petty states seems unthinkable.

Whether or not the law of the pendulum applies in the world of political events, there can be no doubt of its sway over political thought. No sooner does a doctrine embody itself in an institution than it exposes its nakedness in a pillory and challenges competing dogmas to do their worst. In consequence, the history of political ideas has been a story of oscillations, of attack and repulse and counter-attack.

The connection between public opinion and public policy is slighter in foreign affairs than in any other sphere of politics. In normal times, international relations have little palpable impact upon the life of the people, and are obscured by more vivid domestic issues until war or some sudden crisis throws a high light on their significance. Even since the Great War, although public realization of the importance of foreign affairs has begun to be aroused in the late belligerent countries—in England at any rate—direct contact between popular opinion and government action is still both sporadic and uncertain.

What is true of the British nation is almost equally true of its representative assembly. Parliament has but little power over foreign affairs. Some of the most momentous changes in the country's relations with other Powers have, in the present century, been accomplished without reference to the House of Commons, and often without even its knowledge. Like the people themselves, the people's representatives exercise only an inconsiderable control over that branch of public affairs which is at present of more vital concern than any other.

Most British foreign secretaries, indeed, regard their actions as matters of exclusively executive concern. A cabinet of twenty ministers, already overworked in their own departments, is not, however, a body which can conduct the country's foreign relations. On his own subject, the Foreign Secretary dominates his ministerial colleagues. Experience shows that he can avoid consultation with all the cabinet save two or three of the principal ministers.

“Liberty of contract” is an honorable phrase. It is not too much to say that contractual freedom is generally regarded as the crowning glory of Anglo-American law in general and of the American constitutional system in particular. Belief in a pre-civil state of nature may have been cast into the discard, but not so the belief in natural law in the sense of ideal law, in natural rights as rights superior—if not anterior—to civil rights, and in freedom of contract as one of the greatest of the natural rights secured by natural law. There is well-nigh universal approbation of the philosophy implicit in Sir Henry Maine's famous conclusion that “the movement of the progressive societies has hitherto been a movement from Status to Contract,” and there is general satisfaction that certain American constitutional provisions preclude any retrograde movement in the future. In particular, there is rejoicing that the due process clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments insure to the American workman his natural freedom of contract against any insidious attempt to relegate him to a servile status. In spite of an occasional voice crying in the wilderness, it is still heretical to suggest that constitutional contractual liberty amounts to a guarantee that economic pressure may be exerted by the rich upon the poor, by the employer upon the employee. The hypothesis deserves further examination. It will be profitable to ascertain how far the use of economic pressure has been deemed natural in English law and philosophy, and then to observe the extent to which it is recognized in American constitutional law as a natural right superior to any legislative enactment.

On July 1, 1924, there became effective an act for the reorganization and improvement of the Foreign Service of the United States, popularly known as the Rogers Act, which had been approved on May 24. That act combined the hitherto separate diplomatic and consular services into a single Foreign Service. Admission to the Foreign Service was for the most part to be upon competitive examination, and promotion was to be based upon merit. The act left to the executive the establishment of the system for ascertaining merit.

Pursuant to the Rogers Act, an executive order of June 7, 1924, created a Foreign Service Personnel Board. The composition of the board was slightly changed by an executive order of February 25, 1928, under the terms of which the board was to be composed of three assistant secretaries of state to be designated by the Secretary of State, and three Foreign Service officers. The three Foreign Service officers, representing both the diplomatic and consular branches, were to constitute the executive committee of the board.

Among other things, the Foreign Service Personnel Board was charged with the duty of submitting to the Secretary, when vacancies should arise in the Foreign Service, lists of officers whose records of efficiency entitled them to advancement in the service and who were therefore recommended for promotion. A departmental order directed the executive committee to take possession of all records relating to the personnel of the diplomatic and consular services and to keep the efficiency records of all Foreign Service officers.

American public administration continues to be the subject of an unparalleled degree of attention. In an address before the Governmental Research Conference in November, 1929, surveying administrative progress, Dr. Luther Gulick declared: “As a nation, we have adopted in conspicuous degree the habit of research. This is a milestone in our progress.” Our intense preoccupation with our administrative institutions is undoubtedly in part a reflection of their imperfection, but in part also a typical American conviction that there are no discoverable limits, as yet, to the opportunity for perfection.

On a national scale, the present tendency is signalized by the appointment by President Hoover of the National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, on the basis of whose first reports the President recommended, among other things, the transfer of the prohibition unit from the Treasury Department to the Department of Justice, modification of federal court structure to relieve congestion, and consolidation of frontier services. The President has also called a White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, which is to meet in 1930, and for which much preparatory investigation was carried on in 1929. More recently, the President appointed a Commission on Social Trends, and directed it to present an analysis of social movements broadly parallel to the study of recent economic trends. Several units of this study will be devoted to aspects of public administration.

An enlarged program of research in public administration was inaugurated at the University of California under the direction of Professor Samuel C. May, with the assistance of a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation.

Twenty years of discussion of budget procedure came to a conclusion with the decision of the Court of Appeals on November 19, 1929, in People of the State of New York v. Tremaine. This decision upheld the contention of Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt as to the powers of the executive in budget procedure, as provided for by Article 3a of the state constitution.

The first chapter in the movement to improve financial procedure in the state was the passage in 1910 of a law which initiated a system requiring all requests for appropriations to be filed and tabulated for the use of the legislature and the governor in advance of the legislative session. Prior to this time, no attempt had been made to collect or compile the requests before the opening of the legislative session. This law of 1910 provided that on or before November 15 of each year each spending agency should file with the comptroller a detailed statement of all requests for appropriations to be made at the next session of the legislature. The requests were to be tabulated by the comptroller and then transmitted to the governor by December 15, and to the legislature on the opening day of the session.

The next change in budget procedure occurred in 1913, when Governor Sulzer appointed a committee of inquiry to investigate the management of state departments and institutions with a view to securing greater economy and efficiency in public service.

Students of centralized purchasing give Texas the credit for being the pioneer state in the movement. With the creation of the office of purchasing agent for the eleemosynary institutions in 1899, centralized purchasing in state government is said to have had its beginning. Purchasing organization in Texas remained unchanged until 1919, when, following an investigation into all departments by a legislative committee, a number of departments, including that of the state purchasing agent, were consolidated into a state board of control.

This board is composed of three members appointed by the governor with the consent of the Senate, for a term of six years, one member being appointed every two years. Each member receives $5,000 a year. A division of purchasing is one of six divisions under the board, others being (1) public printing, (2) auditing, (3) design, construction, and maintenance, (4) estimates and appropriations, and (5) eleemosynary institutions. The board is authorized to appoint a chief of the purchasing division, whose qualifications are prescribed by law. But since its organization in 1920, no chief of the purchasing division has been appointed, a member of the board taking direct charge of this division. In addition to the board member, four other people are engaged in the work of this division, including an assistant purchasing agent. No increase in personnel has occurred since the organization of the board. Responsibility is vested in the board for purchasing all supplies used by the departments and institutions of the state, including furniture and fixtures, and all other things except strictly perishable goods, technical instruments, and books.

In 1923 the first state judicial council in this country was established in Ohio. The Massachusetts act providing for such a council was introduced earlier and formed the basis for the Ohio law, but it was not adopted until 1924. The judicial council provided for by the Ohio law was composed of the chief justice of the supreme court, two associate justices, the chief justice of the court of appeal, one common pleas judge, one municipal court judge, and three lawyers.

The council was charged with the duty of making a continuous study of the organization, rules, methods of procedure, and practice of the judicial system of Ohio, as well as the work accomplished and results produced by that system and its various parts. The results of this continuous study were to be reported biennially to the legislature, with such recommendations for the modification of existing conditions as the council might see fit to make. The council was authorized also to submit suggestions for the consideration of the judges of the several courts with regard to rules, practice, and procedure.

To accomplish its purposes, the council was authorized to hold public hearings, administer oaths, and require the attendance of witnesses and the production of books and documents. A witness giving false testimony, or failing to appear when duly summoned, was made subject to the same penalties to which a witness before a court is subject. The clerks of the various courts and other officials are required to submit to the council such reports as the council may prescribe.

It is difficult to compare popular participation in Swiss elections with that of any other democratic country in Europe. The smallness of the country, the rugged nature of the land, the diversity of languages, the strength of the traditions of local self-government, the variety of political institutions, and the multiplicity of elections make Switzerland a unique place for political experiments. The composition of the Swiss electorate is very similar to that of the French. Every Swiss male citizen, twenty-one years of age or over, is allowed to vote, unless excluded by the laws of the canton in which he resides. However, the duties of the French and Swiss electors are far from being alike. In France the electors vote every four years for the deputies, while in Switzerland there are elections on federal questions every year, to say nothing of the cantonal and municipal elections. The elections to the lower house of the Swiss national legislature, the National Council, are held every three years. These elections do not have the same importance as English or French legislative elections, because the Swiss constitution limits the powers of the national legislators. Furthermore, the Swiss plural executive system detracts from the dramatic quality of the National Council elections. The executive is not responsible to the lower house as in countries having the parliamentary form of government. Making allowance for the fact that some of the cantons have compulsory voting, one might expect to find a lower record for participation in elections to the Swiss National Council than in elections to the French Chamber of Deputies, the latter body having undivided national power and, in addition, control over the executive.

A characteristic post-war institutional development has been the appearance, under one guise or another, of instrumentalities for the representation of functional or economic interests. There is scarcely a nation in Europe that has not in some fashion taken cognizance of social and economic groups by their recognition through definite legal agencies. Witness the Italian lower house, with representation based upon Fascist corporations; and note the Consiglio Superiore dell' Economia, the German Reichswirtschaftsrat, and the Conseil National Économique of France. These bodies are too well known to warrant comment. Czechoslovakia, however, has an agency for expert economic counsel and guidance that challenges comparison and invites examination. Her Advisory Board for Economic Questions is noteworthy as one of the most carefully contrived of institutions for the representation of interests and classes. This board, together with the bodies just mentioned, demonstrates the working compromises that have been made with parliamentarism in view of the ever-increasing technical complexities of the present day “public-service state.”

Functional representation is recognized in varying forms in a large number of countries. The mere extent of this development is significant of the change in attitude that is taking place toward the state. The concept has been acknowledged in word, if not in action, in the constitutions of Yugoslavia, Poland, and Danzig. By decree or statute, the principle has been accepted in Spain, Turkey, Mexico, and Japan. Estonia, Latvia, and Luxembourg must likewise be added. There has been agitation in Norway for an economic council. Plans have been considered toward this end in Greece, Austria, Rumania, and Portugal.

The third conference of the Institute of Pacific Relations met at Kyoto, Japan, from October 28 to November 9, 1929. Previous conferences had been held in 1925 and 1927 at Honolulu. It has been decided to hold the fourth conference in 1931 in China.

The Kyoto conference was the largest thus far held by the Institute. In all, 218 persons participated. Most of these were representatives selected by the seven national councils. The Japanese, with 48, had the largest group. The United States, with 45, came second, followed by China with 31, Canada with 29, Great Britain with 15, Australia with 11, and New Zealand with 6. In addition, there were subgroups of eight Filipinos and seven Koreans. Eight members of the Institute's Honolulu secretariat attended, as did observers from Soviet Russia, France, Netherlands, Mexico, the League of Nations, and the International Labor Office. The members were not in any case official delegates of governments. The national councils are voluntary, self-constituted, and self-perpetuating bodies, and in most cases they selected individuals to attend the conference with a view to the representation of numerous interests. The result was that frequently the closest affiliations of members cross-sectioned the national groups. For example, labor leaders from Great Britain (Malcolm MacDonald), Japan (Bunji Suzuki), Canada (Tom Moore), and the United States (Paul Scharrenburg) were often seen together. Each of the groups had women members, of whom there were 33 in all. The 72 university men constituted the largest professional interest, followed by bankers and business men (44), journalists (18), religious workers (17), and smaller numbers of members of parliaments, ex-government officials, social workers, lawyers, labor leaders, and physicians.