It is the pleasant duty of every Swiss, addressing an audience of American citizens on a subject of political science, to begin by acknowledging the debt of gratitude his country owes theirs, for the benefit it has derived from the historical example of the United States.

For over a century a continuous exchange of political ideas has been going on between our two nations. After all the flattering and gratifying commentaries on our institutions that have been made on this side of the ocean, it is but fair that we Swiss should frankly admit that in this exchange we have received more than we have given.

As was indicated in a preceding article, the chief feature of the judicial year 1909–1910, from the point of view of Constitutional Law, was that the decisions, though numerous, were comparatively unimportant. On the contrary the chief feature of the constitutional decisions of the judicial year 1910–1911 was that an unusual number of them appeared to the public to be of great interest and consequence. Hence it is advisable to deal with the judicial year 1910–1911 in a manner wholly different from that which was adopted with its predecessor. The article covering the judicial year 1909–1910 collected all the constitutional cases in the Supreme Court of the United States, and, with the briefest possible indication of the point decided, distributed them among the several clauses of the Constitution which they served to annotate. For the judicial year 1910–1911, on the other hand, the plan adopted is to confine attention almost wholly to the few decisions making the year memorable. Thus it becomes possible to give a rather full statement of those few decisions and now and then to add comments.

When the Constitution of the United States was pending for ratification, its supporters, in their public utterances, were disposed to minimize the powers which it conferred. This was the general tone of the Federalist. How far they might reach, indeed, was a question that only the future could fully answer. A set of traditions and usages and precedents must first grow up, under the Constitution, but outside of it.

Every one saw that much would depend on the views of Washington. Every one looked forward with confidence to his unanimous election as the first President. Every one saw that it would be left to him to decide whether he should be reelected. His refusal to stand for a third term founded a usage that has become as controlling as an express constitutional provision.

Washington took care that the judiciary should be composed of men who believed that Congress was not confined to the exercise of the powers expressly granted to it.

On the first of January, 1910, the total amount of life insurance in force in Canada, exculsive of that on the assessment plan, amounted to over 780 millions of dollars. Of this, all, excepting a little less than 68 millions of industrial insurance, represented what we may properly style as ordinary or old line business. The policies to the number of upwards of a million were distributed between 53 different companies of which 23 were Canadian, 16 American, and 14 British. The British companies carried risks amounting in the aggregate to less than 47 millions and they seemed to be, on the whole, inactive in the matter of securing new business. In 1909, 8 of the 14 British companies carrying risks in Canada wrote no new Canadian business at all. On the other hand, the American companies make a much better showing; the sum total of their policies was nearly 218 millions of dollars, of which approximately one-fifth represented industrial insurance. The rest of the business, amounting to over 515 millions, was carried by the Canadian companies themselves. From these figures, it is evident that the home companies are now strongly entrenched within their own field. A comparison of the present situation with that of thirty years ago would show that the risks of the Canadian companies have increased much more rapidly than have those of their American rivals. In 1879, the amount of the policies of each in force in Canada was less than thirty-four millions. In the noteworthy expansion of life insurance which has since taken place, a number of causes have combined to swell the aggregate business of the Canadian companies. Not the least important factor here to be considered is that of sentiment—a desire to develop Canada for the Canadians and to promote and foster home enterprises. Moreover, on the more popular forms of policies, the premium rates offered by the home companies have been, as a rule, lower than those of their neighbors across the border.

The year 1911 was characterized during its latter half by unusually high tension among the great powers of Europe. Latent rivalries and ambitions came to the surface in such a way as not only to endanger and even directly to disturb the peace of the world at the present time but also to threaten even graver complications for the future. Although in the controversies of the year interests of prime importance were not involved, yet the continued suspense and friction resulted in a very decided aggravation of international rivalry, and served especially to render more acute the chronic mutual suspicion between Great Britain and Germany. Consequently, notwithstanding all the efforts which had been made to bring about a better understanding and eventually to secure mutual engagements with respect to a limitation of armaments and a reduction of the tremendous burden of military preparation, there has developed a situation which is for the present very unpromising. In fact new efforts are being made still further to increase armaments, and the temper in which European nations find themselves is only too favorable to further exertions in this direction.

Throughout the United States there are provided special, though simple, forms of municipal government for villages under the various names of village, borough or town. Oddly enough the notable exceptions to this general practice are to be found in New England, the region which includes three of the most densely populated states in the Union. Moreover, it is in the two most densely populated of these that the least progress has been made toward the development of an orderly system of village government.

At one time the whole area of New England, except certain unorganized tracts in the north, was under town government and so continued until the growth of urban conditions led to city incorporation. In every case incorporation was by special act, and such is the method employed in every case to the present time. The readiness of the town government to assume the functions proper to an urban community not only retarded city incorporation, but prevented, in large measure, the growth of special forms of government for villages. It is not unusual to find towns which include within their limits many square miles of rural territory, providing all or part of its population with fire protection, water, sewers, lights, side-walks, parks and libraries. But there has grown up, sometimes under general laws though more commonly as a result of special legislation, a heterogeneous collection of municipal governments and taxing authorities variously denominated villages, fire, water, lighting, sewer, highway and improvement districts, producing a confusion comparable only to the conditions in England before the municipal reforms of recent date.

The Parliament Act of 1911 received the royal assent on August 18. By the terms of its important preamble further legislation is promised, which will define both the composition and powers of a new second chamber “constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis;” although “such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation,” the positive provisions of the measure restrict the “existing powers of the House of Lords.” This law, therefore, is intentionally temporary, the first probably of several enactments embodying further constitutional changes.

In the mean time and briefly what does this law now provide? (1) A public bill passed by the House of Commons and certified by the Speaker of the House of Commons to be a “money bill” within the terms of the act shall, “unless the Commons direct to the contrary,” “become an Act of Parliament on the Royal assent being signified, notwithstanding that the House of Lords have not consented to the Bill,” within one month after it has been “sent up to that House.”

Bibliographical Note.—Obviously it is impossible to give a definite authority for many of the statements made in an article of this sort. I have, for the most part, therefore, omitted any footnotes whatever. Naturally I have used such standard works as Lecky, whose chapters on Irish questions I have found to be based on a more thorough research than those dealing with purely British affairs, and Morley's Gladstone. I have consulted, as well, the various parliamentary papers and reports relating to the Home Rule bills of 1886, 1893, and 1912. One of the most useful expositions of Mr. Asquith's bill is the series of papers edited for the Eighty Club by Prof. J. H. Morgan, and recently published under the title, “The New Irish Constitution.” I need scarcely mention that I have referred to Dicey's “England's Case Against Home Rule” and “A Leap in the Dark”; the Earl of Dunraven's “The Legacy of Past Years”; G. Locker Lampson's “A Consideration on the State of Ireland in the Nineteenth Century”; Justin H. McCarthy's “The Case for Home Rule”; Sidney Brooks' “Aspectsof the Irish Question”; Harold Begbie's “The Lady Next Door”; R. Barry O'Brien's “Life of Charles Stewart Parnell,” “Dublin Castle and the Irish People,” “Two Centuries of Irish History,” “Home Rule Speeches of John Redmond,” and other similar works.

A previous article attempted a summary of the contents of the Parliament Act of 1911 and a mention of its immediate ancestry. There followed notice of some historical alleviatory suggestions regarding the composition of the House of Lords and an analysis both of the actual provisions of the Act and of proposals alternative to them with respect to the powers of the Upper House in the matter of “money bills.”

This second article, continuing the method of the first, includes at the outset the question of the powers of the House of Lords as to “general legislation,” i. e. public bills other than money bills. There follows reference to historical ancestry in these matters. Thus the consideration of the means by which the Act became law, that potential resort to the use of the royal prerogative by the temporary executive, may clear the way for speculation as to the significance of the Parliament Act as a whole.

Briefly the Act provides for a final reduction of the powers of the House of Lords as to general legislation to a suspensive veto operative against House of Commons measures only in two successive sessions; after a lapse of two years after the first introduction of the measure in the Lower House and on its third passage there the bill can become law on the royal assent being given, the Lords notwithstanding.

The chief purpose of this paper is to consider briefly the reception accorded President Monroe's message to congress of December 2, 1823, in England, France, Spain, and Austria.

This state paper was given a hearty welcome by many English journalists. Reports of the president's message first appeared in the newspapers of London on December 26 and 27, 1823. The Times happily contrasted it with “King's Speeches, addressed in like manner, but in substance far unlike, to Lords and Commons, to Peers and Deputies, in kingdoms nearer home. … As sources of intelligence—as indications of policy—as keys to national history, they have of late years dwindled to nothing, realizing with curious accuracy Talleyrand's definition of the use of language—‘an instrument for concealing men's thoughts.’ The genius of a popular Government rejects these mysterious devices. … The President's message of the United States is a paper breathing business in every line. It is at once a picture of the period elapsed since the labours of Congress were last interrupted, a prospectus for the forthcoming year, the detailed report of a commissioner, and the formal account of a trustee … we have read this State Paper with an interest more profound than any of its precursors had excited.

The “final crowning act to complete the temple of popular government here” was the adoption of the “recall” by a constitutional amendment in June, 1908. This provision allows the recall of any elective public officer by the voters of the district from which he was elected. The recall is instituted by filing a petition demanding the recall, signed by twenty-five per cent of the number of electors who voted in the district at the preceding election for justice of the supreme court. The petition must set forth the reasons for the demand. The officer may avoid a recall election by resignation. If he does not resign within five days after the petition has been filed, a special election (in practice it may be called at the same time as the general election) is called to determine whether he shall continue in office. He is virtually a candidate for reëlection without nomination, since others may be nominated for the office, and the person receiving the highest number of votes cast at the election is declared elected, whether he is the person whose recall is demanded or another. No petition may be circulated against an officer until he has held office for six months except in the special case of a member of the legislature, where it may be filed within five days from the beginning of the first session after his election. After one recall election no additional recall petitions may be filed against the same officer during the same term unless the petitioners pay into the public treasury the amount of the expenses of the preceding recall election.

About twenty years ago, Mr. Bryce, with microscopic vision, observed that the state governor was “not yet a nonentity.” On the other hand the state legislature was “so much the strongest force in the several states that we may almost call it the Government and ignore all other authorities.” The strangeness of sound with which these statements strike our ears at the present day is indicative of the length of the road which we have since traveled and of the change which has taken place within recent years in the relative positions of the governor and the legislature in our state governments. The unmistakable tendency which now prevails in many quarters towards an enlargement of the power of the governor directs attention anew to the administrative and political position which that officer occupies and to the manner in which his influence and prestige have been, and may be still further, increased.