The epoch-marking proclamation issued by Queen Victoria in 1858 announced to the people of India that they were to be admitted freely and impartially to political office. The autocratic bureaucracy of foreigners, culminating in the régime of Lord Curzon, when only about 4 per cent of the members of the Indian civil service were natives, was hardly a fulfillment of the spirit of this proclamation. Nor did the peoples of India consider it such. The spirit of unrest finally took shape in the Indian National Congress, founded in 1885, to give expression to the ideas of the educated classes; and this body soon came to be regarded as the unofficial Indian parliament. Each year it brought forward a list of ills which the government of India as then organized could not hope to remedy.

War-time conditions joined with a new and revolutionizing electoral law to give the British parliamentary elections of last December many novel features. The national electorate, including six million women, was twice as large as ever before; balloting, except by soldiers and other absentees, was confined to a single day; votes were allowed to be sent in by post, or to be cast by proxy; the usual party contest was replaced by a trial of strength between a coalition government which found support among practically all political elements and a number of groups whose physiognomy would hardly have been recognized by an antebellum observer.

Legislation supplementary to the British Representation of the People Act approved February 6,1918, has lately made women eligible to sit in the house of commons. No sooner was the former measure, which enfranchised six million women, on the statute book than the question arose whether its effect was to make women eligible for election. The law officers of the crown held that no such right was conferred. Prospective women candidates, however, were not deterred; and the Labor party at once pronounced in favor of a bill to secure the desired object.

The provisional government of the Czechoslovak Republic at Prague was established by virtue of the law of November 13, 1918, on the provisional constitution. Its antecedents may be of some interest to students of constitutional history. The Czechoslovak statesmen take the ground that the ancient Bohemian state never ceased to exist, as is proved by the thrice-made offer of Francis Joseph, as well as the similar offer of ex-Emperor Charles, to be crowned king of Bohemia. They also point out that the Czech nation never recognized the constitution of 1867 which made possible the Austro-Hungarian Ausgleich.

A former issue of the REVIEW (November, 1917) contained a résumé of German political affairs from the outbreak of the great war to the accession of Chancellor Michaelis, July 14, 1917. The summary will here be continued to the abdication of Emperor William II in November, 1918.

The appointment of Michaelis came at a time when the imperial government was under fire, both in the Reichstag and throughout the country. The Russian revolution and the entrance into the war by the United States had given a new impetus to the movement for political reform.

Denmark enacted new election laws May 10, 1915. The first election of members of the lower house of the national legislature held under them, April 22, 1918, is of special interest; for the laws attempt in a unique way to remedy the inequalities in representation common under the singlemember district plan.

Of great importance in the reconstruction program of the United Kingdom is the new ministry of health authorized by act of Parliament on June 3. At first sight it would seem that the local government board has merely changed its name. But this is not the whole truth. The new ministry is to become the one authority in all matters of health, taking over such duties from the home office with reference to factories and workshops, and from the education department, in regard to children at school. It will also assume, in England, the responsibilities of the national insurance commissioners under the legislation of 1911.