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the prime minister. Through his connection with the Imperial Conference and the Committee of Imperial Defence he is assuming duties to which the principle of collective ministerial responsibility cannot conveniently be applied. Mr. Low believes that "we may expect a more definite recognition of the prime minister's status as imperial chancellor and perhaps eventually the separation of that function from the presidency of the British ministry and the leadership of the British parliamentary majority."

Le Gouvernement Représentatif Fédéral dans la République Argentine (Paris, Libraire Hachette et Cie., 1912; 380 pp.) by José Nicolás Matienzo, Professor in Public Law in the Universities of Buenos Ayres and La Plata, is a volume written to comply with the recommendation, embodied in a resolution of the Pan-American Scientific Congress held at Santiago de Chile in 1908, that the universities of the American republics make studies of the political institutions of their countries. This work, in a comparatively brief compass, presents a clear description of the workings of the Argentine government. The federal system as applied in Argentina is described, as well as the party organization and the theory of the constitution. Chapters are devoted to the executive, legislative and judicial departments, to the provincial administration, and to the relations between the central government and the provinces. The appendices contain the text of the constitution of 1853 and its amendments, which are now in force.

Professor J. A. Woodburn's Political Parties and Party Problems in the United States, which first appeared in 1903, has been reissued in a revised and enlarged form (New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1914; xiii, 487 pp.). The new volume is half again as large as its predecessor, the increased size being due to the inclusion of new chapters on the recent history of parties and on direct legislation as well as to the fuller consideration given to primary reform and the origins of the Republican party. The curious and somewhat confusing arrangement of the subjectmatter remains as it was; the convention appears in part ii as a piece of political machinery and the primary in part iii as an "ethical problem. The bibliographies leave much to be desired. For example, references are made to Dallinger, Harvard Historical Publications (no title, no date); to Peck's Twenty-five Years of the Republic; to the Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science (no date). At least three different titles are given to the Cyclopedia of American GovernIn numerous cases where the value of a book depends upon time of its publication no date is given. The author has been to some pains in bringing his information abreast of recent changes; in that he

ment.

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has been fairly successful. But on occasion-and especially in the chapters which deal with the primary and with the initiative, referendum and recall—his statements are sometimes obscure and even inaccurate. His description of the proceedings on primary day-evidently meant to be considered as general in its application-is not an extreme

case.

He will be asked in which party primary he wishes to participate, in order that a party ballot may be furnished him. If excessive independence or reticence prevents his stating his party affiliation, and he still desires to vote in the primary, he may be given one of each of the tickets fastened together; he retires to the booth, marks the one he desires, presumably the one of his own party, folds them together and deposits them in the ballotbox. If he votes on more than one ticket, only that one is counted containing the largest number of offices voted for. If the same number of names is marked on each, both are thrown out, thus preventing the nomination of weak candidates by voters of the opposite party.

Of course, Professor Woodburn knows that there are "closed" primaries and "open" primaries, that the provisions of law vary a good deal among the different states; but generalizations like the one quoted will certainly mislead those who have just begun to investigate our political practice. It should be observed, however, that defects of this kind occur chiefly in the latter part of the volume and that they do not obtrude themselves frequently enough seriously to impair the value of a text-book which so many students have found useful in the past.

In his interesting little volume on Unpopular Government in the United States (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1914; viii, 263 pp.) Professor Albert M. Kales traces the chief evils of "invisible " government to the overpowering burden which our political system places on the electorate. He then examines the various devices designed to secure responsibility and efficiency in the government, such as the direct primary, commission government, the union of the executive and the legislature, the single chamber plan, the initiative, referendum and recall, and the simplification of state government. The real remedy for unpopular government by party manipulators, according to Professor Kales, is to be found in the political philosophy of the short ballot and the sound practice under it. Though the volume presents little new to one who has kept abreast of recent literature of this character, the general survey which it gives and the fresh illustrations which adorn it make it worthy of serious consideration.

Professor Emery's Politician, Party, and People (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1913; 183 pp.) is a series of sober and thoughtful

lectures addressed to the senior class of the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale University, on the duties and opportunities of citizenship. topics are the voter and the facts, the voter and the party, the voter and his representative, the representative and his constituency and the representative and his party. All the important problems of political ethics which confront the young voter are treated in a catholic spirit and with close reference to practical considerations.

The high standard of the three previous volumes is maintained in the 1913 American Year Book (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1914; xx, 892 pp.). Considerably more than half of the volume is concerned with subjects of primary interest to students of the social sciences. Moreover, the topics have been selected with discretion and treated with satisfactory fulness. The arrangement is convenient and the volume succeeds admirably in its primary purpose to supply the need "of students in all fields, who wish a record of progress, not only in their own, but in other departments of human endeavor."

Viscount Morley has published, in an expanded form, an address given before the University of Manchester, under the title Notes on Politics and History (New York, The Macmillan Company, 1914; 201 pp.). In the introductory note Lord Morley expresses the hope that these notes may "not be too dispersive to prevent some points of thought from being of use in the way of suggestion, interrogatory, and perhaps as a spur to curiosity." This hope will not be disappointed, for the little book bears the stamp of that thoughtful observer of past and present whose obiter dicta are philosophical in the nature of things. the reader who expects to find Morley at his best here will be disappointed. The book is poorly put together, in fact the text even drags itself rather wearily along as if the author were losing interest in the drama of history in which he himself has played so fine a rôle.

But

The eighth volume of Professor McMaster's justly celebrated History of the United States (New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1913; xix, 556 pp.) covers the period from the Great Compromise to the Civil War. The general plan of the work, that of giving a balanced view of social and economic matters as well as of politics, is carried out in this last instalment and the method of treatment is identical with that of the previous volumes. Comment upon an undertaking so widely known and so highly esteemed is a work of supererogation.

People read about Lincoln with a weird sense of the supernatural, of something apart from human affairs. They think of another Man of Sorrows, and the journey from the manger to the cross, the crime of Cain, the trans

lation of Elijah. Nothing in human biography stirs the imagination like this. The man of history is already become a man of fable, and in some distant day learned doctors will dispute whether Abraham Lincoln was a real character or a hero of tradition, belonging in limbo with Romulus and King Arthur.

The foregoing is a characteristic paragraph taken at random from Albert E. Pillsbury's Lincoln and Slavery (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1913; 97 pp.). In this semi-mystical style the author undertakes to reverse the judgment of most students of Lincoln's career that the prime motive back of all his actions during his presidency, was preservation of the Union. By showing that Lincoln hated slavery (an easy task) Mr. Pillsbury convinces himself and strives to convince his readers that the idea paramount in Lincoln's mind was emancipation, and that he hardly would have taken the trouble to save the Union unless in so doing slavery should be destroyed. In justice to the author it must be said that he makes a rather strong case in defence of his point of view, but the words of Lincoln to Horace Greeley, in the famous letter of August 22, 1862—“ If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it "—are hard to explain away. (An attempt to do so is found on page 66 ff.) It is also fair to the author to quote from his book what would probably be his reply to this note: "Those who point to the Greeley letter, or to other fancied evidences that Lincoln was willing to save slavery, are ignorant of the historical facts or too little to comprehend them."

Under the title Thirty Years' Anglo-French Reminiscences, 1876– 1906 (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914; viii, 389 pp.) Sir Thomas Barclay tells the story of his share in the formation of the Triple Entente. The book is an interesting, but broken and rambling, autobiography, written by an English journalist and banker in Paris who had much to do in breaking down the mutual misunderstandings between French and English, and so laid the basis for the diplomacy of Edward VII. The services of Sir Thomas in this connection are well knownperhaps sufficiently well known that it would have been safe to leave the reader to gather their importance from other sources. The canons of good taste are not quite violated, and yet, for a diplomat, the author takes risks with his readers. A number of documents bearing upon the subject of the entente are given in the appendix, text of treaties etc. The book is both timely and interesting; but when one realizes the opportunities of the author, one wishes there had been more insight offered into the attitude of various political leaders in France, and a less limited view of the activities of others.

In writing the Life of Walter Bagehot (Longmans, Green and Company, New York, 1914; viii, 478 pp.) Mrs. Russell Barrington has been. greatly hampered, by the lack of correspondence. Very few letters either from or to Bagehot are included in the volume. Bagehot was in the habit of destroying all letters that came to him, and in the thirty-seven years that elapsed between his death and the appearance of his biography, almost all the men with whom he was associated, and who probably received letters from him, passed from the stage. There is no indication that Bagehot ever kept a diary. Failing these two sources of material, Mrs. Barrington has had to rely largely on her personal recollections of Bagehot, who was her brother-in-law, and the recollections of other people who knew him. Had the biographer been less closely associated with Bagehot during his lifetime, she would probably have drawn more on his published works. As it is, she takes it for granted that the reader has a close acquaintance with Bagehot's writings, and she neither attempts to describe or to criticise his work, or to give an estimate of his place among English writers on political science. There is a good deal in the book about The Economist and about Bagehot's connection with this Journal, and with the National Review; but practically the only critical estimates of his contribution to constitutional history and finance are in the form of quotations-chiefly from articles by President Wilson. The personal equation of the writer is shown in the space and prominence given to the work of her father, Rt. Hon. James Wilson, in Indian finance-a work with which Bagehot had little connection. The chapters on this subject are full and carefully written. They contain letters to and from Wilson, while he was engaged in the tremendous task of rescuing India from bankruptcy and putting her government on a stable financial basis after the Indian Mutiny. These letters form a distinct contribution to the history of the British Empire. But Mrs. Barrington's volume, as a life of Walter Bagehot, has a value that is personal and human rather than historical or critical.

An interesting volume of the Home University Library is The Colonial Period (New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1912; 256 pp.) by Professor Charles M. Andrews of Yale University. This brief account of English colonial history attempts to lay due emphasis upon the three factors, "the mother country, the colonies and the relations between them," the first and the last of which have usually been neglected by historians. Chapters are devoted to the English settlements along the whole Atlantic seaboard, political and economic conditions, imperial administration, the struggle of the colonies for self-control and the attempts to secure colonial union.

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