There is something anomalous in the spectacle of the nations of the earth, great and small, making prodigious sacrifices in their zeal for military and naval armaments, while at the same time they are coöperating in a campaign to further the effectiveness of peaceful arbitration as a solution of international differences. In considering only the eight leading military powers, it is found that the vast total of nearly two billion dollars is spent annually by them for army and navy. The lesser powers are also spending more lavishly than ever before. Yet, notwithstanding the fact, as stated by Lord Rosebery, that never before has there been, in the history of the world, “so threatening and overpowering a preparation for war,” monarchs and statesmen are perpetually indulging in platitudes on the blessings of peace. Arbitral tribunals are steadily gaining in prestige, peace societies are extending their influence, and public-spirited citizens, notable among whom is Mr. Carnegie, are endowing the cause of international peace.

The conclusion of a definite treaty of diplomatic alliance between France and Morocco, in February, 1910, marks one of the last steps in a long series of moves to establish for France a vast colonial empire in the Dark Continent. Between the years 1830 and 1850, France acquired the whole of Algeria and Constantine. In 1881 she annexed Tunisia; and, in the ten years that followed, she participated with Germany, Great Britain and Italy, in the race for territory in Africa. But it is only within the past twenty years that she has successfully created a great colonial state there.

French colonial enterprise in Africa began in 1637, when Claude de Rochefort built fort St. Louis at the mouth of the Senegal river on the west coast and explored the interior for 100 miles. He was followed during the 18th and early 19th centuries by other intrepid explorers who made settlements at Millicourie on the Guinea coast and at Assinié and Grand Bassam on the Ivory Coast, and who penetrated further and further into the interior until the valiant Réné Caille, after marvelous adventures, reached Timbuktu, near the Upper Niger, in 1837. The French holdings on the Senegal were extended and consolidated into an effective base for future operations by the energetic General Faidherbe from 1854 to 1865, who added the Oulof country as far south as Cape Verde and the kingdom of Cayore, and built the harbor at Darkar. He was the first to recognize the possibilities of West Africa as a colonial center. “Our possession on the West Coast,” he wrote to the Colonial Office, “is possibly the one of all our colonies that has before it the greatest future; and it deserves the whole sympathy and attention of the Empire.”

The term “public utilities” embraces all properties devoted to a use in which the public has an interest. As currently employed in this country today, it includes water, light, heat, power, and telephone plants; urban, suburban and interurban electric railways; steam railways; the telegraph, express companies and several minor organizations connected with transportation. In a narrower and more local use of the term, its scope is restricted to water, light, heat, power and local telephone utilities, and urban and suburban electric railways.

Central utilities commissions are administrative bodies appointed or elected for the purpose of carrying out legislative acts with reference to public utilities. In the widest sense of the term a central commission is a federal or national commission, of which the Interstate Commerce Commission is the best-known representative. Central Commissions, in the narrower sense of the term, are illustrated by state utilities and railroad commissions. Like many other terms central and local have relative meanings with shifting and overlapping circumferences.

The Illinois constitution of 1870 contains several specific provisions for state-wide referenda. In addition to a popular vote on all proposed changes in the fundamental law, a referendum is required on the question of disposing of Illinois and Michigan Canal lands, on incurring state indebtedness above a certain sum, on acts or amendments thereto creating banking corporations, and on additional appropriations for the state house. The Public Opinion law of 1901 enlarged the field of the referendum by providing for the submission of questions of public policy, the result to be considered merely as an expression of public sentiment. This law and the constitutional provisions mentioned above constitute the sum total of all sources for referenda affecting the entire state.

The constitutions of 1818 and 1848 provided for even fewer opportunities for a popular vote on public measures. The earlier of these documents contained only one section relating to a referendum of any sort, and it dealt with the question of calling a constitutional convention. The second constitution enlarged the total number of possible questions so as to include two others.

In the summary of foreign constitutional developments, published in this Review for August, 1910, some attention was paid to the movements in Hungary and in Prussia for an extension of the suffrage. With respect to these movements it is sufficient now to say that nothing has yet been accomplished. In Prussia there seems to be no immediate prospect of reform; and the Prussian government, relying as it does for support in the Landtag upon the conservative parties which would suffer through an electoral reform, has declined to bring forward any further proposal for the liberalizing of the suffrage. In Hungary the Khuen-Héderváry ministry won the election of June, 1910, largely upon the program of electoral reform, but no project has yet been presented, and the delay is explained on the ground that it is necessary to await the results of the new census which was begun early in 1911. Although no announcements have been made it now seems that Count Andrássy's plan of plural voting will be abandoned, and that the “Magyar character of the Hungarian state” will be preserved by a scheme of apportioning members of the house of representatives in such a way as to give the Magyars a greater power than their numbers would justify.