Among the traditional political conceptions which in recent years have become the object of almost irreverent attack, is that which ascribes the quality of absolutism to that often elusive, but ever present, double-faced creation of the jurists which bears the name of sovereignty. Text-writers, sometimes in unqualified terms, still persist in claiming for it the unrestricted supremacy which was attributed to it in an age when its wielders everywhere were absolute monarchs; but an increasing number, less influenced by legal theories than by realities, see in it only the “ghost of personal monarchy,” as Hobbes characterized it, “sitting crowned on the grave thereof.”

On the one side the attack is directed by a new school of political writers, who deny its very existence or maintain that it is not an essential constituent attribute of the state. According to them, the notion is useless if not fallacious; the theory is discredited by the facts of modern state life and the term should be abandoned and expunged from the literature of political science.

Man, “to be himself,” is “to realize himself.” This fundamental thought became a beacon of light which Ibsen unhesitatingly followed through financial distress, through social isolation, and through severe and often malicious criticism by his contemporaries. To advance the country and elevate the people was Ibsen's cardinal aim, which he consistently strove to attain. He dared to be himself; he spoke the truth when he saw it, and fought for his convictions. If one never commits himself, he never expresses himself; his self becomes less and less significant and decisive. Calculating selfishness is the annihilation of self. This was not true of Ibsen. In a letter to Björnson he says: “Had I to decide on an inscription for the monument, I should chose the words: “His life was his best work.” So to conduct one's life as to realize one's self seems to be the brightest attainment possible to a human being. It is the task of one and all of us, but most of us bungle it.”

The operation of the newly devised systems of centralized control in state government has naturally raised many questions of the relative duties and responsibilities of department and bureau officials on the one hand and of the supervising and controlling authorities on the other. The process of change from an established method of conducting public business to another, based on different principles and requiring new obligations on the part of officers expending money is bound to be a period of readjustment accompanied by a certain amount of friction. This will be the more certain as the new system differs more widely from the old and restricts more completely the freedom of action formerly reserved to heads of the various state services.

The establishment of the state board of public affairs in Wisconsin in 1911, the enactment of the Civil Code in Illinois in 1917, the enactment of the Ohio Civil Code in 1921, and the legislation of Massachusetts culminating in the creation of the board of administration and finance, all made wide departures from the system of administration hitherto in operation. The essential characteristic introduced in each case was the imposition of an agency of review, of supervision, and in many respects of control upon officers and commissions who had hitherto conducted the work of their respective offices for the most part subject only to the necessity of securing approval of their expenditures by the auditor or controller.

No one who has followed the steady expansion of federal authority over the business of interstate carriers sanctioned by the Supreme Court in the Shreveport Case, Illinois Central R. Co. v. Public Utilities Commission, and Railroad Commission v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., will view with surprise the unanimous decision of that tribunal in Dayton-Goose Creek R. Co. v. United States, sustaining the validity of the “recapture” clause of the Transportation Act of 1920. This clause provided in substance that since it is impossible to establish uniform rates upon competitive traffic which will adequately sustain all the carriers needed to do the business, without giving some of them a net income in excess of a fair return, any carrier receiving such excess shall place one-half of it in a reserve fund to be maintained by the carrier for certain specified purposes, and shall pay the other half into a general railroad revolving fund to be maintained in the interstate commerce commission. This fund is to be used by the commission to make loans to carriers to meet expenditures for capital account, and so forth.

After experimenting with coalitions and with a minority Labor government, the voters of Great Britain on October 29, in their third general election in two years, returned the Conservative party to power with a large majority over the combined opposition groups. Thus the traditional system of party government was restored. The desire for stability and the fear of fundamental changes in the political and economic order were probably the chief causes of the overwhelming Conservative victory.

In response to requests for information concerning recent developments in political science in Great Britain and France, the following accounts were received from Professor Harold J. Laski, of the London School of Economics and Political Science, and M. Maurice Caudel, of L'École Libre des Sciences Politiques and editor of the Revue des Sciences Politiques:

Great Britain. It will be well-known to American students of political science, especially since Professor Fairlie's very careful survey in a previous number of the Political Science Review, that there is practically no organized study of political science in Great Britain.