In recent years there has been an interesting and very remarkable extension of judicial control over the acts of the administrative authorities in France. The doctrine of recourse in annulment for excess of power, in particular, has undergone such an extraordinary development that it is probably safe to say that there is now no other country where private rights are better protected against arbitrary and illegal acts of public officers. It is an interesting fact also that this protection has not been created by legislation but is mainly the work of the council of state, and, to a less degree, of the court of cassation, the two supreme judicial tribunals of France.

The solicitude which the council of state, especially, has shown for the protection of individual rights and the independence which it has exhibited as over against the government by whom the councillors of state are appointed and by whom they may be removed at pleasure is a sufficient answer to the criticism of those English and American writers who assert that the French administrative courts are the docile and servile instruments of the government, and that in controversies between the administration and private individuals their decisions are generally in favor of the administration.

The course of recent legislation for the regulation of commerce, trade and industry has created the impression that there exists a tendency in our law to transfer powers of determination from the courts which act according to fixed principles to administrative commissions or officials vested with large discretionary powers.

Considering that normally the progress of law should be away from discretion toward definite rule, such a tendency should receive the most careful examination. The first inquiry should however be whether and to what extent the impression is substantiated by facts.

The advent of the new administrative power is in the public mind associated chiefly with public utility and industrial commissions first created for the control of railroads, for the earlier powers over banks and insurance companies, as well as those of medical and other licensing boards, attracted relatively little attention or comment.

Notable among the realities brought into sharp relief by the present war, is the spontaneous display of loyalty on the part of the British dominions. These “new nations within the empire,” notwithstanding a natural pride in their embryo consciousness of nationhood, have enthusiastically and of their own volition rallied to the support of Britain the head of this same empire. The apparent anomaly inherent in this state of affairs merits notice in view of its importance as a bed-rock principle in the politics of the empire. Moreover, the unique political status enjoyed by the dominions invites attention by reason of its very disagreement with the traditional view generally held as to the normal relations between colony and parent state.

It is only within the past decade and a half that the older of the British dominions, bursting the colonial chrysalis, have begun to emerge into nationhood. Amid the transitions of the present age none is more significant than that which is changing the structure and organization of the empire. That this transition has not been more generally recognized is not surprising. Even the inhabitant of the British Isles has found it difficult to understand the attitude and temper of his fellow-citizen of the colonies. To the Englishman of the past the notion of imperial union was based on a helpless and enforced “loyalty.”

The convening of the 64th congress makes timely a brief discussion of the organization and operation of the Democratic caucus system in the house of representatives during the last two congresses; since the Democratic party remains in control of the present congress, it is to be presumed that the past caucus system will be continued in substantially the same form.

The caucus system used in the 62d and 63d congresses was adopted by the Democrats, upon their accession to control of the house in 1910, to replace Cannonism, which had become of ill repute among the voters, and which had been partly over-thrown at the preceding session. The unwieldy size of the house, as well as the exigencies of party, required some extra-legal machinery to coördinate and direct the action of the members; the substitute chosen by the Democratic leaders was an adaptation of the senate caucus, formerly known as Aldrichism. The essence of Cannonism had been the control of the house by the speaker through his power of appointment of committees and his domination of the rules committee, backed by the power of the majority party caucus; the essence of the new system is direct control of legislative action by the caucus itself.

In Aristotle's treatise on the constitution of Athens we read of the great lawgiver, Solon, that “when he had completed his organization of the constitution … he found himself beset by people coming to him and harassing him concerning his laws, criticizing here and questioning there, till, as he wished neither to alter what he had decided on, nor yet to remain an object of ill-will to everyone by remaining at Athens, he set off on a journey to Egypt, … giving out that he would not return for ten years.” To the student of American history recalling the comparison with “that old constitution-monger Solon,” so often flung at the framers of the Constitution by the anti-Federalists, the hasty exodus from Athens for a decade after the attempt “to save the country and establish the best laws that were possible,” is full of interest. The actual result of the Solonic experiment in political science we also gather from Aristotle, for “in the fifth year after Solon's government they were unable to elect an archon on account of the dissensions,” and again, four years later they elected no archon for the same reason.