Our present discontents have evoked many earnest words on the subject of “social planning.” We are told that “capital can be defended only by constructive programs based on the consideration of social responsibility;” that we are headed for “a frightful cataclysm” unless we adopt “a national plan that will control and guide the basic industries, govern the investment of capital, and keep purchasing power in step with production;” that if we are to avoid revolution, “we dare not sit indefinitely in contemplative inaction;” that “we require a leadership that will help us think less about the theories of individualism and more about the tragedies to individuals,” inasmuch as “men cannot eat words … cannot wear words … cannot trust their old age to words.” In brief, if we are to avoid something worse, we must take some thought for the morrow.

Representative government, as every student of political science well knows, is now under fire. While it is not necessary to take too seriously the statements made by delirious purveyors of new remedies for old discontents, we cannot fail to take note of the fact that a strong tide of opinion has set in against this famous institution of democracy. On the continent of Europe, dictators either reject it entirely or seek to reduce it to purely advisory functions. In England, rumblings are heard to the effect that the Mother of Parliaments is not well herself; propositions for drastic changes come from members of the House of Commons; and if economic depression and unemployment continue for another ten years it is highly probable that some radical experiments will be made in the direction of concentrating economic powers. The United States is not without its troubles. When in the summer of 1931, with the deepening of the industrial crisis, it was urged that a special session of Congress be called to deal with national distress, President Hoover rather tartly rejected the petition and indicated that our great representative body was more likely to retard than to help “the process of recovery.”

The bombardment of Mukden by Japanese forces on September 18, 1931, followed by the occupation of a large part of the three eastern provinces of China, i.e., Manchuria, by the Japanese, followed by the expulsion of the Chinese authorities, has brought to a head the long-standing disagreement between China and Japan in regard to their respective rights and policies in that territory, and has presented the League of Nations, the signatories of the Nine-Power Washington Treaty, and the signatories of the Kellogg Peace Pact with an opportunity to illustrate the meaning of these instruments.

It is now quite well known that, in spite of its non-membership in the League of Nations, the United States has participated for some time in various League activities. The nature and extent of such coöperation have been described and commented on by several writers, and need not be reviewed here. It is sufficient to point out that these relationships between the United States and the League have been going on now for nearly ten years, that they have continually grown in number and importance, that they have become increasingly friendly, frank, and official, and that their continuous character has been recognized and regularized by maintaining a State Department official at Geneva as a sort of “consul to the League.”

In the past, the principal criterion of a capacity for independence seems to have been the ability to foment such forces of violence and potential insurrection as to make the cost of maintaining external political control greater than the controlling power could bear. The real question has been, not whether the subject people were able to stand alone, but whether the efforts necessary for keeping them in subjection conformed to national policy. While the maintenance of such control has invariably been justified by reference to “the white man's burden” and a “sacred trust of civilization,” the nature of this rationalization is sharply challenged by an examination of the actual instances when the time has been found ripe for a shifting of the “burden” to more willing shoulders. It has almost invariably followed upon outbreaks of such violent disorder, if not actual insurrection, as to make it inexpedient for the controlling power to attempt to maintain the status quo. If complete independence is not granted, some concessions of local autonomy and administrative reorganization placate the disaffected elements and postpone the evil day of final settlement.