In 1961 our Association President, Norman Brown, discussed with us the problem of the content of cultural continuity in India. He pointed out that in spite of many variations in time and local differentiations in space, the highly developed civilization of India from the third millennium B.C. to the present offers to the student a picture of a continuing entity, a kind of moving picture in which the successive events of a plot seem to be informed and given a special character and vitality by some pervasive element running through the story, an element which might be sought, it was concluded, in the particular perdurable values basic to many Indian behavior patterns.

People impatient to get out were pushing me from behind; people anxious to get in pulled me out. Somehow I landed on my feet on the dusty platform. I gathered the few packages and made my way out of the railway station through a crowd. The reasons for the crowds became clear: today was the day of the weekly market, and the “god” on his journey had reached this town to make a day's halt. My guide and I picked our way through heaps of millet and wheat and rice, through pots and pans, through bales of cloth and saris, toys and hand-mirrors, vegetables and sweets—everything displayed on both sides of the road. Farther on, there were amusements—the revolving cradles and merry-go-rounds, gramophones shrilling loudly, a snake-charmer, a troupe of tight-rope dancers.

The problem of historical explanation is presently engaging the deep interest of philosophers of history. Accepting the view that writing history partakes of the artistic in that the same material may be used, with controls, to support different conclusions, we will attempt to reevaluate certain premises on the early nature of parliamentary government under the Meiji Constitution. To facilitate the discussion, however, we should first present the traditional views on the development of parliamentary government prior to and soon after the promulgation of the Meiji Constitution.

Western economists who wish to study economic conditions in Communist China are plagued both by the quantity and the quality of economic statistics made available by the Chinese Communist authorities. Quantitatively, the meagerness of statistical data makes the task of serious research difficult. Qualitatively, most Western economists have little confidence in these statistics as reliable representations of the actual situations. This paper will examine the general reliability of the physical output data of industrial commodities published by the Chinese Communist authorities. Industrial output data have been selected for our purpose for two reasons. First, great emphasis has been given to industrial production in the economic plans. Second, the Chinese Communist authorities have released relatively abundant data concerning industrial production so that it is possible to conduct certain empirical tests, as will be seen later, to determine the general reliability of the output figures for certain commodities.

In the struggle for the allegiance of the uncommitted masses of Asia and Africa, the West has been prone to rely on the instruments of mass communication and community organization which have been effective in other areas. This approach is expensive but relatively simple since pamphlets, radio programs, and movie shorts may be produced and placed in distribution channels with a minimum of manpower. Country-wide organizations are often led by men sympathetic to the Western viewpoint who will commit their organizations to participate in information programs. For mass media, this approach assumes both exposure and the ability to understand the message conveyed by the media. Similarly, the effort to work with formal community organizations is based on the premise that such organizations really occupy an influential position in the local community.

There is a story that the Jain saint Bhadrabāhu predicted a famine which would last for twelve years and, as a result of this famine, he led twelve thousand Jains in search of better lands. King Candragupta Maurya is said to have accompanied them and lived for twelve years after the death of the saint in Mysore; then, according to the legend, he starved himself to death. In commenting on this Jain story, Vincent Smith says, “… after much consideration I am disposed to accept the main facts as affirmed by tradition. It being certain that Candragupta was quite young and inexperienced when he ascended the throne in or about 322 B.C., he must have been under fifty when his reign terminated twenty-four years later … the twelve years' famine is not incredible. In short, the Jain tradition holds the field, and no alternative exists.”