Although there is a federal form of government in both the Dominion of Canada and the United States, there are striking differences in the two types of federalism. Some of these differences are to be found in fundamentals, such as the basis upon which the powers of government are divided in the two countries. Less striking, but nevertheless significant, are still other points of variance. Among these is the power which the dominion government has to disallow legislative acts of the provinces. Just why the fathers of the Canadian federation thought this power should be given to the central government is not clear. The fact remains, however, that in the years from 1867 to 1935, at least 114 provincial acts and territorial ordinances were set aside. It is important to note that these acts were disallowed by executive officers of the dominion government. Executive officers of the national government in the United States do not possess similar powers where state legislation is concerned.

Every twelve years, the parliamentary elections in Sweden, which take place quadrennially, and those in Norway, which occur triennially, fall within a few weeks of each other. In 1936, spirited contests in these two Scandinavian countries (September 21 in Sweden and October 19 in Norway) culminated in gains in each case for the workers' parties. The workers' parties of these two contiguous democracies have much in common. Both are moderately socialistic, and both are believers in the democratic parliamentary system of government. The official title of the Norwegian party is Labor, while that of the Swedish is Social Democrat.

The neutrality legislation enacted at Washington in 1935 was admittedly a compromise, satisfying neither the President, who in his statement upon signing the joint resolution, again criticized its mandatory feature as potentially dangerous, nor many of those in and out of Congress who wanted some definition of our relation to war. As if to point the moral, the Italo-Ethiopian conflict flamed into what the President was pleased to call “a state of war,” and some of the very issues which the legislation was intended to meet became acute. More recently, civil war in Spain has tragically illuminated new issues in our position and policy.