THE PROBLEM OF BY WESTEL W. WILLOUGHBY Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University AND LINDSAY ROGERS Associate Professor of Government, Lecturer on Government, Harvard FOLL GARDEN CITY, N. Y., AND TORONTO 1 PREFACE THE purpose of this volume is to introduce the reader to the problems of constitutional and popular government. Such a purpose cannot be achieved by simply furnishing an outline of the manner in which modern governments are organized. This knowledge the student must, of course, have; it is the material of political thought and is available in a number of excellent text books. But if the student is to derive any real value from the information which he has, he must have some appreciation of the place of politics in the social sciences; the right of the State to be; the sphere of state control; the practical problems with which all constitutional and popular governments are confronted; the manner in which States of the modern world have attempted to solve these problems; the relation of different political institutions and agencies to each other (for example, the analogy between the Congressional Caucus and the British Cabinet), and the reasons for their apparent success, or failure to achieve the ends for which they were instituted-in a word (although it may be a too ambitious way of stating our task), the principles behind the facts. Such a theoretical insight is, we venture to think, of more value than a meticulous knowledge of one or more governments. It is of greater importance for the student to appreciate the nature of federal government than it is for him to know the intricacies of congressional procedure. Again, the control of foreign policy, a problem common to all modern governments and nowhere satisfactorily settled, is much more vital than the details of administrative reorganization in the United States. The comparisons may be extreme ones, but they at least indicate our point of view, which may be re-stated somewhat differently: Popular government, as Lord Morley has said, is not a delicately synchronized chronometer. It is, on the contrary, a rough piece of machinery which will work somehow, even though all of its parts are not perfectly adjusted. The nature and location of the minor parts are of less importance than the work which the machinery is expected to do, the forces which furnish its motive power, the broad plan on which it is constructed, and the general manner of its operation. Our purpose has thus been to deal analytically and critically rather than descriptively with governmental structures. Descriptive material, however, has not been excluded. Care has been taken to illustrate concretely the abstract principles which have been discussed, but there is no pretence that the student is given a full description of the governments of any of the States whose constitutions are considered. We do venture to think, however, that the chapters which follow, with the illustrative material in the appendices, furnish an adequate outline for a course in Constitutional Government, and that any descriptive details which are deemed to be lacking can perhaps be better acquired from the constitutions themselves or from other texts, rather than that the student should get his descriptive knowledge without the synthesis and orientation which we have sought to provide. So, also, the present volume may be useful in linking up existing political institutions with the subject matter of courses on the elements of Political Science or Political Theory. For, just as it is essential that the student of government see the problems common to all constitutional systems, and temporarily solved in different ways, so it is necessary that the student of political philosophy have his feet on the ground, and appreciate the connection between political thought and governmental adjustments. The authors are fully aware that this book is only an introduction to the problem of government. For this they make no apology. The subject is so intricate and its ramifications are so numerous that phases of it (which may seem to some readers to be important) are given summary treatment, considered only in the footnotes, or even relegated to the "Topics for Further Investigation" which are appended to each chapter. From the pedagogical standpoint this is an advantage. The student should not think that the beginning and end of a course or a subject are between two covers; it is better for him to have a syllabus rather than a text book; for him, in many cases, to work out his own salvation on topics that are sufficiently important to warrant independent study, yet sufficiently simple not to impose too great difficulties. It is thought that this purpose may be more easily and more advantageously accomplished, with the aid of the unusually copious references which have been included to current political literature of an interesting and authoritative, but non-technical character. On pedagogical grounds, also, there is no objection to the repetition of certain matters (from different points of view) which the plan of our book makes inevitable. In result, then, it is hoped that the student may be led to a knowledge of the true meaning of constitutional liberty, and to an adequate understanding of the problems involved in the harmonizing of popular government with an efficient administration of public affairs. From the standpoint of descriptive Political Science, there is no further interest in the Government of Germany as it was prior to the Revolution. It is, however, such an excellent illustration of the monarchical type that we have referred to it incidentally and have given it a rather full analysis. Monarchical government is also illustrated by a discussion of Japanese political institutions (with the Japanese Constitution in the Appendix). This space we |