Suchergebnisse

The results which are likely to flow from any political change are extremely difficult to predict. It would have been impossible a generation ago to foresee that the gradual shift, in democratic as well as totalitarian states, of the political center of gravity from the legislature to the executive would create a new instrument of political power. That instrument is official publicity, or, more bluntly, governmental propaganda. It is suggested here that the tremendous growth in the publicity activities of modern governments is a direct consequence of the continued absorption by the executive of a larger degree of legislative initiative and power. Indeed, it seems highly probable that the development of the administrative bureaucracy as a source of policy and law will result, if it has not already done so, in making propaganda an indispensable instrument of government, with profound implications for traditional democratic processes.

The recent national election in Great Britain offers another opportunity to study the methods and practices by which British political parties carry on their campaigns. One of the most interesting of these aspects of British politics is the character of the propaganda activities in which the parties engage—activities which present some contrasts to those with which Americans are familiar. In the United States, the regularity of elections accustoms the public to recurrent outbursts of noisy, high-pressure propaganda followed after elections by a silence almost unbroken by official party utterances. The parties of the United States are compelled to manufacture their campaigns out of whatever materials are at hand, seeking to whip up public sentiment without caring very much whether it rests upon sound convictions as to public policy or upon prejudice and passion. Party activities and strategy are determined almost exclusively by one cardinal principle—the effect upon the number of votes which the party can secure.

The Civil War in the United States was a sobering object lesson to the fathers of Canadian federation. In drafting the British North America Act of 1867, they sought to forestall the development of those problems which the experience of their neighbor to the south had shown to be incidental to the federal system of government. The division of powers between central and local governments has been the rock on which most federations, sooner or later, have foundered, and Canadians sought to escape a similar fate by three different political devices.

The International Labor Organization has become one of the most active of all the international institutions of the post-war period. According to the treaty of Versailles, international labor conferences, composed of delegates from countries which are members of the International Labor Organization, are to meet annually to consider and adopt recommendations and conventions applicable to labor problems and conditions throughout the world. The subjects for a number of possible agreements are suggested in the Versailles treaty, and include the right of association of laborers, the establishment of the eight-hour day, the adoption of the weekly rest period, the abolition of child labor, and various related matters. In drafting conventions and recommendations, the conferences are to be guided by a number of principles laid down in the Versailles treaty, and are asked to recognize that "differences of climate, habit and customs, of economic opportunity and industrial tradition, make strict uniformity in the conditions of labor difficult of immediate attainment."Economic difficulties alone were recognized, at first, by the makers of the treaty of Versailles as standing in the way of the attainment of "strict uniformity in the conditions of labor." It was, however, soon brought to the attention of the Peace Conference that governments might not all prove equally competent constitutionally to deal with labor problems, and that some might prove totally lacking in legal capacity to adhere to the proposed labor conventions. This legal limitation was felt to be especially likely to arise in the case of federal governments, in many of which all matters of labor legislation are reserved to the member-states, and hence are beyond the legislative powers of the central governments. It was predicted by some that these legal difficulties would prove more stubborn obstacles to the uniform regulation of labor matters than differences in climate, habits and customs, and economic opportunity.