Reconstruction of things, of men, and especially of ideals was demanded as soon as the world awoke to the magnitude of the destruction being wrought by the great war. As time went on and more and more peoples were drawn in, with ever widening ruin to property and institutions, the need for devising far-reaching plans for rebuilding became more pressing. While every possible effort was being made to win the war quickly, yet at the same time certain far seeing men recognized that if peace came without having adequate plans for reconstruction much of the fruit of victory might be lost. Thus it was that many of the nations, even during the height of the war, created organizations whose duty it was to prepare plans and especially to conduct researches into those matters which, with the reëstablishment of peace, would have prime importance.

Many a statesman of Europe and each propagandist the world over has seen the opportunity. He has had his vision of what may be accomplished at the golden moment in the world's history when so much that is old and bad has been weakened and so much that is idealistic may become real if only this opportunity is grasped.

For some years prior to the outbreak of the great war the proposed reorganization of the administrative system of France occupied a leading place among the questions of French internal politics. It provoked a flood of discussion in parliament; it was the subject of investigation and report by various parliamentary, extra-parliamentary and inter-ministerial commissions; it was dwelt upon regularly in the annual reports on the budget; it was a standing subject of discussion by the functionaries in their associations and by the political parties in their annual congresses; it was responsible for a vast output of literature in the form of books, brochures and articles; and it occupied a conspicuous place in the declaration of each incoming ministry upon taking office. In the parliamentary election campaign of 1910 no other question, except proportional representation, was so widely discussed by the candidates.

The federal Child Labor Law was declared unconstitutional in Hammer v. Dagenhart by a vote of five to four. It forbade the transportation in interstate or foreign commerce of the product of any mine or quarry “in which within thirty days prior to the time of the removal of such product therefrom children under the age of sixteen years have been employed or permitted to work,” with similar prohibitions covering the products of mills and factories in which children under fourteen were employed or children under sixteen were employed more than eight hours a day. The majority opinion misinterpreted the statute and assumed that it permitted goods “to be freely shipped after thirty days from the time of their removal from the factory,” whereas it permitted only the shipment of stock on hand thirty days after children had ceased to be employed. The law was so framed as to avoid the necessity of proof that children coöperated in the making of specific articles produced in a factory in which children were employed, and yet to remove any ban on shipment from an establishment which for thirty days had employed only adult labor.

The revision of the Philadelphia city charter and of the constitution of Pennsylvania is now being actively discussed. The Committee of Seventy, a local civic organization, has called a general conference on the city charter. A wide participation by leaders in civic life is promised. Public attention is directed towards the desirability of a smaller city council with a single body to supplant the larger bicameral councils that have persisted in Philadelphia despite changes elsewhere.

War-time conditions joined with a new and revolutionizing electoral law to give the British parliamentary elections of last December many novel features. The national electorate, including six million women, was twice as large as ever before; balloting, except by soldiers and other absentees, was confined to a single day; votes were allowed to be sent in by post, or to be cast by proxy; the usual party contest was replaced by a trial of strength between a coalition government which found support among practically all political elements and a number of groups whose physiognomy would hardly have been recognized by an antebellum observer.

Legislation supplementary to the British Representation of the People Act approved February 6,1918, has lately made women eligible to sit in the house of commons. No sooner was the former measure, which enfranchised six million women, on the statute book than the question arose whether its effect was to make women eligible for election. The law officers of the crown held that no such right was conferred. Prospective women candidates, however, were not deterred; and the Labor party at once pronounced in favor of a bill to secure the desired object.

A former issue of the REVIEW (November, 1917) contained a résumé of German political affairs from the outbreak of the great war to the accession of Chancellor Michaelis, July 14, 1917. The summary will here be continued to the abdication of Emperor William II in November, 1918.

The appointment of Michaelis came at a time when the imperial government was under fire, both in the Reichstag and throughout the country. The Russian revolution and the entrance into the war by the United States had given a new impetus to the movement for political reform.