The author's proposal" For the Future" is, like most others, the creation of some kind of world government. No world state, however, in Mr. Lippmann's judgment, can be created out of courts alone, and lacking two of the essentials of government, legislative and judicial power. What the powers tried to do at Algeciras was to create an international rather than an imperial control, and they made the attempt, not out of whole cloth, but by developing the organization of a conference called to deal with a specific problem. Doomed to failure though it was, this experiment, in the author's judgment, marks the first really significant step towards the political solution of our international difficulties. It is not necessary, and probably not desirable at the present time, to have a single world government, but it would be quite practicable to have in existence international commissions to deal with those spots of the earth where world crises arise. Mr. Lippmann may deal too cavalierly with modern diplomacy and modern diplomats, but his suggestion to them is after all worthy of their consideration, namely,

that the international control should be turned into a local international government, with power to legislate and hold administrative officials accountable. This at least would give internationalism a chance. For instead of a rigid act with practically no machinery for enforcement, there would exist a living legislature with some means for carrying out its will.

In his final chapter on "The Strategy of Peace," Mr. Lippmann himself furnishes an example of how easy it is to think conventionally in these matters. If the United States is to be a leader, it must, according to him, invest and trade in backward countries. "This will give our diplomacy a leverage on events. And to be effective that diplomacy will have to be weighted with armaments of sufficient power to make it heard by the Great Powers." The conclusion may be correct, but it appears to be reached by questionable reasoning, common enough indeed in most of the books of the day, but rather astonishing in this particular book.

On the other hand, Mr. Lippmann has much to say to which the pacifist could profitably devote his attention, as for example when he reminds him that

When pacifism confines itself to the propaganda of not fighting, of peace at any price, it has given up the ghost. . . . Everyone knows that war is a stupid way to deal with issues, but to repeat this is in no way to deal with the issues. Peace. . . will not come by declaiming about the ab

surdities of armed compulsion, but by enlarging the areas within which force takes a more civilized form.

Mr. Lippmann does not see "how anyone with pretensions to national loyalty can contemplate abandoning the organization of the half-developed parts of the earth to the illiberal powers." If we in the United States, for example, wish to adopt a policy of isolation, we "must give up even the shadow of a pretense that we are working for the world's peace." We can be good monks, and perhaps will be saved by faith. We will not be saved by works. It will not all be easy sailing for us, he warns us, however, if we take the plunge.

If America enters the arenas of friction it will be exposed to many threats not only from other nations, but from within the country. The danger of war will be increased, and the danger of what is known as militarism. . . . Having tasted world power, we may go drunk with it. But if that is the kind of people we are, how impudent of us to utter one word in criticism of the military empires.

"The strategy of peace," he concludes, "is to use the democratic governments as organs of leadership in world politics." The internationalist should remain a patriot, not to support his country right or wrong, but because "by becoming an anti-patriot, he cuts himself off from the only organization in which he could hope to make himself effective in the affairs of nations." The difference, then, between the true internationalist and the unreasoning patriot lies in the supremacy of his conscious purpose.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

F. P. KEPPEL.

Is War Diminishing? By FREDERICK ADAMS WOODS and ALEXANDER BALTZLY. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1915.— xi, 105 pp.

This book, as its sub-title indicates, is "a study of the prevalence of war in Europe from 1450 to the present day." Its object is to find out through scientific methods if war really is decreasing. Dr. Woods tells us in the introduction that" it was with a wholesome disgust at the unscientific character of the publications of various peace societies" that, some six years ago, he began to collect the data of European wars. In the preface it is stated that this original collection has been enlarged and verified by Mr. Baltzly, who is responsible for the final list. In a short section following the preface he describes the

chief sources from which these data were obtained. Upon Professor Woods devolved largely the task of interpretation.

The method employed is statistical. Lists are given showing the duration of European wars for the period from 1450 to the present day. The countries included are Austria, Denmark, England, France, Holland, Poland, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Sweden and Turkey. For England and France the wars from 1100 to 1450 are also shown. The lists for Holland, Poland and Prussia naturally cover only a portion of the later period. With the descriptive matter for each country there also appears a table showing the number of war years for each century and half-century. No similar table is given for the average war time of all nations, but in the appendix the data are brought together on one page so as to give an idea of the relative prevalence of war in the countries studied. Finally, the trend of this prevalence is represented by means of three graphs. The first compares the five larger nations; the second, the six smaller ones; and the third shows the averages for each of the above groups and for the entire eleven countries.

It is unfortunate that Dr. Woods has not expressed more clearly the conclusions which he draws from this study. The following, however, is probably a correct statement of his position. (1) Our summary graph does give the impression that there has been some decline in the prevalence of war; but this is not a safe conclusion because the period covered (1450-1900) is far too short to show a general tendency. (2) Such decline as is shown cannot be due to the advance of civilization; for the nations which are politically great (notably England, France and Russia) do not show a similar decrease. (3) Man "has fought presumably half the time." (4) A certain amount of war would therefore seem to be inevitable for a long time to come, and the pacifist's position is untenable.

The writers of this little book are to be congratulated upon the fact that they have called attention to the need of statistics in this most important field of international relationships. The charts presented will undoubtedly prove exceedingly useful to students. To the reviewer, however, there appear to be certain defects both in the terminology employed in this study, and in the interpretation of data.

In the first place is the authors' definition of "war" adequate for the purpose in hand? An examination of the lists presented indicates that organized civil strife has been included under that concept. Lesser disturbances than those considered are of course very difficult to estimate; and yet it is precisely such conditions of general disorder which are by many associated with " uncivilized" conditions. Hence

if, as in this book, the data are to be correlated with advance in civilization, it seems important that the term "war" include all degrees of strife which might be taken as an index of a lack of civilization.

Passing over the somewhat questionable definition of "civilization" implied in this book, let us consider the interpretation of data. Dr. Woods believes that a conclusion would be easier if the study were carried back for long periods prior to 1450. But, in reality, unless the definition of war were changed, this would hinder, rather than aid, interpretation. For the nature of the wars prevalent in a country changes. Tribal conflict, feudal strife, and even the wars considered in the earlier part of the period already studied, are quite incomparable with modern warfare. To be scientific, such a war curve as Mr. Baltzly has constructed should show the same or comparable data along its whole

course.

But, considering the data as presented, the most obvious conclusion seems to have been obscured. The really significant fact derivable from them is that war was only half as prevalent from 1700 to 1900 as it was from 1500 to 1700. That is, the average of all the nations considered spent 61 per cent of their time in war during the earlier period and less than 33 per cent during the later. But this fact is nowhere

stated in the book, and must be computed by the reader from the separate tables or from the summary graph.

Again, Dr. Woods maintains that the advance of civilization cannot have caused such decline in the prevalence of war as the charts show. Civilized nations such as England and France do not show this decline. But here Dr. Woods has disregarded the factor of increasing population. If we assume, as this book does, that wars are of equal importance, then a war which England waged when she was a country of, say, ten million inhabitants, was ten times as great a disturber of peace as a war of equal duration carried on when the British Empire embraced a hundred million souls. If on the other hand we attempt to weight wars according to their severity-their cost in men, in money etc.then each of these weights should be related to the population of the country. In brief, the significant figure is not the mere duration of a war in years, but its per capita importance. If Britain's Indian wars are to be considered, they must be related to the population of the British Empire. And they must be compared, not with the wars of the British Isles in the earlier period, but with those wars plus all the native disturbances which occurred in India prior to the British occupation. Such a weighting would doubtless greatly alter the trend of the war curve for England.

As it stands, however, the book is a useful handbook for students. It is only to be hoped that due care will be taken by its readers to analyze the data and consider all possible explanations, before they too hastily join Dr. Woods in condemning the work of those who still act on the assumption that war may be amenable to rational control. DONALD R. TAFT.

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY.

Le Président de la République: son rôle, ses droits, ses devoirs. BY HENRY LEYRET. Paris, Librairie Armand Colin, 1913.—xvi, 282 pp.

The portentous decline of legislative bodies and the corresponding growth in the vigor of executive action are not, of course, peculiar to the United States. In Great Britain and Canada the cabinet has come to dominate Parliament. In France, although the center of gravity has by no means shifted to the cabinet, political literature shows an unmistakable tendency in that direction. Experience has demonstrated the need of a stronger executive; French writers and French statesmen are pretty well agreed on that point. A definite movement to consolidate the groups, as seen in the formation of Briand's Federation of the Left and in the growing sentiment for proportional representation, is expected to give greater stability to the cabinet.

But some thinkers of conservative mold, disappointed with the weakness of the cabinet and hopeless of liberating it from the influence of political intrigue, look rather to the expansion of presidential authority. M. Leyret is one of these. It is interesting to observe that his volume appeared just before the presidential election of 1913 in which the National Assembly fixed its choice upon a man whose character and political views were certain to inform the office with a new spirit. President Poincaré has not disappointed expectations. From the first-and in spite of protests from the Radical-Socialist party-he assumed the active rôle which Leyret had advocated.

Now M. Leyret, who does not love parliaments and politicians, believes that the president should be something more than a master of ceremonies. The system of 1875, he maintains, did not contemplate a passive rôle. If a "mischievous tradition" of passivity has developed, the reason is that colorless men have been elevated to office, that nowadays politicians expect to become president "as a civil servant becomes bureau chief-by virtue of seniority." As a matter of fact the country would like to have a president elected because of merit and ascendancy. . . . If he should exercise his prerogatives with