Any economic system, whether systematic or not, involves a particular set of relationships between men and things and between men and men, and so needs the support of a corresponding legal and political system. One naturally expects political and legal change to follow social and economic revolutions. Perhaps that is the New Deal—a political and legal revolution to meet the demands of a new economic era. But whatever the situation may require to the mind of the Executive and Congress, there remains the question whether any particular legislative project is allowable under the Constitution. For our government, this matter of bringing law into conformity with economics meets with peculiar difficulties. It is not enough to secure rights by legislative enactment. Such guarantees must run the gauntlet first of administrative interpretation and ultimately of the courts. If one may judge from newspaper headlines, there is no surer way to bring our rights into controversy than to embody them in a statute.

The Federal Trade Commission has been the object of more scholarly examination and critical discussion than any other administrative commission in the federal government. The statutory authority, the internal organization, and the administrative procedure of the Commission have all been studied. More specialized researches have thrown light on its regulation of competitive practices and its relations with the courts. Our purpose here is to view the Commission in its relations with business and with Congress and the President, in order to achieve some understanding of the political and economic factors that have influenced its activities.

Underlying both sets of relationships are the conflicts of economic groups and special interests which attempt to convert their force into political power when they touch the legislator or the President. The attempt here will be to explore some of these rather intangible aspects of the Commission's administrative experience.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the decade following the Washington Conference constituted a distinct epoch in the Far East. The revolutionary surge of Nationalist China with its warcry, “abolish the unequal treaties,” threw the foreign Powers on the defensive for the first time in a century. Skillful Chinese diplomacy supported by physical, moral, and economic force swept away foreign rights and privileges of long standing. Expansive world prosperity bolstered up a sagging Japanese financial structure and encouraged all the Powers to respect the self-denying pledges of the Washington treaties and the demands of Chinese nationalism. This period terminated with the Japanese attack on Mukden in September, 1931. As hard times put increasing strain upon the economy of the Island Empire, the Japanese army, with continental ambitions rekindled, launched a bold campaign for hegemony north of the Great Wall—and possibly south.

During the nineteen-twenties, the center of gravity in China shifted to the Yangtse Valley. Shanghai, the foreign-controlled metropolis which stands at the cross-roads of Far Eastern commerce and dominates an immense hinterland, assumed a position of increasing importance in the domestic economy and international politics of China.

The Securities Act of 1933 marks the inauguration for the United States of what seems to be a consistent policy toward private loans to foreign governments. In view of the continued importance of such loans in our foreign relations, it appears appropriate to consider in some detail how the new policy differs from the old, and what its implications are likely to be.

It is unnecessary in this journal to discuss the individual cases of friction arising from private loans to foreign governments during the last fifty years. What concerns us, rather, is the cause of such friction.

Policies of large corporations relating to the control of patents taken out by employees naturally vary in detail with the different companies. Certain general policies, however, are usually followed.

Some companies place no restrictions upon the taking out of patents by their employees, but as a general rule they retain the shop right to manufacture for themselves any articles which they can use. These companies pay the cost of securing the patent for the employee, and the patent is taken out in his name. The company allows the employee to sell the patent to any one he chooses, but he grants to his company the right to use the idea.

New Hampshire is the eleventh state to establish a system of state liquor stores. Other states may try the same solution of their liquor problem when legislatures meet in 1935. What are some of the initial administrative problems encountered in organization and operation of state liquor stores?

Before answering this question on the basis of New Hampshire's experience, it will be well to examine the political and legal background of the liquor situation in this state. New Hampshire was one of the so-called “drier” states. It had sampled a modified state prohibition in the latter half of the nineteenth century, liberalized this through licensing in the first part of the present century, and finally returned to prohibition before national prohibition was adopted. The state appeared reasonably well satisfied with prohibition until the national tide turned so strongly against it about 1930.

The racial policy of the present German government has created a new interest in the problem of protection of minorities. Governments hitherto apathetic in regard to the problem were aroused by the Bernheim petition to the League in the spring of 1933 complaining of the discriminatory character of legislation in violation of the German-Polish convention of 1922. They were also compelled to give attention to the renewed demand of the minorities states for a treaty binding all members of the League to respect the rights of their minorities. States like Italy and France, with large sections of their territory populated almost entirely by German-speaking people who are deeply conscious of their cultural differences with the majority of the state's population, would be expected to show considerable interest in the demand of the minorities states. Other states in whose territory reside many people differing in race, language, or religion from the majority of the population would also necessarily be concerned. The minorities régime and some of the problems created by it have been described in several publications. It is the purpose of this note to trace the movement for, and to attempt an evaluation of, the so-called generalization of the obligations which certain states, members of the League, have assumed.