Although legally buried since 1891, the “precinct” in New Hampshire, like Banquo's ghost, continually arises to baffle students of New England local government. To the lawmakers, it is known as the village district; while in its annual report the state tax commission lists village districts as precincts, only adding to the confusion.

In making a count of governmental areas in New Hampshire, one finds the state divided into ten counties. Within these, there are eleven municipalities classed as cities and 224 towns. The cities were once towns, but have been incorporated as cities by the legislature, not in accordance with a population prerequisite, but upon application. The first city to be incorporated was Manchester in 1846.

All New Hampshire cities and towns include within their limits a great deal of rural land. Clusters of houses or settlements are sprinkled over these areas. Frequently, a settlement has several stores, a post office, and a railroad station and has the outward appearance of a village. Legally, however, such a settlement is not a village. It is administered entirely as a part of the town or city in which it is located, although it may be several miles from the principal urban center. New Hampshire has 639 such settlements, none of which is incorporated. Villages are not incorporated in New Hampshire as they are in Connecticut, Vermont, and Maine. Frequently they are referred to as places, but they should not be confused with the 23 so-called “unincorporated places” (found principally in the White Mountains), which are administered by the county and state governments almost completely. However, there are a few of the “villagelike” settlements within unincorporated places.

The great problem of Canadian federalism is to be found in the sectionalism which is a standing challenge to national unity. Superficial conclusions drawn from the response to national recruitment, war bond drives, and such evidences, which form the stock in trade of the professional patriot, do not stand up against the realities of political behavior. This is revealed at many levels, in the parliaments (provincial and dominion), in federal-provincial relations, and finally at the grass roots as demonstrated at the polls. Geography, history, and economic considerations are woven into this pattern.

Geographically, there are four main regions—Maritimes, St. Lawrence and Great Lakes, Prairies, West Coast. Historically and culturally, the St. Lawrence-Great Lakes region is sub-divided into the former political subdivisions of Lower and Upper Canada, now the provinces of Quebec and Ontario, respectively. In terms of economics, each area presents individual problems, and as contrasting as the wheat-growing prairies and the financial-urban eastern provinces. To the sociologist, there is the complexity of peoples as diverse in background as the French Canadian of Quebec and the Central European immigrant in the West. With these factors in mind, the voting pattern of the people may be discerned, at least in part. And the 1945 general election offers an interesting case study.

The ultimate disposition of some hundreds of million dollars' worth of property of enemy aliens, now under the control of the United States government, awaits a decision. In addition to patents, trademarks, copyrights, etc., the Alien Property Custodian has subjected to control enemy property amounting to nearly 200 million dollars, composed primarily of business enterprises. The United States Treasury has blocked some 330 million dollars worth of the assets of enemy nationals not involving control over specific productive assets.

Many international lawyers hold that international law requires postwar restitution of, or in lieu of restitution compensation for, enemy private property sequestered during a war; and an important question of policy now presents itself. This article, on the basis of long-term considerations, advocates a policy of restitution.

This report is concerned with the contribution of political science to the instructional needs of those who are preparing to teach, and of those now teaching, the social studies in elementary and secondary schools. How can political scientists in colleges and universities maximize the contribution which they, as specialists in one large field of human knowledge, can make to enrich the teaching of the social studies? Before offering suggestions which, if applied generally, should provide at least a partial answer to the question, the Committee on the Social Studies states two assumptions. First, most political scientists can do more than they have done in the past. Second, reverse lend-lease is anticipated. Political scientists have much to learn from teachers of the social studies as to what methods are effective in enabling youth to learn the ways of democracy and what types of material are most useful in the learning process. The recommendations in this report are presented in the hope that coöperation between the two groups will become more extensive and regular. The recommendations are divided into four classes, according to the incidence of responsibility for carrying them into effect.

Periodically the reform of English local government makes its appearance in English public life. A Royal Commission sat for nearly the whole decade of the 1920's and its labors produced three reports, which ultimately led to the Local Government Act of 1929. Similarly, the 1939–45 conflict has raised again the question of what, if anything, should be done about the reform of English local government. In 1943, Mr. Churchill expressed the view of the Coalition that no major reconstruction of the structure was necessary, nor indeed could it be undertaken in the immediate postwar years. In January, 1945, Mr. Willink, Minister of Health, produced for public discussion a White Paper on the whole problem, the main burden of which was in line with the Churchillian dicta of 1943, but which proposed the creation of a boundary commission with power to recommend alterations in the status and areas of local authorities after suitable local inquiry. These proposals were debated in the House of Commons in February, 1945, with little significant difference of opinion becoming apparent on the fundamental problems involved. Before the end of the Coalition, a bill creating the Local Government Boundary Commission had passed into law.

Statelessness, in its technical sense, is the result of denationalization by the country of origin of a person who has acquired no citizenship elsewhere. A stateless person is also referred to as staatenlos, apatride. Protection and assistance may be withdrawn by the country of a person's origin without juridical suppression of that person's nationality. Such a person outside his own country, though not fully denationalized, is in a position in some measure akin to that of the stateless, as neither has the protection of any government.

Although many refugees are stateless, statelessness is not the essential quality of a refugee, who is defined in accepted international usage as a person who for political reasons has been driven from his country of origin, or who fears the political consequences of his return. He may be stateless, or, although not technically denationalized, may have lost the protection of his government by refusing to return home when the possibility was presented. As a person without governmental protection, he loses the advantages of international rights which depend for enforcement on the action of his home government. Furthermore, an alien who is not a national of any state is denied many of the privileges of a citizen, granted reciprocally through treaties. Such treaties give to the citizens of one state privileges in other states party to the treaties, including the right to work, the benefits of social insurance (such as workmen's compensation laws), and the right to education.

The United Nations Organization is an essentially American product, as the jeep or the atomic bomb. Conceived at Dumbarton Oaks near the American Capitol, inspired by American ideas, born under American chairmanship on the American West Coast, having decided on a permanent site in America, it is even endowed with an American surname. In fact as in word, there would be no United Nations were there not a United States.

It is therefore very generous of an American body to ask me, as a foreign visitor to your shores, what I think of this American product. But it is correspondingly embarrassing for me to attempt to tell you. When one is invited out to dinner, it hardly does to comment, except in terms of the highest enthusiasm, on the cuisine of your host or on the beauty of his daughter.

Your invitation to this intellectual feast therefore obliges me to choose between politeness and sincerity. As I am speaking here at your request, not in any diplomatic capacity whatever, but solely as a friend among friends and as one man of science to a host of academic colleagues, known and unknown, I unhesitatingly opt in favor of complete frankness. I venture to trust that our common ideals of scientific freedom will assure my impunity from any reproach of indiscretion or of impertinence.

The Panel on Public Law is one of a number of such organizations which came into being under the auspices of the Committee on Research of the American Political Science Association. Its purpose is to survey research in public law as now conducted and to give such guidance to methods and areas of future research as is possible and as the members think desirable. Since the date of its organization in the summer of 1942, the Panel, with a somewhat fluctuating membership, has exchanged ideas through extensive correspondence. On September 9–10, 1944, it met in Washington for more detailed discussion and sharing of opinions. It met again in Philadelphia on March 29, 1946, pursuant to the program of the annual meeting of the Association. The range of opinions and attitudes has proved very wide. It reflects a high degree of individualism in the field—the result, no doubt, of differences of initial training and experience and habit of mind, and also, perhaps, of the comparative isolation one from another which characterizes the working conditions of the representatives of the field. The correspondence and the oral discussions already held have dealt with too many problems to make possible a report of widespread agreement.