Then I turn my face to the window, and I know that my body is a room, and my soul forever unfettered. Pain holds me fast, but I turn my face to the window and over the black sill the little white stars come swarming to talk to me.

A QUESTION OF STATURE

MOST people who think at all about the days grinding by, think of them as 'bright or gray,' 'happy or disappointing,' 'interesting or dull.' For me days are 'tall or short.' Tallness or shortness in a day is quite subjective. A tall day is so because during my experiences of that twenty-four hours I feel tall— like a man of stature, like the possessor of physical inches. My short days are the days I try to forget, when schoolboys tower above me, and the little kitchen-maid looks down on my bald spot.

I have tried to decide what internal change makes me feel tall at one time and short the next. It can have little to do with physiology, because sometimes, when I am most healthy, most energetic in nerve and fibre, I feel most wretchedly stunted. On the other hand it cannot be entirely a matter of emotional psychology, for good news may shrink me to stubbiness, or a bitter shock may keep me literally uplifted for days. There should be some unit for measuring 'human' inches, a unit which would combine pathology and circumstance, and could compass the feeling of stature.

In corporeal terms I am neither tall nor short, but am cursed with 'mediumness.' Height, therefore, is not a harrowing circumstance in my affairs. I am not a success or a failure in anything because of inches or of the lack

of them; nor do I mingle with physical culture teachers or sanitarium patients, who might be asking me continually how tall I am. Yet there are days when I feel miserably short, and think of going away to some lonely spot to grow up. That feeling is cause or effect I cannot tell which of many minor disasters. As the day grows, annoyances increase and the feeling of shortness keeps pace. I am not a person of immoral days, disgraceful days, or of days of oppression. The tenor of my life is even enough for serenity and easy enough for peace. Why should my stature afflict me?

It seems that the first group of people I approach in the morning may determine the character of my day. They may make me feel taller than they by their actual size, or by their attitude toward me, or they may shrink me with a complex glare, crowd-fashioned and mob-inspired. The sort of group I meet first in the morning is a matter of accident, to be sure, but all moods of mine are accidental and none the less real for that.

Tall days surely are happiest, which again may be cause or effect. Perhaps saints and submissive women, if they share my sensitiveness in this regard, are happiest when they feel shortest. Perhaps they come up to the level of the eyes of the crowd reluctantly. For me, stature is happiness, although I cannot attain it at will nor hold the illusions which sometimes bless me.

I am sure Heaven is a place where every meek little angel feels taller than all the other little angels. It is not a heaven of strife because each angel is sure of his own stature, and there is never any argument about comparisons. I should strive earnestly to reach a heaven like that.

THE usual explanation is that the causes are either climatic or racial, but neither theory will bear analysis. The beginnings of culture were tropical fruits. Political system and governmental order first developed in countries where climatic conditions gave a hot-house luxuriance to vegetable growth, and nature itself kept renewing the fertility of the soil. These conditions were most amply provided in the alluvial deposits of river valleys in tropical countries. But peoples having such advantages are not left in undisturbed enjoyment of them, and organization of public authority is necessary for the guidance and protection of the community. If successful invasion takes place, the conquerors must develop means of holding what they have gained, or else they must in their turn yield control to more capable hands. The result of this selective process is the gradual formation of empire, whose first seats were all in tropical countries.

The principle is illustrated by Aztec culture in Southern Mexico and Inca culture in Peru, as well as by the great states that were formed in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, with a longevity far beyond anything that European political history can show.

As the advance of art extended human mastery over natural resources,

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the economic basis of empire shifted, to the disadvantage of its original seats, but even then empire long kept close to its tropical source. During the many centuries in which the Mediterranean Ocean was a Roman lake it could not have occurred to any one that there was a connection between political order and a cold climate. That orderly states belong to the temperate zone, and that disorderly states belong to the tropics, are associations of ideas of recent origin, which upon any large view of history are seen to be fallacious.

The racial theory is even less substantial. Cant about Anglo-Saxon political ideals is very common, but neither the Angles nor the Saxons ever produced an orderly state. The British Isles were a favorite hunting ground for the tribesmen of Northern Europe until the Norman Conquest introduced a more efficient governmental system. There was not an orderly state in all Europe after the collapse of the Roman Empire, until the formation of national monarchies on the basis of royal prerogative. Professor Henry Sidgwick in his Development of European Polity points out that in the middle of the eighteenth century absolute monarchy was generally regarded as the form of government 'by which the task of establishing and maintaining

a civilized political order had been, on the whole, successfully accomplished, after other modes of political construction had failed to realize it.' That is to say, European character was such that constitutional government was impossible and a strong dictatorship was the only practical way of maintaining order, the same dictum now heard with regard to popular character in other parts of the world.

It may be said that even in the period of European absolutism the case of England showed that orderly government could be maintained without dictatorship, but some of the wisest heads then in England did not think so. France, under absolute rule, was reckoned much the superior of England in order and civilization. The historian Gibbon deplored the fact that circumstances compelled him to live in England instead of among a people 'who have established a freedom and ease in society unknown to antiquity and still unpracticed by other nations.' The philosopher Hume, in an essay published in 1741, points out that the limitations on royal authority in England admitted an intolerable tyranny of factions, and he concludes that 'we shall at last, after many convulsions and civil wars, find repose in absolute monarchy, which it would have been happier for us to have established peaceably from the beginning.'

The reputation of England for political stability is quite recent, as history runs. Up to the nineteenth century it was a notorious example of a disorderly state. Levity and turbulence were regarded as English political characteristics. A curious physical explanation was advanced, which even John Milton appears to have taken seriously. In his treatise on A Free Commonwealth, he refers to 'the fickleness which is attributed to us as we are islanders,' and he remarks that 'good

education and acquisite wisdom ought to correct the fluxible fault, if any there be, of our watery situation.'

The English self-governing commonwealths now rank as orderly states, and it appears to make no difference in this respect whether they are in a cold climate or in a hot. Canada extends far into the Arctic region; but Australia is in the same latitudes as countries of South America where there has been much political disorder; and South Africa is in the same zone as Southern Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay. Canada is both French and English, and racial and linguistic difference is accompanied by radical religious difference, circumstances making against the theory that its political order is a racial product. Canadian politics were long in a state of turbulence, public discontent breaking out in rebellion in 1837-38. The situation became so serious that representative government in Canada was abolished and the country was governed for some time by an appointed council, whose first ordinance suspended the habeas corpus act. The existing state of political order in Canada dates from the British North America Act of 1867, giving Canada its present federal constitution.

Australia has had a less troubled history, but any theory that its political order results from the character of the inhabitants must reckon with the fact that the colony made its start as a convict settlement. Darwin, who visited it in 1836, noted that 'the whole community is rancorously divided into parties on almost every subject,' and that 'among those who, from their station in life, ought to be the best, many live in such open profligacy that respectable people cannot associate with them.' He thought conditions were such that society 'can hardly fail to deteriorate.' The organization of South Africa, and the competency of

its government, present a surprising phenomenon following so closely after a war between the Dutch and the English elements of its population, and it is inexplicable on any climatic or racial theory. Indeed, if racial or linguistic homogeneity were essential to political order, every country in Europe would be in a bad way, and particularly Switzerland, where there is a high development of orderly and efficient government although four languages are spoken in the country, all apparently holding their ground.

Although it is impossible to account for political order as a climatic or racial product, there is a general principle that holds good of all political forms, the biological principle of the correlation of structure and function, which is merely a scientific way of stating the familiar business principle that order and efficiency are products of sound organization. It is an invariable rule that the development of political order is connected with improvement in the organization of public authority. In England it was obtained by breaking down the old partitions of authority and by consolidating power. Instead of perpetual contention over the scope and limitations of royal prerogative, the system of cabinet government was instituted, which brings authority in its entirety under the direct control of public opinion. The notion that royal prerogative has been in any way superseded or impaired by the growth of popular rule in England is a fallacy. Crown authority is now greater than ever, and it is still on the increase. What has happened is that it has passed into the custody of the leaders of the party in control of the House of Commons, so that crown authority and parliamentary authority have been united.

The late Professor Maitland's Constitutional History of England observes

that 'we must not confuse the truth that the King's personal will has come to count for less and less with the falsehood (for falsehood it would be) that his legal powers have been diminishing; on the contrary, of late years they have enormously grown.' That is to say, royal prerogative having been converted into a formula of popular sovereignty, free use is made of it as an agency of democratic administration. Sovereignty is essentially a unit, and it is only since constitutional adjustments were made connecting executive and legislative authority in one organ of sovereignty that England has ranked as an orderly state.

In accomplishing a sound organization of her own public business, England incidentally provided safe methods of government for her colonies, and their position as orderly states belongs to this period. The process has, however, been much more than mere transmission of parliamentary institutions. Care has been taken to found the system on strict business principles, and to correct defects when revealed by experience. The constitution of Canada is a short act of settlement, free from abstractions and concerned wholly with the actual organization of authority. Its fundamental principle is the connection of the executive and legislative branches, and its fundamental regulation is that no appropriation can be made except upon the recommendation of the administration. The business conditions thus established impart to the government its tone and character. The administration appears before the representative assembly as does a general manager before a board of directors, and so likewise it is the duty of the administration to prepare and submit for consideration all needful measures.

It is a familiar business principle that sound accountancy is the foundation

of sound business. In introducing responsible budget control, the English constitution established the cardinal feature of the orderly state, but Australian experience showed the need of auxiliary precautions, and the course pursued is even a better instance of scientific method than is supplied by the case of Canada, whose needs were met by forms of the ordinary British pattern. In some Australian states, democratic tendencies caused the introduction of elective senates, and then there were two legislative bodies, each of which could claim to derive authority direct from the people. Thus it might happen that an administration would have its policy marred or frustrated by a hold-over senate. Conflicts occurred, resulting in legislative deadlocks, and disorders ensued, requiring the intervention of the English government. As English experience afforded no precedents for treating such a situation, recourse was had to Scandinavian experience. An expedient was adopted that was first introduced into political procedure by the Norway constitution of 1814. It is that when a bill has been twice passed by the assembly and rejected by the senate, the two houses shall meet in joint convention to vote on the measure as one body, a two-thirds vote in its favor being requisite for passage.

This expedient was introduced in Australia with characteristic British modification, the joint convention not taking place until the two houses have been simultaneously dissolved and their successors have been elected, which must take place within ten days after such dissolution. Then if disagreement still continues, the two houses meet in joint convention and a majority of the whole decides. This arrangement, which put an end to legislative deadlocks, was adopted in the constitution of the Commonwealth of Australia.

It was put in the constitutions given to the Transvaal and the Orange River Colony when those countries were reorganized after the Boer War. It is also a feature of the constitution of the Union of South Africa. It is owing to the care with which the public business has been organized, and with which the transaction of its affairs has been conditioned, that the English commonwealths now rank as orderly states.

The same relation between structure and function may be descried wherever orderly and efficient government is found, look where we will. The present state of order in France is the result of constitutional adjustments radically different from those which resulted in the failure of previous experiments. Incidentally that experimentation produced a form of municipal government that has gone all over the world, and it works well wherever it has been adopted, whether it be in Japan or in South America. In general character it is the same system as is found in our own business corporations, the municipal councilors organizing like a board of directors by electing one of their number to be the presiding officer and the head of the executive management. It is well known that some of our own business corporations, organized after this simple pattern, administer larger revenues than any of our states. The same principles of organization hold good when applied to the management of the public business. The issue of the Consular and Trade Reports for December 3, 1913, mentions the fact that the municipality of Buenos Aires had awarded a contract for the building of 10,000 houses for employees and workmen, construction to be at the rate of 2000 houses a year. Such transactions on public account are not unusual in the large cities of South America, and their competency to engage in them is attested by results. Is that compe