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160 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW informedobservations and opinions of activeparticipantsin the events they attempt to record. The fog of war hangsheavily over many of them. E. A. CRUIKSI:IANK Processions de la St.-J•n-Baptiste en19œ•et 19œ5. Montreal: Librairie Beauchemin,Lt6. 1926. Pp. 315; illustrations. IN 1924and1925theSoci6t• deSt.-Jean-Baptiste, thenational society of French Canada, organizedat Montreal two pageants--first, "What Americaowesto the Frenchrace", and secondly, "Visionsof the past" The presentvolume commemorates with illustrationsand letterpress theseinterestingand striking spectacles, and from this point of view alone providesa usefulrecord. But the chief value of the volume for serious studentsof Canadianhistory liesin the seriesof portraits and biographies of the forty-six former presidents of the Soci6t• St.-JeanBaptistedeMontr6al , whichconstitutes the firstpart of the book. Among theseare many well-known figuresin the history of French Canada, for information with regard to whom one might searchin vain, and whoseportraits couldnot be found in the usualcollectionsof portraits of public men. One needsonly to mention the namesof JacquesViger andtheHon. D. B. Viger,theIffbn.A. N. Morin andLudgerDuvernay, Napo16onBourassaand the Hon. L. O. David, to give an idea of the usefulness of the biographicalmaterial which the volume contains. W. S. WALLACE The Mechanism of theModernState:A TreatiseontheScience andArt of Government.By Sir JOHNA. R. MARmOTT. Oxford:The Clarendon Press. 1927. 2 vols. Pp. xxiii, xii, 596, 595. Tins importantwork is, we believe,a permanentcontributionto descriptive politics. Into it Sir John Marriott has pouredhis experience as a university don, as an active and well-informedmember of parliament , and as a distinguishedpublicist. We know of no other work at present available which surveys in such an excellent and suggestive manner the mechanismof modern states,especiallyof thosewhich constitute the British Commonwealth. The author writes with authority and discrimination, and displays a general accuracy of knowledge combined with remarkable skill in comparative analyses and with sober,if critical, judgments. The volumeswill at oncetake their place with thoseof Lord Bryce and PresidentLowell in the singularlysmall contributionof Anglo-Saxonscholarsto the science of practical government . Sir JohnMarriott's organizationof his material is admirable. Before REVIEWS OF BOOKS 161 he getsdown to work on the great central problems,he providesintroductory chapterson the state, on the various classifications of states, and on sometypical democracies. These chapters suffer through compression ; their validity might frequentlybe questioned; their conclusions are often traditional and commonplace. On the other hand, they form an adequate background to the subsequentchapters, in which parliamentary democracyis surveyedin Great Britain and in the Dominions. Here the author's political instincts and legislative experiencesare combinedin singularlyattractive form. His approachis alwaysalong the lines of historical evolution, and we can confidently recommend these chapters to all seriousstudents of the Empire, whether in its individual nationsor in its corporatecapacity. Equally illuminating are the chapters,dealing with the structure of various parliamentary governments, in which political theories shade off into modifications dependingon the everydayactual workingsof political institutions. The secondvolume is concernedwith various types of executive systems,with judicial organizations, and with localgovernment. Here we find the same wide and accurateknowledge,the sameexperienced andmature scholarship, the samecritical approach,with a keenappreciation of the social,economic,and geographicalforceswhich have issued almostnecessarily in varietiesof type. The work concludes with valuable chapterson the composite state,on federalismand devolution,on party systems,while an epiloguesums up the contribution madeto politics by the great commentatorson the British constitution,and raisesquestions about its future developments within the Empire. We confidentlyrecommend Sir John Ma•riott's work asan outstandinganalyticalstudyof thedevelopment andextension of Britishpolitical institutions,in whichhistory and political philosophyare combinedin apt comparisons drawnfromdiversesources.T,Ostudents of the Empire both in Great Britain and in the Dominionsthe bookwill be invaluable, and it oughtto domuchto wideninterestin, and to stimulateknowledge of, the British imperial system. Sir John Marriott is a conservativein the best senseof that word. He has a soundconceptionof political freedomand a keenappreciationof orderedprogress, and aboveall he is a politicalrealistwhodoesnot allowtheoryor doctrineor party prepossessions to obscurehis outlook,to warp his finer senseof values,or to minimize emphasison the great truth that the mechanismof the stateis a useless and barrenthingapart from creativeand purposeful citizenship. It wouldbe easyin a work of suchmagnitudeto point out small errors. On the whole, thesedo not constitute seriousblemishes,and we find it necessary merelyto point to...

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