war.

As her frontiers cannot, therefore, legitimately be reduced from those fixed by the London Ambassadorial Conference of 1912-13, there are only two questions of external politics to which allusion is necessary. Firstly, whatever may have been the events occurring since the Armistice, an end should be put to the existing AlbanoSerbian discord, and the troops of Jugo-Slavia, now in occupation of several districts in Northern Albania, ought to be retired to within their proper territory. And, secondly, although the official details of the arrangement signed between Italy and Albania at Tirana on Aug. 2, 1920, have never been published, and whilst this arrangement has not been officially communicated to or recognised by the Allies, it is known that Italy then undertook to withdraw her troops from the whole of Albania, except the Island of Saseno, which lies at the entrance to Valona Bay; and it is further believed that she agreed to recognise the full sovereignty of that country. From the internal standpoint, little is known concerning the situation prevailing during the last two years. In January 1920, an Assembly, consisting of about sixty delegates, chosen by Municipal and Communal Councils, was held at Lushnia. That Assembly in its turn elected a Parliament or National Council, and appointed a Government of six members and a Directorate or Regency composed of four notables. Such authorities, on whose application Albania was permitted to become a Member of the League of Nations,* seem destined to remain in control of the country until the promulgation of a Constitution which will probably be drawn up by an Assembly chosen nnder the new electoral law.

In 'the foregoing pages I have endeavoured to give. some account of the present conditions in Central and South Eastern Europe. In so doing, I have avoided a discussion upon Macedonia, the recent repartition of which would have been most difficult, and I have refrained from any far-reaching criticism, for once several of the treaties herein mentioned were ratified, the exigency of the situation not only calls for their preservation in the letter and in the spirit, but it

* Albania was admitted to the League by a unanimous vote on Dec. 17, 1920.

imposes responsibilities upon the parties accountable for that preservation. Thus, whatever may be the disadvantages of the manner in which the map of Europe has been redrawn, it is for the League of Nations or for the victorious Powers to see that the obligations assumed by the smaller States, particularly those guaranteeing the rights of minorities, are fulfilled, and to insist that no unfair advantage be taken of those countries who have been compelled to accept disarmament. On the other hand, as every Balkan country must share some of the blame for former conditions, the dawn of a new era can only take place when recriminations are at an end, when passions are buried, and when tolerance is practised by all concerned. Rivalry and war have been fatal in the past. Reconciliation and peace must take their place for the future.

H. CHARLES WOODS.

Art. 12-THE SCIENCE OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION.

1. Report of the Machinery of Government Committee. H.M. Stationery Office, 1918. Cd. 9230.

2. Reports of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service. H.M. Stationery Office, 1914, etc. Cd. 7338.

3. Report of the Royal Commission on the Public Services in India. H.M. Stationery Office, 1915. Cd. 8382. 4. Report of the Committee on the Scheme of Examination for Class I of the Civil Service. H.M. Stationery Office, 1917. Cd. 8657.

5. Reports of the Committee on the Organisation and Staffing of Government Offices. H.M. Stationery Office, 1918, 1919. Cd. 61 and 62.

6. Reports of the War Cabinet. H.M. Stationery Office, 1918, 1919. Cd. 3250 and 9005.

7. Local and Central Government. By Percy Ashley. Murray, 1906.

8. Industry and Trade. By Alfred Marshall. Macmillan,. 1919.

And other works.

PRACTICE is not infrequently in advance of science; and, though Englishmen have long and wide experience of the practice of public administration, I have been unable to include in the foregoing list any systematic treatise in English on the theory of the subject as a whole. The authorities I have quoted consist for the most part of discussions, some formal and others incidental, of particular aspects of the subject; and it is mainly from such sources that the English student must at present draw his knowledge of the theory. Its study is indeed provided for in the University of London, but, so far as I can learn, it has not yet won formal recognition at Oxford or Cambridge, or in the most important universities of the Empire; and hitherto it has found no place in the principal public examinations.

The reasons for the dearth of systematic literature are not far to seek. Until the last few years the chief triumphs of British administrators have been won in distant countries and have passed almost unnoticed in the West. At home Englishmen have been familiar with the post-office, the tax-collector, and perhaps an occasional

inspector, but, as individuals, they have been very little concerned with the working of the central government; and the able men by whom it has been conducted have been under no temptation to expound the principles of their art. The position is now materially changed. For the civil administration the War meant the inception of new tasks on an unprecedented scale. The public witnessed remarkable successes, spectacular failures, and the gallant retrieval of initial blunders, while control of the food supply and constant interference with many aspects of social life brought the existence of the administration home to every individual. The Press has helped. Journalists have been called to administer, while administrators have striven to become journalists; terms of esoteric import, such as departmentalism or co-ordination, have travelled from Whitehall to Fleet Street, and have become firmly established in popular usage; the paragrapher now seeks material in the blue-book; and the whole subject has acquired an interest which it did not previously possess. The permanence of this change is still doubtful; but, whatever may be the fate of particular enterprises, it is improbable that the central administration will ever shrink to its former dimensions, while the insistent demand for nationalisation of railways, mines, and other means of production indicates the possibility of an extension of its activities so large as to compel the sustained attention of all classes of the public. It may be worth while, therefore, to offer a sketch in outline of the science underlying these activities, to state a few leading principles which appear to rest on a firm basis of experience, and to mark out some of the regions which are as yet imperfectly explored.

The scope of the science can be defined most clearly with reference to the relations between Policy and Administration. Policy decides on the objects to be aimed at, Administration puts Policy into execution, or, to speak in monosyllables, gets things done. The established science of Politics deals essentially with the methods by which public policy is formulated; and the cognate science of Public Administration begins where Politics leaves off. It is true that the dividing line between Policy and Administration is often crossed in practice; on the one hand, administrators may have a

voice in determining policy, on the other hand, statesmen may be employed also in administration; but these facts serve only to increase the need for a clear recognition of the distinction. Administrators of the English school are under no misapprehensions on this point; the tradition of perfect freedom of counsel but perfect loyalty in execution is so firmly established that it reads like a truism, and its existence is recalled only when some individual attempts to contravene it. The dual function of statesmen who are also administrators is more apt to cause confusion since it is embedded in popular language; a ministry, as the name denotes, is mainly an administrative organ, but the Ministry, or the Administration, is concerned primarily with the formulation of policy, and a Minister without portfolio is an exceedingly useful contradiction in terms. The arrangement under which Ministers formulate policy in concert and direct its execution as individuals goes far back into history; but there are some indications that it requires adjustment to meet present needs, and this complicated question will demand our attention at a later stage. For the moment it must suffice to say that the union of functions does not affect the validity of the distinction between the two processes.

The other distinction indicated by the phrase 'public' administration is based on convenience rather than scientific accuracy. Any one can distinguish between, let us say, a post-office and a joint-stock bank; but in some countries State banks and private banks are working side by side with substantially the same methods, and then the distinction becomes almost meaningless. Railway administration again was 'private' in this country until 1914, but in many countries it must be classed as 'public,' while in others the two systems coexist. The scope of public administration depends, as we have seen, on policy; and, so long as some States undertake enterprises which others leave to private initiative, that scope cannot be defined by any general formula.

There is, however, a closely allied distinction which deserves more definite recognition than it commonly receives. Some forms of administration are concentrated, while others are diffused; and it so happens that most branches of public administration are diffused, while