New European Constitutions: In Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croates and Slovenes

In this period during which all political institutions are being tested as never before by the searching criticism of an awakened world and by application to the well-nigh insoluble problems left by the World War, the constitutions which have been developed by the post-war states of Europe possess a peculiar interest to the student of public affairs. They are the results of the conscious effort of the statesmen of these new commonwealths to combine with the historic institutions of their own lands those features of the public law and the political practises of the older democracies which experience has proven to be workable, to be conducive of good government, and to make possible a more or less popular control over affairs of state. The product of a season when democracy is the fashion, all of these instruments are filled with rules and phrases which have a familiar ring in American ears, despite a more than occasional Gallic or native accent.