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Malaya is a peninsula in southeastern Asia, until recently of slight importance in the affairs of the world at large. During the present century, however, it has come to be of increasing significance for its output of rubber and tin, and its population has doubled since 1900. Economic and political affairs are in the main controlled by the British, but under different legal arrangements for different sections. The Straits Settlements form a British colony, comprising several islands, including Singapore and Penang, and two small mainland areas, at Malacca and Wellesley, with a total area of 1,508 square miles and a population of over a million. Rather more than half of the region is included in a federation of four Malay States, established in 1895, under a British protectorate. These have a total area of 27,500 square miles, with a population of about one and a half millions. There are also five other petty states, with a total area of 23,486 square miles and a population of 1,250,000, under special treaty arrangements with Great Britain. The total area of Malaya is 52,000 square miles, and the total population about four millions.

It is safe to say that very few people in the United States have any appreciation of the importance of the Netherlands Indies to Holland, to the world at large, or to the United States. Yet they constitute a major part in the economic prosperity of Holland, furnish a large element in the international trade of the world, and are significant factors in the foreign trade of the United States. They are also the seat of political developments, resulting from the political awakening of Asia, which are worth attention.From west to east, these islands extend more than 3,000 miles, or as far as from San Francisco to the longitude of the eastern end of Maine; and from north to south, more than 1,000 miles.

The National People's Convention held in May, 1931, and the provisional constitution adopted by it, mark a stage in the development of modern political institutions in China. But it is as yet too early to determine how successful these will be in establishing a permanently stable government.Calling the Convention was itself an indication that a relative degree of stability had been attained, following the agreement between the Nanking government and Marshal Chang Hsueh-liang in Manchuria and the defeat of the northern opposition under Generals Feng and Yen. But the decision to call the Convention developed internal differences in Nanking, leading to the retirement of Hu Han-min, head of the Legislative Yuan, who has been kept under guard. This in turn aroused distrust in Canton, which led to the open revolt of several southern provinces on the eve of the Convention's meeting. This movement has come about by one of the curious realignments of political leaders and generals, bringing together the more conservative and more radical elements in the Kuomintang, with suggestions of possible combinations with the recently defeated northern generals and other opposition elements in the interior.

AbstractProfessor Fairlie has recently returned fmn an extended world tour. In this article he describes the curious mingling of the East and the West in the municipal governments of India.

The government of Ceylon presents several points of interest to the student of political institutions. The island is the most important of the British crown colonies, and has been governed in recent years under a dual system, with an appointed executive and a legislative council, a majority of which is elected. A new constitution, which will go into effect during the present year, provides for a novel system with a very large measure of responsible government, on the basis of universal suffrage, for a population overwhelmingly Asiatic, but of several stocks, and with a small European element. This experiment should throw light on the larger problem of the government of India.Some data—geographical, historical, economic, and social—seem essential to an understanding of the political situation. Ceylon is an island of 25,000 square miles (about half the size of the state of Illinois), lying south of India and just north of the equator. The largest element in the population is the Sinhalese, descendants of an Aryan race that came from North India about the sixth century B.C., became Buddhists in the third century B.C., and retain that religion. Later came other peoples (Tamils) from South India, Hindu in religion, who occupied the northern part of the island. In the sixteenth century, the Portugese gained control of the coasts; and in the seventeenth, the Dutch conquered the Portugese districts. In 1796, during the Napoleonic wars, the Dutch sections were conquered by the British; and after a brief period under Madras they became a separate colony in 1802. After a war with the Sinhalese in the interior hill country, the whole island came under British control.