THE fundamental fact of Southeast Asia today is that it is engaged in revolutions which can by no means be assumed to have run their course. If the Philippines, Indonesia and Burma have achieved the somewhat uneasy independence which Thailand never wholly lost, the social revolution in those countries, save as it was accomplished as a by-product of colonialism, has hardly begun; and there lies ahead the complex task of adaptation to independence in the modern world. In such circumstances, where sheer survival is the first criterion of success, it would be absurd to set too high expectations for representative government. Even apart from the particular hindrances and difficulties that exist in the Southeast Asian countries, it must be recognized that democracy no longer has the same unequivocal support which it had in the latter part of the nineteenth century when it was obviously the way of progress and enlightenment. There is now the challenge of Fascism in or another variant, even though the term itself has become unfashionable; and Communism holds out the tempting myth of proletarian dictatorship that puts an end to all ills. Although it can be a matter for elaborate and heated argument, there seems to be good reason to accept the conclusion that, except on the local level, democratic institutions have not been traditionally known in Southeast Asia, where government has been something embodied in and run by the few far above the heads of the mass of the people. The existence of democracy in the village is undoubtedly preferable to no democracy at all, but it is questionable whether this local democratic experience can be translated in any direct fashion to the national scene or to significantly larger social units than those to which it has in the past applied. In some part at least, the answer must depend upon the answer to the further question whether the traditional village democracy is based on the concept of the equality and dignity of man, which finds political expression in the principle of one man, vote, or whether it is rather the expression of the peculiar and intimate ties that knit together the people of a small and old-established community in which