26 JANUARY 1907, Page 18

The Government of the United States have instituted two actions

at San Francisco to test their rights as against the State of California, and to enforce the provisions of the Japanese Treaty. One is brought in the Supreme Court of the State in the name of a Japanese child, who sues for a mandamus to compel his admission to the public schools. The other is a bill in equity in the first Federal Circuit Court against the members of the Board of Education and all principals of primary schools in San Francisco. The Govern._ ment's contention is, briefly, that the United States have jurisdiction over education in California, since they have supported it at various times by grants of public land. They argue that such support was given on the implied condition that all schools thus benefited should be conducted in con- formity with the Constitution of the United States and with all Treaties, which "constitute the supreme law of the land." It is on the last clause that the legal argument will hang. Can a Treaty, though part of the law of the land, override the original Constitution, which explicitly guarantees non. ' interference with State rights ?