folly in politics than to set up a political body without considering the hands into which it is likely to fall, or the spirit in which it is likely to be worked.

One change in the internal regulation of Parliament has also been powerfully urged for the purpose of correcting the instability and intrigue which a multiplication of independent parliamentary groups is certain to produce. It is, that a government should not consider itself bound either to resign or dissolve on account of an adverse division due, perhaps, to a chance. or factious combination of irreconcilable minorities, but should retain office until a formal vote of want of confidence indicates clearly the desire of the House of Commons. It does not, however, appear to me that this change would be, on the whole, an improvement. The fact that it has never been made in France, where the evil of instability in the government arising from the group system in Parliament has attained its extreme limits, shows how difficult it would be to implant it in parliamentary institutions. A defeat in the House of Lords does not overthrow a ministry; a defeat in the House of Commons on a particular question may be always remedied, if the House desires it, by a vote of confidence. If the change we are considering would mitigate the evil of parliamentary disintegration, it would, as it seems to me, aggravate the not less serious evil of the despotism of party caucuses. It continually happens that a government, long before the natural. duration of a Parliament has expired, loses the confidence of the House of Commons and of the country, and it is very undesirable that, under these circumstances, it should continue in office. It is, however, seldom likely that its majority would be destroyed by a formal vote of want of confidence. Liberals would hesitate to vote definitely as Tories, or Tories as Li

berals, and the pressure of party organisations would override genuine opinions. It is on side-issues or incidental questions that the true feeling of the House is most likely to be displayed and a bad ministry defeated. After all due weight has been given to the possible remedies that have been considered, it still seems to me that the parliamentary system, when it rests on manhood suffrage, or something closely approaching to manhood suffrage, is extremely unlikely to be perma

This was evidently the opinion of Tocqueville, who was strongly persuaded that the natural result of democracy was a highly concentrated, enervating, but mild despotism.' It is the opinion of many of the most eminent contemporary thinkers in France and Germany, and it is, I think, steadily growing in England. This does not mean that Parliaments will cease, or that a wide suffrage will be abolished. It means that Parliaments, if constructed on this type, cannot permanently remain the supreme power among the nations of the world. Sooner or later they will sink by their own vices and inefficiencies into a lower plane. They will lose the power of making and unmaking ministries, and it will be found absolutely necessary to establish some strong executive independently of their fluctuations. Very probably this executive may be established, as in America and under the French Empire, upon a broad basis of an independent suffrage. Very possibly upper chambers, constituted upon some sagacious plan, will again play a great restraining and directing part in the government of the world. persons who have watched the changes that have passed over our own House of Commons within the last few years will either believe or wish that in fifty years' time

1 La Démocratie en Amérique, 4me partie.

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it can exercise the power it now does. It is only too probable that some great catastrophe or the stress of a great war may accelerate the change.

I do not speak of the modern extensions of local government in the counties or towns as diminishing the authority of democratic Parliaments. These extensions have been themselves great democratic triumphs, transferring to bodies resting on a very low suffrage powers which were either in the hands of persons nominated by the Crown, or in the hands of persons whose election depended on a high property qualification, and especially on the possession of landed property. The preceding pages will have abundantly illustrated the dangers that are to be feared from unchecked democracy in this field. In England there is a great belief in the educational value of this kind of government. It is true that an honest, well-meaning local government may begin by making many mistakes, but will soon acquire the habits of good government. On the other hand, if local government falls into the hands of corrupt, self-seeking, dishonest men, it will promote quite other habits, and will have very little tendency to improve. Prolonged continuity of jobbing is not an education in which good statesmen are likely to be formed, and few things have done so much to demoralise American political life as the practices that prevail in municipal government and in the management of the machine.'

On the whole, it can hardly be questioned that, in spite of great complexities and incoherences of administration, and of many strange anomalies, England has been for many years singularly happy in her local governments. The country gentlemen who chiefly managed her county government, at least discharged their task with great integrity, and with a very exten

sive and minute knowledge of the districts they ruled. They had their faults, but they were much more negative than positive. They did few things which they ought not to have done, but they left undone many things which they ought to have done. There was in general no corruption; gross abuses were very rare, and public money was, on the whole, wisely and economically expended; but evils that might have been remedied were often left untouched, and there was much need of a more active reforming spirit in county. administration.

Our town governments, also, since the great Municipal Act of 1835, have been, on the whole, very successful. They have not fallen into the hands of corrupt politicians like the greater number of the municipal governments in America; the statesmen of the period of the first Reform Bill never failed to maintain a close connection between the power of taxing and the obligation of paying rates and taxes, and the strong controlling influence they gave to property in municipal government, and in the administration of the poor laws, secured an honest employment of public money. The first and most vital rule of all good government is, that those who vote taxes should contribute, to some appreciable extent, to paying them; that those who are responsible for the administration of affairs should themselves suffer from maladministration. This cardinal rule is, if possible, even more applicable to local than to imperial government. Imperial government is largely concerned with wide political issues. Local government is specially, and beyond all things, a machine for raising and employing money. In every sound company the directors must qualify for their post by being large shareholders, and the shareholders who have the largest interest have the greatest number

of votes. This is the first and most obvious rule for obtaining an honest and frugal administration of money, and the success and purity of English local government have been largely due to the steadiness with which the great statesmen who followed the Reform Bill of 1832 acted upon it.

It has been reserved for the present generation of statesmen to do all that is in their power to destroy it. It has come to be regarded as a Liberal principle that it is a wrong thing to impose rating or property qualifications on those who vote rates and govern property. Thus, by the Act of 1894 all property qualifications for vestrymen and poor-law guardians have been abolished. The rating qualification for voting is no longer necessary. The ex-officio and nominated guardians, who were always men of large experience and indisputable character, have been swept away; the obviously equitable rule that ratepayers should have votes for guardians in proportion to the amount of their contributions has been replaced by the rule of one voter, one vote. The old property qualifications for the electors of district boards have been abolished, and at the same time those boards have acquired additional powers over different kinds of property. With many politicians the evident ideal of city government is, that a great owner of town property, who necessarily pays the largest proportion of the municipal taxation, whose interests are most indissolubly associated with the prosperity of the city, and who, from his very prominence, is specially likely to be made the object of predatory attacks, should have no more voice than the humblest tenant on his estate in imposing, regulating, distributing, and applying municipal taxation.

It would be difficult to conceive a system more certain to lead to corruption and dishonesty; and other