I. THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE WORLD. FEW Occupations are more interesting than to watch the progress of national governments in the making, and to look on whilst a novel constitution or a decaying despotism is shaken or confirmed by the stress of time. In no age has this occupation been more easy, more engrossing, or indeed more instructive, than in our own. The entire human family has undergone, or is still undergoing, vital changes of government and mutual relationship. Every intelligent person has observed the process, and knows the general tendencies by which it has been directed. Opinions differ as to the goal which may be reached by this or that development, and as to the result of this or that constitutional tendency, but all alike are concerned in the actual evolution of political history. A British citizen, or a citizen of one of the British colonies, or of an independent State which has framed its constitution on the British model, occupies the best possible standpoint from which to make such a survey as has just been indicated. It is manifest that the strongest political tendency of the time is towards the constant development of popular government; and it was in Great Britain that the germs of the democratic principle were originally fostered. The modern popular government of our day is of purely English origin. . . . The new principle of government was solely established in England, which. Hume always classes with Republics rather than with Monarchies. After tremendous civil struggles, the doctrine that governments serve the community was, in spirit if not in words, affirmed in 1689. . . . Popular government, as first known to the English, began to command the interest of the Continent through the admiration with which it inspired a certain set of French thinkers towards the middle of the last century. . . . The principle of modern popular government was affirmed less than two centuries ago, and the practical application of that principle outside these islands and their dependencies is not quite a century old." If, then, some of the leading ideas of contemporary government are British in origin and initial tendency, it is right that the constitution of Great Britain should be not merely placed first in order of arrangement amongst the *Sir H. S. Maine, Essays on " Popular Government." The conclusion drawn in the first of these essays is as follows:-"Popular governments of the modern type have not hitherto proved stable as compared with other forms of political rule, and they include certain sources of weakness which do not promise security for them in the near or remote future. My chief conclusion can only be stated negatively. There is not at present sufficient evidence to warrant the common belief that these governments are likely to be of indefinitely long duration." judgment is quoted in order that it may serve as one of the materials which the present volume seeks to place at the disposal of its readers. But it is not out of place to remark that Sir Henry Maine speaks in high terms of the constitution of the United States, and does not deny that the success of a popularized government in Great Britain during two hundred years is in itself a promise, if not a pledge, of continued success in the future. The |