Page:A thousand years hence. Being personal experiences (IA thousandyearshen00gree).djvu/131

 ways of our own, and to keeping within our own accustomed political groove. But although we do not usually move on by revolutionary bounds, yet, while keeping within so-called constitutional lines, we can be really making great political change all the time. The politico-social surface is apparently undisturbed from year to year; but yet the old monarchical relations are successively bending to the demands and necessities of an altering and advancing society. And yet, in the vitality of old forms, our royal family, even when no longer participant in practical politics, continued long at the social front with a routine of national duties. And along with such traditional royalty were the still interesting survivals of old historic family life, whose social consideration was now all the less grudged, when no longer propped up by hereditary privilege and power.

Our national political forms, indeed, continued much as they were before. The actual head of the Government was still the "Premier," who governed mainly through his majority in the "Lower House."

A change of ministry came by an "understanding," to which both Houses, but especially the "Lower," were usually parties, the understanding being, in fact, in place of the Crown. But we were still, as before, a constitutional Government. We did not assume the name of a Republic, that term being foreign to our political history and associations. We were a Commonwealth; and we finally found ourselves simply the Commonwealth of England.