Page:Democracy, theoretical and practical (IA democracytheoret00hendrich).pdf/13

 ; but it is the Cabinet that governs the country, and within that Cabinet there is an inner ring of strong and capable men, who have more to do with the actual government of Great Britain than all the millions who have voted to send them there. Great Britain is moving rapidly toward adult franchise, and that is one result of important developments in the last century. There is another in the consolidation of the power of the Cabinet as an instrument of government. So great has the power of the British Cabinet become in our time that exponents of our working constitution sometimes find it difficult to decide whether the Cabinet controls the House or the House the Cabinet.

Whatever be the truth on this point, there can be no doubt that the British Cabinet has acquired enormous power as an executive instrument, and that the government which prevails in Great Britain and the Dominions to-day is not government for the people by the people, but government for the people by a few selected men whom the electors control through the House of Representatives. That is the form of government which we have agreed to call democracy; democracy as we find it actually working, not as the theorists have defined it; democracy as we find it in history, and as we are likely to find it in the future.

Let us bring the matter to the test of common sense.

The majority of people in this hall have the right to vote, and therefore to exercise some control over ministers through the Assembly on North Terrace; but how much do we who sit here have to do with the actual administration of State affairs? And this is only a small State, in which nearly* half the population live in one