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 involving great expenditure in blood and treasure is too heavy a price to pay for increased efficiency, valuable as that is.

It is not at all likely that British peoples will ever allow their executive to get out of hand again. They undertook two revolutions in the seventeenth century to get the principle of control recognized, and it took them a hundred and fifty years to devise the political machinery by which it was made effective. That is the meaning of the triumph of the Cabinet over the old Privy Council. The Privy Council was responsible to the king who ruled by prerogative in the seventeenth century, and by "influence" in the eighteenth. Cabinet ministers are responsible to a majority of the people's representatives in Parliament, and hold office only as long as they retain their confidence. That is how the harmony between the Legislature and the Executive has been secured.

It seems simple, but it is a matter of far-reaching importance. It was not suggested by any theorist, it was evolved from experience, and it is the chief distinguishing characteristic of the British Constitution, and gives to it that organic character which enables it to effect changes from within. The principle of growth is in itself.

Tested by essentials the government of Great Britain and the Dominions is far more democratic than that of the United States. It is more flexible, and responds much more quickly to the influence of public opinion. The President of the United States is appointed for four years, and the failure of the impeachment of Samuel Johnson in 1868 proved that it is well night impossible to