Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/23

Rh  The Two Chambers.&mdash;First, as to the double chamber. This, which is perhaps more accidental than any other portion of the English system, has been the most widely imitated. In most European countries, in the English colonies, in the United States congress, and in the sepa rate States of the Union, 1 there are two houses of legis lature. This result has been brought about partly by natural imitation of the accepted type of free govern ment, partly from a conviction that the second chamber will moderate the democratic tendencies of the first. The theoretical question would take too long to argue, but it is easy to show that the elements of the English original cannot be reproduced to order under different conditions. 2 There have, indeed, been a few attempts to imitate the special character of hereditary nobility attaching to the English House of Lords, and these few have failed. The complete solidarity existing between the English nobility and at least the politically privileged, if not the whole mass, of their countrymen, is a result not to be attempted by the framers of constitutions. The English system, too, after its own way, obviates any danger of collision between the Houses, the stmdihg and obvious danger of the bicameral system. In England there is no doubt where the real sovereignty lies. The actual ministers of the day must possess the confidence of the House of Commons ; they need not in fact they often do not possess the confidence of the Hoase of Lords. It is only in legislation that the Lower House really shares its powers with the Upper ; and the con stitution possesses, in the unlimited power of nominating peers, a well-understood last resource should the House of Lords persist in refusing important measures demanded by the representatives of the people. In all but measures of first class importance, however, the House of Lords is a real second chamber, and in these there is little danger of a collision between the Houses. There is the widest possible difference between the English and any other second chamber. In the United States the senate (constituted on the system of equal representation of States) is the more important of the two Houses, and the only one whose con trol of the executive can be compared to that exercised by the British House of Commons. In the English colonies a dead-lock between the two Houses is a matter of frequent occurrence. In France, it is an anticipated if not an in tended source of danger to the new republican constitution. The real strength of popular government in England lies in the ultimate supremacy of the House of Commons. That supremacy had been acquired, perhaps to its full extent, before the extension of the suffrage made the constituencies democratic. Foreign imitators, it may be observed, have been more ready to accept a wide basis of representation than to confer real power on the representative body. In all the monarchical countries of Europe, however unre stricted the right of suffrage may be, the real victory of con stitutional government has yet to be won. Where the suffrage means little or nothing, there is little or no reason for guarding it against abuse. The independence of the executive in the United States brings that country, from one point of view, more near to the Continental than to the English state system. The people make a more complete surrender of power to the Government than is done in England.

Cabinet Government.&mdash;The peculiar functions of the English cabinet are not easily matched in any foreign system. They are a mystery even to most educated

1 The double government in the last case was founded, says Sir G. C. Lewis, on the English municipal system, and corresponded to the difference between aldermen and common-council men.

2 Sweden, a few years since, reduced her four mediaeval estates to two houses, and is more like Great Britain in the composition of the new parliament than any other state in Europe.

Englishmen. The cabinet in England is much more than a body consisting of chiefs of departments. It is the inner council of the empire, the arbiter of national policy, foreign or domestic, the sovereign in commission. The whole power of the House of Commons is concentrated in its hands. At the same time, it has no place whatever in the legal constitution. Its numbers and its constitution are not fixed even by any rule of practice. It keeps no record of its proceedings. The relations of an individual minister to the cabinet, and of the cabinet to its head and creator, the premier, are things known only to the initiated. 3 With the doubtful exception of France, no other system of government presents us with anything like its equivalent. In the United States, as in the European monarchies, we have a council of ministers surrounding the chief of the state.

Change of Power in the English System.&mdash;One of the most difficult problems of government is how to provide for the devolution of political power, and perhaps no other question is so generally and justly applied as the test of a working constitution. If the transmission works smoothly, the constitution, whatever may be its other de fects, may at least be pronounced stable. It would be tedious to enumerate all the contrivances which this problem has suggested to political societies. Here, as usual, Oriental despotism stands at the bottom of the scale. When sovereign power is imputed to one family, and the law of succession fails to designate exclusively the individual en titled to succeed, assassination becomes almost a necessary measure of precaution. The prince whom chance or intrigue has promoted to the throne of a father or an uncle, must make himself safe from his relatives and competitors. Hence the scenes which shock the European conscience when &quot; Amurath an Amurath succeeds.&quot; Constantinople, Afghanistan, and Burmah have all recently illustrated the standing difficulty of the succession in Oriental despotisms. The strong monarchical governments of Europe have been saved from this evil by an indisputable law of succession, which marks out from his infancy the next successor to the throne. The king names his ministers, and the law names the king. In popular or constitutional govern ments far more elaborate precautions are required. It is one of the real merits of the English constitution that it has solved this problem in a roundabout way perhaps, after its fashion but with perfect success. The ostensible seat of power is the throne, and down to a time not long distant the demise of the crown suspended all the other powers of the state. In point of fact, however, the real change of power occurs on a change of ministry. The con stitutional practice o5 this century has settled, beyond the reach of controversy, the occasions on which a ministry is bound to retire. It must resign or dissolve when it is defeated in the House of Commons, and if after a dissolution it is beaten again, it must resign without alternative. It mayresign if it thinks its majority in the House of Commons not sufficiently large. The dormant functions of the crown now come into existence. It receives back political power from the old ministry in order to transmit it to the new. When the new ministry is to be formed, and how it is to be formed, is also clearly settled by established practice. The out-going premier names his successor by recommend ing the king to consult him ; and that successor must be the recognized leader of his successful rivals. All this is a matter of custom, not of law ; and it is doubtful if any two authorities could agree in describing the .custom in

3 See Bagehot s English Constitution, which exhibits a working view of this and other parts of the constitution as they appear to an outsider. Mr Gladstone s political essays, in the collection entitled Gleanings of Past Years, contain much valuable information at first hand.