Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 20.djvu/662

642 of feeling on one question, to the neglect of the more general interests of the commonwealth. The term for which each member of the central Legislature was elected would be fixed, and there would be an end of the ministerial prerogative of dissolution, which has run into grave abuse, and may run into graver abuse still, if ministers are allowed to dissolve whenever they think they are sure of winning the elections, and thus to perpetuate their tenure of power. The election of a central Legislature by local Legislatures, and the installments, would no doubt be a tame affair compared with the turmoil of a general election under the present system; and those who think that turmoil is life will at once reject the proposal: to the writer, after observing the politics of a colony and of the United States, as well as those of England, the reverse appears to be the case. Turmoil and healthy political life seem to him totally different things. Mere saving of expense is not a paramount object, but the corruption as well as the enormous waste of general elections would be at an end. Nor is there much danger of stagnation: the world is in a fair way to have agitating questions enough, without breaking heads for Blue and Yellow.

Bad influences—vanity, intrigue, pique, self-interest, corruption, narrowness of view and motive—can not be excluded by any conceivable machinery from any human assembly. But the members of a local council, electing members of the national Legislature, would at least be acting under the eyes of the community, and with something of the responsibility which attaches to the exercise of a personal trust. They would usually have too much largeness of view to vote against an eminent man because he had promoted co-operative stores, or because he had gone wrong on the dog-tax. Nor in any reasonably moral community would they be likely to take direct bribes. It is time, however, as every one who lives under the rule of colonial politicians knows too well, that political corruption, in high places as well as in low, should be distinctly stamped as a crime, and brought under the regular cognizance of justice. It is just as capable of definition and of proof as any other crime, and assuredly it is not the least heinous in the list. For this purpose, as for the trial of contested elections, a tribunal is needed free from partisan influence and open for the reception of charges brought against men in public trusts by any citizen, with proper safeguards, of course, against wantonness or malice. Impeachment is obsolete, and an investigation undertaken by Parliament under the party system becomes a faction-fight. It seems incredible that the framers of constitutions for colonies teeming with corruption should have failed to make any provision for the trial of political offenses.

If we are asked whether it is at all likely that the plan of indirect election will be adopted, the vote for the supreme Legislature having been once ostensibly given to the people at large, we say at once that