Page:Women and the State.djvu/9

7 Tudors, and ultimately overthrew the Stuarts altogether. France did not attain this liberty until 130 years ago, M. Thomsen, the French Labour representative who visited Australia recently, said that France had nothing to learn from the Soviet system of Russia—she passed through it aft^r 1793. How much less, then, have the freest people on the face of the earth to learn from these fire-eaters?

We all have an equal share in the government of our land, because every man and woman over the age of twenty-one has a vote. We safeguard ourselves against the passage of hasty and ill-considered legislation by having what is known as the bi-cameral system, or two houses of legislature, the upper and the lower, each of which keeps a check upon the other. Even then we have a further safeguard of our liberties in the presence of the King's representative, who, although he makes no laws, nor does he interfere with free discussion or the making of new measures, keeps careful watch upon bills passed by Parliament, and would refuse the consent of the Crown if they infringed in any way on the broad, solid basis of our Constitution, built upon charters of freedom won by the lifeblood of our fathers, in which the privileges of the Sovereign People are embedded. So our system of government is the most perfect that has yet been devised, although in recent years there has been a determined attempt to substitute government by Caucus for the rule of the people. Our system is based on such solid foundations of justice that we cannot afford to exchange it for another. There is more liberty in our old British con-