THE MACHINERY OF ELECTIVE GOVERNMENT 643 



at present it is not. The world will have first thoroughly to learn by 

 experience that the existing system is, or tends more and more to be- 

 come, government by and for the wire-puller, not by or for the people. 

 France is apparently about to make an experiment in the opposite 

 direction, by the adoption at Gambetta's dictation of the scrntin de 

 liste. But this is a warning to the rest of the world, the object of the 

 measure evidently being not to improve the elections, but, by cancel- 

 ing all those local influences which on the whole are the healthiest, to 

 render a particular politician more completely master of France. 



Representation of minorities seems to have done but little good. 

 The result is a torpid compromise which is likely to continue notwith- 

 standing a change of sentiment in the constituency, because it is the 

 object of all the three members, and especially of the holder of the 

 minority seat, to avoid a contest, so that positive misrepresentation as 

 well as political deadness may be the result. The minority member is 

 nailed to his seat, and can neither take office nor retire, except at a 

 general election. All complicated arrangements are apt to harbor 

 wire-pulling, for the wire-puller, even if he is baffled at first, soon 

 learns the trick. The only measure of this kind which appears to 

 promise real improvement is the adoption of the second ballot when 

 no candidate has polled an absolute majority at the first. This would 

 give opinion, which is apt to split into sections, a fairer chance against 

 a compact interest, and render.it possible for an independent candidate 

 to come forward with some prospect of success. At present the wire- 

 pullers invariably succeed in persuading the people that their votes, if 

 given for an independent candidate, will be thrown away. 



Experience seems distinctly to have shown that, to make an assem- 

 bly deliberative, its numbers must be limited. In a Parliament of six 

 hundred or a thousand members, volleys of ai'gument or invective may 

 be exchanged between the two sides of the House, but deliberation is 

 impossible. More than two hundred can hardly take counsel together. 

 There is the resource of grand committees, which, however, is not avail- 

 able with party government, unless the committees are so arranged that 

 the dominant party shall have a majority in each of them. Unless this 

 is done, the full House will be always redebating and reversing the de- 

 cisions of the grand committee. 



With such a mode of election to the central Legislature as has been 

 suggested, it will be safe to combine a widely extended suffrage. It 

 will be safe, and it will be politic. For the instructed and reflecting 

 few, a demonstration of political utility may suffice : proved expediency 

 secures their allegiance ; but, to engage the loyalty of the many, it is 

 necessary that government should be administered in the name of an 

 authority to which their hearts as well as their understandings bow 

 Such an authority in by-gone times was the king ; such an author, 

 ity now is the whole nation. No one who was in the United States at 

 the time of the civil war could fail to see what immense strength that 



