648 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



itism and jobbery in the exercise of patronage against administrative 

 reform.* 



The most important point remaining is the ballot, which has now 

 been pretty well tried. The notion that it would specially favor Liber- 

 alism is at an end. It annuls all pressure, that of the trades-union or 

 the social circle, as well as that of the landlord or the customer. On 

 the other hand, it affords a cover for individual follies and for all the 

 motives which shun the light. It has failed to baffle the wire-puller 

 for the reason already mentioned ; he always succeeds in convincing 

 the mass of electors that a vote given for any but a regular party can- 

 didate will be lost. Probably the balance of advantage is on the side 

 of allowing a man to give free expression to his real sentiments, what- 

 ever they may be ; the result is then trustworthy, and the general 

 action of the voters as citizens will be in accordance with their votes. 



That the British Constitution is unwritten, and therefore elastic, 

 may be the boast of Britons, but, like many things which are the boast 

 of Britons, it forms no precedent for other nations. For reasons before 

 given, unwritten traditions or understandings are valid only in these 

 islands. In new-born democracies nothing will prevent the militant 

 politician from using for his own behoof and for the discomfiture of 

 his opponent all the powers which the letter of the law puts into his 

 hands, the sacred principles of the constitution notwithstanding ; and 

 thus we find a lieutenant-governor of a province turning out the min- 

 istry of the majority in order to transfer the provincial patronage to 

 the hands of his own party on the eve of a general election, and the 

 Senate of the same province withholding the supplies as an ordinary 



* The suffrage movement is, in the United States at all events, only part of a move- 

 ment against the limitations of sex, against the bondage of matrimony and the burdens of 

 maternity. Those who are thus striving to break up the political unity of the family are 

 assailing its integrity in other ways by separating as much as possible the interest of the 

 wife from that of the husband, and teaching her to regard him not with confidence but 

 with jealousy. The writer has heard in several quarters that some of the female leaders 

 of the movement do all in their power to deter young women from marriage. The name 

 of John Stuart Mill, on the banners of the movement, indicates its real character, and 

 shows that it extends to the general status of women. If it spreads in America, the con- 

 sequence will be, that the Anglo-American race will be supplanted by the Irish and Ger- 

 mans, whose women are loyal to sex, true to the family, and good mothers, while all the 

 Irish and half the Germans belong to a Church by which the family has always been 

 upheld. 



What nobody will deny is that the question is one of the most tremendous significance. 

 The family is more important than the state to human character and happiness ; and 

 while the state may be regenerated by the family, the family can not be regenerated by 

 the state. Levity, therefore, and concession to vague sentiment are criminal. Man, as 

 the responsible holder of political power, is bound to decide unselfishly and generously ; 

 but he is bound to decide carefully and wisely, in the interest of his partner as well as in 

 his own. In England Conservatism has of late been led into strange ways. If, instead 

 of allying itself with beer and ignorance against intelligence, or stirring up war passions 

 as revolutionary as they are wicked and destructive, it would take to guarding property 

 and the family, its just influence in the state would be increased. 



