THE MACHINERY OF ELECTIVE GOVERNMENT. 649 



stroke of party warfare, when it wanted to upset a government which 

 had a majority in the other House. A young commonwealth requires 

 a written constitution, and a strict one. Moreover, the document, 

 which becomes a political bible, is an instrument of no small power in 

 educating the citizen, and has a conservative influence of the best sort 

 over his mind. 



The only point of first-rate importance which remains is the amend- 

 ment of the Constitution. This ought to be distinctly vested in the 

 nation at large, the sovereignty of which ought to be unequivocally 

 proclaimed ; and a mode should be provided by which the sovereign 

 can exercise the power. An elective assembly will not terminate its 

 own existence, or even pass a measure of reform affecting the position 

 of a large portion of its members, if it can help doing so, any more 

 than a king will abdicate of his own accord. The more vicious it is, 

 the less amenable to opinion it will be. The English Parliament in 

 1832 did not voluntarily reform itself ; reform was forced on it by the 

 nation, which threatened it with violence if it held out longer. In 

 1867 it was let through a trap-door. The more insufferable the Amer- 

 ican House of Representatives becomes, the more tenaciously will it 

 cling to its evil existence : and electing members pledged to consent 

 to the submission of an amendment for its reformation or abolition 

 would be a desperately difficult process for the people, when the organ- 

 izations are in the hands of the politicians. The only visible remedy 

 would be revolution : and a revolution, though not a bloody one, would 

 apparently be inevitable if the British nation were to make up its mind 

 to abolish the veto on national legislation at present possessed by the 

 six hundred privileged families represented in the House of Lords. 

 The object might be attained by providing that it should be lawful 

 at any election of representatives for the electors to inscribe on the 

 same ticket a requisition for the submission of a constitutional amend- 

 ment, and that the Legislature should be bound to submit the amend- 

 ment to a plebiscite, if a certain proportion of the electorate had sup- 

 ported the requisition. No one who is familiar with the character of 

 democracies, and knows the extent of the vis inertice which prevails in 

 them, will deem the power likely to be too frequently used. 



The writer, let him say once more, is fully aware that much of what 

 has been said will to many seem undeserving of practical consideration. 

 He knows well that party government, a second Chamber, and direct 

 election of the central Legislature by the people at large, are regarded 

 as immutable ordinances of nature. Yet this does not shake his con- 

 viction that a single central assembly elected by the members of local 

 assemblies, and itself electing the executive, will after sufficient expe- 

 rience be the form finally assumed by elective governments. Nine- 

 teenth Century. 



