NOTES 



Scientific Politics— IE. " The WiU o! the People." 



Th^ essential theory of parliamentary government is that a 

 parliament is elected by the common will for the common 

 good ; but it is clear that the definition implies a great deal 

 more than appears in its actual words. It is in fact a tacit 

 expression of faith ; it assumes prior assent to a creed which 

 demands belief in a political trinity — the existence of a common 

 will, the competence of that will to judge of individual char- 

 acter, and the assurance that those who are selected by the 

 common will are both capable of fulfilling and in fact ready to 

 fulfil their trust. 



Every clause of this unwritten creed which lies at the base 

 of popular government has been challenged. It has been 

 pointed out that individual members and even whole parlia- 

 ments have acted selfishly, foolishly, or corruptly ; how then 

 can they be said to fulfil their trust ? The competence of the 

 people to choose their rulers has been denied : " The best 

 part of a community is always the least, and of that least part 

 the wiser are still less," said Winthrop, first Governor of Massa- 

 chusetts three centuries ago, in words that have not yet lost 

 their sting. And acute observers have doubted the very 

 existence of a common will. It is true that T. H. Green and 

 Bosanquet, with some reservations, admit its reality ; but 

 Laski, in the recently published Foundations of Sovereignty, 

 disputes their conclusions. He holds that there is no general 

 will, but only one which, when it prevails, may be the will of 

 an energetic minority which has captured power. 



It is with the last of these assumptions that we are here 

 concerned. What light does political history throw upon the 

 problem of the communal will ? 



The first paradox that we encounter is so familiar that it 

 seems more like a truism than a paradox. The State is a 

 political unit, and therefore the political will of the people 

 should also be a unit. Yet the will of the people in parliamen- 

 tary aifairs appears automatically to divide into two — a majority 

 (which forms the Government) and a minority (which forms 

 the Opposition). And this at once distinguishes responsible 

 parliamentary gov^^rnment from all other forms of government ; 



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