THE OLDEST FREE ASSEMBLIES 



Address of Right Hon. Arthur J. Balfour, in the United 

 States House of Representatives, May 5, 1917 



Mr. Speaker, Ladies and Gentle- 

 men oe the House oe Repre- 

 sentatives : Will you permit me, 

 on behalf of my friends and myself, to 

 offer you my deepest and sincerest thanks 

 for the rare and valued honor which you 

 have done us by receiving us here today ? 



We all feel the greatness of this honor ; 

 but I think to none of us can it come 

 home so closely as to one who, like my- 

 self, has been for 43 years in the service 

 of a free assembly like your own. I re- 

 joice to think that a member — a very old 

 member, I am sorry to say — of the Brit- 

 ish House of Commons has been received 

 here today by this great sister assembly 

 with such kindness as you have shown 

 to me and to my friends. 



Ladies and gentlemen, these two as- 

 semblies are the greatest and the oldest 

 of the free assemblies now governing 

 great nations in the world. The history 

 indeed of the two is very different. 



The beginnings of the British House 

 of Commons go back to a dim historic 

 past, and its full rights and status have 

 only been conquered and permanently 

 secured after centuries of political strug- 

 gle. 



Your fate has been a happier one. 

 You were called into existence at a much 

 later stage of social development. You 

 came into being complete and perfected 

 and all your powers determined, and 

 your place in the Constitution secured 

 beyond chance of revolution : but, though 

 the history of these two great assemblies 

 is different, each of them represents the 

 great democratic principle to which we 

 look forward as the security for the fu- 

 ture peace of the world. 



ALL FREE ASSEMBLIES MODELED AFTER 



THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT AND 



AMERICAN CONGRESS 



All of the free assemblies now to be 

 found srovernine the great nations of the 



earth have been modeled either upon 

 your practice or upon ours or upon both 

 combined. 



Mr. Speaker, the compliment paid to 

 the mission from Great Britain by such 

 an assembly and upon such an occasion 

 is one not one of us is ever likely to for- 

 get. But there is something, after all, 

 even deeper and more significant in the 

 circumstances under which I now have 

 the honor to address you than any which 

 arise out of the interchange of courte- 

 sies, however sincere, between the great 

 and friendly nations. 



We all, I think, feel instinctively that 

 this is one of the great moments in the 

 history of the world, and that what is 

 now happening on both sides of the At- 

 lantic represents the drawing together of 

 great and free peoples for mutual pro- 

 tection against the aggression of military 

 despotism. 



I am not one of those, and none of you 

 are among those, who are such bad dem- 

 ocrats as to say that democracies make 

 no mistakes. All free assemblies have 

 made blunders ; sometimes they have 

 committed crimes. 



PURSUING THE APPALLING OBJECT OE 

 DOMINATING CIVILIZATION 



Why is it, then, that we look forward 

 to the spread of free institutions through- 

 out the world, and especially among our 

 present enemies, as one of the greatest 

 guaranties of the future peace of the 

 world? I will tell you, gentlemen, how 

 it seems to me. It is quite true that the 

 people and the representatives of the 

 people may be betrayed by some mo- 

 mentary gust of passion into a policy 

 which they ultimately deplore ; but it is 

 only a military despotism of the German 

 type which can, through generations if 

 need be, pursue steadily, remorselessly, 

 unscrupulously, the appalling object of 

 dominating the civilization of mankind. 



368 



