an unnecessary and intolerable burden. The question, however, was not merely one of expense; and the opponents of concentration contended that it was injurious to medical education as a whole to separate the teaching and study of some, at any rate, of these sciences from the clinical instruction of the students in the hospital medical school.

It appears from the published evidence of the present Commission that they have gone into the whole question of the teaching of science in the medical schools; and it may be expected that they will deal fully with the matter in their Final Report. But it also appears from this evidence that another question connected with medical education has been raised before the Commission, which was not considered by any former Commission, and which may affect the organisation of medical education profoundly. At present the clinical teaching of medicine and surgery in the London medical schools, and indeed throughout the country, is entirely given by practising physicians and surgeons, who cannot devote their whole time to the work; and it has been contended by witnesses before the present Commission that what has already taken place in the case of physiology and pathology must extend to all branches of medical science. The clinical teachers, it is said, like all other teachers in a University, should be paid Professors, free to devote themselves entirely to teaching and research, and systematically engaged in the advancement of knowledge. This is the system in Germany and in some of the best of the American Universities, and it is argued that it ought to be adopted in England, not only in the interests of medical science, but also of the scientific training of the students. On the other hand, many witnesses from the London medical schools have laid great stress upon the excellent practical results of the clinical instruction given under the English system, and the admitted defects of the German system in this respect. It may be hoped that the recommendations of the forthcoming Report will combine the advantages of both systems. But, whatever scheme it may advocate, it is likely that the Report may largely decide the plan to be in future adopted in London, if not in the country as a whole.

This brief outline of the most important points with

which the Commissioners have to deal may perhaps best be concluded by the reminder that the difficulty in organising the University of London in some stable fashion has become a public scandal. The plan proposed by the Statutory Commission, though not altogether successful, has at all events proved two things. First, that the establishment of a great teaching university in London is possible; and secondly, that the establishment of that University and the considerable amount of success it has attained has not diminished the demand for external degrees, as the number of candidates has steadily increased.

Five interim reports of the present Commission have already been published. Four of these are merely formal reports accompanying volumes of the evidence taken, but one report (the fourth) deals with the important question of the future housing of the University of London, and contains recommendations of the Commission that, in the general form in which they are made, will probably command universal assent and approval. The Commissioners say that in their opinion

'it is a matter of national importance that the University of London should be recognised and accepted as a great public institution,' and that 'it is fitting and right... that such an institution should have for its headquarters permanent buildings appropriate in design to its dignity and importance, adequate in extent, and specially constructed for its purposes, situated conveniently for the work it has to do, bearing its name and under its own control.'

They refer to the many purposes for which central University buildings are necessary, or at least very advantageous; and they recommend that as large a site as possible should be obtained in a central position, and buildings erected for a reconstituted University which would be the visible sign of its recognition and acceptance as a great public institution. Finally, they point out that the University must depend to a large extent upon the endowments of private benefactors, and that they cannot easily conceive a more splendid opportunity, than the endowment of the University of London and the provision of a noble and suitable building for its home afford, for the liberality of the citizen.

The present Commission was entirely chosen from among persons who had taken no actual part in the working of the University. It is difficult to imagine a more competent or, so far as is known, a more unbiased tribunal. It is, nevertheless, unlikely that it can produce a Report which is not open to criticism from some of the many interests affected by its recommendations. To this, of course, no reasonable objection can be taken. But it must be remembered that, when the Report has been published, the fate of the University of London will depend largely upon the University itself. If the Report is criticised in a petty and partisan spirit; if the graduates on the one hand, and the teachers and teaching institutions on the other, would rather reject it than abandon one jot or tittle of what they deem to be their rights; if there is no give and take, no surrender of private views to the considered opinion of the Commissioners, the Report may fail to inaugurate a new and happier epoch in the history of the University. The graduates, teachers and Schools of the University will be upon their trial. If they cannot show some approach to statesmanship, the scheme may be wrecked; but it is not necessarily the scheme that will be condemned.

Art. 13.-SOME RESULTS OF THE PARLIAMENT ACT. THE opening of the session of 1913, if it has served no other object, has at least concentrated attention upon the profoundly unsatisfactory plight into which our whole constitutional machinery has fallen. The House of Commons, listless and disheartened, is sitting down to register, for a second time, measures of the most farreaching character, which it knows it will barely be allowed to discuss, and certainly not allowed to alter by a single line. It has already registered them once, after due observance of the tiresome ceremony of debates and divisions, the result of which was always a foregone conclusion. It is condemned to register them a third time next year. The House of Lords has rejected these measures once. It will be allowed to reject them again this summer. That formality being accomplished, it passes out of existence as far as these particular measures are concerned. The public regards with apparent indifference, not only the process of registration, whether accompanied by speeches or summarily 'gagged,' but-and this is far more serious-the actual measures which in a few months' time it will awake to find clad with the full authority of law. Except a few whole-hearted partisans, no one will be found to deny that our parliamentary constitution is grievously out of gear. What is worse, it seems to have lost all power of readjustment. Hitherto our constitutional difficulties have been solved ambulando; the settlement of particular issues or controversies has, incidentally, served to keep the constitution abreast of the needs of the time. But the most recent experience would suggest that the only outcome of our party controversies is to give an increasing impetus to the process of degeneration, which, unless effectively checked in time, is bound sooner or later to mean the end of free parliamentary government in this country.

The causes which have brought about the present condition of Parliament are by no means altogether new. In a sense they were implicit in the Reform Act and Catholic emancipation, and only required the social and economic transformation of the last eighty years to bring them into operation. First and foremost among them

comes the ever-increasing power of what may, for convenience, be called the party machine.' It was inevitable that a highly centralised national organisation should gradually replace the loose body of independent local representatives of similar views and traditions which formerly constituted a political party. A similar process in the field of war substituted national armies for feudal levies, and, in the field of industry, is to-day replacing the small manufacturer or dealer by the combine and the trust. The successive extensions of the franchise have steadily accentuated the importance of organisation and discipline as factors of success. The ever-increasing facility of travel and the growth of the Press have immensely strengthened the power of the party leaders and organisers at the expense of the individual member or candidate. The speeches of a dozen prominent men, the organising work of a dozen wholly obscure ones, the writings of a dozen journalists, and, last but not least, the interests and preferences of a dozen men of substance, whose money supports the party funds or the party newspapers-these, and not the 670 members and candidates, constitute the essential elements of one of the great political parties to-day. The ordinary member, whether in the House of Commons or outside, must keep in line. If he endeavours to assert his independence he finds he has to deal, not only with the party Whips, and all that they can offer or withhold, but with his local executive and local press, with arrangements made for other speakers of more orthodox views to speak in his division, with subventions from the central office of the party to his local organisation. It is a nine days' wonder when an immensely popular local candidate succeeds, even in remotest Westmorland, in getting into Parliament without the direct blessing and assistance of Party Headquarters. Zealous partisans bewail the awful spectacle of disorganisation, while opponents gloat triumphantly over the unofficial character of their own candidate's defeat.

The growth of the party machine' in the country has had its counterpart in the progressive absorption of all power in the House of Commons by the Government, and in the ever-lessening independence and scope of the private member. The same tendency, which, in the