Art. 10.-TWO CHAMBERS OR ONE.

1. The Government of England.

By A. L. Lowell. Two

vols. New York: The Macmillan Co., 1908.

2. The Governance of England. By Sidney Low, M.A. London: Unwin, 1904.

3. The Reform of the House of Lords. By W. S. McKechnie, M.A., LL.B., D.Phil. Glasgow: MacLehose, 1909.

4. Second Chambers, an Inductive Study in Political Science. By J. A. R. Marriott, M.A. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1910.

5. The Union of South Africa. By the Hon. R. H. Brand, Secretary to the Transvaal Delegates at the South African National Convention. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1909.

6. A Bill to make provision with respect to the Powers of the House of Lords in relation to those of the House of Commons, and to limit the duration of Parliaments. London: Wyman, 1910.

7. Report from the Select Committee on the House of Lords. London: Wyman, 1908.

IN his Governance of England' Mr Low gives a striking illustration of the great change which has taken place in the public estimation of the House of Commons. In 1901 Lord Hugh Cecil said in Parliament, Why is it that nobody cares, outside these walls, about the rights of private members? Because there is a deep-seated feeling that the House is an institution which has ceased to have much authority or much repute, and that when a better institution, the Cabinet, encroaches upon the rights of a worse one, it is a matter of small concern to the country.' As Mr Low observes, a hundred years earlier those who used such language were prosecuted for sedition at the instance of the affronted Commons; nobody proposes now to prosecute or even reprimand Lord Hugh Cecil. These symptoms are not confined to the British Parliament. In the most democratic of all countries, the Western States of the United States, it is not uncommon to forbid the Legislature from meeting more than once in two years, in order to reduce, so far as possible, its capacity for mischief. It is curious that this moment, when representative assemblies throughout

the world are admittedly on their trial, should have been chosen by the Liberal party for the purpose of concentrating all power in a single House of the British Parliament.

The House of Commons has lost the right which it once had of claiming to be the sole organ for the expression of the public will. In former days things were different. The Cabinet was not tempted to look beyond the Commons to the people; the people, being inarticulate except at a General Election, were content to trust the Commons. Now, however, new competitors have sprung up to claim the right of interpreting to the executive the will of the people. By means of the press and the platform, powerful influences are brought to bear on the Cabinet over which the House of Commons has no control. The House is being squeezed out between the Cabinet and the electorate.

At the same time the more rapidly and effectively the voice of the people is heard, the more difficult it is to interpret its language. Greater experience has taught us that the country's will,' 'the sense of the community,' and so forth, are themselves very uncertain quantities and rarely expressed at a General Election in a manner so authoritative as to require unquestioning obedience. We have learnt from our party managers that public opinion is a semi-manufactured article, and requires to be worked up by every possible process of suggestion. And yet it is common knowledge that this uncertain quantity, even for what it is worth, is generally misrepresented by the Commons. A large majority in Parliament often represents only a small majority in the country. Party managers know that there is a floating mass at the top which can be turned with comparative ease this way or that, according to all sorts of adventitious circumstances. For all these reasons the claim of Parliament to represent an opinion which is comparatively fixed and unchanging impresses no one.

But the weakness of Parliament is not solely due to the fact that it can no longer draw strength from a claim to be the sole representative of the deliberate will of the country. The very growth of democracy itself has sapped its energies by destroying its independence. As Mr Lowell remarks, the House of Commons

no longer legislates; the Cabinet legislates by and with the consent of the House of Commons.' Mr Lowell gives some remarkable figures demonstrating the continuous growth of rigidity in the party system, figures which prove the causes of this tendency to be permanent and deep-seated. There has been a marked development of the domination of the Cabinet and the party caucus. It is said that in Australia the Labour caucus now meets and discusses in secret all public measures and decides upon their fate. The proceedings in the Federal Parliament will be quite unimportant and will 'merely embrace the formal registration of the decrees of the Labour caucus.' In South Australia the Labour caucus now elects its Ministry by ballot. Is this the direction in which we also are tending?

The liberty of the Commons has been further restricted by another marked tendency of the time, namely, the growth of public business. Bagehot points out that in the early part of the nineteenth century a Government was supposed not to legislate, but to administer. Legislation was as much the function of the private member as of the Government. In modern days both the administrative and the legislative duties of a Government have increased a thousandfold, owing partly to the great extension of the Empire, but mainly to the huge growth of Government activities in Great Britain itself. The complexity of modern civilisation is so great, the extension of State control so marked, and the belief in the efficacy of legislation so widespread, that the demand for it, and, in truth, the need for it, has enormously increased. For many reasons the work can only be undertaken by the Government. The ordinary member of Parliament has practically no part in it. To Englishmen who have lived in one of the great dominions it seems astonishing that the people of Great Britain and Ireland should attempt to govern not only themselves, but a vast Empire, by one Parliament. Canada has ten Parliaments to govern some seven million people; Australia six Parliaments to govern some four and a half million people; South Africa five Parliaments to govern one million white people and five million Kaffirs. The single British Parliament governs forty-five million people and the whole Empire. Subjected as it is

to so great a strain, the parliamentary machine at times seems likely to come to a full stop. It can only go on at all by surrendering the substance of its power to the Cabinet.

But what of the Cabinet itself? Does not the same disease afflict it? The responsibilities cast on the British Cabinet are greater than any that have been ever undertaken by a single body of men. The relations of Great Britain to the Great Powers of the world, her relations with the dominions, the government of India, the government of Egypt, the administration of countless Crown colonies, great and small, the problems of the defence of the Empire, the vast work of administration in Great Britain and Ireland, the preparation of all important legislation, constant attendance in Parliament, constant speech-making in the country, and many social engagements, these are duties too multifarious and too burdensome to be performed, as they ought to be performed, by even the ablest Cabinet. How much time is it likely that the Cabinet as a whole can give to the consideration of its great measures? Are we to think that Sir Edward Grey gave much thought to the Budget or Lord Morley to the Licensing Bill? There can be little cohesion or unity left in a modern Cabinet. A Minister who is overwhelmed with the work of his department, and who devotes what spare moments he has to Parliament and the platform, can have no time to keep an eye on his colleagues. This disintegration of the Cabinet perhaps adds to the power of the Prime Minister, who may still supervise the doings of his subordinates, but it will not be found consistent with the central doctrine of joint responsibility. At the least it must lead to illdigested and reckless legislation-legislation which, after being hastily drafted, may very likely be closured and guillotined through the House of Commons. In the face of these facts, is it wise to add to the responsibility of these harassed and over-burdened men, and to free them from all restraints by concentrating the whole authority of the State in the House of Commons?

Notwithstanding these weaknesses in the constitution of the representative House, it might carry on its work with comparative efficiency in practice if it were composed of two parties, and two alone. Common sense and

experience both point clearly to a two party system as a necessity of our present form of government. The Irish party has done nothing but harm to the parliamentary form of government, and the shifts and compromises of the present Ministry, dependent as it is both on the Irish and Labour sections, are an eloquent witness to the extent to which our parliamentary machine is thrown out of gear by the intrusion of strange elements. Consider, for instance, the probable effect of the existing group system on domestic politics. There are some grounds for believing that the capricious oscillations of public opinion since the extension of the franchise in 1867 are caused by voters who belong in the main to the poorer classes. If this is so, then, as Prof. Lowell observes, 'the result is unfortunate, for it means that the parties will be tempted more and more to outbid each other for the favour of these voters. Such a temptation is a danger in any State, but above all in a parliamentary government, where the control of party over legislation is strong enough to enable the leaders to carry out their promises, and to make them effectively responsible at the polls for a failure to do so.'

But mistakes in domestic policy may be redeemed. Not so with the Empire at large. A false step in that field is irretrievable-there was no recovering the United States when once we had lost them. Those who look upon the future union of the Empire as the greatest and certainly the most difficult task of constructive statesmanship ever committed to the Anglo-Saxon race may well view with misgivings tendencies in parliamentary government already manifesting themselves. They may well be disturbed at the prospect of the House of Commons being elevated into the position of a Single Chamber, supreme over the whole Empire.

It is this aspect of the problem which is ignored by the Liberal party and its allies. 'Can any one find,' asked Lord Milner, 'in the arguments and policy of those who are engaged in trying to destroy the House of Lords, the slightest recognition of, the slightest interest in, the effect of such a revolution upon the British Parliament as the central organ of a great imperial system?' Justly does he deplore 'the terrible defect of the Constitution of this Empire, that one and the same Assembly has not