and independent Province, with special protection against nominal citizens.

Vast problems in English legislation must soon be undertaken by Parliament, if we are to avoid the greatest calamities. Pauperism has become an English institution ever since the reign of Henry VIII.; that is, ever since the land-tenure was put upon its present footing. No country can be healthy and thriving, where the land, which naturally and reasonably belongs to the nation and is under the rule of the State, is converted into the private ownership of wealthy grandees. Perpetual invasions of common land have been allowed by a landlord Parliament to landlords, under whose regimen the rural districts are emptied out into the towns. Caledonia and Ireland have to be re-peopled. All the rural places must be made not only to maintain their new births, but to receive ample colonies from the towns. English fields will abundantly repay English capital which is now sent abroad. A vast and beneficial revolution awaits us; a necessary revolution, which the upper classes, unless unwise, must promote. The Queen's Government, however it may be composed, covets soldiers. Landlords of old were bound to furnish troops to the King they now have somehow got the power of driving out men, and putting sheep or deer in their place. With an armed Europe confronting us, chronic alarms from Ireland, and need of constant recruits for India, great changes are inevitable. We need legislators who can grasp broad principles, not mere administrators and men of routine. We want simple and short laws, not lengthy edicts. The qualities needed for a wise and energetic member of our Commons House are now so great, that to judge of candidates is not a task for ordinary honest men. argue from antiquity and precedent, is here a pernicious fallacy. What if the suffrage had been strictly universal under our Edwards or Henries? The functions of the House were then comparatively simple and easy: domestic experience and tradi tion, with sound good sense, sufficed. Ordinary householders may choose well the men who are to manage their local concerns, but not those who are to govern a great empire. As before observed, poor men will generally elect the rich and liberal. Where indigent voters have imperial power, an oligarchy of wealth is sure to bestride them. No such reforms as alone our routine-parties taik of, can give us the needful wise rulers. We want new principles and new organs for an imperial condition, as well as for our great increase in population. We have suffered

Το

ever.

much from postponing radical change, and the longer we postpone, the more we shall suffer. Our reforms have been always superficial, never radical. What then do I propose, to replace our Parliamentary system of election? Simply that every Provincial Chamber shall send its delegates, virtually its ambassadors, to Parliament, with instructions and with a proper salary, for a three years' term, but reserving the power to recall any delegate earlier by a two-thirds vote and to replace him, like an ambassador, by a successor. This would establish a real effective responsibility of every member of Parliament to his Provincial Chamber, yet would make his position more honourable than He would be free from all popular canvassing: he would be elected without candidacy and without expense. The Chamber itself would look out for able servants. Confusion and intrigue would be lessened. Drunkenness and the publicans, beer and bribery, would vanish from Parliamentary elections. There would be no dissolutions of Parliament, no convulsive interruptions of public business. Meritorious men would be elected, and great wealth would never weigh too heavily. Attendance in Parliament ought to be enforced by Parliament itself, but each Chamber would be able to withdraw its delegates if they neglected public business. All difficulties about universal suffrage, and many other entanglements, would be swept away. In the Provincial elections the stake played for would be far lower; therefore evils would not press in on at all the same scale as now. Of course each Chamber would be allowed delegates proportioned to the population of the Province. To allot one delegate for every 200,000 heads would give ten delegates to a Province of two millions, and send to Parliament about 160 members from the United Kingdom. Surely 160 picked men, with only half the business, would be immeasurably better than our present house. Further, this scheme would settle our harassing Irish difficulties. English statesmen, whether Whig or Tory, will not endure an Irish Parliament, because no promises made by its advocates can bind it not to claim to be co-ordinate with the English Parliament. Co-ordination implies an equal right in regard to Foreign Policy, and virtually a double Foreign Office. Besides, the same ministers cannot be responsible to two Parliaments at once. I do not think that any such enthusiasm for an Irish Parliament is possible in England, as shall overpower both Whig and Tory statesmen; yet it is wholly inexpedient and unjust that Ireland should not have local legislation, especially

when it is so very common with English members to avow that they do not understand Irish questions. By means of four Provincial Chambers local legislation may be effectually given to Ireland, without any danger to imperial interests. The Parliamentary veto would abundantly protect Protestants from any unfair use of Catholic majority, and no local evils arising from inexperience can compare with the substantial advantages which will accrue when Irishmen feel that Irish affairs are in their own hands. Those who have agitated for an Irish Parliament will of course be discontented and cavil at Four Chambers as an evasion; but when our sister island begins to experience benefit from the change, and sees that she is treated exactly as Great Britain in the matter, I fully expect that Irishmen will become as loyal, as intelligent, and as useful citizens in the United Kingdom as they are in the United States.

So much of Provincial Chambers and Parliamentary Elections. But as above urged, these changes will not lessen the importance of excluding the Queen's Ministers from being elected to a seat and vote in Parliament.

Am I then proposing to degrade Ministers? Certainly not. They are not degraded in the Federal Government of the American Union. But two excellent results would follow not yet alluded to. FIRST: Ministers would be more stable in their places, and attain far higher skill in their separate departments. Our Executive now cannot possibly compete in accomplishment with that of Prussia or Russia. Men no sooner have gained experience in special duties than the Cabinet is liable to collective ejection from some general reasons of policy, and untried successors step into their places. To remove officers of the army or navy or the head of the police because of party politics, is hardly more absurd than to remove the Secretary or Viceroy of India, or the Head of the Post Office, or the Home Secretary, or the Keeper of the Finances, because of some political question remote from his duties. Whatever tends to the accomplishment and stability of ministers tends to their honour and to the public welfare. SECONDLY: The removal of Ministers from Parliament, with free access for Chairmen of Committees to the documents of the Foreign Office, will alone enable us to get rid of that SECRET DIPLOMACY which constantly involves us in war. This is a signally important topic. I have not time to dwell upon it. I will merely say, five wars out of six, in my memory, would have been prevented by a previous free debate in Parliament. But

ministers stifle debate by withholding information, which always comes too late. Even now I fear we are drifting into a new Chinese War with incalculable contingencies.

A mere seat without vote and without election might be granted to ministers, but for the danger of old habit yielding to them an initiation of business, each in his own department. For the dignity and independence of the House, and to help it to restrain ministers (which even in the United States is difficult enough) it is far safer to dispense with ministerial oratory and make the Standing Committees the sole medium of communication between ministers and the House. Then the Chairmen would be raised in dignity; the Executive would not need to be good speakers; good administrators they ought to be, but principles and instructions would be dictated by the House.

In fact it would no longer be necessary that ministers should be all of one party, any more than were those of Queen Elizabeth. Party Government would no longer be identical with Parliamentary Government. The Government might then represent the whole nation to foreigners; now it represents one side only. The Marquis of Salisbury would not then be ejected from the post of Indian Secretary for a difference of opinion with Mr D'Israeli about English suffrage. Nay, the very reasonable regulation might be adopted that every minister's diploma be inscribed with the words by appointment of the Queen, and by consent of the House. Then the House would be able to make each minister separately responsible to it by withdrawing its consent, and if the Cabinet struck as a body, the House would know how to punish the ringleaders effectually.

I have left an enormous topic, vital to our safety, untouched, because it concerns the re-organization of India, not of England; yet I must ask leave to allude to it, since it is a new and weighty argument for not delaying to re-organize England. Ever since the last renewal of the Company's Charter in 1853 very serious grievances of India have been so testified as to be undeniable. Yet they remain unredressed. Parliament, by its empty benches when an Indian appeal is brought before it, passes sentence on itself as an unfit tribunal; hence it is not likely, while constituted as it is, to re-organize India. Will the ministry do the work by its own free initiative? It might, but for twenty-two years it has not. I believe that it fears the Indian Civil Service too much. delay is our great danger. The fatal words,

But

*

"too late," may suddenly ring in our ears. Give quickly, give graciously, without compulsion, and you earn gratitude; delay, and you may be scorned. If it were impossible for us to earn Indian loyalty, it would be our duty to quit the soil of India as quick as may be. But it is certain that the PRINCES will be loyal as soon as they find their honours and estates safe, like those of English dukes, under the shield of an impartial Judicial Court; the PEOPLE will be loyal when their crying grievances are removed. Of course it is not my place to suggest How? Sir Bartle Frere, no wild enthusiast or democrat, has promulgated an elaborate scheme for Indian internal government. Whenever the Supreme power of England pronounces that India herself must take a large share in governing India, there will be no lack of talent to show How. That which we lack is Will to undertake the task, and unless we get a Parliament with fresher eye and less preoccupied, the danger is, I think, very great that England may be wise TOO LATE, with calamity on a prodigious scale. Our vexatious and mischievous jealousies of Russia turn altogether on the belief of Indian disaffection; but with India loyal to the Queen, fear of Russia would be an insanity.

Finally, concerning the House of Lords, I briefly say, the opinion grows rapidly, that to have two Legislative Houses is a fundamental mistake; that an Upper House is generally an obstruction, never a safeguard. If this opinion prevail, then the thirty or forty Peers who love public business and have high talents for it, would have a far nobler career in the elective House than where they speak, as now, to a scanty audience. They would have an accession of honour without the unpleasantness of a popular canvass, if freely selected as delegates (or, I may say, ambassadors) from Chambers of such dignity as would preside over our Provinces.

APPENDIX ON ENGLISH PROVINCES.

THE Romans called the high ridge which separates Yorkshire from Lancashire, and runs up to the Cheviots, Alpes Pennina; so formidable did they think it. Perhaps it is still a sufficient reason for dividing Northern England longitudinally rather than On this assumption I suggest the Provinces as follow:

across.

*I do not strike out these words in a second edition, but the reader must not forget that they were written before the wicked Zulu war.