The World's Greatest Books [Volumes 1-15, 17-20]

A free government is that which the people subject to it voluntarily choose. If it goes by public opinion, the best opinion which the nation will accept, it is a good government of its kind. Tried by this rule, the House of Commons does its appointing business well. Of the substantial part of its legislative task, the same may be said. Subject to certain exceptions, the mind and policy of parliament possess the common sort of moderation essential to parliamentary government. The exceptions are two. First, it leans too much to the opinions of the landed interest. Also, it gives too little weight to the growing districts of the country, and too much to the stationary. But parliament is not equally successful in elevating public opinion, or in giving expression to grievances.

IV.--Changes of Ministry

There is an event which frequently puzzles some people; this is, a change of ministry. All our administrators go out together. Is it wise so to change all our rulers? The practice produces three great evils. It brings in suddenly new and untried persons. Secondly, the man knows that he may have to leave his work in the middle, and very likely never come back to it. Thirdly, a sudden change of ministers may easily cause a mischievous change of policy. A quick succession of chiefs do not learn from each other's experience.

Now, those who wish to remove the choice of ministers from parliament have not adequately considered what a parliament is. When you establish a predominant parliament you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has unlimited time and unlimited vanity. Every public department is liable to attack. It is helpless in parliament if it has no authorised defender. The heads of departments cannot satisfactorily be put up for the defence; but a parliamentary head connected by close ties with the ministry is a protecting machine. Party organisation ensures the provision of such parliamentary heads. The alternative provided in America involves changing not only the head but the whole bureaucracy with each change of government.

This, it may be said, does not prove that this change is a good thing. It may, however, be proved that some change at any rate is necessary to a permanently perfect administration. If we look at the Prussian bureaucracy, whatever success it may recently have achieved, it certainly does not please the most intelligent persons at home. Obstinate officials set at defiance the liberal initiations of the government. In conflicts with simple citizens guilty officials are like men armed cap-a-pie fighting with the defenceless. The bureaucrat inevitably cares more for routine than for results. The machinery is regarded as an achieved result instead of as a working instrument. It tends to be the most unimproving and shallow of governments in quality, and to over-government in point of quantity.

In fact, experience has proved in the case of joint-stock banks and of railways that they are best conducted by an admixture of experts with men of what may be, called business culture. So in a government office the intrusion of an exterior head of the office is really essential to its perfection. As Sir George Lewis said: "It is not the business of a cabinet minister to work his department; his business is to see that it is properly worked."

In short, a presidential government, or a hereditary government are inferior to parliamentary government as administrative selectors. The revolutionary despot may indeed prove better, since his existence depends on his skill in doing so. If the English government is not celebrated for efficiency, that is largely because it attempts to do so much; but it is defective also from our ignorance. Another reason is that in the English constitution the dignified parts, which have an importance of their own, at the same time tend to diminish simple efficiency.

V.--Checks, Balances, and History

In every state there must be somewhere a supreme authority on every point. In some states, however, that ultimate power is different upon different points. The Americans, under the mistaken impression that they were imitating the English, made their constitution upon this principle. The sovereignty rested with the separate states, which have delegated certain powers to the central government. But the division of the sovereignty does not end here. Congress rules the law, but the president rules the administration. Even his legislative veto can be overruled when two-thirds of both houses are unanimous. The administrative power is divided, since on international policy the supreme authority is the senate. Finally, the constitution itself can only be altered by authorities which are outside the constitution. The result is that now, after the civil war, there is no sovereign authority to settle immediate problems.