and the Beaconsfields, the Forsters and the Hartingtons, the Salisburys and the Balfours, the Stafford Northcotes and the Brights of American politics, not to mention the scores of other names of men of the highest attainments and scientific or literary eminence who have adorned the benches of the British House of Commons in our generation? Do they exist in public life in America? Let an American answer: "We have always had plenty of excellent lawyers," he says, "though we have often had to do without even tolerable administrators, and seem destined to endure the inconvenience of hereafter doing without any constructive statesmen at all. * The forms of government in America have always been unfavourable to the easy elevation of talent to a station of permanent authority. * * We have no great prizes of leadership, such as are calculated to stimulate men of strong talents to great and conspicuous public services. * * I cannot insist too much upon this defect of congressional government, because it is evidently radical. Leadership with authority over a great ruling party is a prize to attract great competitors, and is in a free Government the only prize that will attract great competitors. Its attractiveness is * * abundantly illustrated in the operations of the British system. A part in the life of Congress, on the contrary, though the best career opened to men of ambition by our system, has no prize at its end greater than membership of some one of numerous committees, none of which has the distinction of supremacy in policy or of recognised authority to do more than suggest. رو And now, in conclusion, which system most conduces to creating an intelligent and an educative interest in the general public about the affairs of the country? In America, says Bryce, politicians do not aspire to the function of forming opinion. There is less disposition than in Europe to expect light and leading on public affairs from speakers or writers. Oratory is not directed towards instruction, but towards stimulation. The structure of the Government, he says, provides the requisite machinery neither for forming nor for guiding a popular opinion, disposed of itself to recognise only broad and patent facts, and to be swayed only by such obvious reasons as it needs little reflection to follow.† *Congressional Government, pp. 199, 203, 206, 214. +American Commonwealth, vol. 2, pp. 230, 249. So much for Mr. Bryce's testimony. Now let us hear Bagehot: "Cabinet Government educates the nation; the Presidential does not educate it, and may corrupt it. It has been said that England invented the phrase 'Her Majesty's opposition ;' that it was the first Government which made a criticism of administration as much a part of the polity as administration itself. This critical opposition is the consequent of cabinet government. The great scene of debate, the great engine of popular instruction and political controversy, is the legislative assembly. A speech there by an eminent statesman, a party movement by a great political combination, are the best means yet known for arousing, enlivening, and teaching a people. The cabinet system ensures such debates, for it makes them the means by which statesmen advertise themselves for future and confirm themselves in present governments. * * The deciding catas trophes of cabinet governments are critical divisions. preceded by fine discussions. * * And debates which have this catastrophe at the end of them-or may have it-are sure to be listened to, and sure to sink deep into the national mind. * * On the other hand, the debates in the American Congress have little teaching efficacy; it is the characteristic vice of Presidential Government to deprive them of that efficacy; in that Government a debate in the legislature has little effect, for it cannot turn out the executive, and the executive can veto all it decided."* Finally, let me call Mr. Woodrow Wilson, for I have desired this evening to cite, as it were, expert testimony for every criticism adduced. This is what he says in his work on Congressional Government: "The chief, and unquestionably the most essential object of all discussion of public business is the enlightenment of public opinion; and, of course, since it cannot hear the debates of the committees, the nation is not apt to be much instructed by them. They have about them none of the searching, critical, illuminating character of the higher order of Parliamentary debate, in which men are pitted against each other as equals, and urged to sharp contest and masterful strife by the inspiration of political principle and personal ambition, through the rivalry of parties and the competition of policies. They represent a joust between antagonistic interests, not a contest of principles. They could scarcely either inform or *The English Constitution, pp. 19, 170. * * elevate public opinion even if they were to obtain its heed.* "Why is it," he asks, "that many intelligent and patriotic people throughout this country, from Virginia to California—people who beyond all question, love their State and the Union more than they love their cousins over the seasubscribe for the London papers in order to devour the Parliamentary debates, and yet would never think of troubling themselves to make tedious progress through a single copy of the Congressional Record? Is it because they are captivated by the old-world dignity of royal England, with its nobility and its Court pageantry, or because of a vulgar desire to appear better versed than their neighbours in foreign affairs, and to affect familiarity with British statesmen ? No, of course not. It is because the Parliamentary debates are interesting and ours are not. * * Every important dis cussion in the British House of Commons is an arraignment of the ministry by the opposition-an arraignment of the majority by the minority; and every vote is a party defeat or a party triumph. The whole conduct of the Government turns upon what is said in the Commons, because the revela *Congressional Government, pp. 83, 85. |