British Constitution, asserted, "The sovereign has three rights: the right to be consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn, and a king of great sense and sagacity should want no others."

With all these rights a king may find himself helpless in restraining a ministry, who appeal to the passions, and gain the support, of the most numerous and ignorant class of the electors.

According to the theory of the British Constitution, the ministers are responsible for every act of the executive government, while the sovereign is exempt from all responsibility. A king who reflects upon his position will perceive that this constitutional theory is intrinsically false.

The ministers, after mismanaging the affairs and diminishing the resources of the state, may incur a Parliamentary defeat, and retire from office. They immediately occupy the benches of opposition, or sink into the insignificance of

private life. The sovereign, however, remains,

and he, or his successors in after years, must pay the penalty for an incapable or dishonest administration.

The Crown, although limited in power, is unlimited in its ultimate responsibility.

It is not, therefore, unreasonable in the sovereign to be an anxious politician. He cannot see with indifference a course of policy pursued which, while it strengthens a political party, may seriously imperil the permanent interests of state or impair the legitimate authority of the Crown.

He must often feel that his ministers, although nominally the servants of the sovereign, are under another allegiance, and with the growth of democracy the influence of this allegiance may preponderate even to the detriment of the monarchy.

The system of constitutional government established by the Revolution of 1688 required for its successful working a wise moderation

on the part of the sovereign, and a considerate forbearance on the part of the representatives of the people.

This anomalous form of government had from the date of its birth many inherent difficulties, and those difficulties were often surmounted by expedients, which tarnished the honour of politicians, and tainted the atmosphere of public life.

David Hume, in his Political Essays, openly avowed an opinion that corruption in some form was a necessity as a counterpoise to the overwhelming power of the House of Commons.

CHAPTER II.

DAVID HUME ON OUR MIXED CONSTITUTION.

HUME, in one of his Political Essays, discusses the nature of our mixed Constitution, and the distribution of political power. "How much," he says, "it would have surprised such a genius as Cicero or Tacitus to have been told that in a future age there would arise a very regular system of mixed government, where the authority was so distributed that one rank, whenever it pleased, might swallow up all the rest, and engross the whole power of the Constitution. Such a government, they would say, will not be a mixed government. For so great is the natural ambition of men, that they are never satisfied with power, and if one order of men by pursuing its own interest, can usurp upon every other

order, it will certainly do so, and render itself, as far as possible, absolute and uncontrollable.

"By the British Constitution the power allotted to the House of Commons is so great that it absolutely commands all the other parts of the government. How, then," Hume asks, “shall we solve this paradox? By what means is the House of Commons confined within its proper limits, since, from our Constitution, it must necessarily have as much power as it demands, and can only be confined by itself?"

Hume's solution of this paradox is stated in the following words :

"The patronage of the Crown and the many offices at its disposal will, when assisted by the honest and disinterested part of the House, command the resolutions of the whole body, so far at least as to preserve the ancient Constitution from danger."

"We may," Hume observes, "call this by the invidious appellations of corruption and