cratic, aristocratic and monarchic. The qualifications for membership in the lower house of the Parliament exclude no considerable part of the adult male population.1 Neither is the upper house to be regarded, as a body, wholly aristocratic in principle. Almost any man in England is eligible to a seat in that body; i.e. the Crown may call whom it will in England into the House of Lords.2 On the other hand, by the acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland, this unlimited power of the Crown in the creation of peers in Scotland and Ireland is denied; and hence the eligibility of any persons in Scotland and Ireland to seats in the House of Lords, or to positions in the bodies of peers of Scotland and Ireland who elect representatives to the House of Lords, except they belong to the very narrow classes designated by the acts of Union with Scotland and Ireland, is also denied. As to the Lords of Parliament representing the peers of Scotland and Ireland, the form of government is therefore aristocratic; while as to the Lords of Parliament from England and Wales the form is democratic, the lowest commoner being eligible thereto at the will of the Crown. On the other hand, eligibility to the executive power is monarchic-provided always that we consider the wearer of the crown to be the real executive power. Only one person in all the Empire is, at any one time, eligible by law to this station. The wearer of the crown is, however, hardly to be considered the real executive. In practice, this person must permit the representatives of the party in majority in the lower house of Parliament to exercise the crown prerogatives, and eligibility to positions in the ministry is in principle democratic. In fact, the English government, 1 Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, p. 70 ff. 2 Ibid. p. 177 ff. 3 Gneist, Das englische Verwaltungsrecht, S. 653; Statutes 12 and 13 William III, chap. 2. 4 Bagehot, The English Constitution, p. 8o. in its present actual form, is very nearly democratic. The monarchic and aristocratic elements are much more semblance than reality. 2. The English government is centralized government. I do not mean, of course, that there is no local government in the British Empire that is separate and distinct from the central government; I mean that there is no local government that is independent of the central government, no local government which the central government cannot legally modify, change, or even destroy.1 There is no organization of the state back of both central government and local governments, creating both, distributing to each its powers and guaranteeing the existence and powers of each against the powers of the other. The state is organized in the central government, and its acts are legally indistinguishable from the acts of the central government. All local government is It can, therefore statutory in principle, not constitutional. 1 Dicey, The Law of the Constitution, p. 126 ff. ments, but it does not firmly secure the executive or the judi cial powers against the encroachments of the legislature. It does not secure the ordinary judicial powers by any power of resistance conferred upon the judiciary itself. The resistance of the Crown alone can defend the judiciary against the legislature, and that may be finally overcome.1 3. The English government is partly elective and partly hereditary government. The members of the lower house of the Parliament hold exclusively by the elective tenure.2 The members of the upper house hold, for the most part, by hereditary right,3 and the executive holds by hereditary right; 4 provided always that we regard the wearer of the crown as the real executive. If, however, we hold the ministry to be the real executive, then we have an elective executive. All other officials, both civil and military, are appointed by the executive. 4. The English government is parliamentary government.5 This is so distinctly its principle that the other elements of its form have been largely ignored in the popular view. The House of Commons has complete control of the administration. It is true that the letter of the law attributes to the Crown the exclusive power to call, open, adjourn and prorogue the Parliament and dissolve the House of Commons; but as a fact it is the ministry which exercises these powers, and the ministers, as we have seen, are but the chiefs of the party in majority in the House of Commons. It is also true that the letter of the law attributes to the Crown an absolute veto power upon all legislative acts; but this power has not been employed since 1707. Resting from the outset upon the custom of the constitution, it has been about 1 Gneist, Das englische Verwaltungsrecht, S. 1214. 2 Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, p. 70 ff. 8 Ibid. p. 168 ff. 4 Statutes of Parliament, 12 and 13 William III, chap. 2. extinguished by a non-user of nearly two centuries. Lastly, it is true that the Crown has the power to call new members into the upper house of the legislature; but this power again is really exercised by the ministry. This is the logical and necessary outcome of a system of government which recognizes the political responsibility of the executive through a ministry to the legislature. By shrewd manipulation of that natural hostility which generally prevails between the two houses of the legislature, the executive may stave off this result for a time, but not forever. We must always be prepared for this final outcome when we establish the principle of ministerial responsibility to the legislature. I can no more find a concise phrase to characterize this form than the other two just preceding. As we have seen, it is immediate, unlimited, partly democratic, partly aristocratic, partly monarchic, centralized, co-ordinated, partly elective, partly hereditary, parliamentary government. It contains, apparently, fewer republican elements than either the French or German forms. Even if we regard the ministry as the real executive, and thus eliminate hereditary tenure from the executive department, still we have hereditary tenure in the upper house of the legislature and unlimitedness in the government, both of which elements are inimical to the republican idea. If we should go even further and deny to the House of Lords any parity of powers with the Commons, and discard this body from our calculation, there would still remain the identity of the state with the government and the consequent unlimitedness of the government over against the individual; and unlimited power, however liberally and benevolently exercised, still stamps the government, legally and scientifically, as a despotism. the other hand, the terms monarchy and aristocracy are even less applicable than republic. The adjective "parliamentary" does not seem to me an adequate description of this form of On government; but I am unable to coin a phrase that shall be at once concise and descriptive. The difficulty of finding any scientific name for the English system of government goes to show that there are hostile elements in its make-up which must, sooner or later, come to combat à l'outrance if each should undertake to hold its own. V. Comparison of the Preceding Forms. As I have indicated at the beginning of this division of my work, it is impossible to say which of these forms of government is, under all conditions, the best. Each presupposes and serves, as I have already pointed out, a different situation of the political society, a different phase in the development of the state. There are, however, several tendencies which have become manifest, in the course of the world's recent history, in respect to forms of government. These tendencies have revealed themselves with distinctness in our examination of the four constitutions. The first of these is that the modern political world is drifting away from monarchic government; i.e. from the form which places all governmental power in the hands of a single person. There is now no such form of government this side of Russia. The second is that it is drifting away from aristocratic government. Of the four forms which we have examined only one contains any aristocratic elements, viz; the English; and in the English form it is more apparent than real. The third is that it is drifting away from hereditary government. Two of the four great typical forms are entirely rid of it, and one of the other two has found the means of making the power of this element nugatory. In only one is it a real, active and powerful element; and it owes its preservation and power there to its popular policy, to the great principle of its greatest founder: "Ich bin der erste Diener meines Staates." I would not venture any prediction that it will give way in the German system, at least not within |