central or local legislature will be materially different from that which we have so far contemplated, if we assume the former to have the duty of sitting in judgment on the legality of the acts of the latter: and the more stability is given to the constitution by making the process of changing it difficult, the greater becomes the importance of this judicial function of interpreting its clauses. In order that this function may be well performed, the supreme court of justice must be made adequately independent of both central and local legislatures, no less than of the executive governments and it is a delicate problem to find conditions of appointment and tenure that will secure this independence, without at the same time giving the supreme court too predominant a power.

Perhaps we may suggest that the members of this court should be appointed for life; that no additional members should be added without the consent of the court; and that no member should be removed from office except either (1) by a tribunal of which the greater part consists of judges of this court, or (2) in the last resort, by the process provided for effecting a change in the constitution.

Apart from the question of the decisive interpretation of constitutional rules, the chief special problem presented by the construction of a Federal Government, is to provide adequate security that the different interests of the part-states are duly regarded in legislation. So far as this security is provided by the constitution, federal sentiment will tend to make the constitution stable by requiring the assent of a large majority of part-states-as represented either by ordinary or extraordinary legislatures-to any change in the constitution.1 And where the part-states are either numerous or not very unequal in size, it does not seem that any further security-beyond that given by ordinary representative government-is necessary to protect the sectional

Thus, in the North American Union, the assent of three-fourths of such legislatures as well as two-thirds of either house of the federal congress-is required. This requirement has rendered the constitution so stable that only five amendments have been passed in a century, three of which represent the result of a civil war of four years' duration.

interests of the part-states, so far as they are affected by the action of the federal legislature within the limits of the constitution. But where the part-states are so few or so unequal in size that a single part, if represented in proportion to its numbers, would tend to preponderate in the central legislature, the smaller part-states incur a certain danger of becoming practically dependencies of the largerso far as the action of the central government is concernedat least if the preponderant part-state has important separate interests, or strong particularist sentiment. Such a danger may, as we have seen, be averted by giving equal representation to the part-states in the Senate. It seems, however, improbable that this arrangement would be accepted by a large part-state if the inequality of size were very greate.g., if one part-state was larger than all the rest put together; while the other plan before mentioned of expressing Federality in the constitution of the common government -by making the representatives of each part-state vote collectively would much increase the danger of undue preponderance of a large part-state. If, therefore, the parts of a Federal State are few, it is better that they should be not very unequal in size: and the fewer they are, the smaller is the inequality that would be dangerous.

I have assumed that the part-states will be approximately equal in political privileges. Of course Federality is not destroyed by the allotment of some minor special privileges to particular part-states; such special privileges, however, are hardly likely to be secure unless the constitution provides that they cannot be withdrawn without the consent of the privileged states; and this provision may render them inconveniently stable.

§ 5. I pass to consider the reasons for forming a federal union—either in a closer or in a laxer form. Firstly, it enables small independent communities not strongly divided by interests or sentiments, to escape the chief military and economic disadvantages attaching to small states, at the

1 Several German part-states-especially Prussia, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg-have such special privileges in the present German Empire.

A small state with

least possible sacrifice of independence. large and powerful neighbours incurs some danger of highhanded aggression though the mutual jealousy of the neighbours may often render this remote and vague-and it incurs the milder but more certain disadvantage of being obliged to yield in disputes where the question of right is ambiguous. Further, so long as modern states endeavour, by elaborately arranged tariffs, to exclude or hamper the competition of foreign producers in their markets, it will generally be some disadvantage to the members of a small state that they can only rely on a comparatively small area of unrestricted trade. Of these disadvantages, military weakness has been historically most important; if we examine the leading instances of federations in modern history-Switzerland, Holland, and the United States of North America-the fear of foreign subjugation or interference appears as the main cause of the union of the federating communities. In the case, however, of North America, though the first federal union was due to the war of independence, commercial considerations had a large share in bringing about the second and more stable union of 1789; and, as the federal state has grown and expanded over the North American continent, the advantages of the federal union as a means of preventing commercial exclusions as well as internal wars have become more prominent.

Further, North America may also illustrate the advantages of federalism from a different point of view; i.e. as a mode of political organisation by which a nation may realise the maximum of liberty compatible with order: since, as we have already seen, the amount of governmental coercion is likely, ceteris paribus, to be less, in proportion as the powers of local governments are extended at the expense of the central government. It seems, indeed, very doubtful how far a body of persons, as independent in sentiments and habits. as the English colonists of North America, would have held together upon any other terms than those of a federal union, when sparsely distributed over so large a territory as that of

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the United States. For the federal form of polity also diminishes in proportion as the functions of the central legislature are restricted-the practical difficulties which extent of territory tends to throw in the way of good government; especially the difficulty of enforcing obedience if the inhabitants of distant districts are recalcitrant, and the difficulty of securing that the central government is sufficiently informed as to the needs of such districts. These difficulties combine to place natural limits to the size of an orderly and well-governed state, if remaining practically unitary,-limits indeed of a vague and elastic kind, and greatly extended in recent times by railways and telegraphs, but which still cannot be ignored in considering the government of a territory as large as that of the largest actual states.

The chief disadvantages of Federalism have been incidentally noticed in the preceding chapter, when we were discussing the proper limits of the powers of local government in a unitary state. I have there sufficiently dwelt on the drawbacks of localised legislation in a country whose parts are in active mutual communication. I also pointed out that the strength and stability which a state derives from internal cohesion tend to be somewhat reduced by the independent activity of local governments, if the latter can be effectively used as centres of local resistance to the national will; it is obvious that in a federal state the danger from this latter source is greater, owing to the habit of divided allegiance that belongs to federality; while in a confederation of states the cohesion is-and is designed to be-weaker still, because the loyalty of the ordinary citizen is concentrated on his own state.2 On the other hand, if

1 It may be remarked that these difficulties tend to be increased if long intervals of seas are interposed between different parts of the territory, preventing the continuous expansion of the community, and tending to render the circumstances of its divided parts materially different.

2 Hence hereditary monarchy-so long as it is sustained by an effective sentiment of personal loyalty—has a peculiar utility in the way of strengthening the looser form of federal union; if the uniting states will accept the same monarch.

disorder and disruption are prevented, the federal form of polity, requiring as it does a rigid and stable constitution to secure the partial independence of the part-states, is exposed to the general objections which may be urged against such a constitution as compared with a more flexible one.1

In conclusion, it may be observed that federalism is likely to be in many cases a transitional stage through which a society—or an aggregate of societies-passes on its way to a completer union; since, as time goes on, and mutual intercourse grows, the narrower patriotic sentiments that were originally a bar to full political union tend to diminish, while the inconvenience of a diversity of laws is more keenly felt, especially in a continuous territory. Partly for the same reason, a confederation of states, if it holds together, has a tendency to pass into a federal state. But differences of religion, race, historical traditions, may indefinitely retard either process.

§ 6. Several of the distinctions drawn in defining Federality apply mutatis mutandis to a composite state, of which one part is dominant and the rest dependencies. Thus, a dependency may be simply a part-state that has no constitutional control over the government of the whole, while practically enjoying the same independence as a federated part-state in the management of its internal affairs. Or it may have merely the more restricted self-government of a district in a unitary state. Or, on the other hand, the government of the dominant part may merely exercise the power of the common organs of government in a Confederation; or it may have even less formal power, since, just as Confederation shades off into mere Alliance, so the position of a Dependency shades off into that of a Protected state. For though, in speaking of the external relations of states, I have usually for simplicity assumed the states to be completely independent; still in fact we have to recognise various relations of protection intermediate between complete dependence and complete independence.2

1 These objections will be considered in the next chapter.

2 If a favourable position is secured to a dependency by a treaty regarded