The National tribune., 1889-02-07
AN ENGLIsHMAN's VIEWS.

Mr.. James Bryce, in the Ameriean Common
iceqltb. Mr.. Bryce says that he has no theo-
ries to support or any English partisan feel
ing to minister to in what he says, and the /
frankness and fairness of his statements cor |
roborate this He finds that in quiet times |
the power of the President is not great. His |
influence is even less than that of the |
Speaker of the House of Representatives, |
but in troublous times the Presidents power |
is enormous; for he is not only the Chief
Civil Executive, but also Commander of both /
the Army and the Navy, with immense in
fiuence over these Departments. Abraham
Lincoln welded more authority than any
Englishman since Oliver Cromwell. In
short, in a crisis the President becomes a
virtual dictator Mr.. Bryce agrees with for
eign students generally in believing that the
President should have his term heightened
somewhat and be made ineligible to re-elec-
ton, but thinks that this amendment to the
Constitution would be impracticable, since
it would require the consent of three-fourths
of the States, thing which it would be i'm
possible to obtain
About 100 pages of Mr.. Bryce's work is
devoted to the legislative department, and
he compares this very carefully with similar
bodies in England, Germany, France and
Italy. The success of the Senate as an in
stitution excites his strong admiration. As
body it is about one-eighth the size of the
British House of Lords, one-fourth that of
the French Senate and little more than
one-ffth as large as the Prassian Herreahaas
The Constitution has solved the difficulty
found in other countries of providing an
equally strong basis for an upper chamber
in the legislature 1t has also been singu-
| larly successful il preserving its independ
ence of the other branches of the Govern
ment, and in maintaining the power which
The founders of the Government intended it
should have. Another successful feature is
/ its control of the foreign policy of the Gov
eminent. In this it provides the several
middle courses between allowing the Execu-
tive the almost unlimited power exercised
! by European monarchs in shaping the foreign
policy of tie country to the other extreme
of having every act of that policy passed
upon in the more, popular assembly,
which would be full of embarrassments and
/ dangers. He says:
Different as the circumstances of England are,
4 the day may come when in England the question
of limiting the at present ali but unlimited disere-
ton of the Executive i'll foreign affairs viii have
/ to be dealt with and the example of the American
Senate will then receive careful study.
While ne thinks that the debates in the
Senate do not rise to the level of those in
the House of Lords, yet the average is much
higher. He says that the Senate seldom
wears that air of listless vacuity and super
ANIMATED Incidence which the House of
Lords presents on all but a few nights Of
every session. The faces are keen and forci-
/ BILE, as of men who have learned TO know
/ the world and have much to do in it. The
I place seems consecrated to great affairs. He
| thinks the 76 men in the Senate are superior
in natural average capacity to 76 of the best
men in the English House of Commons.
In regard to the House of Representatives,
he says the first question that an English
man naturally asks himself is:
How the intellectual quality of the body COM
4 pares with that Of the House Of Commons. His
/ American friends have prepared him to expect a
marked inferiority. They fond of running
down Congressman. The cultured New England
ers and New Workers do this out of intellectual
fastidiousness and in order to support the role
which they uneonsciously fall into when talking to
Europeans. The rougher Western men do it because
they would not have Congressman either seem OF
be better ia any way than themselves. since that
would be opposed 10 republican equality. 4
! stranger who has taken literally all he hears Is
therefore surprised to find much character
| shrewdness and keen though limited intelligence
among the Representatives.
He answers this question thus:
Their average business capacity did not seen
TO me below that of members OF the House o
Commons in IsS0+S5. True it is that great light:
such as usually adorn the British chamber alb
sent; true also that there are fewer who have
received a high education which has developed
their tastes and enlarged their horizons. The wan
of such depresses the average. II is raised
however by the almost total absence of two classes
} hitherto we'll represented in the British Parla
ment the rich, duh parvenH who has bought him
self into public life, and the perhaps equally un
l lettered young sporting fashionable who
neither knowing caring anything about politics
has come in from a county or (before 1850 a small
borough the strength of his family estates. Few
Congressman sink to so low intellectual level a
! these two sets of persons, for Congressman hay
S almost certainly made their way by energy ant
a smartness, picking up knowledge of men AM
things all the time
. What strikes Mr.. Bryce as the most re
markable is the far-Teaching power of tn