New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-07-28
FRENCH VIEWS OF ENGLAND.
po1rTMy,s ENGLISH CONSTITUTION.


DID, oi2 Macmillan q Co.
An intelligent Frenchman may not be able 70
enter wholly into the views OF Foreign NAHUM
concerning its origins, but he is quite compe'ent
10. conceive new views, and views which, precisely
because they are those of an outsider, may DC
full of suggestion, and even at times truer than te
views of those who, being native, enter upon 1he
study prepossessed in various ways NJ. Boutny
book on the English Constitution goes counter W
the opinions of many English historians ana some
Germans In some sort it may be calculated To
antagonize scholars like Freeman and Geist, for
the author holds that the origins of the English
Constitution are not TO be sought in remote
periods in the crude political institutions OF leu
tonic barbarian tribes but rather In post-Nornamc
events influences and tendencies. Nj. Boutmy
altogether refuses to believe in the WitcnaSemote
as the direct precursor and parent OF Parliamentary
government, nor will he pin his faith upon the
Saxon County Court. He sets out to prove that
Se Constitution was really the product OF peculiar
circumstances and not In any special way the result
Of ethnic differences His contention amounts 10
q claim that any other people or mixture vi
peoples, placed under the same conditions, woulu
have developed the same INSTITUTIONS why "io
Continental Nations did not do so he explains by
the difference of circumstances, his ILLUSTRATORS
and comparisons being naturally drawn mainly
obiecrons 70 this theory occur at once, but at all
events il is an honest theory; it is propounded
with much ingenuity; and the argument hangs
well together
II is the more plausible because it demands In
vestigaton only of the solidly historical PERIOD
namely, that beginning with the Norman Conquest
Before that there is much vagueneSS ana ul-
certainty. After that the evidence is for the
most part sufficiently clear and sufficiently tull'
II is a part of NJ Boutmys argument that reuoa-
ism never obtained firm hold or the opportunity
for normal development in England, ana thao
this was due to the astute policy of the Norman
and Angevin kings. who, by their Distribution OF
the land made it impossible for the barons to ac-
auire such power might enable them 10 deiy the
Crown. as the French barons did for centuries
William began this policy by breaking up the
landed possessions of his followers so that no
matter what the aggregate territorial holdings OF
anv one of them, il consisted Of many WIDELY
separated parcels, and could not be used Tor the
building up of a power hostile to the throne
Here was at the outset radical difference between
France and England, and the English Darons were
checked again by the royal device OF appointing
sherifs throughout the land, whose function 1t
was TO restrain the territorial lords. Later te
itinerant courts relieved the sherfs OF much OF
their responsibility, and still further weakened
the DarODS linen huC hHISH'o' SiN"A"o sPNONN-'
came to coalesce with the rural middle class. which
they raised and strengthened, while themselves
separating more and more from the high mobiles
NJ. Boutmy ascribes the beginnings Of Parlia-
nentary government mainly to this movement,
which gradually threw more responsibility upon
the knights made them important element In
the administration, and prepared the way for
that union of interests which issued in the de-
mand for the Great Charter.
The authors account of the fall Of the Catholic
Church in England lis singularly interesting,
though it differs in several respects from the com
monty accepted view Of the circumstances Inc
great lords and the ecclesiastical digntaries made
common cause. as was natural. But the with
drawal of tie minor clergy from the popular
assemblage and the adoption of Convocation as
the Parliament of the clergy had the effect of
dissociating the clergy from the general inter
ests. and so weakening the hold of the Church
upon the Nation. When the Wars of the Roses
occurred the great mobiles blindly flew upon one
another and at the close of civil strife they were
nearly all destroyed, and so the way was made
clear for the institution of a new nobility de-
rived chiefly from the knights and the rural
middle class. In the great political revolutions
of 1914 and 1888 the effect upon social con-
ditions was comparatively small, but changes
amounting to economic revolutions were brought
about by the development of the colonizins spirit
and the growth of commerce. For centuries Eng
land had been agricultural and pastoral. Then
the seat of national vitality was in the country.
London was the only large city in the kingdom.
All power political, financial and social, tended
TO the country gentlemen. The long-important
yeoman class, the bone and snew of the land,
began to decline with the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT of the
landlords while the state of the agricultural
laborers became more and more intolerabe.
This change proceeded with ever-increasing force
until the latter part of the eighteenth century.
At It's zenith the control of the Government had
passed into the hands of an oligarchy composed
of q few great houses, and this oligarchy ruled
Parliament in behalf of the landed interest almost
exclusively NJ. Boutmy holds that the establish
ment of party government could have been wrought
In no other manner than through this oligarcny,
whose interests being at bottom one il could afford
TO agree upon the principles in accordance with
which majority rule came into play and defeated
Government peacefully made way for its successor.
A larger infusion of democracy at this stage, he
argues, would have prevented this organization of
parties by rendering impossible the discipline and
unity of action necessary TO the orderly progress
of party government. What happens when too
much democracy enters into attempts TO establish
government of this kind the author illustrates
from the past history of France. But nothing in
the latter country had prepared the people for
Parliamentary government, whereas III England
everything, from the Conquest onward had oper-
ated 10 bring the various elements together to
consolidate their interests, and to help them to
understand one another. The States General were
composed Of discordant and irreconcable factions,
and therefore they never accomplished anything
The national spirit in the English Parlisments
was paramount. and therefore they accomplished
much As for the eighteenth century oh9archy,
il was destined TO be wrecked upon the fallacy
that the dominance of the landed interest was TO
DE perpetual. With the rise of manufactures that
supremacy BEGAN TO decline. When the manu-
featuring interest awoke to its own power, and 10
the nature and extent of the disabilities under
which it lay war followed, and from the time 1t
IL. ~ lilo ln,,l nl