The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-01-25

cannot, indeed, force its own choice o
ministers on the sovereign as is done 10y
Parliament in England and France, bu
it has SO far progressed that no clancel
lor, however strongly supported by lf,t
Kaiser, can stand against Reichstag dis
approval.
In the remaining great European states
parliament exhaustion" is the rule
Hungary's diet has done practically nc
work for years. 1t has developed into a
mere arena for prize fighters and even
a stage for attempts at assassination
Austria Parliament is only little more
decorous, and no more fruitful. Most
Austrian legislation is done outside the
Reiehstat. The opposing races and op-
posing business interests make their deals
and compromises direct, and the Reich
erat simply registers them. Lastly IL,
Russia For a hundred years Russian
society fought for representative govern
ment as a cure for all ills. Now Russia
has had representative government for
eight years, and its plight is, on the aG-
mission of practically every non-official
Russian of any party, worse than under
the autocracy.
parliament exhaustion" is not new
Plain facts about it were set out 20
years ago in famous book by Bis
marcks confidant, Lothar Bucher, who
for years studied parliamentary sys-
TEN in England; and soon afterwards
similar facts We're set out in the book
1.-The Moscow Album" by the late Kon-
stantin Pobiedonostseff. Russia's per-
ir.r
question is again handled by the bril-
liant Austrian Reichstrat deputy, Ernst
Fiktor Zenker. Herr Zenker is an ex-
perienced parliamentarian, who has
written much on parliamentary evils
and In his new book. Der Parliamen-
tarismus; Sein Wesen and Seine Ent-
wicklung," he repeats his diagnosis and
propounds novel, almost revolutionary
remedies His main diagnosis is as
stated above. He complains that par
liaments have ceased to fulfill any OF
their ostensible functions. They have
become platforms from which to make
speeches to such small part of the pub
lie as troubles to listen. When both
Prince Buelow and August Bebel re-
fused to address the German Reich
stag because the newspaper reporters
were on strike, they merely confirmed
the long observed fact that the rep
resentatives of the people go into Par
lament in order to agitate, and no
longer for the purpose of making laws
and Judging affairs.
Some of the evils of parlamentarism
are mechanical. For these mechanical
remedies are suggested. One mechani
cal evil is the exaggeration of the party
system. Zenger denies that the many
party system is the cause of all i'll
he holds that many party legislatures
like Germany's are more likely to pass
fair laws than two-party legislatures
like Englands and Americas. When
there are many parties. laws are more
likely to be the result of fair COM
promises. The numerous parties in con-
t1nental legislatures, however, do moi
represent different shades of politica
conviction which have. been voluntarily
reasoned out. The 10 German parties
and the "a Austrian are the involun-
tary product of conditions. A man is
mostly born into his party. II he is
born a farmer he invariably becomes
a conservative agrarian; and If he is
born In the storekeeping class, he Joins
the party which. by its programme, de-
fends the storekeeper's interests And
so on. In Austria where most parties
have a racial basis, he has even less
chaice. So that the old notion is false