, 1922-01-20
OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT

England, in the slow development OF her institu-
TONS" observes the Boston Transcript, land with her
increasing influence throughout the world as an ex-
ample of free government engrafted upon the IN
~stituticns of the modern world the system of ministe-
rial responsibility to a majority in the popular branch
of the national legislature. Ministerial responsibility
to parliament was a plant of slow growth even in Eng
land. Step by step, with the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Of the
power Of the house of commons, the kings minis
ters' became parliament's ministers, until at last the
kings choice of them became a mere fiction, and the
cabinet lived upon the approval Of the house and per-
ished the moment that approval was withdrawn.
Gradually this system passed to all the %constitu-
tional countries of Europe, as it also passed to Bri-
tain's self-governing colonies. In Europe ministerial
responsibility to a parliamentary majority has become
synonymous with constitutional rule. The system was
in force in England when the American constitution
was adopted, but it was not engrafted upon our insti-
buttons. The Fathers, instead, put the executive pow
er in the hands of a president elected for q fixed pc
Rod, and also limited the term of existence OF the
house of representatives to two years. They gave the
president only executive Secretaries who were not
really intended to be ministers in the proper sense,
and who only became a body of ministers through a
gradual up-growth Of powers-the secretaries remain
ing responsible to the president alone. Why did the
Fathers reject the institution under which they had
been bred? Not because they found any fault with
its operation in England, but because they distrusted
the people. They feared the rule of the mob. They
preferred the system of periodically committed and
balanced powers of their own invention. And though
many American constitutional students have at times
urged the adoption of ministerial responsibility to con-
gress here, the nation has never seen fit to adopt it.
ct must be admitted that the present state of gov
eminent in Europe seems to demonstrate the Fathers
wisdom. The British and the later continental sys-
tom Of parliamentary government appears, in truth
TO be breaking down. The crisis in France is an illus
trstion Of this fact. The English system involves, for
its effective exercise, a perpetual balance between
great political parties. So long as Britain had that
balance, the plan worked very well. His majesty's
opposition was as much a part of the government as
the majority. When one party went out, the other
came in. But party balance, under modern condl-
tons, is at an end. On the continent, majorities are
only possible as the result Of rblocs,' or coalitions,
which are the constant prey Of intrigue. The situG-
ton In France, where Nj. BRAND in effect declares min
isterial government to be impossible, is a proof of this
Adherence to the system threatens the republic itself.
In England there is now no concrete opposition. Gov
eminent rests upon a coalition, which itself grows
irksome to the people, but cannot be dispensed with.
The most diverse political ideas are represented in it,
1t is a makeshift.
at looks as though the Fathers of the American
constitution, in their distrust Of popular rule, had
builded better than they knew. Under our fxed-pe-
Rod system, and especially with the development of
the presidents function, in opposition to the aggran-
dizement of the ~senates power, as a tribune Of the
people, the American electorate comes rather nearer
to governing, in full reality, than that Of any other
country. It may yet be necessary for the French re-
public, as a necessary refuge from anarchy, to adopt
something like the American system"