which a very rigid and austere nature would recoil;" but he
adds:--"Those who refuse to accept the conditions of parliamentary life
should abstain from entering into it." Moreover, he holds that
"inconsistency is no necessary condemnation of a politician, and
parties as well as individual statesmen have abundantly shown it." But
still "all this curious and indispensable mechanism of party government
is compatible with a high and genuine sense of public duty."

The American theory of government is that checks must be placed on a
democratic legislature by a fixed Constitution and a separate executive
exercising a veto. The late Professor Freeman Snow, of Harvard
University, was a strong supporter of this school. His objections to
cabinet government are given in the "Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science" for July, 1892:--

Cabinet government is the government of a party; and for its
successful operation it must have at all times a majority at its
back in Parliament. If it were possible to direct the current of
public opinion into exactly two channels, there would be but two
parties, one of which would generally be in the ascendency; but in
practice this is found to be a very difficult thing to accomplish,
and it becomes the more difficult as the right of suffrage is
extended to the mass of the people, with their ever-varying
interests. In the countries of continental Europe parties, if
indeed they may be said to exist, are broken up into groups, no two
or more of which ever act together for any considerable length of
time; and ministries are without a moment's notice confronted at
brief intervals with opposing majorities, and must give place to
others, whose tenure of office is, however, equally unstable and
ephemeral. There is no other alternative; one of the two great