of public interest may be forthcoming on demand. Mr. Bryce, however,
sees more advantages than demerits in direct legislation. Of the
advantages he remarks: "The improvement of the legislatures is just what
the Americans despair of, or, as they would prefer to say, have not time
to attend to. Hence they fall back on the Referendum as the best course
available under the circumstances of the case and in such a world as the
present. They do not claim that it has any great educative effect on the
people. But they remark with truth that the mass of the people are equal
in intelligence and character to the average state legislator, and are
exposed to fewer temptations. The legislator can be 'got at,' the people
cannot. The personal interest of the individual legislator in passing a
measure for chartering banks or spending the internal improvement fund
may be greater than his interest as one of the community in preventing
bad laws. It will be otherwise with the bulk of the citizens. The
legislator may be subjected by the advocates of women's suffrage or
liquor prohibition to a pressure irresistible by ordinary mortals; but
the citizens are too numerous to be all wheedled or threatened. Hence
they can and do reject proposals which the legislature has assented to.
Nor should it be forgotten that in a country where law depends for its
force on the consent of the governed, it is eminently desirable that law
should not outrun popular sentiment, but have the whole weight of the
people's deliverance behind it."


_The Initiative and Referendum in Labor Organizations._

The Referendum is well known to the Knights of Labor. For nine years
past expressions of opinion have been asked of the local assemblies by
the general executive board. The recent decision of the order to enter
upon independent political action was made by a vote in response to a