British Constitution and Representative Government are almost synonymous
terms, and the "mother of parliaments" has given birth to so long a
succession of constitutions of which the cardinal principle is
representative government--the association of the governed with the
government--that we cannot now think of our House of Commons save as the
most complete expression of this principle. Nor, despite the criticisms,
many of them fully deserved, which have been directed against the
working of parliamentary institutions, has the House of Commons ceased
to be taken in other lands as a model to be reproduced in general
outline. New parliaments continue to arise and in the most unexpected
quarters. China is insistently demanding the immediate realisation of
full representative government. Japan has not only assimilated western
learning, but has adopted western representative institutions, and in
copying our electoral machinery has added improvements of her own.
Russia has established a parliament which, although not at present
elected upon a democratic basis, must inevitably act as a powerful check
upon autocracy, and in the process will assuredly seek that increased
authority which comes from a more complete identification with the
people. The Reichstag has demanded the cessation of the personal rule of
the German Emperor, and will not be content until, in the nation's name,
it exercises a more complete control over the nation's affairs.
Parliamentary government was recently established at Constantinople amid
the plaudits of the whole civilized world, and although the new regime
has not fulfilled all the hopes formed of it, yet upon its continuance
depends the maintenance of the improvements already effected in Turkey.
Lord Morley signalized his tenure of office as Secretary of State for
India by reforms that make a great advance in the establishment of
representative institutions. Some of these experiments may be regarded
as premature, but in the case of civilized nations there would appear to
be no going back; for them there is no alternative to democracy, and if