This

slave to its own creatures. As the Times newspaper observed, we have heard of the Spanish king who died of over-roasting, because his attendants were so long in settling whose duty it was to pull his chair away from the fire. An English Cabinet, or its chosen officials, have sacrified to punctilio not one gouty and useless king, but a brave victorious army, and Parliament has sat by, groaning and helpless. Do we ask why? It is because, knowing that it cannot reconstruct, Parliament is so slow to destroy; we may say, so frightened lest it destroy. paralysis it attempts to control. If it asks for information, it is told (what is constantly disproved by events) that the public interest forbids reply. Not one piece of information was wrung lately out of the Aberdeen ministry, until it was previously known from abroad, either by the open dealing of the Turks, by the gazettes of Paris or Vienna, by the English newspaper correspondents, or, finally, from St Petersburgh itself. If suspicion is shown, when a ministry is restive to Parliament, it sends out a whisper that any motion unpleasant to it may be accepted as a vote withdrawing "confidence,"-confidence meaning (it seems) despotic power. If a Committee of Inquiry be voted, this decides resignation of the Cabinet, so that the Parliament which wished only to control, unwillingly destroys. We have a high respect for the talents and integrity of Mr Gladstone; the claims of despotism which he makes do but show what they all make. In stating why he had left Lord Palmerston's Cabinet, he said, on February 23: "He retained his opinion. It was impossible for him to denounce a Committee of Inquiry into a great warlike operation still pending, in more violent language than he had used on the previous night. It was not the duty of the House to govern the country, but simply to call those to account who were appointed to govern the country." So an old Roman proconsul or praetor claimed to cut off a man's head first, and leave his kinsmen to accuse him for the deed at Rome after he had left office. The Parliament ought not to prevent the starvation of our army, but only after the starvation call the ministers to account. What empty words. That which in a case of extreme and flagrant neglect Mr Gladstone resents so "violently," is in America the ordinary proceeding, even when all is going on satisfactorily. Has then their Cabinet no functions left? While such claims of ministers are endured, every Cabinet becomes irresponsible, so, too, does every member of it. The "outs" back up the "ins," in order to maintain unimpaired

the despotism which the outs look on as their own in reversion. Thus Parliament has to burn down a house, if it wants to roast a pig.

too severe.

Nothing of this sort can happen in America, simply because Congress cannot destroy a Cabinet. A heavy battle-axe is not the weapon to guide man or horse; even a bridle must not be While our Parliament, because it can destroy, loses power to control; the Congress freely exercises control, because it cannot destroy. Its Committees are standing and ordinary; ours are occasional and exceptional. With them, Committees of Inquiry are permanent, essential, and fundamental. Cabinet ministers would there seem to be mad if they resented the inquiries.

The Senate or Upper House has the special right of confirming or refusing to confirm treaties and nominations to office. The President appoints his officers "with the advice and consent of the Senate;" such are the legal words of every diploma. In practice the advice is not asked, but the consent is indispensable. The President can always refuse solicitations from his own supporters by the plea: "The Senate will be sure to refuse consent." Congress would behave to a wayward or feeble cabinet as we behave to a wayward and feeble sovereign; i.e., seek to control and manage, not to depose. In an extreme case the President might need to remove a minister who met nothing but opposition from Congress; with us, even in an extreme case, Parliament dares not aim to eject one member of the administration. Lest responsibility become real, the whole Cabinet make his case their own. Nor would a collision of Congress with the President, except in time of war, be so mischievous as in the parallel case with us; for the very smallest part of their legislative business goes on in Congress. The separate States legislate as energetically even during the destructions of war.

Every year, when the Houses meet, their first business is to constitute their Standing Committees,-at least ten in the Upper House and eight in the Lower. Those in the Senate may be thus recounted-1. On Confirming Nominations to Office; 2. On Foreign Affairs; 3. On the Army; 4. On the Navy; 5. On the Budget; 6. On the Public Lands; 7. On the Territories (i.e., Embryo States); 8. On (Financial) Claims; 9. On Petitions; 10. On the Post. No Minister of the President can sit in either House of Congress, but communications are close between each Minister and

the Committee that deals with his topic. Five minutes across a table without oratorical display may do the work of many an hour, as we throw away public time. From the Committee nothing may be kept secret. No evil has yet come from this, only plentiful advantage. Although a Committee on the most important affairs is pledged to secrecy, the Senate can always by a simple vote demand free publication of everything. In practice, this is not needed. The Presidents know that secrecy is impossible and the effort for it unwise. They rather make a merit of publicity, without which they cannot get the needful support for their policy from the public nor from the Senate itself. All despatches in the Foreign Office are filed when they are a fortnight old, and every member of the Senate has free access to them. Even private citizens of literary repute easily gain admission to peruse any document. Thus Secret Diplomacy is annihilated.

Of late years Congress has found too much time consumed by the Committee of Claims. In consequence, a Judicial Court of Claims was established in February last to discuss these cases. Congress will now merely have to give a formal confirmation to the awards of the Court. So energetic are our Transatlantic kinsmen against that great evil, an excess of business for the Chambers,

Thus out of two cardinal facts, (1) that the ministry does not rest on a majority in Congress, (2) the power of the Senate over nominations to office and foreign affairs, arises an active life to Congress wholly independent of ministerial action. This fits it to be a real and constant check on the ministry; a check to which we have no parallel. Our public has come to fancy that the great business of the Executive Government is to legislate, and that to enact a law against the will of the ministry is equivalent to a vote of No Confidence! Though an existing ministry may as administrators be as good as we are likely to get, we must, forsooth, discard them if in some new legislative topic they displease us. Moreover, by exacting that Ministers shall sit in Parliament (from which the American Union excludes them), we limit the choice of good administrators, and increase embarrassment by requiring re-election on appointment to office. The etiquette of official routine often forbids appointing the best administrator to the post which most needs him; and he must be not only fitted for the strictly ministerial tasks, but (at least to take any lead) he must have "a power of debate," a familiarity with the rules of the House, and a skill in adapting himself to its habits of mind

a skill ordinarily needing long experience in Parliament and early habit. A noble mind which seizes main points and trusts broad truths does not tell on the House so much as a combative intellect, skilful in exposing weak points in adverse speakers. A premium is set upon clever talkers. On the whole, with us, the choice of the best administrators is perniciously limited, and no constant or active check is exerted by Parliament on the ministry. No important legislation can go on during a war, because ministers are pre-occupied, and "private members "(as they are now called !) are not allowed to initiate anything important. What a dwarfing and crippling of Parliament! When the affairs of India were before the Commons, Lord John Russell pressed forward an unacceptable India Bill by the whisper, "If you do not take our India Bill this session, you will not get my Reform Bill next session." The House gave way, but lost the promised reward, because war with Russia loomed in the horizon! Sir Charles Wood annexed Pegu, and gravely informed the House that he was himself responsible for the deed.

It is not by imitating French centralisation that we shall lessen these evils. Reform must be sought in the direction not of more despotism, but of better checks on the Executive; in the direction of America, not of France. Democracy and Universal Suffrage do not even save liberty, if functionaries and centralization rule. Voluntary Political Associations are like crutches, useful only to one whose limbs are crippled. Our first want is a Parliament independent of Ministers, and able to act as a check on them; a Parliament equal to its own work, and not burdened by loads of local bills, which are not its proper work.

[Much is omitted or abridged.]

INTERNATIONAL IMMORALITY.

From the "Westminster Review," July 1855, with omission and

WHAT

condensation.

HAT student of History can fail to be affected painfully by the international records of the past? Virtuous men. in private life are everywhere to be found; in fact the majority of every community appears oftener on the side of justice than of injustice in regard to all internal questions. It is the few, not the many, whether called thieves, robbers, statesmen, or princes, that sometimes thrive by iniquitous practices. Nor is Virtue wholly unknown to statesmen in relation to their own land. Real patriotism is found among them and is recorded in history; patriotic kings and queens can be named; nor can we doubt that in every community which enjoys a firm prosperity, public virtue must decidedly prevail over its opposite, however little there may be for the historian to record. But when we pass from internal to international concerns, we seek in vain for a virtuous nation. Each community, as in turn it rises to power, disdains all law of Right, and submits only to that law of Force which it everywhere seeks to impose. Hence the history of the world is stained with every crime that makes man odious; and the misanthropic doctrine which teaches the absolute wickedness of the human soul appears to have a triumphant proof, when human nature is tested on the widest scale of time, of races, of forms of government, of climate, and (must we not add?) of creed.

man.

Something has been said to explain this broad, obtrusive, and dreadful phenomenon from the opposition of languages. It is chiefly by language that man recognises the soul of his fellowIntercourse of speech reveals to us sameness of sentiment and capacity; and awakens sympathy which slumbered before. Men of strange tongues are often so unable to exercise mutual trust, so liable to mutual suspicion, that they become as wild beasts to one another, and feel war to be their natural inevitable relation. In an unappeasable war fraud is called stratagem, truce and treaty are impossible. Perfidy on the part of the enemy