GUILD SOCIALISM ; SYNDICALISM) .
Bicameral and Unicameral States.—The form of the legislature in one or two chambers provides a further distinction between States. In a federal State the second chamber is primarily representative of the component States of the union, each State of whatever size receiving equal representation with all the rest : whilst the principle of popular sovereignty is embodied in the "other" house, each member of which represents an approximately equal number of citizens regardless of State boundaries. The primary duty of a second chamber in a federal state, from this point of view, is to protect the interests of the States as such against the encroachments of the federal government (though with the growth of national sentiment in federal states, this function steadily decreases in importance). In unitary States, on the other hand, the case for a second chamber is usually rested upon the need for a differentiation within the legislature by which the work of a popularly elected house, directly under the pressure of public opinion, liable to gusts of passion, and, under modern conditions, usually grossly over-worked, may be reconsidered and if necessary revised in a calmer atmosphere : whilst in certain cases the period of delay involved in the process of revision may provide an appeal from "Philip drunk to Philip sober," an argu ment applicable to the second chambers of Federal States.
Opponents of the bicameral system contend that the need for delay and revision is either sufficiently provided by the formal stages of legislation or would be better met by a provision re quiring the submission of certain measures to a referendum (q.v.). They contend further that a second chamber cannot be recon ciled with the theory of democracy and they pose the dilemma "either it resembles the elected house and represents the people's will, in which case it is useless: or it opposes that will, in which case it is mischievous." The vast majority however of modern democratic states, unitary as well as federal, have bicameral constitutions. In Europe only Yugoslavia and one or two of the new Baltic States possess single chamber governments.
British Empire.—A word must be added on the two great unions of States which are the most unique features of modern governmental organisation, the British empire and the League of Nations (qq.v.) The extension of a unitary state to cover the great aggregate of territories subject to the British Crown is a remarkable commentary on the flexibility of the British constitu tion. Within the territories subject to the Crown there is every variety of government, from the virtually complete autonomy of the dominions, to the direct government of backward territories by a civil service appointed by the British Government. More over the autonomy of the self-governing dominions has since the imperial conference of 1926 been recognised as so complete that the several governments of the dominions now stand on an equal footing with the British Government itself and in matters con cerning any dominion the Crown is constitutionally bound to be advised by the ministers of the dominion, as in other matters by the British cabinet. This new situation in which the Crown is apart from the appellate jurisdiction of the privy council the single legal link binding the Dominions to the mother country is the result of the growth of national consciousness in the dominions themselves, and is strikingly illustrated by their posi tion in the League of Nations where each takes its place as a sovereign state side by side with the representatives of Great Britain, and the other States of the world.
League of Nations.—The League of Nations can only be noticed here as the first effective attempt to organise on a world wide scale the external relations of sovereign states with each other. That it does not include the United States, Germany, and Japan—as well as some minor states—seriously impairs its world wide character. But that it should have come into existence at all, and should have maintained itself during a period of ten years of post-war weariness, is a sufficient proof of the need for some solution of the problem of a world of armed sovereign states, each jealous of its independence.