Representation

Expression of the "Will of the. People..

It remains never theless the fact that, in politics, "representative" government means not so much government by men really representative of the nation as government in the name of the whole body of citi zens (and predominantly the estate of the commons) through a chamber or chambers composed of elected deputies. The object in view is the expression of the "will of the people"—the people, that is, who are sovereign. Clearly the only pure case of such government can be in a republic, where there is only one "estate," the free citizens. The home and historical type of representative government, the United Kingdom, is strictly no such case, since the monarchy and the House of Lords exist and work on lines constitutionally independent of any direct contact with the elec torate. British practice, however, is of vital importance for the theory of representative institutions, and it is worth while to point out that the "will of the people" may even so be effectively ex pressed—some people may think even more effectively expressed than in a pure republic. The king and the House of Lords are just as much part of "the people," in the widest sense, as "the commons" are; they are an integral part of the nation. Until 191I they remained entitled and expected to use their historic method of playing a part in the government of the State. They assist to constitute "the people" in the wider sense, and in the narrower sense "the people" (i.e., the commons) know it and rely on it.

Under the British constitution the commons have habitually relied on the monarchy and the House of Lords to play their part in the State, and on many occasions it has been proved, by various methods by which it is open to the commons themselves to show their real feeling, that action on the part of the monarch (e.g., in foreign affairs) or the House of Lords (in rejecting or modifying bills sent up by the House of Commons), in which a popular vote has played no initiating or controlling part, is wel comed and ratified, by consent of a large majority, on the part of the nation at large. But the Parliament Act of 1911 has changed all that by reducing the function of the House of Lords to a purely suspensory veto on legislation, a veto the exercise of which may be automatically terminated in three sessions by the will of the Commons without any appeal to the electorate. It is notorious, in the case of the House of Lords, that elected members of the House of Commons, tied by purely party allegiance and pledges, have constantly voted for a measure they did not want to see passed, relying on the House of Lords to throw it out.

Ultimately, no doubt, the reconciliation of this "presentative" element in the British form of constitution with the growth of democracy and the predominance of the "representative" system depends purely on the waiving of historical theory both by king and peers, and its adaptation to the fact of popular government through the recognition that their action rests for its efficient authority upon conformity with the "will of the people." Thus it became an established maxim in England that while it was the proper function of the House of Lords to reject a measure which in their opinion is not in accordance with the wishes of the na tion, they could not repeat such a rejection after a general elec tion had shown that its authors in the House of Commons were supported by the country. The experience of politics from 1832 to 1910 gave abundant justification to the House of Lords for supposing that in such cases they were interpreting the desire of the country better than the House of Commons; the case of the Irish Home Rule bill of 1893 is, of course, the classical example. The violent attacks made on the House of Lords by the Liberal Party, on occasions when that party has had a majority in the commons and has had its measures rejected or distastefully amended, have always been open to the criticism that if the ma jority in the House of Commons were really supported by the electorate in the country they had the remedy in their own hands.

The Suffrage.

The immense extension of the "representative principle" in government, by means of popular election, and its adaptation to municipal as well as national councils, has in recent times resulted in attracting much attention to the problem of making such elected bodies more accurately representative of public opinion than they frequently are. There are three distinct

problems involved—(i) that of making the number of enf ran chised citizens correspond to a real embodiment of the nation ; (2) that of getting candidates to stand for the office of representa tive who are competent and incorruptible exponents of the national will, and (3) that of adopting a system of voting which shall result in the elected representatives forming an assembly which shall adequately reflect the balance of opinion in the electorate.

There are various interesting questions as to the principles which should govern the extension of the suffrage and its limitations, to which a brief reference may here be made. It is noteworthy that John Stuart Mill, the philosophical radical whose work on Repre sentative Government (first published in 1860 is a classic on the subject, and who regarded the representative system as the highest ideal of polity, made a good many reservations which have been ignored by those who frequently quote him. Mill's ideal was by no means that popular government should involve a mere counting of heads, or absolute equality of value among the citizens. While holding that "no arrangement of the suffrage can be permanently satisfactory in which any person or class is peremptorily excluded, or in which the electoral privilege is not open to all persons of full age who desire to obtain it," he insisted on "certain exclu sions." Thus he demanded that universal education should pre cede universal enfranchisement, and laid it down that if education to the required amount had not become universally accessible and thus a hardship arose, this was "a hardship that had to be borne." He would not grant the suffrage to any one who could not read, write and perform a sum in the rule of three. Further, he insisted on the electors being taxpayers, and emphasized the view that, as a condition annexed to representation, such taxation should descend to the poorest class "in a visible shape," by which he explained that he did not mean "indirect taxes," a "mode of defraying a share of the public expenses which is hardly felt." He advocated for this purpose "a direct tax, in the simple form of a capitation" on every grown person. But even more than this, he was in favour of a form of plural voting, so that the intellectual classes of the community should have more proportionate weight than the numerically larger working-classes : "though every one ought to have a voice, that every one should have an equal voice is a totally different proposition." Modern democracy may ignore Mill's emphatic plea for plural voting, as it ignores his equally strong arguments against the ballot —his contention being that secret voting violated the spirit of the suffrage, according to which the voter was a trustee for the public, whose acts should be publicly known—but Mill's discus sion of the whole subject proceeds on high grounds which are still worth careful consideration. Where a representative system, as such, is extolled as the ideal polity, the reservations made by Mill, a liberal thinker who cannot be dismissed as a prejudiced reaction ary, should be remembered. Mill postulated, in any event, a state of society which was worthy of such a system, no less than the necessary checks and balances which should make it correspond to the real conditions of rational government. "Representative insti tutions," he pointed out, "are of little value, and may be a mere instrument of tyranny or intrigue, when the generality of electors are not sufficiently interested in their own government to give their vote, or, if they vote at all, do not bestow their suffrages on public grounds, but sell them for money, or vote at the beck of some one who has control over them, or whom for private reasons they desire to propitiate. Popular election, as thus practised, in stead of a security against misgovernment, is but an additional wheel in its machinery." As regards the important question of the selection of candi.