shame of mixed luxury and misery which is spread
over our native land"

Socialism proposes one. No doubt, in much of its criticism of the evils of the existing social order, Socialism is well founded. But the nostrum which it recommends for their cure necessarily involves infinitely worse evils

extract

The real value of Socialism lies in this: that it is the
inevitable and indispensable protest of the working
classes, and their aspiration after a better order of
things and a function of the State is to
from the interminable popular and philanthropic
utterances constituting Socialistic literature, the
underlying ideas, and to translate them into scien
tific conceptions of Right"

PAGE

123

124

132

CHAPTER V

THE MECHANISM OF THE STATE

The truth that civil society is an organism must not make us forget the truth that it is also a Mechanism 133

"The tendency to political life is found in human nature; and so far the State has a natural basis : but the realisation of this tendency has been left to human labour and human arrangement"

The question to be considered in this chapter is, What
are the true principles on which that tendency
should be realised? What is the right arrange-
ment of the State?
One great first principle is that there should be a well-
marked separation between its several powers. In
the existing state of society the classification of

133

133

Montesquieu is recognised as indicating the true
method. It is universally admitted that the legis-
lative, the administrative, and the judicial provinces
ought to be kept apart

Although all this is admitted in theory, it is not easily

realised in practice. "The spirit of encroachment
tends to consolidate the powers of all the depart-
ments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form
of government, a real despotism

The form of government is, in itself, a matter of less importance than the spirit in which the institutions of a country are worked. There is no immutably best form

The best form of government for a people is that best fitted to the elements of which it is composed, to the period of its development, to its local habitation and historic traditions

PAGE

133

134

134

135

The accommodation of the mechanism of the State to
the exigencies of any given condition of society, is
one of the gravest problems of practical statecraft 135
We live in an age of representative government, or self-

government. The topic to which this chapter will
be confined is, What are the first principles on which
such government should be framed ?

A very common conception of representative or self-
government reduces it to a sum in addition, making
it consist in assuring the preponderance of the
greater number of the votes of men-that is, of the
opinions expressed by their votes
But who that is not given over to a strong delusion to
believe a lie, can really value the individual opinion
of the average voter upon any problem affecting
the interests, especially the larger and remoter

.

135

135

interests of the commonwealth? If self-govern-
ment really meant the preponderance of the greater
number of opinions, self-government would stand
condemned by its intrinsic absurdity

But this is not the true account. The principle upon
which self or representative government rests, is
directly deducible from the nature of civil society
as an ethical organism

The ideals of Right which constitute the absolute jural order, whence positive law derives moral and rational validity, are binding upon the conscience of the State, as such, just as they are binding upon the conscience of the individual, as such: they are the fundamental principles determinative of the proper construction of a polity; and of them the ideal of justice is the first, and embraces, in some sort, all the others

And justice is "the constant and perpetual will to render to every man his right." In the organisation of the State the problem is to assure to each subject that political prerogative which is really his

A man, as an ethical being in an ethical organism, is entitled to some share, direct or indirect, of political power-a share correspondent with his personality. He has a right to be valued in the community for what he is really worth

PAGE

. 136

137

137

137

137

In so far as men are in truth equal, they are entitled to equal shares of political power. In so far as they are in truth unequal, they are entitled to unequal shares of political power. Justice is in a mean—it lies in the combination of equal and unequal rights 138 In a civilised community we find vastly varying individualities. We find also, as a result of those

varying individualities, a number of classes and
interests, diverse, but dependent upon one another,
and all necessary to the perfection of the body
politic. Hence the necessity for the due repre-
sentation of the local and professional interests and
capacities of the commonwealth

A representative government, then, as its name implies,
should represent all the elements of national life, all
the living forces of society, in due proportion. All
should be subsumed in the reason of the organic
whole. Its true ideal is that it should be a city at
unity with itself; the unity of diverse activities
working, each in its own mode, for the common
good, under the law of Right

This is the true ideal of representative or self government. Its realisation is a problem not so much of political science, or of political philosophy, as of practical statecraft, which must be differently worked out in different countries and at different periods

It is not a new problem. Representative government existed, in one form or another-not to go back further throughout mediæval Europe. The essential characteristic of that mediæval regimen was that it represented groups, classes, institutions. Thus, in England, where it prevailed till the passing of the first Parliamentary Reform Act, it was "an organised collection of the several orders, states, or conditions of men. . . recognised as possessing political power." Of contemporary attempts to solve the problem of representative or self government, the Prussian, Austrian, and Belgian are specially interesting.

PAGE

138

139

140

. 140

PAGE

In France, and in the countries which have framed their
political institutions upon the French model, repre-
sentative government cannot properly be said to
exist. The French system is not an organic, but an
atomistic system. The only element of the national
life of which it takes account is mere numbers.
For the representation of other elements far more
important in the body politic, it makes no provision 146
As little can the French system be said to secure self-

government. In the individual man, self-government
means the supremacy of the intellectual nature over
the sensitive; the predominance of the moral over
the animal self; the subordination of the lower
powers and faculties to the higher. And so he
realises his proper end as a rational being

This is the true account of self-government by the
individual man. It is also the true account of self-
government by a nation of men. For the State
"is the objective, and, so to speak, normal form in
which the manifoldness of the subjects seeks to
combine itself into a unity." The man
"who to
himself is a law rational" alone realises the true
idea of self-government. We must say the same
of a nation

Manifestly the man who is carried about by every storm of passion, by every wind of impulse, by every gust of emotion, is not self-governed. Nor is the State that is so swayed. But in every commonwealth the masses represent passion, impulse, emotion

Passion, impulse, emotion, no doubt have their proper office in the State, as in the individual man. But whether in the individual man or in the State, they

146

147

147