foreign countries, while still leaving them free when imported from Great Britain. South Africa is therefore placing an actual burden on her consumers in the interests of British trade. But even this argument made no impression. It only caused Mr Asquith to shift his ground and, abandoning the hopeless contention that preference would be of no advantage to South Africa, to fall back on the sacred principle that it would be wrong to treat the Colonies differently from foreign countries.

'It means (he said) that we are to consider the question whether we shall treat foreigners and the Colonies, as it were, differently; and that we conceive we are unable to do.'

Do foreign countries, it may be asked in reply, treat Great Britain as the Colonies do?

So that is the position at the end of all the controversy. The British Government 'conceive that they are not able' as much as 'to consider the possibility' of differentiating between other parts of the Empire and foreign countries, even in cases where, by doing so, they would impose no burden whatever on the people of this country. It would be difficult to put the doctrine of commercial cosmopolitanism in a more repellent form.

One word in conclusion about other matters. It is fair to the British Ministers to say that they evidently felt very uncomfortable at the refusal which the rigidity of their principles compelled them to give to any and every advance on the part of the Colonies with relation to interimperial trade. No kind of concession being possible in the matter of tariff, they over and over again expressed sympathy and promised 'consideration' for a whole host of alternative suggestions, such as better cable communication, 'all-red' steamship services, reduction of the Suez Canal dues, etc. But though, on the strength of these promises, various suggestions were thrown out by Mr Deakin and others, only to be overwhelmed with criticism and finally talked out, the cherished alternatives have so far ended in smoke.

There is indeed one of these which, owing to the insistence of Sir W. Laurier, did get itself embodied in a resolution, and that is the proposal to connect Great Britain with Canada, and through Canada with Australia and New Zealand, by a fast steamship service, towards the establishment of which such financial support as may be necessary should be contributed by Great Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in equitable proportions.' Since this is a proposal about which Canada is very eager, and which Sir W. Laurier, as is evident from his recent speech at the Dominion Day dinner, does not mean to let drop, it is possible that something may be done.

This steamship service, the recognition of the Imperial Conference as a permanent institution, and the change of its title from Colonial to Imperial, are the total practical outcome of the three weeks' discussion reported in the 622 pages of the 'Minutes of Proceedings of the Colonial Conference, 1907.' For any further progress in the direction of Imperial organisation we shall, it appears, have to wait, in a fast-moving world, till 1911. The interval may see great changes, not only in the internal development of the 'self-governing dominions,' but in the policy adopted towards them by foreign nations. Their growing importance and their great future are attracting more and more attention, especially from our principal rivals in the commerce of the world. Other countries may approach them with offers of those reciprocal trade arrangements which we have not seen our way to encourage. These are disquieting reflections. On the other hand, we may derive some comfort from the abundant evidence of that strong Imperial feeling, that yearning towards the motherland, on the part of the Colonies, which a study of the Conference affords. That feeling, we believe, has only to be more widely understood among ourselves to win a warmer recognition and a more practical response from the British nation than it has hitherto received.

Art. XIII.-PARTY VERSUS PEOPLE.

'In order to give effect to the will of the party which happens at any moment to have a majority in the House of Commons, it is necessary that the power of the House of Lords to alter or reject bills passed by the House of Commons by a majority, however small, should be so restricted by statute that, within the limits of a single Parliament, the final decision of the House of Commons shall prevail.'* This in plain terms is the policy of partisanship planned by the Cabinet, and supported by 432 members of the House of Commons. It is open to two fatal objections.

Firstly, it enables a temporary majority of the House of Commons to override the deliberate will of the nation.

This omnipotent majority, when freed from the control of the House of Lords, even though it can outvote the Opposition only by some thirty or forty votes-as was the case in 1893-will be able to pass any law which it sees fit to enact. It may give the parliamentary franchise to every woman who has attained the age of twenty-one. It may set up Home Rule in Ireland, Wales, and Scotland all at once. Each of these changes, be it noted, will, when once made, be practically unalterable. Establish, for instance, universal suffrage, and you never can revert to the household suffrage of to-day. Nor, let us remind Radicals, is there the least reason to suppose that the majority which will hold uncontrolled power will always consist of Liberals or of Free-traders. Protection easily allies itself with Socialism. The members of the Labour party are no disciples of Cobden. Wage-earners, who naturally and rightly enough hate Protection when it threatens to raise the price of food, would look with no unfriendliness on the Protection which promised, e.g. by the exclusion of foreign workmen, to raise the price of labour. The day may easily come when, to the horror of enlightened economists, a temporary majority of some

future House of Commons may repudiate all the soundest maxims of Free-trade.

We do not suggest for a moment that an English House of Commons will generally use inordinate or excessive power without regard to prudence or to justice, but we do maintain that a House of Commons, when once it has acquired in matters of legislation as much legal omnipotence as a constitution can confer on any body of men, will assuredly be governed by the party which commands a parliamentary majority, and that no such majority ought to be entrusted with unrestrained power. Grant that, as things now stand, such a majority would not, even if freed from every legal restriction on its legislative action, play at once, or even play at all, the unfamiliar part of a despot. It would try to legislate for the benefit of the country; it would wish to respect the opinion of the people. But there would be no small danger that the interests of a party would be constantly mistaken for the welfare of the country; the fanaticism of a faction would be treated as equivalent to the deliberate will of the nation.

It were vain indeed to argue that there is no possibility of a representative assembly overriding the real will of the nation. The parliamentary history of England and the experience of every modern democracy shows that the danger we denounce is both real and pressing. Consult our parliamentary annals. The House of Commons is the most powerful part, though a part only, of our Parliament. This very fact tempts its leaders to speak and act as if the House itself were a sovereign power. In the recent debate on the relation between the two Houses of Parliament the Prime Minister spoke of 'the supremacy of the House of Commons.' The expression is, of course, as every student knows, grossly inaccurate. Supremacy or sovereignty belongs, as a matter of law, not to the House of Commons, but to Parliament, that is, to the King and the two Houses acting together as one legislative body; and, as a matter of politics, not to the House of Commons but to the electors, or, in current language, to the nation. This is elementary.

But we will not dispute about words. The importance of this inaccuracy of language is that it discovers an ominous condition of feeling. It explains the dislike entertained by politicians such as the Prime Minister and his colleagues, who believe themselves to be democrats, for the Referendum, which is the most democratic of institutions; and it betrays that vain belief in the absolute authority of the House of Commons which has more than once led it, and may easily lead it again, into conflict with the will of the nation. The Premier, we see, quotes, and therefore, we presume, reads Burke. Let him continue his studies. He will learn how a House of Commons which, though supported by the King, tried to create by its own authority a new parliamentary incapacity, was defeated by John Wilkes. He may further learn how a coalition in command of a powerful parliamentary majority came into conflict with the King and with the House of Lords and, strange as it may appear, found that, in attacking the Crown and the Peers, the House had defied the sovereignty of the nation. The lesson is impressive. The genius of Burke, misled for once by the passion of partisanship, suggested to himself and to his colleagues the dogma that the King had no moral right to appeal from the votes of the House to the verdict of the people. That fatal error excluded the Whigs from office for well-nigh half a century.

This is ancient history. Let us turn then to the recent experience of 1893-1895. Is there any fair-minded man who dares deny that in those years the will of the nation was represented, not by the elected House of Commons, but by the hereditary House of Peers? Let us press the point one step further. If in 1893 such a law had been in force as the Premier and his followers wish to enact, is it not certain that Mr Gladstone's second Home Rule Bill might, and in all probability would, have become law? A Minister as able and as patriotic, to use the mildest terms, as the present Premier, and a majority at least as public-spirited as the Premier's followers, would, if they had possessed the power, have broken up the political union between England and Ireland, and that against the deliberate wish of the people of the United Kingdom.

The teaching of English parliamentary history is more than confirmed by the action of modern democracies. They have learned that the authority of the people needs to be protected against the temporary power of parlia