We remarked towards the beginning of this article that the only way in which it was possible to get the money out of the country, to keep the navy anything like up to the mark in the matter of modern ships and modern ordnance, was by the fortuitous recurrence of periodical war-scares, which so frighten the people, in consequence of our unprepared condition, that they are ready to lavish money as long as the scare lasts. We say fortuitous, for although we do not look upon this as a dignified, nor even as an economical method of raising the necessary money to keep up a navy, still it is better than not raising it at all; and without these war-scares, there is no knowing to what state of decay and obsoleteness the doctrines of the so-called economists might not have brought the navy: probably to a state resembling that of Turkey.

It appears, then, as if England in the present day, with her muchboasted popular government, and with what Mr. Gladstone calls the foundations of her constitution widened and deepened, was yet quite incapable of taking a wide and deep view of her own situation in the world around her, and was only capable of living from hand to mouth, in a thriftless, haphazard manner, like a journeyman tinker or itinerant pedlar, never reasoning or looking ahead, or trying to use her commonsense and foresight, but just drifting along, and waiting until the actual catastrophe is upon her, and then making her preparations (?) in haste and panic.

We are not authorized to speak in the name of the navy; but we believe we shall be expressing the opinion of the vast majority of those naval officers who have ever given a thought to the subject, when we say that an increase of something like thirty or forty per cent to our present navy is the least that must be made in order to put it in such a condition that there would be any reasonable prospect of its being able to perform the duties which we know will be expected of it in case of war.

Whether this can be best accomplished by having recourse to Lord Randolph Churchill's scheme of reducing the navy estimates by three or four millions, or by increasing them by about the same amount, are questions for Chancellors of the Exchequer and financiers, and not for soldiers and sailors.-Blackwood's Magazine.

ENGLISH AND AMERICAN FEDERALISM.

A CURIOUS change has lately come over both Great Britain and the United States. Not thirty years ago each was firmly persuaded that its own political constitution was the best in the world, and that, even if any slight imperfections appeared in the management of its affairs, at

least nothing could be learned by studying the government of the other. Now, many intelligent men are casting curious, sometimes well-nigh envious, glances across the water, admiring not any mere details of Transatlantic laws, but the very fundamental principles of Transatlantic government. English periodicals bring us proposals to supply Great Britain with a written constitution or a federal system, while in the United States there are ably-written books, like that of Woodrow Wilson on Congressional Government, urging us to give up the written constitution and the federal system of our fathers, and to try a responsible ministry in their place. In one aspect, at least, this internationaladmiration is advantageous. Englishmen and Americans have been led to study institutions widely differing from their own, though belonging to a kindred people, and it is now possible to speak of the Constitutions of Great Britain and the United States with the certainty that many men in both countries understand much of the fundamental principles and practical workings of both forms of government.

In England two different classes of people are looking to America for constitutional examples; and this in order to reach two ends apparently distinct, though I shall try to show that those ends are, in reality, inseparably connected. One class wishes to establish a federal system in some form, partly to bring the Colonies into closer and healthier relation with the Imperial Government, and partly to settle the pressing Irish question. Another class, and largely a different one, is afraid that Parliament will make too free with the property and vested rights of individuals, and therefore is inclined to admire those limitations on the power of the legislature which are found in the Constitution of the United States. The first class wishes to divide the unlimited powers now belonging to the Parliament of the United Kingdom among a numter of legislative bodies; the second class would be glad to see certain powers taken from Parliament without entrusting them to any one. Each class sees that the conditions it looks for are found in the Government of the United States,

In the United States, as in England, there are two classes of people dissatisfied with the present working of their instructions. The first is disposed to complain because the Government is not sufficiently centralized; it finds fault with the variety of our local laws, it wishes a uniform law of divorce, a national law to prohibit the sale of intoxicating liquors, national aid to education, national supervision of railroads. Some of these measures obviously need an amendment of the Constitution, others can be carried out by a national grant, the constitutionality of which it is almost impossible to assail; in both cases it is the insufficiency or the unsatisfactory character of the local laws which is complained of, and which the authority of the nation is invoked

to cure.

There are other persons, for the most part writers on the theory of government rather than statesmen or active politicians, who find fault with the impotence and irresponsibility of Congress. They point out that Congress is unable to perform even those duties which are most plainly within its constitutional province, and this, too, when no great party question is involved. It cannot pass a bankrupt law-it is so tied up by its own rules that it cannot bring the matter to a direct vote -it cannot relieve the Supreme Court from the excessive burden of its judicial duties, it cannot provide for the counting of votes in Presidential elections. These critics point out, also, that no one is responsible for such legislation as Congress is able to accomplish. The various measures are prepared by committees, a few of their members known to the public as individuals, almost none of them known in connection with any particular committee. To remedy this state of things, to secure greater efficiency in Congress and a greater sense of responsibility, some American publicists have favored the establishment of a responsible ministry, like that found in England and most Continental countries.

Now, certainly, things have come to a strange pass when intelligent Englishmen seek to abridge the power of the Imperial Parliament by the creation of a federal system or by the establishment of a united constitution, while, on the other hand, many Americans, dissatisfied with the vagaries of local laws, are seeking to abolish the federal system, or are striving to increase the power and responsibility of the national Congress by the introduction of Cabinet government. Is there any explanation common to these phenomena apparently so diverse?

It is plain to everyone that the English Government at the present time is a representative democracy, very slightly affected by the House of Lords, hardly affected at all by the Crown. Through natural development, parliamentary government has become a scheme for carrying out the will of the people as fully and as rapidly as possible. Under it the will of the whole British people, through Parliament, may regulate the most minute concerns of each individual in the United Kingdom, and, therefore, the whole British people and its Parliament are held responsible for the welfare of each British citizen. Of course, the healthy individualism of the Anglo-Saxon race and the strong Conservatism of the English people very greatly affect the workings of this principle, but omnipotence is an attribute of Parliament, and every one will admit that individualism and Conservatism are less marked now than they were fifty years ago.

We have been deluded so long by misleading names, that we have come to believe a republic must be at least as democratic as a monarchy, and that a written Constitution is a means to carry out the popular will. Hardly anything could be farther from the truth. In

the present age of the world, the existence of a king may do no more than give to the popular will the sanction of the hereditary principle, that sentimental affection for monarchy which has not yet lost all its influence. Nothing has been found capable of withstanding the will of the majority except a written Federal Constitution. The United States Government to-day is less democratic than that of any other country enjoying what we call free institutions.

At first sight this may not appear, but the more carefully we examine the matter the more evident it will become. If we define democracy as that form of government in which the people of the nation or a majority of them exercise the most complete control over the persons and property within its limits, we shall recognize how very undemocratic the American Government is. We have, first, a National Government, shut in on every side by a Federal Constitution very limited in its general scope, and even within this scope restricted from interference with many individual privileges by the positive prohibitions of the Bill of Rights. This Government is not able to add an iota to its authority or jurisdiction; and the Upper Chamber of its Legislature, possessing at least equal powers with the Lower, has a basis of representation far more unequal than that of England or Scotland under the Act of 1867-a basis which cannot be changed save with the consent of every one of these unequal constituencies. Standing beside the national Government, and more concerned with the everyday life of the citizen, is the Government of the State, limited in its scope like the former, and restricted even here from interference. with individual privileges by the Constitutions, both of the State and the Nation.

Of course it may be said that, in fact, the life and property of an individual Englishman are as safe from popular aggression as those of a citizen of the United States. Even if this be true, however, the latter is shielded by a law which the Legislature cannot alter, the former only by acquiesence hardened into custom, which acquiescence may cease at any time if Parliament wills it; and certainly there are some signs which point to the possibility that this acquiescence will cease. Again, if it be said that, after all, the Constitution which protects individual and local rights can be amended, it may be answered that to amend the National Constitution requires practical unanimity except under conditions like those following the late war; even a very large majority of the people may be completely powerless. For example, so long as Mormon polygamy exists only in the territories, Congress can use very severe means to root it out; but if it once gained control of any Štate, it is certain that the evil could not be checked for years, and it is quite possible that no constitutional amendment stringent enough to deal with the matter could get

the votes of the requisite number of States. In England, if the majority desired, all the necessary legislation could be got in a few months at the farthest. Again, no one will deny that the House of Lords can be remodelled or abolished if the popular will really is bent upon it. No wish of a majority can remodel or abolish the Senate of the United States.

The makers of the American Constitution knew well that no paper limitations could curb the popular will. Agreeing with many Europeans that the people should be saved from oppression by individuals, their singular merit consisted in providing, in part unconsciously, that individuals should not be oppressed by the people. They did not create a strong, highly centralized Government, and then write down that it should not do this or that; they did not rely wholly upon the Supreme Court with its marvellous power of declaring void unconstitutional laws. Through the jealousy of the several branches of the Federal Government, and the jealousy of the States, they secured both the rights of the indivudual and local rights-for these last, as paramount to national rights, are, like individual rights, so many restrictions upon the will of the people. "Heretofore," said Pierce Butler in the Constitutional Convention, "I have opposed the grant of new powers to Congress, because they would all be vested in one body; the distribution of the powers among different bodies will induce me to go great lengths in its support." He was thinking, not only of the Senate, but of the President and Supreme Court as well.

If it be asked why the people of the United States submit to a government so undemocratic, two answers may be given. It may be said. quite truly that they have voluntarily given up a portion of their authority, but such an answer contains only part of the truth. Persuaded that their government is really popular, there is little chance for them to find out their mistake. With nothing in the nature of a plebiscite, they have, if the President and Congress are at loggerheads, no means of finding out which represents the popular will, and so there is little popular excitement when one obstructs the other. Even when, as in 1876, the defeated candidate for the Presidency gets a larger popular vote than the President-elect, it is open to the supporters of the latter to say that the States in which they were successful would have given them much larger majorities if the issue had depended on the popular vote. It is probable, indeed, that the popular will has such restricted power in the United States principally because it has no one authoritative organ of expression. For a few years after the civil war it had such an organ in a united Congress, and the Constitution has hardly recovered from the strain then put upon it.

We now approach the explanation of the recent movements in England and America. This transformation of individual and local privi