tians and clusters of yellow stonecrop, for even on the highest and narrowest summits springs strangely burst out; slowly up the short, slippery grass of the terminal cone, sprinkled with thyme and tufts of white or yellow everlasting. The Indian sun, though tempered by eight thousand feet of elevation, beats burningly; but the summit is at last reached. Here on the tip of this soaring mountain minaret, lifted high above the crowd of subordinate hills, the eye ranges over a stupendous panoramic landscape, unlimited by rival heights or ranges. There are no snowy crests or glittering ice-fields. Even that altitude cannot defy the tropical sun. Northward stretches the many-folded mountain plateaumultitudes of rounded summits, swelling slopes, and rocky ridges, feathered with woods and divided by deep, winding valleys. Westward the eye looks over all the diversified breadth of fertile Malabar to the long, dim coast-line fifty miles distant. On the south the sides of the Koondahs, clothed with primeval forest and furrowed with precipitous ravines, descend towards a wide, low-lying jungle country, extending for leagues in a confused maze of low hills and bush-covered hollows-a sombre, savage-looking wilderness, showing here and there the gleaming curve of a stream, and, at far intervals, a small clearing where the primitive jungle tribes, that shun the cultivated country, have raised their shifting huts. There, guarded by fever and pathless jungle, is the stronghold of the elephant, the tiger, and the bear. In the distance opposite abruptly rises a lower but still lofty mountain rampart, robed from bottom to top with unbroken forest, except where interrupted by sheer precipices, down one of which a white waterstreak descends; and beyond this can be discerned far away the towering peaks and outlines of the mountains of remote Travancore.

To the east the dusky jungle region. beneath gradually fades into the wide, cultivated Coimbatore country; the vast, sea-like plain spreads and recedes immeasurably towards the sunrising, at first mapped with fields, groves, villages, and sheets of water, farther on passing into dimmer features of yellow, unculturable upland plains, alternating with darker patches that betoken groves and cultivation, and finally melting into the misty, indistinguishable distance, far in which faint-blue, isolated hills rise here and there, hinting of broad tracts beyond that stretch to the eastern coast. There are few pinnacles from which so vast and varied a landscape is unfolded of mountain and forest, peopled plain and trackless jungle. East and west the eye can glance from the hills near distant Trichinopoly to the waters of the Indian Ocean-points 180 miles apart.

It is now high noon; the boundless blue heaven is without a cloud, only here and there a white fleck of vapour lies along the mountainsides; the wind has died away and a great stillness prevails. No insect moves or hums; the inhabitants of the wilderness have retreated to covert. One seems raised above life and looking down upon a world of suspended animation. Some such hour and scene amongst Grecian hills must have inspired one of the most ancient of poetic utterances when Alcman wrote in Spartan land

εὔδουσιν δ' ὀρέων κορυφαί τε καὶ φάραγγες, púovés te kal xapádpaι,

púλλa Te ÉρTETά 0' ÖσJа Tρépei μéλaiva yaîa, θῆρες ὀρεσκῷοι τε καὶ γένος μελισσᾶν,

καὶ κνώδαλ ̓ ἐν βένθεσσι πορφυρέης ἁλός. εὕδουσιν δ' οἰωνῶν φῦλα τανυπτερύγων. The mountain crests and precipices sleep, The spurs and torrent-valleys deep, The forest leaves-all black earth's creeping

things

Hill-haunting beasts, the tribe of bees, Monsters in depths of dark-blue seas; And birds in slumber fold their slender

FOR

OR two or three hundred years past the English Legislature, representing the English governing classes, has been mainly divided into two great parties, known at different times by different names-Cavaliers and Roundheads, Tories and Whigs, Conservatives and Liberals each changing from time to time on minor points, but continuing the same throughout the whole period in its fundamental principles. What those principles are is well known to everybody. That the Tories, or Conservatives, have advocated keeping the Constitution unaltered, or when alterations have been absolutely necessary, making them as small as possible, and clinging as closely as might be to precedent in making them; and that the Whigs, or Liberals, have always been demanding changes of some sort or other, either in the dynasty, or in the constitution of the Legislature, or in the great body of the laws; has long been clearly shown by historical writers, and accepted, in the main, by the two great parties themselves. But it has not been so generally understood what is the nature and ultimate tendency of the long series of changes that have been wrought in the English Constitution, mainly through the efforts of the Liberal party. Comte was probably the first to draw attention to the fact, that the principles and acts of that party have been, on the whole, of a destructive character. And although he may perhaps express this view with some degree of exaggeration, by reason of his taking the French revolutionary party as his type of the Liberals elsewhere; yet there seems to be no doubt that his view is substantially

correct, and that the Liberals have hitherto achieved but little beyond destructive legislation. They have abolished religious and civil disabilities, and laws interfering with personal liberty and freedom of trade, have changed a dynasty, and have greatly lessened the power of the Crown, the House of Lords, and the Church of England. But it would be vain to ask for any positive legislation, any institution tending to strengthen the Government, and render it fitter to perform its work, that has been founded by the Liberal party. There is none such. That they have done much valuable service by removing innumerable legislative restrictions and disabilities, no one can deny; but still there remains the broad fact, that the continual progress and ascendency of the Liberals has been accompanied by the destruction or weakening of nearly all our institutions, and a consequent diminution of strength in the whole machine of government. It may be said that there is one marked exception to this statement-the House of Commons; and no doubt the House of Commons has gained in strength at the expense of the Crown and the House of Lords. But it would be difficult to show that it has gained to a corresponding extent in effici ency to perform the work of legisla tion. Nay, has it not within the last few years been a subject of frequent remark, that the House of Commons is becoming yearly more unable to get through its work, either on account of the immense increase in the latter, or on account of some defects in the constitution and rules of the House itself? The fact seems to be that while the Con

servative party has always opposed any change in the constitution of either House of Parliament, the Liberals have never aimed at anything more than alterations in the electoral body and the mode of conducting elections. What have been called measures for the reform of Parliament, might with more propriety be called measures for the reform of the constituencies and of the management of elections. The result is, that although to a certain extent a new class of men may have been introduced into the House of Commons since the first Reform Bill, no change has been made in the mode of Parliamentary procedure, which still remains, on the whole, the same as it has been for hundreds of years past. We believe that some reform is required of a totally different character from any of the measures hitherto proposed by the Liberal party. Something more is wanted than the addition of a few million extra votes to the constituencies; than the removal of electoral anomalies-and vote by ballot; and what that something is seems never to have occurred to the leaders of the Liberal party.

But it may be said by the Liberals, in answer to this charge, that the Conservatives are in no better case than themselves, that they have founded no institutions, and have never suggested any remedy for the growing inefficiency of Parliament; and no doubt this charge is true, for, notwithstanding that the Conservatives may claim that they have always endeavoured to maintain in unimpaired strength our existing institutions, it is none the less certain that their fundamental fault has been their constant striving to keep the latter unchanged from age to age, and their non-recognition of the truth that institutions that are suitable to an early stage of a nation's growth may not be suitable to a later, and that changes in the social

condition and external circumstances of a nation must be accompanied by corresponding changes in its political institutions.

It appears, then, that the traditionary principles of neither of the great parties that have hitherto divided the country and the Legislature furnish any basis for such an alteration of the constitution of Parliament as will render it efficient to perform its functions in the highly complex society in which it is placed; since the one party is anxious only to preserve it as nearly as possible as it now is, and the other can only make changes in the constituencies and in the mode of conducting elections. Yet there appears to be a plan by which the requisite efficiency can be secured, and one which ought to receive the support of both Liberals and Conservatives, since it would not really be inconsistent with the principles of either, however unlikely it may be to occur to the leaders of the two parties as a suitable scheme to put forward on their political programme. A time seems to have arrived when, if England is to retain her position among the nations of the world, she must thoroughly revise her institutions, with a view to strengthening them and making them more able to deal with the constantly growing difficulties of her complex society. A nation is something more than a collection o individual units; its strength lies mainly, if not solely, in its institutions, that is in certain groups of individuals, having fixed and definite relations to one another and to the rest of the community, and endowed with certain powers, to be used for the general good. If then, as this paper has endeavoured to show, there has been for some time past a perceptible weakening of our old institutions going on, while no new ones have been built up, we are clearly in a dangerous condition,

and one likely to be still more dangerous should we come into collision with any Continental Powers whose institutions either have not been weakened by the constant attacks of the Liberal party or are of recent growth and in full vigour, such, for example, as Russia or Germany. It is not that the institutions of these nations are on the whole better than ours. Far from it. The English Government is very greatly in advance of any of the Governments of the Continent. But though of a higher type than these, it may not necessarily be stronger than some of them. It may be necessary, in order to render us able to cope with the less advanced but powerful Governments of Europe, to undergo still further development-to become still more highly organised. We have either gone too far, or not far enough, in our divergence from the type represented by the Continental States. In lessening the power of the Government over the individual members of the community, we have also lessened its power over the enemies of the community-both internal and external. And in this lies great danger to the country.

With a view to remedying this state of things, three measures will now be proposed, which it is believed would give to the English Constitution far more than its old strength and efficiency, and render the Government quite able to deal both with the possible attacks of external enemies, and also with the many difficult and complicated problems offered by the structure of our society, upon the correct solution of which will depend the future welfare and prosperity of England. The first measure is the creation of a really Imperial Parliament, in the place of the English, Scotch, and Irish one that wrongly goes by There are two precedents in English history for such a measure. Early in the last cen

that name.

tury, Scotland was united with England in a common Parliament and Government; and at the close of the century a like measure was carried with respect to Ireland. Every English statesman admits the immense advantages that all three countries have derived from these measures, by being formed into one nation, and subjected to a uniform government, as well as the great increase of strength that can be used against any foreign enemy. All, then, that need be done is, following those precedents, to admit representatives from the English Colonies into the House of Commons in numbers proportioned to their population. It might not be advisable to follow the previous examples so closely as to abolish the Colonial Parliaments. These might be left to legislate for purely local requirements, but depriv ed, of course, of the extensive power they now possess, which would be transferred to the Imperial Parlia ment. The advantages of such a measure are obvious. There would then be free trade and a uniform system of laws throughout the Empire; the Colonies could no longer refuse to contribute their share to the military and naval expenses of protecting the Empire; and above all England and her Colonies would really become one-would feel themselves parts of one great State-and all danger of separation and a breakup of the Empire would vanish. Although a majority of the people both in England and the Colonies appear not to see any danger of this event happening, yet there are some who, having looked deeper into the ques tion, are firmly convinced that unless such a measure is carried, it is merely a question of time when this catastrophe will take place. The Colonies are now, in all but name, independent. The appointment of their Governors is almost the sole tie that binds them to England, and this might be severed without producing any immediately perceptible

change in their relations to one another. The English Government has the right of vetoing any Colonial legislation it may disapprove of, but this right has been becoming yearly more nominal, and recent Colonial Secretaries have shown less and less desire to interfere in Colonial affairs. This is a state of things full of danger to the connection, and it is with a view to averting the danger that the above measure for creating an Imperial Parliament has been suggested.

It is not too much to say that upon the manner in which this question is settled, depends the future of the English race in every part of the world. Even if there should be some difficulty in carrying out this plan, it ought to be seriously grappled with by any English Government worthy of the confidence of the nation. The measure is one that is not inconsistent with the traditional policy both of Liberals and Conservatives; and has two important precedents in its favour. It ought, then, to encounter no opposition from either of the great political parties that alternately govern England; while as to any difficulties there might be in dealing with the Colonies, there is no reason to suppose that they could not easily be surmounted by a Government that is really anxious for a settlement of the question. One such chance England lost a century ago; for it seems beyond a doubt that if the American Colonies had been offered representation in the English Parliament at the time they were required to contribute to the expenses of carrying on English wars, the rebellion and separation of those Colonies from the mother country would have been avoided. A second and last chance is now offered to England of uniting with herself all her remaining Colonies; and if this chance is lost, and they are allowed to separate from her, there are those who believe that

her days as a first-rate Power are numbered, even if it be not a question of time when she will become subject to some more powerful Continental neighbour.

The second measure proposed is one for such a reform of the House of Commons as will increase its ability to deal with the immense amount of work that is now necessarily thrown into its hands. It has long been a matter for comment in the newspapers, of whatever shade of politics, that this amount of work increases very greatly every year, while every year the House of Commons seems to grow less and less able to get through it; the time of the House being wasted night after night in useless discussion, and the measures that are in the end passed being little better than patchwork, utterly unsystematic and inconsistent in their different parts. It is this growing evil that gives some apparent basis of truth to such statements as that of Carlyle that England and America are going to mere wind and tongue;' and that frequently uttered by men of very different political views that 'Parliamentary government is on its trial.' Now, if no remedy could be found for the state of things complained of, these utterances would be justly entitled to some consideration, and there would be serious grounds of alarm for the future of England; since the most dangerous state for a country to be in is that in which the machine of government is constantly growing more inefficient, while the problems to be dealt with are constantly growing more complex and difficult. But there seems to be a simple remedy for the evil, and one that requires no radical alteration to be made in the English Constitution, but only such a moderate change as is strictly in accordance with the past history and growth of that Constitution. The House of Commons, as now constituted, is