CHAPTER VII.
Forms of Government.—Senatorial Regulations.—Speakers.—Peculiar Debate.—Fundamental Laws.—Unwise Legislators.—Timely Improvements.—Legislative Problem.—Legislative Expedient.—Error in Government.—Division of Laws.—Repeal of Fundamental Laws.—Guard against Precipitancy.—Laws of Treason.—Mature Deliberation.—National Will.
All the states, which, as has been mentioned above, are eleven in number, differ more or less from each other in their form of government, but are alike in all the most important and fundamental principles adopted; several of which are strangely at variance with everything that is to be found in the northern hemisphere. Seven out of the eleven states are denominated kingdoms: but of these, four only are under an hereditary royalty; the other three being, as far as the travellers could ascertain, rather of the character of republics than of strictly regal governments; but retaining the title ofKing to denote the chief magistrate for the time being, somewhat corresponding to the Athenian archon, Roman consul, or American president. There are four other states also which are, in name as well as in substance, republics. But these differences are greater in appearance than in reality; the kingdoms which are the most strictly so called, being by no means under an unlimited monarchy.
Many of the particulars respecting the constitutions and laws of the several states the travellers were of course, during their short stay, unable to collect, except very slightly and imperfectly. From those which they did collect, and ascertain with sufficient certainty, we shall select such as are likely to be the most interesting, from their dissimilarity to European institutions.
It was in the state of Atroloria,—so called from the lake of the same name[1]within its territory,—which the travellers first reached, that they had the earliest opportunity of witnessingdebates in their senate. They afterwards, on several occasions, attended the legislative assemblies in other places. The circumstance which in the first instance most attracted, by its novelty to them, the attention of the visitors, was one which they found on inquiry was common to all the states in their deliberative assemblies; being a regulation originally established by Müller, and afterwards, from its tried advantage and convenience, continued universally and uninterruptedly. It was this, that no member was allowed tospeakand tovoteon the same question, but each had his choice between the two. The proceedings, accordingly, bore some resemblance to those of a court of justice in civil causes; the speakers corresponding to the pleaders who address the court,—the voters, to the jury, who give the verdict. The difference is, that each member has it left to his choice which character he will take. Any member wishing to address the house, quits his seat and places himself in front of the chair of the moderator,—answering to the speaker or chairman; and when he has spoken, seats himself, not in hisformer place, but, with a view to prevent mistake or confusion, on a bench appropriated to the purpose, and thence called the speakers’ bench; or he is at liberty to leave the assembly if he thinks fit. When the question has been put to the vote and decided, and a fresh question is coming on, he resumes his original seat. Certain public functionaries, who are not members, have a seat by right on the speakers’ bench, and are at liberty to address the house (though they have no vote) when there is any reference to the business of their own peculiar departments.
1. The lake was so called by the early settlers; doubtless from the same cause which led to the name of our own colony in Western Australia.
1. The lake was so called by the early settlers; doubtless from the same cause which led to the name of our own colony in Western Australia.
Whether owing to this circumstance, or to any other, the debates were observed to be shorter, and the speakers much fewer, than is usual in European assemblies. They seldom exceeded two or three on each side.
The travellers observed that the speakers rarely used even the smallest degree of action, but usually kept themselves remarkably still while speaking. This, it appears, was one of the results of that general and deep-rooted association already alluded to. In the course of conversation on this subject, the Southlanders,it appeared, considered it as something uncivilized to use either vociferation or gesticulation in speaking, “as the savages do.” They even accounted the refined Athenians and Romans of old as little better than half-reclaimed barbarians in this respect, because they would not attend to an orator unless he stamped and shouted, and brandished his arms about, as if he were speaking to a pack of hounds, instead of to an assembly of rational beings.
The travellers were so fortunate as to witness on one occasion a debate of a peculiar kind, which is of rare occurrence, and which served to throw light on the whole system of legislature of this singular people. It occurred in the kingdom of Nether-London, one of the most ancient and populous of all the states. They found a considerable excitement and bustle prevailing, though all was orderly and decorous, on account of a summons issued (in our phraseology, “a call of the house”) to the members of their assembly, called in that statethe parliament, to deliberate on the question of removing afundamental law. The particular law then in question was, they found, like the Salic law of the French, one which confined the succession to the throne to males. But a further inquiry let them into the knowledge of matter far more curious and interesting,—the general principle of “fundamental laws,” which materially affects the whole of the system of legislature in the country; being, with slight differences of detail, common to all the states, regal and republican, and extending also to the several ecclesiastical communities.
“The system I am about to describe to you,” said Mr. Adamson, who was one of their principal informants on this occasion, “was established by the Müllers; the younger of whom, during the whole of his long reign, as it may be called, laboured earnestly and successfully to explain its advantages, and to perpetuate its adoption. I will put into your hands presently a little popular tract on the subject written by him, which, like the many others he wrote, is in every one’s hands at this day. He sets forth in that the evils resulting,on the one hand, from retaining, or, oftener, vainly striving to retain, all laws, usages, and institutions unaltered, some of which, even though the result originally of consummate wisdom, may become utterly unsuitable to other times and altered circumstances; and, on the other hand, from frequent, sudden, and violent changes, which are apt to agitate and unsettle men’s minds, and to lead to consequences not designed or foreseen,—like the pulling out of one stone from a wall, which is apt to loosen some of the others. His discussion of this subject bears much resemblance to those I lately saw in the little book you lent me the other day, by Lord Bacon,[2]who strikes me as a very able writer, and likely to be well worthy of the reputation you tell me he enjoys.
2. A little pocket edition of Bacon’s Essays, one of four or five small volumes which the travellers had brought with them to beguile any occasional tedious half-hour at their halting-places, or in their boat.
2. A little pocket edition of Bacon’s Essays, one of four or five small volumes which the travellers had brought with them to beguile any occasional tedious half-hour at their halting-places, or in their boat.
“Müller goes on to say that unwise legislators have been in all ages apt to bring on themselves, not one only, but both of these classes of evils. Unmindful of the proverb,that “a stitch in time saves nine,” they often, through dread of change, maintain unaltered things which manifestly want altering, at the expense of much loss and inconvenience; and when the change does come, from the inconvenience having grown to an intolerable height, it is apt to be, in consequence, a violent, hasty, and sometimes ruinous change. ‘That dirt made this dust,’ is a homely old saying, which he used frequently to apply in speaking of such instances, in allusion to those who in wet weather neglect to scrape off the mud from the roads; and consequently, besides being for a long time continually splashed and bemired, at length, when the mud is all dried up by the sun, they are half smothered by the dust it produces. He would always, therefore, he said, be, by choice, animprover, rather than areformer; introducing corrections and additions, from time to time, as occasion offered, rather than letting a building become so inconvenient or ruinous as to require being pulled down and rebuilt.
“A great reformation he considered as, in all cases, a great evil; though frequently by far the least evil that circumstances admit of, andthough he had himself, accordingly, been always a strenuous supporter of the great reformation of religion, notwithstanding the many evils resulting, according to him, from its having been so long delayed and so obstinately resisted. To avoid both of the opposite evils,—the liability to sudden and violent changes, and the adherence to established usage when inconvenient or mischievous,—to give the requisite stability to governments and other institutions without shutting the door against improvement,—this is a problem which both ancient and modern legislators, he thought, had not well succeeded in solving. And the same, it appears, may be said of those who have appeared in Europe since his time. Some, like the ancient Medes and Persians, and like Lycurgus, have attempted to prohibit all change; but those who constantly appeal to the wisdom of their ancestors, as a sufficient reason for perpetuating everything these have established, forget two things; first, that they cannot hope for ever to persuade all successive generations of men that there was once one generation of such infallible wisdom as to be entitled to dictate to all theirdescendants for ever,—so as to make the earth, in fact, the possession, not of the living, but of the dead; and, secondly, that, even supposing our ancestors gifted with such infallibility, many cases must arise in which it may be reasonably doubted whether they themselves would not have advocated, if living, changes called for by altered circumstances; even as our own forefathers, who denoted thesouthernquarter frommeridies(noon), would not have been so foolish as to retain that language had they come to live in this hemisphere, where the sun at noon is in the north.
“The expedient of having two or more deliberative assemblies, or other authorities, in a state, whose concurrent sanction shall be requisite for enacting or abrogating laws, has often been resorted to, as a safeguard against sudden and violent measures adopted under an ebullition of feeling, yet without precluding well-weighed and deliberate changes. This expedient he thought a very good one, as far as it goes; it is adopted in various forms in each of our states. But it appeared to him that experience had proved this provision to be notalone sufficient for accomplishing fully the object he had in view, which was to give the requisite stability to those more fundamental laws which may be considered as part of the constitution of any state, (yet not so as to attempt prohibiting a wary and deliberate alteration of them,) and at the same time to afford proper facilities for introducing changes into matters of detail.
“‘Nature,’ said he, ‘does not give the same degree of strength to the footstalks of the leaves of a tree,—destined, as these are, to be shed every year,—and to the roots, which are designed to hold the trunk fast in the ground. If she did, either the one would be far too strong or the other far too weak, or both of these inconveniences might take place at once; yet this is the error committed by almost all governments. The same machinery is provided to facilitate or to impedeeverychange alike, in great or in small matters; the same mode is prescribed for the maintaining, or abrogating, or introducing ofeverylaw andeveryinstitution alike. Among you, for instance, an act for regulating the manufacture of soap, oran act which should introduce a complete change into your constitution,—which should take away or restore the liberties of half the nation,—must go through exactly the same forms, and be passed or rejected by the same authorities under the same regulations: in short, you are like a tree whose leaf-stalks and main roots have neither more nor less toughness and stoutness the one than the other.’
“Now this is a state of things which he considered as always inexpedient, and often dangerous, and which he accordingly proposed to remedy. The system which he recommended, and which has been universally adopted, is this. All our laws are divided into two classes; the ordinary or repealable laws, and the fundamental. The former are enacted, altered, or repealed much in the same manner as all laws of all other nations: but a fundamental law is one which there exists no immediate power to enact, annul, or amend; and it is forbidden by the rules of the house to propose any measure that, even incidentally, goes to defeat or interfere with the operation of any fundamental law. But it is allowed to propose, and topass, a bill for removing any fundamental law from the list, and reducing it to an ordinary law; after which, it is open to be dealt with like any other law. So, also, it is allowed to pass a bill for placing any already existing ordinary law on the list of fundamentals.
“The enactment, therefore, or repeal of a fundamental law, may be accomplished attwosteps, though not at one; but it is further provided that these two steps shall not take place in one session of parliament.” [He was describing the details, he said, in the terms, and according to the usages, of the kingdom of Nether-London; having premised that there is a substantial agreement in principle throughout all the states on this subject.] “When it is proposed to remove a law from the list of fundamentals, the motion made is, ‘that such and such a law shall,at the close of the present session, cease to be fundamental.’ It remains, therefore, even should the motion be carried, and the act receive the royal assent, irrevocable during the existing session. When, again, the reverse measure is to be proposed, of enrolling on the list of fundamentals some existing law,an act must have first passed, authorizing the legislature to take into consideration, in theensuing(or some subsequent session) the question of enrolling such and such a law.
“Lastly, another and more important safeguard against precipitancy, is that, in the case of a motion for removing any law from the list of the fundamentals, or adding one to that list, every member who does not voteforthe motion is, by a rule of the house, reckoned, whether present or absent, as having votedagainstit. In other words, such a motion can be carried only by anabsolutemajority of the whole house, not by a mere comparative majority of memberspresent.”
Mr. Sibthorpe having interposed a remark, that there is something in the British constitution of the nature of a fundamental law, inasmuch as it is treason to propose the abolition of kingly government,—so that the maintenance of that government is irrevocable till a bill shall first have been passed for altering the laws of treason,—Mr. Adamson admitted that this was so far on the same footing with the law he had been describing; “but,” added he, “if any oneshould—which I allow is highly improbable—propose such an alteration of the laws of treason, that question might legally be put to the vote in as thin a house as is competent to transact ordinary business. I think you would do well, after introducing our last regulation as to an absolute majority, to place some more of your laws on the same footing. Not that there would be any occasion for saying anything about treason. With you, as with us, it would no doubt be quite sufficient that a member should be at once ‘called to order’ if he presumed to make any motion contrary to the rules of the house.
“You would find, I think,” he continued, “that the adoption of our system in regard to fundamental laws would tend to promote among you that comparative calmness and moderation which you have remarked in our proceedings, and to mitigate the vehemence with which, by your accounts, one set of men oppose every change, good or bad, while another seem to be hostile to everything that is established. Those who are by temper and habit most disposed to the dread of innovation, lest rashschemes should be adopted, would have their apprehensions somewhat calmed by seeing a provision made at least against any great change being introduced with inconsideratehaste; and those, again, who are most disposed to dread the perpetuation of abuses, might be moderated in their impatient eagerness for reform, by seeing a regular path open for the examination and remedy of anything, however consecrated by long usage, that should appear, on mature deliberation, to be evil.
“That you would be exempt from the possibility of error, or that we are so, it would be an absurd presumption to pretend. Our system does not profess to make human judgment infallible; it professes only to provide that our deliberative assemblies shall decide according to thebestof their judgment, and shall neither retain nor reject anything, without a full opportunity at least being given for the exercise of deliberate reflection and mature discussion. To attempt more than this is mere folly. One generation of fallible men has neither the right nor the power to supersede for ever, by irrevocable laws, the judgment of all future generationsof their posterity; though the endeavour to do so may delay a beneficial change, and convert it, when it does come, into a noxious one. The will of a whole nation can no more be permanently and effectually stopped in its course than the current of a river. If you dam up the regular channel, you cause it first to flood the neighbouring country, and then to work itself new and circuitous channels. You may think yourself well off if this is the worst. Should your dam be ultimately burst, a fierce and destructive deluge of revolutionary violence will succeed.”
The debate which the visitors witnessed, and which led to the foregoing explanations, terminated in the removal of the law in question from the list of fundamentals. But as the minority had been considerable, the general expectation was, that before the next session,—in which alone the final repeal of the law could be proposed,—a dissolution of parliament would take place, in order that the sentiments of the people on the subject might be fully ascertained.