direction should be displayed it is evidence that the community is unfit for representative government and the pretence of it ought to be abandoned. Better results will be obtained in such case by creating a legislative council mainly composed of members appointed by the government from among the most substantial and reputable elements of the community.

CHAPTER VIII

FURTHER SECURITIES

THE question may be raised whether complete exclusion of the assembly from budget initiative is not incompatible with its office as a grand inquest. How can it conduct investigation with energy and success if it can not, of its own motion, vote funds for the purpose? Is it reasonable to suppose that the government will recommend an appropriation for an investigation of its own acts? The objection, although superficially plausible, will not bear close examination. An assembly that has the government before it is always in a position to inquire, and if any case were presented for detailed investigation no government could thwart it by refusal of funds. For example, let it be supposed that a case exists in which a government is really culpable and is bent on using all its power to avoid investigation! Is it at all credible that the government could manage to avoid it merely by refusing funds? Is it supposable that when large funds are continually being supplied by private contribution for party purposes, that there would be a failure of supply when critics of the government were promoting

an investigation that offered a promising line of attack? The mere matter of funds would be the least of the difficulties that would have to be encountered.

Turning now to a consideration of how far practical experience bears out these theoretical conclusions, it appears that it is just where the grant of public funds is under the exclusive control of the government that the work of investigation is most complete and effective. It is morally impossible for a government, standing before the assembly, and exposed to its criticism, to resist investigation when a prima-facie case has been made out for it. Such action would look like an acknowledgment of guilty participation in the transactions complained of, and that would be too heavy a load to carry when the inevitable time arrived when the government had to go before the country and submit its claims for public confidence to the judgment of the electorate. All that the government is actually able to do for itself is to take steps to insure that the investigation shall be sincere and impartial, and in English practice this is accomplished by constituting what is known as a royal commission. It is appointed by the government, and funds for it are provided by the government, so that conceivably it might be packed by the government, but here again such action would

be an abuse of power that would only intensify the force of adverse criticism, and the government would stand in a sorry position in the presence of the assembly and before the country. As a matter of actual practice, men of such ability, position and special knowledge are selected for membership of such commission that their findings command universal respect. On the other hand, in countries where investigations are financed and staffed by the assembly itself, the usual result is division on party lines, majority and minority reports, with findings commanding so little respect that scarcely any attention is paid to them. Incidentally evidence may be elicited that is really important and which attracts wide-spread attention, but the spirit in which such investigations are conducted makes them fruitless of results of permanent value. Their ordinary purpose is not public benefit but the gathering of party material for electioneering use. In the United States, a marked tendency is manifested to set up investigations as a source of party patronage, each one providing so many more jobs to give out as clerk, messenger, doorkeeper and so on. An alleged need for investigation may also be made an occasion for a pleasant junket at public expense for members and their friends. Even in Switzerland, there has been complaint about the hotel expenses of congres

sional committees. In the United States, among the official perquisites which may be supplied to members out of the legislative budget, are visits to the Rocky Mountain country, or to the West Indies, or the Canal Zone, or the Philippines, or European tours and even trips to the Holy Land. Some years ago when the subject of currency reform was under Congressional investigation, the extent to which it was made the excuse for luxurious foreign travel became a public scandal. There is no way of preventing the watchmen from pilfering and of keeping them to their duty as watchmen, except to deny them any access to the public treasury and nothing short of the English budget rule will do this; nor indeed will that be entirely effective unless supplemented by other constitutional precautions.

Mill was strongly of the opinion that the principle of the budget rule should be extended to general legislation, so that in law-making the assembly should do no more than pass upon recommendations made by experts. His idea was that a commission of professional legislators should be established whereupon the legislative activities of parliament should be thus conditioned:

"No measure would become a law until expressly sanctioned by parliament; and parliament or either house would have the power not only of