for conducting the government
of a country. Where parties do not represent such issues, but are held
together by unnatural organisations, they do, it is true, obscure the
orderly government of a country. The remedy is to be found, not in an
enforced and arbitrary creation of an Executive, but in the right election
of the Legislature, of which the Executive must be a reflection if the
Legislature is to work harmoniously with it, and keep a constant control
over it. To attempt by arbitrary provisions to create an Executive that
does not accurately and at all times reflect the Legislature (on whatever
party lines that Legislature be composed) is automatically to remove that
Executive from the continuous control of the Legislature. And it is surely
the essential business of a Constitution to insist that that control be
emphasised, not diminished. Otherwise, whatever be the intention, the
Executive will become irresponsible, government will fall into the hands
of rulers who can only with difficulty be removed, and constant friction
will ensue.

Such is the broader line of argument. In detail the Executive provisions
of the present draft seem even less defensible. For authority is reposed
in an Executive Council formed of two parts. Of twelve Ministers, it is
stated, four must be members of the Chamber and eight must not be
members--or, if they were members before, they cannot continue to be
members, and must resign. It is true that on the motion of the President
of the Council these four (who are members of the Chamber) may be
increased to seven; but the draft makes it perfectly clear that according
to the normal procedure under the Constitution the proportions are to be
four and eight; and it is on the normal, not on the exceptional, procedure
that attention must therefore necessarily be laid.

Eight out of twelve Ministers, therefore, are not permitted by the draft
to be, or to remain, members of the Legislature. If they were members
before their appointment as Ministers, they must resign. Consequently,
within a few days of a General Election, bye-elections become necessary in
respect of so many Ministers as were elected as deputies--although other
Ministers who are elected as deputies may continue to remain both as
Ministers and as deputies. The General Election, however, was held under
the Constitution on the principles of Proportional Representation. But
bye-elections, in such a case, cannot be held according to Propor