ups d'etat_ may in the
future not unfrequently come into discussion in Europe, as it has often
done in South America. As the best observers are more and more
perceiving, parliamentary government worked upon party lines is by no
means an easy thing, and it seldom attains perfection without long
experience and without qualities of mind and character which are very
unequally distributed among the nations of the world. It requires a
spirit of compromise, patience and moderation; the kind of mind which
can distinguish the solid, the practical and the well meaning, from the
brilliant, the plausible and the ambitious, which cares more for useful
results and for the conciliation of many interests and opinions than for
any rigid uniformity and consistency of principle; which, while
pursuing personal ambitions and party aims, can subordinate them on
great occasions to public interests. It needs a combination of
independence and discipline which is not common, and where it does not
exist parliaments speedily degenerate either into an assemblage of
puppets in the hands of party leaders or into disintegrated,
demoralised, insubordinate groups. Some of the foremost nations of the
world--nations distinguished for noble and brilliant intellect; for
splendid heroism; for great achievements in peace and war--have in this
form of government conspicuously failed. In England it has grown with
our growth and strengthened with our strength. We have practised it in
many phases. Its traditions have taken deep root and are in full harmony
with the national character. But in the present century this kind of
government has been adopted by many nations which are wholly unfit for
it, and they have usually adopted it in the most difficult of all
forms--that of an uncontrolled democracy resting upon universal
suffrage. It is becoming very evident that in many countries such
assemblies are wholly incompetent to take the foremost place in
government, but they are so fenced round by oaths and other
constitutional forms that nothing short of violence can take from them a
power which they are never likely voluntarily to relinquish. In such
countries democracy tends much less naturally to the parliamentary
system than to some form of dictatorship, to some despotism resting on
and justified by a plebiscite. It is probable that many transitions in
this direction will take place. They will seldom be carried out through
purely public motives or without perjury a