balance
parts in government that no one man can tell for much or turn affairs to
his will. One of the most instructive studies a politician could undertake
would be a study of the infinite limitations laid upon the power of the
Russian Czar, notwithstanding the despotic theory of the Russian
constitution--limitations of social habit, of official prejudice, of race
jealousies, of religious predilections, of administrative machinery even,
and the inconvenience of being himself only one man, and that a very young
one, over-sensitive and touched with melancholy. He can do only what can be
done with the Russian people. He can no more make them quick, enlightened,
and of the modern world of the West than he can change their tastes in
eating. He is simply the leader of Russians.

An English or American statesman is better off. He leads a thinking nation,
not a race of peasants topped by a class of revolutionists and a caste of
nobles and officials. He can explain new things to men able to understand,
persuade men willing and accustomed to make independent and intelligent
choices of their own. An English statesman has an even better opportunity
to lead than an American statesman, because in England executive power and
legislative initiative are both intrusted to the same grand committee, the
ministry of the day. The ministers both propose what shall be made law and
determine how it shall be enforced when enacted. And yet English reformers,
like American, have found office a veritable cold-water bath for their
ardor for change. Many a man who has made his place in affairs as the
spokesman of those who see abuses and demand their reformation has passed
from denunciation to calm and moderate advice when he got into Parliament,
and has turned veritable conservative when made a minister of the crown.
Mr. Bright was a notable example. Slow and careful men had looked upon him
as little better than a revolutionist so long as his voice rang free and
imperious from the platforms of public meetings. They greatly feared the
influence he should exercise in Parliament, and would have deemed the
constitution itself unsafe could they have foreseen that he would some day
be invited to take office and a hand of direction in affairs. But it turned
out that there was nothing to fear. Mr. Bright lived to see almost every
reform he had urged accepted and embodied in legislation; but he assisted
at the process of their realization with greater and gre