st pause to consider two of the most
important, because they are typical of British methods. The first is the
invention called the Principle of Representation. Representation is a
device by which, and by which alone, the area of effective government
can be extended without the sacrifice of liberty. It is a device by
which the scattered many can make their will prevail over the few at the
centre. Under any non-representative system, whether in a State or a
Church or a Trade Union or any other association, men always find
themselves set before the inexorable dilemma between freedom and
weakness on the one hand and strength and tyranny on the other. Either
the State or the association has to be kept small, so that the members
themselves can meet and keep in touch with all that goes on. Or it is
allowed to expand and grow strong, in which case power becomes
concentrated at the centre and the great body of members loses all
effective control. The ancient world saw no way out of this dilemma. The
great Oriental monarchies never contemplated even the pretence of
popular control. The city-states of Greece, where democracy originated,
set such store in consequence by the personal liberty of the individual
citizen, that they preferred to remain small, and suffered the
inevitable penalty of their weakness. Rome, growing till she
overshadowed the world, sacrificed liberty in the process. Nor was the
Christian Church, when it became a large-scale organization, able to
overcome the dilemma. It was not till thirteenth-century England that a
way out was found. Edward I in summoning two burgesses from each borough
and two knights from each shire to his model Parliament in 1295, hit on
a method of doing business which was destined to revolutionize the art
of government. He stipulated that the men chosen by their fellows to
confer with him must come, to quote the exact words of the summons,
armed with 'full and sufficient power for themselves and for the
community of the aforesaid county, and the said citizens and burgesses
for themselves and the communities of the aforesaid cities and boroughs
separately, there and then, for doing what shall then be ordained
according to the Common Council in the premises, so that the aforesaid
business shall not remain unfinished in any way for defect of this
power'. In other words, the members were to come to confer with the king
not as individuals speaking for themselves alone, but as
representatives.