ble arguments, but four things may, I think, be said
in reply to, or mitigation of them. A little examination will show that
this change of Ministers is essential to a Parliamentary government;
that something like it will happen in all elective Governments, and
that worse happens under Presidential government; that it is not
necessarily prejudicial to a good administration, but that, on the
contrary, something like it is a prerequisite of good administration;
that the evident evils of English administration are not the results of
Parliamentary government, but of grave deficiencies in other parts of
our political and social state; that, in a word, they result not from
what we have, but from what we have NOT.

As to the first point, those who wish to remove the choice of Ministers
from Parliament have not adequately considered what a Parliament is. A
Parliament is nothing less than a big meeting of more or less idle
people. In proportion as you give it power it will inquire into
everything, settle everything, meddle in everything. In an ordinary
despotism, the powers of a despot are limited by his bodily capacity,
and by the calls of pleasure; he is but one man; there are but twelve
hours in his day, and he is not disposed to employ more than a small
part in dull business; he keeps the rest for the court, or the harem,
or for society. He is at the top of the world, and all the pleasures of
the world are set before him. Mostly there is only a very small part of
political business which he cares to understand, and much of it (with
the shrewd sensual sense belonging to the race) he knows that he will
never understand. But a Parliament is composed of a great number of men
by no means at the top of the world. When you establish a predominant
Parliament, you give over the rule of the country to a despot who has
unlimited time--who has unlimited vanity--who has, or believes he has,
unlimited comprehension, whose pleasure is in action, whose life is
work. There is no limit to the curiosity of Parliament. Sir Robert Peel
once suggested that a list should be taken down of the questions asked
of him in a single evening; they touched more or less on fifty
subjects, and there were a thousand other subjects which by parity of
reason might have been added too. As soon as bore A ends, bore B
begins. Some inquire from genuine love of knowledge, or from a real
wish to improve what they ask about; others to see their name in the
papers; oth