high degree useful; that though a king
with high courage and fine discretion--a king with a genius for the
place--is always useful, and at rare moments priceless, yet that a
common king, a king such as birth brings, is of no use at difficult
crises, while in the common course of things his aid is neither likely
nor required--he will do nothing, and he need do nothing. But we
happily find that a new country need not fall back into the fatal
division of powers incidental to a Presidential government; it may, if
other conditions serve, obtain the ready, well-placed, identical sort
of sovereignty which belongs to the English Constitution, under the
unroyal form of Parliamentary government.

NO. VIII.

THE PREREQUISITES OF CABINET GOVERNMENT, AND THE PECULIAR FORM WHICH
THEY HAVE ASSUMED IN ENGLAND.

Cabinet government is rare because its prerequisites are many. It
requires the co-existence of several national characteristics which are
not often found together in the world, and which should be perceived
more distinctly than they often are. It is fancied that the possession
of a certain intelligence, and a few simple virtues, are the sole
requisites. The mental and moral qualities are necessary, but much else
is necessary also. A Cabinet government is the government of a
committee selected by the legislature, and there are therefore a double
set of conditions to it: first, those which are essential to all
elective governments as such; and second, those which are requisite to
this particular elective government. There are prerequisites for the
genus, and additional ones for the species.

The first prerequisite of elective government is the MUTUAL CONFIDENCE
of the electors. We are so accustomed to submit to be ruled by elected
Ministers, that we are apt to fancy all mankind would readily be so
too. Knowledge and civilisation have at least made this progress, that
we instinctively, without argument, almost without consciousness, allow
a certain number of specified persons to choose our rulers for us. It
seems to us the simplest thing in the world. But it is one of the
gravest things.

The peculiar marks of semi-barbarous people are diffused distrust and
indiscriminate suspicion. People, in all but the most favoured times
and places, are rooted to the places where they were born, think the
thoughts of those places, can endure no other thoughts. The next parish
even is suspected. Its inhabitants have different usage