sary changes in minor details. It would be enough to let the
treaty be laid upon the table of both Houses, say for fourteen days,
and to acquire validity unless objected to by one House or other before
that interval had expired.

II.

This is all which I think I need say on the domestic events which have
changed, or suggested changes, in the English Constitution since this
book was written. But there are also some foreign events which have
illustrated it, and of these I should like to say a few words.

Naturally, the most striking of these illustrative changes comes from
France. Since 1789 France has always been trying political experiments,
from which others may profit much, though as yet she herself has
profited little. She is now trying one singularly illustrative of the
English Constitution. When the first edition of this book was published
I had great difficulty in persuading many people that it was possible
in a non-monarchical State, for the real chief of the practical
executive--the Premier as we should call him--to be nominated and to be
removable by the vote of the National Assembly. The United States and
its copies were the only present and familiar Republics, and in these
the system was exactly opposite. The executive was there appointed by
the people as the legislature was too. No conspicuous example of any
other sort of Republic then existed. But now France has given an
example--M. Thiers is (with one exception) just the chef du pouvoir
executif that I endeavoured more than once in this book to describe. He
is appointed by and is removable by the Assembly. He comes down and
speaks in it just as our Premier does; he is responsible for managing
it just as our Premier is. No one can any longer doubt the possibility
of a republic in which the executive and the legislative authorities
were united and fixed; no one can assert such union to be the
incommunicable attribute of a Constitutional Monarchy. But,
unfortunately, we can as yet only infer from this experiment that such
a Constitution is possible; we cannot as yet say whether it will be bad
or good. The circumstances are very peculiar, and that in three ways.
First, the trial of a specially Parliamentary Republic, of a Republic
where Parliament appoints the Minister, is made in a nation which has,
to say the least of it, no peculiar aptitude for Parliamentary
Government; which has possibly a peculiar inaptitude for it. In the
last but one of these essa