d to fight and once more to depose a
king. In the nineteenth century, by a succession of reform acts, King
and Parliament admitted tradesmen, farmers, and working men to a full
share in the workings of the state, and only recently the Commons have
supplanted the Lords as the leading legislative body of the nation.
The story of Great Britain is a tale of growing democracy and
increasing efficiency.

The story of local government and the story of imperial government
might be placed side by side with the story of national government,
and each would reveal the political principles that have guided
British progress. Social need, patient experiment, and growth in
efficiency are significant phrases that help to explain the story.
Every nation has worked out its government in its own way, interfered
with occasionally by interested parties on the outside, but the
general line of progress has been the same--local experimentation,
federation or union more often imposed than agreed upon by popular
consent, and a slow growth of popular rights over government by a
privileged few. Present tendency is in the direction of safeguarding
the interests of all by a fully representative government, in which
the individual efficiency of prince or commoner alike shall have due
weight, but no one sovereign or class shall rule the people as a
whole.

334. =The Organization of Government.=--The political organization
depends upon the functions that the state has to perform, as the
structure of any group corresponds to its functions. The modern
national machinery is a complicated system, and is becoming more so as
constitutional conventions define more in detail the powers and forms
of government, and as legislatures enter the field of social reform,
but the simplest attempt at regulation involves several steps, and so
naturally there are several departments of government. The first step
is the election of those who are to make the laws. Practically all
modern states recognize the principle that the people are at least to
have a share in government; this is managed by the popular election of
their representatives in the various departments of government. The
second step is lawmaking by the representative legislature, congress,
or parliament, usually after previous deliberation and recommendation
by a committee; in some states the people have the right by referendum
to ratify or reject the legislation, and even to initiate such
legislation as the