estion of taxation.

Gradually, however, these representatives of the "commons" were
consulted upon many of the problems and the meeting of noblemen, bishops
and city delegates developed into a regular Parliament, a place "ou l'on
parfait," which means in English where people talked, before important
affairs of state were decided upon.

But the institution of such a general advisory-board with certain
executive powers was not an English invention, as seems to ke the
general belief, and government by a "king and his parliament" was by no
means restricted to the British Isles. You will find it in every part of
Europe. In some countries, like France, the rapid increase of the Royal
power after the Middle Ages reduced the influence of the "parliament"
to nothing. In the year 1302 representatives of the cities had been
admitted to the meeting of the French Parliament, but five centuries had
to pass before this "Parliament" was strong enough to assert the rights
of the middle class, the so-called Third Estate, and break the power
of the king. Then they made up for lost time and during the French
Revolution, abolished the king, the clergy and the nobles and made the
representatives of the common people the rulers of the land. In Spain
the "cortex" (the king's council) had been opened to the commoners as
early as the first half of the twelfth century. In the Germain Empire,
a number of important cities had obtained the rank of "imperial cities"
whose representatives must be heard in the imperial diet.

In Sweden, representatives of the people attended the sessions of the
Riksdag at the first meeting of the year 1359. In Denmark the Daneholf,
the ancient national assembly, was re-established in 1314, and, although
the nobles often regained control of the country at the expense of
the king and the people, the representatives of the cities were never
completely deprived of their power.

In the Scandinavian country, the story of representative government is
particularly interesting. In Iceland, the "Althing," the assembly of all
free landowners, who managed the affairs of the island, began to hold
regular meetings in the ninth century and continued to do so for more
than a thousand years.

In Switzerland, the freemen of the different cantons defended their
assemblies against the attempts of a number of feudal neighbours with
great success.

Finally, in the Low Countries, in Holland, the councils of the different
duchies and