members, allocated on a basis of population and elected by the representative bodies of the primary units (the townships and city wards) as already described.  The members of the upper house would be elected by the legislative bodies of the several states on nomination by the Governor.  The chief executive of the nation would be chosen by the two legislative bodies, in joint session, from amongst the then governors of the several states.  He should certainly hold office for “good behaviour,” and his cabinet would be responsible to the legislature as provided for in the case of the state governments.

I do not offer this programme with any pride of paternity; probably it would not work very well, but it could hardly prove less efficacious than our present system under conditions as they have come to be.  This cannot continue indefinitely, for it is so hopelessly defective that it is bound to bring about its own ruin, with the probable substitution of some doctrinaire device engendered by the natural revolt against an intolerable abuse.  If only we could see conditions clearly and estimate them at something approaching their real value, we should rapidly develop a constructive public opinion that, even though it represented a minority, might by the very force behind it compel the majority to acquiesce in a radical reformation.  Unfortunately we do not do this, we are hypnotized by phrases and deluded by vain theories, as Mr. Chesterton says: 

“So drugged and deadened is the public mind by the conventional public utterances, so accustomed have we grown to public men talking this sort of pompous nonsense and no other, that we are sometimes quite shocked by the revelation of what men really think, or else of what they really say.”

We do, now and then, confess that legislation is as a whole foolish, frivolous and opportunist; that administration is wasteful, incompetent and frequently venal; that the governmental personnel, legislative, administrative and executive, is of a low order in point of character, intelligence and culture—­and tending lower each day.  We admit this, for the evidence is so conspicuous that to deny it would be hypocrisy, but something holds us back from recognizing the nexus between effect and cause.  Unrestricted immigration, universal suffrage, rotation in office, the subjection of many offices and measures to popular vote, the parliamentary system, government by political parties—­all these customs and habits into which we have fallen have arrived at failure which presages disaster.  They have failed because the character of the people that functioned through these various engines had failed, diluted by the low mentality and character-content of millions of immigrants and their offspring, degraded by the false values and vicious standards imposed by industrial civilization, foot-loose from all binding and control of a vital and potent religious impulse or religious organism.