Government In 1820 to the political difficulties of the eve of the Reform Bill.  Again, Lord Grey’s work on Parliamentary Government failed in making its expected mark on legislation, but it was worth mentioning because It goes on the lines of the very electoral law in Belgium which Sir Henry Maine (p. 109) describes as deserving our most respectful attention—­an attention, I suspect, which it is as little likely to receive from either of our two political parties as Lord Grey’s suggestions.  Nor should we neglect Sir G.C.  Lewis’s little book, or Mr. Harrison’s volume on Order and Progress, which abounds in important criticism and suggestion for the student of the abstract politics of modern societies.  In the United States, too, and In our own colonies, there have been attempts, not without merit, to state and to deal with some of the drawbacks of popular government.

Nothing has been done, however, that makes the appearance in the field of a mind of so high an order as Sir Henry Maine’s either superfluous or unwelcome.  It is hardly possible that he should discuss any subject within the publicist’s range, without bringing into light some of its less superficial aspects, and adding observations of originality and value to the stock of political thought.  To set people thinking at all on the more general and abstract truths of that great subject which is commonly left to be handled lightly, unsystematically, fragmentarily, in obedience to the transitory necessities of the day, by Ministers, members of Parliament, journalists, electors, and the whole host who live intellectually and politically from hand to mouth, is in itself a service of all but the first order.  Service of the very first order is not merely to propound objections, but to devise working answers, and this is exactly what Sir Henry Maine abstains from doing.

No one will think the moment for a serious political inquiry ill chosen.  We have just effected an immense recasting of our system of parliamentary representation.  The whole consequences of the two great Acts of 1884 and 1885 are assuredly not to be finally gauged by anything that has happened during the recent election.  Yet even this single election has brought about a crisis of vast importance in one part of the United Kingdom, by forcing the question of an Irish constitution to the front.  It is pretty clear, also, that the infusion of a large popular element into the elective House has made more difficult the maintenance of its old relations with the hereditary House.  Even if there were no others, these two questions alone, and especially the first of them, will make the severest demands on the best minds in the country.  We shall be very fortunate if the crisis produces statesmen as sagacious as those American publicists of whom Sir Henry Maine rightly entertains so exalted an opinion.