ABSTRACT
The author proposes to examine the present condition of the House of Commons, and that of the Cabinet, and, in part, of the Civil Service upon the efficiency and imaginative capacity of which so much of the adequacy of Parliamentary Government depends. Severe judgments have been passed upon the effectiveness of the House of Commons not only by those who have observed it merely from without, but, hardly less, by many who have known it intimately from within. The remarkable politician apart, a dutiful obedience to the administrative heads of his Department is much the most direct road to the reputation of a sound and knowledgeable man. But we are sternly admonished against the danger of confidence in the bureaucracy. The little officials, generally speaking, are not only greedy for power, they have a habit of strangling themselves in their own red tape.
