the corner into the station. I suppose the train is coming. How easily you are startled!

MISS W. (recovering and recollecting). I must go—(drawing back)-I must go this minute. (Holds out her hands. He takes them, and is about to draw her to him, but she resists.) No-no (passionately). Not now. But I love you-I love you-and I want to tell you again that I have never loved anyone in my whole life before—I mean in this way. It has changed everything. (As he makes a movement towards her.) No-no. (He kisses her hands, and draws back with an air of puzzled, but happy submission. She hurries towards her hat, takes it up, and hesitates. 'Den Langen Ganzen Tag' is heard again.)

Enter, from back, MRS. FENNING and VIOLET, laughing. They go towards hotel.

VIOLET. It was exquisite.

MRS. F. Why, there's Major Travers still-and someone is playing 'Den Langen Ganzen Tag' again. (Looking back at him.) Are you waiting for another verdict? (RIGBY appears L., comes down steps.) We are just going in to look for that portrait, Mr. Rigby.

RIGBY. Ah! I forget what she was like. (To TRAVERS in a low kindly voice) I got there first and tore it out. I didn't want to see her given away to those women.

TRAVERS (as if a horrible suspicion were dawning upon him). What-what do you mean?

[MRS. F. and VIOLET go up steps into hotel. Exit RIGBY

at back.

MISS W. (as TRAVERS goes towards her). I am going now-it's the end of it all. I told you I stood by Heaven's open door-I am closing it on myself for ever.

TRAVERS. Going-the end?

MISS W. (starting). There is the train-I must go-I shall be too late. (Turns towards path leading to station, then faces TRAVERS) You said it was an awful thing to be that woman. Only I know what it is. To think that I should say it to you! For I love you-God knows I do. Perhaps that is why He has turned His search-light here. No-no-you mustn't come; you mustn't move. It's the last thing you can do for me. It is only for a moment. (Then, with an odd, desperate smile) Oh! don't you understand? I-I am Mrs. Waylett!

TRAVERS (drawing back, astounded). You?—you!

MISS W. Yes! And I did it-I did it. And I am not even sorry (shuddering). I am glad I am glad!

[Exit towards station.

Enter RIGBY, R. (puts his hand on TRAVERS's arm).

TRAVERS (shaking him off). You knew!

RIGBY. Recognised her just now, when they were all out here. There goes the train. (TRAVERS makes a step towards it.) She had only just time to catch it.

TRAVERS. Mrs. Waylett!

CURTAIN.

LUCY CLIFTord.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.

In no country in the world is so much attention paid to the practical, and so little to the theoretical, side of politics as in England. Our interest seems to be absorbed by the affairs of the moment and the personality of a few conspicuous public men. A gigantic audience can be collected anywhere and at any time to listen to a speech by a popular, or even an unpopular, party leader; and the Press and the platform will rage furiously for months or weeks over the details of the measure which happens to fill the bill' for the time being. Meanwhile the large changes and organic modifications which the Constitution is undergoing from day to day pass almost unnoticed. It is, no doubt, all part of that supremely practical instinct which we assume to be one of our national characteristics. The British motto, alike in public and private life, is

VOL. LIII-No. 312

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'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.' We go on with the business of the hour, doing that which seems necessary, and making our precedents as we want them, leaving principles and theories to take care of themselves. There is a great deal to be said for this method, and assuredly it is the only one which is likely to be adopted in the management of our national, and even our imperial, concerns. Yet it is worth while occasionally to cast a plummet into the depths, and to ascertain how we stand and, if possible, whither we are drifting. Our Constitution is in a continual state of flux and change. It is not the same to-day as it was in the reign of George the Third, or in the earlier decades of Queen Victoria, or even in the later Ministries of Mr. Gladstone. And the process of modification has been going on with unexpected, or at any rate unmarked, rapidity during the period which lies immediately behind us.

Some years ago, the present writer endeavoured to draw attention to certain aspects of the subject in the pages of this Review. In December 1894 an article was published which bore the title 'If the House of Commons were Abolished?' It was not, of course, the intention to suggest that the House of Commons either could, should, or ought to be done out of existence. My purpose was merely to point out how largely the functions of the Representative Chamber, which is popularly supposed to exercise supreme control over legislation and over executive government, had been superseded by various agencies. It was, for instance, shown that the House had practically forfeited its command over Supply, which has passed absolutely into the hands of the Cabinet; and that its power to supervise legislation has also been made over to the same allabsorbing Committee. Again, the old constitutional privilege of the Commons to insist on the redress of grievances has partly fallen into desuetude, and partly it has been transferred to other quarters. As a ventilating chamber' the Lower House finds its duties much less cumbrously performed by the Press and the platform, and, I may perhaps add, by the leading periodical publications. Then, if one carries the matter further, it is not difficult to demonstrate that the mere power of choosing a Ministry-the greatest and most valued of all the prerogatives of Parliament-has been encroached upon by the party organisations in the constituencies and by intangible but very genuine social influences of various kinds.

The most serious and noticeable of these changes is undoubtedly the increase in the power of the Cabinet. I venture to think that everything I wrote on this subject eight years ago has been warranted by subsequent experience. It was said in the paper already mentioned that legislation, to all intents and purposes, has become the work of the Ministry in office. I am not referring merely to the well-recognised fact that the private member has

little more power to pass a Bill, against the will, or contrary to the inclination, of the Cabinet, than the man in the street. That, of course, is by this time thoroughly understood, and the hackneyed grievance of the unofficial M.P. has now ceased to be regarded as an abuse, and is accepted as little more than a rather poor joke. But as things stand, the majority of the House, with the exception of its operative Committee, is almost equally powerless. The Cabinet draws up its legislative programme without consulting its three or four hundred rank-and-file supporters, and without any particular regard to their wishes and susceptibilities. It carries as much of the catalogue as it can find time for, or as it thinks public opinion will stand, and that is virtually the end of the matter. Even the discussion in the House of Commons has become little more than formal. In the 'flood of verbiage' and the torrential congestion of public business, there is no time to read through all the debates, nor has any newspaper the space to report them in extenso. The argumentative combat is a sort of two-handed, or sixhanded, duel between selected front-bench champions, who might just as well be delivering their harangues on the platform, or writing them in the newspapers, as discharging them to an array of packed or half-empty green benches at Westminster. Very often they do adopt these other alternatives. A speech at a great provincial meeting by Lord Rosebery or Mr. Balfour, by Mr. Chamberlain, Sir William Harcourt, or Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, may prove a far more efficient factor in the public controversy a more valuable card in the party game-than any display of oratory in either House of Parliament. And we have known occasions when at least as much effect has been produced by an article from an eminent statesman in a monthly review, or a long letter addressed to the editor of a great London daily journal. As a discussion chamber, and even as a debating society, the House of Commons has largely lost its utility and meaning.

It would occupy too much space to go into all the causes of this remarkable development. The facts, I think, are recognised more widely than was the case in 1894. Ministerial omnipotence has become almost an accepted phenomenon. The situation is regarded with 'sombre acquiescence' in some quarters, with irritation and anxiety in others; but that it exists is generally admitted. It is seen, among other things, that a general election is now as a rule a mixture of Referendum and Plébiscite. The electorate are asked not so much to choose between rival sets of principles as to vote for a Measure or to vote for a Man. If there are two commanding personalities before the nation, which was the case, as a rule, during the greater part of the half-century that divided the Reform Bill Ministry from the retirement of Lord Beaconsfield, the constituencies are practically solicited to exercise their option in favour