with disputes which are not of a trivial character. Bills to enlarge the Common Law jurisdiction of these popular and expeditious Courts have more than once been introduced into the House of Lords by the Lord Chancellor for the time being, but they have always been killed by the influence of the lawyers in the House of Commons. The real reform needed is the abolition of all limit upon the jurisdiction of the County Courts, so that every dispute may first be heard in the County Court of the locality where it arises. In trivial cases the judgment of the County Court should be final; in other cases an appeal should lie direct from the County Court to the Court of Appeal, without the intervention of the High Court. This important reform would not only greatly diminish the cost of litigation, thus relieving the productive industries of the country from a heavy and unnecessary burden; but it would also tend to strengthen the local life in provincial towns, and consequently to render them less dependent upon the central government. If we are to establish a healthy political system the detailed work of government must in the main be left to the local authorities, and they must have power to dispose of it finally without the interference either of the House of Commons or of the permanent officials at Whitehall. Unless the local authorities have full authority and responsibility within the limits of the sphere of work assigned to them, men of ability and position will shrink from undertaking municipal work. It is, however, equally important that the local authorities should not overburden themselves with duties which are better discharged by commercial companies. There was a rush a few years ago on the part of the municipalities of the kingdom to municipalise everything, and that movement has not yet fully spent its force. It has led to the building up of large local bureaucracies, which are rapidly acquiring the same power of control over our great towns that the central bureaucracy has acquired over the kingdom. There is this element of consolation: that the two bureaucracies, like all Government departments, find their principal joy in fighting with one another, and occasionally while the fight rages the public wins a point-but the public always pays for the cost of the game. So far as industrial undertakings such as gas works and tramways and electricity supply are concerned, the problem to be solved is how to secure the advantages of commercial enterprise without exposing the consumer to the danger of extortionate charges. If a commercial company can be so controlled that it will be unable to exact more than a reasonable profit, then it is probable one may even say certain that better results will be secured through company management than through municipal management. In municipal work, as in Government work, what is popularly known as the 'Government stroke' is persistent. When an enterprise is in the hands of the Government department, everybody who is employed knows that his continued employment is in no way contingent upon the profitableness of the concern. His position is secure as long as he is not guilty of any outrageous offence. Mere idleness in moderation—a very large moderation-is not merely pardoned, it is gently encouraged, for it provides an excuse for bringing more men into the department. The management of the telephones by the Post Office has provided a scandalous example. Men who were keen workers as long as they were employed by the National Telephone Company altered their whole standard of work as soon as they were taken over by the Government. In place of a sporting chance of rapid promotion to the very highest positions through personal efficiency, they discovered that there was nothing before them but a strictly graded automatic rise year by year up to a certain point and then a dead stop. They also discovered that no one had any personal interest in preventing idleness or in economising materials. The inevitable result has been quickly realised: what used to be a profitable undertaking yielding through taxation a substantial revenue to the State is on the verge of becoming, if it has not already become, a charge upon the taxpayer. The lesson that the country should have learnt from the Post Office management of the telegraphs is being repeated with the telephones. In the case of municipal undertakings the results are slightly better, because the working can be more closely watched by the people who are concerned as municipal councillors and as ratepayers to prevent waste. But it is hopeless to expect that a municipal councillor elected for a brief term of office, with his own affairs to attend to, will ever control a big industrial undertaking as well as men who make that work their main business, and whose financial prospects depend upon their success in management. It is not beyond the wit of man to devise schemes which will combine the efficiency of private management with the protection given to the community by public control. In the case of many of the gas companies the problem has indeed been long ago solved. The principal gas companies are restricted as to the profit which they may divide among their shareholders, and cannot increase dividends without lowering the price of gas. Consequently the public shares with the company the benefit of economies in production. In addition, many of the gas companies have established schemes for sharing divisible profits with their employees so as to encourage good work and faithful service. On similar lines it should be possible to establish an equally satisfactory method of dealing with tramways and with electricity supply. The importance of the subject just dealt with lies in this, that if governing bodies, whether central or local, mix themselves up with trading concerns, not only will the trading be badly done but the proper work of those governing bodiesthe work of government-will also suffer. There is the further very important consideration that where large bodies of men are employed directly by a popularly elected body they will inevitably use their votes to obtain better wages for themselves at the expense of their fellow-citizens. This is about the worst form of political corruption that could be devised. The object we all set before us, at any rate in our better moods, is to secure the welfare and the progress of our country. To that end we are most of us willing to make a large sacrifice of private interests, if the need should arise, and to set aside altogether party predilections. But it is useless to wish for the right thing if we make no effort to obtain it. If our political organisation is to be rendered effective for the promotion of public rather than of party or of private interests, those on whose influence the working of that organisation depends must exert themselves to secure the necessary reforms. All comes back to the constituencies. It is they who determine the composition of the House of Commons and through it the whole character of our Government. In every constituency there are many men with clear vision and loyal instincts, eager to serve their country but baffled by the confusion of party cries and disgusted by the glimpses they get of the underworld of politics. Hitherto such men have been powerless because there has been no sufficient moral force to rouse the rank and file of the electorate to patriotic action. That force has now been provided, for the war has awakened the moral sense of the whole community. If the men of leading in each constituency will seize the opportunity now presented to them, they will be able to secure the election of a Parliament which will command the respect of the country, and will thereby possess the requisite authority for a reconstruction of our political system. EDITOR. No. 456 will be published in April. HE movements of peoples within historical times have THE been mainly from East to West. It has thus come about that adventurous crews of pioneers have been constantly tempted to cast themselves adrift from the Atlantic sea-board of Europe in search of new and perhaps better lands. For those who dared this feat in the North the British Isles lay like a net in the sea which caught them in its meshes. The earliest race we seem dimly to discern in Britaindark-skinned and dark-haired Neolithic Iberians it may bedoubtless arrived in this way. Then came the successive waves of Goidels and Brythons from France and Belgium, with the Roman armies in their track, and the Angles and Saxons and Jutes from Denmark and the neighbouring regions, and then the later Northmen from Scandinavia, and finally, strongest of all, the Normans who welded the whole mixture into so firmly compact a mass that there was never a chance again for any later invaders, save only occasional bands of rebellious and stout-hearted refugees from the opposite coast, who, from the sixteenth century and earlier until to-day, have been welcomed rather than repelled, slowly to be amalgamated as congenial elements in the general stock. There were special reasons why this long narrow island of All rights reserved. VOL, 223, NO. 456. 2 |