It is for want of
this judicious reserve that popular assemblies attempt to do what they
cannot do well- to govern and legislate- and provide no machinery but
their own for much of it, when of course every hour spent in talk is
an hour withdrawn from actual business.
But the very fact which most unfits such bodies for a Council of
Legislation qualifies them the more for their other office- namely,
that they are not a selection of the greatest political minds in the
country, from whose opinions little could with certainty be inferred
concerning those of the nation, but are, when properly constituted,
a fair sample of every grade of intellect among the people which is at
all entitled to a voice in public affairs. Their part is to indicate
wants, to be an organ for popular demands, and a place of adverse
discussion for all opinions relating to public matters, both great and
small; and, along with this, to check by criticism, and eventually
by withdrawing their support, those high public officers who really
conduct the public business, or who appoint those by whom it is
conducted. Nothing but the restriction of the function of
representative bodies within these rational limits will enable the
benefits of popular control to be enjoyed in conjunction with the no
less important requisites (growing ever more important as human
affairs increase in scale and in complexity) of skilled legislation
and administration.
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