The laws themselves will
naturally define the penalties, and fix the mode of their enforcement.
It may be requisite, to meet extreme cases, that the power of the
central authority should extend to dissolving the local representative
council, or dismissing the local executive: but not to making new
appointments, or suspending the local institutions. Where Parliament
has not interfered, neither ought any branch of the executive to
interfere with authority; but as an adviser and critic, an enforcer of
the laws, and a denouncer to Parliament or the local constituencies of
conduct which it deems condemnable, the functions of the executive are
of the greatest possible value.
Some may think that however much the central authority surpasses the
local in knowledge of the principles of administration, the great
object which has been so much insisted on, the social and political
education of the citizens, requires that they should be left to manage
these matters by their own, however imperfect, lights. To this it
might be answered, that the education of the citizens is not the
only thing to be considered; government and administration do not
exist for that alone, great as its importance is. But the objection
shows a very imperfect understanding of the function of popular
institutions as a means of political instruction. It is but a poor
education that associates ignorance with ignorance, and leaves them,
if they care for knowledge, to grope their way to it without help, and
to do without it if they do not.
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