The Nature Of Representative Government...
Instead of the function of governing, for which it is radically
unfit, the proper office of a representative assembly is to
watch and control the government; to throw the light of publicity
on its acts; to compel a full exposition and justification of
all of them which any one considers questionable; to cinsure
them if found condemnable, and, if the men who compose the government
abuse their trust, or fulfill it in a manner which conflicts
with the deliberate sense of the nation, to expel them from
office, and either expressly or virtually appoint their successors.
This is surely ample power, and security enough for the liberty
of the nation. In addition to this, the Parliament has an office
not inferior even to this in importance; to be at once the nation’s
Committee of Grievances and its Congress of Opinions; an arena
in which not only the general opinion of the nation, but that
of every section of it, and, as far as possible, of every eminent
individual whom it contains, can produce itself in full light
and challenge discussion; where every person in the country
may count upon finding somebody who speaks his mind as well
or better than he could speak it himself–not to friends
and partisans exclusively, but in the face of opponents, to
be tested by adverse controversy; where those whose opinion
is overruled, feel satisfied that it is heard, and set aside
not by a mere act of will, but for what are thought superior
reasons, and commend themselves as such to the representatives
of the majority of the nation; where every party or opinion
in the country can muster its strength, and be cured of any
illusion concerning the number or power of its adherents; where
the opinion which prevails in the nation makes itself manifest
as prevailing, and marshals its hosts in the presence of the
government, which is thus enabled and compelled to give way
to it on the mere manifestation, without the actual employment
of its strength; where statesmen can assure themselves, far
more certainly than by any other signs, what elements of opinion
and power are growing and what declining, and are enabled to
shape their measures with some regard not solely to present
exigencies, but to tendencies in progress. Representative assemblies
are often taunted by their enemies with being places of mere
talk and bavardage. There has seldom been more misplaced derision.
I know not how a representative assembly can more usefully employ
itself than in talk, when the subject of talk is the great public
interests of the country, and every sentence of it represents
the opinion either of some important body of persons in the
nation, or of an individual in whom some such body have reposed
their confidence. A place where every interest and shade of
opinion in the country can have its cause even passionately
pleaded, in the face of the government and of all other interests
and opinions, can compel them to listen, and either comply,
or state clearly why they do not, is in itself, if it answered
no other purpose, one of the most important political institutions
that can exist any where, and one of the foremost benefits of
free government. Such “talking” would never be looked
upon with disparagement if it were not allowed to stop “doing”;
which it never would, if assemblies knew and acknowledged that
talking and discussion are their proper business, while doing,
as the result of discussion, is the task not of a miscellaneous
body, but of individuals specially trained to it; that the fit
office of an assembly is to see that those individuals are honestly
and intelligently chosen, and to interfere no further with them,
except by unlimited latitude of suggestion and criticism, and
by applying or withholding the final seal of national assent.
It is for want of this judicious reserve that popular assemblies
attempt to do what they can not 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. There
are no means of combining these benefits except by separating
the functions which guaranty the one from those which essentially
require the other; by disjoining the office of control and criticism
from the actual conduct of affairs, and devolving the former
on the representatives of the Many, while securing for the latter,
under strict responsibility to the nation, the acquired knowledge
and practiced intelligence of a specially trained and experienced
Few.
from Considerations on
Representative Government
John Stuart Mill, 1852
