Considerations on Representative Government |
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absolute monarchy administration administrative business advantage affairs amount appointed aristocracy assembly authority benefit candidate cern character citizens civilization conduct considerable considered constitution degree democracy depends desire despotism dition duty effect election electors equal eral ernment evil exclusively exercise exist federal feel form of government functions give greater House House of Lords human ical important improvement India individual influence institutions intelligence JOHN STUART MILL justice labor legislation less majority means member of Parliament ment mental mind minister minority mode moral nation necessary object oligarchy opinion Parliament party permanent persons plural voting political popular portion position possess practical present principle Progress purpose question reason representation representative body representative democracy representative government rule rulers social society sufficient suffrage superior supposed thing tical tion tive universal suffrage vote voter whole
Popular passages
Page 310 - Where the sentiment of nationality exists in any force, there is a prima facie case for uniting all the members of the nationality under the same government, and a government to themselves apart.
Page 115 - 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 anyone considers questionable; to censure them if found condemnable, and, if the men who compose the government...
Page 106 - The proper duty of a representative assembly in regard to matters of administration is not to decide them by its own vote, but to take care that the persons who have to decide them shall be the proper persons.
Page 78 - ... elementary form, the satisfaction of daily wants; neither the thing done nor the process of doing it introduces the mind to thoughts or feelings extending beyond individuals; if instructive books are within their reach, there is no stimulus to read them; and in most cases the individual has no access to any person of cultivation much superior to his own. Giving him something to do for the public supplies, in a measure, all these deficiencies.
Page 109 - There is hardly any kind of intellectual work which so much needs to be done not only by experienced and exercised minds, but by minds trained to the task through long and laborious study, as the business of making laws.
Page 112 - No one would wish that this body should of itself have any power of enacting laws: the Commission would only embody the element of intelligence in their construction; Parliament would represent that of will. No measure would become a law until expressly sanctioned by Parliament: and Parliament, or either House, would have the power not only of rejecting but of sending back a Bill to the Commission for reconsideration or improvement.
Page 14 - Thus a people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it...
Page 64 - There is no difficulty in showing that the ideally best form of government is that in which the sovereignty, or supreme controlling power in the last resort, is vested in the entire aggregate of the community; every citizen not only having a voice in the exercise of that ultimate sovereignty, but being, at least occasionally, called on to take an actual part in the government, by the personal discharge of some public function, local or general.
Page 79 - He is made to feel himself one of the public, and whatever is for their benefit to be for his benefit.
Page 308 - This feeling of nationality may have been generated by various causes. Sometimes it is the effect of identity of race and descent. Community of language, and community of religion, greatly contribute to it. Geographical limits are one of its causes. But the strongest of all is identity of political antecedents ; the possession of a national history, and consequent community of recollections ; collective pride and humiliation, pleasure and regret, connected with the same incidents in the past.