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The terms used by the commentator were , when he used them , unreal , and known6 to be so . And no doubt the referendum , if ever established in England , may have the effect , which it already has in Switzerland , of making it possible that a minister or a Cabinet , supported on the whole by the electorate , shall retain office honestly and openly , though some proposal made by the Prime Minister and his colleagues and assented to by both Houses of Parliament is , through the referendum , condemned by the electorate . The success of federal government is greatly favoured by , if it does not absolutely require , approximate equality in the wealth , in the population , and in the historical position of the different countries which make up a confederation . Let us put this point in a concrete form . Under the referendum an elector may begin to find it possible to vote for or against a given law in accordance with his real view as to its merits or demerits , without being harassed through the knowledge that if he votes against a law which his conscience and his judgment condemns , he will also be voting that A , whom he deems the fittest man in England to be Prime Minister , shall cease to hold office , and that B , whom the elector happens to distrust , shall at once become Prime Minister . It is fair to all the friends who have aided me that I should state explicitly that for any opinions expressed in this Introduction no one is responsible except myself . " This name is a good one ; it reminds us that the main use of the referendum is to prevent the passing of any important Act which does not command the sanction of the electors . It is probable , if not certain , that any one , who realises the extent to which parliamentary government itself is losing credit from its too close connection with the increasing power of the party machine , will hold with myself that the referendum judiciously used may , at any rate in the case of England , by checking the omnipotence of partisanship , revive faith in that parliamentary government which has been the glory of English constitutional history . leaving the administration of the Post Office to the body of public servants responsible for the management of the postal system . The harm wrought is , that unreal language obscures or conceals the true extent between the actual state of the government and the theory . In explaining the succession which is worked out between buyer and seller for the purpose of creating a prescriptive right , such as a right of way over neighboring land to the land bought and sold , it was shown that one who , instead of purchasing the land , had wrongfully possessed himself of it by force , would not be treated as a successor , and would get no benefit from the previous use of the way by his disseisee . The expression " veto " reminds us also that those who advocate the introduction of the referendum into England in fact demand that the electors , who are now admittedly the political sovereign of England , should be allowed to play the part in legislation which was really played , and with popular approval , by e.g . It assuredly is to increase the power of any party which possesses a parliamentary majority , i.e ., a majority , however got together , of the House of Commons , and , finally , to place the control of legislation , and indeed the whole government of the country , in the hands of the Cabinet which is in England at once the only instrument through which a dominant party can exercise its power , and the only body in the state which can lead and control the parliamentary majority of which the Cabinet is the organ . The work has already gone through seven editions ; each successive edition , including the seventh , has been brought up to date , as the expression goes , by amending it so as to embody any change in or affecting the constitution which may have occurred since the last preceding edition . In any case he too has approached English institutions from a new point of view , and has looked at them in a fresh light ; he would be universally recognised among us as one of the most distinguished and ingenious exponents of the mysteries of the English constitution , had it not been for the fact that he made his fame as a professor , not in any of the seats of learning in the United Kingdom , but in the University of Melbourne . But he would soon see that the articles of the constitution required a knowledge of the Articles of Confederation ; that the opinions of Washington , of Hamilton , and generally of the ' Tathers , " as one sometimes hears them called in America , threw light on the meaning of various constitutional articles ; and further , that the meaning of the constitution could not be adequately understood by any one who did not take into account the situation of the colonies before the separation from England and the rules of common law , as well as the general conceptions of law and justice inherited by English colonists from their English forefathers . No one can rate more highly than myself the success with which a complicated system is worked by the members of the Swiss Council or , to use expressions familiar to Englishmen , by the Swiss Cabinet . He has become already , by the publication of his Responsible Government in the Dominions , an acknowledged authority on all matters connected with the relation between England and her Colonies . The name of the United States serves well to remind us of the true relation between constitutional historians and legal constitutionalists . If , for a moment , one may adopt modern expressions while divesting them of any implied blame or praise , one may say that Conservatism and Liberalism each play their part in promoting the welfare of any country where popular government exists . Thus a Ministry under whose advice Parliament were not summoned to meet for more than a year would , owing to the lapse of the Mutiny Act , etc ., become through their agents engaged in a conflict with the Courts . So a disseisor , abator , intruder , or the lord by escheat , & c ., shall have them as things annexed to the land .