Meanwhile the Angles and Saxons and their Teutonic kindred had long—even before leaving the continent—been familiar with the idea of representation.[56-2] Free men might be appointed or selected, not necessarily by vote, to attend a moot, including several towns or burghs, with authority to act there in the name of their fellows. And when, after the Norman Conquest, the people had sufficiently recovered themselves to be able to refuse taxes levied without their consent, the natural method of giving or withholding that consent was through representatives.
If the king wanted money, he might ask the lords and bishops who were present and could speak for themselves in his councils, but he must ask also the people who, unable to present themselves in a vast body, were represented by some one who spoke for them.
King John in 1213 bids "discreet men" from each shire come to Oxford,[56-3] and his son Henry III. in 1254 issues a writ requiring "to cause to come before the King's Council two good and discreet Knights of the Shire, whom the men of the county {57} shall have chosen for this purpose in the stead of all and of each of them, to consider along with the knights of other shires what aid they will grant the king."[57-1] In a similar writ of 1295 the term "to be elected" is first used instead of the less specific instruction "chosen."[57-2] The word representative, to describe such a person "chosen" or "elected" "with full and sufficient power for themselves and for the community"[57-3] was not yet in use. It appears in print in Cromwell's time,[57-4] and was then possibly new political jargon.
The council so composed developed into the British Parliament, that name coming into use for it in 1275.[57-5] With the king it was for years the law-making power of the British Isles. The peers held their seats in the House of Lords by personal right, as did the wise men of the Witenagamot.[57-6] They acted on their own account, and were responsible to no one. The members of the House of Commons held their seats by no personal right, but as representatives of a large body of commoners {58} who could not all attend. They were chosen for this purpose, and derived authority from the people who employed them. The king in his own right gave or withheld his sanction to the measures agreed upon by the two houses. It followed that the king and peers had no vote for representatives in Parliament, as, being present to act for themselves, they needed none.
The character of the law-making power has gradually altered. Since the days of Queen Anne no sovereign has attempted to veto a bill passed by Parliament.[58-1] Since 1834 no sovereign has dismissed a ministry,[58-2] nor has he formed one,[58-3] and the ministry has come to be responsible to the representative branch of Parliament alone. From 1835 to 1911 the presentative branch was purely a revising chamber.[58-4] Since 1911 it has been permitted to delay only, but not to prevent, the passing of a law desired by the representative branch, Parliament becoming thus in essence unicameral. The king and the lords hold positions of great historical and sentimental value; their personal influence may be as great as they can make it. The House of Commons, however, is now the sole power of legislation in the British Isles. It is hence fair to say that the presentative element is negligible in the national government of the British Isles.
Across the Atlantic went the developing political structures of the Pan-Angles. The colonists, in the simplicity of their social organization, approached early Teuton conditions. They {59} had the benefit, however, of all the experience the race had accumulated since that time. In New England from the earliest settlement till to-day the town meeting has been at the basis of government. It is the folk moot flourishing in new soil, and with the House of Lords (as it existed till 1911) could claim descent from the presentative government of our political forbears in the German forests. Of Virginia it is written that in "1619 a House of Assembly 'broke out' in the colony . . . then just twelve years old. In that Assembly we see the first-born child of the British Parliament, the eldest brother, so to speak, of the legislatures of the United States and of the English colonies of to-day. This Assembly was composed of a council and a body of twenty-two representatives from the eleven plantations, elected by the freeholders, imposing taxes and passing laws, meeting either annually or at frequent intervals."[59-1] In this manner were our notions of representative government transplanted.
A representative is not necessarily chosen by the people he represents.[59-2] In the early parliamentary days he often was not, but was arbitrarily appointed by the king. Since then the people have taken upon themselves the right of designating who is to represent them, and an increasingly large number of any given community has gained participation in that right. In some cases the people have arranged to make their choice indirectly. An example is the election prior to 1913 of United States senators by the people of the {60} state, but through the state legislature; another, is the appointment of the upper house, as in New Zealand, by the elected members of the lower house. But as evidence of the people's wish to keep control over their representatives, one may note the agitation for direct election in both these cases, and the virtual direct election of senators in some states of the United States, even before the Seventeenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States came into force in 1913.[60-1]
There are certain difficulties attendant upon representation. The agent may fail truly to represent, and the Pan-Angle people are constantly seeking to devise and perfect methods of minimizing this difficulty. One means toward that end has been sets of written instructions called constitutions,[60-2] adopted by the people and set over their representatives. The written Constitution of the United States and those of its original thirteen states were early edicts of the people restricting the power of the people's representatives. In the political talk of our times we find persistently recurring the words initiative, referendum, and recall.[60-3] What success will attend the movements for which they stand, movements which merely extend or return to ancient practices, it is too early to say. But the thing that is plain is that these are all efforts of the people to exercise their right to govern themselves presentatively, because they {61} think representation in present practice not entirely satisfactory.
Once presentative government over even a comparatively small area was impracticable because of the time necessary to cover distances. Now the results of an election involving millions of voters and extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific can be known a few hours after the closing of the polls. Burke thought the two months' sailing between Great Britain and America an insuperable obstacle to joint representation, although Franklin and Pownall disagreed with him.[61-1] Such is our speed of travel to-day that representatives from every Pan-Angle nation could reach North America in less than a month. Not only that, but thanks to electricity, a referendum could be held all over the Pan-Angle countries to-day as successfully as the town meeting was held a hundred years ago. And the decisions it reached would be known throughout the world in a fraction of the time that was needed for the deliberations of the Witan to reach the outskirts of the kingdom.
In what proportion the governments of the seven nations are presentative and in what proportion representative, it would be difficult to tell. Easy it is, however, to recognize these forms everywhere. Whether it is the adult population of New Zealand balloting on national prohibition; the men of a New England town meeting voting its school appropriation; or the members of the House of Lords discussing federation within the British Isles—we have a purely presentative bit of {62} governing. If it is the representatives of an Australian state voting on a minimum wage bill; the members of the British House of Commons passing a compulsory insurance act; or those of a Canadian provincial legislative assembly voting to exclude Asiatics, the principle is identical. Government in these cases is representative.