The growth of representative institutions is one of the outstanding features of modern history. The movement, like all others, has its ebb and flow, but on a wide view the set of the current is unmistakable. Throughout the civilized world, including now not merely the peoples of Europe and of European descent, but the leading examples of Eastern civilization, we find the principle of self-government germinating where it had hitherto been unknown, and ripening where it had only been immature. In our own country, where alone among great nations Parliamentary institutions had enjoyed continuous vitality from a remote past, the advance took the form, first of consolidating the primacy of the popular House, and secondly of broadening the basis of representation. Of these two processes the first has, it is true, received a check. The vast and growing power of organized wealth has found in an irresponsible Chamber a handy instrument of obstruction. But in so doing it has only raised a constitutional issue of which the final settlement can neither be distant nor doubtful. The second process has been advanced by three great measures of reform, and has now to be completed by a fourth, which will extend the area of representation to the entire adult population.

The movement towards self-government is not to be understood if studied in isolation.