Note and Comment

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 20, 1903

“All Europe in a Gloomy Mood” is a prominent headline in the Chicago Tribune of January 4, under which is a column descriptive of the adverse conditions which prevail in the Old World at the opening of the new year. Only in America is there prosperity, and Europe is predicting that this prosperity will be short-lived, though it is thought this view may be due in some measure to envy. But the gloomy character of the situation does not arise wholly from financial difficulties, crop failures, and the burden of heavy taxation. Political institutions are in an unsettled condition, which gives rise to a feeling of uncertainty and apprehension. According to Mr. Frederic Harrison, whose opinions are much respected in England, the system of government by parliaments will not much longer remain in force. On this subject he speaks as follows:—

“The cardinal fact of our time is the exhaustion of the parliamentary system of government. Parliaments everywhere are passing into a stage of decadence, discredit, and servility. In Germany a parliamentary coup d’état has reduced the chamber to an office in which decisions of state which are decreed by the sovereign and a minister are registered with a formula which has been seen and approved.

“The same process is being applied in England to the mother of free parliaments, somewhat less openly, but quite as efficiently. Wars which might indirectly have brought us into collision or dispute with the two greatest nations in the world were begun behind the back of Parliament, almost without any explanation of their cause or object. Treaties were made with foreign powers such as might indirectly have shaken our whole commercial fiscal system to its foundation without any explanation to Parliament, and even while Parliament was offered a false explanation and wrong translation of an important document, the House of Commons was called upon to waive its most cherished privileges, including the keystone of the British constitution—the absolute control of taxation.”

Parliamentary government being based on the recognition of popular rights, it follows that the political tendency of the times is to ignore the rights of the people, and return to some form of monarchy. It indicates a revival of the old struggle of the masses against the classes. And the beginning of this struggle is as evident in America to-day as it is in Europe.