The experiment of a strictly Parliamentary Republic--of a Republic where the Parliament appoints the executive--is being tried in France at an extreme disadvantage, because in France a Parliament is unusually likely to be bad, and unusually likely also to be free enough to show its badness.
Bagehot critiques the challenges faced by the French parliamentary system compared to the British model.
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Subject to this saving remark, however, I not only admit, but maintain, that our Constitution is full of curious oddities, which are impeding and mischievous, and ought to be struck out.
These anomalies, in a hundred instances, mark the old boundaries of a constitutional struggle.
The casual line was traced according to the strength of deceased combatants; succeeding generations fought elsewhere; and the hesitating line of a half-drawn battle was left to stand for a perpetual limit.
At last it strikes you that they grew up, house by house, on the devious tracks of the old green lanes; and if you follow on to the existing fields, you may often find the change half complete.
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