One of the most helpless exhibitions of helpless ingenuity and wasted mind is a committee of the whole House on a bill of many clauses which eager enemies are trying to spoil, and various friends are trying to mend.
Bagehot critiques the inefficiency of a committee handling complex legislation.
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We have thus a whole group of ancient republics of non-Aryan race, and one which, being more ancient than the classical republics, could not have borrowed from or imitated them.
No doubt this momentary gain is bought at a ruinous after-cost.
There is no ELASTIC element, everything is rigid, specified, dated.
If the above reasoning be sound, compulsory constituencies are necessary, voluntary constituencies destructive; the optional transferability of votes is not a salutary aid, but a ruinous innovation.
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