arrangements we so subdivide power and balance parts in government that no one man can tell for much or turn affairs to his will.  One of the most instructive studies a politician could undertake would be a study of the infinite limitations laid upon the power of the Russian Czar, notwithstanding the despotic theory of the Russian constitution—­limitations of social habit, of official prejudice, of race jealousies, of religious predilections, of administrative machinery even, and the inconvenience of being himself only one man, caught amidst a rush of duties and responsibilities which never halt or pause.  He can do only what can be done with the Russian people.  He cannot change them at will.  He is himself of their own stuff, and immersed in the life which forms them, as it forms him.  He is simply the leader of the Russians.

An English or American statesman is better off.  He leads a thinking nation, not a race of peasants topped by a class of revolutionists and a caste of nobles and officials.  He can explain new things to men able to understand, persuade men willing and accustomed to make independent and intelligent choices of their own.  An English statesman has an even better opportunity to lead than an American statesman, because in England executive power and legislative initiative are both intrusted to the same grand committee, the ministry of the day.  The ministers both propose what shall be law and determine how it shall be enforced when enacted.  And yet English reformers, like American, have found office a veritable cold-water bath for their ardor for change.  Many a man who has made his place in affairs as the spokesman of those who see abuses and demand their reformation has passed from denunciation to calm and moderate advice when he got into Parliament, and has turned veritable conservative when made a minister of the crown.  Mr. Bright was a notable example.  Slow and careful men had looked upon him as little better than a revolutionist so long as his voice rang free and imperious from the platforms of public meetings.  They greatly feared the influence he should exercise in Parliament, and would have deemed the constitution itself unsafe could they have seen foreseen that he would some day be invited to take office and a hand of direction in affairs.  But it turned out that there was nothing to fear.  Mr. Bright lived to see almost every reform he had urged accepted and embodied in legislation; but he assisted at the process of their realization with greater and greater temperateness and wise deliberation as his part in affairs became more and more prominent and responsible, and was at the last as little like an agitator as any man that served the queen.