ed without
delay to legislate on any matter that they judge to be of sufficient
importance.

At first sight measures such as these appear to be revolutionary and
drastic. In practice they have proved to be conservative. The mere
existence of the Referendum has proved to be a check on legislation that
might otherwise have been carried by parliamentary manoeuvring for
votes. The people, in actual fact, have proved to be both purer and more
conservative than their representatives; and the tendency towards economy
in the expenditure of public moneys has, in the main, been not the least
benefit it has conferred. People are little inclined to study bills
debated in the national assembly when they realise that they are powerless
to change or check the measures it may pass. The power to throw out their
representatives at the next general election is only a limited form of
freedom, and it is illusory in face of the fact that those representatives
are generally chosen by powerful political organisations which take care
to select pliant and obedient tools. Only at times of great crisis does
the wish of the people become vocal; and even then it is more usually
neglected than not. But with the Referendum in their hands (especially
with the Initiative added to it) the will of the people is always present.
The people can hasten legislation where it moves slowly. They can retard
it where it presses too fast ahead. They themselves can make the pace. And
the effect on themselves is that, with this added responsibility, they
take a quick interest in their own concerns. In the first place they break
up the power of political organisations; and in the second place they
themselves become alert and educated citizens, responsible and intelligent
guiders of their own destinies.

Nor are these the imaginings of theory. They are the practical outcome in
every country or state where the Referendum and Initiative have been
adopted. They have especially been the result in Switzerland, where, by
means of the Initiative, the people have insisted on measures being passed
that no political party would have dared to undertake. For there are many
questions that cut clean across all parties, which dare not offend a
majority or a minority, and where therefore the unity of the party comes
before the interest of the nation. But minorities from all parties may
join, and in Switzerland have joined, together to press for their
adoption, with the consequence tha