miliar
to the people than most of the national legislation. In the German
Empire each state has its own prince, and in many respects is
self-governing, but has been more and more sinking its own
individuality in the empire. In the British Empire there is still
another relation. England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland were once
independent of each other, but military and dynastic events united
them. For local legislation and administration they tend to separate,
and already Ireland has obtained home rule. Beyond seas a colonial
empire has arisen, and certain great dominions are united by little
more than ties of blood and loyalty to the mother country. Canada,
Australia, and South Africa have gained a larger measure of
sovereignty. India is held as an imperial possession, but even there
experiments of self-government are being tried. The whole tendency of
government, both here and abroad, seems to be to leave matters of
local concern largely to the local community and matters that belong
to a section or subordinate state to that district, and to centralize
all matters of national or interstate concern in the hands of a small
body of men at the national capital. In every case national or
imperial authority is the court of last resort.

READING REFERENCES

BLISS: _New Encyclopedia of Social Reform_, art. "Anarchism."

DEALEY: _Development of the State_, pages 127-234.

WILSON: _The State_, pages 555-571.

BLUNTSCHLI: _Theory of the State_, pages 61-73.

_Constitution of the United States._

BRYCE: _The American Commonwealth_ (abridged edition), pages
22-242, 287-305.

CHAPTER XLIII

PROBLEMS OF THE NATION

341. =Government as the Advance Agent of Prosperity.=--It is common
philosophy that society owes every man a living, and it seems to be a
common belief that the government owes every man a job. There are, of
course, only a few government positions, and these are rushed after by
a swarm of office-seekers, but campaign orators have talked so much
about a full dinner pail and the government as the advance agent of
prosperity, that there seems to be a popular notion that the
government, as if by a magician's wand, could cure unemployment, allay
panics, dispel hard times, and increase a man's earning power at will.
A little familiarity with economic law ought to modify this notion,
but it is difficult to eradicate it. Society cannot, through any one
institution, bring itself to perfecti