[Sidenote: Representation.] We have seen what a great part taxation plays in the business of government, and we shall presently have to treat of county, state, and federal governments, all of them wider in their sphere than the town government. In the course of history, as nations have gradually been built up, these wider governments have been apt to absorb or supplant and crush the narrower governments, such as the parish or township; and this process has too often been destructive to political freedom. Such a result is, of course, disastrous to everybody; and if it were unavoidable, it would be better that great national governments need never be formed. But it is not unavoidable. There is one way of escaping it, and that is to give the little government of the town some real share in making up the great government of the state. That is not an easy thing to do, as is shown by the fact that most peoples have failed in the attempt. The people who speak the English language have been the most successful, and the device by which they have overcome the difficulty is REPRESENTATION. The town sends to the wider government a delegation of persons who can _represent_ the town and its people. They can speak for the town, and have a voice in the framing of laws and imposition of taxes by the wider government. [Sidenote: Shire-motes.] [Sidenote: Earl Simon's Parliament.] In English townships there has been from time immemorial a system of representation. Long before Alfred's time there were "shire-motes," or what were afterwards called county meetings, and to these each town sent its reeve and "four discreet men" as _representatives_. Thus to a certain extent the wishes of the townsfolk could be brought to bear upon county affairs. By and by this method was applied on a much wider scale. It was applied to the whole kingdom, so that the people of all its towns and parishes succeeded in securing a representation of their interests in an elective national council or House of Commons. This great work was accomplished in the thirteenth century by Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, and was completed by Edward I. Simon's parliament, the first in which the Commons were fully represented, was assembled in 1265; and the date of Edward's parliament, which has been called the Model Parliament, was 1295. These dates have as much interest for Americans as for Englishmen, because they mark the first definite establishment of that grand system of representative government which we are still carrying on at our various state capitals and at Washington. For its humble beginnings we have to look back to the "reeve and four" sent by the ancient townships to the county meetings.