It is well to see what are the provisions for the Executive Power under the Swiss Constitution in order to note how widely the Executive in our draft differs from them. Good or bad, our draft stands or falls by itself, and cannot depend from the Swiss example, from which it differs both in itself and in the circumstance which it is designed to meet. The intention may be of the noblest; but intentions are only prophecies; and the Fundamental Law of a Constitution is scarcely the place to commit a whole people to a prophecy. The intention is to overcome party government, and is conceived at a time when parties are divided along lines that do not represent the economic issues that ordinarily influence the course of legislation. For parties, in so far as parties represent true economic issues, are a natural and inevitable medium for conducting the government of a country. Where parties do not represent such issues, but are held together by unnatural organisations, they do, it is true, obscure the orderly government of a country. The remedy is to be found, not in an enforced and arbitrary creation of an Executive, but in the right election of the Legislature, of which the Executive must be a reflection if the Legislature is to work harmoniously with it, and keep a constant control over it. To attempt by arbitrary provisions to create an Executive that does not accurately and at all times reflect the Legislature (on whatever party lines that Legislature be composed) is automatically to remove that Executive from the continuous control of the Legislature. And it is surely the essential business of a Constitution to insist that that control be emphasised, not diminished. Otherwise, whatever be the intention, the Executive will become irresponsible, government will fall into the hands of rulers who can only with difficulty be removed, and constant friction will ensue. Such is the broader line of argument. In detail the Executive provisions of the present draft seem even less defensible. For authority is reposed in an Executive Council formed of two parts. Of twelve Ministers, it is stated, four must be members of the Chamber and eight must not be members--or, if they were members before, they cannot continue to be members, and must resign. It is true that on the motion of the President of the Council these four (who are members of the Chamber) may be increased to seven; but the draft makes it perfectly clear that according to the normal procedure under the Constitution the proportions are to be four and eight; and it is on the normal, not on the exceptional, procedure that attention must therefore necessarily be laid.