Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution. A. V. Dicey

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Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution - A. V. Dicey


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in short, has at present the vague, and therefore the strong and imaginative, charm which has been possessed at one time throughout Europe by the parliamentary constitutionalism of England

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      and the Roman Empire did not produce thinkers or writers who did as much for the progress of mankind as was done by the philosophers, the historians, and the poets of Greece, and the fruits of Greek genius were mainly due to the intellectual achievements of Athens during not much more than a century. Ireland is, as regards most of its inhabitants, discontented with the Union. But it is idle to pretend that Ireland has ever desired federalism in the sense in which it was desired by the colonies which originally formed the United States, or by the inhabitants of what are now the provinces of the Canadian Dominion. O’Connell for a very short time exhibited a tendency to substitute federalism for repeal. He discovered his mistake and reverted to repeal, which with his more revolutionary followers meant nationalism. No one who reads the last and the strangest of the biographies of Parnell can doubt that “Ireland a Nation” was the cry which met his own instinctive feeling no less than the wishes of his followers, except in so far as their desires pointed towards a revolutionary change in the tenure of land rather than towards the claim for national independence.

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      would, after as before the establishment of Home Rule all round, continue, in virtue of her resources and her population, the predominant partner throughout the United Kingdom, and the partner on whom sovereignty had been conferred, not by the language of any statute or other document, but by the nature of things. It would be hard indeed to prevent the English Parliament sitting at Westminster from not only claiming but exercising sovereign authority; and to all these difficulties must be added one ominous and significant reflection. To every foreign country, whether it were numbered among our allies or among our rivals, the federalisation of Great Britain would be treated as a proof of the declining power alike of England and of the British Empire.107

      The word Referendum is a foreign expression derived from Switzerland. Thirty years ago it was almost unknown to Englishmen, even though they were interested in political theories. Twenty years ago it was quite unknown to British electors. The word has now obtained popular currency but is often misunderstood. It may be well, therefore, to define, or rather describe, the meaning of the “referendum” as used in this Introduction and as applied to England. The referendum is used by me as meaning the principle that Bills, even

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      when passed both by the House of Commons and by the House of Lords,109 should not become Acts of Parliament until they have been submitted to the vote of the electors and have received the sanction or approval of the majority of the electors voting on the matter. The referendum is sometimes described, and for general purposes well described, as “the people’s veto.” This name is a good one; it reminds us that the main use of the referendum is to prevent the passing of any important Act which does not command the sanction of the electors. The expression “veto” reminds us also that those who advocate the introduction of the referendum into England in fact demand that the electors, who are now admittedly the political sovereign of England, should be allowed to play the part in legislation which was really played, and with popular approval, by e.g. Queen Elizabeth at a time when the King or Queen of England was not indeed the absolute sovereign of the country, but was certainly the most important part of the sovereign power, namely Parliament.110 In this Introduction the referendum, or the people’s veto, is considered simply with reference to Bills passed by the Houses of Parliament but which have not received the royal assent. The subject is dealt with by no means exhaustively, but with a view in the first place to bring out the causes of the demand in England for the referendum; and in the next place to consider carefully and examine in turn first by far the strongest argument against, and secondly the strongest argument in favour of introducing the referendum into the constitution of England.

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      During forty years faith in parliamentary government has suffered an extraordinary decline or, as some would say, a temporary eclipse.111 This change is visible in every civilised country. Depreciation of, or contempt for, representative legislatures clearly exists under the parliamentary and republican government of France, under the federal and republican constitution of the Swiss Confederacy, or of the United States, under the essential militarism and the superficial parliamentarism of the German Empire, and even under the monarchical and historical constitutionalism of the British Empire. This condition, whether temporary or permanent, of public opinion greatly puzzles the now small body of surviving constitutionalists old enough to remember the sentiment of the mid-Victorian era, with its prevalent belief that to imitate the forms, or at any rate to adopt the spirit of the English constitution, was the best method whereby to confer upon the people


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