Democracy and Liberty. William Edward Hartpole Lecky

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Democracy and Liberty - William Edward Hartpole Lecky


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example and the connivance, through party motives, of other members have been very evident.

      And while this change has been passing over the spirit of the House of Commons, its powers and its pretensions are constantly extending. The enormous extension of the practice of questioning ministers has immensely increased the intervention of the House in the most delicate functions of the Executive. It insists on measures and negotiations, in every stage of their inception, being brought before it, and resolutions emanating from independent sections have more than once exercised a most prejudicial influence, if not on foreign affairs, at least on the government of India. At the same time, the claim is more and more loudly put forward that it should be treated as if it were the sole power in the State. The veto of the sovereign has long since fallen into abeyance. Her constitutional right of dissolving Parliament if she believes that a minister or a majority do not truly represent the feelings of the nation, and are acting contrary to its interests, might sometimes be of the utmost value, but it is never likely to be put in force. Her slight power, in the rare cases of nearly balanced claims, of selecting the minister to whom she will entrust the government, and the slight influence she still retains over the disposition of patronage, are regarded with extreme jealousy; while every interference of the House of Lords with the proposed legislation of the Commons has been, during a considerable part of the last few years, made the signal of insolent abuse. It would be difficult to conceive a greater absurdity than a second Chamber which has no power of rejecting, altering, or revising; and this is practically the position to which a large number of members of the House of Commons, and of their supporters outside the House, would reduce the House of Lords.

      On the whole, however, it may be questioned whether, in the existing state of the British Constitution, this diffuseness is an evil. There is some weight in the contention of Bagehot, that one great advantage of government by debate is, that much talking prevents much action, and if it does little to enlighten the subject, it at least greatly checks the progress of hasty and revolutionary legislation. There are worse things than a wasted session, and, in times when the old restraints and balances of the Constitution have almost perished, the restraint of locquacity is not to be despised.

      It makes the House of Commons, however, a perfectly inefficient instrument for some of the purposes it is expected to fulfil. There are large questions, such as the reform and codification of great branches of the law, which bristle with points of difficulty and difference, but which at the same time do not fall within the lines of party or affect the balance of power. To carry highly complex measures of this kind through a body like the present House of Commons is utterly impossible, and these much-needed reforms are never likely to be accomplished till the Constitution is so far changed as to give much larger powers to Committees.


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