Oxford University Press, Amen House, London E.C.4 GLASGOW NEW YORK TORONTO MELBOURNE WELLINGTON CAPE TOWN SALISBURY NAIROBI IBADAN ACCRA KUALA LUMPUR HONG KONG THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION By WALTER BAGEHOT " With an Introduction by EARL OF BALFOUR LONDON OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS The English Constitution was first published in 1867; a second edition, with an additional chapter, appeared in 1872. In The World's Classics it was first published in 1928 and reprinted in 1929, 1933, 1936, 1942, 1944, 1949, 1952, 1955, 1958, 1961 and 1963. JN125 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN INTRODUCTION I CONSTITUTIONAL treatises are not usually regarded as light reading, yet surely he who thinks Bagehot's English Constitution dull must have brought a dull mind to its perusal. The theme no doubt is weighty. But the author has treated it with an easy originality of manner and method which should make it as attractive to readers of this generation as to us who first read it some sixty years ago. Critics of manner may perhaps allege that the style occasionally wants finish; but they must be hard to please if they deny that it is forcible, rapid, highspirited, and clear,—that it is always spontaneous and never lacks point. To my thinking the method is as characteristic as the manner, and not less excellent. It is possible to theorize about politics in many different ways and from many different points of view. Constitutions may be traced historically, described legally, compared critically. The writer may be more concerned to tell us what they have been, ought to be, or will be, than to tell us what they are;-and he is often more competent to do so. The field therefore is large, and, unless I mistake him, Bagehot was not by temperament averse to far-reaching generalizations. But in the volume of 1867 he wisely narrowed his main theme to a single question-how in the years round about 1865-6 (years within his own personal experience) was the work of governing |