ago, and from time to time after 1870 there was agitation for it. In 1893, and again in 1895, a resolution in favor of the payment of members was adopted in the Commons, and in 1906 a resolution was carried to the effect that every member should be paid a salary of £300 annually. But not until 1911 could a measure of the kind be got through the upper chamber.

Fresh impetus was afforded by the "Osborne Judgment," in which, on an appeal from the lower courts, the House of Lords ruled in December, 1909, that the payment of parliamentary members as such from the dues collected by labor organizations was contrary to law. The announcement of the decision was followed by persistent demand on the part of the labor elements for legislation to reverse the ruling. In connection with the budget presented to the House of Commons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer May 16, 1911, the proposition was made, not to take action one way or the other upon the Lords' decision, but to provide for the payment to all non-official members of the House of Commons of a yearly salary of £400 ($2000); and on August 10 a resolution was carried in the Commons providing for "the payment of a salary at the rate of £400 a year to every member of the House, excluding any member who is for the time being in receipt of a salary as an officer of the House or as a minister, or as an officer of His Majesty's Household." Most of the Unionists were opposed to the innovation, and a number of Liberals did not like it. But the Government was bent on carrying it through as the only practicable means of escape from the difficulties in which it was involved with its ally, the Labor party; and the measure, in due course, became law.2

1 Osborne vs. Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants. W. V. Osborne, foreman porter at Clapton station on the Great Western Railway and secretary of the Walthamstow branch of the Amalgamated Society, objected to the rule of his union requiring contributions from all members towards the payment of maintenance allowance to labor representatives in Parliament. Many trade unionists shared his views, and a test case was brought, in the endeavor to show that the rule was ultra vires, and hence void. The King's Bench decided against the plaintiff, but the Court of Appeal reversed the judgment, and the case was taken to the House of Lords, which sustained the intermediate tribunal. See Ogg, Economic Development of Modern Europe, 434-440; S. and B. Webb, History of Trade Unionism (new ed., London, 1911), 344-408; W. V. Osborne, My Case: the Cause and Effect of the Osborne Judgment (London, 1910); H. W. Horwill, "The Payment of Labour Representatives in Parliament," in Polit. Sci. Quar., June, 1910.

2 The effect of the Osborne Judgment was to debar trade unions from devoting their funds not only to political purposes but to various other objects in which the unions and their members are interested. A Scottish court went so far as to hold that a union had no power to pay the expenses of delegates to the annual trade union congress. Protests from labor against these drastic restraints led, in 1913, to a Trade Union Act, which not only laid down a clearer definition of the term

The payment of salaries to the members of great elective legislative bodies is not without disadvantages. But it is fundamentally justifiable, and it is to be observed that Great Britain is only one of several European nations that in recent years have adopted the policy. Germany did so in 1906, and Italy in 1912. The amount of the salary provided by the British legislation of 1911 is not large (although it is far larger than that provided in continental countries); but it is ample to make candidacy for seats possible for numbers of men who formerly could not under any circumstances contemplate a public career.

"trade union," but specified the conditions under which a trade union may use its funds. The purport of the act is (1) that a trade union may apply its funds, without restriction, for any lawful objects or purposes (other than political objects) which are at the time authorized under its constitution, and (2) that a trade union may raise funds for political purposes, but only under two absolute conditions, namely, that a resolution in favor of the political objects contemplated shall have been passed by the members of the union by secret ballot, and that no compulsion shall be placed upon members to make such contributions. In both the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords the judges were influenced by the fact that the pledge rule of the Labor party left the parliamentary representative no discretion. This rule was softened in 1911, although Labor members have continued to be bound by something more than the ordinary obligations of party loyalty. This change helped pave the way for the legislation of 1913. See p. 279.

CHAPTER XI

PARLIAMENTARY FUNCTIONS AND PROCEDURE: THE CABINET SYSTEM

Formal and Theoretical Aspects. The entire political development of modern England centers around two great facts: the growth of the power of Parliament and the establishment of popular control in the predominant chamber, the House of Commons. Upon the vastness of the powers attained by the two houses something has already been said; it has been pointed out that Parliament has long since gained authority to alter or add to the national constitution at will, and that many, if not most, of the great constitutional changes of recent times have come about in this way. Closely following the power of constitutional amendment comes that of general legislation. It cannot be said that Parliament is the author of all English law. The great body of the common law has sprung from sources entirely outside legislative halls. But in so far as national laws are enacted to-day, it is Parliament, directly or indirectly, that enacts them. There is no subject upon which Parliament cannot legislate, no sort of law that it cannot put on the statute books, no existing law (written or unwritten) that it cannot modify or rescind. It goes without saying that the volume of legislation enacted by Parliament is enormous. The House of Commons, at all events, is always deluged with urgent business; and while procedure has been expedited by the more extensive use of committees, and by other devices to be described presently, matters of great importance often lie over for years awaiting a favorable opportunity for their consideration. Similarly, the revenues which come into the Treasury and which can be turned to use independently of Parliament would hardly carry on the business of government for a day, and Parliament (in effect, the House of Commons) not only makes possible, by its appropriation acts, the legal expenditure of practically all public moneys, but it provides, by its measures of taxation, the funds from which almost all appropriations are made.

Furthermore, Parliament (again, mainly the House of Commons) has full power to inquire into, criticize, and direct the

work of administration. An essential feature of the English system is that the ministers shall invariably be members of Parliament, that they shall retain office only so long as they command the support of a majority in the House of Commons, and that the cabinet- the inner circle composed of the principal ministers shall serve practically as an executive committee of Parliament for the general management of the administrative machinery which Parliament sets up and maintains. "Parliament," once declared a leading member of the House of Lords, "makes and unmakes our ministries, it revises their action. Ministries may make peace and war, but they do so at pain of instant dismissal by Parliament from office; and in affairs of internal administration the power of Parliament is equally direct. It can dismiss a ministry if it is too extravagant or too economical; it can dismiss a ministry because its government is too stringent or too lax. It does actually and practically in every way directly govern England, Scotland, and Ireland." 1

Loss of Power to the Cabinet and to the Electorate. - All of the great powers thus attributed to Parliament unquestionably belong to it. However, they are actually exercised by the two houses with not quite so much initiative, continuity, and force as these broad statements would imply; and it becomes necessary to look somewhat beneath the surface to discover the true situation. Such scrutiny reveals the fact that, so far as the actual exercise of its powers is concerned, Parliament has lost, and is losing, on the one side to the cabinet, and on the other to the electorate. For the moment there is something shocking in this discovery; we had been accustomed to think of Parliament as the great organ of popular government, and a diminution of the powers which it wields suggests a recession of democracy. But reassurance comes when we reflect that loss of power to the cabinet is not necessarily inconsistent with popular government, since the cabinet is made up largely of elected members of Parliament, and is responsible to the House of Commons; while, of course, a loss to the electorate means throwing power back directly into the hands of the people.

To this last-mentioned development three things have chiefly contributed. The first is the great increase of popular information and the sharpening of public opinion upon political affairs, made possible by the printing press, the telegraph, and other aids to quick and cheap dissemination of news and ideas. "A 'The Duke of Devonshire, quoted in Low, Governance of England (new ed.), 57-58.

N

debate, a vote, or a scene," says Lowell," that occurs in Parliament late at night is brought home to the whole country at breakfast the next morning, and prominent constituents, clubs, committees, and the like, can praise or censure, encourage or admonish, their member for his vote before the next sitting of the House." 1 Under the constant gaze of his constituents, the member is less free to act and speak and vote as he likes than was his predecessor of a hundred years ago. A second factor in the situation is the growth of the idea of the referendum, or the popular mandate. Legally, Parliament is still free to make constitutional changes and to enact ordinary legislation at will. But in the past quarter-century, and especially since the sharp political struggles of 1909-11, the view has come to be widely held that before taking final action on matters of great importance the houses, through their leaders, ought to consult the nation (ordinarily by means of a dissolution, followed by a national election), so that definitive legislation may be based on a fresh and unmistakable mandate from the people. A third, and more important, factor is the remarkable growth of the power of the cabinet, and the actual supplanting, in a considerable measure, of cabinet responsibility to the House of Commons by cabinet responsibility directly to the electorate. This matter of the cabinet's increased power, as it affects Parliament, calls for some comment.

Cabinet and Parliament in Legislation. A hundred years ago, and less, the members of the cabinet had comparatively little to do with law-making. They were already, with only an occasional exception, members of Parliament. But their duties were mainly executive, and they bore little general responsibility for the legislation that was enacted. The public demand, however, that came upon them as administrators for remedial legislation, the growing complexity of the relations between legislation and administration, and the increasing compactness and morale of the inner ministerial group — in short, the ripening of the cabinet system - brought, during the nineteenth century, a totally changed situation. The cabinet of to-day not only actively participates in law-making; it decides what important measures are to be brought before the houses, puts these measures into form, introduces them, explains them, defends them, presses for their passage, takes full responsibility for them after they are passed, and gives up the attempt to govern if they, or any of them, are definitely rejected 1 Government of England, I, 425.