by the popular chamber. Every cabinet member has, of course, a seat in one house or the other; and in the house of which he is not a member he or, more accurately, the executive department or office over which he presides — has as a rule a spokesman in the person of a parliamentary under-secretary. Measures which are brought forward by the cabinet are known as *"Government bills." They are almost certain to be passed. What happens in case one of them is defeated depends on the circumstances; but the fall of the cabinet is not unlikely to be the result. Bills may be introduced by members of the two houses who do not belong to the cabinet. But little time is allowed for the consideration of these "private members' bills," and few are ever passed-none that are of a far-reaching and controversial nature.

1

Indeed, the ordinary member plays a distinctly passive rôle. He listens to the speeches of the Government leaders in favor of their bills, and to the rejoinders by the leaders of the Opposition; he may, if he is adroit, manage to take some small part in the discussion himself; and he finally gives his vote one way or the other. How he will vote can usually be told in advance; for his vote helps to decide the fate not only of the bill under consideration, but of the ministry, and therefore the fortunes of his party. Liberal members must vote for the bills introduced by a Liberal ministry or ruin that ministry and drive their own party from power. Only by voting consistently and solidly against the Government's bills can the Opposition hope to make a showing that will attract strength and eventually build up the majority that is necessary to a cabinet overturn in its favor. Nowhere are party lines more sharply drawn than in the House of Commons (conditions in war time are, of course, exceptional); in few legislative bodies does the ordinary member exercise less personal initiative. "To say," concludes the American writer who has made the closest study of this subject, " that at present the cabinet legislates with the advice and consent of Parliament would hardly be an exaggeration; and it is only the right of private members to bring in a few motions and bills of their own, and to criticize Government measures, or propose amendments to them, freely, that prevents legislation from being the

1 Under standing orders long in effect before the Great War, Government business had precedence at every sitting except after 8.15 on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings and at the sitting on Friday; and under motions for adjournment urgent matters of public importance might displace private members' motions even at these times. During the war the Government claimed all of the time, to the entire exclusion of private members' bills.

work of a mere automatic majority. It does not follow that the action of the cabinet is arbitrary. . The cabinet has its finger always on the pulse of the House of Commons, and especially of its own majority there; and it is ever on the watch for expressions of public feeling outside. Its function is in large part to sum up and formulate the desires of its supporters, but the majority must accept its conclusions, and in carrying them out becomes well-nigh automatic." 1

- A similar situa

Cabinet and Parliament in Administration. tion exists in the domain of executive and administrative work. Most of the members of the cabinet stand at the head of great executive offices or departments. As ministers, their primary business is to supervise the work carried on in and through these agencies; and ever since the cabinet system came into existence their direct and full responsibility to Parliament (actually, the House of Commons) for all of their executive actions has been accepted as axiomatic. The theory is that the ministers are answerable to the elected chamber for all that they do, singly in small or isolated matters, collectively in important ones; that their acts can be examined, criticized, revised, or annulled; and that the great powers which they wield can be stripped from them whenever the House of Commons chooses to withhold from them its support. Any member of the House of Commons may address a question (subject to the Speaker's judgment as to its propriety) to any minister of the crown who is also a member, with a view to obtaining information. Except in special cases, notice of questions must be given at least one day in advance, and half an hour or more is allowed at four sittings every week for the asking and answering of such questions. A minister may answer or decline to answer, but unless a refusal can be shown to arise from legitimate considerations of public interest its political effect may be embarrassing. Ordinarily there is no debate. But if the matter is an important one, and the House is not satisfied with the minister's reply, the questioner may ask leave to "move the adjournment of the House"; and if forty members support his request, a debate (nominally on that motion, but really on the substance of the question) takes place; and the Government, which formally opposes the motion, if defeated, must resign, or at least the

1 Lowell, Government of England, I, 326. For criticism of the alleged autocracy of the cabinet in legislation see Jenks, Government of the British Empire, 112-113, and especially E. Clark, "Woman Suffrage in Parliament; a Test for Cabinet Autocracy," in Amer. Polit. Sci. Rev., May, 1917.

minister concerned must.1 The asking of questions is liable to abuse, but, as is pointed out by Ilbert, "there is no more valuable safeguard against mal-administration, no more effective method of bringing the searchlight of criticism to bear on the action or inaction of the executive government and its subordinates. A minister has to be constantly asking himself, not merely whether his proceedings and the proceedings of those for whom he is responsible are legally or technically defensible, but what kind. of answer he can give if questioned about them in the House, and how that answer will be received."2 Any member may bring forward a motion censuring the Government or any member or department thereof; and a motion of this sort, when emanating from the leader of the Opposition, leads to a vote of confidence upon whose result may hang the fate of the ministry. Special committees can be created to investigate the work of any minister or department, and their reports may be made the basis of a parliamentary censure.3

Legally, therefore, the ministers are subject to complete and continuous control, in their executive capacity, by Parliament. But this does not mean that Parliament actually participates in, or even habitually interferes with, the ministers' executive work. On the contrary, the executive is more free from legislative control than is either the president of the United States or the ministry in France. Never, save when the Long Parliament, in the Cromwellian era, drew to itself the executive power and bestowed it upon committees which it appointed, has Parliament manifested a disposition to take part in any direct way in the exercise of that power. Nor has Parliament (since the period mentioned) ever taken to itself the function of administration. It receives the annual budget from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and gives it a reasonable amount of scrutiny; but the budget is made by the executive authority, and Parliament does not assume to alter it in any particular unless the executive assents. No money is voted except as requested by the crown. Parliament does not attempt to say

1 Jenks, Government of the British Empire, 157. Compare the French practice of interpellation, described below. See p. 444.

2 Parliament, 113-114.

A parliamentary committee is constituted by an order of either house, which arms it with power to require the attendance of witnesses and the production of papers. A royal commission is constituted by the king on the advice of the ministry, and lacks the powers mentioned unless Parliament, by a special act, endows it with them. A departmental committee is constituted by a minister, under similar limitation.

'See p. 443.

how the departments shall be organized, how large their staffs shall be, what salaries shall be paid, or how reports shall be prepared. It does not require that the appointment of officials, high or low, shall come before it for approval or disapproval. In short, notwithstanding the legal omnipotence of Parliament, the government actually operates under a very substantial separation of powers; the executive and administrative branches are quite as autonomous as is the legislative branch. The fact that the same men are the chief executive authorities and the leaders in Parliament does not invalidate this statement. Executive and legislative functions, as such, are kept quite distinct; there is, as an American writer puts it, a separation of powers organically, although a close union of powers personally.1 In contrast, the government of the United States is based upon a full separation of powers personally, but a large degree of union of powers organically. "A strong executive government, tempered and controlled by constant, vigilant, and representative criticism," is the ideal at which the parliamentary institutions of Great Britain are aimed.2 After all is said, however, the fact remains that in fifty years scarcely a ministry has been turned out of office by Parliament because of its executive acts. Parliamentary inspection and criticism serve to keep the ministers in a wholesome state of vigilance. But, practically, they can be reasonably assured that so long as their legislative program holds the support of the popular chamber their tenure of office will be unbroken.3

Procedure: General Aspects. The breadth of Parliament's legislative and fiscal powers has been sufficiently emphasized. Any sort of measure upon any conceivable subject may be introduced, and if a sufficient number of the members are so minded, may be enacted into law. No measure may become law until it has been submitted to both houses, but under the terms of the Parliament Act of 1911 it has been rendered easy for money bills, and not impossible for bills of other kinds, to be made law without the assent of the House of Lords. In the ordinary course of things, a measure is introduced in one house, put through three readings, sent to the other house, put there through

1 Willoughby, Government of Modern States, 240. 2 Ilbert, Parliament, 119.

The reciprocal and changing relations of Parliament (especially the House of Commons) and the cabinet are discussed in Lowell, Government of England, I, Chaps. xvii-xviii; Low, Governance of England, Chap. v; Ilbert, Parliament, 111-119; Todd, Parliamentary Government, II, 164–185; C. D. Allin, “The Position of Parliament," in Polit. Sci. Quar., June, 1914.

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the same routine, deposited with the House of Lords to await the royal assent,' and, after having been assented to as a matter of course, proclaimed as law. Bills, as a rule, may be introduced in either house, by the Government or by a private member. It is important to observe, however, in the first place, that certain classes of measures may originate in one only of the two houses, e.g., money bills in the Commons and bills of attainder and other judicial bills in the Lords, and, in the second place, that with the growth of the leadership of the Government in legislation the importance, if not the number, of privately introduced bills has steadily decreased, and likewise the chances of their enactment. The procedure of the two chambers upon bills is substantially the same, although, as is illustrated by the fact that amendments to bills may be introduced in the Lords at any stage but in the Commons at only stipulated stages, the methods of conducting business in the upper house are more elastic than those prevailing in the lower one.

Public Bills: Earlier Stages. The process of converting a bill, whether introduced by the Government or by a private member, into an act of Parliament is long and intricate. The numerous steps that have to be taken are designed to prevent hasty and ill-advised legislation. Some of them have become mere formalities, involving neither debate nor vote, and the process especially since certain changes were made in 1919 - is decidedly more expeditious than it once was. On the whole, the work of law-making is, however, still slow, and, as will be pointed out, much thought continues to be given to modes of speeding it up, or at all events relieving Parliament of the excessive pressure of business under which it still labors.

The first step is, of course, the drawing up, or "drafting," of the bill itself; for every project for a public act is presented to Parliament in a fixed form, stating enactment by " the King, Lords, and Commons," and setting forth in regular order, and in numbered clauses, the provisions that are desired. If the bill is a Government measure, and hence is sponsored by the cabinet, it is drafted by one of the two officials who share the title of Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury and who are lawyers appointed by the crown for the purpose, or by some independent expert specially engaged. If it is a private member's bill, it is drafted by the member himself or by any one whom he may employ for the purpose. In any case, it bears on its back the 1 Except that money bills remain in the custody of the House of Commons.