44 Protestant Missions in Southern India—Tanjore. The Tanjore circle of missions is one the Report of which is turned to by many with great interest, partly because of the connection of Tanjore with the Society's early missions, and partly because of the energetic and devotional character of the work carried on by the Rev. W. H. Blake and his assistants. Then comes some news about the Tanjore College, and an account of some ordinations. The facts we have given in this article are derived partly from the Census Returns, partly from the Annual Reports of the Madras Diocesan Committee of the S.P.G. These Reports are not very easy to obtain even in India by the general public,* and in England they are very seldom seen. The series of the S.P.G. May Reports for some fifty years is to be found complete in the British Museum. So far as we can ascertain, the Madras Diocesan Reports are represented there by a very imperfect series which ceases abruptly in 1862. A few extracts from Mr. Blake's Reports might be included with advantage in the little volume that is annually laid before the May meetings. Mr. Blake is clearly an honest, energetic man, who will not send in the usual doubtful statistics, and who will not say peace where there is no peace. The strange thing is that these frank statements have only appeared of recent years, and the evil is of very old standing. We have seen how, as late as 1878, the native pastor Manuel used smooth phrases to keep up appearances in his Report. One wonders how some other Indian missions would look if a plain-spoken man like Mr. Blake were allowed to report on them. Unfortunately, such reports seldom see the light until the evil is becoming notorious, and must be explained rather than concealed. The mission of Tanjore has lived too long on the fame of its founder Swartz. The truth about it has already been spoken in India; it is time that it should be spoken also in England. A. HILLIARD ATTERIDGE. They are not published; and cannot be had from the booksellers. They have a kind of domestic or private circulation. A few copies are sent to England to the head-quarters of the S.P.G. ART. III. THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION IN THEORY AND IN PRACTICE. 1. The English Constitution. By WALTER BAGEHOT. Fourth Edition. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 2. Popular Government. By Sir H. S. MAINE. J. Murray. 1885. 1885. London: 3. The English Parliament in its Transformations through a Thousand Years. By Dr. R. GNEIST. Translated by R. JENERY SHEE. London: Grevel & Co. 1886. 4. The Constitutional History of England (1760-1860). By Sir THOMAS ERSKINE MAY. Sixth Edition. London: Longmans & Co. 1878. 5. English Constitutional History. By T. P. TASWELL-LANGMEAD. Second Edition. London: Stevens & Haynes. 1880. HE recent discussions on Federation and the government of THE Ireland have turned men's attention to the study of the English Constitution. Those who approach these questions dispassionately and with no view to party purposes, see at once the necessity of an accurate knowledge of the system which these proposals are intended to modify. Yet no one can wade through the flood of literature and oratory on these subjects without perceiving how few of the writers and speakers really understood what they attacked or defended. There is indeed some excuse for this ignorance. Most English institutions are hard to understand. They have not come forth ready-made from the brains of political philosophers. They are the growth of ages. They are cumbersome and defective, and they bear about them the marks of their barbaric origin. But the English Constitution-the boast of every Englishman, the envy of every foreigner -has the additional difficulty of being a gigantic sham. "The Queen's Government" is such only in the sense that it governs the Queen. "Her Majesty's Ministers" are Her Majesty's masters. "The Queen's Speech" is seldom spoken and never written by her. Our law-books recognize no such person as the "Prime Minister," and no such council as the "Cabinet." In short, the English Constitution is one thing in theory and quite another thing in practice. The Theory of the English Constitution has been set forth in a masterly fashion by Montesquieu, in a famous chapter of his "Esprit des Lois" (liv. xi. c. 6). The powers of government, he says, are threefold, Legislative, Executive, and Judicial. By the first the prince or magistrate makes new laws, and corrects or repeals existing laws. By the second he makes peace and war, sends and receives embassies, and establishes public security. By the third he punishes crimes, and decides the dissensions of individuals. When the legislative and executive powers are united in the same person or body of persons there is no liberty, because tyrannical laws can be carried out tyrannically. So, too, there is no liberty when the judicial power is not separated from the legislative and executive. All is lost if the same man, or the same body of princes, nobles, or people, exercises all three powers. In other words, liberty depends on the separation of the three powers, and not on the form of government, whether it be monarchy, oligarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. English Constitution entrusts these powers to three distinct bodies, and is therefore free. And now I had better continue in the words of Blackstone, who has to some extent followed Montesquieu. The As with us the executive power of the laws is lodged in a single person (the King), they have all the advantages of strength and dispatch, that are to be found in the most absolute monarchy; and as the legislature of the kingdom is entrusted to three distinct powers, entirely independent of each other: first, the sovereign; secondly, the lords spiritual and temporal, which is an aristocratical assembly of persons selected for their piety, their birth, their wisdom, their valour or their property; and thirdly, the House of Commons, freely chosen by the people from among themselves, which makes it a kind of democracy: as this aggregate body, actuated by different springs and attentive to different interests, composes the British Parliament and has the supreme disposal of everything, there can no inconvenience be attempted by either of three branches, but will be withstood by one of the other two; each branch being armed with a negative power, sufficient to repel any innovation which it shall think inexpedient or dangerous. If the supreme power were lodged in any one of the three branches separately, we must be exposed to the inconveniences of either absolute monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. . . . But the constitutional government of this island is so admirably tempered and compounded, that nothing can endanger or hurt it but destroying the equilibrium of power between one branch of the legislature and the rest. For if ever it should happen that the independence of any one of the three should be lost, or that it should become subservient to the views of either of the other two, there would soon be an end of our Constitution.* [The italics are mine.] "Commentaries on the Laws of England," Introduction, section ii. Blackstone considers the administration of justice to be part of the executive. "And as by our excellent constitution the sole executive power of the laws is vested in the Sovereign, it will follow that all courts According to Montesquieu and Blackstone, then, the excellence of the English Constitution consists (1) in the separation of the powers of government, and (2) in the co-ordination (not subordination) of the three elements of the legislative. Tacitus had said that a mixed government could not be permanent. Blackstone triumphantly answers:-"The British Constitution has long remained (and may it long continue) a standing exception to the truth of this observation." And Montesquieu: "Ce beau système a été trouvé dans les bois" among those very Germans whose manners and customs Tacitus has so accurately described. Our constitutional terminology fits in exactly with this theory. So, too, does the ceremony of procedure. The Queen still opens Parliament with all the pomp handed down from the days of the Plantagenets. Her throne is erected in that Upper House which alone she deigns to visit. When she is seated, her faithful Commons are summoned to attend. A stampede is heard, and then a crowd of puffing commoners, clad in every-day garb, comes rushing into the brilliant assembly of princes and peers. But they are not permitted to proceed far. They are obliged to remain standing at the end of the chamber while Her Majesty reads her gracious speech. She informs her hearers of the state of the country, and of her relations with the different foreign powers. The Commons are then specially thanked for the liberality of their supplies in the past, and are asked for further contributions. Lastly, she enumerates the chief legislative proposals to be laid before both Houses. The Commons then retire to the plain green benches of their own House and discuss what answer they shall make to her Majesty's requests. The process of legislation is also in accordance with the theory of the Constitution. No Bill can become law until it has passed of justice (which are the medium by which he administers the laws) are derived from the power of the Crown. . . . In all the courts the Sovereign is supposed, in contemplation of law, to be always present; but as that is in fact impossible, he is there represented by his judges, whose power is only an emanation of the royal prerogative" (Ibid. book iii. chap. iii.). The Plantagenet kings and even queens often presided in the law-courts and decided cases. James I. sat personally in court and attempted to interfere, but was silenced by Lord Chief Justice Coke. There is, however, very little difference between Blackstone's and Montesquieu's views. The connection between the executive and the judicial powers had (with some important exceptions) so long been practically obsolete that Montesquieu might fairly maintain that the spirit of the English Constitution required their separation. *This last portion of the Queen's Speech is somewhat anomalous. It is a sign of the junction of the legislative and executive powers which will be mentioned further on. both Houses and has received the assent of the Sovereign. Moreover, if any one offends against the law, he is said to break the Queen's peace. If he joins the Army or Navy he enters the service of the Queen. The officers of State are her Majesty's Ministers. She sends her ambassadors to every Court, and appoints consuls in the great seaports. It is she who declares war and makes peace. But all these ceremonies and modes of speech represent a state of things which no longer exists. The ancient forms survive although their spirit has departed. The intelligent foreigner who gazes with admiration at the splendid pageant of the opening of Parliament little dreams that the plainly dressed men huddled together below the bar are the representatives of an assembly which rules the Queen, the Lords, and the mighty British Empire. For the practice of the Constitution is in flat contradiction to the theory. In theory, the legislative and executive are separated-in practice, they are joined together. In theory, the three branches of the legislature are equal-in practice, one is supreme. The youngest branch, the House of Commons, has outgrown the other two. It possesses overwhelming influence in legislation, and it has acquired the whole executive power. But the House is too big to wield its powers directly. It therefore entrusts them to a select committee-the Cabinet, the chairman of which is the Prime Minister. This personage is unknown to the theory of the Constitution. His name implies that he is the chief servant of the Queen: in reality he is the President of the British Republic. He is chosen by the people by a roundabout process. When the general elections take place there are usually two parties before the country with rival programmes and rival chiefs. The electors, in voting for the different candidates, are really voting for one or other of the rival programmes and chiefs. Thus in 1880 the choice lay between" Beaconsfield and Imperialism" and "Gladstone and Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." When the House meets there is, of course, no formal election of a Prime Minister. But it is understood that there is some one man whom the majority of the House look up to as their leader. Her Majesty is then "pleased" to summon him to her councils and to entrust to him the formation of a Ministry. Accordingly he chooses a number of persons, usually members of one or other House, and distributes the various offices among them. Of these Ministers a certain number, about fourteen or fifteen, are summoned to *He need not necessarily be a member of the House of Commons, but he must have the confidence and support of a majority of that House. |