INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF THE LAW OF THE CONSTITUTION A. V. Dicey Part 4 The Main Lines of Argument

The Main Lines of Argument
These may be brought under two heads; they are most dearly and briefly exhibited if under each head is stated the argument of the Suffragist and the answer or reasoning in reply of the Anti-Suffragist. First Argument
Every citizen, or, as the point is generally put, every person who pays taxes under the law of the United Kingdom, is entitled as a matter of right to a vote for a member of Parliament. Hence the obvious conclusion that as every Englishwoman pays taxes under the
law of the United Kingdom, every Englishwoman is at any rate prima
facie entitled to a vote.
Answer
This line of reasoning proves too much. It inevitably leads to the conclusion that any form of popular government ought to be based on the existence of strictly universal suffrage. An extreme suffragette will say that this result is not a reductio ad absurdum. But there are thousands of sensible Englishmen and Englishwomen who, while they doubt the advisability of introducing into England even manhood suffrage, refuse to admit the cogency of reasoning which leads to the result that every Englishman and Englishwoman of full age must have a right to vote for a member of Parliament. But the full strength of an anti-suffragist's reply cannot be shown by any man who does not go a little further into the nature of things. A fair-minded man prepared to do this will, in the first place, admit that many democratic formulas, e.g. the dictum that "liability to taxation involves the right to representation," do verbally cover a woman's claim to a parliamentary vote. His true answer is that many so-called democratic principles, as also many so-called conservative principles, are in reality not principles at all but war-cries, or shibboleths which may contain a good deal of temporary or relative truth but are mixed up with a vast amount of error. The idea, he will ultimately say, that the possession of a vote is a personal right is a delusion. It is in truth the obligation to discharge a public duty, and whether this miscalled right should be conferred upon or withheld from Englishwomen can be decided only by determining whether their possession of the parliamentary vote will conduce to the welfare of England. Second Argument
The difference of sex presents no apparent or necessary reason for denying to Englishwomen the same political rights as are conferred upon Englishmen. It is found by experience, as suffragists will add, that some women have in many ways even greater capacity for the exercise of government than have some men. This argument may best be put in its full strength if it be placed, as it often is, in the form of a question: Was it reasonable that Florence Nightingale should not
have possessed the right to vote for a member of Parliament when even in her day her footman or her coachman, if he had happened to be a ten-pound householder, or a forty-shilling freeholder, might have exercised a right denied to a lady who, as appears from her biography, possessed many statesmanlike qualities, who did in fact in some lines of action exert more political power than most M.P.s, and who always exercised power disinterestedly, and generally exercised it with admitted benefit to the country? There is not the remotest doubt that the argument involved in this inquiry (in whatever form it is stated) seems to many women, to a great number of parliamentary electors, and also to a considerable number of M.P.s, to afford an unanswerable and conclusive reason in favour of giving parliamentary votes to women. Answer
The claim of parliamentary votes for women as now put forward in England is in reality a claim for the absolute political equality of the two sexes. Whether its advocates are conscious of the fact or not, it is a demand on behalf of women for seats in Parliament and in the Cabinet. It means that Englishwomen should share the jury box and should sit on the judicial bench. It treats as insignificant for most purposes that difference of sex which, after all, disguise the matter as you will, is one of the most fundamental and far-reaching differences which can distinguish one body of human beings from another. It is idle to repeat again and again reasoning which, for the last thirty years and more, has been pressed upon the attention of every English reader and elector. One thing is certain: the real strength (and it is great) of the whole conservative argument against the demand of votes for women lies in the fact that this line of reasoning, on the face thereof, conforms to the nature of things. The anti-suffragists can re-echo the words of Burke whilst adapting them to a controversy unknown to him and practically unknown to his age:
The principles that guide us, in public and in private, as they are not of our devising, but moulded into the nature and the essence of things, will endure with the sun and moon — long, very long after whig and tory, Stuart and Brunswick [suffragist, suffragette, and anti-suffragist], and all such misera-
ble bubbles and playthings of the hour, are vanished from existence and from memory.⁸⁵
Proportional Representation⁸⁶
The case in favour of the introduction of proportional representation into England rests on the truth of three propositions.
First Proposition
The House of Commons often fails to represent with precision or accuracy the state of opinion e.g. as to woman suffrage, existing among the electorate of England. In other words, the House of Commons often fails to be, as it is sometimes expressed, "the mirror of the national mind," or to exactly reflect the will of the electors.
Second Proposition
It is quite possible by some system of proportional representation to frame a House of Commons which would reflect much more than at present the opinion of the nation, or, in other words, of the electorate.
Third Proposition
It is pre-eminently desirable that every opinion bona fide existing among the electors should be represented in the House of Commons in as nearly as possible the same proportion in which it exists among the electors, or, to use popular language, among the nation.
Now of these three propositions the substantial truth of the first and second must, in my judgment, be admitted. No one can doubt the possibility, and even the high probability, that, for example, the cause of woman suffrage may, at the present moment, obtain more than half the votes of the House of Commons while it would not obtain as many as half the votes of the electorate. Nor again is it at all inconceivable that at some other period the cause of woman suffrage
85 Burke, Correspondence, i. pp. 332, 333.
86 See Humphreys, Proportional Representation; J. Fischer Williams, Proportional Representation and Bntish Politics; Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular Government, pp. 122-124.
should, while receiving the support of half the electorate, fail to obtain the votes of half the House of Commons. No one, in the second place, can, I think, with reason dispute that, among the numerous plans for proportional representation thrust upon the attention of the public, some one, and probably several, would tend to make the House of Commons a more complete mirror of what is called the mind of the nation than the House is at present; and this concession, it may with advantage be noted, does not involve the belief that under any system of popular government whatever, a representative body can be created which at every moment will absolutely and with complete accuracy reflect the opinions held by various classes of the people of England. Now my belief in the substantial truth of the first and the second of our three propositions makes it needless for me, at any rate for the purpose of this Introduction, to consider the reservations with which their absolute accuracy ought to be assumed. For the sake of argument, at any rate, I treat them as true. My essential objection to the system of proportional representation consists in my grave doubt as to the truth of the third of the above three propositions, namely, that it is desirable that any opinion existing among any large body of electors should be represented in the House of Commons as nearly as possible in the same proportion in which it exists among such electors.
Before, however, any attempt is made to state the specific objections which in my judgment lie against the introduction of proportional representation into the parliamentary constitution of England, it is essential to discriminate between two different ideas which are confused together under the one demand for proportional representation. The one of these ideas is the desirability that every opinion entertained by a substantial body of Englishmen should obtain utterance in the House of Commons, or, to use a vulgar but effective piece of political slang, "be voiced by" some member or members of that House. Thus it has been laid down by the leader of the Liberal party that
it was infinitely to the advantage of the House of Commons, if it was to be a real reflection and mirror of the national mind, that there should be no strain
of opinion honestly entertained by any substantial body of the King's subjects which should not find there representation and speech.⁸⁷
To this doctrine any person who has been influenced by the teaching of Locke, Bentham, and Mil will find it easy to assent, for it is well known that in any country, and especially in any country where popular government exists, the thoughts, even the bad or the foolish thoughts, of the people should be known to the national legislature. An extreme example will best show my meaning. If among the people of any land the hatred of the Jews or of Judaism should exist, it would certainly be desirable that this odious prejudice should find some exponent or advocate in the Parliament of such country, for the knowledge of popular errors or delusions may well be essential to the carrying out of just government or wise administration. Ignorance is never in truth the source of wisdom or of justice. The other idea or meaning attached by Proportionalists to proportional representation is that every influential opinion should not only find utterance in the House of Commons, but, further, and above all, be represented in the House of Commons by the same proportionate number of votes which it obtains from the voters at an election. Thus the eminent man who advocated the desirability of every opinion obtaining a hearing in the House of Commons, used on another occasion the following words: "It is an essential and integral feature of our policy that we shall go forward with the task of making the House of Commons not only the mouthpiece but the mirror of the national mind."⁸⁸ Now the doctrine of proportional representation thus interpreted is a dogma to which a fair-minded man may well refuse his assent. It is by no means obviously true; it is open to the following (among other) objections that admit of dear statement. Objections to the Third Proposition
First Objection The more complicated any system of popular election is made, the more power is thrown into the hands of election
87 See Mr. Asquith's speech at St. Andrews, Feb. 19, 1906, cited by J. Fischer Williams, Proportional Representation, p. 17.
88 Mr. Asquith at Burnley, Dec. 5, 1910, cited by J. Fischer Williams, Proportional Representation, p. 17.
agents or wire-pullers. This of itself increases the power and lowers the character of the party machine; but the greatest political danger with which England is now threatened is the inordinate influence of party mechanism. This objection was long ago insisted upon by Bagehot.⁸⁹ It explains, if it does not wholly justify, John Bright's denunciation of fancy franchises.
Second Objection The House of Commons is no mere debating society. It is an assembly entrusted with great though indirect executive authority; it is, or ought to be, concerned with the appointment and the criticism of the Cabinet. Grant, for the sake of argument, that every influential opinion should in the House of Commons gain a hearing. This result would be obtained if two men, or only one man, were to be found in the House who could ensure a hearing whenever he spoke in favour of some peculiar opinion. The argument for woman suffrage was never stated with more force in Parliament than when John Mill represented Westminster. The reasons in its favour would not, as far as argument went, have commanded more attention if a hundred members had been present who shared Mill's opinions but were not endowed with his logical power and his lucidity of expression. But where a body of men such as constitute the House of Commons are at all concerned with government, unity of action is of more consequence than variety of opinion. The idea, indeed, of representation may be, and often is, carried much too far. A Cabinet which represented all shades of opinion would be a Ministry which could not act at all. No one really supposes that a Government could in ordinary circumstances be formed in which two opposite parties balanced one another. Nor can it often be desirable that an opinion held by, say, a third of a ministerial party should necessarily be represented by a third of the Cabinet. It may well be doubted whether even on commissions appointed partly, at any rate, for the purpose of inquiry, it is at all desirable that distinctly opposite views should obtain recognition. The Commission which laid down the leading lines of Poor Law Reform in 1834 rendered an immense service to England. Would there have been any real advantage in plac-
89 Bagehot, English Constitution, pp. 148-159.
ing on that Commission men who condemned any change in the existing poor law?
Third Objection Proportional representation, just because it aims at the representation of opinions rather than of persons, tends to promote the existence in the House of Commons of numerous party groups and also fosters the admitted evil of log-rolling. The working of English parliamentary government has owed half of its success to the existence of two leading and opposed parties, and of two such parties only. Using somewhat antiquated but still intelligible terms, let me call them by the name of Tories and Whigs.⁹⁰ These two parties have, if one may speak in very broad terms, tended, the one to uphold the rule of the well-born, the well-to-do, and therefore, on the whole, of the more educated members of the community; the other has promoted the power of numbers, and has therefore aimed at increasing the political authority of the comparatively poor, that is, of the comparatively ignorant. Each tendency has obviously some good and some bad effects. If, for a moment, one may adopt modern expressions while divesting them of any implied blame or praise, one may say that Conservatism and Liberalism each play their part in promoting the welfare of any country where popular government exists. Now, that the existence of two leading parties, and of two such parties only, in England has favoured the development of English constitutionalism is past denial. It is also certain that during the nineteenth century there has been a notable tendency in English public life to produce in the House of Commons separate groups or parties which stood more or less apart from Tories and Whigs, and were all but wholly devoted to the attainment of some one definite change or reform. The Repealers, as led by O'Connell, and still more the Free Traders, as led by Cobden⁹¹ are early examples of such
90 I choose these old expressions which have been in use, at any rate from 1689 till the present day, because they make it easier to keep somewhat apart from the burning controversies of 1914.
91 Cobden would have supported any Premier, whether a Tory or a Whig, who undertook to repeal the Corn Laws. O'Connell would have supported any Premier who had pledged himself to repeal the Act of Union with Ireland; but O'Connell's position was peculiar. He took an active interest in English politics, he was a Benthamite Liberal; and during a part of his career acted in alliance with the Whigs.
groups. These groups avowedly held the success of the cause for which they fought of greater consequence than the maintenance in office either of Tories or of Whigs. Even in 1845 they had perplexed the working of our constitution; they had gone far to limit the operation of the very valuable rule that a party, which persuades Parliament to adopt the party's policy, should be prepared to take office and carry that policy into effect. The Free Traders, in fact, give the best, if not the earliest, example of an English group organised to enforce the adoption by the English parliament of an opinion, doctrine, or theory to which that group was devoted. Now an observer of the course of events during the last sixty years will at once note the increasing number of such groups in the House of Commons. To-day we have Ministerialists and Unionists (corresponding roughly with the old Whigs and Tories), we have also Irish Nationalists and the Labour Party. These parties have each separate organisations. But one can easily observe the existence of smaller bodies each devoted to its own movement or cause, such, for example, as the temperance reformers, as the advocates of woman suffrage, or as the members who hold that the question of the day is the disestablishment of the Church. This state of things already invalidates our constitutional customs. Nor is it easy to doubt that any fair system of proportional representation must increase the number of groups existing in Parliament, for the very object of Proportionalists is to ensure that every opinion which exists among an appreciable number of British electors shall have an amount of votes in Parliament proportionate to the number of votes it obtains among the electors. If, for example, a tenth of the electors should be anti-vaccinators, the anti-vaccinators ought, under a perfect scheme of representation, to command sixty-seven votes in the House of Commons. Sixty-seven anti-vaccinators who might accidentally obtain seats in the House of Commons, e.g. as Conservatives or Liberals, would, be it noted, constitute a very different body from sixty-seven members sent to the House of Commons to represent the cause of anti-vaccination. The difference is this: In the first case each anti-vaccinator would often perceive that there were matters of more pressing importance than anti-vaccination; but the sixty-seven men elected under a system of proportional represen-
tation to obtain the total repeal of the vaccination laws would, one may almost say must, make that repeal the one dominant object of their parliamentary action. That the multiplication of groups might weaken the whole system of our parliamentary government is a probable conjecture. That proportional representation might tend to extend the vicious system of log-rolling is all but demonstrable. Let me suppose the sixty-seven anti-vaccinators to be already in existence; let me suppose, as would probably be the case, that they are elected because of their firm faith in anti-vaccination, and that, both from their position and from their creed, they feel that to destroy the vaccination laws is the supreme object at which every good man should aim. They will soon find that their sixty-seven votes, though of high importance, are not enough to save the country. The course which these patriots must follow is obvious. They are comparatively indifferent about Home Rule, about Disestablishment, about the objects of the Labour Party. Let them promise their support to each of the groups advocating each of these objects in return for the help in repealing legislation which originates, say our anti-vaccinators, in the delusions of Jenner. A political miracle will have been performed. A majority in favour of anti-vaccination will have been obtained; the voice of fanatics will have defeated the common sense of the nation. Let me, as an illustration of my contention, recall to public attention a forgotten fact. Some forty years ago the Claimant, now barely remembered as Arthur Orton, was a popular hero. His condemnation to imprisonment for fourteen or fifteen years excited much indignation. He obtained one representative, and one representative only, of his grievances in the House of Commons. Under a properly organised system of proportional representation, combined with our present household suffrage, he might well have obtained twenty. Does any one doubt that these twenty votes would have weighed with the Whips of any party in power? Is it at all certain that the Claimant might not, thus supported, have obtained a mitigation of his punishment, if not a re-trial of his case? This is an extreme illustration of popular folly. For this very reason it is a good test of a logical theory. I do not contend that proportional representation cannot
be defended by weighty considerations; my contention is that it is open to some grave objections which have not received an adequate
answer.⁹²
Federalism⁹³
In 1884 the peculiarities and the merits of federal government had not attracted the attention of the English public. Here and there a statesman whose mind was turned towards the relation of England and her colonies had perceived that some of the self-governing colonies might with advantage adopt federal constitutions. In 1867 Parliament had readily assented to the creation of the Canadian Dominion and thereby transformed the colonies possessed by England on the continent of America into a federal state. In truth it may be said that the success of the Northern States of the American Commonwealth in the War of Secession had, for the first time, impressed upon Englishmen the belief that a democratic and a federal state might come with success through a civil war, carried on against states which asserted their right to secede from the Republic of which they were a part. Still in 1884 hardly a statesman whose name carried weight with Englishmen advocated the formation of a federal system as a remedy for the defects, whatever they were, of the English constitution, or as the means for uniting the widely scattered countries which make up the British Empire. Walter Bagehot was in his day, as he still is, the most eminent of modern English constitutionalists. He compared the constitution of England with the constitution of the United States. But the result of such comparison was, in almost every case, to illustrate some hitherto unnoted merit of the English constitution which was not to be found in the constitution of the great American Repub-
92 Proportional representation was in Mill's day known as minority representation. The change of name is not without significance. In 1870 the demand for minority representation was put forward mainly as the means for obtaining a hearing for intelligent minorities whose whisper might easily be drowned by the shouts of an unintelligent majority. In 1914 minority representation is recommended mainly as the means of ensuring that the true voice of the nation shall be heard. It was once considered a check upon democracy; it is now supported as the best method for giving effect to the true will of the democracy.
93 Compare especially as to federal government, Chap. III. p. 73, post.
lie. Sir Henry Maine was in his time the most brilliant of the writers who had incidentally turned their thoughts towards constitutional problems. Maine's Popular Government, published in 1885, expressed his admiration for the rigidity or the conservatism of American federalism. But he never hinted at the conviction, which he probably never entertained, that either the United Kingdom or the British Empire would gain by transformation into a federal state. Thirty years ago the nature of federalism had received in England very inadequate investigation.⁹⁴ In this, as in other matters, 1914 strangely contrasts with 1884. The notion is now current that federalism contains the solution of every constitutional problem which perplexes British statesmanship. Why not, we are told, draw closer the bonds which maintain peace and goodwill between the United Kingdom and all her colonies, by constructing a new and grand Imperial federation governed by a truly Imperial Parliament, which shall represent every state, including England, which is subject to the government of the King? Why not, we are asked, establish a permanent reconciliation between England and Ireland by the conversion of the United Kingdom into a federalised kingdom whereof England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and, for aught I know, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, shall form separate states? This new constitutional idea of the inherent excellence of federalism is a new faith or delusion which deserves examination. My purpose, therefore, is to consider two different matters — namely, first, the general characteristics of federalism; secondly, the bearing of these characteristics on the proposal popularly known as Imperial federalism, for including England⁹⁵ and the five self-governing colonies in a federal constitution, and also the proposal (popularly known as Home Rule all round) for federalising the United Kingdom.
94 In Chap. III., post, federalism was analysed (1885) as illustrating, by way of contrast, that sovereignty of the English Parliament which makes England one of the best examples of a unitary state.
95 In treating of Imperial federalism, as often in other parts of this book, I purposely and frequently, in accordance with popular language, use "England" as equivalent to the United Kingdom.
Leading Characteristics of Federal Government⁹¹¹
Federalism is a natural constitution for a body of states which desire union and do not desire unity. Take as countries which exhibit this state of feeling the United States, the English federated colonies, the Swiss Confederation, and the German Empire, and contrast with this special condition of opinion the deliberate rejection by all Italian patriots of federalism, which in the case of Italy presented many apparent advantages, and the failure of union between Sweden and Norway to produce any desire for unity or even for a continued political connection, though these Scandinavian lands differ little from each other in race, in religion, in language, or in their common interest to maintain their independence against neighbouring and powerful countries.
The physical contiguity, further, of countries which are to form a confederated state is certainly a favourable, and possibly a necessary, condition for the success of federal government.
The success of federal government is greatly favoured by, if it does not absolutely require, approximate equality in the wealth, in the population, and in the historical position of the different countries which make up a confederation. The reason for this is pretty obvious. The idea which lies at the bottom of federalism is that each of the separate states should have approximately equal political rights and should thereby be able to maintain the "limited independence" (if the term may be used) meant to be secured by the terms of federal union. Hence the provision contained in the constitution of the United States under which two Senators, and no more, are given to each state, though one be as populous, as large, and as wealthy as is New York, and another be as small in area and contain as few citizens as Rhode Island. Bagehot, indeed, points out that the equal power in the Senate of a small state and of a large state is from some points of view an evil. It is, however, an arrangement obviously congenial to
96 See especially Chap. III. p. 73, post. It is worth observing that the substance of this chapter was published before the production by Gladstone of his first Home Rule Bill for Ireland.
federal sentiment. If one state of a federation greatly exceed in its numbers and in its resources the power of each of the other states, and still more if such "dominant partner," to use a current expression, greatly exceed the whole of the other Confederated States in population and in wealth, the confederacy will be threatened with two dangers. The dominant partner may exercise an authority almost inconsistent with federal equality. But, on the other hand, the other states, if they should possess under the constitution rights equal to the rights or the political power left to the dominant partner, may easily combine to increase unduly the burdens, in the way of taxation or otherwise, imposed upon the one most powerful state.
Federalism, when successful, has generally been a stage towards unitary government. In other words, federalism tends to pass into nationalism. This has certainly been the result of the two most successful of federal experiments. The United States, at any rate as they now exist, have been well described as a nation concealed under the form of a federation. The same expression might with considerable truth be applied to Switzerland. Never was there a country in which it seemed more difficult to produce national unity. The Swiss cantons are divided by difference of race, by difference of language, by difference of religion. These distinctions till nearly the middle of the nineteenth century produced a kind of disunion among the Swiss people which in 1914 seems almost incredible. They forbade the existence of a common coinage; they allowed any one canton to protect the financial interest of its citizens against competition by the inhabitants of every other canton. In 1847 ^me Sonderbund threatened to destroy the very idea of Swiss unity, Swiss nationality, and Swiss independence. Patriots had indeed for generations perceived that the federal union of Switzerland afforded the one possible guarantee for the continued existence of their country. But attempt after attempt to secure the unity of Switzerland had ended in failure. The victory of the Swiss federalists in the Sonderbund war gave new life to Switzerland: this was the one indubitable success directly due to the movements of 1847-48. It is indeed happy that the victory of the federal armies took place before the fall of the French Monarchy, and that the Revolution of February, combined with other movements
which distracted Europe, left the Swiss free to manage their own affairs in their own way. Swiss patriotism and moderation met with their reward. Switzerland became master of her own fate. Each step in the subsequent progress of the new federal state has been a step along the path leading from confederate union to national unity.
A federal constitution is, as compared with a unitary constitution, a weak form of government. Few were the thinkers who in 1884 would have denied the truth of this proposition. In 1914 language is constantly used which implies that a federal government is in itself superior to a unitary constitution such as that of France or of England. Yet the comparative weakness of federalism is no accident. A true federal government is based on the division of powers. It means the constant effort of statesmanship to balance one state of the confederacy against another. No one can rate more highly than myself the success with which a complicated system is worked by the members of the Swiss Council or, to use expressions familiar to Englishmen, by the Swiss Cabinet. Yet everywhere throughout Swiss arrangements you may observe the desire to keep up a sort of balance of advantages between different states. The members of the Council are seven in number; each member must, of necessity, belong to a different canton. The federal Parliament meets at Bern; the federal Court sits at Lausanne in the canton of Vaud; the federal university is allotted to a third canton, namely Zurich. Now rules or practices of this kind must inevitably restrict the power of bringing into a Swiss Cabinet all the best political talent to be found in Switzerland. Such a system applied to an English or to a French Cabinet would be found almost unworkable. Federalism again would mean, in any country where English ideas prevail, the predominance of legalism or, in other words, a general willingness to yield to the authority of the law courts. Nothing is more remarkable, and in the eyes of any impartial critic more praiseworthy, than the reverence paid on the whole by American opinion to the Supreme Court of the United States. Nor must one forget that the respect paid to the opinion of their own judges, even when deciding questions on which political feeling runs high, is, on the whole, characteristic of the citizens of each particular state. The Supreme Court, e.g., of Massachusetts may be called upon
to determine in effect whether a law passed by the legislature of Massachusetts is, or is not, constitutional; and the decision of the Court will certainly meet with obedience. Now, what it is necessary to insist upon is that this legalism which fosters and supports the rule of law is not equally displayed in every country. No French court has ever definitely pronounced a law passed by the French legislature invalid, nor, it is said, has any Belgian court ever pronounced invalid a law passed by the Belgian Parliament. Whether English electors are now strongly disposed to confide to the decision of judges questions which excite strong political feeling is doubtful. Yet — and this is no insignificant matter — under every federal system there must almost of necessity exist some body of persons who can decide whether the terms of the federal compact have been observed. But if this power be placed in the hands of the Executive, the law will, it may be feared, be made subservient to the will of any political party which is for the moment supreme. If it be placed in the hands of judges, who profess and probably desire to practise judicial impartiality, it may be very difficult to ensure general respect for any decision which contradicts the interests and the principles of a dominant party. Federalism, lastly, creates divided allegiance. This is the most serious and the most inevitable of the weaknesses attaching to a form of government under which loyalty to a citizen's native state may conflict with his loyalty to the whole federated nation. Englishmen, Scotsmen, and Irishmen have always, as soldiers, been true to the common flag. The whole history of the Sonderbund in Switzerland and of Secession in the United States bears witness to the agonised perplexity of the noblest among soldiers when called upon to choose between loyalty to their country and loyalty to their canton or state. One example of this difficulty is amply sufficient for my purpose. General Scott and General Lee alike had been trained as officers of the American Army; each was a Virginian; each of them was determined from the outbreak of the Civil War to follow the dictates of his own conscience; each was placed in a position as painful as could be occupied by a soldier of bravery and honour; each was a victim of that double allegiance which is all but inherent in federalism. General Scott fol-
lowed the impulse of loyalty to the Union. General Lee felt that as a matter of duty he must obey the sentiment of loyalty to Virginia.
In any estimate of the strength or the weakness of federal government it is absolutely necessary not to confound, though the confusion is a very common one, federalism with nationalism. A truly federal government is the denial of national independence to every state of the federation. No single state of the American Commonwealth is a separate nation; no state, it may be added, e.g. the State of New York, has anything like as much of local independence as is possessed by New Zealand or by any other of the five Dominions.⁹⁷ There is of course a sense, and a very real sense, in which national tradition and national feeling may be cultivated in a state which forms part of a confederacy. The French inhabitants of Quebec are Frenchmen to the core. But their loyalty to the British Empire is certain. One indisputable source of their Imperial loyalty is that the break-up of the Empire might, as things now stand, result to Canada in union with the United States. But Frenchmen would with more difficulty maintain their French character if Quebec became a state of the Union and ceased to be a province of the Dominion. In truth national character in one sense of that term has less necessary connection than Englishmen generally suppose with political arrangements. It would be simple folly to assert that Sir Walter Scott did not share the sentiment of Scottish nationalism; yet the influence of Scott's genius throughout Europe was favoured by, and in a sense was the fruit of, the union with England. But the aspiration and the effort towards actual national independence is at least as inconsistent with the conditions of a federal as with the conditions of a unitary government. Any one will see that this is so who considers how patent would have been the folly of the attempt to establish a confederacy which should have left Italy a state of the Austrian Empire. Nor does historical experience countenance the idea that federalism, which may certainly be a step towards closer national unity, can be used as a method for gradually bringing political unity to an end.
97 As to meaning of "Dominions" see p. xlii, note 21, ante.
The Characteristics of Federal Government in Relation to Imperial Federalism
Many Englishmen of to-day advocate the building up of some grand federal constitution which would include the United Kingdom (or, to use popular language, England) and at any rate the five Dominions. This splendid vision of the advantages to be obtained by increased unity of action between England and her self-governing colonies is suggested by obvious and important facts. The wisdom of every step which may increase the reciprocal goodwill, strong as it now is, of England and her Dominions is proved by the success of each Imperial Conference. It is perfectly plain already, and will become every day plainer both to Englishmen and to the inhabitants of the British Empire outside England, that the existence of the Empire ought to secure both England and her colonies against even the possibility of attack by any foreign power. It to-day in reality secures the maintenance of internal peace and order in every country inhabited by British subjects. It is further most desirable, it may probably become in no long time an absolute necessity, that every country throughout the Empire should contribute in due measure to the cost of Imperial defence. To this it should be added that the material advantages accruing to millions of British subjects from the Imperial power of England may more and more tend to produce that growth of loyalty and goodwill towards the Empire which in 1914 is a characteristic and splendid feature both of England and of her colonies. Any man may feel pride in an Imperial patriotism grounded on the legitimate belief that the Empire built up by England furthers the prosperity and the happiness of the whole body of British subjects.⁹⁸
98 "But this Empire of ours is distinguished from [other Empires] by special and dominating characteristics. From the external point of view it is made up of countries which are not geographically conterminous or even contiguous, which present every variety of climate, soil, people, and religion, and, even in those communities which have attained to complete self-government, and which are represented in this room to-day, does not draw its unifying and cohesive force solely from identity of race or of language. Yet you have here a political organisation which, by its mere existence, rules out the possibility of war between populations numbering something like a third of the human race. There is, as there must be among communities so differently situated and circumstanced, a vast variety of constitutional methods, and of social and political institutions and ideals. But to speak for a moment for that part of the Empire which is represented here to-day, what is it that we have in common, which amidst every diversity of external and material conditions, makes us and
But, when every admission which the most ardent of Imperialists can ask for, is made of the benefits conferred in every quarter of the world upon the inhabitants of different countries, by the existence of England's Imperial power, it is quite possible for a calm observer to doubt whether the so-called federalisation of the British Empire is an object which ought to be aimed at by the statesmen either of England or of the Dominions. The objections to the creed of federalism, in so far as it means the building up of a federal constitution for the Empire, or rather for England and her Dominions, may be summed up in the statement that this belief in a new-fangled federalism is at bottom a delusion, and a delusion perilous not only to England but to the whole British Empire. But this general statement may be best justified by the working out of two criticisms.
First: The attempt to form a federal constitution for the Empire is at this moment full of peril to England, to the Dominions, and, it may well be, to the maintenance of the British Empire. The task imposed upon British and upon colonial statesmanship is one of infinite difficulty. As we all know, the creation of the United States was for the thirteen independent colonies a matter of absolute necessity. But the highest statesmanship of the ablest leaders whom a country ever possessed was hardly sufficient for the transformation of thirteen different states into one confederated nation. Even among countries differing little in race, religion, and history, it was found all but impossible to reconcile the existence of state rights with the creation of a strong central and national power. If any one considers the infinite diversity of the
keeps us one? There are two things in the self-governing British Empire which are unique in the history of great political aggregations. The first is the reign of Law: wherever the King's writ runs, it is the symbol and messenger not of an arbitrary authority, but of rights shared by every citizen, and capable of being asserted and made effective by the tribunals of the land. The second is the combination of local autonomy — absolute, unfettered, complete — with loyalty to a common head, co-operation, spontaneous and unforced, for common interests and purposes, and, I may add, a common trusteeship, whether it be in India or in the Crown Colonies, or in the Protectorates, or within our own borders, of the interests and fortunes of fellow-subjects who have not yet attained, or perhaps in some cases may never attain, to the full stature of self-government." — See speech of the Right Hon. H. H. Asquith (President of the Conference), Minutes of Proceedings of the Imperial Conference, 1911 [Cd. 5745], p. 22.
countries which make up the British Empire, if he reflects that they are occupied by different races whose customs and whose civilisation are the product of absolutely different histories, that the different countries of the Empire are in no case contiguous, and in many instances are separated from England and from each other by seas extending over thousands of miles, he will rather wonder at the boldness of the dreams entertained by the votaries of federal Imperialism, than believe that the hopes of federalising the Empire are likely to meet with fulfilment. I shall be reminded, however, and with truth, that Imperial federalism, as planned by even its most sanguine advocates, means something very different from the attempt to frame a constitution of which the United Kingdom, the Dominions, the Crown colonies, and British India shall constitute different states. Our Imperialists really aim, and the fact must be constantly borne in mind, at federalising the relation not between England and the rest of the Empire, but between England and the five self-governing Dominions. But then this admission, while it does away with some of the difficulties besetting the policy which is miscalled Imperial federalism, raises a whole body of difficult and all but unanswerable questions. Take a few of the inquiries to which sanguine reformers, who talk with easy confidence of federalism being the solution of all the most pressing constitutional problems, must find a reply. What is to be the relation between the new federated state (consisting of England and the five Dominions) and British India? Will the millions who inhabit India readily obey a new and strange sovereign, or will the states of the new confederacy agree that the rest of the Empire shall be ruled by the Parliament and Government of England alone? Is the whole expense of Imperial defence to be borne by the federated states, or will the new federation of its own authority impose taxes upon India and the Crown colonies for the advantage of the federated state? Is it certain, after all, that the mutual goodwill entertained between England and the Dominions really points towards federalism? No doubt England and the states represented at the Imperial Conferences entertain a genuine and ardent wish that the British Empire should be strong and be able, as against foreigners, and even in resistance to secession, to use all the resources of the whole Empire
for its defence and maintenance. But then each one of the Dominions desires rather the increase than the lessening of its own independence. Is there the remotest sign that, for example, New Zealand, though thoroughly loyal to the Empire, would tolerate interference by any Imperial Parliament or Congress with the internal affairs of New Zealand which even faintly resembled the authority exerted by Congress in New York, or the authority exerted by the Parliament of the Canadian Dominion in Quebec? But if the Dominions would not tolerate the interference with their own affairs by any Parliament, whatever its title, sitting at Westminster, is there the remotest reason to suppose that the existing Imperial Parliament will consent to become a Parliament of the Empire in which England, or rather the United Kingdom, and each of the five Dominions shall be fairly represented? But here we come to a further inquiry, to which our new federalists hardly seem to have given a thought: What are they going to do with the old Imperial Parliament which has, throughout the whole history of England, inherited the traditions and often exerted the reality of sovereign power? Under our new federation is the Imperial Parliament to become a Federal Congress wherein every state is to have due representation? Is this Federal Congress to be for Englishmen the English Parliament, or is there to be in addition to or instead of the ancient Parliament of England a new local English Parliament controlling the affairs of England alone? This question itself is one of unbounded difficulty. It embraces two or three inquiries the answers whereto may trouble the thoughts of theorists, and these replies, if they are ever discovered, may give rise throughout England and the British Empire to infinite discord. Is it not one example of the perplexities involved in any plan of Imperial federalism, and of the intellectual levity with which they are met, that our Federalists never have given a dear and, so to speak, intelligible idea of what is to be under a federal government the real position not of the United Kingdom but of that small country limited in size, but still of immense power, which is specifically known by the august name of England? The traditional feuds of Ireland and the ecclesiastical grievances of Wales, the demand of some further recognition of that Scottish nationality, for which no sensible Englishman shows or
is tempted to show the least disrespect, all deserve and receive exaggerated attention. But England and English interests, just because Englishmen have identified the greatness of England with the prosperity of the United Kingdom and the greatness and good government of the Empire, are for the moment overlooked. I venture to assure all my readers that this forgetfulness of England — and by England I here mean the country known, and famous, as England before the legal creation either of Great Britain or of the United Kingdom — is a fashion opposed both to common sense and to common justice, and, like all opposition to the nature of things, will ultimately come to nothing." The questions I have mentioned are numerous and full of complexity. The present time, we must add, is intensely unfavourable to the creation of a new federalised and Imperial constitution. The Parliament and the Government of the United Kingdom may be chargeable with grave errors: they have fallen into many blunders. But they have never forgotten — they will never, one trusts, forget — that they hold
a common trusteeship, whether it be in India or in the Crown Colonies, or in the Protectorates, or within our own borders, of the interests and fortunes of fellow-subjects who have not yet attained, or perhaps in some cases may never attain, to the full stature of self-government. ¹⁰°
Is it credible that, for instance, the peoples of India will see with indifference this trusteeship pass from the hands of an Imperial Parliament (which has more or less learned to think imperially, and in England has maintained the equal political rights of all British subjects) into the hands of a new-made Imperial Congress which will
99 Sir Joseph Ward is an eminent colonial statesman; he is also an ardent Imperialist of the colonial type. In his plan for an Imperial Council, or in other words for an Imperial Parliament representing the United Kingdom, or rather the countries which now make it up, and also the Dominions, he calmly assumes that Englishmen will without difficulty allow the United Kingdom to be broken up into four countries ruled by four local Parliaments. He supposes, that is to say, as a matter of course, that Englishmen will agree to a radical change in the government of England which no sane English Premier would have thought of pressing upon the Parliaments of the self-governing colonies which now constitute the Dominion of Canada or which now constitute the Commonwealth of Australia. See Minutes of Proceedings of the Imperial Conference, 1911 [Cd. 5745], pp. 59-61.
100 See Mr. Asquith's address, cited pp. xcviii-xcix, note 98, ante.
consist in part of representatives of Dominions which, it may be of necessity, cannot give effect to this enlarged conception of British citizenship?¹⁰¹
Second: The unity of the Empire does not require the formation of a federal or of any other brand-new constitution. I yield to no man in my passion for the greatness, the strength, the glory, and the moral unity of the British Empire.¹⁰²1 am one of the thousands of Englishmen who approved, and still approve, of the war in South Africa because it forbade secession. But I am a student of the British constitution; my unhesitating conviction is that the constitution of the Empire ought to develop, as it is actually developing, in the same way in which grew up the constitution of England.¹⁰³ The relation between England and the Dominions, and, as far as possible, between England and the colonies which are not as yet self-governing countries, need not be developed by arduous feats of legislation. It should grow under the influence of reasonable understandings and of fair customs. There are, as I have intimated,¹⁰⁴ two objects on which every Imperialist should fix his eyes. The one is the contribution by every country within the Empire towards the cost of defending the Empire. The second object is the constant consultation between England and the Dominions. The English taxpayer will not, and ought not to, continue for ever paying the whole cost of Imperial defence. The Dominions cannot for an indefinite period bear the risks of Imperial wars without having a voice in determining if such wars should begin, and when and on what terms they should be brought to an end. Imperial statesmanship is rapidly advancing in the right direction. The system of Imperial Conferences¹⁰⁵ and other modes of inter-communication
101 See p. liv, and note 43, ante.
102 See A Fool's Paradise, p. 24.
103 This conviction is strengthened by the facts now daily passing before our eyes (Sept. 1914).
104 See pp. xcviii, xrix, ante; and see ^4 Fool's Paradise, p. 25.
105 Consider the gradual, the most hopeful, and the most successful development of these conferences from 1887 to the last conference in 1911. A sort of conference was held in 1887, and the conferences of 1897 and 1902 were held in connection with some other celebration.
between England and the Dominions will, we may hope, result in regulating both the contribution which the Dominions ought to make towards the defence of the Empire, and the best method for collecting colonial opinion on the policy of any war which may assume an Imperial character. My full belief is that an Imperial constitution based on goodwill and fairness may within a few years come into real existence, before most Englishmen have realised that the essential foundations of Imperial unity have already been firmly laid. The ground of my assurance is that the constitution of the Empire may, like the constitution of England, be found to rest far less on parliamentary statutes than on the growth of gradual and often unnoted customs.
Characteristics of Federal Government in Relation to Home Rule All Round
Advocates of the so-called "federal solution" apparently believe that the United Kingdom as a whole will gain by exchanging our present unitary constitution for some unspecified form of federal government. To an Englishman who still holds, as was universally held by every English statesman till at the very earliest 1880, that the union between England and Scotland was the wisest and most fortunate among the achievements of British statesmanship, there is great difficulty in understanding the new belief that the federalisation of the United Kingdom will confer benefit upon any of the inhabitants of Great Britain.¹⁰⁶ A candid critic may be able to account for the existence of a political creed which he does not affect to share.
The first regular conference for no other purpose than consultation was held in 1907, in which the Imperial Conference received by resolution a definite constitution. The conference of 1911 was held under the scheme thus agreed upon in 1907. 106 The omission of reference to the policy of Home Rule for Ireland as embodied in the Government of Ireland Act, 1914, is intentional. The true character and effect of that Act cannot become apparent until some years have passed. The Act itself stands in a position never before occupied by any statute of immense and far-reaching importance. It may not come into operation for an indefinite period. Its very authors contemplate its amendment before it shall begin to operate. The Act is at the moment detested by the Protestants of Ulster, and a binding though ambiguous pledge has been given that the Act will not be forced upon Ulster against her will. The people of Great Britain will insist on this pledge being held sacred. To a constitutionalist the Act at present affords better ground for wonder than for criticism. If any reader should be curious to know my views on Home Rule he will find them in a general form in England's Case against Home Rule, published in 1887; and as applied to the last Home Rule Bill, in A fool's Paradise, published in 1913.
The faith in Home Rule all round has been stimulated, if not mainly created, by the controversy, lasting for thirty years and more, over the policy of Home Rule for Ireland. British Home Rulers have always been anxious to conceal from themselves that the creation of a separate Irish Parliament, and a separate Irish Cabinet depending for its existence on such Parliament, is a real repeal of the Act of Union between Great Britain and Ireland. This refusal to look an obvious fact in the face is facilitated by the use of that most ambiguous phrase, "Home Rule all round." Federalism has, no doubt, during the last thirty, or one may say fifty, years acquired a good deal of new prestige. The prosperity of the United States, the military authority of the German Empire, may by federalists be put down to the credit of federal government, though in matter of fact no two constitutions can, either in their details or in their spirit, bear less real resemblance than the democratic and, on the whole, unmilitary constitution of the United States and the autocratic Imperial and, above all, military government of Germany. Federal government has also turned out to be the form of government suitable for some of the British Dominions. It has been an undoubted success in the Canadian Dominion. It has not been long tried but has not been a failure in the Australian Commonwealth. It may become, Englishmen are inclined to think it is, the best form of government for the states included in the Union of South Africa. Little reflection, however, is required in order to see that none of these federations resemble the constitution of England either in their historical development or in their actual circumstances. Then, too, it is thought that whereas English statesmen find it difficult to regulate the relation between Great Britain and Ireland, the task will become easier if the same statesmen undertake to transform, by some hocus-pocus of political legerdemain, the whole United Kingdom into a federal government consisting of at least four different states. It is supposed, lastly, though the grounds for the supposition are not very evident, that the federalisation of the United Kingdom is necessary for, or conducive to, the development of Imperial federalism.
Federalism, in short, has at present the vague, and therefore the strong and imaginative, charm which has been possessed at one time throughout Europe by the parliamentary constitutionalism of Eng-
land and at another by the revolutionary republicanism of France. It may be well, therefore, to state with some precision why, to one who has studied the characteristics of federal government, it must seem in the highest degree improbable that Home Rule all round, or the federal solution, will be of any benefit whatever to any part of the United Kingdom.
i. There is no trace whatever of the existence of the federal spirit throughout the United Kingdom. In England, which is after all by far the most important part of the kingdom, the idea of federalism has hitherto been totally unknown. Politicians may have talked of it when it happened to suit their party interest, but to the mass of the people the idea of federation has always been, and I venture to assert at this moment is, unknown and all but incomprehensible. Scotsmen sometimes complain that Great Britain is often called England. They sometimes talk as though they were in some mysterious manner precluded from a fair share in the benefits accruing from the unity of Great Britain. To any one who investigates the actual course of British politics, and still more of British social life since the beginning of the nineteenth century, these complaints appear to be utterly groundless. The prejudices which, say, in the time of Dr. Johnson, kept Scotsmen and Englishmen apart, have in reality vanished. To take one example of disappearing differences, we may note that while many leading Englishmen fill in Parliament Scottish seats many Scotsmen fill English seats. What is true is that the course of events, and the way in which the steam-engine and the telegraph bring the world everywhere closer together, are unfavourable to that prominence in any country which at one time was attainable by particular localities, or by small bodies of persons living somewhat apart from the general course of national life. This change has, like all other alterations, its weak side. It is quite possible honestly to regret the time when Edinburgh possessed the most intellectual society to be found in Great Britain or Ireland. It is also possible honestly to wish that Lichfield and Norwich might still have, as they had at the beginning of the nineteenth century, a little and not unfamous literary coterie of their own. There is a sense in which the growth of large states is injurious to the individual life of smaller communities. The Roman Republic
and the Roman Empire did not produce thinkers or writers who did as much for the progress of mankind as was done by the philosophers, the historians, and the poets of Greece, and the fruits of Greek genius were mainly due to the intellectual achievements of Athens during not much more than a century. Ireland is, as regards most of its inhabitants, discontented with the Union. But it is idle to pretend that Ireland has ever desired federalism in the sense in which it was desired by the colonies which originally formed the United States, or by the inhabitants of what are now the provinces of the Canadian Dominion. O'Connell for a very short time exhibited a tendency to substitute federalism for repeal. He discovered his mistake and reverted to repeal, which with his more revolutionary followers meant nationalism. No one who reads the last and the strangest of the biographies of Parnell can doubt that "Ireland a Nation" was the cry which met his own instinctive feeling no less than the wishes of his followers, except in so far as their desires pointed towards a revolutionary change in the tenure of land rather than towards the claim for national independence.
2. There is good reason to fear that the federalisation of the United Kingdom, stimulating as it would the disruptive force of local nationalism, might well arouse a feeling of divided allegiance. This topic is one on which I have no wish to dwell, but it cannot be forgotten by any sensible observer who reflects upon the history of secession in the United States, or of the Sonderbund in Switzerland, or who refuses to forget the preeminently uneasy connection between the different parts of the Austrian Empire and the deliberate determination of Norway to sever at all costs the union with Sweden. Nor is it possible to see how the federalisation of the United Kingdom should facilitate the growth of Imperial federalism.
3. Federalism, as the dissolution of the United Kingdom, is absolutely foreign to the historical and, so to speak, instinctive policy of English constitutionalists. Each successive generation from the reign of Edward I. onwards has laboured to produce that complete political unity which is represented by the absolute sovereignty of the Parliament now sitting at Westminster. Let it be remembered that no constitutional arrangements or fictions could get rid of the fact that Eng-
land would, after as before the establishment of Home Rule all round, continue, in virtue of her resources and her population, the predominant partner throughout the United Kingdom, and the partner on whom sovereignty had been conferred, not by the language of any statute or other document, but by the nature of things. It would be hard indeed to prevent the English Parliament sitting at Westminster from not only claiming but exercising sovereign authority; and to all these difficulties must be added one ominous and significant reflection. To every foreign country, whether it were numbered among our allies or among our rivals, the federalisation of Great Britain would be treated as a proof of the declining power alike of England and of the British Empire.¹⁰⁷
The Referendum¹⁰⁸
The word Referendum is a foreign expression derived from Switzerland. Thirty years ago it was almost unknown to Englishmen, even though they were interested in political theories. Twenty years ago it was quite unknown to British electors. The word has now obtained popular currency but is often misunderstood. It may be well, therefore, to define, or rather describe, the meaning of the "referendum" as used in this Introduction and as applied to England. The referendum is used by me as meaning the principle that Bills, even
107 Any great change in the form of the constitution of England, e.g. the substitution of an English republic for a limited monarchy, might deeply affect the loyalty of all the British colonies. Can any one be certain that New Zealand or Canada would, at the bidding of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, transer their loyalty from George V. to a President chosen by the electorate of the United Kingdom, and this even though the revolution were carried out with every legal formality including the assent of the King himself, and even though the King were elected the first President of the new Commonwealth? Is it certain that a federated union of England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales would command in our colonies the respect paid to the present United Kingdom? These questions may well seem strange: they are not unimportant. The King is what the Imperial Parliament has never been, the typical representative of Imperial unity throughout every part of the Empire.
108 Lowell, Public Opinion and Popular Government, partiii. chaps, xi-xv., especially chaps, xii. and xiii. (best thing on the subject); Lowell, Government of England, i. p. 411; "The Referendum and its Critics," by A. V. Dicey, Quarterly Revieiv, No. 423, April 1910; Vie Crisis of Liberalism, by J. A. Hobson; Low, Tlie Governance of England, Intro, p. xvii; "Ought the Referendum to be introduced into England?" by A. V. Dicey, Contemporary Rei'ieu', 1890, and National Review, 1894.
when passed both by the House of Commons and by the House of Lords,¹⁰⁹ should not become Acts of Parliament until they have been submitted to the vote of the electors and have received the sanction or approval of the majority of the electors voting on the matter. The referendum is sometimes described, and for general purposes well described, as "the people's veto." This name is a good one; it reminds us that the main use of the referendum is to prevent the passing of any important Act which does not command the sanction of the electors. The expression "veto" reminds us also that those who advocate the introduction of the referendum into England in fact demand that the electors, who are now admittedly the political sovereign of England, should be allowed to play the part in legislation which was really played, and with popular approval, by e.g. Queen Elizabeth at a time when the King or Queen of England was not indeed the absolute sovereign of the country, but was certainly the most important part of the sovereign power, namely Parliament.¹¹⁰ In this Introduction the referendum, or the people's veto, is considered simply with reference to Bills passed by the Houses of Parliament but which have not received the royal assent. The subject is dealt with by no means exhaustively, but with a view in the first place to bring out the causes of the demand in England for the referendum; and in the next place to consider carefully and examine in turn first by far the strongest argument against, and secondly the strongest argument in favour of introducing the referendum into the constitution of England.
109 Andfl fortiori when passed under the Parliament Act, without the consent of the House of Lords.
110 The referendum, it should be noted, can be applied to legislation for different purposes and in different ways. It may, for instance, be applied only to a Bill affecting fundamental changes in the constitution, e.g. to a Bill affecting the existence of the monarchy, or to any Bill which would in popular language be called a Reform Bill, and to such Bill after it has been passed by the two Houses. In this case the object of the referendum would be to ensure that no Act of transcendent importance shall be passed without the undoubted assent of the electors. The referendum may again be applied, as it is applied in the Commonwealth of Australia, for preventing "deadlocks," as they are called, arising from the fact of one House of Parliament having carried repeatedly, and the other having repeatedly rejected, a given Bill.