THE SANCTION BY WHICH THE
CONVENTIONS OF THE CONSTITUTION
ARE ENFORCED
What is the sanction by which obedience to the conventions of the constitution is at bottom enforced?
This is by far the most perplexing of the speculative questions suggested by a study of constitutional law. Let us bear in mind the dictum of Paley, that it is often far harder to make men see the existence of a difficulty, than to make them, when once the difficulty is perceived, understand its explanation, and in the first place try to make dear to ourselves what is the precise nature of a puzzle of which most students dimly recognise the existence.
Constitutional understandings are admittedly not laws; they are not (that is to say) rules which will be enforced by the Courts. If a Premier were to retain office after a vote of censure passed by the House of Commons, if he were (as did Lord Palmerston under like circumstances) to dissolve, or strictly speaking to get the Crown to dissolve, Parliament, but, unlike Lord Palmerston, were to be again censured by the newly elected House of Commons, and then, after all this had taken place, were still to remain at the head of the government,—no one could deny that such a Prime Minister had acted unconstitutionally. Yet no Court of law would take notice of his conduct. Suppose, again, that on the passing by both Houses of an important bill, the King should refuse his assent to the measure, or (in popular language) put his “veto” on it. Here there would be a gross violation of usage, but the matter could not by any proceeding known to English law be brought before the judges. Take another instance. Suppose that Parliament were for more than a year not summoned for the despatch of business. This would be a course of proceeding of the most unconstitutional character. Yet there is no Court in the land before which one could go with the complaint that Parliament had not been assembled. Still the conventional rules of the constitution, though not laws, are, as it is constantly asserted, nearly if not quite as binding as laws. They are, or appear to be, respected quite as much as most statutory enactments, and more than many. The puzzle is to see what is the force which habitually compels obedience to rules which have not behind them the coercive power of the Courts.
Parhal answer, that constitutional understandings often disobeyedThe difficulty of the problem before us cannot indeed be got rid of, but may be shifted and a good deal lessened, by observing that the invariableness of the obedience to constitutional understandings is itself more or less fictitious. The special articles of the conventional code are in fact often disobeyed. A Minister sometimes refuses to retire when, as his opponents allege, he ought constitutionally to resign office; not many years have passed since the Opposition of the day argued, if not convincingly yet with a good deal of plausibility, that the Ministry had violated a rule embodied in the Bill of Rights; in 1784 the House of Commons maintained, not only by argument but by repeated votes, that Pitt had deliberately defied more than one constitutional precept, and the Whigs of 1834 brought a like charge against Wellington and Peel. Nor is it doubtful that any one who searches through the pages of Hansard will find other instances in which constitutional maxims of long standing and high repute have been set at nought. The uncertain character of the deference paid to the conventions of the constitution is concealed under the current phraseology, which treats the successful violation of a constitutional rule as a proof that the maxim was not in reality part of the constitution. If a habit or precept which can be set at nought is thereby shown not to be a portion of constitutional morality, it naturally follows that no true constitutional rule is ever disobeyed.
But principle of conformity to will of the national always obeyed.Yet, though the obedience supposed to be rendered to the separate understandings or maxims of public life is to a certain extent fictitious, the assertion that they have nearly the force of law is not without meaning. Some few of the conventions of the constitution are rigorously obeyed. Parliament, for example, is summoned year by year with as much regularity as though its annual meeting were provided for by a law of nature; and (what is of more consequence) though particular understandings are of uncertain obligation, neither the Crown nor any servant of the Crown ever refuses obedience to the grand principle which, as we have seen, underlies all the conventional precepts of the constitution, namely, that government must be carried on in accordance with the will of the House of Commons, and ultimately with the will of the nation as expressed through that House. This principle is not a law; it is not to be found in the statute-book, nor is it a maxim of the common law; it will not be enforced by any ordinary judicial body. Why then has the principle itself, as also have certain conventions or understandings which are closely connected with it, the force of law? This, when the matter is reduced to its simplest form, is the puzzle with which we have to deal. It sorely needs a solution. Many writers, however, of authority, chiefly because they do not approach the constitution from its legal side, hardly recognise the full force of the difficulty which requires to be disposed of. They either pass it by, or else apparently acquiesce in one of two answers, each of which contains an element of truth, but neither of which fully removes the perplexities of any inquirer who is determined not to be put off with mere words.
insufficient answers impeachmentA reply more often suggested than formulated in so many words, is that obedience to the conventions of the constitution is ultimately enforced by the fear of impeachment.
If this view were tenable, these conventions, it should be remarked, would not be “understandings” at all, but “laws” in the truest sense of that term, and their sole peculiarity would lie in their being laws the breach of which could be punished only by one extraordinary tribunal, namely, the High Court of Parliament. But though it may well be conceded—and the fact is one of great importance—that the habit of obedience to the constitution was originally generated and confirmed by impeachments, yet there are insuperable difficulties to entertaining the belief that the dread of the Tower and the block exerts any appreciable influence over the conduct of modern statesmen. No impeachment for violations of the constitution (since for the present purpose we may leave out of account such proceedings as those taken against Lord Macclesfield, Warren Hastings, and Lord Melville) has occurred for more than a century and a half. The process, which is supposed to ensure the retirement from office of a modern Prime Minister, when placed in a hopeless minority, is, and has long been, obsolete. The arm by which attacks on freedom were once repelled has grown rusty by disuse; it is laid aside among the antiquities of the constitution, nor will it ever, we may anticipate, be drawn again from its scabbard. For, in truth, impeachment, as a means for enforcing the observance of constitutional morality, always laboured under one grave defect. The possibility of its use suggested, if it did not stimulate, one most important violation of political usage; a Minister who dreaded impeachment would, since Parliament was the only Court before which he could be impeached, naturally advise the Crown not to convene Parliament. There is something like a contradiction in terms in saying that a Minister is compelled to advise the meeting of Parliament by the dread of impeachment if Parliament should assemble. If the fear of Parliamentary punishment were the only difficulty in the way of violating the constitution, we may be sure that a bold party leader would, at the present day, as has been done in former centuries, sometimes suggest that Parliament should not meet.
Power of public opinionA second and current answer to the question under consideration is, that obedience to the conventional precepts of the constitution is ensured by the force of public opinion.
Now that this assertion is in one sense true, stands past dispute. The nation expects that Parliament shall be convened annually; the nation expects that a Minister who cannot retain the confidence of the House of Commons, shall give up his place, and no Premier even dreams of disappointing these expectations. The assertion, therefore, hat public opinion gives validity to the received precepts for the conduct of public life is true. Its defect is that, if taken without further explanation, it amounts to little else than a re-statement of the very problem which it is meant to solve. For the question to be answered is, at bottom, Why is it that public opinion is, apparently at least, a sufficient sanction to compel obedience to the conventions of the constitution? and it is no answer to this inquiry to say that these conventions are enforced by public opinion. Let it also be noted that many rules of conduct which are fully supported by the opinion of the public are violated every day of the year. Public opinion enjoins the performance of promises and condemns the commission of crimes, but the settled conviction of the nation that promises ought to be kept does not hinder merchants from going into the Gazette, nor does the universal execration of the villain who sheds man's blood prevent the commission of murders. That public opinion does to a certain extent check extravagance and criminality is of course true, but the operation of opinion is in this case assisted by the law, or in the last resort by the physical power at the disposal of the state. The limited effect of public opinion when aided by the police hardly explains the immense effect of opinion in enforcing rules which may be violated without any risk of the offender being brought before the Courts. To contend that the understandings of the constitution derive their coercive power solely from the approval of the public, is very like maintaining the kindred doctrine that the conventions of international law are kept alive solely by moral force. Every one, except a few dreamers, perceives that the respect paid to international morality is due in great measure, not to moral force, but to the physical force in the shape of armies and navies, by which the commands of general opinion are in many cases supported; and it is difficult not to suspect that, in England at least, the conventions of the constitution are supported and enforced by something beyond or in addition to the public approval.
True answer,— Obedience to conventions enforced by power of law.What then is this “something”? My answer is, that it is nothing else than the force of the law. The dread of impeachment may have established, and public opinion certainly adds influence to, the prevailing dogmas of political ethics. But the sanction which constrains the boldest political adventurer to obey the fundamental principles of the constitution and the conventions in which these principles are expressed, is in fact that the breach of these principles and of these conventions will almost immediately bring the offender into conflict with the Courts and the law of the land.
This is the true answer to the inquiry which I have raised, but it is an answer which undoubtedly requires both explanation and defence.
ExplanationThe meaning of the statement that the received precepts of the constitution are supported by the law of the land, and the grounds on which that statement is based, can be most easily made apparent by considering what would be the legal results which would inevitably ensue from the violation of some indisputable constitutional maxim.
Yearly meeting of ParliamentNO rule is better established than that Parliament must assemble at least once a year. This maxim, as before pointed out, is certainly not derived from the common law, and is not based upon any statutory enactment. Now suppose that Parliament were prorogued once and again for more than a year, so that for two years no Parliament sat at Westminster. Here we have a distinct breach of a constitutional practice or understanding, but we have no violation of law. What, however, would be the consequences which would ensue? They would be, speaking generally, that any Ministry who at the present day sanctioned or tolerated this violation of the constitution, and every person connected with the government, would immediately come into conflict with the law of the land.
A moment's reflection shows that this would be so. The Army (Annual) Act would in the first place expire. Hence the Army Act, on which the discipline of the army depends, would cease to be in force. But thereupon all means of controlling the army without a breach of law would cease to exist. Either the army must be discharged, in which case the means of maintaining law and order would come to an end, or the army must be kept up and discipline must be maintained without legal authority for its maintenance. If this alternative were adopted, every person, from the Commander-in-Chief downwards, who took part in the control of the army, and indeed every soldier who carried out the commands of his superiors, would find that not a day passed without his committing or sanctioning acts which would render him liable to stand as a criminal in the dock. Then, again, though most of the taxes would still come into the Exchequer, large portions of the revenue would cease to be legally due and could not be legally collected, whilst every official, who acted as collector, would expose himself to actions or prosecutions. The part, moreover, of the revenue which came in, could not be legally applied to the purposes of the government. If the Ministry laid hold of the revenue they would find it difficult to avoid breaches of definite laws which would compel them to appear before the Courts. Suppose however that the Cabinet were willing to defy the law. Their criminal daring would not suffice for its purpose; they could not get hold of the revenue without the connivance or aid of a large number of persons, some of them indeed officials, but some of them, such as the Comptroller General, the Governors of the Bank of England, and the like, unconnected with the administration. None of these officials, it should be noted, could receive from the government or the Crown any protection against legal liability; and any person, e.g. the Commander-in-Chief, or the colonel of a regiment, who employed force to carry out the policy of the government would be exposed to resistance supported by the Courts. For the law (it should always be borne in mind) operates in two different ways. It inflicts penalties and punishment upon law-breakers, and (what is of equal consequence) it enables law-respecting citizens to refuse obedience to illegal commands. It legalises passive resistance. The efficacy of such legal opposition is immensely increased by the non-existence in England of anything resembling the droit administratif of France, or of that wide discretionary authority which is possessed by every continental government. The result is, that an administration which attempted to dispense with the annual meeting of Parliament could not ensure the obedience even of its own officials, and, unless prepared distinctly to violate the undoubted law of the land, would find itself not only opposed but helpless.
The rule, therefore, that Parliament must meet once a year, though in strictness a constitutional convention which is not a law and will not be enforced by the Courts, turns out nevertheless to be an understanding which cannot be neglected without involving hundreds of persons, many of whom are by no means specially amenable to government influence, in distinct acts of illegality cognisable by the tribunals of the country. This convention therefore of the constitution is in reality based upon, and secured by, the law of the land.
This no doubt is a particularly plain case. I have examined it fully, both because it is a particularly plain instance, and because the full understanding of it affords the due which guides us to the principle on which really rests such coercive force as is possessed by the conventions of the constitution.
Resignation of Ministry which has lost confidence of the House of CommonsTo see that this is so let us consider for a moment the effect of disobedience by the government to one of the most purely conventional among the maxims of constitutional morality,—the rule, that is to say, that a Ministry ought to retire on a vote that they no longer possess the confidence of the House of Commons. Suppose that a Ministry, after the passing of such a vote, were to act at the present day as Pitt acted in 1783, and hold office in the face of the censure passed by the House. There would dearly be a primâ facie breach of constitutional ethics. What must ensue is dear. If the Ministry wished to keep within the constitution they would announce their intention of appealing to the constituencies, and the House would probably assist in hurrying on a dissolution. All breach of law would be avoided, but the reason of this would be that the conduct of the Cabinet would not be a breach of constitutional morality; for the true rule of the constitution admittedly is, not that a Ministry cannot keep office when censured by the House of Commons, but that under such circumstances a Ministry ought not to remain in office unless they can by an appeal to the country obtain the election of a House which will support the government. Suppose then that, under the circumstances I have imagined, the Ministry either would not recommend a dissolution of Parliament, or, having dissolved Parliament and being again censured by the newly elected House of Commons, would not resign office. It would, under this state of things, be as dear as day that the understandings of the constitution had been violated. It is however equally dear that the House would have in their own hands the means of ultimately forcing the Ministry either to respect the constitution or to violate the law. Sooner or later the moment would come for passing the Army (Annual) Act or the Appropriation Act, and the House by refusing to pass either of these enactments would involve the Ministry in all the inextricable embarrassments which (as I have already pointed out) immediately follow upon the omission to convene Parliament for more than a year. The breach, therefore, of a purely conventional rule, of a maxim utterly unknown and indeed opposed to the theory of English law, ultimately entails upon those who break it direct contact with the undoubted law of the land. We have then a right to assert that the force which in the last resort compels obedience to constitutional morality is nothing else than the power of the law itself. The conventions of the constitution are not laws, but, in so far as they really possess binding force, derive their sanction from the fact that whoever breaks them must finally break the law and incur the penalties of a law-breaker.
ObjectionsIt is worth while to consider one or two objections which may be urged with more or less plausibility against the doctrine that the obligatory force of constitutional morality is derived from the law itself.
Law may be over-powered by forceThe government, it is sometimes suggested, may by the use of actual force carry through a coup d'état;and defy the law of the land.
This suggestion is true, but is quite irrelevant. No constitution can be absolutely safe from revolution or from a coup d'état; but to show that the laws may be defied by violence does not touch or invalidate the statement that the understandings of the constitution are based upon the law. They have certainly no more force than the law itself. A Minister who, like the French President in 1851, could override the law could of course overthrow the constitution. The theory propounded aims only at proving that when constitutional understandings have nearly the force of law they derive their power from the fact that they cannot be broken without a breach of law. No one is concerned to show, what indeed never can be shown, that the law can never be defied, or the constitution never be overthrown.
It should further be observed that the admitted sovereignty of Parliament tends to prevent violent attacks on the constitution. Revolutionists or conspirators generally believe themselves to be supported by the majority of the nation, and, when they succeed, this belief is in general well founded. But in modern England, a party, however violent, who count on the sympathy of the people, can accomplish by obtaining a Parliamentary majority all that could be gained by the success of a revolution. When a spirit of reaction or of innovation prevails throughout the country, a reactionary or revolutionary policy is enforced by Parliament without any party needing to make use of violence. The oppressive legislation of the Restoration in the seventeenth century, and the anti-revolutionary legislation of the Tories from the outbreak of the Revolution till the end of George the Third's reign, saved the constitution from attack. A change of spirit averted a change of form; the flexibility of the constitution proved its strength.
Parliament has never refused to pass Mutuny Act.If the maintenance of political morality, it may with some plausibility be asked, really depends on the right of Parliament to refuse to pass laws such as the Army (Annual) Act, which are necessary for the maintenance of order, and indeed for the very existence of society, how does it happen that no English Parliament has ever employed this extreme method of enforcing obedience to the constitution?
The true answer to the objection thus raised appears to be that the observance of the main and the most essential of all constitutional rules, the rule, that is to say, requiring the annual meeting of Parliament, is ensured, without any necessity for Parliamentary action, by the temporary character of the Mutiny Act, and that the power of Parliament to compel obedience to its wishes by refusing to pass the Act is so complete that the mere existence of the power has made its use unnecessary. In matter of fact, no Ministry has since the Revolution of 1689 ever defied the House of Commons, unless the Cabinet could confide in the support of the country, or, in other words, could count on the election of a House which would support the policy of the government. To this we must add, that in the rare instances in which a Minister has defied the House, the refusal to pass the Mutiny Act has been threatened or contemplated. Pitt's victory over the Coalition is constantly cited as a proof that Parliament cannot refuse to grant supplies or to pass an Act necessary for the discipline of the army. Yet any one who studies with care the great “Case of the Coalition” will see that it does not support the dogma for which it is quoted. Fox and his friends did threaten and did intend to press to the very utmost all the legal powers of the House of Commons. They failed to carry out their intention solely because they at last perceived that the majority of the House did not represent the will of the country. What the “leading case” shows is, that the Cabinet, when supported by the Crown, and therefore possessing the power of dissolution, can defy the will of a House of Commons if the House is not supported by the electors. Here we come round to the fundamental dogma of modem constitutionalism; the legal sovereignty of Parliament is subordinate to the political sovereignty of the nation. This the conclusion in reality established by the events of 1784. Pitt overrode the customs, because he adhered to the principles, of the constitution. He broke through the received constitutional understandings without damage to his power or reputation; he might in all probability have in case of necessity broken the law itself with impunity. For had the Coalition pressed their legal rights to an extreme length, the new Parliament of 1784 would in all likelihood have passed an Act of Indemnity for illegalities necessitated, or excused, by the attempt of an unpopular faction to drive from power a Minister supported by the Crown, by the Peers, and by the nation. However this may be, the celebrated conflict between Pitt and Fox lends no countenance to the idea that a House of Commons supported by the country would not enforce the morality of the constitution by placing before any Minister who defied its precepts the alternative of resignation or revolution.
Subordinate inquiresA dear perception of the true relation between the conventions the constitution and the law of the land supplies an answer to more than one subordinate question which has perplexed students and commentators.
Why has impeachment gone out of use'How is it that the ancient methods of enforcing Parliamentary authority, such as impeachment, the formal refusal of supplies, and the like, have fallen into disuse?
The answer is, that they are disused because ultimate obedience to the underlying principle of all modern constitutionalism, which is nothing else than the principle of obedience to the will of the nation as expressed through Parliament, is so dosely bound up with the law of the land that it can hardly be violated without a breach of the ordinary law. Hence the extraordinary remedies, which were once necessary for enforcing the deliberate will of the nation, having become unnecessary, have fallen into desuetude. If they are not altogether abolished, the cause lies partly in the conservatism of the English people, and partly in the valid consideration that crimes may still be occasionally committed for which the ordinary law of the land hardly affords due punishment, and which therefore may well be dealt with by the High Court of Parliament.
Why are constitutional understandings variable?Why is it that the understandings of the constitution have about them a singular element of vagueness and variability?
Why is it, to take definite instances of this uncertainty and change-ableness, that no one can define with absolute precision the circumstances under which a Prime Minister ought to retire from office? Why is it that no one can fix the exact point at which resistance of the House of Lords to the will of the House of Commons becomes unconstitutional? and how does it happen that the Peers could at one time arrest legislation in a way which now would be generally held to involve a distinct breach of constitutional morality? What is the reason why no one can describe with precision the limits to the influence on the conduct of public affairs which may rightly be exerted by the reigning monarch? and how does it happen that George the Third and even George the Fourth each made his personal will or caprice tell on the policy of the nation in a very different way and degree from that in which Queen Victoria ever attempted to exercise personal influence over matters of State?
The answer in general terms to these and the like inquiries is, that the one essential principle of the constitution is obedience by all persons to the deliberately expressed will of the House of Commons in the first instance, and ultimately to the will of the nation as expressed through Parliament. The conventional code of political morality is, as already pointed out, merely a body of maxims meant to secure respect for this principle. Of these maxims some indeed— such, for example, as the rule that Parliament must be convoked at least once a year—are so closely connected with the respect due to Parliamentary or national authority, that they will never be neglected by any one who is not prepared to play the part of a revolutionist; such rules have received the undoubted stamp of national approval, and their observance is secured by the fact that whoever breaks or aids in breaking them will almost immediately find himself involved in a breach of law. Other constitutional maxims stand in a very different position. Their maintenance up to a certain point tends to secure the supremacy of Parliament, but they are themselves vague, and no one can say to what extent the will of Parliament or the nation requires their rigid observance; they therefore obtain only a varying and indefinite amount of obedience.
Thus the rule that a Ministry who have lost the confidence of the House of Commons should retire from office is plain enough, and any permanent neglect of the spirit of this rule would be absolutely inconsistent with Parliamentary government, and would finally involve the Minister who broke the rule in acts of undoubted illegality. But when you come to inquire what are the signs by which you are to know that the House has withdrawn its confidence from a Ministry,—whether, for example, the defeat of an important Ministerial measure or the smallness of a Ministerial majority is a certain proof that a Ministry ought to retire,—you ask a question which admits of no absolute reply., All that can be said is, that a Cabinet ought not to continue in power (subject, of course, to the one exception on which I have before dwelt) after the expression by the House of Commons of a wish for the Cabinet's retirement. Of course, therefore, a Minister or a Ministry must resign if the House passes a vote of want of confidence. There are, however, a hundred signs of Parliamentary disapproval which, according to circumstances, either may or may not be a sufficient notice that a Minister ought to give up office. The essential thing is that the Ministry should obey the House as representing the nation. But the question whether the House of Commons has or has not indirectly intimated its will that a Cabinet should give up office is not a matter as to which any definite principle can be laid down. The difficulty which now exists, in settling the point at which a Premier and his colleagues are bound to hold that they have lost the confidence of the House, is exactly analogous to the difficulty which often perplexed statesmen of the last century, of determining the point at which a Minister was bound to hold he had lost the then essential confidence of the King. The ridiculous efforts of the Duke of Newcastle to remain at the head of the Treasury, in spite of the broadest hints from Lord Bute that the time had come for resignation, are exactly analogous to the undignified persistency with which later Cabinets have occasionally clung to office in the face of intimations that the House desired a change of government. As long as a master does not directly dismiss a servant, the question whether the employer's conduct betrays a wish that the servant should give notice must be an inquiry giving rise to doubt and discussion. And if there be sometimes a difficulty in determining what is the will of Parliament, it must often of necessity be still more difficult to determine what is the will of the nation, or, in other words, of the majority of the elects.
The general rule that the House of Lords must in matters of legislation ultimately give way to the House of Commons is one of the best-established maxims of modern constitutional ethics. But if any inquirer asks how the point at which the Peers are to give way is to be determined, no answer which even approximates to the truth can be given, except the very vague reply that the Upper House must give way whenever it is dearly proved that the will of the House of Commons represents the deliberate will of the nation. The nature of the proof differs under different circumstances.
When once the true state of the case is perceived, it is easy to understand a matter which, on any cut-and-dried theory of the constitution, can only with difficulty be explained, namely, the relation occupied by modern Cabinets towards the House of Lords. It is certain that for more than half a century Ministries have constantly existed which did not command the confidence of the Upper House, and that such Ministries have, without meeting much opposition on the part of the Peers, in the main carried out a policy of which the Peers did not approve. It is also certain that while the Peers have been forced to pass many bills which they disliked, they have often exercised large though very varying control over the course of legislation. Between 1834 and 1840 the Upper House, under the guidance of Lord Lyndhurst, repeatedly and with success opposed Ministerial measures which had passed the House of Commons. For many years Jews were kept out of Parliament simply because the Lords were not prepared to admit them. If you search for the real cause of this state of things, you will find that it was nothing else than the fact, constantly concealed under the misleading rhetoric of party warfare, that on the matters in question the electors were not prepared to support the Cabinet in taking the steps necessary to compel the submission of the House of Lords. On any matter upon which the electors are firmly resolved, a Premier, who is in effect the representative of the House of Commons, has the means of coercion, namely, by the creation of Peers. In a country indeed like England, things are rarely carried to this extreme length. The knowledge that a power can be exercised constantly prevents its being actually put in force. This is so even in private life; most men pay their debts without being driven into Court, but it were absurd to suppose that the possible compulsion of the Courts and the sheriff has not a good deal to do with regularity in the payment of debts. The acquiescence of the Peers in measures which the Peers do not approve arises at bottom from the fact that the nation, under the present constitution, possesses the power of enforcing, through very cumbersome machinery, the submission of the Peers to the conventional rule that the wishes of the House of Lords must finally give way to the decisions of the House of Commons. But the rule itself is vague, and the degree of obedience which it obtains is varying, because the will of the nation is often not clearly expressed, and further, in this as in other matters, is itself liable to variation. If the smoothness with which the constitutional arrangements of modem England work should, as it often does, conceal from us the force by which the machinery of the constitution is kept working, we may with advantage consult the experience of English colonies. No better example can be given of the methods by which a Representative Chamber attempts in the last resort to compel the obedience of an Upper House than is afforded by the varying phases of the conflict which raged in Victoria during 1878 and 1879 between the two Houses of the Legislature. There the Lower House attempted to enforce upon the Council the passing of measures which the Upper House did not approve, by, in effect, inserting the substance of a rejected bill in the Appropriation Bill. The Council in turn threw out the Appropriation Bill. The Ministry thereupon dismissed officials, magistrates, county court judges, and others, whom they had no longer the means to pay, and attempted to obtain payments out of the Treasury on the strength of resolutions passed solely by the Lower House. At this point, however, the Ministry came into conflict with an Act of Parliament, that is, with the law of the land. The contest continued under different forms until a change in public opinion finally led to the election of a Lower House which could act with the Council. With the result of the contest we are not concerned. Three points, however, should be noticed. The conflict was ultimately terminated in accordance with the expressed will of the electors; each party during its course put in force constitutional powers hardly ever in practice exerted in England; as the Council was elective, the Ministry did not possess any means of producing harmony between the two Houses by increasing the number of the Upper House. It is certain that if the Governor could have nominated members of the Council, the Upper House would have yielded to the will of the Lower, in the same way in which the Peers always in the last resort bow to the will of the House of Commons.
Why is the personal influence of the Crown uncertain?How is it, again, that all the understandings which are supposed to regulate the personal relation of the Crown to the actual work of government are marked by the utmost vagueness and uncertainty?
The matter is, to a certain extent at any rate, explained by the same train of thought as that which we have followed out in regard to the relation between the House of Lords and the Ministry. The revelations of political memoirs and the observation of modern public life make quite dear two points, both of which are curiously concealed under the mass of antiquated formulas which hide from view the real working of our institutions. The first is, that while every act of State is done in the name of the Crown, the real executive government of England is the Cabinet. The second is, that though the Crown has no real concern in a vast number of the transactions which take place under the Royal name, no one of the King's predecessors, nor, it may be presumed, the King himself, has ever acted upon or affected to act upon the maxim originated by Thiers, that “the King reigns but does not govern.” George the Third took a leading part in the work of administration; his two sons, each in different degrees and in different ways, made their personal will and predilections tell on the government of the country. No one really supposes that there is not a sphere, though a vaguely defined sphere, in which the personal will of the King has under the constitution very considerable influence. The strangeness of this state of things is, or rather would be to any one who had not been accustomed from his youth to the mystery and formalism of English constitutionalism, that the rules or customs which regulate the personal action of the Crown are utterly vague and undefined. The reason of this will, however, be obvious to any one who has followed these chapters. The personal influence of the Crown exists, not because acts of State are done formally in the Crown's name, but because neither the legal sovereign power, namely Parliament, nor the political sovereign, namely the nation, wishes that the reigning monarch should be without personal weight in the government of the country. The customs or understandings which regulate or control the exercise of the King's personal influence are vague and indefinite, both because statesmen feel that the matter is one hardly to be dealt with by precise rules, and because no human being knows how far and to what extent the nation wishes that the voice of the reigning monarch should command attention. All that can be asserted with certainty is, that on this matter the practice of the Crown and the wishes of the nation have from time to time varied. George the Third made no use of the so-called veto which bad been used by William the Third; but he more than once insisted upon his will being obeyed in matters of the highest importance. None of his successors have after the manner of George the Third made their personal will decisive as to general measures of policy. In small things as much as in great one can discern a tendency to transfer to the Cabinet powers once actually exercised by the King. The scene between Jeanie Deans and Queen Caroline is a true picture of a scene which might have taken place under George the Second; George the Third's firmness secured the execution of Dr. Dodd. At the present day the right of pardon belongs in fact to the Home Secretary. A modern Jeanie Deans would be referred to the Home Office; the question whether a popular preacher should pay the penalty of his crimes would now, with no great advantage to the country, be answered, not by the King, but by the Cabinet.
The effect of surviving prerogatives of Crown.What, again, is the real effect produced by the survival of prerogative powers?
Here we must distinguish two different things, namely, the way in which the existence of the prerogative affects the personal influence of the King, and the way in which it affects the power of the executive government.
The fact that all important acts of State are done in the name of the King and in most cases with the cognisance of the King, and that many of these acts, such, for example, as the appointment of judges or the creation of bishops, or the conduct of negotiations with foreign powers and the like, are exempt from the direct control or supervision of Parliament, gives the reigning monarch an opportunity for exercising great influence on the conduct of affairs; and Bagehot has marked out, with his usual subtlety, the mode in which the mere necessity under which Ministers are placed of consulting with and giving information to the King secures a wide sphere for the exercise of legitimate influence by a constitutional ruler.
But though it were a great error to underrate the extent to which the formal authority of the Crown confers real power upon the King, the far more important matter is to notice the way in which the survival of the prerogative affects the position of the Cabinet. It leaves in the hands of the Premier and his colleagues, large powers which can be exercised, and constantly are exercised, free from Parliamentary control. This is especially the case in all foreign affairs. Parliament may censure a Ministry for misconduct in regard to the foreign policy of the country. But a treaty made by the Crown, or in fact by the Cabinet, is valid without the authority or sanction of Parliament; and it is even open to question whether the treaty-making power of the executive might not in some cases override the law of the land. However this may be, it is not Parliament, but the Ministry, who direct the diplomacy of the nation, and virtually decide all questions of peace or war. The founders of the American Union showed their full appreciation of the latitude left to the executive government under the English constitution by one of the most remarkable of their innovations upon it. They lodged the treaty-making power in the hands, not of the President, but of the President and the Senate; and further gave to the Senate a right of veto on Presidential appointments to office. These arrangements supply a valuable illustration of the way in which restrictions on the prerogative become restrictions on the discretionary authority of the executive. Were the House of Lords to have conferred upon it by statute the rights of the Senate, the change in our institutions would be described with technical correctness as the limitation of the prerogative of the Crown as regards the making of treaties and of official appointments. But the true effect of the constitutional innovation would be to place a legal check on the discretionary powers of the Cabinet.
The survival of the prerogative, conferring as it does wide discretionary authority upon the Cabinet, involves a consequence which constantly escapes attention. It immensely increases the authority of the House of Commons, and ultimately of the constituencies by which that House is returned. Ministers must in the exercise of all discretionary powers inevitably obey the predominant authority in the State. When the King was the chief member of the sovereign body, Ministers were in fact no less than in name the King's servants. At periods of our history when the Peers were the most influential body in the country, the conduct of the Ministry represented with more or less fidelity the wishes of the Peerage. Now that the House of Commons has become by far the most important part of the sovereign body, the Ministry in all matters of discretion carry out, or tend to carry out, the will of the House. When however the Cabinet cannot act except by means of legislation, other considerations come into play. A law requires the sanction of the House of Lords. No government can increase its statutory authority without obtaining the sanction of the Upper Chamber. Thus an Act of Parliament when passed represents, not the absolute wishes of the House of Commons, but these wishes as modified by the influence of the House of Lords. The Peers no doubt will in the long run conform to the wishes of the electorate. But the Peers may think that the electors will disapprove of, or at any rate be indifferent to, a bill which meets with the approval of the House of Commons. Hence while every action of the Cabinet which is done in virtue of the prerogative is in fact though not in name under the direct control of the representative chamber, all powers which can be exercised only in virtue of a statute are more or less controlled in their creation by the will of the House of Lords; they are further controlled in their exercise by the interference of the Courts. One example, taken from the history of recent years, illustrates the practical effect of this difference, In 1872 the Ministry of the day carried a bill through the House of Commons abolishing the system of purchase in the army. The bill was rejected by the Lords: the Cabinet then discovered that purchase could be abolished by Royal warrant, i.e. by something very like the exercise of the prerogative. The system was then and there abolished. The change, it will probably be conceded, met with the approval, not only of the Commons, but of the electors. But it will equally be conceded that had the alteration required statutory authority the system of purchase might have continued in force up to the present day. The existence of the prerogative enabled the Ministry in this particular instance to give immediate effect to the wishes of the electors, and this is the result which, under the circumstances of modern politics, the survival of the prerogative will in every instance produce. The prerogatives of the Crown have become the privileges of the people, and any one who wants to see how widely these privileges may conceivably be stretched as the House of Commons becomes more and more the direct representative of the true sovereign, should weigh well the words in which Bagehot describes the powers which can still legally be exercised by the Crown without consulting Parliament; and should remember that these powers can now be exercised by a Cabinet who are really servants, not of the Crown, but of a representative chamber which in its turn obeys the behests of the electors.
I said in this book that it would very much surprise people if they were only told how many things the Queen could do without consulting Parliament, and it certainly has so proved, for when the Queen abolished purchase in the army by an act of prerogative (after the Lords had rejected the bill for doing so), there was a great and general astonishment.
But this is nothing to what the Queen can by law do without consulting Parliament. Not to mention other things, she could disband the army (by law she cannot engage more than a certain number of men, but she is not obliged to engage any men); she could dismiss all the officers, from the General commanding-in-chief downwards; she could dismiss all the sailors too; she could sell off all our ships-of-war and all our naval stores; she could make a peace by the sacrifice of Cornwall, and begin a war for the conquest of Brittany. She could make every citizen in the United Kingdom, male or female, a peer; she could make every parish in the United Kingdom a “university”; she could dismiss most of the civil servants; she could pardon all offenders. In a word, the Queen could by prerogative upset all the action of civil government within the government, could disgrace the nation by a bad war or peace, and could, by disbanding our forces, whether land or sea, leave us defenceless against foreign nations,
If government by Parliament is ever transformed into government by the House of Commons, the transformation will, it may be conjectured, be effected by use of the prerogatives of the Crown.
ConclusionLet us cast back a glance for a moment at the results which we have obtained by surveying the English constitution from its legal side.
The constitution when thus looked at ceases to appear a “sort of maze”; it is seen to consist of two different parts; the one part is made up of understandings, customs, or conventions which, not being enforced by the Courts, are in no true sense of the word laws; the other part is made up of rules which are enforced by the Courts, and which, whether embodied in statutes or not, are laws in the strictest sense of the term, and make up the true law of the constitution.
This law of the constitution is, we have further found, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, the true foundation on which the English polity rests, and it gives in truth even to the conventional element of constitutional law such force as it really possesses.
The law of the constitution, again, is in all its branches the result of two guiding principles, which have been gradually worked out by the more or less conscious efforts of generations of English statesmen and lawyers.
The first of these principles is the sovereignty of Parliament, which means in effect the gradual transfer of power from the Crown to a body which has come more and more to represent the nation. This curious process, by which the personal authority of the King has been turned into the sovereignty of the King in Parliament, has had two effects: it has put an end to the arbitrary powers of the monarch; it has preserved intact and undiminished the supreme authority of the State.
The second of these principles is what I have called the “rule of law,” or the supremacy throughout all our institutions of the ordinary law of the land. This rule of law, which means at bottom the right of the Courts to punish any illegal act by whomsoever committed, is of the very essence of English institutions. If the sovereignty of Parliament gives the form, the supremacy of the law of the land determines the substance of our constitution. The English constitution in short, which appears when looked at from one point of view to be a mere collection of practices or customs, turns out, when examined in its legal aspect, to be more truly than any other polity in the world, except the Constitution of the United States, based on the law of the land.
When we see what are the principles which truly underlie the English polity, we also perceive how rarely they have been followed by foreign statesmen who more or less intended to copy the constitution of England. The sovereignty of Parliament is an idea fundamentally inconsistent with the notions which govern the inflexible or rigid constitutions existing in by far the most important of the countries which have adopted any scheme of representative government. The “rule of law” is a conception which in the United States indeed has received a development beyond that which it has reached in England; but it is an idea not so much unknown to as deliberately rejected by the constitution-makers of France, and of other continental countries which have followed French guidance. For the supremacy of the law of the land means in the last resort the right of the judges to control the executive government, whilst the séparation des pouvoirs means, as construed by Frenchmen, the right of the government to control the judges. The authority of the Courts of Law as understood in England can therefore hardly coexist with the system ofdroit administratif as it prevails in France. We may perhaps even go so far as to say that English legalism is hardly consistent with the existence of an official body which bears any true resemblance to what foreigners call “the administration.” To say this is not to assert that foreign forms of government are necessarily inferior to the English constitution, or unsuited for a civilised and free people. All that necessarily results from the analysis of our institutions, and a comparison of them with the institutions of foreign countries, is, that the English constitution is still marked, far more deeply than is generally supposed, by peculiar features, and that these peculiar characteristics may be summed up in the combination of Parliamentary Sovereignty with the Rule of Law.
APPENDIX
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