THE ENGLISH SYSTEM. 185 was wholly disproportioned to his abilities, and the favorite was appointed one of the Secretaries of State, with an influence which made him virtually prime minister and led to the withdrawal of the elder Pitt from the conduct of a war which owed its success to his genius. The motives for the change were merely personal; and it has been said with truth, that for many years, and while the king retained his reason, no statesman whom he disliked could obtain a seat in the cabinet, no policy be adopted which he disapproved. If the narrow and exclusive measures that lost the Colonies to England were initiated in Parliament, they received a constant and avowed support from the throne; and it was through the firmness of George III., in opposition to the great majority of the House of Commons, that the younger Pitt was able to make the appeal to the country which resulted in driving the ministry formed by the coalition between North and Fox from power, and making him prime minister of England. In these instances, as well as, later, on the question of Catholic emancipation, the king threw the weight of his character and rank into the scale with an inflexibility of purpose that had a marked influence on the course of events. But his intervention, though unmistakably sincere and honest, was seldom fortunate either for the nation or himself; and when on the recurrence of his malady, in 1810, the Prince of Wales became regent, kingly government, in the full sense of the term, ceased to exist in England.1 1 Gneist, The English Parliament, p. 312. LECTURE XI. The English Constitution (continued).- Exclusion of the Crown from Participation in Legislation. - Decadence of the House of Lords. - Royal Prerogatives now wielded by the Commons through the Cabinet. The Power to dissolve Parliament. - England a Commonwealth rather than a Monarchy. THE subordination of the executive department of the government to Parliament is not the only change that has occurred in the English Constitution since the reign of Queen Elizabeth; there is another, by which the Crown has been virtually excluded from all share in the making of the laws. Technically and legally speaking, the enactment of a statute requires the united voice of King, Lords, and Commons; unless they all concur, the bill falls. There was a period in English history when this was more than a legal fiction, when the Crown not only might, but did, modify, amend, or reject measures that had received the assent of both Houses of Parliament; but when the power of the Crown came to be vested in a ministry delegated by and representing a majority of the House of Commons, such a veto ceased to be practicable, because the prime minister was responsible for 1 1 Green's History of the English People, 461. "In former times the course of petitioning the king was this: the Lords and Speaker prepared their petition to the king. This then was called the bill of the Commons, which being received by the king, part he rejected and put out, other part he certified; and as it came from him it was drawn into a law. But this course, in the 2d Henry V., was found prejudicial to the subject; and since in such cases they have petitioned by petition of right, as we now do who come to declare what we demand of the king; for if we should tell him what we should demand, we should not proceed in a parliamentary course (Speech of Mr. Glanville at the conference between the Houses of Parliament on the clause annexed by the Lords to the Petition of Right, 2 Parliamentary History, 365). THE HOUSE OF LORDS. 187 the acts of the king, and could not consistently sanction the defeat of a measure which he had advocated in his place in Parliament. This check on the popular will has accordingly ceased to be a part of the English Constitution. If a law passes both Houses of Parliament, it must receive the assent of a king who can only speak through ministers who are the delegates and leaders of the majority that enacts the law. There has been another change within the walls of Parliament. As late as the reign of Queen Anne, and for some time afterwards, the House of Lords was not only an integral, but a co-ordinate and equal branch of the government. To have its support was as important as to have a majority in the House of Commons, and no measure which the great body of the peerage disapproved could well be passed over their heads by popular agitation. But as the constituency which the Lower House represented grew in intelligence and information; as wealth flowed into the great commercial cities and manufacturing towns, and the influence of the untitled gentry balanced or outweighed that of the peers, — the Commons rose to be the great council of the nation, and the power of the House of Lords diminished in a like proportion. This change, which had been going on for a length of time, culminated in the passage of the Reform Bill. The rejection of that measure by the Upper House in October, 1831, led to a violent agitation throughout the kingdom. Another bill of the same nature was passed by the Commons in the following year; and although the Lords manifested their repugnance by a vote, taken on the 7th of May, that would have been decisive had there been no pressure from without, their opposition ceased in obedience to the counsels of the Duke of Wellington, and a month afterwards the bill became a law. This result placed the weakness of the Lords in a light that could not be misunderstood; they have since been virtually a revisory committee, rather than a co-ordinate branch of the legislature; and it may safely be predicted that they will never again come to a grave political issue with the assembly which, from its origin and nature, has public opinion on its side and represents the will of the English nation. The battle of the aristocracy will be fought hereafter, as it has been during the last forty years, in the House of Commons; and if lost there, will not be renewed in the assembly which was once the citadel of privilege. The Lords are, nevertheless, a useful check on rash and inconsiderate legislation; and when the question does not touch the popular heart, may amend bills that have been passed by the Commons, or reject them absolutely. In estimating the relative strength of the two branches of the English legislature, it must not be forgotten that the powers incident to the prerogative are virtually wielded by the cabinet, which is the creature of the Commons and responsible to them;1 and it is not surprising that this additional weight should render the scale of the popular assembly preponderant, when it might otherwise be balanced by the peers. It is in this sense that we must understand various utterances of the Duke of Wellington, and among others, that the bill for the repeal of the corn laws "having been already agreed to by the other branches of the legislature, the function of the House of Lords was at an end." 2 For as the Queen can only speak through a minister whom the Commons approve and will support, his voice is practically hers, even when he is endeavoring to carry a measure to which she may be personally adverse. Such a use of the executive power for the furtherance of popular ends, or in aid of the dominant party in the Commons, is the more likely to occur because since the prerogative came under the control of a ministry whom Parliament delegates and may dismiss, it has not been an object of distrust; and acts are viewed with complacency that would have provoked resentment had they proceeded from the royal will. If the Lords had not withdrawn their opposition to the Reform Bill, it would undoubtedly have been carried over their heads by the creation of new peerages at the instance of Earl Grey's Government, despite the extreme reluctance of 11 May's Constitutional History of England, 457. 2 Disraeli's Life of Lord George Bentinck, 229; Sheldon Amos, Fifty Years of the English Constitution, 349. 8 2 May's Constitutional History of England, 136. BY THE HOUSE OF COMMONS. 189 William IV. So the sale of commissions in the army was abolished in 1871, during Mr. Gladstone's first administration, by a royal warrant after the bill which the Commons had passed for that end had been rejected by the Peers. In like manner, while the canons are formally convened to choose a bishop, they yet must vote for the candidate who is designated by the Crown, or incur the pains and penalties of a præmunire; the nomination being really made by the cabinet, and depending in the last resort on the popular will as manifested in the elections for the House of Commons. Among the many anomalies of the English government none is more characteristic. Although not answering to Cavour's ideal of a free church in a free state, it is yet eminently practical and just, because one who as a spiritual peer is to take part in the task of legislation, should obviously derive his authority from a national and not from an ecclesiastical source. If we now inquire what measure of personal authority remains to the sovereign, the answer is that he can do nothing save through ministers whom he appoints but cannot choose, and who are responsible for his acts before the country and to Parliament. So close is the watch, so little is needed to excite distrust, that a telegram to Queen Victoria from the Indian viceroy, Lord Lytton, announcing the advance of the British troops on Afghanistan, and a sympathetic note from her Majesty to Lord Chelmsford, then commanding the forces in Zululand, became the theme of injurious comments in the Press, and gave occasion for a critical debate in the House of Commons, in the course of which Sir Stafford Northcote admitted, in replying for the Government, that if Lord Lytton's object had been to obtain the Queen's support for a policy that was not approved by the cabinet, it would have been a serious offence against the Constitution of the country and the privilege of Parliament.3 Strange as it may seem, the Queen cannot name her ladies-in-waiting or mistress-of-the-robes without consulting the prime minister, 11 May's Constitutional History of England, 260. 2 Green's History of the English People, vol. ii. ch. iv. p. 160. 8 Sheldon Amos, Fifty Years of the English Constitution, 333. |