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importance, however, we do not wish to reft on fuch general impreffions; and as we are of opinion that a good deal of mifcon ception exifts as to the true nature and operation of this famous conftitution, we fhal! avail ourselves of this opportunity to make a few obfervations with regard to it.

Every community may be considered, with relation to its political rights and interests, as divided into three great natural classes or orders;-first, those who are actually in possession or administration of the government, including the Sovereign, and all subordinate functionaries or office-bearers ;-secondly, those who, without office or exertion of their own, are born to the inheritance of a certain property, and accompanying rank and influence; and, lastly, the great body of the people, and especially those among them who, by talent, industry, or popular qualities, are aiming at the acquisition of office or influence. These are the three natural partitions of all societies which have existed in a separate form for any considerable length of time. They are naturally in a state of political rivalry; and the character of the government will depend upon the preponderance which is assum ed by any of them.

In almost all the modern European governments, this rivalry terminated in a sort of compromise; and a constitution was adopted, which allotted to each of these three orders a certain fixed share of political power and authority. In England, it is well known, it led to the balanced government of King, Lords and Commons; a balance which has changed its original mode of operation, but which still subsists in effect, and maintains the freedom and permanence of our constitution by its subsistence. It is to the nature of the change which has taken place in its mode of operation, that our attention should now be particularly directed.

At first, these three orders had separate functions and privileges, which they exercised separately and successively,―frequently with very little concert, and sometimes with considerable hostility. While the royal establishment was supported by the royal demesnes and the exercise of the prerogative; while war was carried on by the military service of the King's tenants in capite, and the business of legislation for the whole kingdom did not occupy three or four weeks in the year, this absolute partition of the business and privileges of the three orders, was in some measure practicable; and the constitution was in reality very near what it has ever since been represented in theory. In -process of time, however, when the business of government became more complicated and operose, the greatest inconvenience must have been experienced from this entire separation of the

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three estates of which it was composed; and some expedients must have been devised for giving them a greater sympathy and mutual contact in their proceedings. It never could have been but most injurious to the state and the country at large, that the House of Lords, for example, should throw out, by a great majority, an important bill, which the House of Commons had passed by a great majority,—or that the King should reject, with indignation, a law which had received the decided approbation of both Houses of Parliament. It would appear most desireable, therefore, that these vindictive and curative checks, which could never operate without giving a certain shock to the whole machine, and impairing, for the time, its strength and apparent security, should be converted into preventive checks, that might produce the same effects, without any commotion or disturbance. It would naturally come to pass, therefore, that an attempt would be made to apply the whole of that resistance which any legislative measure was likely to meet with, in the first instance, if possible, to avoid the 'shock, by anticipating its operation; and to bring all the forces to bear upon every proposition from the beginning, to the operation of which it would otherwise be exposed in succession. Thus, if a measure to which the Lords were adverse was proposed in the Commons, it would be desireable that the reasons and the influence which duced their hostility should be directed against it in that House; and if a measure, from which the Sovereign was resolved to withhold his acquiescence was proposed in either House, it would, in like manner, be desireable that this repugnance should be disclosed in the course of their deliberations, and matters prevented, if possible, from coming to extremities by the interposition of the royal veto on a measure zealously patronized by the Parliament.

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It must have been felt, therefore, as infinitely desirable, and necessary indeed for the tranquillity of the country, that some means should be devised for bringing the parties together before things had got this length, and of employing the different tendencies of the royal, aristocratical and popular influences, rather to modify the measures of government in their concoction, than to counteract and oppose each other afterwards, by each successively undoing what had been completed by its associates. But the necessity of such a congress would scarcely be felt, before it' would become evident that it must take place in the House of Commons. The popular influence could not possibly obtain a place in either of the other branches of the government; while it must at all times have been difficult to prevent their influence from affecting the elections of the Commons. Whenever an inducement was held out, therefore, for them to extend that influence, and for the country at large to connive at it, there is no doubt

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that it would be silently exerted to the effect of placing in that House a multitude of members devoted to the support of the public functionaries for the time, and of the views and interests of most of the great families in the kingdom.

This, we conceive, to be the present state of the government; and the result is, that the balance of the constitution now exists, in a great degree, in the House of Commons; and that that assembly possesses nearly the whole legislative authority.

That such a balance does exist in the House of Commons, seems undeniable upon the slightest consideration of its composition. It contains, besides the immediate and most essential ministers of the Crown, a considerable number of persons who have notoriously obtained their seats through that influence. It contains, also, a very considerable number of persons who have been elected through the influence of certain Peers or great families; and, finally, it contains a large proportion of members returned without any such influence, or in opposition to it,-in consequence of their reputation or popularity with the majority of their electors. There are here then, indisputably, all the elements of that famous constitutional balance, of King, Lords and Commons, by which it is admitted that the freedom and stability of our government are maintained; and there seems to be no reason for supposing, that they should not act at least as beneficially when brought together, and fairly confronted in this manner, as when merely overawing and frowning at each other from their separate orbits. It is impossible to deny, that, according to the present constitution of the House of Commons, the Crown, the Executive government, or the Ministry, has a great influence in its deliberations; and that this influence is secured by some sort of interference, more or less direct, in a variety of elections. It is equally undeniable, that most of the great families in the kingdom have a similar influence, obtained by a similar interference. These things, indeed, are not officially avowed; because they form part of a tacit compact to which none of the parties are formally bound; but they are perfectly notorious notwithstanding; and the actual administration of our government certainly cannot he defended, unless they are both admitted and justified. Even Mr Cobbett would be entitled to laugh at the bullying and cowardly evasion of an angry denial..

The advantages of this arrangement are, as we have already intimated,that the collision and shock of the three, rival prindiples, is either prevented or prodigiously softened by this early mixture of their elements, that by converting those sudden and successive checks into one regulating and graduated pressure their operation becomes infinitely more sinooth and manageab

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and no longer proceeds by jerks and bounds that might endanger the safety of the machine,-while its movements, instead of being fractured and impeded by the irregular impulses of opposite forces, slide quietly to the mark, in the diagonal produced by their original combination.

We have stated already, that the prospect of these advantages probably operated in part to produce the arrangement which ensured them; but it was dictated, no doubt, by more urgent considerations, and indeed, as we think, by a neccessity which could not be resisted. The great object to be accomplished, was not so much to save the House of Commons from the mortification of having their bills stopped by the Lords, or rejected by the Sovereign, as to protect these two estates from the hazard to which they might be exposed from the direct exercise of this privilege. By the vast and rapid increase of wealth and intelli gence in the country at large, the consideration and relative duthority of that branch of the government which stands most in con nexion with it, was suddenly and prodigiously enlarged. The very circumstance of its being open to talent and ambition, ensured a greater proportion of ability and exertion in its members; and their numbers and the popularity of their name and character, all contributed to give their determinations a degree of weight and authority, against which it would no longer have been safe for any other power to have risked an opposition. No ministry, for a hundred years back, has had courage to interpose the royal negative to any measure which has passed through the Houses of Parliament, even by narrow majorities; and there is no thinking man, who can contemplate, without dismay, the probable consequences of such a resistance, where the House of Commons had been zealous and nearly unanimous. It is needless to say, that the House of Lords would oppose a still feebler barrier to such a measure of popular legislation. In order to exercise their constitutional functions with safety, therefore, it became necessary for the King and the great families to exercise them in the Lower House,-not against the united Commons of England, but among them; and not in their own character, and directly, but covertly, and mingled with those whom it was substantially their interest and their duty to controul,

It is thus, as it appears to us, that the balance which was in danger of being lost through the increasing power and influence of the Lower House, has been saved by being transferred into that assembly; and that all that was essentially valuable in the constitution, has been secured by a silent but very important change in its mode of operation. This change we take to be, that the influence of the Crown, and of the old aristocracy, is

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now exerted in that House by means of members sent there to support that influence; and that, in that House, as the great depository of the political power of the nation, and the virtual representative of the whole three estates, the chief virtue and force of the government is now habitually resident.

This last conclusion, we are persuaded, will not appear either rash or hazardous to those who consider the exclusive power which is now almost formally yielded to the House of Commons, with regard to the supplies; and the admitted impossibility of going on in the administration of the government, without the support of a decided and permanent majority of its members. * Nor does it follow, by any means, that the other branches of the Legislature, though precluded, in a great measure, from the direct and avowed exercise of their constitutional privileges, are altogether useless in their separate capacities. By their formal subsistence and cooperation, they serve to remind the Commons of the rights under which they interfere in their deliberations, and give greater weight and authority to that interference. They are there in reserve, too, in case of any sudden or violent attack upon their new mode of operation. This, at least, seems the chief ues of the King's negative in the present state of the constitution. The House of Lords has a separate and higher utility as a second and more dignified senate, by whose deliberations, all matters of importance may be expected to be matured and purged still more completely from any dregs of passion and popular prejudice which may have adhered to them after passing through the Lower House. It gives time for enthusiasm to subside, and another chance for argument to be effectual. There are very strong reasons, in short, for preserving the separate and official functions of the King and the House of Lords, as members of the Legisla ture, independent of the alarm and suspicion which would be reasonably excited by any proposal for suppressing them. We are clearly convinced, that their constitutional functions have long been excrcised with benefit and effect in the House of Commons alone; but it would indicate a very dangerous passion for innovation, to propose that they should be restrained from their exercise any other place.

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If there be any truth or soundness in the principles of which we have ventured to delineate this hasty and imperfect sketch, the reader will be at no loss to discover the grounds of our objection

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* See Hume's Effay on the Independency of Parliament; the very bafis of which is, that the Houfe of Commons abfolutely commands all the other parts of the government, and may, when it pleafes, fwallow up the reft, and engrofs the whole power of the conftitution.

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