A Treatise on the Law, Privileges, Proceedings, and Usage of
Parliament. By Sir Thomas Erskine May. Twelfth Edition. Edited by T. Lonsdale Webster. (Butterworth. 52s. 6d.)—Erskine May's manual of Parliamentary practice has undergone many changes since it first appeared seventy years ago, but, thanks to successive editors, it remains without a peer. Mr. Webster. the second Clerk Assistant of the Rouse of Commons, has done his work admirably. The effects of the Parliament Act aro clearly stated. We are told when a Bill relating to finance is or is not, technically speaking, a " money Bill " which the Speaker may certify as such and which the House of Lords cannot touch. Thus the Finance Act of 1911 was not a " money Bill," but the Public Buildings Expenses Bill of 1913, which did not grant money or impose taxation and did not originate in a Committee of the whole House with the Royal recommendation, was certified to be a " money Bill." While the book-notes the very latest amendments of procedure, it still retains many of the curious precedents, centuries old, that are the pride of the " Mother of Parliaments."
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