CROWN, PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT By William Edwaids
Mr. Edwards's sketch of our con._ stitutional history from i7&—to .1933 (Arrowsmith, 8s. 6d.) follows -the -text- books faithfully enough to the close of the Victorian age but is. less, satisfying it approaches the present day. The
author dogmatises too readily. " There
is some foundation ' fin." the-'statement that Parliament merely: registers_ the opinions of the Cabinet "—though Sir - Samuel Hoare resigned from the Foreign Office in the autumn of 1935. Private Members are not so impotent as the author suggests, when citing Burdett's Catholic Relief Bill of 1825 as the last private member's Bill " of the first importance." Mr. A. P. Herbert could correct 'hint here. The old- fashioned comments on coalitions (p. 216) seem curiously antiquated now that we hinfe had one in office for six years ; and it is not " the National party." It is a bad mistake to say (p. 245) that Sir John Simon resigned from the Cabinet on the declaration of Of war in August, 1914.
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