Points of Order THE hi g hest authority on Parliamentary Procedure is
Sir Erskine May's Parliamentary Practice as edited by the present Clerk to the House of Commons, Sir Gilbert Campion. Second to it—equal in- deed in authority, though substantially less in volume—is Sir Gilbert's own Introduction to the Procedure of which the first edition appeared in 1929 and the second is now published. It was time for a revised edition, for in the intervening eighteen years there have been many changes in procedure. The war was responsible for much, but not for a great deal that is permanent. The growing pressure of Parliamentary business on Parliamentary time is the main cause. What Sir Gilbert wrote, for example, on the Standing Com- mittee system in 1929 has had to be substantially modified in 1947; even so, his new edition appeared too soon for him to deal with the reprehensible innovation of the use of the guillotine in Standing Com- mittee. His observation, in relation to the Government of India Bill of 1935, which was discussed under a voluntarily agreed time-table, that "it would be a triumph for the spirit of conciliation if this prece- dent comes in future to be generally adopted" reads ironically enough in the light of the history of the present session. Another new section of importance deals with the still too little familiar Ministers of the Crown Act of 1937, which both regulates the number of Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries who may sit in the House of Commons and (though Sir Gilbert does not mention this) enables functions exercised by one department of State to be transferred to another without legislation. The former provision may on occasion considerably embarrass a Prime Minister who is recon- structing his Cabinet; it would probably be found that some sur- prises in Mr. Attlee's last list of new Ministers were due to the limitations placed on him by the fact that not more than 62 holders of paid Ministerial offices may sit in the House of Commons. Even that means that Ministers alone account for to per cent. out of the sr per cent. of votes needed to give a Government a majority. For the rest Sir Gilbert Campion has revised his opening historical chap- ter (with its. interesting discussion of the evolution of the Speaker from spokesman of the King to the Commons into spokesman, of the Commons to the King) and added a fairly extensive passage tracing briefly the development of procedure through the centuries. To- wards its close occurs a passage well worth noting: "The value of an established order for giving dignity to the corporate action of a body, for linking together the generations which compose its life and for expressing the fundamental agreement in principle which under- lies its much-advertised surface divisions should not be under- estimated." It should not; and the ready, almost eager, acceptance of the forms and traditions of the House by a mass of new Members (some of them by nature iconoclastic) in 1945 was a welcome demon- stration of the power of Parliament to impose itself on the men and women who make their transient contributions to its achievements. The appearance of this revised edition of Sir Gilbert Campion's own book so soon after he had finished the immense task of revising Erskine May is an astonishing testimony both to his industry and to his devotion to the great instrument of Government he so loyally and tirelessly serves. Many people besides Members of Parliament desire, or have occasion, to post themselves in the essentials of Parlia- mentary procedure. This new edition of a standard guide will supply
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