10 AUGUST 1962, Page 9

Constitutionolatry Many good epigrams have been coined about the British

constitution—that myth—but it always pleases me to find one I had not heard of before. My latest discovery I owe to J. E. C. Bocl- ley, Dilke's secretary, who, in his classic work on France published in 1898 and in the course of some pungent remarks about continental angto- philia, said of the British constitution: 'As the Church of England says of one of its sacraments, it is not intended to be "carried about or wor- shipped".' Alas! it is not in much danger of that these days.