THE UNMAKING OF A CONSTITUTION.*
CONSTITUTIONAL history is for the moment in little esteem. No Englishman can say with any confidence how much of the government which he has known still exists or bow much has disappeared beneath the double attack of legislative change and executive usurpation. The interest which used to be felt in the development of this or that institution disappears when the continuity of none of them is assured. What really matters is no longer how the British Constitution grew to be what it was till yesterday ; it is rather what fractions of it will be left in being to-morrow. It follows from this that when we take up Mr. Howard Masterman's very useful volume we turn not to the chapters which deal with the past of the Constitution, but to those that have to do with its present prospects. Mr. Masterman claims, with good reason, that as regards controversial matters he has "tried to deal with them as a historian, not as a partisan." But even the most colour- less narrative of recent political changes cannot wholly conceal their revolutionary character. Some of them have been gradual and almost unnoticed. It is only now that they are completed that we can see bow far we have travelled. Thus Mr. Master- man quotes Lord Rosebery's description of Peel as "the model of all Prime Ministers" because he "kept a strict supervision over every department" and "seems to have been master of the business of each and all of them." That we have no such Prime Ministers now he traces to "the growing complexity of the work of administration." A Prime Minister in the present day cannot hope to come up to this high standard. Whether this be the right explanation or not the change involves nothing less than the disappearance of the Prime Minister. What share has Mr. Asquith had in the measures which have made recent Sessions so conspicuous P So far as any influence over them goes, it is probable that he might as well have made over the conduct of affairs to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Cabinet has become a bundle of depart- ments with nothing to keep them together except the desire of each Minister to do his own work in his .o.tvn way. There can be no unity in the legislation of a Government constituted on this principle. "As head of the Cabinet the Prime Minister is now obliged to accept responsibility for the departmental policy of his colleagues without any possibility of detailed knowledge "—or, we should be inclined to add, of genuine approval. Mr. Asquith is himself the author of another and equally startling change in the position of the Primo Minister. Mr. Howard Master- man describes this position as it was no longer ago than last year. "The Prime Minister," be says, "presides over the meetings of the Cabinet, and has the final deciding voice on all questions, so that in the last resort he may require any other Minister either to support his policy or to resign." This was once put with great clearness by Lord Russell. What • A History of tho British Constitution, By J. Howard B. Mastorinan. London: Macmillan and Co. [2s. 6d. not]
happens, he was asked, if the Prime Minister differs from a colleague P "The colleague resigns." And what if a colleague differs from the Prime Minister P "The colleague resigns." Mr. Asquith has set aside this tradition. He seems to look for- ward to a time when he may be outvoted in his own Cabinet upon a question of the very first importance and nothing follow on the incident except acquiescence in the decision of the majority, if this is to be accepted as a precedent the avowed convictions of a Prime Minister will no longer be a guarantee for the character of his policy.
Mr. Masterman shows a large capacity of hopefulness in reference to the Parliament Act. Its practical effect, he thinks, may be "the crowding of all contentious legislation into the first three years of the life of Parliament," and he sees in this arrangement of business a chance for the private member and for non-contentious Bills. We greatly doubt whether a House of Commons which has been fed on political strife for three years will take kindly to the uninteresting if wholesome fare Mr. Masterman would set before it for the remaining two years of its life. It is far more likely that this period would be spent . in preparation for contentious legislation in the next Parliament. The Lords' Veto might, if it were not further interfered with, prevent Bills introduced in the fourth and fifth years of a Parlia- ment from becoming law, but it could not prevent the Government of the day from seeking to improve its prospects at the General Election by two years of political window- dressing. Nor does Mr. Masterman give sufficient importance to the really vital change effected by the Parliament Act. At times, no doubt, the suspensive Veto now vested in the Lords may prove a weapon of real value, but by itself it can never provide that reference to the people which was the essence of the absolute Veto. The power of forcing a dissolution, which has been so strangely misrepresented as inflicting a penalty upon the electorate, had, in fact, come to be its only protection against legislation by the House of Commons in defiance of the wishes—suspected if not actually known—of those whom it had ceased to represent except in name. There are reasons in abundance for a reform of the House of Lords, but it must not be forgotten that no reform which does not provide a sub- stitute for that appeal to the people which the absolute Veto of the Lords did seeure, however roughly and cumbrously, can make the House of Commons once more the mouth- piece instead of the master of the electorate. It is this that gives its importance to the Referendum as the ultimate expression of the popular will—a will which, as the Constitution now stands, can be disregarded with something approaching to impunity. Perhaps in a future edition Mr. Masterman will give more space to considerations which go to the very root of democratic government.
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