THE LIBERTIES OF THE PEOPLE AND THE SUPREMACY OF THE

LAW.

Pro THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOK.1 SIR,—Lord Rosebery has drawn prominent attention to the manner in which the present Government are endeavouring to Override our unwritten Constitution by effecting a social and political revolution over the heads of the people by means of a temporary and unscrupulous majority in the House of Commons to whom the traditions of the Con- stitution are of no account. Another and more insidious attack upon one of the best-known doctrines of the Con- stitution, that of the supremacy of the law, which the present so-called Liberal Government have made, has not, however, received from the public the attention which it deserves, and that notwithstanding the remarkable warning contained in the recent speech of the Lord Chief Justice of' England at the Lord Mayor's dinner to his Majesty's

Judges :—

"Time had been," said his Lordship, "when the Judges had stood between the liberties of the people, and had protected the people. That was a duty which was not likely ever again to fall on his Majesty's Judges in any part of the Empire If however, certain things were done which they saw in the Press, it might be that the Judges might be called upon in the future to pretect the interests of the people against the Executive; but he hoped the time would never come when it would be considered that the Executive Government was to be its own interpreter of Acts of Parliament."

That his Lordship was amply justified in the warning which he pronounced will, I think, be clear if we consider the provisions of a few of the principal measures introduced by the present Government since they took office, nearly all of which contain clauses prohibiting an appeal to the ordinary Courts from any decision of the Executive or its nominees made under such Acts. If we turn first to the methods adopted to settle "the education question," we shall find in the last abortive Education Bill the following remarkable clause :--

"Section 11 (5).—Every decision of the Board of Education purporting to be given on any matter which is to be determined fixed or computed by them or on which they have to be satisfied under this Act, shall be final and shall not be liable to be called into question in any court of law or otherwise."

Again, if we turn to the proposed legislation with regard to Irish land, we find that two-thirds of the land of Ireland is to be handed over to the jurisdiction of three Commissioners with practically unlimited powers of expropriation at such price as they may fix, "having regard to the price which the tenants and other persons may be willing to give"; the remaining third is left to the tender mercies of a Board, half of whose members are to be elected by persons who are practically the would-be purchasers themselves. Once more the unfortunate owner compulsorily dispossessed has no appeal to the ordinary Courts. Finally, we have the Government's last and most comprehensive measure paving the way for ultimate universal expropriation and the determination of individual ownership, which they are pleased to call the Finance Bill, 1909. Here, again, notwithstanding the fact that new and unprecedented duties of extraordinary com- plexity and ambiguity are imposed on property, we have now the usual provision that the only appeal shall be to a referee specially appointed by the Executive Government imposing the tax, and liable to dismissal at any time by the same authority, whose decision shall be final, and not open to review

in any Court of Law, save in certain exceptional cases if the referee himself thinks fit to allow it. The referee is also empowered to decide to and by whom the cost of the reference and the appeal is to be paid, and may settle the amount of the same.

Were anything more necessary to show the despotic instincts underlying the actions of the present Administra- tion, we have only to recall the remarks recently made by Mr. Burns at Carshalton, when he stated, with that courage which often commands our admiration, that

"if the country knew its business properly, it would relegate

not only the Reports of the Poor Law Commission, but the whole of the Poor Law problem, to the President of the Local Govern- ment Board for his immediate consideration and attention, and for practical action whenever he determined that action should be taken."

That is to say, that in the opinion of Mr. Burns the existing Poor Law should be repealed, and its place taken by a series of bureaucratic decrees.

If I have not already trespassed unduly on your apace, may I conclude with the following quotation from Professor Dicey's "Law of the Constitution "?—

" When we say that the supremacy or the rule of law is a characteristic of the English constitution we mean in the first place that no man is punishable or can be lawfully made to suffer in body or goods except for a distinct breach of law established in the ordinary legal manner before the ordinary courts of the land, and secondly, we mean not only that with us no man is above the law but (what is a different thing) that here every man whatever be his rank or condition, is subject to the ordinary law of the realm and amenable to the jurisdiction of the ordinary tribunals."

It is a curious coincidence that we should now be entertaining Members of the Russian Duma in recognition of their efforts to obtain a Constitution in place of government by bureau- cracy when our own House of Commons is gradually displacing the supremacy of the law in favour of a droit administratif.—I are, Sir, &c., WILLIAM H. DAVISON.

Oxford and Cambridge Club.

[Our correspondent's warning is most useful. He might have added a reference to the Trade Disputes Act, under which the actions of Trade-Unions in furtherance of a trade dispute are placed outside, and therefore above, the view of the Courts of Law. As regards the Finance Bill and the powers given to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, we feel inclined to quote the definition of Excise given by Dr. Johnson in his dictionary. He describes it as a tax "adjudged not by the Common Judges of property, but by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." We are far from describing the high-minded and able officials who constitute the Board of Inland Revenue in such terms, but we feel sure that if in future those who think themselves unjustly and illegally treated by the Executive and its officers are to have their complaints adjudicated on, not by the Judges of the land, but by the officials at the head of the Department concerned, the sense of injustice created will become overwhelming. There is no liberty more dearly prized by the British race than the liberty of appeal to impartial Courts of Justice by those who bold themselves wronged, whether by private individuals or by the Crown and State.—ED. Spectator.]