Books of the Day
Law-Makers at Work
THOSE who have read Mr. Jennings on Cabinet Government will open this book with high hopes ; they will not be dis- appointed. His touch is as light as his learning is great : he has cast his net wide and, unlike many writers upon contem-
porary political themes, he can distinguish between the big and the little fish. Of his successive chapters it may be said that, like beer, all are good, but some are better than others, as is inevitable in handling a subject on which the personal factor exercises so great an influence upon precedure, for there is no Standing Order which may not and few which have not, on occasion, been suspended in the public interest and by common consent.
To the House of Lords Mr. Jennings devotes less space, and accords less consideration, than is its due. It is not too much to say that the Lower House could not function effectively without it. He underrates the significance, fully recognised by most Labour Members, of the ancient forms and ceremonies of both Houses. It is not a small thing that the House of Parliament is legally and technically a Royal Palace : that it is opened as a rule by His Majesty in person : that it invariably begins its proceedings by prayers, read by the Speaker's chaplain, the whole House repeating with him the Lord's Prayer. He would have done well to quote one of the prayers used, in which Members ask Almighty God that
"laying aside all private interests, prejudices, and partial affections, the result of all our counsels may be to the glory of Thy blessed Name, the maintenance of true Religion and Justice, the safety, honour and happiness of the King, the public peace, wealth ano tranquillity of the Realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same."
These words represent a real and living influence : they have unquestionably a profound effect upon our work. I believe it to be true that no other Parliament is opened with prayer. Mr. Jennings is at his best when dealing with " who makes the laws": he realises the predominant role of vested interests, whether of trade unions, civil servants, the professions, trade and commerce. But he does not discuss what happens or, rather, what does not happen, when the vested interests amply represented on both sides of the House are opposed to a change which is unquestionably in the interest of the public at large. In such a case legislation has no chance of passing. A case in point is the reform of Industrial Assurance, declared in 1934 by the unanimous report of a very strong Departmental Committee under Sir Benjamin Cohen to be urgently needed for the protection of the public. The Report was shelved : it has never even been discussed! Nor does he discuss what happens when a Departmental Committee urges some radical
departure from the customary "morality "—e.g., the Trevethin Committee on Venereal Disease, the Brock Committee on
Mental Deficiency or the Committee on Persistent Offenders.
In none of these cases has any action been taken: the interests of the community and of individuals are gravely prejudiced by inaction, but nothing is done. Again, the government of Tyneside is still shamefully costly and inefficient. A Royal Commission has reported, but nothing has been or is going to be done about it Of Royal Commissions, again, Mr. Jennings writes far too optimistically. Commissioners are unpaid: they seldom meet more than twice a week, often less frequently. They commonly take three years to reach conclusions which a few independent men could reach in as many months. This is because it has become the custom to appoint as many as 15 members most of whom represent " interests " and to hope that they will produce an agreed compromise. This generally happens and the resulting legislation is consequently often half-hearted and unsatisfactory. Moreover, Royal Commissions for the last thirty years have ceased to make any inquiries of their own motion ; they hear " evidence " from " both sides" from various organised bodies and a few individuals in the light of statements made by civil servants on behalf of Government Departments. Our forefathers did these things more thoroughly : the Royal Commission on the Employment of Children, for example, sent its own representa- tives to talk to children and parents all over the kingdom. Their Report, illustrated with woodcuts, made history. This is a radical defect in the system of law-making by Commission.
Admirable as is Mr. Jennings' survey, we miss in it any adequate recognition of the overwhelming urgency of reform, which has been accepted by every successive Select Com- mittee, and is recognised by active minds on both sides of the House. He quotes Lord Eustace Percy as saying " there are bills which have been waiting for years and years, simply because there is no particular drive behind them," and adds, " there are always departmental projects whose chance of realisation is so small that they are not even put in the programme." He does not seem to realise that the object of most " departmental projects " is social justice to voiceless minorities, and that the shamefully chaotic state of the Statute Book makes justice more costly, if obtainable at all, in Britain than in any country in Europe. The victim of the uninsured driver cries aloud for redress ; he is unheard ; his vote is unimportant. The law of libel works cruel injustice, but is unaltered. The Bankruptcy Acts encourage fraud and damage trade. The injured workman, whose employer is un- insured—there are 250,000 such employers—has no remedy. There is no Parliamentary time for him.
No true friend of Parliament is blind to these great evils ; no believer in Parliamentary systems can contemplate without dismay the complete lack of effective criticism of recent emergency legislation, or of Governmental expenditure.
The remedy is not clear, but unless it is found Parliament will one day be publicly recognised as having broken down. Mr. Jennings does not appear to have read Mr. J. A. Murray Macdonald's Parliamentary Breakdown and the Remedy (1936), nor the Bill "for the Relief of Parliament," presented by him in 1921, with the backing of Mr. Neville Chamber- lain, Mr. Clynes, and Mr. (later Sir Francis) Acland. Had he done so he would perhaps have seen more clearly the defects of the institution he loves so dearly.
ARNOLD WILSON
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