Professor Dicey concluded his valuable series of letters on the
Parliament Act in Tuesday's Times. The fatal vice of that Act, he insists, is not that it diminishes the power of the )House of Lords and virtually establishes Single-Chamber government. It is that it substitutes the will of the party machine for the will of the nation. The Parliament Act makes it possible to pass Home Rule, Church Disestablish- went, and Woman Suffrage without consulting the electorate. In fine, it gives to a party power to decide, and finally decide, questions as to which the country has never pronounced any conclusive judgment. On this account—that it defies the moral sovereignty of the people—" it is hateful to every Unionist, and on this account it ought to be hateful to every true democrat." Professor Dicey's letters, we may add, clearly indicate resort to the Referendum as the great corrective to the vices of party despotism.
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