affected to describe. The experience of the last fifty years has shown, perhaps more than that of any other period since Henry III. and Edward I., that the Constitution is no stiff and formal mechanism, but a natural and necessary product of all the latent forces of the national life and character. In no period has political action been more restless and energetic, and legislation progressed more rapidly and courageously. Nevertheless, the great and deeply-graven lineaments which mark out the English Constitution from every other are as distinct as they were at the accession of William IV. If they have altered or widened, they have done so only by keeping pace with the steady and widening impulses of the advancing national temperament, in obedience to the call of a civilisation which may properly be termed new. It is thus no longer to lawyers and law-books alone that reference must be had for ascertaining what is the mode of government under which the English people live. Far rather is it to the utterances of statesmen, to critical acts of public policy, to the conduct of Parliamentary majorities, and to the assumptions of the Executive Government. The review is thus becoming far more political than legal, and still more ethical than either. Thus this treatise is dedicated as much to establishing a new method, as to bringing to light a train of special facts to which the method is applied. 9 KING'S BENCH WALK, TEMPLE SHELDON AMOS. Indirect initiation of money grants by the Upper House Mr. Lowe on the predominance of the Lower House. Abolition of Purchase in the Army by Royal Warrant Power of the Crown to force a vote in the Lords by creation Mr. Gladstone's justification of the proceeding by Warrant Macaulay and Wellington on the impotence of the Lords. The House of Commons since the Reform Act Theories of Individual and of Class Representation Recent Acts embodying the modern theory Schemes for substituting personal for local representation Necessary effect of Minority Representation on the character Contents. Publication of proceedings:-Stockdale v. Hansard Restriction of publication:- Committee of Foreign Loans' case Right of the House to punish for contempt Obstruction of business in the House Working of the new rule in the case of Major O'Gorman Sir W. Vernon Harcourt on the privileges of the Lords The Lord Chancellor as Speaker of the Upper House (note) . 101 |