RESTORATION OF LAW AND LIBERTY
What is long suspended is in danger of being totally abrogated.—EDMUND BURKE.
It is hardly too much to say that English Constitutional Law has been scrapped since the War. Immediately after the establishment of Peace the first duty will be to restore the old Constitutional Law which has been suspended to meet the new conditions due to the War, and to revive again the old safeguards for the liberty and rights of the subject against arbitrary action by the executive. The nation has rightly acquiesced in the exercise of powers by the executive during the War in a manner which nothing but the necessity of the time could justify. Powers to take a person's property at the will of some executive department without any definite principle or procedure even for assessing compensation ought at once to cease when there is no longer immediate urgency for using such powers to secure the safety of the country. Powers to deprive persons of their liberty on vague charges, or to try anyone except by ordinary course of law in the regular Courts, should be discontinued. The Reign of Law must be re-established to control the executive Government as well as the private citizen. Nothing is more infectious than a habit of substituting arbitrary will for law. Tyranny breeds anarchy, and anarchy tyranny in regular succession, and "the authority of one man over another not regulated by fixed law or justified by absolute necessity is tyranny." With the advent of Peace "Dora must disappear."
Even before the War there had been a tendency, on the one hand, to substitute administrative action for regular judicial procedure, and, on the other, to allow certain associations to act without regard to law, to injure individuals and infringe their rights without remedy. That tendency must be checked or liberty will be destroyed. Law and liberty as well as law and order are correlative terms. A real control over expenditure must be re-established and made more effective than it was even before the necessities of war in our unprepared condition made the present hand-to-mouth procedure to some extent excusable. The happy-go-lucky way in which new Ministries and new departments with vague and ill-defined but enormous powers have been created must come to an end. We should have some definite and recognised method of authorising changes in the system of Government. To set aside the Cabinet which, although it had no legal position, had powers sanctioned and established by long constitutional custom, and to concentrate authority in a small body selected and increased or diminished from time to time at the will of a Prime Minister, was probably necessary for successful prosecution of the War, but nothing else could justify some of the irregularities that have been committed.
Doctrines have been put forward sometimes in the Courts during the War by counsel representing the Crown—i.e., in effect some Ministry—which would have seemed questionable even in the days of the Stuarts. The whole of the special War Legislation, both Statutes and Orders of all kinds, will require to be revised and, unless there is strong reason to the contrary in any special cases, repealed. The burden of proof should be on those who think any of this exceptional legislation should be retained. Of course, care must be taken, especially in matters affecting commerce and industry, to give due notice of alterations and to change gradually so as not to prejudice arrangements already made and contracts in course of fulfilment.
Special attention will have to be given to the early removal of those restraints on trade—prohibition of exports and imports—which have been frequently necessary, either to retain in the country what is wanted to satisfy home requirements or to prevent goods from finding their way to the enemy, or to ensure that the limited tonnage available is used to bring the commodities which are vital to meet the pressing needs either of the forces engaged in War or of the civilian population. These restraints, however, are not only most harassing to merchants and involve much additional labour when labour is scarce, but if continued would prevent this country from carrying on the valuable entrepôt trade for which its geographical position, its financial resources, and its command of shipping specially fit it. That trade at least depends on the maintenance of a policy of the open door both for coming in and going out. England is a good distributing centre—unless by artificial restrictions we destroy our opportunities. Merchants and manufacturers have been very patient as a rule under the fetters it has been thought necessary to impose to meet War conditions; these fetters should be removed as soon as possible. Unless this is done they will be fatally handicapped when Hamburg and Bremen again come into competition with them as distributing centres for the countries now neutral, and even for those which have been in alliance with us.
There is sure to be a cry to protect certain industries; in some cases it may be necessary to do so for a time at least, but every such claim should be most jealously scrutinised. The interests of any powerful section of the community always find influential advocates. They can exercise strong pressure on any Government or on Members of Parliament. The general interests of the people who have no trade organisation to support them will be likely to be overlooked. The restoration of freedom is the first reform that should attend the restoration of Peace.