Restraint, in some form, is the price paid for power; and great strength in one direction is apt to conceal weakness in another. An English ministry with a good majority at its back appears omnipotent. It announces its policy, forces through its bills against the protests of the Opposition, and even against appeals from members on its own side not to put pressure upon them. But the power it exerts is in large part the resultant of other forces less openly displayed. If, on pain of disloyalty, and for fear of handing the government over to the adversary, the private adherent of the party in power must follow the whips in critical divisions, the ministers, on their part, are sometimes compelled by an insistent group of their supporters to adopt one measure, or to mutilate or abandon another. They cannot disregard the serious objections of any considerable section of their own followers, and this has become more and more true with the evolution of the parliamentary system. Half a century ago they might win as many votes from the other side of the House as they lost on their own, but that is rarely possible to-day. They must now carry with them on every question substantially the whole of their party.[361:1] Their omnipotence is therefore a very limited and cautious omnipotence, and this has shown itself, especially under the late Conservative government, in the meagre annual production of statutes.
Revision and Codification of Statutes.
If the legislation of a country is to consist, not in passing comprehensive laws dealing with a whole subject, but in making progressive changes by tinkering and patching the existing acts, it would seem an obvious convenience to issue from time to time new editions of those acts compiled in a more compact and intelligible form. It would be a great advantage to have frequent revisions or codification of the statutes on a subject, not involving a change of substance, but merely a simplification of form. But such a process of consolidation has not been common in England. A great deal of labour was expended on this object by several commissions during the nineteenth century; but the only positive results have been the production of two editions of revised statutes—being simply the statutes at large rearranged with the parts no longer in force omitted—and the passage of a limited number of acts consolidating the statutes on certain subjects.[362:1] Such acts are not easy to pass, because, as Sir Courtenay Ilbert remarks, "It is difficult to disabuse the average member of Parliament of the notion that the introduction of a consolidation bill affords a suitable opportunity for proposing amendments, to satisfy him that reënactment does not mean approval or perpetuation of the existing law, or to convince him that attempts to combine substantial amendment with consolidation almost inevitably spell failure in both."[362:2] The process has neither been extended to so many subjects, nor repeated at such short intervals, as might be wished.
Temporary Laws.
Another curious result of the difficulty of enacting laws may be seen in the long list of temporary statutes, continued in force from time to time, sometimes for many years. Some of these are acts of a transitory nature, designed to cover an emergency, or to deal with an ephemeral state of things. Laws of that kind expire with the conditions that called them forth. But the English temporary acts often relate to permanent matters. That a statute of an experimental character should be enacted at the outset for a limited period is natural enough, but when the period has come to an end, and the experiment has proved a success, one would expect to see the law reënacted in an enduring form. In England, however, there is passed every year an Expiring Laws Continuance Act, giving another twelve-month's lease of life to a list of acts appended in a schedule, many of which are already old. One or two have already reached the age of threescore years and ten; and among the list are still found the Ballot Act of 1872, with most of the statutes of the last half century that regulate the conduct of elections. The reason for the existence of perpetual temporary laws is to be found, no doubt, in the fact that in this form they can be continued almost without opposition, while an attempt to enact them as permanent statutes would give rise to great debates with a host of amendments, and consume a vast deal of the one thing whereof the ministry has never enough—that is time.
Delegation of Legislative Power.
The limited capacity of Parliament to pass statutes is not felt as a pressing evil, because the period of great remedial legislation is over. The transition from the political and industrial conditions of the eighteenth century has been accomplished, and the consequent change in laws and institutions has been, in the main, effected. The demand for radical legislation is, therefore, comparatively small, and for the time at least the process of making law can afford to run slow. Yet it may be doubted whether, with the great extension in the sphere of government, Parliament could be suffered to move at its present pace were it not for the growing practice of delegating legislative power. We hear much talk about the need for a devolution of the power of Parliament on subordinate representative bodies, but the tendency is not mainly in that direction. The authority of this kind vested in the county councils by recent statutes is small, too small to affect the question. The real delegation has been in favour of the administrative departments of the central government, and this involves a striking departure from Anglo-Saxon traditions, with a distinct approach to the practice of continental countries.[363:1]
Statutory Orders.
Formerly an English statute went into great detail, attempting to provide expressly for every question that could possibly arise. Its interpretation, or its applicability to a special case, could be determined only by the courts, while its defects could be remedied, or its omissions filled up, only by another statute. It contained in itself the complete expression of the legislative will. But of late it has become more and more common for Parliament to embody in a statute only general provisions, and give to some public department a power to make regulations for completing the details, and applying the act to particular cases. These regulations—known as statutory orders—cover a great variety of subjects, and govern not only the duties of officials, and the administration of public affairs, both national and local, but also the conduct of individuals in the management of their own concerns. They prescribe, for example, how many persons can live on canal-boats, the number of cubic feet of air in factories, the precautions that must be taken for cleanliness in dairies, what per cent of water may be contained in genuine butter, and under an authority of this kind a general order was issued in 1900 for muzzling all the dogs in the country.
Control of Parliament over Provisional Orders.