approve of influencing either House, by additions made to its numbers, in order to secure submission to the wishes of the Crown or the ministers of the Crown. of resist ance. But the Reform Bill of 1832 was passed without the crea- Convention tion of a precedent for 'swamping' the House of Lords. And as to limits we may note that, since that date, a convention has grown up, more salutary in its operation than the exercise of the royal prerogative. In 1831 and 1832 the Peers did not only set themselves in opposition to the Commons but to the wishes of the electorate expressed clearly and emphatically at a general election held in 1831. To appreciate the significance of their action, we must remember :—that the first Parliament of William IV was dissolved in April 1831, because after the House of Commons had passed the Reform Bill introduced by the Ministry, on its second reading, by a majority of one vote, there were evident signs that the progress of the bill would be embarrassed and its character altered in Committee: that the country had returned to Parliament a House of Commons which had passed the Reform Bill on its second reading not by a majority of 1, but of 136; and that the bill coming up to the Lords with this evidence, within and without the House of Commons, that it was a measure on which the country had set its heart was rejected on the second reading in the Upper House by a majority of 41: that the Reform Bill once more introduced de novo in the House of Commons, had been carried on a second reading by a majority of 162, and having come up to the Lords and passed a second reading by the narrow majority of 9, was in imminent danger of being frustrated in Committee. There was no doubt as to the wishes of the country. There was no doubt that the House of Lords did not regard the wishes of the country. It was fortunate for them that they ultimately bowed to the wishes of the king. But in 1869 we find a very different principle laid down by an eminent member of the House of Lords and accepted by Not recog nised in 1832. The precedents, 1869 and 1884. the majority of the House. At the general election of 1868 the question of the disestablishment of the Irish Church had been brought most distinctly before the constituencies, and a great majority of the members returned to the House of Commons were pledged to support such a measure. When in The Irish 1869 the Irish Church bill came before the House of Lords, Lord Cairns, in urging the House not to reject a measure of which he personally disapproved, said :— Church Bill, 'There are questions which arise now and again-rarely but sometimes as to which the country is so much on the alert, is so nervously anxious and so well acquainted with their details, that it steps in as it were, takes the matter out of the hands of the House of Lords and the House of Commons, and substantially tells both Houses of the Legislature in this country what it requires; and in those cases either House of Parliament or both together cannot expect to be more powerful than the country, or to do otherwise than the country desires'.' So too Lord Salisbury: 'Reject this bill now, and you will tell the English people that you have determined upon offering an uncompromising resistance to the decision which they have unhesitatingly pronounced "." Thus it would seem that since 1832 a convention has grown into existence that where the country has emphatically pronounced in favour of a measure and that measure is submitted by the House of Commons to the House of Lords, the Upper House will acquiesce in legislation of which a majority of its number may not approve, and will confine its opposition to amendments of detail. The action of the House of Lords in 1884, when the Peers refused to read the Franchise bill a second time until they had before them a consequential measure for the Redistribution of Seats, illustrates this convention. At the general election of 1880, a majority of members had been returned to the House of Commons pledged to vote for an extension of the franchise in counties. In 1884 the Prime 1 Hansard, cxcvii. 293. 2 Ibid. 94. Franchise Minister introduced a bill which proposed to add very largely The to the electorate. Such a measure involved a considerable Bill. redistribution of seats, but the Government did not propose to bring forward a Redistribution bill until the Franchise bill had become law. The Commons acquiesced in this arrangement, but the Lords said, and not without some show of reason, that before conferring large powers upon the persons whom it was proposed to enfranchise, they desired to know how those powers would be distributed throughout the country. They did not reject the Franchise bill, but they declined to proceed with it until the measure which should accompany it was placed before them. The dispute was not really between the Lords and the Commons so much as between the Lords and the Ministers of the Crown, nor as to the merits of a measure so much as to the time and order in which certain measures should be introduced. This was the real issue, obscured, as happens in such cases, by misunderstandings and imputations of motive. The result was a compromise, the Government scheme for the redistribution of seats was published, and the bill was settled in consultation by the leaders of both parties, the Lords thereupon passed the Franchise bill and the conflict was at an end. And so the relations of the two Houses may thus be stated. In matters which do not greatly interest the electorate the Lords can use a free hand in rejection, amendment, or postponement. In matters of widespread interest the House of Lords by rejecting a measure sent to them by the House of Commons might force the Queen's Ministers to advise a dissolution in order to ascertain the sense of the country; if the country gives a decided answer, the Lords must, substantially, abide by it, and, as the history of the last twenty-five years has shown, they will abide by it. The alternative to such a compromise might be the disturbance of the public peace, or a large creation of peers, which means that the resistance of the House of Lords would be overcome by a violent transformation of its character. to force a The right I should add that the power, which the House of Lords dissolution, appears to possess, of compelling an appeal to the country on an issue upon which the two Houses are at variance, is one which has not been exercised, at least in modern times. It could only be exercised by reasonable men, under one of two conditions, in a case where the country had not expressed any definite opinion on the measure passed by the Commons, or in a case where the country has demanded a measure of a certain sort, and the Lords contend that the measure submitted to them does not carry out the wishes of the country, or embodies principles which have not been considered by the electors and which ought to be brought to their knowledge. General The progress of a bill, which takes its origin in the House of Lords, differs from that of one which is begun in the House of Commons only in some matters of form too slight and technical to be noticed here. But when a bill has passed both Houses it is ripe for the royal assent, which transmutes it from a proposed law to an actual law. The form in which the royal assent is given may properly be deferred till we come to consider the functions of the Crown in Parliament. SECTION III. MONEY BILLS. § 1. History and General Rules. Legislation which has for its object the grant of public rules as to money, or the imposition of burdens upon the taxpayer, money bills. General rules. possesses some special features which require to be specially noted. In the first place such legislation is under the entire control of the House of Commons. A bill relating to Supply must begin in the House of Commons. It is formulated there, and though it needs the concurrence of the Lords it cannot be amended by them on way to receive the royal assent. its In the second place such legislation only takes place on recommendation from the Crown: In the third place such legislation must commence in a Committee of the whole House. We need not trace this right further back than the reign History. of Richard II, when, as Dr. Stubbs tells us, it became the practice that all grants should be made by the Commons with the advice and assent of the Lords, in a documentary form which may be termed an act of the Parliament'.' The right seems on one occasion to have been disregarded, though not with any design to override the privileges of the Commons, by Henry IV, with the result that the Commons obtained after a remonstrance a formal recognition that the grant was theirs. Henry IV, in the year 1407, commenced the financial business of the Session by a discussion with the Lords as to the probable requirements of the service of the year, and the Commons were summoned to be told the result of the discussion. The Commons complained of the prejudice to their liberties which this action involved, and the king at once gave way, and while maintaining the right of the Lords to deliberate with the king on the needs of the kingdom, decided that neither House should make any report to the Commons king on a grant made by the Commons and agreed to by the necessary Lords, or on any negotiations concerning the same until both parties to Houses were agreed, and that the report should then be made by the Speaker of the House of Commons, par bouche de Purparlour de la dite Commune.' claim to be grant, Until the reign of Charles I the grant was not recited in then that the grant the preamble of the act which legalised the subsidies as the is theirs, grant of the Commons alone, but in the year 1625, in the act 'for the graunt of two entire subsidies graunted by the Temporalitie,' it is 'your Commons assembled in your High Court of Parliament' who grant the subsidies. So far the Commons claimed that the grant of supplies 1 Const. Hist. iii. 459. |