which, session after session, are left to perish in the pigeon-holes of the committee-room.

So far we have been speaking of the House of Representatives, but even in the Senate the same practices largely prevail. It is not under the necessity of curbing its debates by a rigid system of closure, but it is equally subject to the rule of committees. In this assembly of seventy-six members there are no fewer than twenty-nine standing committees. These are not appointed by the President of the Senate, but are selected by ballot; and probably this method of election makes them all the more effectual in depriving the proceedings of the Senate of a party character. There is, at all events, the same absence of organised party conflict which has been noticed as a feature of the other House. There is more of the habit of debate, however, and the Senate has never tolerated any attempt to interfere with its power of discussion. Clay's closure policy in 1841, which sought to restrict the length of speeches, or at all events the duration of debate, met with a resistance so fierce that no subsequent attempt has ever been made to revive it. American writers appear to think that, in respect of this difference in procedure between the two Houses, the advantage is all on the side of the Senate. Senator Hoar goes so far as to say that the mechanism of the House of Representatives has resulted in destroying that equality with the Senate which belongs to it by the Constitution.

Whether the Senate be in reality the more powerful

of the two Houses, it is certainly, in contrast with the House of Lords, a real second chamber. "It can not only question and stay the judgment of the Commons, but may always with perfect safety act upon its own judgment, and gainsay the more popular chamber to the end of the longest chapter of the bitterest controversy. It is quite as free to act as is any other branch of the Government, and quite as sure to have its acts regarded."

Some special functions of the Senate have caused it to appear to many the predominant branch of the Government; as, for example, its right to control the treaty engagements contracted by the President, and its veto on official appointments. In respect of the former, it fulfils to some extent the functions of a Cabinet, but a Cabinet from which the Prime Minister is excluded. The Senate, acting as usual through a committee which sits in camera, deals as it pleases with the treaties submitted to it by the President, but the President has no formal or official means of communicating the reasons for his policy to the committee. And while the Senate can refuse to ratify, it cannot dictate or initiate a policy. Neither can act without the other, and the two cannot act together; and common action would seem to be brought about only by the fact that some action is necessary. The only power the President has of compelling consent on the part of the Senate is, says Mr. Wilson, his initiative. "The Senate hesitates to bring about the appearance of dishonour which would follow its'

refusal to ratify the rash promises or to support the indiscreet action of the Department of State." In appointments, the control of the legislative branch would appear to be more complete, although not more beneficial. The manipulation of the Civil Service is one of the blots of the American system, and recently there has been an enormous advance of public opinion on the subject. The part played by the Senate in the "spoils system," as it is called, is thus described. "The President was com

pelled, as in the case of treaties, to obtain the sanction of the Senate without being allowed any chance of consultation with it, and there soon grew up within the privacy of 'executive session' an understanding that the wishes and opinions of each senator who was of the President's own party should have more weight than even the inclinations of the majority in deciding upon the fitness or desirability of persons proposed to be appointed to offices in that senator's State. There was the requisite privacy to shield from public condemnation the practice arising out of such an understanding." It will not fail to be noticed, however, that the practice, however open to objection in other respects, has tended to give the appointment of Federal officers to representatives of the State in which these officers have to act. A statute passed during the Presidentship of Andrew Johnson strengthened the position of the Senate in this matter by taking away from the President the absolute power of dismissal which he had theretofore

enjoyed. By the Tenure of Office Act * the consent of the Senate is now necessary to a removal. The secrecy of the executive sessions of the Senate deepens the impression produced by its direct assumption of control over the Executive, while the additional fact that its members are for the most part wealthy men has excited in some quarters the cry that the Senate has become a new and unconstitutional kind of aristocracy. Quite recently we have been told that there is a House of Lords question in America as well as in England, and that the old English remedy of stopping the supplies will have to be resorted to before the popular branch of the Legislature can acquire its due supremacy.

As it is, the question of supplies is the business to which both Houses devote themselves with most energy. The financial committees (Ways and Means and Appropriations) are the greatest of the standing committees, and are privileged in many ways. It is on Appropriation Bills that the House of Representatives permits itself the greatest freedom of debate.t The Senate, it must be noticed, holds in relation to finance a wholly different position from the House of

* A Bill for the repeal of this Act passed the last Congress and received the President's assent.

"As a rule, every member has a chance to offer what suggestions he pleases upon questions of appropriation, and many hours are spent in business-like debate and amendment of such bills, clause by clause, and item by item. The House learns pretty thoroughly what is in each of its Appropriation Bills before it sends it to the Senate."-Wilson, p. 155.

Lords. The English rule has been adopted with a modification, which, according to Senator Hoar, entirely reverses its character. Bills for raising revenue must originate in the Lower House, but the Senate has the power of amendment. Under the procedure already described, this arrangement has, according to Mr. Hoar, operated to deprive the House of Representatives of equality with the Senate. The Senate receives the bills after they have been settled by the Lower House, and is, therefore, in full possession of the views of the House thereon, and can alter the settlement as it pleases. When the amended bills get back to the Lower House, there is no longer time for re-amendment; the matters at issue must be referred to a Conference Committee, and the report of that committee must be accepted or rejected as it stands. Mr. Hoar seems to think that the advantage intended to be given to the House of Representatives is in effect an additional limitation on its power. Another curious result is also to be noticed. The House of Representatives, it is said, generally grants an expenditure considerably less than the estimates call for; the Senate adds considerably to the grant of the Lower House. Neither side will yield, and recourse has to be had to the Conference Committee, whose report is necessarily in the nature of a compromise, which still leaves the grant below the requirements of the public service. "The result of the under-appropriation, to which Congress seems to have become addicted by long habit in dealing with the estimates, is the addi