Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/271

Rh GOVERNMENT.] E N G L A N D 259 there is no stoppage of accumulation; but that accumulation, on the contrary, goes on at present in most directions at an average annual rate, or at a rate greater than the average. Another eminent political economist and statistician, the late Mr Dudley Baxter, who read a paper on the &quot; National Wealth of the United Kingdom&quot; before the Statistical Society of London on the 21st of January 1868, just ten years before Mr GifFen, took a far less hopeful view than the latter about the constancy of increase of the national wealth. He expressed his belief that, while &quot;the income of England is the largest of any nation, and shows wonder ful good fortune and prosperity, we must not forget that it rests on an unstable foundation. The turn of trade, or obstinacy and short sightedness in our working-classes, or a great naval war, may drive us from the markets of the world, and bring down our auxiliary as well as our productive industries.&quot; Mr Dudley Baxter wound up his conclusions with an eloquent warning. &quot; England s position,&quot; he exclaimed, &quot; is not that of a great landed proprietor, with an assured icvenue, and only subject to occasional loss of crops, or hostile depredations. It is that of a great merchant who, by im mense skill and capital, has gained the front rank, and developed an enormous commerce, but has to support an ever increasing host of dependants. He has to encounter the risks of trade, and to face jealous rivals, and can only depend on continued good judgment and fortune, with the help of God, to maintain himself and his successors in ihe foremost place among the nations of the world.&quot; XV. Government and Laics. As England stands alone in die greatness of her wealth, the extent of her commerce, and the vastness of her manu factures, so also does she hold a unique place among nations as regards her government. Under the nominal form of an hereditary monarchy, with restricted powers, the nation U actually governed by twu Houses of Parliament, whose laws, when assented tu by the sovereign, form the statutes of the realm, it has been already remarked in the article CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAAV that, in respect of her government, &quot; England differs conspicuously from most other countries. Pier constitution is to a large extent un written, using the word in much the same sense as when we speak of unwritten law. Its rules can be found in no written docmneut, but depend, as so much of English law does, on precedent modified by a constant process of inter pretation/ Ono of the most thoughtful of modern political writers, the late Mr Walter Bagehot, sketched, in perhaps fewer words than any other, the nature of this unwritteu and constantly modified constitution in its most recent aspect. &quot; The efficient secret of the English constitution,&quot; he says, &quot; may be described as the doss union, the nearly complete fusion, of the executive and legislative powers. According to the traditional theory, as it exists in all the books, the goodness of our constitution consists in the entire separation of the legislative and executive authorities ; but in truth its merit consists in their singular approxima tion. The connecting link is the Cabinet. By that new word we mean a committee of the legislative body selected to be the executive body. The legislature has many com mittees, but this is its greatest. It uses for this, its main committee, the men in whom it has most confidence. It does not, it is true, choose them directly ; but it is nearly omnipotent hi choosing them indirectly.&quot; It is a striking illustration of the fact of the constitution of England being &quot;unwritten&quot; that the Cabinet, though universally and uu- disputedly admitted to represent the Government of the country, remains utterly unknown c.s such both to the written law and the legislature. The names of the persons who compose the Cabinet for the time being are never officially announced, nor arc there even any official records of its meetings, or of the resolutions which may have been come to at them by the members. Strangest of all, the Cabinet, virtually nominated by the legislative body, and depending for its existence on a majority of supporters in it, has never yet been formally recognized by any Act of Parliament. Although the assumption of the executive by a committee of the legislature is of comparatively modern date, forming, as Lord Macaulay says, &quot;the greut English revolution of Power the 17th century,&quot; the supreme authority of parliament is and juris- of ancient date, forming a part of the common law of the u ctiori realm. &quot;The power and jurisdiction of parliament,&quot; Sir ia ^&quot; t _ Edward Coke laid down the rule, &quot; is so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined, either for causes, or persons, withiu any bounds.&quot; With equal emphasis, Sir William Blackstone added that to parliament &quot; that absolute despotic power, which must in all governments reside somewhere, is entrusted by the constitution of these king doms.&quot; In constitutional fiction, parliament consists of three &quot; estates of the realm,&quot; namely, first, the Lords Spiritual, secondly, the Lords Temporal, and thirdly, the Commons; but the more modern form of division is that into two Houses, described as the Upper and Lower, or that of the Lords and the Commons. (See PARLIAMENT.) Strictly speaking, a member of the Upper House is a parliamentary representative equally with one of the Lower House, but in ordinary language, representing, as often it does, great facts, the title of &quot;member of parliament&quot; is only given to members of the House of Commons. The Upper House, or House of Lords, consists of a vary- The ing number of members as regards the representation of House of England, but fixed with respect to Scotland and Ireland. Lords - In the official &quot; Roll of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, issued at the commencement of the parliamentary session of 1878, the number of members of the Upper House was returned at exactly 500, the list comprising 5 members of the royal family, 2 archbishops, 21 dukes, 10 marquesses, 113 earls, 24 viscounts, 24 bishops, 248 barons, 1G Scottish representative peers, and 28 representative peers of Ireland. All the peers of England, as well as those whose patent of peerage is for the United Kingdom, have seats and votes in the House of Lords, but the peers of Scotland and Ireland are represented only by delegates, those for Scot land being elected for every new parliament and those for Ireland for life. The Government, through the sovereign, has an unre- Peerages stricted power for creating new peerages, which at times created has been largely used for political purposes. During the ^gg~ reign of Queen Victoria, up to the end of 1877, there were created 151 new peerages under various administrations. The 151 peers so created form at present more than one- third of the House of Lords, deducting from its roll the spiritual and representative members. Nearly three-fourths of the existing peerages have been created since the acces sion of the House of Hanover. The actual functions of the House of Lords, as a branch Func- of the legislature, are not very clearly defined; but it is tlo &quot; s generally assumed that it has a revising faculty over all bills Hou se O f passed by the Commons, except those relating to the public Lords, revenue and expenditure. As a rule, a very small number of peers take part in the work of a session, and the ex tremely limited attendance is signified by the rule that three members are sufficient to form a quorum in the Upper House, while there must be 40 in the Lower House. One of the reasons of non-attendance of the members of the House of Lords in former times was their special privilege of vot ing by proxy, which has now, however, fallen into disuse. Most of the sittings of the Upper House are not only very short, but irregular, the custom being to adjourn &quot; during pleasure,&quot; which means that the lord chancellor, or (lie deputy speaker, may, in the exercise of his discretion, two other peers being present, take his seat on the woolsack, and order business to proceed at any hour during the day. Besides its legislative functions, the House is invested with high judicial powers, forming the supreme court of appeal in the realm. If nominally inferior to the Upper House, the Lower House of legislature, or House of Commons, stands above