Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/478

442 442 HARVARD LAW REVIEW BOOK REVIEWS The Government of the British Empire. By Edward Jenks. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. 1918. pp. viii, 369. The title of this book arouses hopes which are not realized. There is very little about the British Empire or even the British Isles, outside England. For example, English local government receives forty-seven pages, Scotch two, Irish one-half, colonial seven. English education fills ten pages, with no mention of the outlying regions. A purely provincial topic like church history before the Refor- mation gets nine pages. On the other hand, one can learn nothing here about such vital colonial matters as the right of a British subject, e. g., a Hindoo, to possess full citizenship everywhere in the Empire; the legal status of the blacks in South AfricBj; the inclusion of natives upon Indian councils; the unfortified frontier of Canada; colonial demands to share in Imperial foreign pohcy; the Australian Monroe doctrine; the veto power of colonial governors and their liability to civil action for ofi&cial misconduct; the relations of the various federal governments to their states or provinces. Under this last head we should like to read of the problem of McCulloch v. Maryland in Australia; the inability of the Privy CouncU to review Australian decisions on constitutional law unless allowed to do so by the Australian High Court; or the extent to which the Canadian government exercises its veto power over provincial legislation. Much is said of EngUsh pohtical parties, nothing of the French Canadian Nation- aUsts, the Labor party in Australia, or Sinn Fein. Out of thirty-eight pages on courts, only half a page is devoted to industrial tribunals in the Dominions. Yet the book is valuable as a storehouse of information about English gov- ernment, gathered with much effort to secure accuracy and to include the most recent developments, of which it would be very inconvenient to learn elsewhere. For example, the terms of the 191 7 franchise act are given with considerable fulness. This is the book to answer those troublesome ques- tions which continually recur to the casual reader of English political novels and articles. What does the Lord Privy Seal do? How is a budget intro- duced? What is the fimction of the various English courts, ancient and modern? There are occasional interesting discussions of constitutional and political principles. For example, it is questioned whether the old two-party system unfits the House of Commons for a proper handling of the problems of Empire. "Secret diplomacy" is felt to be necessary in a modified form. "Crises which, if handled confidentially, can be discreetly averted, are apt to become dis- tinctly more unmanageable when they are discussed in public with the aid of an excited Press, bent on arousing the passions of its readers." The sanest proposition, in Mr. Jenks' opinion, is a joint legislative committee on foreign relations, to which aU international negotiations should be continually re- ported. (This frequent use of fear of the press as a check on popular control of government wiU perhaps one day suggest the treatment of newspapers as educational institutions instead of money-making enterprises.) There are some features of the English Constitution, when spread out in its details, which transport us into the realms of Gilbert and Sullivan. Chapter I is devoted to "The King-Emperor," who "stands at the head of the British Empire," and to his extensive powers over army, police, courts, legislation, foreign policy. But the last paragraph warns us against the natural impres- sion "thatj the British Empire is an autocracy." AU that has gone before is only make-believe, and the King-Emperor does not reaUy rule the lives of his subjects by his personal Ukes and dislikes. Chapter II, "The Constitutional Monarchy," will make him safe for democracy. The curious outsider who wonders why this official exists at all is told of the immense " influence of the