Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 32.djvu/489

453 RESPONSIBILITY OF THE STATE IN ENGLAND 453 his function; though, even here, experience suggests the value of some extra-parliamentary means whereby the member can be. made to weigh his words.^^ Still, in general, the principle is clear. Government must pay where it wrongs. There are no argimients against it save, on t^^e one hand, the dangerous thesis that the state-organs are above the law, and, on the other, the tendency to believe that ancient dogma must, from its mere antiquity, coin- cide with modern need. Dogmas, no less than species, have their natural evolution; and it may well result in serious injustice if they linger on in a condition of decay. n The personal liability of the Crown to-day is, broadly speaking, not merely non-existent in law, but unimportant also in political fact. No king is likely, as in Bagehot's classic illustration, to shoot his own Prime Minister through the head; though the serv- ants of Elizabeth and her boisterous father must not seldom have stood in fear of personal violence. The real problem here concerns itself with government departments. They are the constitutional organs of the Crown, and their acts are binding upon it. But how are they to be reached if an injured person deem that he has suffered injustice? The law is clear upon this point beyond all question. The subject cannot bring action against the Crown, because the Crown can do no wrong. A government department lives beneath the widespread cloak of that infallibility, and it can- not, unless statute has otherwise provided, be sued in the courts. The law, indeed, is thick with all manner of survivals. For prac- tical purposes, the Elder Brethren of Trinity House are under the jurisdiction of the Admiralty and the Board of Trade; but they are, in origin, a private body, and their acts thus render them liable to answer to the law.^® So, too, for certain purposes, the Secretary of State for India in Council is the successor of the East India Company, and where those purposes are concerned the courts will take cognizance of his acts;^^ but if the reader of Ma- berton Billing through the Parliamentary Debates for 191 7 and 1918. «« Gilbert v. Trinity House, 17 Q. B. D. 795 (1886); Cairn Line v. Trinity House, [1908] I K. B. 528. " Jehanger M. Cursetji v. Secretary of State for India in Council, x L. R. 27 Bomb. 189 (1902).
 * This will be clear to anyone who follows the questions and speeches of Mr. Pem-