Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 8.djvu/264

248 248 HARVARD LAW REVIEW. which they would be if we could make laws instead of administering them." 1 The sovereignty of Parliament being undisputed, we have to bear in mind exactly what we understand by it for an English lawyer's purposes. No power less than the Queen in Parliament is sovereign, for that is the only power which can issue supreme and uncontrolled legal commands. Parliament as a whole, and Parliament alone, can make and alter the law of the land without reference to any other authority. Moreover, we are not concerned, as students of the sources of English law in general, with the manner in which the action of the supreme legislature is deter- mined. As matter of form, this belongs to the special study of the English constitution and of the law and practice of Parliament. As matter of substance, the consideration of political power, of its practical seat and ultimate sources, would take us out of the field of jurisprudence proper, and into that of politics and constitutional history. It is now generally recognized that the majority of the House of Commons has and exercises, for all substantial intents, political supremacy in these kingdoms. It cannot directly govern at all ; it cannot legislate without the concurrence of the House of Lords and the Crown. The Crown, however, can act only on the advice of Ministers, and the Ministers of the Crown are chosen from the party which commands a majority in the House of Commons. That majority, so long as it holds together, can cause its will to be observed, on the whole, in every department of gov- ernment. Or, to put the same thing in a negative form which is perhaps more accurate, it is not possible for the government of the United Kingdom to be carried on by any lawful means in con- tinuous opposition to the majority of the House of Commons. But this does not touch the doctrine of legal sovereignty. The power which can ultimately determine the bent of legislation, or control the execution of existing laws, but cannot itself legislate, is not a legal but a political power. Now the majority of the House of Commons, as we said, does not govern or legislate. The House of Commons itself has no power whatever of issuing any direct legal commands except so far as it can do so for the purpose of regulating its own procedure and discipline, and enforcing its own privileges. It may practically make a statute inoperative by refus- 1 Lee V. Bude & Torrington Ry. Co. (1871), L. R. 6 C. P. 582.