Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/680

 iv ADELAIDE AND VICINITY ^. Notes on the Constitution ot bouth Australia "Bills," theory of As an example proving that the two Houses of Parliament formerly were, and still theoretically are, only legislative advisers of the Crown, and that the Crown, still in theory, makes all laws, let us consider the past history and present practice of law-making. Formerly, if it was, and at present, if it is, proposed to make a new law, or alter an old one, what is called a Bill was or is introduced into one of the Houses of Parliament. This word Hill was originally " Billa," and one of its meanings was "a petition"; indeed, its use to signify a petition survived in the Court of Chancery imtil a few years ago, when petitions in Chancery praying for relief were called " Bills. " These Bills were originally what the word indicates — they were petitions presented to the King by the Houses of Parliament asking him to make a law. These petitions did not originally contain the words of the new law which the Houses of Parliament wished made ; they simply stated the grievance which the King was asked to remedy, and the law to remedy such grievance was supposed to be drawn up by the judges (who were then officers of Parliament) and made by the King after the session of Parliament was over. Sometimes, however, the King took no notice of these petitions, and sometimes the law purporting to be made in answer to the prayer of the petitioners was widely different from the wishes of the Houses of Parliament, and sometimes the King made laws which the Houses of Parliament had not petitioned for. It was not until the time of Henry V. that the Commons prayed that " no addition or diminution should in future be made, nor alteration in them, which should change the true intent of their petition, without their assent." This petition was assented to by the King, but the King did not strictly adhere to his promise, and consequently in the reign of Henry VI. the practice was adopted of inserting in the petition the precise words of the law the King was asked to make. The Bill or petition was then called Billa in se continens acta — "a petition containing in itself the things which are required to be done." And that phraseology Anglicised and shortened into " A Bill for an Act " is still used all over the world where British Parliamentary institutions exist. Although, as time rolled on, the power of the Crown diminished, and the King was constrained to pass the law in the exact words demanded by the Houses of Parliament, the theory remains to this day that the Crown makes the laws ; the enacting clause of all the statutes states that the statute is made by the Crown (or its representative the Governor) with the advice and consent of the Houses of Parliament. The original petition was, u[) to late years, always, and in many cases still is, part of the Bill. The petition has survived as " the preamble," which recites the reasons for making the law. Preambles have, in the course of centuries, become shorter and shorter, and now have almost ceased to exist, except in ])rivate Bills, in which Bills Parliamentary practice requires that the petition or reason for making the law should be fully set forth under the name of [)reamble, and should be proved before the Select Committee to whom the Bill is referred. The Select Committee cannot consider the provisions of the Bill until the truth of the statements contained in the preamble has been proved. In public Bills the preamble is considered after all the clauses of the Bill have been gone through. In public Bills the Committee first decides what kind of a Bill it will ask the Crown to make, and then gives its reasons for so doing ; in private Bills the reasons for the Bill are first arrived at, and then the provisions of the Bill are made to fit with the reasons which have been found to be proved.