Page:Studies in constitutional law Fr-En-US (1891).pdf/34

20 is to be sought, not in the Statute Book, but in parliamentary or judicial records; it is given, not according to a general enactment, but in accordance with precedents. This body of precedents will more often than not be found to be uncertain, confused, and contradictory. In fact the most important part of the political organization is just what is kept out of the written law and given over to the sole guardianship of custom.

What happened with regard to the taxation and electoral rights of the clergy is a most curious example of the way in which custom got established in one of the gaps left by a statute, and then acquired the authority of a law. From time immemorial Parliament did not tax the clergy; they taxed themselves in their own special parliament, i.e. Convocation. The Houses of Parliament were satisfied with ratifying their Acts. In 1664 a compact was made behind the scenes between Lord Clarendon, then Prime Minister, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of England. It was agreed that the clergy should no longer tax themselves, but that Parliament should tax both clergy and laity. And so it was. In 1665, the Act imposing the taxation for the year discharges the clergy from the subsidy imposed by the last ecclesiastical convocation, and orders that they should pay the public taxes like other people. The statute, however, expressly reserves to the clergy in Convocation the right of putting