and the grounds for making adequate provision were not disclosed. How (he asked) could members of the House of Commons judge of the estimates to be laid before them as a provision for national safety, if they did not know by what danger the nation was confronted? How, further, could we know our danger without knowing how we then stood with regard to foreign alliances and engagements?
The case for the Government in these and like transactions was moderately and clearly put by Henry Pelham in the House of Commons. His ministry was criticized for not having laid the preliminaries of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle before Parliament, so that its opinion might be taken beforehand, as had been done on the occasion of the Treaty of Utrecht. Pelham, in his defence, disclaimed any intention to limit in any degree the right of Parliament to examine and criticize any treaty after it was concluded, and to censure and punish those who advised and negotiated the treaty if it should seem to have wantonly or unnecessarily sacrificed the interests or the honour of the nation. Such a right on the part of Parliament was to be upheld as a salutary check on the conduct of ministers. But, 'if Parliament should encroach upon the prerogative of the Crown, by assuming a right to make peace or war, and to inquire into foreign transactions under negotiation, our affairs will be reduced to a dangerous predicament; for no foreign State will negotiate with our ministers, or conclude any treaty with them, either political or commercial.'[1] These considerations of national advantage similarly required that Parliament should not assume a constitutional right to prescribe rules to the Crown for its conduct in any future negotiation or treaty. Advice either House is competent to offer; but, if the advice be coupled with the condition that
- ↑ Coxe, Memoirs of the Administration of the Right Honourable Henry Pelbam (1829), ii. 87.
