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THE GREEN BAG
the masses of the people are moved, broadly speaking, by the same impulses, the prob lem of how to make legislation satisfactory in substance and in form is virtually the same problem everywhere. Accordingly, the light which the experience of one country affords is pretty sure to be useful to other countries. In the general observations I propose to offer to you, you will probably wish that I should dwell upon that experi ence, and should in particular indicate which of the experiments tried in England have proved successful, and what are the problems that remain for that country still unsolved. First, let a word be said on the authorities whence legislation in England proceeds. A supreme legislature has many diverse kinds of rules to make; and the growth of business in the British Parliament has led to the severance from general public stat utes of other kinds of work with which Parliament formerly dealt much as it deals with those statutes now. At one time Parliament used to pass acts which, being of temporary application, and passed for special reasons, ought hardly to be deemed legislation in the proper sense, being really rather in the nature of executive orders. To-day it very rarely passes such acts. Orders of the executive kind are now made not directly by Parlia ment, but either by the King in Council, upon some few matters that are still left within the ancient prerogative of the Crown, or else under statutory powers entrusted by Parliament either to the King in Council or to some administrative depart ment. I believe that in France and Ger many also such orders are not made by the legislature. There is also a larger class of rules, or ordinances of a somewhat wider but not general application, which being of an administrative nature require from time to time to be varied. Such rules or ordi nances are, in England, now usually made by authorities to whom power in that behalf has been specially delegated by Parliament.
We have now a mass of such "Statutory Rules and Orders" as we call them, filling many volumes. Some, including those which affect the Crown colonies, are made by the Crown in Council. Some, being those which regulate legal procedure in in the Courts, are made by the Rule Com mittee, consisting of Judges of the Supreme Court of Judicature, and other representa tives of the legal profession, chosen for the purpose. We find that a very convenient arrangement because it enables us from time to time to modify our legal procedure without the necessity of referring the matter to Parliament and requiring Parlia ment to enact new rules in a way which would be less convenient and prompt. The rest are made by the Departments of State, especi ally by the Home Office and the Local Government Board which issue an immense number of regulations for the guidance of officials and local authorities. In this waywe have built up a very large number of rules which have statutory effect, because they are made under the powers of some statute, but which are made not by Parliament directly but under delegated parliamentary authority, and we publish these in volumes called "Statutory Rules and Orders." They form a collection quite distinct from that of the statutes but one which has kept down the dimensions of our statute book and very much reduced the labour of Parliament. A third class includes enactments which, though they apply only to particular places or persons, and are thus not parts of the general law, such as railway acts, canal, gas and water, and electric lighting acts, acts giving powers to municipalities or other local authorities, etc., are passed by Parliament and have the full legal effect of a general statute. They are, however, sharply distinguished from general public acts in the method by which they are passed. They are brought in by motion of a member in the House and upon a petition by private persons. Notices have to be publicly given of them some two months
