n8
THE GREEN BAG
given him, assuming that the department approved of its purpose. Nowadays, how ever, a private member's bill has no chance of passing, if opposed; so that legislation likely to raise any controversy has vir tually passed into the hands of the Min istry. Once the bill is launched its fate depends on the amount of intelligent care the Legis lature is disposed to give it and the amount of skill the Minister in charge shows in steering the boat which carries its for tunes. He has, of course, the assistance of the official draftsman and sometimes, of one or mere colleagues in preparing his own amendments and considering those proposed by others. He must try to get time enough reserved for its passage, the disposal of time resting with the govern ment. The practical result of our English system may be summed up by saying that it secures four things : 1. A careful study of the subject before a bill is introduced. 2. A decision by men of long political experience which out of many subjects most need to be dealt with by legislation. 3. A careful preparation of measures, putting them into the form in which they are most likely to pass. Obviously that may not be always the best form, but there is no use in offering to Parliament something too good for such a world as the world of practical politics everywhere is. 4. The fixing upon some one of respon sibility for dealing with every really urgent question. Whenever an evil has to be dealt with or a want supplied by the action of the Legislature, there is never any doubt who shall do it. The Government has got not only to propose something but to put something through, the Minister to whom it belongs having it in charge through all its stages. A Government which fails to pass its bills suffers in credit; and if the matter is a specially grave one, may probably be turned out either by the House of Com
mons or by the voters at the next general election. There are, however, defects in the English system. One is the fact that Parliament, in spite of all that has been done to relieve it, is still terribly overburdened by work. There is more to be done than time can be found for. Remember, that in addition to passing laws for 42,000,000 people in the United Kingdom, it has got to supervise the action of the executive in governing, or providing for the defence of, more than 400,000,000 people in various parts of the world. As 'you will see it requires a great deal of time for the work which belongs to it. Another is the tendency to devote at tention to measures not so much in the order of their real importance as of the amount of interest which the party in power feels in certain questions, an interest which may be comparatively transitory. A third is the disposition of an Opposition in Parlia ment to oppose the measures of the Gov ernment because it is the Government that brings them forward. The habits of party controversy are so strong that the merits of a proposal are apt to be forgotten under the impulse of a desire to use all the means which the rules of debate provide for dam aging or turning out a Ministry whose general principles or actual conduct of affairs the minority may disapprove. This is the counterpart of the advantage which the Government power of pushing forward legislation carries with it, being indeed a defect necessarily incident to that advan tage. It frequently involves much needless expenditure of time, and the loss of meas ures in themselves desirable. Thus it hap pens that in England, Ministries usually get less credit than they deserve for good measures lying outside the sphere of party controversy, and the needed legislation is always in arrear. Still, whenever the people feel that something is to be done, they know whom to require to get it done, and it gets done. The government commands the majo
