GOVERNMENT OF BRITAIN

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21412, 2 March 1935, Page 13

GOVERNMENT OF BRITAIN

* Countries and Their Constitutions QUALITIES AND DEFECTS SHOWN (BRITISH OFFICIAL WIRELESS.) (Received March 1, 5.5 p.m.) RUGBY, February 28. M. Pierre Flandin (Premier of France) presided at a lecture which Sir John Simon delivered in Paris to-night on the British parliamentary system. Sir John expressed the view that every constitution tended to incorporate national qualities and defects. It might be that the English constitutional system illustrated certain British characteristics such as want of logic, a certain contempt for formality, a great respect for the lessons of the past, a deep sense of realities, and above all the moderation which results in no one claiming literal fulfilment of all his rights beyond the limits imposed by good sense. Strictly speaking, there.'.was no British constitution, but only the uncodified results of long experience of parliamentary government. This allowed certain liberties to be taken with it in a new situation, the danger of abuse being checked by an inherent respect for tradition. All he claimed for the British system was that it suited the British people, and was the result of long experience of British conditions. It was like an old garment, which had come to fit the figure of its owner, but could not be copied and worn with equal convenience by everybody. He said that Britain and

Franco were the two great. European countries which, at a time of change, had preserved democratic and parliamentary systems.