THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 85, 31 March 1914, Page 4

THE BRITISH CONSTITUTION.

Tn an address on the British Constitution at University College, Sir John Simon (England's Attorney-General) appealed that this famous phrase ami the great and real things which it stood for should not be used merely as a weapon of political controversy. One man, taking one view, found, as lie thought, some support to what he was urging by saying that he had the British Constitution behind him; another might find some support by saying that something he disliked was putting an end to the British Constitution. That was not the language of lawyers and historians. "Let us remember," he added, "that we all inherit a great tradition which it is our business, in the spirit of Burke and Hallam. to admire; it is our business in the spirit of calm, historical study to understand ancf explain. Tt is an inheritance; which any English man and woman who really understand to what he or she succeeds can never take part in indiscriminately denouncing or abusing. A fashion has arisen in which even Parliament is treated in common conversation as though it had lost its place and no longer, deserved to be claimed as one of our great and permanent traditions and possessions. Let lis resist that spirit. for anyone who uses such language is tiot really showing himself devoted to the spirit of the British Constitution, but rather. I think, forgetting how great an inheritance has been handed to him and how great his duty is to prize it and preserve it."