GOVERNING THE PEOPLE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 29, Issue 741, 25 September 1953, Page 12

GOVERNING THE PEOPLE

PARLIAMENT: A SURVEY, edited by Lord gta Allen and Unwin, English price, ‘| HIS is the result of a study of ‘parliamentary government in Britain by a group of experts who can write as well as think. The authors include D. W. Brogan, Sir Cecil Carr, Sir Arthur Salter, Ivor Thomas and G. M. Young; the subjects discussed cover Cabinet and Parliament, Parliament in Relation to the Ciyil Service, the Organisation of British Parties, the Courts and the Constitution, Delegated Legislation, and Parliamentary Control over the Nationalised Undertakings. There is no cant and very little selfdelusion in this book. It is set down, for example, that during the 19th Century the House of Commons remained

the preserve of the governing classes and the "function of the lower orders was limited to giving the system a popular imprimatur by helping. to choose which of two aristocratic parties should hold office"; that the "averagedly intelligent observer may be excused for thinking that the Labour Party has taken the place of the Liberals . . ."> that Palmerston "accepted on an average twelve defeats a session with, possibly, Christian, but, certainly, no other kind of resignation"; that in New Zealand and Australia "parliamentary debate is even more party-bound than it is here"; and "finally, after weeks or months of labour the Bill emerges from the little working gang of cfVil «servants _.. all. the departments concerned

have: been ‘squared’; all the outside interests conciliated. Sir Cecil Carr quotes Tacitus in the origi Latin, Mr. L. S. Amery, Aristotle in the original Greek; everybody knows Bagehot and Dicey. There is no jargon, no stodge. Most of it is urbane,

all of it is clear.

W.B.

S.