effective control over what is ironically called 'their Committee '-the Cabinet. The party system is a reciprocating engine which drives the coach of State over all obstacles. The bulk of the legislation passed in any session of Parliament is not legislation in which the country takes the slightest interest. It is legislation which the government departments want, and which the party leaders are willing to give them.

In the United States during the late war emergency legislation similar in character to that in Great Britain was passed. This was enforced with even greater harshness than in Great Britain. In the treatment of conscientious objectors, for instance, Americans went far beyond the necessity of the case, but it was typical of the modern American idea of majority rule. Prior to the Civil War the Supreme Court had not only protected the fundamental principles of the Constitution but, inspired by Chief Justice Marshall, solved many of the commercial problems, thus acting as the safety-valve of the political machine. After that event, however, the Court fell under the same big business interests as those which controlled Congress, and although it continued to protect the Constitution, it failed to solve the industrial and social problems presented to it. To-day the personnel of the Court is changing, and Americans are looking for relief not to Congress, which they regard as both incompetent to deal with the complexity of industrial and social reforms, and too self-interested, but to the Supreme Court.

Recently Mr A. T. Hadley, President Emeritus of Yale University, has drawn attention to the misuse of legislative authority in the United States. A mass of enactments, he complains, is produced by the system of log-rolling. Measures are passed in the interests of this or that group of legislators, which are unsupported by a general public opinion. The true conception, he contends, is that of the legislator as a trustee. It is only by acceptance of the principle of official trusteeship that the world or any part of it,' he declares, 'can be made safe for democracy.' But this conception, in my view, is insufficient. Moreover, as already stated, the problems of modern civilisation are too vast and complex for any one authority to deal with. One solution, no doubt,

is decentralisation, leaving the groups affected to find the remedy. The world will never be made safe for democracy until democracy itself is made subject to the law. And in an address delivered in New York on Jan. 20, 1926, upon the anniversary of John Marshall's appointment as Chief Justice, Mr Albert C. Ritchie, Governor of Maryland, attacked the growing centralisation of power in the Federal Government. This, he said, was making a situation in which growing disrespect for the law might break down the American legal system. He declared that if Marshall had been alive he would have saved American institutions from the dangers which imperilled them.

It is a mistake to suppose that the exercise of judicial power is peculiar to a federal system under a written constitution. It did not exist in the former German Constitution; nor does it in the Swiss Constitution. By the new German Constitution conflicts between a state and the federation may be referred to the Supreme Federal Court, but there is no provision conferring power upon the Court to interpret the Constitution. On the other hand, although in the United Kingdom we do not possess a written Constitution the fundamental rights of the individual are clearly defined and established by the Common Law, and are declared in such national conventions as Magna Carta, the Petition of Right, and the Bill of Rights. Consequently, it is just as easy for the Courts to protect such fundamental rights as if they were embodied in a written Constitution.

At the gathering of the American Bar Association in Westminster Hall on July 21, 1924, Secretary Hughes made it abundantly clear that the Common Law, or rather the spirit of the Common Law, was the guardian of their political and civil rights. This spirit, he said, 'is opposed to those insidious encroachments upon liberty which take the form of an uncontrolled administrative authority. . . . We have an instinctive feeling that there is no panacea for modern ills in bureaucracy. There is still the need to recognise the ancient rightand it is the most precious right of democracy-the right to be governed by law and not by officials-the right to reasonable, definite, and proclaimed standards which the citizen can invoke against malevolence and

...

caprice.' It was true this protection of fundamental rights was put into the written Constitution-rights deemed to be beyond the reach of the legislature—but the conception of limited powers given to the Government is directly traceable to the principles of the Common Law. This distinctive feature of their legal system was a heritage from a past held in common. The American Constitution guaranteed that no one should be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. 'It did not refuse to the Legislatures the authority to enact reasonable measures . . but it was intended to preserve and enforce the primary and fundamental conceptions of justice which demand notice and opportunity to be heard in advance of condemnation, and with respect to every department of Government freedom from arbitrariness.' And in paying this tribute to the spirit of Common Law, Secretary Hughes emphasised the necessity for a fearless and independent judiciary, competent and impartial, upholding the supremacy of the law.

In all countries, therefore, where the Parliamentary system prevails, it would appear to be on its trial. In some countries we see minorities imposing their will on the general public by methods of log-rolling. In other countries we see majorities riding roughshod over the fundamental rights of minorities. Everywhere the result is the same, a growing contempt for all law. The solution for over-legislation would appear to be decentralisation, leaving each group and interest to manage its own affairs, of which it alone possesses the necessary knowledge. The remedy for majority rule is to be found in an independent judiciary endowed with power to protect the fundamental rights of the individual. Both these solutions demand the recognition of the divisibility of sovereignty, and of a law which is superior to kings and parliaments. As has been well said, although there are many nations, there is only one civilisation'; and that 'one civilisation' can only survive and develop if both within each State, as well as between all States, the Rule of Law prevails.

6

HUGH H. L. BELLOT.

2

Art. 9.-THE FRIENDSHIP OF GREAT BRITAIN AND
THE UNITED STATES.

THE War of American Independence inevitably left illfeeling behind it. Nevertheless, it had barely closed when the natural good feeling and kinship of both sides found expression. David Hartley, one of the British Peace Commissioners, wrote in 1783: We may proceed to open an intercourse between our two countries, as nearly as possible, to the point of as we were.' He added: 'It may be that the Americans will never want an ally, but if they do, it is still in Great Britain.'

On the American side the olive branch was not held out quite so freely. Great Britain was a much more powerful State; the Peace of 1783 had left problems and claims behind it, and the Americans, quite intelligibly, remained a little suspicious of British designs. Yet John Adams, a very stern and active opponent of Great Britain during the war (and, indeed, afterwards), preferred the British to the French, as he found these in the last years of the Ancien Régime. 'What havoc,' he notes in his Diary, 'would these manners make in America! Our governors, our judges, our senators or representatives, or even our ministers, would be appointed by harlots for money.' He also quotes a remark about Frenchmen of his friend Jay, another of the American Revolutionary statesmen: He says they are not a moral people; they know not what it is; he don't like any Frenchmen.' John Adams came as the first American Minister to the Court of St James in 1785. King George III was much affected at their first meeting, and I confess I was not less so,' Adams notes in his Report. When he went to the House of Lords to see the trial of Warren Hastings he contrasted the gravity and dignity of the Peers, their intentness on the affairs of the nation, with the perfection of the French air, their external politeness and good breeding. The Frenchmen's superior polish, he seems to think, was in proportion to their inferior public spirit.

There was, as a matter of fact, not much opportunity for the natural friendliness of the British and Americans

to show itself or to be developed before 1814. The controversies about neutral trade and right of search leading to the War of 1812 greatly embittered the feelings of the two peoples. Even during the war, however, there occurred the famous reply of Captain Decatur, who captured a British frigate and entertained the officers, his prisoners. One of the officers suggested (as was quite true) that his ancestors were French. Decatur would have none of this. No, I beg pardon,' he replied, 'they were English.' They had been settled for two generations in America. Apparently this made them English.

The Treaty of Ghent, signed on Christmas Eve, 1814, ended the wars of the British and Americans. Mr. Hill, in his 'Leading American Treaties,' calls it 'the most popular agreement the United States has ever made.' From this time, at any rate until the 'forties, the diplomatic relations of Great Britain and the United States steadily improved.

The official representatives at London and Washington after the Peace of Ghent, Richard Rush and Charles Bagot, were popular men. They felt themselves at home in the country to which they were accredited. The American Minister Rush described his coming to England in 1817 in words of deep feeling :

'It is a remark of Humboldt, that no language can express the emotion that a European naturalist feels when he touches, for the first time, American land. May not the remark be reversed by saying, that no language can express the emotion which almost every American feels, when he first touches the shores of Europe. This feeling must have a special increase, if it be the case of a citizen of the United States going to England. Her fame is constantly before him; he hears of her statesmen, her orators, her scholars, her philosophers, her divines, her patriots. In the nursery he hears her ballads. Her language is his, with its whole intellectual riches, past and for ever newly flowing; a tie, to use Burke's figure, light as air and unseen, but stronger than links of iron. In spite of political differences, her glory allures him; in spite of hostile collision, he clings to her lineage.'

Rush, walking the quarter-deck with two British naval lieutenants, as the ship approached Portsmouth, had