GREAT BRITAIN 



2588 



GREAT BRITAIN 



Parliament defeats it, the ministers must 

 resign, but they have the privilege of request- 

 ing at once a new election. If the people 

 refuse to support the policy by reelecting the 

 ministers, their resignation becomes uncondi- 

 tional. Strange as it may seem, this body 

 so important that it may even sign treaties 

 without consulting Parliament has no men- 

 tion in any of the various documents which 

 make up the written portion of England's 

 constitution. No act of Parliament has ever 

 sanctioned it, but it has simply grown up out 

 of the old custom of the kings, more or less 

 informal, of choosing wise men to act as their 

 advisers. 



Each Cabinet member is head of an admin- 

 istrative department, but the heads of all 

 departments are not of necessity members of 

 the Cabinet. If it seems, for instance, that 

 during a certain Parliamentary session the Irish 

 question is not likely to assume any impor- 

 tance, the lord lieutenant of Ireland is not 

 given a seat in the Cabinet. Eleven depart- 

 ment heads are always in the Cabinet, and at 

 times that body has a membership of twenty. 

 The eleven are as follows: First lord of the 

 treasury usually the Prime Minister, though 

 that officer may choose some other portfolio 

 if he sees fit; the lord chancellor; lord privy 

 seal, who affixes to public documents the great 

 seal of state; the chancellor of the exchequer; 

 the lord president of the council ; the first lord 

 of the admiralty, who is the head of the naval 

 board; and the five secretaries of state: for 

 home affairs, for foreign affairs, for the colo- 

 nies, for India and for war. Other ministers 

 who frequently have seats in the Cabinet are 

 the lord lieutenant of Ireland; lord chancel- 

 lor of Ireland; the secretary for Scotland; the 

 commissioner of works; the president of the 

 local government board; the president of the 

 board of trade; the president of the board of 

 agriculture and the chancellor of the Duchy 

 of Lancaster. No records are kept of the 

 meetings of the Cabinet, nor of its acts, on 

 which the history of the empire so largely 

 depends. See CABINET. 



Legislative Branch. The supreme legisla- 

 tive power is vested in a Parliament of two 

 houses the House of Lords and the House of 

 Commons. In the upper house the peers, or 

 lords temporal, and the archbishops and prin- 

 cipal bishops, or lords spiritual, have seats. 

 There are in all, somewhat over six hundred 

 members about five hundred English heredi- 

 tary peers; twenty-eight Irish peers chosen 



for life by the whole body of Irish peers; six- 

 teen Scottish pe^rs, chosen for one term of 

 Parliament by the whole body of Scottish 

 peers; two archbishops and twenty-four bish- 

 ops, and four judicial members chosen by the 

 Crown. By custom, though not by law, the 

 lord chancellor is the presiding officer of the 

 House of Lords. 



The House of Commons is an elective body 

 of 670 members, of which England chooses 465, 

 Wales 30, Scotland 72, and Ireland 103. They 

 are chosen by districts for a period of seven 

 years, and a member need not live in the 

 district from which he is elected. A term of 

 Parliament is seven years, but almost always 

 the body is dissolved before the expiration of 

 that time by the king, with the advice of his 

 ministers. 



The time-honored privileges and powers of 

 the two houses have been very nearly alike, 

 save that all financial matters must originate 

 in the lower house, and no proposal could 

 become a law without the assent of both 

 houses. This gave the House of Lords the 

 power to veto so many progressive movements 

 that it was felt that some remedy was neces- 

 sary. In 1832, when the Reform Bill was in 

 question, Earl Grey induced William IV to 

 threaten to create enough new peers to put 

 the measure through; for there is no limit to 

 the number of hereditary peers the king may 

 create. Rather than submit to this, the peers 

 passed the bill. But in 1911 a remedy was 

 found for like conditions. A law was passed 

 declaring that when the House of Lords has 

 three times vetoed a measure passed upon 

 by the House of Commons, the latter body 

 may pass it over the veto of the upper house. 

 This means that the House of Commons is 

 certain of the success of any movement on 

 which it feels strongly enough to insist. 



The Judiciary. The House of Lords is not 

 only the highest legislative, but the highest 

 judicial body in the kingdom. If a peer com- 

 mits a crime or misdemeanor, he is brought 

 before the House of Lords for trial; if any 

 public official is to be impeached, or any case 

 appealed from a lower court is to be reopened, 

 it is this body which has jurisdiction. But in 

 cases appealed from a lower court the whole 

 House does not act only the lord chancellor, 

 the four judicial members, and such other 

 peers as may previously have held judicial 

 offices; these peers are known as the Lords of 

 Appeal. A coordinate body is the Judicial 

 Committee of the Privy Council, which con- 



