PARLIAMENT 



4508 



PARLIAMENT 



ever, by his lords. Only by slow drives were 

 the common people, by means of their repre- 



ttives, admitted to a share in the councils 

 .AC. The first assembly comparable to the 

 modern Parliament met in 1295. Not until 

 the reign of Edward III was Parliament for- 

 mally divided into two houses, the House of 

 Commons and the House of Lords. Then be- 

 gan a long struggle, which was ended by the 



-e of Commoi. < nting the ma- 



becoming by far the most important law-mak- 

 ing powi-r in (In at Britain; the House of Lords 

 -till exiMed. but was shorn of much of its an- 

 -ige. while the sovereign lost all power 

 to interfere in legislation. This result followed 

 the passage of the Bill of Rights in 1689. Th 

 >aymg has become proverbial, "The king reigns, 

 but does not rule." Though he has the consti- 

 tutional right to be present in the House of 

 Lords, not, however, taking part in the debate, 

 it has been two centuries since this right was 

 exercised. 

 The House of Commons. This body as now 



'ituted consists of 670 members 465 from 

 England, 30 from Wales, 72 from Scotland and 

 103 from Ireland. It is the real governing body 

 of the nation; and, owing to the extension of 

 the right of male suffrage, it is truly representa- 

 tive of the common people. It has full control 

 of all financial legislation, the House of Lords 

 having lost the power of amending any finan- 

 cial measure sent up to it by the House of 

 Commons, although it formerly had the right 

 of rejection. The House of Commons shapes 

 the policies of the nation by reason of its con- 

 trol over the Cabinet Ministers. Before the 

 r. ign of Queen Anne (1702-1714) the Ministers 

 in name and in fact the servants of the 

 king; but sine* then they have been the serv- 

 of the House of Commons. As such they 

 must resign when they lose the support of the 

 Commons, which fact is evidenced by the de- 

 of any important measure they support. 

 See CAHINKT. subhead The British Cabinet. 



The House of Commons is an elected body ; 

 about half the members represent counties, a 

 large number represent burroughs, and nine 

 represent universities. Those eligible to vote 

 for members representing the universities are 

 their graduates. Not every citizen is qualified 

 to be elected to the Commons. All clergymen 

 of the Church of England, or the Church of 

 Scotland, or of the Roman Catholic Church, 

 and all sheriffs, and returning officers for the 

 territory for which they act, are debarred from 

 being candidates. 



There is this peculiarity about the English 

 elective .-ystem: a candidate does not have to 

 be a citizen of the district lie seeks to represent. 

 He may live in one part of Knirland and be 

 elected by a district in another part; if de- 

 feated for election in one place, he can try for 

 election elsewhere. If elected, he represents 

 his district for the life of tin- Parliament to 

 which he is elected, which is five years, unit it 

 is dissolved before that length of time. Par- 

 liament usually sits from January to August or 

 September; members formerly served without 

 pay, but since 1911 they have received a salary 

 of 400 each, unless already in receipt of re- 

 muneration from another public source. 



The House of Lords. This is tin- upper house 

 of the English Parliament, and consists now of 

 about 650 members, composed of the spiritual 

 lords of England (the archbishops and some of 

 the bishops) and the temporal peers of tin- 

 United Kingdom, together with the representa- 

 tive peers of Scotland and Ireland. All | 

 of the United Kingdom are entitled to seats in 

 the House of Lords, but of the Scotch and 

 Irish peers only a small number are chosen by 

 their fellow-peers to represent them in Parlia- 

 ment. There are sixteen Scotch and twentv- 

 eight Irish representative peers, each elected 

 for life. The remainder of the Lords in the 

 House belong to the peerage of the United 

 Kingdom. See PEER. 



Formerly the House of Lords was the more 

 important of the two houses; it existed, in fact. 

 ' before the House of Commons, but its impor- 

 tance gradually waned as the Commons stead- 

 ily increased in power and influence. The 

 Lords have now lost the power to defeat the 

 will of the people as expressed in legislative 

 enactments of the Commons, though they can 

 delay the application of legislation two years. 

 In accordance with the Parliament Act of 1911, 

 a bill passed by the House of Commons in each 

 of three successive sessions of Parliament, al- 

 though rejected by the House of Lords, become- 

 a, law without the sanction of that chamber. 

 This loss of power was not accepted by tin 

 Lords without a protest, and they did not yield 

 until the king made it clear that he would 

 create enough Liberal peers to place the opposi- 

 tion in the minority. It is the King's right to 

 create any number of new peers whenever he 

 wishes. 



Parliaments in British Dominions. The four 

 self-governing British colonies Canada, Aus- 

 tralia, New Zealand and South Africa have 

 legislative bodies whose powers and organ iza- 



