I9OI-2 TRANSACTIONS. 9I 



a man shall not excnse his wroni^-doing by pleading igno- 

 rance of the law. It is apparent to the meanest intelligence 

 that the law-maker cannot well be a law-breaker propter 

 ignorantiam. 



"Here", says Sir Frederick Pollock (i), referring to the 

 above quotation from Smith's ommonwealth, "we have the 

 first exposition by any English writer; if not by any European 

 one, of the notion of Sovereignty i'.i its modern amplitude." 

 And Sir Frederick proceeds to show the fallacy of claiming 

 supremacy for the House of Commons simply because it can 

 prevent government from being carried on in opposition to 

 it- will. The House of Commons cannot legislate by itself, 

 and its ability to mould legislation by forcing its wishes upon 

 the other constituent parts of Parliament is a matter of 

 practical politics rather than of legal sovereignty. 



Father Time has ever manifested a relish for irony, and 

 the records of English constitutional history are not without 

 their laughable side. Who can fail to appreciate, for in- 

 stance, the magnificent humor of the situation when George 

 III, a hundred years and more after the passage of the Bill 

 of Rights, dismissed Charles James Fox from the Lord 

 Lieutenancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire because at a 

 certain dinner of the Whig Club he gave as a toast : "Ou^ 

 Sovereign — the People"! Of course it is to be said that 

 there was no political significance in this dismissal, and the 

 incident is possibly memorable only to show the dislike that 

 George III, the last of our monarchs to entertain the delusion 

 that Englishmen might be ruled otherwise than according to 

 their will, ever manifested toward. Fox In illustration of 

 this dislike, Lord Townshend said that when Fox kissed the 

 King's hand on becoming one of the coalition ministry of 

 1783, His Majesty "turned back his ears and eyes, just like 

 the horse at Astley's when the tailor he had determined to 

 throw was getting on him." History also records many other 

 instances of this unfortunate monarch's chafing under the 



(1) First Book of Jurisprudence, cap. iii. 



