Sir R. Peel's

Act.

The Act of 1868.

Government by party.

ferred from the house itself to a committee of thirteen members, selected by the sitting members and petitioners from a list of forty-nine chosen by ballot, to whom each party could add a nominee to advocate their respective interests. In 1774 this act was made perpetual, and the result was, that a Whig petitioner had scant justice from a Tory committee, and vice versa.

This system continued till 1839, when it was superseded by Sir Robert Peel's Act, by which the committees were reduced to six members, nominated by an impartial body, that is, the general committee on elections. The evils resulting from the old state of things were thus considerably modified.

Finally, in 1868, the trial of election petitions was transferred to the judges of the superior courts, who report to the house.

The government of England is known as a government by what is called "party."

Party is a body of men united for promoting, by their joint endeavours, the national interests upon some particular system upon which they are all agreed. When national are sacrificed to personal interests we get faction. The divisions, conspiracies and civil wars by which England was convulsed until late in the sixteenth century must not be confounded with party. Rarely founded on distinctive principles, their ends were sought by resort to arms. Neither can we trace the

origin of party in those earlier contentions, sometimes with the nobles, sometimes with the commons and the crown; they marked the spirit of freedom, the assertion by classes of their rights, but parliamentary parties were unknown. The germ of party first became discernible in the reign of Elizabeth, in the person of the Puritans. In 1601 they showed their strength by resisting monopolies. Under James I. the assertions of prerogative were met by bolder remonstrances, and Sandys, Coke, Elliot, Selden and Pym may be regarded as the first leaders of a regular parliamentary opposition. The terms Whig and Tory were introduced during the contests upon the Exclusion Bill in 1680; and soon after the Reform Bill of 1832 the Tories began to call themselves Conservatives.

of debates.

Hallam says: "The two houses are supposed Publication to deliberate with closed doors. It is always competent for any member to insist that strangers be excluded; not on any special ground, but by merely enforcing the standing order for that purpose. It has been several times resolved that it is a high breach of privilege to publish any speeches or proceedings of the commons, though they have since directed their own votes and resolutions to be printed. Many persons have been punished by commitment for this offence; and it is still highly irregular, in any debate, to allude to the reports in newspapers, except for

the purpose of animadverting on the breach of privilege. Notwithstanding this pretended strictness, notices of the more interesting discussions were frequently made public, and entire speeches were sometimes circulated by those who had sought popularity in delivering them. After the accession of George I. we find pretty regular accounts of debates in an annual publication, Boyer's Historical Register, which was continued to the year 1737. They were afterwards published monthly, and much more at length, in the London and the Gentleman's Magazines; the latter, as is well known, improved by the pen of Johnson, yet not so as to lose by any means the leading scope of the arguments. It follows, of course, that the restriction upon the presence of strangers had been almost entirely dispensed with. A transparent veil was thrown over this innovation by disguising the names of the speakers, or more commonly by printing only initial and final letters. This ridiculous affectation of concealment was extended to many other words in political writings, and had not wholly ceased in the American war. It is almost impossible to overrate the value of this regular publication of proceedings in parliament, carried as it has been in our own time to nearly as great copiousness and accuracy as is probably attainable. It tends manifestly and powerfully to keep within bounds the supineness and negligence, the par

tiality and corruption, to which every parliament, either from the nature of its composition or the frailty of mankind, must more or less be liable. Perhaps the constitution would not have stood so long, or rather would have stood like a useless and untenanted mansion, if this unlawful means had not kept up a perpetual intercourse, a reciprocity of influence, between the parliament and the people. A stream of fresh air, boisterous perhaps sometimes as the winds of the north, yet as healthy and invigorating, flows in to renovate the stagnant atmosphere, and to prevent that malaria which self-interest and oligarchical exclusiveness are always tending to generate. Nor has its importance been less perceptible in affording the means of vindicating the measures of government, and securing to them, when just and reasonable, the approbation of the majority among the middle ranks, whose weight in the scale has been gradually enhanced during the last and present centuries."

Stockdale v.

Hansard.

PART III.

Constitutional Law in its relation to Parliament,
and the Prerogatives of the Crown.

Privileges of Parliament, how far controllable by Courts of Law
-Stockdale v. Hansard-Case of the Sheriff of Middlesex
-3 & 4 Vict. c. 9-Summary-the Royal Prerogative—
Writ ne exeat regno.

AN important case in Constitutional Law, that of
Stockdale v. Hansard, was tried in the year 1839,
and is the leading authority upon the question as
to how far the privileges of the House of Commons
are controllable by courts of law. This was an
action for a publication defaming the plaintiff's
character, by imputing that he had published
an obscene libel. The plea was, that the in-
spectors of prisons made a report to the secretary
of state, in which improper books were said to be
permitted in the prison of Newgate; that the court
of aldermen wrote an answer to that part of the
report, and the inspectors replied repeating the
statements, and adding that the improper books
were published by the plaintiff. That all these
documents were printed by and under orders from
the House of Commons, who had come to a reso-
lution to publish and sell all the papers they
should print for the use of the members, and who
also resolved, declared and adjudged that the
power of publishing such of their reports, votes
and proceedings as they thought conducive to the