There has been a good deal of criticism in recent years of the evils of special legislation, but the critics have found much difficulty in defining with precision the practices which they denounce. Blackstone, whose skill in exposition has seldom been excelled, divided all legislative acts into general or public acts and special or private acts. The former he described as "a universal rule that regards the whole country," and went on to say that "special or private acts are rather exceptions than rules, being those which only operate upon particular persons and private concerns." English usage, however, has not followed the distinction here indicated. The terms general and special have been almost entirely discarded, and bills are now usually described as public or private. This has not removed all difficulty however. Sir Thomas Erskine May described a private bill as one that is for the particular interest or benefit of some person or persons, thus excluding from that category all those bills which applied only to a limited number of persons but did not operate to their benefit. Sir Courtney Ilbert met this difficulty by disregarding the question of benefit and taking the object of the bill as the criterion of its character. "The object of a private bill," he said, "is, not to alter the general law of the country, but to alter the law relating to some particular locality, or to confer rights on or relieve from liability some particular person or persons."1

The defect in all these definitions lies in the assumption that a bill which affects but a few persons is of no concern to any one else, whereas in fact such a bill may establish an important public policy. The inappropriateness of the term is even more manifest when a bill which affects only a particular locality is

Ilbert, Parliament: Its History, Constitution and Practice, 85.

described as a private bill, for surely there can be nothing private about the affairs of a city, county or school district.

In the United States the English terminology has been adopted by Congress, which by statute has said that "the term 'private bill' shall be construed to mean all bills for the relief of private parties, bills granting pensions, bills removing political disabilities, and bills for the survey of rivers and harbors." The application of this rule, however, has not been so simple as it might appear. In the practice of Congress 'only those bills are treated as private bills which appear on their face to be for the interest or benefit of a particular person or persons. In the decisions of the courts there is a tendency to use a more elastic standard and to designate as private or special those acts which apply to less than all the members of a particular class. The New York Constitution of 1894 adopted this test when it said as to the legislation for the three classes in which all the cities of the State were grouped:

Laws relating to the property, affairs of government of cities, and the several departments thereof, are divided into general and special city laws; general city laws are those which relate to all the cities of one or more classes; special city laws are those which relate to a single city, or to less than all the cities of a class. Special city laws shall not be passed except in conformity with the provisions of this section.

The definition of the term private or special legislation is a matter of great practical importance, for if the enactment of such legislation is to be subject to constitutional restriction it is essential that the meaning of the term should be clear.

II. THE NATURE OF THE PROBLEM.

Special legislation has long been recognized as the chief source of many of the evils with which legislative bodies are afflicted and as one of the causes of their inefficiency. One of its conspicuous effects is that it has caused the legislator to think of the advancement of the local interests of his constituents as the chief object of his concern. This led Lord Bryce to say that "his first and main duty is to get the most he can for his constituency out of the State treasury, or by means of

1 U. S. Compiled Statutes, sec. 7025.

State legislation. No appeal to the general interests would have weight with him against the interests of that spot." Elihu Root was even more severe when he said at the close of the New York Constitutional Convention of 1915 that "the Legislature of the State had declined in public esteem" and that the majority of the members "were occupying themselves chiefly in the promotion of private and local bills . . . which made them cowards and demoralized the whole body."

The volume of special legislation is so great that it vastly increases the expense of a legislative session. As far back as 1874 Governor Washburn of Massachusetts said: "Much and just complaint is made at the length of our legislative sessions. If we could have more general and less special legislation, it seems to me there would be a fair prospect of bringing your labors to a close within a reasonable time." Some conception of the burden which special legislation imposes upon the lawmaking body may be obtained from the relative number of pages occupied by general and special laws in the statute books of those States in which the two are printed separately.

A competent observer who long served in the Massachusetts Legislature has said:

I know that were all special legislation taken out of the Massachusetts General Court, eight or ten committees, some of them overburdened, could be wholly dispensed with, and others greatly relieved. Possibly the session could be cut in two, certainly it could be shortened by six weeks or two months, for on the average it lasts during nearly half the year.