French Chamber of Deputies.1 It is the irruption of the interested person into the very chamber of council: it should be moderated by other groups with a locus standi and by the community. The The process is legitimate: but the proceedings should be systematic, public and open, and not subject the possessors of uncorrupt wishes. and desires for expression to the humiliation of a suspicious private solicitation.

Nor is this the whole tale. For from France and Italy in late years have come significant facts. In France the Parliamentary Commissions 2 which frequently decide not merely the details of a bill, but also its whole principle, have found that in their inquiries relating to bills and in their control of the administrative Departments with which they have come to be associated, the stream of letters received from outside organisations is proving insufficient to make their work creative-that is, to allow of constructive measures based upon a clear perception of social realities. "The time has gone," says one of the reporters on the Chamber of Deputies Commission for Procedure, "when the commissions were chapels closed not only to the public, but also to all the

...

1 Bryce, American Commonwealth (ed. 1918), p. 691, Note (B) to chapter xvi. "The Lobby: "The Lobby' is the name given in America to persons, not being members of the legislature, who undertake to influence its members, and thereby to secure the passing of bills. The name, therefore, does not necessarily impute any improper motive or conduct though it is commonly used in what Bentham calls a dyslogistic sense... The causes which have produced lobbying are easily explained. Every legislative body has wide powers of affecting the interests and fortunes of private individuals, both for good and for evil. When such bills (public and private) are before a legislature, the promoters and the opponents naturally seek to represent their respective views, and to enforce them upon the members with whom the decision rests. So far there is nothing wrong, for advocacy of this kind is needed in order to bring the facts fairly before the legislature," etc. etc. P. 694: "In the United States,' says an experienced publicist, whose opinion I have inquired, though lobbying is perfectly legitimate in theory, yet the secrecy and want of personal responsibility, the confusion and want of system in the committees, make it rapidly degenerate into a process of intrigue, and fall into the hands of the worst men. It is so disagreeable and humiliating

that all men shrink from it, unless those who are stimulated by direct personal interest; and these soon throw away all scruples. The most dangerous men are ex-members who know how things are to be managed.'

2 Cf. Pierre, Traité de droit politique, électorale, et parlementaire (ed. 1919), vols. i. and ii. (Supplément), and Journal Officiel, jan. 24, 1920, p. 50 et seq.; jan. 27, 1920, p. 60 et seq.

members of Parliament who did not belong to the commissions. The principles of politics in the open, of control and the collaboration of opinion, have made obligatory close relations between the Chamber, the administration and the public." 1 Therefore he insisted upon the invitation, more, upon the right, of the person representing outside organisations to be heard. V

Two other points, of importance in this analysis, need to be mentioned. The first is that experience in the French Commissions as successful thought-organisations evidently dictated the judgement that only the actual presence of interested and expert people, and not the mere submission of reports, could result in a really creative work: "If the written procedure, the exact record, the certified assertion are made use of more and more in the hurried and complex modern world to preserve evidence, fix responsibilities, avoid errors, supply useful information, so does the régime of free speech give indisputable results by means of questions and replies, suggestions or criticism which, born suddenly, are accepted or refuted at once by the possibilities of a fresh invitation or understanding, by complementary questions or the acceptance of experience, by allusions, suggestions, agreements, etc." 2 And secondly, useful collaboration between the Parliamentary representatives in the Commissions and members of the public could only take place in a special form and under special conditions: The influence of opinion, in order to be exercised with precision, permanency, tenacity and certainty, needs the intervention of two elements of an advanced social culture, over and above general intellectual and moral education, viz. the expert and the association (democracy) must admit and consider them (the experts) as their élite and legitimate aristo

1 Annales de la Chambre des Députés, Documents, fév. 1920, p. 374.

2 Annales de la Chambre des Députés : Session extraordinaire; 27 décembre, 1919, P. 137.

cracy. The administration should always utilise them as advisers, sometimes as executors, always as controlling power." 1 Then follows a eulogy of the utility of associations to control the government in a democracy.

Nor is this all. The alleged futility of the electoral process, the lack of essential knowledge on the part of the Deputies, the atmosphere of intrigue, personal ambition and excitement, the amount of work to be done compared with the time to do it in, the still incomplete development of the Parliamentary Commissions, has led to a movement for professional representation—that is, for a Chamber of Deputies either wholly or partly based upon elections by the citizens grouped in occupations. For local government purposes in authorities governing new regions," similar projects are afoot. It is hoped in this way to secure a legislative assembly more actually containing knowledge and possessing the confidence of the occupational groups. It is a revolt against the encyclopaedic character of the present Chamber based upon citizens united (even if that word has, in this regard, any sense) in a certain neighbourhood by chance. and a party organisation, as well as an outcrop of syndicalist and federalist theory possessing so long and illustrious a history in France.3

Towards the end of 1920 it was the intention of the then ruling Ministry in Italy to present a project modifying the old Superior Council of Labour in such a manner as to establish by the side of the political Parliament a consultative technical Parliament of 150 members appointed in equal numbers by workers' and employers' organisations. Its powers were to have been decisive in relation to labour discipline and conditions.

1 Loc. cit. supra.

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It

Élus sur les programmes équivoques, représentant une poussière d'électeurs sans volonté, les députés demeurent amorphes comme la masse qui les a choisis (Bernard Lavergne," La représentation professionnelle," La Grande Revue, 1914, No. 3, p. 563). 3 See the review and critique of these theories in Esmein, Éléments de droit constitutionnel; Barthélemy, Le Problème de la compétence dans la démocratie.

would discuss regulations relating to industry and examine questions of relations between employers and employed. Divided into two sections, one industrial and commercial, and the other agricultural, each with its permanent committee to prepare the material, and to supervise the execution of the laws, it would elaborate the special rules for the execution of the labour code.1

So far, then, we have seen in this and other countries the gradual rise of institutions and ideas commendable perhaps from the standpoint of good government, but not so commendable upon the old and pure assumptions of representative democracy.

Concomitantly with these developments the House of Commons has lost any real reputation for creative work. If it ever had a character as a thought-organisation, it surely cannot command that designation any longer. In view of the enormous amount of business, the private member, from whom in days gone by some fruitful suggestion was expected, has been told that he has no natural right to use the House as his audience, and the Cabinet has more and more taken up the time of Parliament. The repeated and increasing doses of the closure, guillotine, or, more euphemistically, the "allocation of time," have largely stifled the minority and reduced the necessity for Ministers to convince the Opposition and the nation by reasoned argument: the "rack," or fatigue, counts more in favour of the passage of the clause than any argument as to its relation to the needs of the country. The consequent loss of corporate self-respect can only mean a diminution of zeal, a loss of enthusiasm and interest in the necessary processes of thought about the end and methods of government, and that cannot but

1 Epoca, October 5, 1920. Cf. Esmein, op. cit., 7th ed. vol. ii. p. 353 n. 2 Cf. Wallas, The Great Society, chaps. xi. and xii.

3 Hartington, March 20, 1882, Hansard, col. 1327; and Select Committee on

(House of Commons) Procedure, 1861 (No. 173), vi. 26.

4 Lord Robert Cecil, Evidence, House of Commons Procedure (Select Committee) Report, No. 378 of 1915, pp. 50 and 51; and cf. Hansard, April 2, 1906, col. 226, Weariness is the great ally of ministers."

make for a loss of creative power. Here is no encouragement, no inducement to thought and suggestion; and then, the increasing length of the sessions, the working into the summer months, add irritability and slack attendance. Dragooned by Ministers, harassed by Whips, out of touch with the constituency, tired out by attendance at Committees and passing through division lobbies, told that even if they worked twelve hours a day for twelve months in the year they could not overtake arrears of work,1 the House which holds the position of sovereign representative assembly loses that deliberation, circumspection, and practical efficiency, that kindly attitude. towards the Opposition view, which are the marks of any successful thought-organisation. It is clearly a will-organisation dependent upon a plebiscite taken every four or five years. The very convention of the moral authority of majority government begins under these circumstances to be denied.2 The system though "revolutionary" is not overthrown because the majority of English men and women are moderate and nonrevolutionary.

At the same time the Cabinet, the edicts of which are registered with unfailing regularity by Parliament, is thrown back upon its permanent civil servants for the main business of thought in the discovery of the nation's needs and the reconciliation of the various interests of which the Common Welfare consists. If an ex-Cabinet 1 Mr. Asquith, Hansard, April 11, 1912, col. 1405.

2 The opposition in the Session of 1913 became so restive under the rules of the House and the claims of the Government to legislate on the most vital elements in State life, that finally it began to denounce the Government's right to do what it wanted in the name of majority rule. This was the spirit of the attack, though the letter concerned itself with saying that too much legislation was being brought forward, important points of principle were remaining undiscussed, and the Government was introducing measures not demanded by the nation. The Government, driven back on fundamentals, was constrained to answer : We honestly and sincerely think that these are good Bills. We have put them to our constituents, and we believe that our constituents agree with us, and that we have a mandate to carry them into law. We believe that by the procedure laid down by the Parliament Act, and expressed in this Resolution, we have done the hon. members opposite more than justice in the opportunities we have given them to oppose the policy which we were returned to carry into force" (Mr. MacCallum Scott, Hansard, June 23, 1913, col. 882).

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