Proportional Representation | Page 5

of this principle. Nor, despite the criticisms, many of them fully deserved, which have been directed against the working of parliamentary institutions, has the House of Commons ceased to be taken in other lands as a model to be reproduced in general outline. New parliaments continue to arise and in the most unexpected quarters. China is insistently demanding the immediate realisation of full representative government. Japan has not only assimilated western learning, but has adopted western representative institutions, and in copying our electoral machinery has added improvements of her own. Russia has established a parliament which, although not at present elected upon a democratic basis, must inevitably act as a powerful check upon autocracy, and in the process will assuredly seek that increased authority which comes from a more complete identification with the people. The Reichstag has demanded the cessation of the personal rule of the German Emperor, and will not be content until, in the nation's name, it exercises a more complete control over the nation's affairs. Parliamentary government was recently established at Constantinople amid the plaudits of the whole civilized world, and although the new régime has not fulfilled all the hopes formed of it, yet upon its continuance depends the maintenance of the improvements already effected in Turkey. Lord Morley signalized his tenure of office as Secretary of State for India by reforms that make a great advance in the establishment of representative institutions. Some of these experiments may be regarded as premature, but in the case of civilized nations there would appear to be no going back; for them there is no alternative to democracy, and if representative institutions have not yielded so far all the results that were expected of them, progress must be sought in an improvement of these institutions rather than in a return to earlier conditions. The only criticism, therefore, of the House of Commons that is of practical value must deal with those defects which experience has disclosed, and with those improvements in its organization and composition which are essential if in the future it is to discharge efficiently and adequately its primary function of giving effect to the national will.
_The House of Commons and sovereign power._
"The essential property of representative government," says Professor Dicey, "is to produce coincidence between the wishes of the Sovereign and the wishes of the subject.... This, which is true in its measure of all real representative government applies with special truth to the English House of Commons." [1] This conception of the House of Commons as the central and predominant factor in the constitution, exercising sovereign power because it represents the nation which it governs, has been notably strengthened during the last fifty years. A change having far-reaching consequences took place in 1861, when the repeal of the paper duties was effected by a clause in the annual Bill providing for the necessary reimposition of annual duties, a proceeding which deprived the Lords of the opportunity of defeating the new proposal other than by rejecting the whole of the measure of which it formed a part. This example has since been followed by both the great parties of the State. Sir William Harcourt embodied extensive changes in the Death Duties in the Finance Bill of 1894; Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, in 1899, included proposals for altering the permanent provisions made for the reduction of the National Debt; Mr. Lloyd George, following these precedents, included in the Finance Bill of 1909 important new taxes which, prior to 1861, would have been submitted to both Houses in the form of separate Bills. The House of Commons, however, has not yet attained the position of full unqualified sovereignty, for, whilst the relations between the King and the Commons have been harmonised by making the King's Ministry dependent upon that House, the decisions of the House of Lords are not yet subject to the same control. The Lords successfully rejected the Education, Licensing, and Plural Voting Bills, all of which were passed by the Commons by large majorities during the Parliament of 1906-1909. Further, it refused its consent to the Finance Bill of 1909 until the measure had been submitted to the judgment of the country, and by this action compelled a dissolution of Parliament.[2]
_The demand for complete sovereignty._
These assertions of authority on the part of the House of Lords called forth from the Commons a fresh demand for complete sovereignty--a demand based on the ground that the House of Commons expresses the will of the people, and that the rejection by the hereditary House of measures desired by the nation's representatives is directly opposed to the true principles of representative government. In consequence of the rejection of the Education and Plural Voting Bills of 1906, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, in June 1907, moved in the House of Commons the following