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MASSACHUSETTS

Taxation, Report of the joint special committee on, appointed to consider the expediency of legislation in amendment of or in addition to the general laws relating to taxation. January, 1907. Boston. 136 pp.

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC

Constitución Argentina. Agustin de Vedia. Buenos Aires. 1907. 587pp.

GREAT BRITAIN1

Asiatics in the Transvaal, Further correspondence relating to legislation affecting [April, 1907 to January, 1908]. Colonial office. (cd. 3887.) 10d.

Congestion in Ireland, Eighth report of the royal commission on, 1907. (cd. 3838, 3839.) 4s. 34d. Ninth report. 1907-08. (cd. 3844, 3845.) 3s. 11 d.

Cost of living of working classes. Report of an enquiry into working class rents, housing and retail prices, together with the standard rates of wages in certain occupations in the principal industrial towns of the United Kingdom. 1908. Board of trade.

(cd. 3864.) 6s.

Elections in foreign countries, Reports from H. M. representatives abroad showing the regulations and methods which guide the application of the second ballot at, 1908. Foreign office. (cd. 3875.) 3d.

Hague Conference. at the Hague in 1907. 1s. 6d.

Correspondence respecting the second peace conference held [April, 1906 to October, 1907.] Foreign office. (cd. 3857.)

Native affairs commission, Report of the Natal, 1906-07. Colonial office. (cd. 3889.) 44d.

Native affairs in Natal, Further correspondence relating to [September, 1906 to January, 1908]. Colonial office. (cd. 3888.) 2s.

Second or upper chamber in foreign states, Reports from H. M. representatives abroad respecting the composition and functions of the, 1907. Foreign office. (cd. 3824.) 7d.

Shipping rings, Royal commission on. Minutes of evidence taken in South Africa by sub-commission. 1907. 5s.

NICARAGUA

Relaciones exteriores, Memoria de. 1906-07. Managua. lii, 475 pp. Departmento de relaciones exteriores.

Société de législation comparée.

Annuaire de législation étrangère. 1905. 18 fr.

Annuaire de législation française. 1906. 5 fr.

'Official publications of Great Britain, India and many of the British colonies may be purchased of P. S. King & Son, Orchard House, 2 and 4 Great Smith Street, Westminster, London. Cd. refers to papers presented to parliament by command.

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Students of the history and working of representative legislative institutions in every part of the world where these institutions are in existence are under indebtedness to Professor Redlich for the thoroughness and completeness with which he has performed a task never before attempted by any historian of the house of commons. In his scholarly book, published in German in 1905, and now more generally available through Mr. Steinthal's admirable translation into English,1 supplemented by a chapter of twenty-one pages by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, Professor Redlich has traced the history of house of commons procedure from the earliest days down to the important time-economizing changes which were made in the first and second sessions of the parliament elected in January, 1906.

As far as my knowledge goes there are now in existence only two modern books-only two books published since the reform act of 1832-in which any detailed history of parliamentary procedure at Westminster is to be found. Singularly, little attention has hitherto been given in England to the history of parliamentary procedure,

1 The Procedure of the House of Commons: A Study of its History and Present Form. By Josef Redlich. Translated by A. Ernest Steinthal. With an Introduction and Supplementary Chapter by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, K.C.S.I. Three volumes, pp. xxxix, 212, 264, 334. London: Archibald Constable & Company, Ltd., 1908.

even by students of constitutional development, although since 1576, when Sir Thomas Smith wrote his De Republica Anglorum libri tres, and particularly since the middle years of the seventeenth century, when Hooker, for the use of the parliament in Dublin, compiled his account of the method of proceeding in parliament at Westminster, there have been many manuals describing contemporary procedure in the house of commons. There has never been a lack of interest in the actual methods by which parliament goes about its work; but as far as I can ascertain, there have been published in England only two books concerned with the history of parliamentary procedure. One of these is my Unreformed House of Commons, in which there are chapters tracing the development of procedure from the beginning of the journals of the house of commons in 1547 to the reform act of 1832, the point at which my book stops both as regards the representative system and the organization and usages of the house; and the other is Professor Redlich's monumental work.

Professor Redlich's book is concerned exclusively with usages and procedure. It is in three volumes, extends to over eight hundred pages, and traces in detail the history of procedure from the period covered by the rolls of parliament (1278 to 1503) down to the new standing orders of 1906 and 1907. Nothing that is really new or illuminating rewarded Professor Redlich's diligent research in the rolls of parliaments. It is one of the outstanding facts in the history of parliament that in the reigns of Henry V and Henry VI enactment by bill-enactment generally in the present day form-was substituted for the earlier method of enactment by petition. Three readings for a bill-which is still the procedure was the rule in 1547 when the journals of the commons begin. Exactly when and why this procedure was adopted has so far not been discovered; and while the journals are necessarily the only authoritative source whence development in procedure can be learned, the one fact ascertainable from them is that between 1547 and 1832, except for the evolution of select committees sitting as far away from Westminster as the Middle Temple or the Guildhall, into committees of the whole which always met in the chamber of the commons, there were no changes of importance in the methods in which the house of commons discharged the business that came before it.

Much of the material for a general history of the house of commons from the reign of Elizabeth to that of William IV is to be found in the memoirs and letters of men who were of the house. There is an abundance of this material. It is to be found with increasing frequency in the memoirs and letters of the period between the commonwealth and the reform act of 1832. These memoirs and letters, however, throw little light on procedure. The nineteenth century was turned before there is any trace in this extra-official literature of a need for reforms or changes in the house of commons procedure; and the general impression left by a study of the journals and of political memoirs and letters is that the methods in existence at the time the journals begin in 1547 met all the exigencies of the house and guaranteed smooth and easy passage of legislative measures until parliament entered on its modern era in 1832.

There was at times obstruction in the unreformed house of commons. In the early years of the eighteenth century it not infrequently developed about the adoption of the order to the sergeant-at-arms to bring in candles, so that business could be continued after daylight failed. Towards the close of the eighteenth century when party feeling ran high, there was speech-making that was unmistakably intended to be obstructive. But these obstructive tactics were due to special circumstances, or to conditions that were merely temporary; and generally speaking the house was not seriously disturbed by obstructive tactics before 1832. Except that it was made a rule that there could be no debate on a motion ordering the sergeant-at-arms to bring in candles, as long as the unreformed house of commons survived there were no measures to check obstruction, no changes in the rules to economize time or hasten the progress of the bill.

As long as the old representative system lasted sessions were short indeed as compared with modern sessions. Until the second and third decades of the nineteenth century there were no popular and longsustained demands for legislation; no great measures of constitutional or administrative reform engaged the house for weeks or even months at a time, and aroused a corresponding popular interest outside the walls of St. Stephen's. Until political life in England began to quicken —that is until the long struggle with Napoleon was at an end, and the newspaper press began to be a power, there were no demands from the

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