Читать книгу Second Chambers - J. A. R. Marriott - Страница 4

Table of Contents

‘A majority in a single assembly, when it has assumed a permanent character—when composed of the same persons habitually acting together, and always assured of victory in their own House—easily becomes despotic and overweening, if released from the necessity of considering whether its acts will be concurred in by another constituted authority. The same reason which induced the Romans to have two consuls, makes it desirable there should be two chambers: that neither of them may be exposed to the corrupting influence of undivided power, even for the space of a single year.’—John Stuart Mill.

‘To construct a body which, without claiming co-ordinate authority, shall act as a court of legislative revision, and as the sober second-thought of the community, is practically beyond the power of the political architect. He must try to ensure sobriety where he places power. To suppose that power will allow itself on important matters to be controlled by impotence is vain.’—Goldwin Smith.

Securus iudicat orbis terrarum. With rare unanimity the civilized world has decided in favour of a bi-cameral legislature. ‘If a Second Chamber dissents from the first, it is mischievous; if it agrees with it, it is superfluous.’ Such was the superficial dilemma propounded by the Abbé Siéyès, arch-constitution-monger of the French Revolution. ‘It passes the wit of man to construct an effective Second Chamber.’ Such is, in effect, the characteristic conclusion of the doctrinaire pessimism of which Mr. Goldwin Smith is so distinguished an exponent. But the progressive nations of the modern world have without an exception declined to impale themselves upon either horn of the dilemma of Siéyès; they have not been deterred by abstract considerations against the theory of two co-ordinate legislative chambers; they have ignored the warnings of Mr. Goldwin Smith, and have clung, despite wide differences of circumstance and contrasted forms of constitution, to the two-chambered structure long since evolved by the mother of Parliaments. France—royalist, imperialist, and republican—has throughout all her recent constitutional changes resolutely refused to renew the experiment associated with the first and second Republics. The other unitary States of Europe have, with the single exception of Greece,[1] followed the English model. Federal States, imperial Germany and republican Switzerland alike, look to their Second Chambers for the embodiment and satisfaction of the federal idea. The great English-speaking communities beyond the sea, whether republican or monarchical, presidential or parliamentary, federal or unitary, concur in their adhesion to the bi-cameral arrangement.

For such unanimity in regard to one constitutional device, amid endless diversity in others, there must be solid reasons in history, experience, and fact. Many a priori considerations may be adduced which would seem to point in the opposite direction. Theory finds it difficult to escape the dilemma propounded by Siéyès. It may be urged that in the case of the mother of Parliaments the evolution of a bi-cameral form was accidental. In one sense it was. We might, as will be shown hereafter, have had three Houses, corresponding to the three Estates; we might even, like Sweden, have had four; we might have had one. The ultimate form assumed by the parliamentary structure was unquestionably in some sort accidental. But it is not as though the modern world had had no choice—no experience of other forms. The uni-cameral experiment was not untried even in England. The constitutional history of France affords examples of the trilateral as well as the uni-cameral form. The fathers of the American Constitution lacked neither erudition nor sagacity. They were well versed in political philosophy, and were not ignorant of constitutional practice. Why did they, after brief experience of the uni-cameral, adopt the bi-cameral form of legislature? Canada, perhaps, was hardly a free agent; English prepossessions might account for adherence to the English model, alike in 1791, in 1840, and in 1867. But no one can suppose that any pressure in favour of traditional forms would have been brought to bear upon the democratic communities in Australasia and South Africa, had they preferred to strike out a new path for themselves. But with unbroken unanimity they have adhered to the old. Again we must ask: Why?

The following pages are not intended to supply a direct answer to the questions so bluntly propounded. They will be found to be primarily expository; in a less degree historical; least of all argumentative and controversial. My main purpose is to describe, concisely but accurately, the construction of the legislative machine in some typical states of the modern world; to analyse the composition and to explain the constitutional functions of their ‘Second’ Chambers, and by this inductive process to reach, if possible, some conclusions which may not only interest the student of political institutions, but may even afford some slight assistance to the ordinary citizen who is confronted with the responsibility of deciding issues, graver and more momentous than any which have been raised during the present generation. In arriving at a decision, the deliberate judgement of the world cannot safely be ignored. Nor can we regard it as superfluous to appreciate the reasons which have led to its formation. But the first essential is a knowledge of the facts. These facts the following pages will disclose.

With the abstract considerations for and against a Second Chamber I am not greatly concerned. They have long since become the commonplace of the debating society. But their appeal leaves both the student and the statesman unmoved. The necessity of a counterpoise to democratic fervour; the safety which lies in ‘sober second thoughts’; the advisability of a check on hasty and ill-considered legislation; the value of an appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober; the liability of a single chamber to gusts of passion and autocratic self-regard—all these familiar arguments, and many like them, may be as sound as on the day when they were first employed; but somehow the salt has lost its savour. And not less have the abstract arguments on the other side. The only satisfactory appeal, I venture to submit, is the appeal to history; the only safe guide, that of experience. Closer investigation may suggest the conclusion that the world has lavished its worship on a constitutional fetish; that the young democratic communities have sheep-like followed a misguided leader; or that institutions have been unintelligently imitated without sufficient regard to conditioning circumstances. On the other hand, investigation may disclose the fact that under conditions singularly diverse a particular constitutional form has shown unexpected vitality and capacity for adaptation; that the bi-cameral structure is, under alien skies, a natural and not an artificial growth; that it corresponds to proved necessities, and is, therefore, destined to permanence. But the conclusion is not yet. We may indeed be constrained to confess that no conclusion, with any claim to universal validity, is attainable. Be this as it may, the duty alike of the student and of the politician is clear: to investigate and then to judge.