indubitable up to the passing of the Parliament Act that no Act could be passed by Parliament without obtaining the consent of the House of Lords. Nor could any one dispute the legal right or power of the House, by refusing such assent, to veto the passing of any Act of which the House might disapprove. Two considerations, however, must be taken into account. This veto, in the first place, has, at any rate since 1832, been as a rule used by the Lords as a merely suspensive veto. The passing of the Great Reform Act itself was delayed by
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their lordships for somewhat less than two years, and it may well be doubted whether they have, since 1832, ever by their legislative veto, delayed legislation really desired by the electors for as much as two years. It must again be remembered that the Lords, of recent years at least, have at times rejected Bills supported by the majority of the House of Commons which, as has been proved by the event, had not received the support of the electors. Hence it cannot be denied that the action of the House of Lords has sometimes protected the authority of the nation.
THE DIRECT EFFECTS OF THE PARLIAMENT ACT 12
Such effects can be summed up in popular and intelligible language, rather than with technical precision, as follows:
1. In respect of any Money Bill the Act takes away all legislative power from the House of Lords. The House may discuss such a Bill for a calendar month, but cannot otherwise prevent, beyond a month, the Bill becoming an Act of Parliament.13
2. In respect of any public Bill (which is not a Money Bill),14 the Act takes away from the House of Lords any final veto, but leaves or gives to the House a suspensive veto.15
This suspensive veto is secured to the House of Lords because under the Parliament Act, s. 2, no such Bill can be passed without the consent of the House which has not fulfilled the following four conditions:
i. That the Bill shall, before it is presented to the King for his assent, be passed by the House of Commons and be rejected by the House of Lords in each of three successive sessions.16
ii. That the Bill shall be sent up to the House of Lords at least one calendar month before the end of each of these sessions.17
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iii. That in respect of such Bill at least two years shall have elapsed between the date of the second reading of the Bill in the House of Commons during the first of those sessions and the date on which it passes the House of Commons in the third of such sessions.18
iv. That the Bill presented to the King for his assent shall be in every material respect identical with the Bill sent up to the House of Lords in the first of the three successive sessions except in so far as it may have been amended by or with the consent of the House of Lords.
The history of the Government of Ireland Act, 1914, popularly, and throughout this Introduction generally, called the Home Rule Bill or Act, affords good illustrations of the peculiar procedure instituted by the Parliament Act. The Home Rule Bill was introduced into the House of Commons during the first of the three successive sessions on April 11, 1912; it passed its second reading in the House of Commons during that session on May 9, 1912; it was rejected by the House of Lords either actually or constructively19 in each of the three successive sessions. It could not then possibly have been presented to the King for his assent till June 9, 1914; it was not so presented to the King till September 18, 1914. On that day, just before the actual prorogation of Parliament in the third session, it received the royal assent without the consent of the House of Lords; it thereby became the Government of Ireland Act, 1914. The Act as assented to by the King was in substance identical with the Bill sent up to the House of Lords in the first of the three sessions on January 16, 1913. But here we come across the difficulty of amending a Bill under the Parliament Act after it had once been sent up in the third session to the House of Lords. By June
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1914 it was felt to be desirable to amend the Home Rule Bill in respect of the position of Ulster. On June 23 the Government brought into the House of Lords a Bill which should amend the Home Rule Act which was still a Bill, and it is difficult to find a precedent for thus passing an Act for amending a Bill not yet on the statute-book. The attempt to carry out the Government’s proposal came to nothing. On September 18, 1914, the Home Rule Bill became the Home Rule Act (or technically the Government of Ireland Act, 1914) unamended, but on the very day on which the Home Rule Act was finally passed it was in effect amended by a Suspensory Act under which the Government of Ireland Act, 1914, cannot come into force until at any rate twelve months from September 18, and possibly will not come into force until the present war has ended. The Suspensory Act evades or avoids the effect of the Parliament Act, but such escape from the effect of a recently passed statute suggests the necessity for some amendment in the procedure created by the Parliament Act.
3. The House of Commons can without the consent of the House of Lords present to the King for his assent any Bill whatever which has complied with the provisions of the Parliament Act, section 2, or rather which is certified by the Speaker of the House of Commons in the way provided by the Act to have complied with the conditions of the Parliament Act, section 2.
The simple truth is that the Parliament Act has given to the House of Commons, or, in plain language, to the majority thereof, the power of passing any Bill whatever, provided always that the conditions of the Parliament Act, section 2, are complied with. But these provisions do leave to the House of Lords a suspensive veto which may prevent a Bill from becoming an Act of Parliament for a period of certainly more, and possibly a good deal more, than two years.20
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In these circumstances it is arguable that the Parliament Act has transformed the sovereignty of Parliament into the sovereignty of the King and the House of Commons. But the better opinion on the whole is that sovereignty still resides in the King and the two Houses of Parliament. The grounds for this opinion are, firstly, that the King and the two Houses acting together can most certainly enact or repeal any law whatever without in any way contravening the Parliament Act; and, secondly, that the House of Lords, while it cannot prevent the House of Commons from, in effect, passing under the Parliament Act any change of the constitution, provided always that the requirements of the Parliament Act are complied with, nevertheless can, as long as that Act remains in force, prohibit the passing of any Act the effectiveness of which depends upon its being passed without delay.
Hence, on the whole, the correct legal statement of the actual condition of things is that sovereignty still resides in Parliament, i.e. in the King and the two Houses acting together, but that the Parliament Act has greatly increased the share of sovereignty possessed by the House of Commons and has greatly diminished the share thereof belonging to the House of Lords.
PRACTICAL CHANGE IN THE AREA OF PARLIAMENTARY SOVEREIGNTY (RELATION OF THE IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT TO THE DOMINIONS21)
The term “Dominions” means and includes the Dominion of Canada, Newfoundland, and Commonwealth of Australia, New
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Zealand, and the Union of South Africa. Each of the Dominions is a self-governing colony, i.e. a colony possessed both of a colonial Parliament, or representative legislature, and a responsible government, or in other words, of a government responsible to such legislature.
Our subject raises two questions:
First Question
What is the difference between the relation of the Imperial Parliament to a self-governing
