A Plea for Parliamentary GovernmentG. Allen & Unwin, 1919 - 37 pages |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
administration and legislation adverse vote argument attacking Autocracy Bill British Constitution Bureaucracy Burke's Cabinet Meetings carried Caucus Committee Conservative Party consider contempt corruption democratic Departments developments EDWARD MELLAND elected Executive England evil favour fight Glasgow GOVERNMENT BY EDWARD Group system Home Secretary hopelessly incompatible House of Commons ideal individual Ministers institutions John Morley keep the Party King Legis Liberal Party liberty look Lord Lord Derby Lord Salisbury Majesty's Opposition matter measure ment mentary Government method of government Ministry nature necessary object official Parties old Two-Party System organisation Parlia Parliament PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT Party funds Party Government Party loyalty Party machines Party managers Party politicians Party System PLEA FOR PARLIAMENTARY political present Prime Minister principles Proportional Representation Referendum reform remain in office representative resignation Robert Walpole RUSKIN HOUSE side sidered a traitor speech strong Government suffrage System of Government unnecessary
Popular passages
Page 28 - The virtue, spirit, and essence of a House of Commons consists in its being the express image of the feelings of the nation. It was not instituted to be a control upon the people, as of late it has been taught, by a doctrine of the most pernicous tendency. It was designed as a control for the people.
Page 10 - Party is a body of men united, for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.
Page 20 - Church, is in itself and on the merits desirable, until the official who runs diligently up and down the backstairs of the party, tells him that the measure is practicable and required in the interests of the band. On the one hand, a leader is lavishly panegyrised for his highmindedness, in suffering himself to be driven into his convictions by his party. On the other, a party is extolled for its political tact, in suffering itself to be forced out of its convictions by its leader. It is hard to...
Page 15 - ... except as between political opponents, would be very generally classed as either immoralities or sins. Party disputes were originally the occupation of aristocracies, which joined in them because they loved the sport for its own sake: and the rest of the community followed one side or the other as its clients. Nowadays, Party has become a force acting with vast energy on multitudinous democracies, and a number of artificial contrivances have been invented for facilitating and stimulating its...
Page 18 - Whenever the power of making and that of enforcing the laws . are united together, there can be no public liberty. . . . Where the legislative and executive authority are in distinct hands, the former will take care not to entrust the latter with so large a power as may tend to the subversion of its own independence, and therewith' of
Page 35 - ... freshness. He is in a land where an immemorial freedom, a freedom only less eternal than the rocks that guard it, puts to shame the boasted antiquity of kingly dynasties, which, by its side, seem but as innovations of yesterday.
Page 35 - He is there in a land where the oldest institutions of our race, institutions which may be traced up to the earliest times of which history or legend gives us any glimmering, still live on in their primeval freshness.
Page 16 - Who always voted at his party's call, And never thought of thinking for himself at all.
Page 6 - He thought about life as a whole, with all its infirmities and all its pomps. With none of the mental exclusiveness of the moralist by profession, he fills every page with solemn reference and meaning; with none of the mechanical bustle of the common politician, he is everywhere conscious of the mastery of laws, institutions, and government over the character and happiness of men.
Page 17 - Lowell puts it, the governmental machinery "is one of wheels within wheels; the outside ring consisting of the party that has a majority in the House of Commons; the next ring being the ministry, which contains the men who are most active within that party; and the smallest of all being the cabinet, containing the real leaders or chiefs.