The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1894-10-12
The GROWTH or AGES

fks Present Form Of Government In En-
gland . Curious Compound
The English people have never con-
sciously adopted democratic form Of
government The form of democracy
which they now have has been gener-
ated by many forces, some of which
have been operating for ages It II
difficult to see how the English eensti-
tuition could be reduced to definite
legal form and adopted; in the Ameri-
can sense, without at the same time
giving rise to multitude of restrictions
upon the officers Of the government
certa,n,v "-e is no reason to believe
that the English people Q. any other
people would have deliberately adopted
the unrestrained democracy which they
now enjoy. The question naturally &C.
ours, how then did they come to have
such a government? Without attempt
ing to give a complete answer to this
question, important light may be
thrown upon it by noticing the contri.
buttons to this end which have been
made and are now being made by the
crown.
1t IS chiefly owing to the peculiar Po-
sition of the crown that the English
constitution has not been committed to
writing; that it has been left as a body
of customs and indefinite understand
ings. According to the forms of English
law the entire government is built up
around the throne. The monarch is the
source of law. The parliament is the
kings high court for legislation The
courts of law are his courts The ad-
ministrative officers are his ministers,
There never was time when some Of
these forms of law did not represent as
true things which were not true. Yet
at all times the position of the crown
and other effective forces in the govern
ment have been such that these forms
of law have been preserved unchanged
When one law squarely contradicts an
other law 1t is exceedingly announcement
20 commit them both to writing. If
both are committed to writing. one of
them Is destroyed, or manifest absurd
ity is committed. Yet form Of law
may be traversed and nullified by an
understanding without Inconvenience
and without apparent absurdity.
A matter-of-fact American is sure to
be astonished when he reads Magma
Charta for the first time. In legal form
this instrument expresses the gracious
will of the king. It is the king who is
represented as preternaturally anxious
about the liberties Of the people. The
king enjoins the appointment of the
four-and-twenty barons, and directs
them to make war upon him and COM
pei him to obey the charter; and the
king is even made to say that in case
some of his subjects would not of their
own accord join the barons in making
war upon him he would order them to
do so. This passage in Magma Charta
may serve to illustrate the absurdities
which would appear in English law If
the understandings Of the constitution
should be reduced to written form and
enacted into law. The makers of Magma
Charta lived long before the more re-
fined method of amending the English
constitution had been perfected. The
modern way is either to traverse the
forms of law by an understanding, or,
if the form is made void by actual law
which the courts enforce, to take care
that an appearance of consistency is Sc
cured. do not intend to hold that the
crown has been an active force in secur-
ing the unwritten character of the con-
stitution, but simply that the forms Of
law, the unwritten constitution and the
unrestrained democracy are correlated
facts.-Political Science Quarterly.