Some Recent Aspects of British Constitutional Law

REVIEW ARTICLE SOME RECENT ASPECTS oF BRITISH CONSTITUTIONAL LAw1 In this annual survey two books deserve attention, which, while lying largely outside our particular category, touch incidentally constitutional law. The first, by Professor Laski, from this point of view, draws important attention to the theory of the state and to the administration of local government. Although not a lawyer, Professor Laski possesses a remarkable knowledge of constitutional and administrative law, combined with a brilliant and provocative style. No citizen of the empire, interested in the problems which lie ahead of it, ought to neglect Professor Laski's analyses of the functions of the state and of the implication for local authorities in the famous Poplar Case. The issues raised in both connections are common to all the nations of the commonwealth. Incidentally , too, Mr. Laski touches on the growth of administrative law, a subject to which Professor C. K. Allen gives important attention. Mr. Allen has done a signal service to students of constitutional law in reprinting many of his learned discussions. It is quite 1 clear that "the rule of law" is no longer functioning as the average student and citizen understand those words, and that the public life of England is being so bureaucratized that it is impossible to speak with truth of a regime of administrative justice. Mr. Allen's strictures are none too strong, and it is evident beyond controversy that English constitutional law has lost much of its traditional virtues. Most important, too, for all the British nations is the evidence that parliament has grown cynical, if not weary, in guarding its position as a representative institution and that it delegates powers, either in comprehensive generosity or in vague obscurities, 1Studies in law and politics. By HAROLD J. LASKI. London: Allen and Unwin. 1932. Pp. 229. ($3.25) Bureaucracy triumphant. By CARLETON KEMP ALLEN. Oxford: At the University Press. 1931. Pp. 148. The problem of federalism: A study in the history of political theory. By SoBEI MoGI. With a preface by Professor HAROLD J. LASKI. 2 volumes. London: Allen and Unwin. 1931. Pp. 1144. ($10.75) Changes in the legal structure of the British Commonwealth of Nations. By ROBERT A. MACKAY. Washington: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 1931. Pp. 85. An introduction to British constitutional law. By ARTHUR BERRIEDALE KEITH. Oxford: At the Clarendon Press. 1931. Pp. xii, 243. ($2.50) Constitutional law: An outline of the law and practice of the constitution, including English local government, the constitutional relations of the British Empire and the church of England. By E. C. S. WADE and G. GODFREY PHILLIPS. London: Longmans, Green and Co. 1931. Pp. xxii, 476. ($7.00) Statute of Westminster (22 Geo. V. c. 4). National sovereignty and judicial automony in the British Commonwealth of Nations. By HECTOR HUGHES. London: P. S. King and Son. 1931. Pp. xv, 184. (9s.) Le Statut de Westminster. Par ERNEST LAPOINTE. (Extrait de la Revue trimestrielle candienne, livraison de mars, 1932.) Montreal: 1932. Pp. 20. 306 - REVIEW ARTICLE 307 with the result that administrative despotism is on the increase. Mr. Allen's little book ought to be widely read. Already in Canada there has grown up the beginnings of a system to which he draws such challenging attention, and it is important that we should early understand some of its implications and dangers. The book will form an important corrective to Dicey's Law of the constitution, which, in all serious study, has now assumed a place of historical interest only, and has lost any practical worth which it may once have possessed. The second book, of a more general nature, to which I have referred is that by Mr. Sobei Mogi, who, as a student of Professor Laski, has inevitably become interested in federalism which, unfortunately perhaps, does not contain to-day such promise of hope for the world as it once seemed to possess. It lies beyond our review to consider Mr. Mogi's conceptions for the development of a decentralized unitary state or to review his estimate of the literature of federalism. The former is challenging and interesting, the latter is almost encyclopcedic, especially in connection with the German political theorists. On the other...