the business which any one of them might propose. This disjointed condition of the House was caused partly by the disruption of old political connections, partly by the settlement of those great questions for which men whose opinions were in other respects conflicting had agreed to co-operate, and partly by the unexampled prosperity of the nation and the absence of any pressing domestic grievance or foreign danger. But whatever may have been its cause, to this state of the House of Commons may be ascribed, whatever may have been their immediate and ostensible pretexts, the dissolutions of 1852 and 1857, and, if it admit of any justification, the dissolution of 1859.

The last of these events, indeed, is a conspicuous example of the violation of those principles which usually regulate the exercise of this prerogative. Its immediate cause was a vote of the House of Commons adverse to the Reform Bill which Lord Derby's ministry had introduced. But there was nothing in the state of the country at that time to render the rejected measure essential to the proper administration of public affairs. There was no such agitation as that which in 1832 had threatened civil war. Both before this bill and after it other Reform Bills were laid aside without any material disturbance of the public equanimity. The Parliament, too, was only in its second year, and nothing since its election had occurred to excite a suspicion that the existing House of Commons did not fairly represent the sense of the nation. The ministers declared that they expected to have about three hundred supporters in the new Parliament. They could not therefore have felt" a strong moral conviction" that they would have a majority sufficient to enable them to carry on the Government. At the time of the dissolution the state of

*3 Hansard, cliv. 160.

public affairs was very alarming. War between two great European powers was imminent. It was hardly possible to tell at what hour Her Majesty might require, on the subject of peace or war, the advice of her Parliament. So urgent, indeed, was the necessity, that, before the new Parliament could assemble, the Executive was obliged to incur the responsibility of increasing the naval force and of offering a bounty by Royal Proclamation without the advice of Parliament.* This dissolution, then, must be regarded as a mere party measure, and as such comes within the express condemnation of Sir Robert Peel.

Variances on

§ 3. If, therefore, the King disapprove of the advice tendered to him by the House of Commons in respect to the exercise of any branch of the prerogative, administra- whether in the appointment of his servants or in tion. the performance of their duties, his proper course is to summon a new House and to be guided by its opinion. But the House of Lords has a right of advice co-extensive with that of the Commons; and to the House of Lords the remedy of a dissolution cannot be applied. It is necessary, therefore, to determine what course should be pursued when the Peers tender to their Sovereign advice which, after due consultation with his principal servants, he determines not to accept. The rule which the present practice of our political system seems in such cases to establish is that in all questions of administration the King ought to accept the advice of his Peers, unless a contrary opinion be distinctly expressed by the House of Commons: but that if such an opinion be expressed, it should prevail. When, therefore, a hostile vote has been passed against any ministry in the House of Lords, if the ministry do not

3 Hansard, cliv. 379.

resign, it ought to obtain from the House of Commons a vote of a directly opposite character. The principle on which this rule depends may be thus stated: A ministry requires for the efficient discharge of its duties the support of Parliament. Since Parliament consists of two parts, and since questions of administration do not, like questions of legislation, admit of compromise or delay, if there be a difference between these parts respecting the conduct of any ministry, some means of speedily deciding that difference must be found. Accordingly, the rule is that when the opinions of the two Houses are divided, the opinion of the House of Commons prevails. But as the existence of such a difference is not to be presumed, an adverse vote of the House of Lords must so weaken a ministry, both at home and in the estimation of foreign powers, that nothing but the unequivocal expression of the continued confidence of the House of Commons can restore it to its position.*

It is remarkable how seldom an avowed difference on the conduct of the Executive Government has arisen between the two Houses. Two instances, neither of them much in point, have in the course of debatet been cited from the reign of Queen Anne. The first of these cases was an unjust attempt of the House of Commons to interfere with the right of the Peers to inquire into certain dangerous plots alleged to exist between persons in Scotland and the Courts of France and St. Germains. The other case was the disregard shown by the Executive to a resolution of the House of Lords in the year 1710, declaring certain terms which that House deemed essential to an honourable peace. This resolution however was, as it were, directory only. It related to a matter still incomplete; and it

was quite possible that a peace which in 1710 seemed objectionable might two years afterwards have become very desirable. But no instance, so far as I am aware, occurs in any unreformed Parliament of a censure by the Peers upon a completed act of administration or upon a course of administrative policy which was supported by the Commons. Since the Reform Act there have been several cases which support the doctrines that I have above stated.

In 1833 there was a civil war in Portugal between Don Pedro and his brother Don Miguel. A considerable military force was raised in England in behalf of Don Pedro, and proceeded to his assistance. The Duke of Wellington moved in the House of Lords an address to the King, praying that His Majesty would give such directions as were necessary to enforce the observance by his subjects of His Majesty's declared neutrality in the Portuguese conLord Grey, who was then Prime Minister, accepted this motion as a censure upon the Government for a neglect of their public duty. On a division there was a majority of twelve against ministers. On the following day, in

test.

reply to a question in the House of Commons, the ministers declared their intention, notwithstanding this vote, to adhere to their former policy; and a motion was immediately submitted by one of their supporters to the Commons, expressing grateful acknowledgment of the judicious policy which His Majesty had pursued with reference to the affairs of Portugal This motion was carried by a great majority, and Lord Grey's ministry was undisturbed.

The next case occurred in 1839. The House of Lords resolved to appoint a committee to inquire into the marquis of Normanby's administration as Lord Lieutenant

Ireland. From the circumstances in which this vote

passed, the ministers considered it as equivalent to

a direct censure upon their Irish policy. On the day following the debate in the House of Lords, Lord John Russell, the then leader of the Government in the House of Commons, announced his intentior to take on an early day the opinion of the House as to the Irish administration; and intimated that upon the result of that discussion the existence of the ministry must depend. He accordingly moved a resolution approving in strong terms the principles which guided the Executive Government of Ireland, and declaring the expedience of an adhesion to them. It was contended by the Opposition that the vote of the House of Lords was not such as to warrant this resolution. But it does not seem to have been denied that, if the hostility of the Peers had been more directly expressed, the course adopted by the Government would have been proper. Lord John Russell's resolution was carried by a majority of twenty-two; and the ministry were thus enabled to disregard both the vote of the Lords for the inquiry, and a scarcely less hostile vote by which some months afterwards the Report of the Committee was followed.

In the year 1850 serious differences with Foreign Powers arose in consequence of certain claims by two British subjects against the Government of Greece, which claims the English Government enforced by blockade and other violent measures. The House of Lords, upon the motion of the Earl of Derby, adopted a resolution which both affirmed a general principle of international law and conveyed a censure upon the Government for their conduct in the affairs of Greece. Lord John Russell, who was then Prime Minister, refused to accept the resignation of Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary; and announced that

* See Ann. Reg., 1850, p. 72; Alison's Hist. of Europe, viii. 820.