Great Britain may veto an act of parliament, but in fact, the right is not exercised, and has not been since 1707, because the balance of power, or rather the once separated powers of proposing and approving he laws, have been finally, in practice, united in parliament.

In France, as we have seen, the President cannot veto a law passed by the legislative body. Under the constitution of 1852, of the Second Empire, the right of initiating the laws was solely in the Emperor; but when liberalism gained head, and it could no longer be avoided, he submitted to the people the plébiscite in virtue of which the modified constitution of May, 1870, was adopted. This gave the initiative of the laws to the three branches of the government; the Emperor, the Senate, and the Corps Legislatif; but still requiring the sanctioning of them by the Emperor. Thus, practically, the powers were divided as before; while the lower house might initiate, the monarch could reject. The only improvement gained by the new system was in adding to the moral force, or weight, of the legislative branch, because it requires greater courage in an executive to veto a law absolutely than to neglect to initiate the legislation demanded. The veto is an open affirmative act of opposition to the will of the representatives, while the omission to propose a needed law is merely a neglect of duty; and the human mind is so constituted that action impresses the imagination more vividly than inaction.

The constitution of the United States provides that : "all bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose, or concur with amendments, as on other bills." This exclusive power of initiating laws for supplying money to carry on the government gives the command of position to the lower house of Congress; for confessedly in modern days,

a government will very soon fall to pieces without taxation. At the same time, it must be conceded that, as the President can interpose his qualified veto to the revenue bill, there is a separation of the two powers of initiation and approval. With reference to revenue bills, the President does not stand in precisely the same attitude that he does with reference to other proposed legislation. In other cases, both the Senate and the House can initiate, and the President in his assent to the measure, merely adds, or, as it were, votes, as we have seen, the number of votes, or quantity of power, represented by the number between the majority of the two houses which passed the bill, and the two-thirds necessary to overcome a veto. But in the case of the revenue bill, the House may initiate a law, which the Senate by uniting with the President may absolutely veto. It is true, this absolute negative may be pronounced as to any bill originating in the House of Representatives; but this would have no special significance, because, in effect, the two houses are one body in such cases, with the form of deliberating separately, and in succession upon a measure which, indifferently, may have originated in either. to revenue, however, the functions of the houses are distinct; one has a power which the other has not, and consequently when the Senate alone, or in combination with the President, can absolutely veto the affirmative action of the initiating body, then, as to that function, there is clearly a separation of the power of legislation into two parts, and consequently, as to that function, the system is in the transition stage.

As

Here again, the practical working of the British constitution has united these two powers in the House of Commons. The Lords, it is true, have the right to reject, though they cannot amend supply bills; but this privilege

of rejecting has been substantially abandoned, so that, in effect, the ruling party proposes, and also agrees to the

revenue measures.

As above remarked, the initiative power in law-making is the creative force in the politics of a country. It has under its control all the possibilities of the future, and is the central lever which must be grasped by the person or body that would control the state.

In our American system, the initiatory power is limited and defined by the Constitution. The powers of Congress are enumerated. Eighteen sections state what this body can do, and eight what it cannot do.

In addition, there are the limitations imposed by the articles embodying the clauses concerning personal rights and privileges. The range of legislation is much wider in those Continental countries which have written constitutions, because in none of them are personal rights and privileges so carefully guarded as in Great Britain and the United States.

CHAPTER XV.

DISTRIBUTION OF POWERS.

THE separation of a government into three branches, the executive, legislative and judicial, is not a necessary condition of free institutions; it is simply a convenient and natural specialization of the functions which are developed as a nation grows in numbers and in the volume of its business. In the nature of government, the will or law-making power must be superior, and the executive power subordinate. This necessarily must be so, because the will must first express itself before the act willed can be performed. In a highly developed political system, a law is first formulated, and then the designated functionary executes it. The whole circle of governmental activity is comprised in command and performance. That the same person both wills and commands through a law, and also executes the law, in no wise affects the essential fact of the duality of the processes, and the further fact that the command must precede the action which is commanded to be done. Hence that department of any political system which expresses the volition of the state, is the central and superior power in the state. The ministers or functionaries who obey this volition are merely its

servants.

The tendency of civilization is towards the specialization of functions; in economical affairs to division of labor; in political administration to the separation of the law-making department, from the departments which ex

ecute the laws. If this differentiation is carried out to its extreme limits, one set of men will be exclusively engaged in formulating and expressing the will of the nation in laws; another in executing them, while a third will occupy themselves in judging of individual cases of infractions of the laws or of disputes, to the adjudication of which the laws are to be applied. There is, thus, in the course of time, partly in consequence of the increase of the business of government, partly through the consolidation of antagonistic social forces, an assumption by different individuals of the law-making, the law-executing, and the law-judging functions. The separation and distribution of these various functions to different individuals is only for the convenient, practical working of the government; and when constitutional writers insist that a division of government into three departments, the executive, legislative and judicial, is of the very essence of free institutions, they put mere form for substance. It is by no means incompatible with the liberty of the citizen that the law-making body should be also the executive body, and even the judicial body.

We see in the actual working of the British system a practical consolidation of the legislative and executive functions in the dominant party in the House of Commons. The cabinet, which is no more than a committee of this party, prepares legislation of national moment, obtains the assent of the party to it, and then executes it. In truth, it may be asserted, that the development of government among civilized peoples, as the nation becomes homogeneous, is towards the concentration of the legislative and directing, executive functions in the same person or body of persons. The details of execution, the subordinate work, must of course be done by a multitude of persons, who for convenience of administration,