It remains to consider more closely the two chief provisions of the Act. It should be observed in the first place that the Bill was avowedly an emergency measure, designed to secure the immediate passage into law of the legislative programme, in particular the Home Rule Bill and the Welsh Church Bill, of the Liberal Government which introduced it and secured its enactment. The preamble of the Parliament Act itself recites that "whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a second chamber constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation." This pledge, or condition subsequent, has never been redeemed, and, during the 18 years that have elapsed, a whole series of proposals have been put forward in the Lords for the "reform" of the Upper House. Moreover in August 1917, namely during the party truce imposed by the war which found expression in the estab lishment of the "Coalition Government," a conference repre sentative of all parties was instituted, under the presidency of Lord Bryce, by the Prime Minister to report not only on the composition and "legislative power" to be exercised by a re formed second chamber but on "the best mode of adjusting differences between the two Houses of Parliament." These terms of reference necessarily involved a reconsideration of the Parliament Act itself and in a Report (Cd 9o38 of 1918) which constitutes far and away the most valuable contribution to this vexed subject, Lord Bryce's Committee did definitely recom mend some amendment of the provisions of the statute which relate to "Money Bills" and at the same time proposed to substitute a system of joint conferences in place of the suspensory veto of the Lords over public bills other than money bills. Such a considerable restoration of the powers of the Upper House was only possible on the assumption that it become a repre sentative body in the "popular" sense, and for this the Bryce scheme provided by substituting for the peerage qualification an elective element, amounting to no less than three-fourths of the House, to be elected by the House of Commons, while, even in the election by a "Joint Standing Committee" of both Houses of the remaining one-quarter, the peers selected by the Joint Committee were ultimately to be reduced to thirty. The scheme failed of acceptance, and the most recent proposals, put forward by Lord Cave on behalf of the Government in 1927, abandoned all idea of transforming the Upper House into a predominantly representative Chamber, and are confined, with the exception of some provision for a small number of Crown nominees for a term of years, to the adoption of the principle of "representative peers" already domesticated in our Constitution in the case of Scottish and Irish peerages—in other words the new chamber was to consist of a fixed number of peers elected by their fellow-peers.
The basis of the constitution of the House of Lords being left much where it was—namely the peerage qualification— these proposals did not suggest any such far-reaching revision of the Parliament Act as that contained in the Bryce scheme, but were directed to the interposition of some very necessary safe guards against the abuse of the Parliament Act. Indeed Lord Lansdowne had already declared himself in 1925 as "wholly opposed to any attempt" to repeal the Parliament Act itself. The Government proposals of 1927 were, and are, therefore confined to two propositions, one of which is that no legislative proposals for further curtailing such powers, e.g., the suspensory veto, as are conceded to the House of Lords by the Parliament Act, should be forced into law by the machinery of the Parliament Act itself but should require the assent of the House of Lords. The effect of this proposal, which is reasonable enough, would be to prevent an extremist majority in the House of Commons extinguishing, by a bill to that effect, the House of Lords altogether as an estate of the realm by forcing such a bill on to the statute-book in the three successive sessions provided for in the case of ordinary legislation under the Parliament Act. The other proposition gave expression to the growing misgivings as to the possible misuse of the enormous powers conferred on the Speaker under the statute.
By the terms of it, he is made the sole judge whether a bill is a money bill or not, and his certificate is not to be questioned in any court of law. Now the power to tax is, or may be, in the words of Chief Justice Marshall, "the power to destroy" and a Socialist party could, easily enough, confiscate altogether, by a i00% estate duty, the capital of all deceased persons altogether or, equally, by a i00% income-tax duty on all incomes over a certain figure, introduce a considerable measure of "Socialism in our time." Such measures might be introduced as 'money bills" in form, although their real object was not to raise revenue but to "nationalize" private capital without compensation. The rise of the Labour Party, since the Parliament Act was enacted, and its avowedly Socialistic aims had thus invested the Parliament Act with new significance, and Socialist publicists, as also the Trade Union Council at the General Election of 1924, have made no secret of the fact that they regard the office of the Speaker, and his omnipotent function of certifying under a Parliament Act any bill he pleases as a money bill and of thereby securing its im mediate passage into law, as a "key position" to be "captured" if and when the party finds itself in a majority. In other countries, notably in Australia and the United States, the legislature has de liberately sought to pass industrial legislation in the form of "a money bill" by imposing a penal tax on all manufacturers who do not comply with its provisions. In those countries a check is imposed on such abuse of legislative powers by the fact that they have a federal and "written" constitution, with the resulting power of the courts to declare such legislation ultra vires. No such check exists in this country, which might thus, under the Parlia ment Act, find itself exposed to almost instantaneous legislation, the motive of which, nominally fiscal, was in reality the revolution of the economic constitution of society. Hence the proposal of Lord Cave, following mainly the suggestion of the Bryce Com mittee, that this absolute power should be taken out of the hands of the Speaker and vested in a Joint Standing Committee of both Houses which, in "certifying" a bill as a money bill, shall have regard "not only to the form but to the substance and effect of the Bill" (Hansard: "Lords Debates," vol. 67, No. P. 779).
Up to the present moment political exigencies have not operated to put the Parliament Act in practice except on two occasions. Only two measures, the Home Rule Bill and the Welsh Church Disestablishment Bill, have been forced through under its opera tion. In both cases their actual enforcement was suspended by a special statute during the war, while the rebellion in Ireland made an end of the Home Rule Act altogether. Moreover the Speaker, hitherto a member of one or other of the "constitutional" parties in the House, has exercised his despotic power of "certifi cation" of money bills quite impartially and in complete inde pendence of political considerations. He has always refused to lend any assistance to the Government party by declining to intimate beforehand what his ultimate opinion of the character of their bills would be (41 Hansard: "Commons Debates," 5 P. 2667) and his decisions afford little or no guide in the way of precedent. He has ruled that a bill originating in a Committee of the whole House on the recommendation of the Crown is not necessarily a money bill while, on one occasion, he has ruled that a bill not so originating is. A return, issued to the House of Commons in 1927, showed that no less than eight finance bills had been refused his certificate, although, needless to say, the House of Lords did not, having regard to the general character of these bills, avail itself of its powers to reject or amend them. The potentialities of the Parliament Act, as an instrument in the hands of a Government determined to secure revolution by "con stitutional methods" in a single session of Parliament, will only become apparent if and when a Socialist Government is not only in office but in power.