FUNCTIONS AND PRIVILEGES.

The House of Lords has two distinct functions, the legislative and judicial. Its legislative functions it exercises in concert with the sovereign and the House of Commons, and every new statute must have the assent of the crown and a majority of each house of parliament. In its judicial capacity, the House of Lords is a court for the trial of criminal offences on impeachment by the commons, and of peers on indictments found by a grand jury. The lords may require the attendance of the judges of the superior courts of law to advise them in their judicial duties.

A peer may vote by proxy, which is a privilege denied to the members of the commons; but in judicial causes, or in committees, a peer cannot vote by proxy.

All bills that in any way affect the rights of the peerage must originate in the house of peers, and undergo no change or alteration in the commons.

Whether the peers have a right to continue a tax which the commons have repealed, as in the case of the paper duty, formed a contested privilege in the session of 1860. No precedent appears to have been adduced to show that such power of negation had ever been exercised except in regard to imposts of trivial amount, or connected with some question of national policy. In the present instance the inadequate provision made by the commons for the public expenditure was alleged, but the commons, by their resolutions, declined to acquiesce in this plea. If, however, a tax has been imposed, it cannot be repealed by the commons without the assent of the lords.

Each peer has a right, by leave of the house, when a vote passes contrary to his sentiments, to enter his dissent on the journals of the house, with the reasons of such dissent; which is styled his protest.

A peer sitting in judgment gives not his verdict upon oath, Eike a commoner, but upon his honour. He answers also bills in chancery upon his honour, and not upon his oath. But when he is summoned as a witness, either in civil or criminal cases, he must be sworn. In criminal trials, on arraignment, he is not required, like other culprits, to hold up his hand. In civil actions, his house cannot be searched by the sheriff without the authority of a royal warrant. He is privileged to sit covered on the bench in courts of law, and to give his opinion to the judge. He is exempt from civil offices, but may exercise the power of a justice of peace in any part of the kingdom, where he happens to be present.

Peers are created either by writ or by patent. The creation by rit, or the queen's letter, is a summons to attend the house of peers by the style and title of the barony which the queen is

pleased to confer; that by patent is a royal grant to the subject of any dignity and degree of peerage, as baron or viscount.

When a peer of the realm is newly created, he is introduced into the house of peers by two lords, of the same form, in their robes, garter king at arms going before; and his lordship is to present his writ of summons to the lord chancellor, which being read, he is conducted to his place. Lords by descent are introduced with the same ceremony, the presenting of the writ excepted ; but lords by descent, of the age of 21, may sit without introduction. May on Parliament, 136.

CHAPTER V.

House of Commons.

THIS forms the third and popular branch of the legislature, representing the commons of the United Kingdom.

All grants for raising the supplies to meet the expenditure of government must originate in and pass the House of Commons, though they cannot have the force of law without the assent of the other two branches of parliament.

The lords may reject the grants of the commons altogether, if they think them too lavish, but cannot make any alteration or amendment in a money bill, under which appellation is included all sums directed to be raised on the people for public purposes. And this rule is now extended to bills for canals, paving, provision for the poor, and to every bill in which tolls, rates, or duties are ordered to be collected; also to bills in which pecuniary penalties and fines are imposed for offences. 3 Hats. 110.

1. QUALIFICATIONS OF MEMBERS.

It is not every man that is qualified to be chosen a member of the House of Commons.

They must not be minors, lunatics, outlaws, nor aliens born.

They must not be of the fifteen judges, because they sit, if summoned, in the House of Lords; nor of the clergy, for they sit in convocation; nor persons attainted of treason or felony.

The three vice-chancellors are excluded from the House of Commons, though the master of the rolls is not.

Sheriffs of counties, mayors and bailiffs of boroughs, are ineligible in their respective jurisdictions; but sheriffs of one county are eligible to be knights of another; or burgesses of boroughs, mayors, and bailiffs, may sit for places of which they are not the returning officers.

Persons of the Jewish persuasion, if elected, are only admissible by a resolution of the house, modifying the oath of allegiance and abjuration. See Oaths and Abjuration.

No person concerned in the management of any duties or taxes

treated since 1692 (except commissioners of the treasury); nor any officer of the excise, customs, stamps, &c.; nor any person holding any new office under the crown, created since 1705, is capable of being elected a member.

Pensioners under the crown, during pleasure, or for a term of years, are excluded. But a pension received by the wife does not disqualify the husband. Corb. Dan. 114.

Any member accepting an office of profit under the crown, which existed prior to 1705, vacates his seat; but such member is capable of being re-elected.

Residence has ceased to be requisite to qualify a member of the House of Commons. Nor, by the 21 & 22 V. c. 26, is any qualification of property required in a member to represent any county or borough in England or Ireland. Previous to the act of 1858 an estate of £600 a year was requisite in England and Ireland to qualify for a county, and £300 a year for a borough; except the eldest sons of peers or bishops. The abolition of the property qualification in these divisions of the United Kingdom has assimilated the state of the law to that of Scotland and the universities, in neither of which a qualification of property was required to represent them.

Contractors with government are ineligible to sit in parliament; and if any person so disqualified shall sit in the house, he shall forfeit £500 per day. And, if any person who contracts with government admits any member of parliament to share in it, he shall forfeit £500 to the prosecutor. But an army clothier who contracts with the colonel of a regiment, or his agents, to furnish clothing for such a regiment is not disqualified. Thompson v.

Pearce, 3 Moore, 260.

By 21 & 22 V. c. 104, s. 5, not more than four secretaries of state, and four under secretaries of state, are qualified to sit in the House of Cominons. By an act of 1865, 27 & 28 V. c. 34, a member accepting the office of under secretary while four under secretaries are sitting in the house becomes incapable of sitting, or being elected a member during the time he holds such office. By s. 2, if during a general election more secretaries and under secretaries are elected than four of each class, no one of such number is qualified to sit in the house till the number, by death or resignation, is reduced to the statutable amount. An M.P. who sits or Totes contrary to this section is subject to a penalty of £500 per diem. This provision extends to other offices made ineligible with a seat in parliament.

Members of the India council and justices of the police courts of the metropolis, appointed and paid by the crown, cannot sit in parliament. Nor the commissioners of police of the metropolis and city of London; nor any poor-law commissioner, or assistant commissioner; nor the judges of the new Landed Estates Court for Ireland.

Lastly, no peer of parliament is eligible to a seat in the House of Common. But an Irish peer of the realm, not being one of the twenty-eight representative peers of Ireland, is eligible to represent any constituency of the United Kingdom, though such is not the case with Scotch peers who are not representative peers.

By the 52 G. 3, c. 144, members becoming bankrupt, and not paying their debts in full, are disqualified from sitting or voting for twelve calendar months; and if, at the expiration of that period, the commission is not superseded, or their debts paid in full, their seats become vacant.

A member unseated for bribery cannot be re-elected during the continuance of the same parliament.

The representative function cannot be resigned; and every member is obliged to obey a call of the house, unless he can show such cause as the house shall think a sufficient excuse for nonattendance. The usual way of vacating a seat is by accepting a situation of profit, by which the law declares the seat vacant. When members wish to do this, and retire from parliament, it is now usual for the crown to grant them the office of the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, or of East Hendred.

The members representing the several divisions of the empire elected in 1865 were :

By the 24 & 25 V. c. 112, the seats vacated by the disfranchisement of Sudbury and St. Alban's are to be filled up by the creation of the new borough, with one member, of Birkenhead, and the transfer of an additional member to South Lancashire, and two additional members to the West Riding of York, the riding to be divided into a northern and southern division, each returning two members. But the new elections for the West Riding were only to ensue after the dissolution of parliament, so that, till then, the commons continued short of its full complement of 658 members.

39

105

658

II. QUALIFICATIONS OF ELECTORS.

ENGLAND AND WALES.-A large addition was made to a parliaDentary representation, both in counties and boroughs, by the important act of 1832. By the Reform Act of that year, the 2 W. 4, c. 45, in addition to the 40s. freeholders, the following classes of electors, of full age, and not subject to legal incapacity, are qualified to vote for members for counties, or divisions of counties, in which the qualification is situated :—

1. Copyholders for life, or for any larger estate, of the clear yearly value of £10, above rents and charges payable in respect of the same.

2. Lessees or assignees of tenements, of whatever tenure, for the unexpired residue of any term originally created for not less than sixty years (whether determinable on a life or lives, or not), of the clear yearly value of £10 above rents and charges; or for the uaexpired residue of any term originally created, for not less than twenty years, of the clear yearly value of £50; provided that no sub-lessee, or assignee of any under lease, shall have a right to vote in respect of such term of sixty or twenty years, unless he is in the actual occupation of the premises.

3. Occupiers, as tenants, of any lands or tenements, at a yearly rent of not less than £50, are entitled to vote for knights of the shire.

The ancient law made no distinction between freeholds of inheritance and freeholds for life; but now no freeholds not of inheritance, though of 40s. value, will confer the right of voting, if acquired after the passing of the Reform Act, except the party be the actual occupier of the property, or the same has come by marriage, devise, or promotion, or be of the clear yearly value of £10 above rents and charges.

By 6 V. c. 18, s. 73, such occupancies need not be the same lands and tenements, but may be otherwise, if occupied in immediate succession by the same person; and joint occupiers may vote where the joint occupancy is held at a positive rent of not less than £50 to each.

No public tax, nor church, county, or parochial rate, is deemed a charge payable out of lands and tenements; nor need such to be assessed to the land-tax.

No trustee or mortgagee can vote, unless in actual possession of the rents and profits of the estate: but the mortgagor, or cestur que trust in possession, notwithstanding the mortgage or trust, may

vote.

No person is qualified to vote for the county in respect of any freehold house occupied by himself, nor copyhold or leasehold tenancies either occupied by himself or another, if such occupancies would confer the right of voting for any city or borough, whether he shall or not have actually acquired such right.