26 THS BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

whatever assaults have been made on the Rule of Law, the
Sovereignty of Parliament remains*

AN "UNWRITTEN" CONSTITUTION.

Such is the foundation of the British Constitution. Why is it
often called an "unwritten" Constitution? Some of the most
important parts of it—the; Act of Settlement and the Parliament
Act—-are written. A foreigner could get quite a fair idea of how
law is made, and what the powers of the Government are, by
consulting the Statute Book. But his idea would not be complete;
he would not learn from the law that the Government must
resign when a Vote of Censure has been passed upon it by the
House of Commons. He would, however, find that the most
recent Finance Act gave the Government power to collect Income
Tax for the coming year only. The Army and Air Force Act
likewise, gives power to maintain these forces for one year. So
a Government which ignored a Vote of Censure would before
very long be deprived of the means of governing legally; it
would have to resign or defy the law. The "unwritten" parts
of the Constitution, are for the most part obvious deductions
from that which is written.

The real fact which the phrase "unwritten Constitution"
tries to express is that there has never been any attempt to write
the British Constitution, as a Constitution, separate from the
rest of the law. In the Middle Ages it could have been said
with truth that the Constitution was unwritten; but a series of
conflicts between King and Parliament, Government and
People, have ended in the writing down of final decisions on the
points in dispute. So the British Constitution has been made,
like the British administrative law, bit by bit as need arose.
, This has an important result. The laws about the Constitution,
having been made just as other laws, can be altered in the same
way. A Bill determining hours and conditions for factory workers
and a Bill, determining the succession to the Crown must go
through exactly the same processes in order to become law.