THE WORK OF PARLIAMENT 157

in the procedure of Parliament to prevent a Government which
truly represents the people's will from carrying that will into
effect.

But, though the procedure is far from futile, neither is it
perfect. In the main, rules date from a time when Parliament
felt that its chief duty was to check the power of the Crown;
they are more adapted to saying "No" than "Yes". Since then,
not only has Parliament acquired the positive duty of governing
the country, but the activity of Government has enormously
increased. On to the first structure have been tacked the
Guillotine and the Kangaroo which make great speed possible.
The result is that Parliament either acts slowly, or, by speeding
up, distorts or strangles debate. One of the chief objects of
reform should therefore be to frame methods of shortening
debate which would not destroy discussion on important parts
of a Bill. Some speeches are unnecessarily long: but this is not
common and the imposition of a time-limit would not have much
effect. A useful reform would be to remove, from consideration
by the whole House at the Report stage, all those amendments
which are concerned solely with the wording of a Bill, and hand
them to a special Committee, containing both M.P.s and Jegal
experts. Members could then concentrate on what the Act says
rather than how it says it. Objection might be raised that the
House would thus hand over too much of its authority to a
group of experts. At present, however, the attempt to do too
much obliges the House to pass blocks of undiscussed legislation
in a manner sufficiently dangerous to its authority. Parliament
must also go still further along the path of granting Ministers
power to make Orders; Acts would then deal more with general
principles and become easier to discuss. This could be done
more safely if each of'the Standing Committees were concerned
with a particular Department and were alert to watch any
excessive growth in die power of the Executive. If, to these
suggestions, are added those already made:—abolition of the
Financial Resolution, reduction 'in the size and increase in the