advisers, the local administrative authorities his agents. The
government is conducted wholly in his name. In practice, however,
supreme executive acts of the kinds that have been mentioned are
performed by the ministers; or, if performed by the crown immediately,
will not be undertaken without the ministers' knowledge and assent.
The ministers, and not the sovereign, may be held to account by
parliament for every executive act performed, and it is but logical
that they should control the time and tenor of such acts. It falls
very generally to the prime minister to speak for and otherwise
represent the ministerial group. On the whole, however, it accords
best with both law and fact to consider the executive under the
working constitution as consisting of the crown as represented and
advised by the ministry.

*56. The Crown and Legislation.*--The second general group of powers
lodged in the crown comprises those which relate to legislation.
Technically, all legislative authority is vested in "the king in
parliament," by which is meant the king acting in collaboration with
the two houses. Parliament transacts business only during the pleasure
of the crown. The crown summons and prorogues the houses, and it is
empowered at any time to dissolve the House of Commons. No
parliamentary act, furthermore, is valid without the crown's assent.
It is on the legislative, rather than the executive side, none the
less, that the crown has lost most heavily in actual authority. There
was a time when the crown possessed inherent law-making power and
through the agency of proclamations and ordinances contributed
independently to the body of enforceable law. To-day the sovereign may
exercise no such power, save alone in the crown colonies. It is true
that ordinances with the force of law are still issued, and that their
number and importance tend steadily to be increased. But in all cases
these ordinances have been, and must be, authorized specifically by
statute. As "statutory orders" they emanate from a delegated authority
purely and bear no relation to the ancient ordinance by prerogative.
The king may not even, by virtue of any inherent power, promulgate
ordinances in completion of parliamentary statutes--the sort of thing
which the French president, the Italian king, and virtually every
continental ruler may do with full propriety. Of his own authority,
furthermore, the sovereign may not alter by one jot or tittle the law
of the lan