rica (Washington, 1903), compiled in the Library
of Congress under the direction of A. P. C.
Griffin.]

CHAPTER IV (p. 076)

PARLIAMENT: THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

*79. Antiquity and Importance.*--The British Parliament is at once the
oldest, the most comprehensive in jurisdiction, and the most powerful
among modern legislative assemblages. In structure, and to some extent
in function, it is a product, as has appeared, of the Middle Ages. The
term "parliament," employed originally to denote a discussion or
conference, was applied officially to the Great Council in 1275;[104]
and by the opening of the fourteenth century the institution which the
English know to-day by that name had come clearly into existence,
being then, indeed, what technically it still is--the king and the
three estates of the realm, i.e., the lords spiritual, the lords
temporal, and the commons. During upwards of a hundred years the three
estates sat and deliberated separately. By the close of the reign of
Edward III. (1327-1377), however, the bicameral principle had become
fixed, and throughout the whole of its subsequent history (save during
the Cromwellian era of experimentation) Parliament has comprised
uninterruptedly, aside from the king, the two branches which exist at
the present time, the House of Lords and the House of Commons, or,
strictly, the Lords of Parliament and the Representatives of the
Commons.

[Footnote 104: In the First Statute of
Westminster.]

The range of jurisdiction which, step by step, these chambers, both
separately and conjointly, have acquired has been broadened until, so
far as the dominions of the British crown extend, it covers all but
the whole of the domain of human government. And within this enormous
expanse of political control the competence of the chambers knows, in
neither theory nor fact, any restriction. "The British Parliament, ..."
writes Mr. Bryce, "can make and unmake any and every law, change
the form of government or the succession to the crown, interfere with
the course of justice, extinguish the most sacred private rights of
the citizen. Between it and the people at large there is no legal
distinction, because the whole plenitude of the people's rights and
powers resides in it, just as if the whole nation were present within
the chamber where it sits. In point