f conducting business in the upper
house are more elastic than those prevailing in the lower.

*139. Fundamental Principles.*--The legislative omnipotence of
Parliament has been emphasized sufficiently.[194] Any sort of measure
upon any conceivable subject may be introduced and, if a sufficient
number of the members are so minded, enacted into law. No measure (p. 133)
may become law until it has been submitted for the consideration of
both houses, but under the terms of the Parliament Act of 1911 it has
been rendered easy for money bills, and not impossible for bills of
other sorts, to be made law without the assent of the House of Lords.
In the ordinary course of things, a measure is introduced in one
house, put through three readings, sent to the other house, put there
through the same routine, deposited with the House of Lords to await
the royal assent,[195] and, after having been assented to as a matter
of course, proclaimed as law. Bills, as a rule, may be introduced in
either house, by the Government or by a private member. It is
important to observe, however, in the first place, that certain
classes of measures must originate in one or the other of the houses,
e.g., money bills in the Commons and bills of attainder and other
judicial bills in the Lords, and, in the second place, that with the
growth of the leadership of the Government in legislation the
importance, if not the number, of privately introduced bills has
tended steadily to be decreased, and likewise the chances of their
enactment.

[Footnote 194: See p. 45.]

[Footnote 195: Except that money bills remain in
the custody of the Commons.]

*140. Public Bills: First and Second Readings.*--The steps through which
a public bill, whether introduced by the Government or by a private
member, must pass in the Commons are still numerous, but by the
reduction of some of them to sheer formalities which involve neither
debate nor vote the actual legislative process has been made much more
expeditious than once it was. The necessary stages in the enactment of
a bill in either house are, as a rule, five: first reading, second
reading, consideration by committee, report from committee, and third
reading. Formerly the introduction of a measure involved almost
invariably a speech explaining at length the nature of the proposal,
followed by a debate and a vote, sometimes consuming, in all, several
sittings.