Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II PARTIES AND PARLIAMENT Notre Parlcment, institution cssent-lclle, elail, il cst encore, wn thddtrc.?Cr!er. A parliamentary, in contrast to a congressional, government, is based upon a legislative body directly elected by and responsible to the people. The Ministry or the Government is chosen from among the members of the party or parties having the majority in this legislative body. Such a government not only looks after the administrative services, as does the American executive, but it actively directs legislation. Through its members who at the same time belong to Parliament, it introduces measures and urges their passage. So important is this legislative function, that in England a measure has little chance of success unless it directly emanates from the Ministry. Although this is not so true in France, here a distinction is made between a project of law, introduced by the government, and a proposition of law, introduced by an ordinary member of Parliament. Generally, it may be said that the Ministry, under a Cabinet form of government is supreme so long as it possesses the confidence of Parliament. But such a Ministry is always responsible to the chambers for its collective and individual acts, theoretically, both to the upper and the lower; in reality, only to the lower.1 If defeated upon any proposition it must cither resign as a body, or dissolve Parliament and call a special election. In the latter case, the people decide whether they approve the Ministry or Parliament by returning representatives favorable to the one or the other. If the same Parliament is returned the Ministry must resign and one representing the dominant opinion is appointed. If a new Parliament favorable to the old Ministry is returned, the latter continues in power. Thus respon…
