Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War by Alfred Hopkinson
page 133 of 186 (71%)
page 133 of 186 (71%)
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tyranny in regular succession, and "the authority of one man over
another not regulated by fixed law or justified by absolute necessity is tyranny." With the advent of Peace "_Dora_ must disappear." Even before the War there had been a tendency, on the one hand, to substitute administrative action for regular judicial procedure, and, on the other, to allow certain associations to act without regard to law, to injure individuals and infringe their rights without remedy. That tendency must be checked or liberty will be destroyed. Law and liberty as well as law and order are correlative terms. A real control over expenditure must be re-established and made more effective than it was even before the necessities of war in our unprepared condition made the present hand-to-mouth procedure to some extent excusable. The happy-go-lucky way in which new Ministries and new departments with vague and ill-defined but enormous powers have been created must come to an end. We should have some definite and recognised method of authorising changes in the system of Government. To set aside the Cabinet which, although it had no legal position, had powers sanctioned and established by long constitutional custom, and to concentrate authority in a small body selected and increased or diminished from time to time at the will of a Prime Minister, was probably necessary for successful prosecution of the War, but nothing else could justify some of the irregularities that have been committed. Doctrines have been put forward sometimes in the Courts during the War by counsel representing the Crown--i.e., in effect some Ministry--which would have seemed questionable even in the days of the Stuarts. The whole of the special War Legislation, both Statutes and Orders of all kinds, will require to be revised and, unless there is strong reason to the contrary in any special cases, repealed. The burden of proof should |
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