Editorial: The Royal Commission on the Constitution
| Date | 01 March 1974 |
| Published date | 01 March 1974 |
| Author | NEVIL JOHNSON |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9299.1974.tb00161.x |
Editorial:
The
Royal Cornmission on the
When surveying the bulk of the 500-page report of the Commission on
the Constitution, along with the
200
pages
or
so of the Memorandum of
Dissent*, one is tempted to recall David Hume’s famous remark about
his great work falling ‘dead-born from the press’.
A
group of public-
spirited citizens have worked away for over four years within the remit
given to them, until at last they were able to deliver themselves of their
views and recommendations. Yet these have gone virtually unnoticed in
a society no longer much interested in why we ever had a Royal Commis-
sion, and now beset by troubles and uncertainties more threatening than
those which motivated its appointment.**
Nor
has the form of the final
reports done anything to secure public attention. The Kilbrandon Report,
that of the majority, is full of redundant descriptive material, often uncer-
tain or sketchy when it comes to difficult points of analysis, too willing
to
get round problems by appealing to the inherent virtues of our traditional
political habits, and seriously vitiated by the number of divergent proposals
which it seeks to bring under one umbrella. (The majority is indeed
divided into a larger group and sub-minorities of variable size on most
major issues.) The official minority report, that of Lord Crowther-Hunt
and Professor Peacock,
is
shorter, generally clearer in defining what it is
driving at, but equally light in the analysis of political and constitutional
dilemmas. Moreover,
I
must confess that for me it is suffused by a degree of
Panglossian optimism which seems unjustified in the light of recent British
experience:
it
reminds me too much of Kamsay Macdonald’s ‘On,
on
and
on, Up, up and
up
.
.
.’
The Royal Commission, chaired initially by the late Lord Crowther
and then by Lord Kilbrandon, was set up by Mr.Wilson in the aftermath
of
the
1967
Hamilton by-election, an event which symbolized an upsurge in
the Scottish Nationalist Party in Scotland and of Plaid Cymru in Wales.
It is true that the Commission was given broad but ill-defined terms of
reference to examine the ‘present functions of the central legislature and
*Royal Commision on the Constitution
1969-73.
Vol.
I
Report, Vol.
I1
Memorandum
of Dissent, Cmnd.
5460
and
5460-1.
**These comments were written well before the election
of
February
1974.
Nevertheless,
it
is not without interest to note that neither
of
the
two
major parties offered more than
a vague, passing reference
to
the Kilbrandon proposals in the manifestos published
for
the General Election campaign.
I
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