REVIEWS

Date01 April 1947
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1947.tb00049.x
Published date01 April 1947
REVIEWS
CONSTITUTIONAL LAW. By
E.
c.
s.
WADE and G. GODFREY
PHILLIPS.
(London: Longmans, Green
&
Co.
Third
Edition.
1946.
xxv and
474
pp.
25s.)
THE authors are to be congratulated on the considerable
improvements which the third edition of this textbook shows
over the previous editions. They have been wise
in
their
decision to rewrite much of the text rather than to make
numerous insertions which, because of the volume
of
new
material, would have rendered the book awkward to handle.
As
it is, the book is well arranged and convenient to use for
reference. The extent of new material can be measured by the
fact that of the six pages of statutes from
A.D.
1101
to
1945
one is needed for the years
1939
onwards.
So
many and
various are the changes of that period that it is specially
valuable to have them properly included.
It
is to be hoped
that the authors will continue to keep the work up to date.
The improvement is also due to an ampler treatment
of
that
field
of
general principles and of the working machinery of
government which links the legal with the political science
aspects of the subject.
The book is appropriately described as an outline
of
the
law and practice of the constitution.
It
deals with general
principles such as the separation of powers, Parliamentary
supremacy, and the conventions of the constitution.
It
also
covers Parliament, the Executive, the Judiciary, Local
Government, Administrative Law, the British Commonwealth
and Military Law. There are chapters on freedom
of
the
person and of discussion, emergency powers, Church and State.
Useful appendices are given on legislative forms and the forms
of
statutory orders.
Two dilemmas face the authors of a book of this character.
One is how to be adequate without being exhaustive. This has
been well met, although the chapter on the civil service might
be expanded. The other is how to deal with matters which
are the outcome of dynamic social forces, and which historical
treatment shows to be subject to tendencies
of
development
or change, without entering too much into their history or
attempting that description of economic and social background
sometimes necessary for their full understanding. This also
implies
a
selection
of
facts in more than a narrowly legal
perspective. The section on independence of the judiciary,
which gives the bare legal facts without mentioning that party
leaders in the guise
of
Ministers make the appointments,
222

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