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Act, 1887, s. 4) one or two judges of India or of his Majesty's dominions beyond the seas appointed to attend the sittings of the judicial committee (z); (3) (by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1876) four lords of appeal in ordinary, two appointed under section 6 and two under section 14 in place of the judges appointed under the Judicial Committee Act, 1871; (4) (by the Judicial Committee Act, 1881) the present and past lords justices of appeal who are members of the privy council; (5) (by the Appellate Jurisdiction Act, 1887, s. 3) members of the privy council who hold, or have held, high judicial office ; and (6) (by the Judicial Committee Amendment Act, 1895) persons who are, or have been, chief justices or judges of certain colonial courts, and are privy councillors, provided that the number of such persons does not exceed fice at any one time. By the Court of Chancery Act, 1851, s. 16, the quorum of the judicial committee is three. The four lords of appeal in ordinary receive a salary of 6,000l. a year each (a).

Another important committee of the privy council is the committee appointed for the consideration of matters relating to trade and foreign plantations, commonly called the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade is charged with many miscellaneous duties; among others, the supervision and regulation of railways (b), the superintendence of all matters relating to merchant ships and seamen (c), and the discharge of various functions under the Acts for the formation of piers and harbours (d),

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and under divers Acts relating to trading companies and other associations (e), and to patents and the copyright in designs (ƒ), and the like (g). And the Board is also charged with the carrying out of the provisions relating to life assurance companies contained in the Life Assurance Companies Acts, 1870 to 1872; it exercises a general control over disputes between masters and workmen under the Conciliation Act, 1896, and also over all proceedings under the Bankruptcy Acts, 1883 to 1890, and under the Companies (Winding-up) Act, 1890; and it administers the Electric Lighting Acts, 1882 and 1888.

Like the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Education Board (h), and the Board of Agriculture (i) are in their origin committees of the privy council. Another committee, called the Universities Committee of the Privy Council (k), exercises certain powers with regard to the amendment or repeal of university statutes. Indeed throughout its history the privy council has been in the habit of doing most of its duties by means of committees. Amongst other duties performed by the privy council may be mentioned the granting of charters to, and the settle

(e) Companies Acts, 1862, 1867 and 1879.

(ƒ) Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Acts, 1883 to 1888.

(g) In addition to the duties mentioned in the text, the Board also collects and arranges statistical returns exhibiting the extent of the revenues, commerce, manufactures, and other resources of the kingdom, and containing a variety of useful details of a miscellaneous character; see e.y. the -Cotton Statistics Act, 1868.

(h) Formerly (till the Board of Education Act, 1899) the Education Committee, i.e. the committee of the Privy Council for receiving applications for aid from

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ment of schemes for, municipal boroughs; as also the supervision of the general medical council under the Medical Acts, 1858 to 1886 (1).

[The dissolution of the privy council depends upon the king's pleasure; and he may, whenever he thinks proper, discharge the whole council, and appoint another. By the common law also, the privy council was dissolved ipso facto by the king's demise, as deriving all its authority from him. But now, to prevent the inconvenience of having no council in being at the accession of a new prince, it has been enacted, by the Succession to the Crown Act, 1707, s. 8, that the privy council shall continue for six months after the demise of the crown, unless sooner determined by the successor.] The four lords of appeal in ordinary, who are paid members of the judicial committee, retain their offices during good behaviour, notwithstanding the demise of the crown. According to modern practice the appointment of the council is renewed on the demise of the crown.

(7) Thus the Privy Council hears appeals from a refusal of the Medical Council to recognise a diploma.

CHAPTER VI.

OF THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE.

[By the word prerogative we usually understand that special pre-eminence which the king hath, over and above all other persons, in right of his regal dignity, out of the ordinary course of the common law. And Finch describes the prerogative as being that law in case of the king, which law is no case of the subject (a).] But this first definition has been called too vague; and it has been said that the prerogative may be more precisely defined as "the discretionary authority of the executive" (b), i.e., everything which the king or his servants may do without the authority of an Act of Parliament.

We propose to consider the nature of the royal prerogative generally, pointing out, in the first place, the limits within which it is confined, and the safeguards which our political constitution has provided against its improper

exercise.

[Queen Elizabeth, it is true, made no scruple in directing her parliaments to abstain from discoursing of matters of state, saying, that they "ought not to deal, to judge, or to meddle with her prerogative royal" (c); and her successor, James the First, more than once laid it down in his speeches, that "as it is atheism and blasphemy in a creature to dispute what the Deity may do, so it is presumption and sedition in a subject to dispute what the king may do in the height of his power" (d). But,

(a) Finch, L. 85.

(b) Anson, Law and Custom, vol. ii., p. 2.

(c) D'Ewes, 645.

(d) King James's Works, 531,

757.

[according to our antient constitution and laws, the limitation of the regal authority was a principle always recognized in England; and Sir Henry Finch, in the time of Charles the First, though he lays down the law of prerogative in very strong and emphatical terms, yet qualifies it with a general restriction in regard to the liberties of the people. For the king, says he, hath a prerogative in all things that are not injurious to the subject; for in them all it must be remembered that the king's prerogative stretcheth not to the doing of any wrong-nihil enim aliud potest rex, nisi id solum quod de jure potest (e). And the just limitation of the king's prerogative is indeed essential to the idea of political or civil liberty.

The political liberty of England has been at times endangered, on the one hand, by overbearing princes, and on the other hand by the promoters of anarchy; but the vigour of our free constitution has always delivered the nation from these embarrassments or convulsions. And the particular liberties which at different periods have been found most liable to invasion have been, on various occasions, asserted, and maintained, by parliament. The first of these occasions was when the Great Charter of liberties was obtained sword in hand from King John, and afterwards confirmed with some alterations, by Henry the Third, his son; a charter which, as Sir E. Coke observes, was for the most part merely declaratory of the fundamental laws of England (ƒ). Next, by the Confirmatio Cartarum, 1297 (25 Edw. I.), the Great Charter was directed to be allowed as the common law, and all judgments contrary to it were declared void. Then comes a multitude of subsequent corroborating statutes, from the First Edward to Henry the Fourth (g); and, after a long interval, the Petition of Right (1627), a parliamentary declaration of the liberties of the people assented to by Charles the First, and subsequently, in 1679, the Habeas

(e) Finch, L. 84, 85; Bracton, 1. 3, tr. 1, ch. 9.

(/) 2 Inst. proëm.
(g) 2 Inst. ubi sup.

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