Nor can I stop to dwell upon the very important subject of the
delegation or devolution of powers by Parliament to subordinate bodies.
I will only say that devolution may be, and I think ought to be, of two
kinds, which we may define as regional and functional. To regional
bodies for large areas (which might either be directly elected or
constituted by indirect election from the local government authorities
within each area) might be allotted much of the legislative power of
Parliament in regard to private Bills, together with general control
over those public functions, such as Education and Public Health, which
are now mainly in the hands of local authorities. Of functional
devolution the most important expression would be the establishment of a
National Industrial Council and of a series of councils or boards for
various industries endowed with quasi-legislative authority; by which I
mean that they should be empowered by statute to draft proposals for
legislation of a defined kind, which would ultimately receive their
validity from Parliament, perhaps without necessarily passing through
the whole of the elaborate process by which ordinary legislation is
enacted. I believe there are many who share my conviction that a
development in this direction represents the healthiest method of
introducing a real element of industrial self-government. But for the
moment we are concerned with it as a means of relieving Parliament from
some very difficult functions which Parliament does not perform
conspicuously well, without qualifying its supreme and final authority.
One final point. If it is true, as I have argued, that the decay of the
prestige and efficiency of Parliament is due to the fact that it is
already overloaded with functions and responsibilities, it must be
obvious that to add to this burden the responsibility for controlling
the conduct of great industries, such as the railways and the mines,
would be to ensure the breakdown of our system of government, already on
the verge of dislocation. In so far as it may be necessary to undertake
on behalf of the community the ownership and conduct of any great
industrial or commercial concern, I submit that it is essential that it
should not be brought under the direct control of a ministerial
department responsible to Parliament. Yet the ultimate responsibility
for the right conduct of any such undertaking (_e.g._ the telephones,
electric supply, or forests) must, when it is assumed by the State, rest
upon Parliament. How is this ultimate responsibility to be met? Surely
in the way in which it is already met in the case of the Ecclesiastical
Commissioners or the Port of London Authority--by setting up, under an
Act of Parliament, an appropriate body in each case, and by leaving to
it a large degree of freedom of action, subject to the terms of the Act
and to the inalienable power of Parliament to alter the Act. In such a
case the Act could define how the authority should be constituted, on
what principles its functions should be performed, and how its profits,
if it made profits, should be distributed. And I suggest that there is
no reason why the Post Office itself should not be dealt with in this
way.
It is only a fleeting and superficial survey which I have been able to
give of the vast and complex themes on which I have touched; and there
is no single one of them with which I have been able to deal fully. My
purpose has been to show that in the political sphere as well as in the
social and economic spheres vast tasks lie before Liberalism, and,
indeed, that our social and economic tasks are not likely to be
efficiently performed unless we give very serious thought to the
political problem. Among the heavy responsibilities which lie upon our
country in the troubled time upon which we are entering, there is none
more heavy than the responsibility which rests upon her as the pioneer
of parliamentary government--the responsibility of finding the means
whereby this system may be made a respected and a trustworthy instrument
for the labours of reconstruction that lie before us.