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FEDERAL GOVERNMENT.
Empire, of the United Kingdom as a whole, and of its several parts, have outgrown the existing means for dealing with them. The remedy lies in the recognition of the distinction between the different classes of business which we either attempt to deal with, often very ineffectually, or do not attempt to deal with at all, in the House of Commons, and of the necessity of allocating what may here be roughly described as Imperial business and domestic business to different legislative assemblies.
Local knowledge required for local legislation.To take another point of view-the waste of time and power under our present system, which compels questions of special regard to one part of the United Kingdom or the other to be dealt with in the overworked Imperial Parliament. Much of the legislation passed by the House of Commons is of special application to England, Scotland, or Ireland. We have a recent conspicuous instance in the passing of one Local Government Act for England and Wales, another in a different year for Scotland, and another in a different year again for Ireland. The proportion of statutes which have a special application to one country of the United Kingdom or the other is tending to increase. Excluding from consideration all statutes which apply to India and the Colonies, but including amongst the special statutes those general statutes which have clauses of special application, the proportion of general statutes may be taken roughly as follows: In 1837-46 at two to one; in 1861-70 at six to five; in 1891-1900 at three to five. A more careful examination of the statutes themselves might somewhat alter these figures, but, in any case, the great and increasing waste of time under a system which allows each country of the57
