"truth emerges from error more
readily than from confusion."

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 9: The last report of the Select Committee on Expenditure
shows some of the grounds why this is urgent, and that very strong
resolution will be needed to effect reform. The Prime Minister's
determined action in insisting on unity of command for the Allied forces
has already saved the country from enormous losses and done more than
any other action of the Government to bring victory nearer. Any layman
of average intelligence could see that the step was necessary; where did
the opposition come from? There are politicians who would use their
country's troubles to secure a party triumph.]

[Footnote 10: The abuse of the power of asking questions in Parliament
has become a scandal. There are a few persistent persons whose desire to
embarrass a Government they dislike, in carrying on the War, makes them
indifferent to the injury they may do to the national cause. Some check
is necessary. The right to question Ministers is one of the most
important safeguards against improper action by the executive, but the
House of Commons is discredited by the manner in which that right has
often been exercised of late. A report of proceedings in question-time
constantly brings to mind a scene in "Alice in Wonderland," and the
retort made to the arch-interrogator, "Why do you waste time asking
questions to which there is no answer?"]

CHAPTER XVII

RESTORATION OF LAW AND LIBERTY

_What is long suspended is in danger of being totally
abrogated._--EDMUND BURKE.

It is hardly too much to say that English Constitutional Law has been
scrapped since the War. Immediately after the establishment of Peace the
first duty will be to restore the old Constitutional Law which has been
suspended to meet the new conditions due to the War, and to revive again
the old safeguards for the liberty and rights of the subject against
arbitrary action by the executive. The nation has rightly acquiesced in
the exercise of powers by the executive during the War in a manner which
nothing but the necessity of the time could justify. Powers to take a
person's property at the will of some executive department without any
definite principle or procedure even for assessing compensation ought at
once to cease when there is no longer immediate urgency for using such
powers to secure the safety of the country. Powers to deprive persons of
their liberty on vague cha