Parliamentary Control of External Relations in the British Dominions

Abstract

The British parliamentary system presumes a working government majority, or else an appeal to the electorate, with the inevitable confusion of issues involved therein. Hence, in studying the conduct of foreign relations throughout the British Commonwealth, little profit is to be gained from analysis of anomalous instances where governments and parliaments are found to have been at variance on external policies. Whatever familiarity with the “checks and balances” tradition may incline us to assume, such cases are no adequate criterion of democratization of control. On the contrary, this is to be found in the degree to which parliaments not merely are called upon to ratify governmental acts and policies, but are taken into the confidence of governments and consulted before decisions are conclusively formulated. In the second place, “external relations” should, in the case of the Dominions, include relations with other members of the Commonwealth, especially the mother country. These still comprise the bulk of their external contacts; and from the standpoint of the problem now under discussion, no actual difference in kind exists between them and truly foreign affairs. Moreover, it is upon the procedural foundation of the one that the principles governing the conduct of the other have been based.As it happens, the issue of parliamentary control has been agitated most zealously in connection with representation at the Imperial Conference, the supreme council of the British League of Nations.