ON PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND ITS ORIGIN, DEVELOPMENT, AND PRACTICAL OPERATION BY ALPHEUS TODD, LL.D., C.M.G. LIBRARIAN OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE DOMINION OF CANADA AUTHOR OF PRACTICE AND PRIVILEGES OF THE TWO HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT' SECOND EDITION BY HIS SON IN TWO VOLUMES -VOL. I. LONDON 1887 All rights reserved EDITOR'S PREFACE. Ix presenting a second edition of Dr. Todd's work to the public, a word of explanation, and brief mention of the author's career, may not be inappropriate. In the month of January, 1884, the author was contemplating the expediency of issuing a new edition of this work, when his sudden death removed him from an active and laborious life, over fifty years of which was spent in the public service. The whole of his official life, from the date of his appointment, when he was but a mere lad, was spent in the Parliamentary Library, which in those days was but a nucleus of the fine collection that now stands a monument to the memory of his labours. His predilection for parliamentary studies developed at a remarkably early age, so that he found himself a constitutional adviser to the uninitiated members of the Upper and Lower Legislatures, who in those days of the dawn of constitutional government in Canada were-one might almost say— groping in darkness; for as yet no author had ventured on any treatise bearing on the practice and development of parliamentary government by which they might have been guided. This early training enabled the author, when but twenty years of age, to be the pioneer in the field with his first effort: The |