ABSTRACT
The adaptability of British parliamentary institutions is almost literally known to every schoolboy. The British Parliament would need to behave far more outrageously than any upstart legislative assembly on the Continent to create a substantial public opinion favourable to its abolition or radical reform. A degree of self-satisfaction is, perhaps, inevitable among the immediate beneficiaries of the present system. Few Cabinet ministers can see anything wrong with a collection of devices and conventions which, under the impact of an increasingly disciplined two-party system, gives them an authority which would have been the envy of their predecessors. The traditional functions of parliament are to pass legislation, to grant supply and to control the executive. The traditional sanction that it wields is the power to make and unmake governments. The effectiveness of its performance of these functions depends on the strength of the sanction.
