J. W. GOUGH. Fundamental Law in English Constitutional History. Pp. x, 229. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press, 1955. 25s
| Author | Holden Furber |
| DOI | 10.1177/000271625630400156 |
| Published date | 01 March 1956 |
| Date | 01 March 1956 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
176
cessful
social
ventures.
Special
interest
lies
in
the
section
devoted
to
the
social
problem
of
illegitimacy
dealt
with here
with
unusual
directness.
The
Government
had
to
accept
rseponsibility
for
the
welfare
of the
unmarried
mothers
and
their
babies
and
to
continue
to
do
so
after
the
end
of
the
war.
To
make
sure
that
the
health
of
babies
and
children
did
not
suffer
from
food
short-
ages,
services
far
in
advance
of
those
pre-
viously
available
were
gradually
built
up
with
the
result
that
many
young
children
were
better
nourished
than
before
the
war.
Day
nurseries
were
established
both
to
relieve
householders
in
reception
areas
and
also,
more
especially,
to
allow
more
women
to
work
in
factories.
The
nursery
was
a
contribution
toward
the
feeling
of
mutual
responsibility
between
government
and
the
family.
Residential
nurseries
had
to
be
estab-
lished
for the
child
who
needed
full-time
care.
At
the
end
of
the
war
most
of
the
children
went
home,
but
some
of
the
local
authorities
were
prepared
to
continue
some
of
the
nurseries.
An
interesting
section
deals
with
tuberculosis-a
family
problem
and
emphasises
the
economic
strain
thrown
upon
the
family
if
the
breadwinner
has
to
undergo
long
treatment.
In
anticipation
of
many
air-raid
casualties,
some
sanatoriums
discharged
patients
back
to
their
homes
when
they
were
in
an
infectious
condition;
this
was
rectified,
but
the
danger
of
pollu-
tion
presently
became
apparent
in
public
air-raid
shelters.
The
scheme
of
tubercu-
losis
allowances
is
explained
in
detail
with
its
shortcomings.
With
the
assessment,
&dquo;it
is
not
surprising
that
the
tuberculosis
al-
lowances
scheme,
built
as
it
was
on
a
prin-
ciple
of
discrimination,
should
be
among
the
less
successful
aspects
of
war-time
so-
cial
policy.&dquo;
The
final
chapters
deal
with
the
nursing
services,
the
difficulties
of
extending
these
services
when
there
was
a
shortage
of
nurses
before
the
war,
which
became
even
more
acute
in
the
war
years.
This
book
is
a
most
valuable
record
supported
with
ap-
pendices
of
statistics
and
carefully
docu-
mented
information.
It
also
makes
fas-
cinating
and
easy
readirig
both
for
a
British
public
who
lived
through
the
years
de-
scribed
and
also
for
the
American
readers
who
have
not
experienced
it.
The
language
of
the
authors
is
so
free
from
&dquo;jargon&dquo;
that
it is
with
something
of
a
shock
that
one
reads
in
the
description
of
the
Home
Help
Service
that
the
Ministry
of
Health
should
encourage
immobile
women
over
40
to
take
it
up.
Such
are
the
pitfalls
of
ministerial
terminology.
DOROTHEA
RAMSEY
Keswick,
Cumberland
England
J.
W.
GOUGH.
Fundamental
Law
in
Eng-
lish
Constitutional
History.
Pp.
x,
229.
Oxford,
England:
Clarendon
Press,
1955.
25
s.
This
is
an
important
work
which
no
political
scientist
can
afford
to
neglect
not
so
much
because
of
many
new
contribu-
tions
made
to
the
subject,
but
because
of
its
penetrating
analysis
of
the
relevant
literature
and
its
illuminating
criticism
of
modern
studies
in
this
field.
The
book
ap-
parently
sprang
chiefly
from
Mr.
Gough’s
conviction
that
American
writers,
notably
Professor
C.
H.
McIlwain,
had
overempha-
sized
the
role
of
concepts
of
&dquo;fundamental
law&dquo;
as
limiting
the
competence
of
parlia-
ment
in
the
later
Middle
Ages
and
early
modern
times.
Students
of
this
subject
were
thus
led,
Mr.
Gough
feels,
to
read
back
into
the
English
constitutional
history
of
that
era
a
well-defined
doctrine
of
&dquo;ju-
dicial
review&dquo;
of
legislation.
Mr.
Gough
is
therefore
most
anxious
to
avoid
attrib-
uting
to
the
period
before
1641
either
the
later
British
doctrine
of
parliamentary
sovereignty
or
the
later
American
practise
of
judicial
review.
In
tracing
the
role
of
ideas
of
fundamental
law
in
English
con-
stitutional
history,
he
seems
to
have
three
aims
in
view:
first,
to
marshal
the
evidence
for
the
omnicompetence
of
parliament;
second,
to
show
that
the
struggle
which
culminated
in
the
English
Civil
War
was
not
essentially
a
contest
for
sovereignty
but
for
the
preservation
of
the
previously
&dquo;balanced
constitution,
in
which
the
law
held
the
royal
prerogatives
poised
against
the
rights
of
the
subject&dquo;
(p.
56) ;
and
third,
to
show
that
the
influence
of
the
older
ideas
of
fundamental
law
persisted
for
some
time
after
the
triumph
of
parlia-
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