tendency in this country is to have important legislation prepared by special committees, or by commissions, or under the direction of the administration. A drafting service, whose operations are practically confined to the preparation of Members' Bills, is, therefore, a service confined to preparing bills not likely to become law, or pertaining to matters of comparatively slight significance. Such a service can never have an important influence on actual legislation and will never receive either from the legislature or the public that attention and consequent support which is essential to efficient work. The tendency to have legislation on important subjects, prepared for submission to the legislature by persons especially designated for that purpose, is one which is on the whole producing excellent results. A commission charged with the preparation of a bill on a particular subject, is usually composed, in part at least, of experts on the subject, and it is customary for them to secure as secretary or special draftsman some one learned in the law. But the average lawyer of experience is very far from being a trained draftsman, and bills prepared by commissions, while usually a great improvement on bills introduced by members on their own initiative, are by no means free from faults of form and graver faults of confusion and obscurity of expression, all of which could have been easily avoided, if, in addition to special expert service, the body responsible for the bill had at their disposal the services of a trained draftsman and had availed themselves of such services.

The efficiency of the drafting service depends not only on the personnel, and on the recognition of certain fundamental principles of organization and operation, but also, your committee believes, on the existence of a harmonious body of principles to be observed, in the drafting of legislation. It is, however, obvious that some systematic plan and effort will be needed to produce a harmonious body of principles which can be used by drafting bureaus.

As we look to constructive work in economic and social science to furnish principles of legislation on its substantive side, so we have to look to legal science to furnish such principles for the formal or technical side of legislation. Thus the history of

liquor legislation in this country furnishes much valuable data in the matter of law enforcement which should be made available in the drafting of other classes of statutes; the same is true of factory and labor legislation for the problem of meeting the most obvious contrivances for evading statutory requirements.

Unfortunately there is no book written in the English language discussing, in the light of administrative and judicial experience, the legal ways and means by which a given legislative policy can best be rendered effective, or the arrangements and institutions which at present serve that end.' The reason for this must be found in the large commercial demand for legal works available for the business of litigation, which has absorbed the attention of jurists to the utter neglect of scholarly or literary service to the no less important business of legislation.

The lawyer's treatment of the law is analytical, the legislator's constructive. To the lawyer it is a fixed quantity to which he must adjust himself, to the legislator a potential force which he may fashion for his purpose. Obviously, the two points of view are entirely different. The material that the lawyer needs has been collected and digested with a degree of completeness that leaves hardly anything to be desired. But while the legal material that the legislator needs, the history of statutes and of their construction by the courts may also be found, to a considerable extent at least, scattered through the law reports, there is no key to it through digests or treatises adapted for his purposes. In many cases the attorneys of private interests alone possess the knowledge that is needed for intelligent legislation and the public does not always profit by that knowledge.

Your committee, therefore, submits that the Association should lend its influence and aid toward the work that needs to be done in this field. The object to be aimed at ultimately would be the production of something like a legislative manual or code, a collection of directions or suggestions to draftsmen, and of model

'A number of very useful and practical suggestions for the drafting of statutes are contained in A Legislative Handbook, A. R. Willard, New York and London, 1890, now unfortunately out of print. A more cursory treatment is found in a recent book on Statute Law Making by Chester Lloyd Jones, Boston, 1913.

clauses for constantly recurring statutory provisions and problems. Carefully worked out, and having the sanction of the approval of representative bodies of lawyers and of students of legislation, such a guide could not fail of having considerable effect of drafting all over the country, and the establishment of drafting bureaus would be appropriately supplemented by giving their work from the very start a scientific and uniform direction.

As a preliminary part of the work, some systematic plan of topics should be agreed upon for further elaboration. The committee, in Appendix C of this report, presents a tentative draft of such a plan. It is understood that a committee of the American Political Science Association will recommend a similar arrangement of topics, and it is very probable that directors of existing bureaus and others will aid in working out such a plan. If the Association sees fit to continue this committee, we believe that it should be directed to formulate and report to the Association a legislative manual or code as above described, if further investigation shows such preparation to be practical. The committee should also have permission to co-operate in the preparation of the manual with other public bodies interested.

Your committee believe that the establishment of permanent reference and drafting services and the general use of a harmonious body of principles relating to the science of legislative drafting will do much to prevent the enactment by legislatures of unconstitutional, obscure and otherwise defective legislation. At the same time, your committee realizes that legislation effective to its purpose can only be normally produced when legislative procedure tends to insure that all bills of moment shall be carefully prepared, and, being so prepared, also insures for them thorough consideration. England has apparently evolved a legislative procedure which, in the great majority of cases, produces this result. This has been accomplished through the rules of the House of Commons, which practically confine the attention of Parliament to bills introduced by the Government. Though any member has the right to introduce a bill on any subject, the rules have assigned the largest part of the time of Parliament to Government Bills. The executive or cabinet is part of the legislature

and primarily responsible for the initiation of all important legislation. Thus Mr. Bryce informs us that: "Four-fifths of all the bills that are passed, nineteen-twentieths of those that are of high significance are passed at the instance of the executive government."

Our conditions are not those of England. The separation of the legislative from the executive has been too long a part of our constitutional system to make the consideration of the adoption of the English system now practical. Our efforts, therefore, should be devoted to evolving from our own conditions a legislative procedure which will normally produce what the English procedure produces, namely, the careful preparation and consideration of all legislative enactments of importance.

Several plans with this object in view have been suggested, or are in actual operation, in some one state. Your committee has given such consideration to these plans as time permitted, though in respect to two only do we feel that we can express at present even a qualified opinion.

First, it is suggested that the right of the member of the legislature to introduce bills should be curtailed. Your committee does not believe that this is practical or, if practical, desirable. To require the consent of a certain number of members to the introduction of a measure, which is the form which the suggestion usually takes, would probably be ineffective, as out of courtesy the permission could practically always be obtained from the requisite number. If effective, it may well be urged that the free right of introducing bills even the custom of members introducing bills at the request of a constituent, though out of sympathy with its provisions-through the consequent publication and publicity, has often distinct educational value. The effect

'From the testimony of Hon. James Bryce, before the Library Committee of the House of Representatives, February 20, 1912, published as Appendix B to Senate Report No. 1271, Sixty-second Congress, third session. This Senate Report is that of the Senate Committee on the Library. The Report recommends the passage of the bill to create a drafting bureau and to establish a legislative reference division of the Library of Congress. See Appendix A, infra.

of the introduction of a large number of bills in producing illconsidered and inadequate legislation is probably exaggerated. In most cases a considerable portion of the bills introduced deal with matters of local and special concern, while the great majority even of bills of general import are not introduced with any idea of their present consideration by the legislature. If we take from the statutes passed the local and special acts and the appropriation acts, the criticism which can be usually made as to the residue is not so much its volume, but that much of it shows, entirely apart from the wisdom of the policy which it is desired to express, the haste with which the statute was prepared and the lack of consideration given to the adequacy of its provisions to effectuate its purpose.

A plan worthy, we believe, of careful consideration is that recently adopted in California. By constitutional enactment the legislature meets bi-annually on a given Monday in January next succeeding the election of members, and continues in session for a period not exceeding thirty days. Thereupon a recess must be taken for a period of not less than thirty days, and it is provided that on the reassembling of the legislature no bill shall be introduced in either house without the consent of three-quarters of its members. This constitutional provision was adopted in October, 1911. The plan, therefore, has only been in operation during the existence of the present legislature. In the Senate 1717 bills were introduced during the first session, 60 at the second session. In the House 2021 bills were introduced at the first session, 105 at the second. The information received by your committee would indicate that there is considerable difference of opinion among the members of the legislature as to the result of the operation of the plan. Where the opinion is favorable, it seems to be admitted that the experience so far is not conclusive.

Another plan designed to create an opportunity for due consideration of the measures of first importance is that recently put in force in Illinois, where the House, at the present session, established a rule favoring Administration Bills (made such by a message of the governor), which, under the rule, go at once to