Chapter VII 
REGULATIONS 
[T is the practice of Parliament to leave to the 
Privy Council or Government Departments or 
various public bodies the function of filling up the 
framework of many statutes, and prescribing the 
manner in which effect shall be given to their 
intentions. There are some who consider that this 
practice is carried too far, that under it the intention 
of Parliament may be defeated whether by defective 
or excessive exercise of the powers conferred on the 
central or local agencies responsible for imple- 
menting that intention, and that, as the value of 
most statutes depends on the way in which they 
are worked, Parliament ought to prescribe their 
working much more thoroughly and carefully, 
and say what it means in terms from which there 
is no escape by way of subtraction or addition. ‘This 
contention is supported by high judicial authority. 
To balance the considerations relevant to it would 
require a long essay. In support of the practice it 
may be advanced that the complexity of the modern 
social organism is so great that only superhuman 
wisdom could foresee all the circumstances, conditions 
and situations in which a statute would have to 
operate, that Parliamentary time is short and Parlia- 
mentary procedure is not favourable to the elaborate 
weighing of pros and cons of particular devices of 
[50