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
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