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The text regards only the tests by which it is decided whether a wrong has been done . The principle , therefore , of parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this , namely that " Parliament " has " the right to make or unmake any law whatever ; and further , that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament , " 8 and further that this right or 1 Compare the Introduction to the second edition of Law and Public Opinion in England during the Nineteenth Century . The training they might need would be provided at public expense , since it would no longer make sense to require judicial candidates to pay for their own training , other than that which would enable them to score high on the examination questions on judicial procedure . In old times a use was a chose in action , - - that is , was considered very nearly from the point of view of contract , and it had a similar history to that which has been traced in other cases . In other words , by a process similar to that which we use to select trial juries , and arguably are supposed to use to select grand juries . The expression " veto " reminds us also that those who advocate the introduction of the referendum into England in fact demand that the electors , who are now admittedly the political sovereign of England , should be allowed to play the part in legislation which was really played , and with popular approval , by e.g . Is it not one example of the perplexities involved in any plan of Imperial federalism , and of the intellectual levity with which they are met , that our Federalists never have given a dear and , so to speak , intelligible idea of what is to be under a federal government the real position not of the United Kingdom but of that small country limited in size , but still of immense power , which is specifically known by the august name of England ? In the first Lecture of this course the thought with which we have to deal was shown in its theological stage , to borrow Comte 's well-known phraseology , as where an axe was made the object of criminal process ; and also in the metaphysical stage , where the language of personification alone survived , but survived to cause confusion of reasoning . In England the introduction of the referendum means , it is urged , the transfer of political power from knowledge to ignorance . A federal constitution is , as compared with a unitary constitution , a weak form of government . First : The attempt to form a federal constitution for the Empire is at this moment full of peril to England , to the Dominions , and , it may well be , to the maintenance of the British Empire . My aim in this Introduction has been to place before my readers the strongest argument against and also the strongest argument in favour of the introduction of the referendum into the constitution of England . The new convention , which all but compels a Ministry defeated at a general election to resign office , is , on the face of it , an acknowledgment that the electorate constitutes politically the true sovereign power.65 It also tends to convert a general election into a decision that a particular party shall hold office for the duration of the newly-elected Parliament and , in some instances , into the election of a particular statesman as Prime Minister for that period.66 This new convention is the sign of many minor political or constitutional changes , such , for example , as the introduction of the habit , quite unknown not only to statesmen as far removed from us as Pitt , but to Peel , to Lord John Russell , or to Lord Palmerston , of constantly addressing , not only when out of office but also when in office , speeches to some body of electors and hence to the whole country . The objections to the creed of federalism , in so far as it means the building up of a federal constitution for the Empire , or rather for England and her Dominions , may be summed up in the statement that this belief in a new-fangled federalism is at bottom a delusion , and a delusion perilous not only to England but to the whole British Empire . Second : The unity of the Empire does not require the formation of a federal or of any other brand-new constitution .