1823.

Greece. J.B's Observations on particular Articles

Warning against latent negatives

Now as to this or that operation /the several operations/ taken in detail

1. By Article 30th "Every Act of the Senate is signed by the President and countersigned by the principal Secretary. Suppose then an Act the tenor of which does not suit his views: what is the consequence? He withholds his signature, and no such Act can come into existence.

Moreover in this same power he has a sharer it has been seen in the principal Secretary.

2. A second means of applying the President's particular Veto is put into his hands by the next Article, Article 31. "The President" (it says) "transmitts the Resolutions of the Senate to the Council" (meaning the Executive Council) and submitts them to its approbation." Good. But in the mean time though inexplicably they have not the less effectually been thus submitted in the first place to the approbation of this same all powerful functionary. Do they suit his views he transmitts them accordingly: do they thwart his views, he keeps them where they are. President of so stiled Legislative Senate to President or other most infuential member of the so stiled Executive Council - "You see this Resolution: what will you give me if I transmitt it to you? - what will you give me if I keep it back." The language will naturally be, the very quintessence of decorum: and so it may be, while this and nothing else is at the bottom of it.

3. Article 36, after saying that "Every Member of the Senate may propose a project of law in writing, goes on and says "which the President refers to the examination of a Committee". Suppose then introduced in this manner a project of law which has the misfortune not to suit the views of this great functionary, what becomes of it? He receives it, omitts to forward it to any Committee, and there is an end of it. It is thus stifled in embryo.

4. So much for the President of the so-stiled Legislative Senate. Now again for the Principal Secretary of that same body. In and by Art. 46 he is once more let in for an equal share with the President as above in the negative which we have seen the President put in possession of by Article 31 with regard to all Resolutions of that same Senate. "He" (the principal Secretary) says the Article "receives from the President the Resolutions of the Senate and transmitts them to the Council" - namely the so stiled Executive Council. Thus then, if it be the pleasure of the President not to deliver them to the Principal Secretary, or of the Principal Secretary not to transmitt them to that same Council, there is an end of these same Resolutions.