*117. Effects of the Act.*--By the provisions which have been enumerated the co-ordinate and independent position which, in law if not in fact, the British upper chamber, as a legislative body, has occupied through the centuries has been effectually subverted. Within the domain of legislation, it is true, the Lords may yet exercise influence of no inconsiderable moment. To the chamber must be submitted every project of finance and of legislation which it is proposed to enact into law, and there is still nothing save a certain measure of custom to prevent the introduction of even the most important of non-financial measures first of all in that house. But a single presentation of any money bill fulfills the legal requirement and ensures that the measure will become law. For such a bill will not be presented until it has been passed by the Commons, and, emanating from the cabinet, it will not be introduced in that chamber until the assent of the executive is assured. The upper house is allowed one month in which to approve or to reject, but, so far as the enactment of the bill is concerned, the result is the same in any case. Upon ordinary legislation the House of Lords possesses still a veto--a veto, however, which is no longer absolute but only suspensive. The conditions which are required for the enactment of non-fiscal legislation without the concurrence of the Lords are not easy to bring about, but their realization is not at all an impossibility. By the repeated rejection of proposed measures the Lords may influence public sentiment or bring about otherwise a change of circumstances and thus compass the defeat of the original intent of the Commons, and this is the more possible since a minimum period of two years is required to elapse before a non-fiscal measure can be (p. 114) carried over the Lords' veto. But the continuity of political alignments and of legislative policy is normally such in Great Britain that the remarkable legislative precedence which has been accorded the Commons must mean in effect little less than absolute law-making authority.