The qualifications to the rule prohibiting the delegation of legislative power which have been earlier adverted to are those which provide that while the real law-making power may not be delegated, a discretionary authority may be granted to executive and administrative authorities: (1) To determine when and how the powers conferred are to be exercised; and (2) to establish administrative rules and regulations, binding both upon their subordinates and upon the public, fixing in detail the manner in which the requirements of the statutes are to be met, and the rights therein created to be enjoyed.

The principle which permits the legislature to provide that the administrative agent may determine when the circumstances are such as require the application of a law is defended upon the ground that at the time this authority is granted, the rule of public policy, which is the essence of the legislative act, is determined by the legislature. In other words, the legislature, as it is its duty to do, determines that, under given circumstances, certain executive or administrative action is to be taken, and that, under other circumstances, different or no action at all is to be taken. What is thus left to the administrative official is not the legislative determination of what public policy demands, but simply the ascertainment of what the facts of the case require to be done according to the terms of the law by which he is governed. Thus in Locke's Appeal3 the court say: "To assert that a law is less than a law, because it is made to depend on a future event or act, is to rob the legislature of the power to act wisely for the public welfare whenever a law is passed relating to a state of affairs not yet developed, or to things future and impossible to fully know.

Europe by governments of all classes from the earliest history, and the exercise of which has probably done more to promote civilization than all the other causes combined; which has been constantly exercised in every part of our country from its earliest settlement, and which has raised up among us many of the most valuable institutions." Cf. Cooley, Const. Lim., 7th ed., 265, note, and authorities there cited. 3 72 Pa. St. 491.

The court cannot delegate its power to make a law, but it can make a law to delegate a power to determine some fact or state of things upon which the law makes, or intends to make, its own action depend. To deny this would be to stop the wheels of government. There are many things upon which wise and useful legislation must depend which cannot be known to the law-making power, and must, therefore, be a subject of inquiry and determination outside of the halls of legislation." 4