The Mother of Parliaments Part 23

We live in a material age. The flowers of rhetoric bloom no longer in the cold business-like atmosphere of the parliamentary garden; only the more practical but unromantic vegetables remain. The rich embroideries of trope and metaphor have been roughly torn from modern speech, leaving the bare skeleton of reason exposed to the public gaze. The grandiose orator of the past, with his ornate phraseology, his graceful periods, his quotations from the poets, has been ousted by the pa.s.sionless debater, flinging, like the improvident O'Connell, his brood of robust thoughts into the world, without a rag to cover them. No one to-day would dream of expending fifty s.h.i.+llings--let alone fifty guineas--for the privilege of hearing a modern Sheridan address a twentieth-century Parliament; no modern Grattan (as Sheil might say) shatters the pinnacles of this establishment with the lightning of his eloquence.

The successful parliamentary speaker is no longer one who is able, in the words of Macaulay, to produce with rapidity a series of stirring but transitory impressions, to excite the minds of five hundred gentlemen at midnight, without saying anything that any of them will remember in the morning.[369] Rather is he the cold judicious politician who chooses his words less for their beauty than for their immunity from subsequent perversion, who can crystallise in a few brief sentences, within the compa.s.s of a few minutes, the opinions that it would have taken his ancestors as many hours to express in the turgid rhetoric of a bygone age. The orator--as the name was once understood--is now a _rara avis_, but seldom raising his tuneful voice above the raucous cawing of his fellows. And whoever feels with Gibbon that the great speakers fill him with despair, and the bad ones with terror, will leave the precincts of Parliament to-day more often terrorstricken than desperate. That this should be so is no reason for giving way to gloom or sorrow. Parliamentary eloquence is not necessarily the sign of a country's greatness. The English Parliament, which began by acclaiming Burke as the prince of orators, soon became indifferent to his powers, and ended by labelling him the "Dinner Bell." Fox has left no memorial of any good wrought by his oratory.

"Neither the Habeas Corpus Act, nor the Bill of Rights, nor Magna Charta originated in eloquence," and if it be true that "a senate of orators is a symptom of material decay,"[370] we may look forward to the future of England with calm and perfect confidence.

[369] "Essays," vol. ii. p. 206.

[370] Sir H. Crabb Robinson's "Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence," vol. i. p. 330.

CHAPTER XIII

PARLIAMENT AT WORK--(1)

In their efforts to grapple successfully with the ever-increasing ma.s.s of business brought before them, modern Parliaments show a tendency to prolong their labours to an ever-increasing extent. Each succeeding session lengthens, as Macaulay said, "like a human hair in the mouth."

In Tudor times the statutes to be pa.s.sed were few in number, and the time occupied in legislation was consequently short. Members returned by "rotten" boroughs had no temptation to be prolix; their seats did not depend upon their parliamentary exertions, and their speeches were therefore commendably brief. Parliament to-day is often censured for the sterility of its legislative output, but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries legislation in the modern sense of the word scarcely existed at all. Its time was chiefly spent in the discussion of libellous books and in disputes over const.i.tutional questions of privilege.

October and November were the months fixed for the meeting of Parliament in Hanoverian times, and the prorogation usually took place in April. From 1805 to 1820 it met after Christmas. Since 1820 February has been the month generally chosen. Nowadays, not only have the sessions grown much longer--even the feast of St. Grouse on the 12th of August is no longer observed by politicians--but the hours of each sitting have been considerably extended. The session of 1847 was prolonged over 293 days; the Parliament of 1852 met on November 4 and sat until August 20 of the following year, and during the last two months of that session the House of Commons continued sitting for fifteen out of every twenty-four hours. In 1908, which contained two sessions, the House sat for 253 days, and the session of 1909 lasted from February 16 till December 3, during the latter weeks of which all-night sittings were of the commonest occurrence.

In proportion as the daily labours of the Legislature increased the hour for commencing work became later and later. In Charles I.'s time Parliament often met as early as 7 a.m., and would sit until twelve, the afternoon being devoted to the work of the committees.[371] Later on the hour of meeting was fixed for 8 or 9 a.m., and the House usually rose at 4 p.m., or earlier. The Commons always showed the strongest disinclination to sit in the afternoon, either because the midday meal did not leave them in a fit condition to legislate, or because no regular provision was made for lighting the House when twilight fell. "This council is a grave council and sober," said a member in 1659, and "ought not to do things in the dark," and the Speaker would occasionally regard his inability to distinguish one member from another as a sufficient excuse for adjourning the House.[372] The practice of sitting regularly after dark did not commence until the year 1717, when, by an order of the House, the Sergeant-at-Arms was directed to bring in candles as soon as daylight failed. Prior to that year the employment of artificial light had to be made the subject of a special motion, and Sergeants were sometimes reprimanded for providing candles without the necessary order.

[371] On Sunday, August 8, 1641, both Houses attended divine service at St. Margaret's Church at 6 a.m., after which they sat in the House all the morning, and in the afternoon the King met them in the banqueting room at Whitehall. "Duirnall Occurrences," p. 80.

[372] Forster's "Grand Remonstrance," p. 342.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the hours of sitting varied from time to time. Up to 1888 the House of Commons sat from 10 a.m. until 3.45 p.m. In that year the time for meeting was fixed at 3 p.m. and this was subsequently postponed for an hour.

Sat.u.r.day and Sunday have long been recognised as regular parliamentary holidays, and on one other day in the week--either a Wednesday or Friday--the House of Commons has adjourned at an earlier hour than usual. This, however, was not always the case. In Stuart times Parliament sometimes sat on Sunday and even on Christmas Day,[373] and it was on a Sunday--December 18, 1831--that the Reform Bill was read a second time. This, however, was an exceptional instance, the adjournment over Sat.u.r.day having been initiated by Sir Robert Walpole, who, as a keen sportsman, was always anxious to get away to the country, and believed that, as Dryden says, it were:

"Better to hunt in fields for health unbought, Than fee the doctor for his noxious draught."

[373] Elsynge's "Ancient Method of Holding Parliaments," pp. 114-115.

In more recent times it became the fas.h.i.+on to adjourn the House on Derby Day, in order to allow legislators to take part in the sport of kings. In 1872, this adjournment was made the subject of a heated debate, and though the division that ensued resulted in a large majority for the holiday-makers, the claims of sport gradually gave way to the more pressing demands of business, and ten years later, when the Prevention of Crimes (Ireland) Act was under discussion, the matter was considered too serious to allow of the usual Derby Day adjournment. The late Sir Wilfrid Lawson once cynically argued that if the Derby Day became a recognised official holiday the Speaker of the House of Commons ought to go to Epsom in his State-coach, "as he did at the thanksgiving for the Prince of Wales's recovery." The game of politics is nowadays treated more gravely than ever, and the most frivolous of modern politicians would scarcely dream of suggesting that the stern business of Westminster should be deserted for the pleasures of Epsom Downs. The House of Lords has always, until a year or two ago, adjourned over Ash Wednesday and Ascension Day, on the ground that if they met they would be taken to Church at the Abbey; but lately they have braved this terror and nothing so serious has happened.

Prior to 1882 the House of Lords met at five o'clock in the afternoon; they now meet three-quarters of an hour earlier.[374] Except under circ.u.mstances of special pressure they take holidays on Friday and Sat.u.r.day, and Sunday is, of course, for them, as for everybody else, a day of complete rest. Occasionally on other days the amount of work to be undertaken in the Upper House is so small as to be accomplished in a few minutes. The Lords, as has been irreverently observed, often sit scarcely long enough to boil an egg, and it is only towards the end of the session that they are compelled to extend their deliberations beyond the dinner-hour.[375]

[374] The judicial sittings of the House begin at 10.30 a.m.

[375] The proceedings very often resemble those of the old Irish House of Lords, which we find recorded in the Journals as "Prayers. Ordered, that the Judges be covered. Adjourned." See Charlemont's "Memoirs,"

vol. i. p. 103.

The labours of the Commons are more arduous, and entail longer hours of sitting. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the House meets at 2.45 p.m. and continues sitting until 11 p.m., unless the day's business has been disposed of before that hour. At eleven o'clock the Speaker interrupts business, after which no opposed matter can be dealt with, but, by a Standing Order, it is permissible for a Minister of the Crown, at the commencement of the day's work, to move the suspension of the eleven o'clock rule. In this case no interruption takes place until the business under discussion is finished.

All-night sittings are not uncommon nowadays, but in former times they occurred but rarely. In 1742, the Speaker once sat in the Chair for seventeen hours at a stretch, and some fifty years later we find the Commons keeping an occasional all-night vigil. Sir Samuel Romilly left the House one evening to go to bed, and returned the next morning to find his colleagues still sitting. He began his speech by saying that he made no apology for rising to address the House at such a time, as seven o'clock was his usual hour for "getting up."[376] In 1877, the Commons sat for a day and night, and again in 1881, the sitting on the latter occasion lasting forty-one hours; and since that day many sittings have been prolonged over the twenty-four hours. In 1909, the House sat after 1 a.m. o'clock on no less than thirty-seven occasions, after 4 a.m. on ten occasions, and once as late as nine o'clock in the morning.

[376] Palgrave's "House of Commons," p. 45.

Friday is, so to speak, a half-holiday for the Commons. On that day the House meets at noon, the interruption of business occurs at five o'clock, and, no matter what subject is under discussion, the House adjourns at 5.30 p.m. Before 1902, Wednesday was the day chosen for the short sitting, but the desire of many members to escape from London at the end of the week led to a change, and it is now possible for representatives from the most distant parts of England to pay flying weekly visits to their homes or const.i.tuencies.

For a few years recently the House of Commons always enjoyed an evening interval for dinner, but this agreeable adjournment was reluctantly sacrificed in 1906, and the "Speaker's chop" is now nothing but a fragrant memory. The dinner-hour is much too precious to be wasted at any table other than that of the House, for at 8.15 on many days any private business not disposed of at the beginning of the sitting is given precedence of all else, and what is known as "opposed" private business is also taken between that hour and 9.30 p.m.[377]

[377] The fact of any single member taking objection to a motion is sufficient to include it among "opposed" business, and in an a.s.sembly of partisans it would be too much to expect that any private member's Bill should avoid giving grounds of objection to at least one opponent.

For the information of members a daily "notice paper" is published in two editions--a blue edition in the morning, and a white one in the early afternoon--containing the orders of the day and all notices of motions. To this is attached the "votes and proceedings," division lists, and an account of the business accomplished at the last sitting. In the "order book" of the House, also published daily, is a list of all future business definitely a.s.signed to any particular sitting; while once a week a catalogue of all Public Bills that have been introduced, and some report of their progress, is also included.

By no means the least arduous of the many labours of Parliament are those which are undertaken by legislators serving upon the various Committees, of which the public knows so little, but whose work is very necessary to the carrying on of public business.

The appointment of Select Committees in both Houses has been practised ever since the earliest days of Parliament. The duties of these subsidiary bodies, which may be appointed for any purpose, are prescribed by the terms of the reference: they may collect facts for future legislation, investigate conduct, or examine the terms of a Bill referred to them, thus saving the time of the House. To them go all opposed Private Bills, when counsel appear to argue the merits of clas.h.i.+ng interests.

The system of Committees perhaps originated in the conferences held in former times by the two Houses in the Painted Chamber. There are records of small deliberative bodies, somewhat similar in character to the modern Committees, in the middle of the sixteenth century. By the time Queen Elizabeth came to the throne such Committees were common, and were usually composed of members of one or other House. Select Committees did not exist until the eighteenth century, and were originally semi-judicial in character.

All members of the House of Commons are subject to be called upon to serve on Select Committees, being chosen for the purpose by a Committee of Selection, and the work thus done outside the actual Chamber adds considerably to the daily labours of politicians. No member may refuse to serve, if called upon to do so, and when, in 1846, Mr. Smith O'Brien declined to sit on an English Railway Committee, he was confined in the Clock Tower in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms.

The whole House can also resolve itself at any time into a Committee, when its function becomes one of "deliberation rather than inquiry."[378] Every Public Bill not referred to a Grand Committee must be considered in a Committee of the Whole House, and, indeed, the greater part of each session is occupied by this stage of legislation.

The Committee of Supply and the Committee of Ways and Means are both "Committees of the Whole House," and are appointed to discuss the financial projects of the Government, the one to supervise expenditure, the other to devise taxation.

[378] May, p. 430.

A Committee of the Whole House differs in no respect from the House itself, save that it is presided over by a chairman in place of the Speaker, and that the mace is removed from the Table. There are also some changes in the procedure of debate, as, for example, the cancelling of the rule forbidding a member to speak twice on the same question.

The idea of forming the House itself into a committee has developed, like so many parliamentary inst.i.tutions, gradually and almost unconsciously. In days when the Speaker was too often the spy of the King it was considered advisable to get rid of him, and this could best be done by turning the House into a Committee and putting some other member in the Chair.

The Chairman of Committees in the Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means, or his deputy, in the Commons, takes the Chair when the House is in Committee, but it is permissible for either House to nominate any one of their number as a temporary Chairman.[379]

[379] In 1641, during the Long Parliament, Hyde was appointed Chairman of Committees, so as to get him out of the way, that he might not obstruct business by too much speaking. Parry's "Parliaments of England," p. 354.

As a subst.i.tute for Committees of the Whole House in the Commons, two large Standing Committees, sometimes called Grand Committees, numbering from sixty to eighty members, are appointed to consider respectively all Bills relating to Law and Trade committed to them by the House. Besides the smaller committees already referred to there are Sessional Committees, appointed for each session, consisting of from eight to twelve members--as, for instance, the committee on Public Accounts, which meets once a week to look into the department of the Auditor-General--which control the internal arrangements of the House; and joint Committees of the two Houses, which discuss matters in which both are interested.

In the Lords also Standing Committees were inst.i.tuted in 1889, but these were to supplement and not supersede the Whole House Committee stage, and after an experience of more than twenty years have proved their insufficient utility, they were abolished on June 24, 1910.

In the sixteenth century committees generally met outside the House, in the Star Chamber, in Lincoln's Inn, or elsewhere, but they have not done so for many years, numerous committee-rooms being nowadays provided within the precincts of the House.

At the commencement of every session the House of Lords elects a Chairman of Committees from among its own members. His duty it is to preside over Committees of the Whole House, or over Select Committees on whom the power of appointing their own Chairman is not expressly conferred. He is a salaried official of Parliament, and receives a sum of 2500 a year for his services. Similar duties are undertaken in the House of Commons by a Chairman of Committees and a Deputy Chairman, at salaries of 2500 and 1000 respectively.

The Crown usually appoints by commission one or more Lords to supply the place of Lord Chancellor, should that official be unavoidably absent. On emergency it may be moved that any lord present may be appointed temporarily to sit Speaker. In the House of Commons the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Deputy Chairman are similarly empowered to replace the Speaker when absent.

The problem of providing a subst.i.tute for the Speaker was not settled until 1855, prior to which date no steps seem to have been taken to fill the Chair in the event of a Speaker's sudden illness or absence.

It appears to have been considered inadvisable to frame any scheme of relief which should facilitate his frequent absence. It was, further, the general sense of the House that no temporary president could command that implicit acquiescence in the rulings of the Chair which is so necessary for the maintenance of order in debate.

To the Chairman of Committees, whom one would regard as a natural subst.i.tute for the Speaker, the House has never been willing to accord the complete consideration to which the Chair is ent.i.tled; the fact that he is liable at any moment to sink again into the body of the House robs this official of much of his authority. In the reign of James I. we find a Chairman complaining that some member had threatened to "pull him out of the Chair, that he should put no more tricks upon the House." And in 1810 another member, Fuller by name, who had lost the Chairman's eye and his own temper, called that official a "d---- insignificant puppy," and said that he didn't care a snap of the fingers for him or for the House either.[380]

[380] Lytton's "Life of Palmerston," vol. i. p. 115.

The question of replacing the Speaker has, therefore, always been a delicate one, and for many years no attempt was made to solve it. In 1656, owing to the illness of Sir Thomas Widdrington, another member occupied the Chair for a period of a few weeks, and, during the next few years, several Speakers complained of ill-health and were temporarily relieved. From 1547, when the Journals commence, to 1660, the Speaker was only absent on twelve occasions, and during the next hundred years the records of the House show only six cases of absence.

The inconvenience caused by the rule which necessitated an adjournment on such occasions--curiously few in number though they were--can readily be imagined. On the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, the whole proceedings of Parliament were delayed, and the sittings postponed from day to day owing to the Speaker being away in the country and taking a long time to travel to London. The duty of being ever in his place at times involved great hards.h.i.+ps. Addington was obliged to take the Chair three days after the death of his father, persevering by a painful effort in this stern adherence to the path of duty.[381]