The Government of England Part 34

[Sidenote: The Guillotine.]

While the closure is effective in bringing to an end debate on a single question, or in getting past some one particularly difficult point in the career of a bill, it is quite inadequate for pa.s.sing a great, complicated government measure that provokes relentless opposition. Here it is as useless as the sword of Hercules against the Hydra. Amendments bristle by the score at every clause, and spring up faster than they can be cut off. The motion that certain words "stand part of a clause," or that a "clause stand part of the bill," was intended to work like the hero's hot iron, because if the motion is adopted no amendment can afterward be moved to that word or that clause. But in practice such motions cannot be used ruthlessly. The government discovered the insufficiency of the closure under the Standing Order of 1887, during the debates on the very bill whose enactment it had been adopted to secure, and resorted to a procedure which had already been used by Mr.

Gladstone on a couple of Irish coercion bills in 1881.[298:1] Five days had been consumed on the first reading of the Irish Crimes Act of 1887, seven on the second reading, and fifteen days more had been spent in Committee of the Whole on four out of the twenty clauses of the bill; when the government moved that at ten o'clock on June 17, being the end of the next week, the Chairman should, without further debate, put all questions necessary to bring the committee stage to an end.[298:2] The motion was adopted, and from its trenchant operation the process was known as the "guillotine." It served its purpose, but from the point of view of parliamentary deliberation it was a very imperfect instrument, for all the clauses after the sixth were put to vote without amendment or debate.[299:1]

[Sidenote: Closure by Compartments.]

The defect of the guillotine, that it resulted in needlessly long discussions on a few early clauses, to the entire neglect of the rest, was largely remedied in the case of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. After twenty-eight nights had been spent in committee on the first four clauses, the House, on June 30, adopted a resolution that debate on clauses five to eight should close on July 6, on clauses nine to twenty-six on July 13, on clauses twenty-seven to forty on July 20, and on the postponed and new clauses on July 27.[299:2] This form of procedure, sometimes called closure by compartments, has the merit of distributing the discussion over different parts of the measure, and of affording at least a probability that any provision exciting general interest will receive some measure of attention. It was used again on the Evicted Tenants Bill in 1894,[299:3] and the Education Bill in 1902;[299:4] and may now be said to have become a regular, because a necessary, practice in the case of difficult and hotly contested measures. But save in the case of supply, it has been the subject of a special resolution pa.s.sed for a particular bill, under what have been treated as exceptional conditions, and it has found no mention in the standing orders.[299:5]

[Sidenote: Closure of Supply.]

The guillotine has been applied more systematically to supply. Formerly the estimates were taken in their order, with the result that much time was wasted early in the session over trivial matters, like the repairs of royal palaces in Cla.s.s I.; while great appropriations of important departments were rushed through at the f.a.g end of the session.[300:1]

But at the instance of Mr. Balfour a sessional order was pa.s.sed in 1896 allowing in that session twenty days for supply, with a provision for taking a vote, without further debate, on every grant left when the days expired, the time allowed being, he thought, about the average amount heretofore devoted to the subject.[300:2] As the grants in supply, unlike the clauses of a bill, can be brought before the House in any order that the minister may choose, there was not the same need of a closure by compartments; but in order to remove any fear that the government might hold back certain appropriations, Mr. Balfour said that the important grants, and those which any group of members wanted to discuss, would be taken first.[300:3] The resolution was renewed from year to year[300:4] until by the new rules of 1902 it was permanently embodied in the standing orders.[300:5]

As the rule now stands, twenty days,[300:6] all to come before Aug. 5, are allotted for the consideration of the estimates,[300:7] and on the days so allotted no other business can be taken before midnight.[300:8]

At ten o'clock on the last day but one the Chairman must put to vote every question needed to dispose of the grant under consideration; and then put in succession all the outstanding grants by cla.s.ses, those in each cla.s.s being taken together and put as a single question. At ten o'clock on the last day the Speaker follows the same process for closing the report stage of the estimates.

The real object of the debates in supply at the present day is not financial discussion, but criticism of the administration of the departments, their work being brought under review as their estimates are considered.[301:1] In that light the new procedure has worked very well. Complaint has been made that the government no longer cares what grants are brought forward for debate--leaving that to the Opposition,--or how long the discussion upon them may take, or whether it ends with a vote upon them or not, knowing very well that all these grants must be adopted under closure when the twenty days expire.[301:2]

This is perfectly true; but on the other hand the procedure gives the fullest opportunity for criticising the administration, and forcing a discussion of grievances, the matters to be criticised being selected by the critics themselves. Although the Opposition, as in duty bound, resisted the adoption of some portions of the rule, it may be safely said that the rule itself will not be repealed by any government that may come to power.

FOOTNOTES:

[292:1] Lecky attributed what he called "the enormous and portentous development of parliamentary speaking" partly to the scenes of violence and obstruction, which have weakened both the respect for the House and the timidity that imposed a restraint on idle speech; partly to the growth of the provincial press which reports members in full in their own const.i.tuencies; and partly to the vast increase in stump oratory which has given nearly all members a fatal facility. ("Democracy and Liberty," I., 146-47.) A traveller is struck both by the universal fluency, and by the ephemeral character, of public speaking in England, at the present day.

[293:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVII., 1141-42.

[293:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXVI., 2032-33.

[293:3] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 52-53.

[294:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 155-56.

[294:2] _Ibid._, 435-38, 1070-71, 1343-44; CCLIX., 888-90; also published in Com. Papers, 1881, LXXIV., 1-9.

[294:3] Such as that debate on dilatory motions should be confined to the motion; that the House should go in and out of committee without question put; that divisions frivolously claimed, and dilatory motions made for delay might be refused by the chair; and most striking of all, a provision for stopping debate altogether upon a certain stage of a bill by putting all outstanding amendments and clauses at a fixed time--a shadow of the future guillotine. This process was, indeed, employed by Mr. Gladstone to pa.s.s two Irish bills in that very session.

[295:1] A number of new rules were added at this time, and the standing orders were rearranged and put into their present sequence. Com. Papers, 1882, LII., 139, 243. The standing order on this subject became No. 14.

[295:2] The Standing Order of 1882 was not repealed until 1888.

[295:3] In the same way a motion may be made to put forthwith the question that certain words stand part of a clause, or that a clause stand part of the bill, and this cuts off summarily all amendments to those words or that clause. These standing orders are now Nos. 26 and 27.

[296:1] Owing partly to the extension of an automatic form of closure, to be explained hereafter, the applications in 1903 fell to thirteen.

[296:2] From 1887 to 1905, inclusive, the closure was moved by private members 517 times, and consent was refused in 178 of these cases. The proportion of refusals is almost uniform throughout the period, rather increasing during the last few years.

Closure has failed for lack of 100 affirmative votes only once in the last ten years. That was in 1905.

[296:3] From 1887 to 1896, inclusive, the closure was moved by the government 313 times, and consent was withheld in 52 of these cases.

From 1897 to 1905 it was so moved 338 times, but consent was withheld only 23 times.

[297:1] _Cf._ Palgrave, "The House of Commons," Ed. of 1878, 41-42.

[297:2] Now S.O. 1 (4).

[297:3] It is commonly stated that closure cannot be used in a standing committee, (Ilbert, "Manual," ---- 80, note, 135 note); but it was done on July 12, 1901, in the Standing Committee on Law; and although the persons aggrieved stated that they should bring the matter to the attention of the House, they did not feel confidence enough in their case to do so. (See _The Times_, July 17, 1901, and the Political Notes in the number for July 13. Curiously enough the incident is not mentioned in the report of the meeting of the committee in that number.) For other statements of its use in a standing committee, _cf._ 2d Rep.

of Sel. Com. on House of Commons (Procedure), May 25, 1906, Qs. 418, 420.

Since this was written closure in standing committees has been sanctioned by a change in the standing orders; twenty affirmative votes being required.

[298:1] After giving notice of his intention to do so, he moved, on Feb.

21, 1881, that all clauses and amendments of the Protection of Life and Property (Ireland) Bill should be put to vote in Committee of the Whole at twelve o'clock that night. This was done, and repeated upon the report stage of the bill (Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 1092, 1344, 1392, 1472, 1608, 1665, 1672-75). The same process was adopted a few days later for the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill. (Hans. 3 Ser. CCLIX., 657, 659, 691-95,697, 740, 762-65.)

[298:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCCXV., 1594.

[299:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCCXVI., 484-88.

[299:2] Hans. 4 Ser. XIV., 590.

[299:3] Hans. 4 Ser. XXVII., 1410-46. In this case, for the first time, the report stage was included in the original motion.

[299:4] Hans. 4 Ser. CXIV., 735-38.

[299:5] One of the latest and most elaborate examples of its use was on the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill of 1907. Hans. 4 Ser. CLXXIII., 1367-70, 1463-66.

[300:1] _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. x.x.xVII., 727.

[300:2] _Ibid._, 732.

[300:3] _Ibid._, 728-730.

[300:4] It may be a.s.sumed that the House will never reject any of the outstanding grants, but a useless number of divisions might be forced in voting upon them. As the number of such grants is usually little short of one hundred, the time wasted in walking through the lobbies on the last night might be monstrous. To avoid this a rule was adopted in 1901 that when the allotted time expired, all the remaining grants in any one cla.s.s should be put to vote together. Hans. 4 Ser. XCVIII., 1619-20.

[300:5] S.O. 15.

[300:6] Three more days may be added by special order.

[300:7] These include the votes on account, but only one day can be given to each of the three votes on account, and only one sitting, or half a day, to the report of such a vote. Days devoted to supplementary estimates or votes of credit are not included; nor are those days on which the question must be put that the Speaker leave the chair, because those days are really occupied not by the votes of supply, but by general criticism of the government. (See Chap. XVIII., _infra_.) The short sitting of Friday counts as half a day.

This does not apply to private bills, questions, and the other matters that are taken up in the first hour, before the regular orders of the day are reached.

[301:1] Mr. Balfour said this frankly in the debate on the rule in 1896.

(Hans. 4 Ser. x.x.xVII., 724-26.)

[301:2] Hans. 4 Ser. XCVIII., 1548.