The Government of England Part 39

As lately as twenty years ago motions made by private members were not infrequently carried against the opposition of the government--on the average nearly once a year. Like all other votes hostile to the ministers, however, they have become more rare, and in fact the last case of the kind occurred in 1893. But if private members' motions have not of late proved effectual, as a means of bringing some special part of the conduct of the government before the judgment of the House, and obtaining a test vote upon it, this may not hereafter be true in every case. They certainly furnish possible exception to the principle that in its relations with the government the House of Commons pa.s.ses judgment only upon the measures which the ministers choose to bring forward, or upon their policy and administrative record as a whole.

[Sidenote: Debate on Going into Supply.]

Amendments to the address, motions to adjourn and private members'

motions, are almost the only occasions at the present time when criticism of the government's action can be followed by a vote upon the act criticised. Formerly there was another opportunity as constant and prolific as any of them. This came when the House resolved itself into Committee of the Whole on Supply. Before taking up supply on any day a motion had to be made that the Speaker do leave the chair; and in accordance, it was said, with the ancient doctrine that redress of grievances should be considered before supply, any subject not requiring a substantive motion, or not a matter of detail properly discussed in the committee itself, could be debated either on the princ.i.p.al motion, or on an amendment framed for the purpose.[341:1] This gave frequent opportunities, throughout the greater part of the session, not only for finding fault with the conduct of the government, but also for taking the sense of the House thereon by means of amendments to the motion that the Speaker do leave the chair.

[Sidenote: How Limited in 1882.]

[Sidenote: In 1896 and 1902.]

The practice opened the door to a vexatious waste of time, and in 1882 it was limited by a standing order, which provided that on Monday or Thursday the Speaker should leave the chair without question put (and therefore without amendment or debate) unless on first going into supply on the estimates for the Army, Navy, or civil service, or on a vote of credit, an amendment should be moved, or question raised, relating to the estimates proposed to be taken in supply.[341:2] Tuesdays and Wednesdays were at that time private members' days, and whenever they were seized by the government, and used for supply, it was the habit to extend the order to them by special vote.[341:3] This left Friday as the only day on which the motion that the Speaker do leave the chair was open to amendment and debate.[341:4] Finally, in 1896, when a fixed number of days were allotted to supply, the standing order was extended to Friday also.

It was done at first by a sessional order; but this was renewed from year to year, until it was made permanent by the rules of 1902.[342:1]

[Sidenote: Effect of the Present Practice.]

At present the Speaker leaves the chair without putting any question, except on going into supply for the first time on the Army, Navy and civil service estimates; and on these three occasions the rule that discussion and amendment must relate to the estimates in that branch of supply about to be taken up is very strictly applied.[342:2] Moreover, only a single amendment to the motion that the Speaker do leave the chair can be moved, because the amendment takes the form that certain words in the motion be left out in order to subst.i.tute others, and the question is put to the House whether the words proposed to be left out shall stand. If, therefore, the amendment is negatived, the House has decided that those words shall stand part of the question, and no other amendment to omit them can afterward be proposed.[342:3] Debate, however, may and usually does continue upon the main question. But the House can hardly reject the motion that the Speaker do leave the chair; and, in fact, such a vote, although perhaps a general reflection upon the ministry, could not, after a miscellaneous debate upon many topics, be regarded as expressing an opinion upon any particular subject.

It follows that (besides the extraordinary case of a vote of credit) there are every year three occasions set apart for general discussion of all matters germane to the three great branches of supply, on each of which a single vote can be taken upon some special grievance or question of policy. Formerly the amendment that obtained the right of way depended largely upon the accident of catching the Speaker's eye,[342:4]

but now, like the motions on private members' nights, it is determined by the blinder justice of the lot.[342:5] The amendments relate to all manner of things, such as the system of enlistment for the Army, the number of artillery horses, the insufficient manning of the fleet, the desirability of an international agreement for a reduction in s.h.i.+p-building, the refusal of the Post Office to grant telephone licenses to munic.i.p.alities, the inequitable fiscal treatment of Scotland, and the defective state of primary education in Ireland.

The three general debates upon the motions to go into Committee of Supply upon the estimates still afford an excellent chance for criticising the government, but the limitations upon amendments, and the conditions under which they are proposed, has reduced the opportunity for a decisive condemnation of any part of its conduct almost to nothing. Until a score of years ago the ministers were, indeed, beaten nearly every session upon some amendment on going into supply, but since 1891 this has not happened once.

[Sidenote: Amendments on Going into Ways and Means.]

After the general rule forbidding debate and amendment on going into Committee of Supply had been extended to Friday, it occurred to Mr.

Gibson Bowles, an enterprising mentor of the government, that a similar use might be made of the motion to go into Committee of Ways and Means.

Accordingly in the regular session of 1900, and in the special session in December of that year, he moved amendments to the motion, but the practice grieved the Treasury Bench and was stopped by a change in the standing orders made in 1901.[343:1]

[Sidenote: Debate in the Committee of Supply as a Means of Criticism.]

In proposing his new procedure for supply in 1896, Mr. Balfour spoke of the belief that the object of debating the appropriations is to secure economical administration, as an ancient superst.i.tion no longer at all true. Members, he said, now move reductions in order to get from ministers a promise of future increase; and the danger is that the House will urge too much extravagance. He insisted that the real object of the Committee of Supply is the chance it affords to private members of criticising the executive and administrative action of the government; that it is an open platform for members, where the ministers, for the sake of getting their appropriations pa.s.sed, are bound to keep a quorum.[344:1] This is, indeed, manifest to any one familiar with the debates upon the estimates. They are not to any great extent discussions of financial questions, of what the nation can, or cannot, afford to do. They are a long series of criticisms upon the policy of the ministers, and the conduct of the departments under their control. From this point of view Mr. Balfour suggested a method of making the debates more valuable. He described the futility of the old system of taking up the estimates in their numerical order, pointing out how much time was wasted every year in discussing the earlier votes in Cla.s.s I.,--repairs of royal palaces, etc.,--while some of the largest appropriations were always hurried through with little comment at the f.a.g end of the session. He promised in future to bring forward the important votes in the earlier part of the year, and in fact to give precedence to estimates that any group of members might wish to discuss.[344:2]

Adding together the days regularly allotted to supply under the standing order, the additional sittings used for the purpose, and those devoted to supplementary estimates,[344:3] the better part of more than thirty days are spent every year in Committee of Supply. This would appear to give time enough for a thorough overhauling of many branches of the administration; and under Mr. Balfour's practice, which will, no doubt, be followed by future cabinets, the question what departments shall be examined is determined by the critics themselves.

The debates in the Committee of Supply must be relevant to the estimates under consideration, that is, they must be confined to the particular vote then before the House, and the conduct of the government connected therewith. The greater part of the time is therefore taken up with a discussion of small details of administration. But there are certain votes that give a chance to review the broader questions of policy. As the grants made to the Army and Navy for one purpose can, with the consent of the Treasury, be used for another, the debate on the great votes for the pay of the men is allowed to range over the general policy and management of the service concerned.[345:1] The items for the salaries of the ministers give a similar, though less comprehensive, chance to examine the policy pursued in their several departments; and in order to raise a debate of that kind it is common to move to reduce the salary of a minister by one hundred pounds. If an excessive proportion of the time devoted to supply is consumed in the ventilation of small grievances, that is due to the fact that the criticism is conducted, in the main, by individual members of the House, and not by an organised opposition; but at least it has the merit of keeping the administration in all its details highly sensitive to public opinion.

[Sidenote: Amendments in Supply as an Expression of Opinion.]

The debates in supply afford an excellent opportunity for criticising the acts of the government, but the divisions in supply are not an effective means of expressing the judgment of the House upon those acts.

The items of appropriation are grouped into votes, each of which, as its name implies, is pa.s.sed as a single vote; and every vote contains so many items that the House cannot reject it entirely.

Moreover, the only amendment in order is a motion to reduce the vote, by omitting a particular item or otherwise. Now a reduction may be moved either because the House really objects to the appropriation, or as a means of expressing condemnation of some act of the government connected with the item in question. Even in these days of extravagance the House occasionally objects to an appropriation on the ground that it is unnecessary or excessive, or because it disapproves of the purpose altogether. In such cases the Chancellor of the Exchequer is apt to withdraw the estimate or consent to the reduction. In fact, there have been only two instances in the last twenty years where a reduction was made for this reason without the consent of the government, and only one where it was carried against their opposition.[346:1]

[Sidenote: Reductions used as a Protest.]

A reduction is often moved, on the other hand, to emphasise some grievance, some act of the administration that is the subject of complaint. But such a motion is not an effective means of testing the opinion of the House upon the matter in debate. When, for example, a reduction of a minister's salary is proposed in order to draw attention to a shortcoming in his department, the supporters of the cabinet almost invariably vote against the reduction without regard to their opinion upon the shortcoming in question; and they are perfectly right in so doing. They would be quite justified, and quite logical, in refusing to vote the reduction in salary, while saying that the act complained of had been a mistake and ought not to occur again. An amendment of that kind is, therefore, seldom carried; and then usually by accident. It has happened only four times in a score of years. On June 14, 1895, when Lord Rosebery's cabinet was struggling for its life, with only a majority of a dozen in the Commons, it was beaten on an amendment reducing the appropriation for the Parliament buildings by five hundred pounds to call attention to the quant.i.ty of rooms occupied by officials of the House. The number of members who took part in the division was so small--the vote being sixty-three to forty-three--that the result must be regarded as a fluke, rather than as an expression of opinion by the House. A week later the government was defeated again on an amendment to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War by one hundred pounds to draw attention to an alleged lack of supply of cordite. This was done by a trick. Enough Conservatives to turn the scale were brought into the House, by way of the terrace, without the knowledge of the whips on either side. Under ordinary circ.u.mstances the ministers would not have paid much attention to such a division, but their position in this case was so precarious and so uncomfortable, that they took advantage of the occurrence to resign. The third instance happened in 1904 when the grant for the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against a circular they had issued which limited the teaching of the Irish language in the schools. It was a "snap" vote, coming suddenly after a very short debate. Had the ministers foreseen the division they could easily have called in enough of their followers to change the majority;[348:1] and, in fact, they seem to have disregarded the vote altogether, save that they expended for Irish education one hundred pounds less than they had intended. The last case was in 1905, when the appropriation for the Irish Land Commission was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against the administration of the Land Act of 1903.

This was serious, and the government considered its position for a couple of days, but decided for the moment neither to resign nor dissolve.[348:2]

Manifestly the debates in Committee of Supply offer a very wide field for individual criticism, while they give little chance for collective condemnation of the matters criticised. This is even more obvious in certain other forms of procedure that are yet to be considered.

[Sidenote: Debates on the Finance Bill;]

The debates upon the resolutions embodying the proposals of the budget, and upon the Finance Bill that carries them into effect, are governed by the ordinary rules of debate upon bills, and are confined to the questions immediately before the House.[348:3]

[Sidenote: on the Budget;]

But in introducing his budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a statement covering the income and expenditure of the current and coming years, and incidentally reviewing the economic condition of the country and the state of trade. The debate that ensues may wander as far as the statement itself, regardless of the particular resolution on which it is nominally based. This gives a chance to examine fully the financial policy--but only the financial policy--of the government; without, however, any corresponding means of expressing the judgment of the House thereon.

[Sidenote: on the Consolidated Fund Bills.]

In his treatise on parliamentary practice, Sir Thomas Erskine May states that debate and amendment on the stages of Consolidated Fund Bills "must be relevant to the bill, and must be confined to the conduct or action of those who receive or administer the grants specified in the bill."[349:1] The first part of this statement is true of the committee stage. Debate and amendment must then be strictly relevant; and as the object of the bills is simply to authorise the issue out of the Consolidated Fund of the sums required to meet the grants already voted, and to provide that those grants must be used for the purposes for which they are made, no criticism of administrative conduct is in order.[349:2] The proceedings in committee are, therefore, brief. The latter part of May's statement applies to the second and third readings, but as the bills cover the grants that support practically every branch of the government, except the India Office,[349:3] the acts of almost any department can be discussed at those stages. The occasions are, as a rule, freely used for the purpose. Sometimes the debate is of a miscellaneous character, and runs off into small details, but more commonly it turns upon a few large questions of domestic, colonial or foreign policy that have aroused general interest.[349:4] Amendments can, indeed, be moved, and they may range as far as the debate itself.

The procedure would appear, therefore, to resemble that of going into Committee of Supply. But the House is aware that it must pa.s.s the bills, and although a division on the reading is often taken, the negative votes are usually confined to the Irish members, who are more anxious to impede than to make use of the parliamentary system. In the rare cases where amendments have been moved the object is simply to concentrate discussion upon some particular question,[350:1] and they have seldom, if ever, been carried.

[Sidenote: Debates on Adjournment for Easter and Whitsuntide.]

Perhaps the most striking case of an opportunity for criticising the government, without any means of condemning its action, is furnished by the motion to adjourn over Easter or Whitsuntide. According to the old practice about adjournment, the rule of relevancy does not apply in these cases, and hence the discussion may, and in fact does, wander wherever the members please. It is of a heterogeneous nature, touching upon many subjects. But as the Speakers have ruled that no amendment is in order, except on the time of adjournment,[350:2] the motion which provides the excuse for a debate is always adopted as it stands.

[Sidenote: Motion of Want of Confidence.]

The foregoing comprise all the ordinary means of criticising the conduct of the government. The leader of the Opposition has one more. He can at any time claim to move a vote of want of confidence, and within reasonable limits the leader of the House will always a.s.sign a day for the purpose. But this is quite a different matter from the criticism of particular acts of which we have been speaking. Whatever the precise form of the motion may be, the object is to turn the ministry out, and every member goes into one or the other lobby, according to his desire that the cabinet shall stand or fall. The judgment of the House is pa.s.sed not upon any one act or question of policy, but distinctly upon the record of the ministry as a whole; and a defeat must be immediately followed by resignation or dissolution.

[Sidenote: Freedom of Criticism.]

[Sidenote: Difficulty in Pa.s.sing Judgment.]

From this survey of the various methods by which the ministers can be called to account in the House of Commons, it is clear that the opportunities to air grievances, to suggest reforms, and to criticise the government for both large matters and small, for their general policy and their least administrative acts, are many and constant. If less numerous than formerly, they are in practice quite as useful. For the object they serve, that of turning a searchlight upon the government, and keeping the public informed of its conduct, they are abundant. On the other hand, the opportunities to pa.s.s judgment upon particular acts of the ministers have diminished very much, and there is a marked tendency to make a definite expression of opinion on such matters by vote of the House more and more difficult. Such a tendency is entirely in accord with the true principle of parliamentary government.

There ought to be the fullest opportunity for criticism; but the cabinet must be free not only to frame its own policy, but also to carry that policy out, and it ought not to be shackled, or thrust out, so long as its conduct of affairs is on the whole satisfactory to the nation.

[Sidenote: Ill.u.s.trated by the Debates on Fiscal Policy.]

So far we have considered primarily the functions of the House in relation to administrative matters, but, except for the bills brought in by the government, what has been said applies equally to its control over the general policy of the cabinet, for its means of criticising and pa.s.sing judgment are the same. How far the ministers are free to-day to frame the programme on which they will take their stand, and how hard it is to force an issue on a question that they do not choose to bring forward, may be seen from the recent history of the debates on the fiscal question. A considerable number of Unionists were strongly opposed to a return to protective duties in any form, and especially to a taxation of food. There were enough of them to turn the scale, so that if a division could have been taken at any time on the fiscal question alone, the House would in all probability have voted in favour of maintaining the existing system. On the other hand, most of the free-food Unionists, being heartily in accord with the cabinet on other matters, desired to keep it in power so long as it adopted no fiscal policy hostile to their principles; and therefore they were anxious not to vote against the government if they could conscientiously abstain from doing so. Under these circ.u.mstances the Liberals sought by every means to force a direct vote upon the fiscal question, while Mr. Balfour cautiously avoided any definite statement of policy himself, and strove to prevent the House from expressing a distinct opinion on the subject.

He took the ground that until the cabinet announced a fiscal programme the only form in which the att.i.tude of the ministers on the question could properly come before Parliament was that of a general motion of want of confidence in them.

[Sidenote: In 1903.]

Mr. Chamberlain broached his plan of preferential tariffs in a speech at Birmingham on May 15, 1903. By that time it was just too late in the year to bring forward a private member's motion on the subject; so that the first debate upon it took place on the motion to adjourn over Whitsuntide,[352:1] when no amendment or vote expressing the opinion of the House was in order. This was May 28. The next opportunity for extensive discussion came on June 9 over the Finance Bill; but the Speaker ruled, that as the government had made no proposals for a change of fiscal policy, such changes could not be brought into the debate on that bill.[352:2] The Opposition then resorted to a motion to adjourn.

But it was not easy to treat as an urgent matter the question of adopting a policy, which the ministers declared the existing Parliament incompetent to adopt, and the Opposition insisted ought never to be adopted at all. The Liberals solved the difficulty by taking advantage of a recent occurrence, and on June 17 moved to adjourn to discuss a misunderstanding of the tariff speeches of Mr. Balfour and Mr.

Chamberlain by the premier of New South Wales. The Speaker, however, ruled that a general debate of the fiscal question did not come within the terms of the motion, although a motion of wider scope might have been made. The adjournment was, of course, rejected, and by a vote of 252 to 132.[352:3] Both on this and on later occasions, Mr. Balfour, while refusing to give any of the government's time for the discussion of fiscal policy as such, expressed his entire readiness to a.s.sign a day for a formal motion of lack of confidence;[353:1] but the Liberals did not accept the offer. They said, and with truth, that a vote of censure would not test the opinion of the House on the fiscal question; and they knew that it would result in an overwhelming defeat for them. Finally, on Aug. 11, the Speaker ruled that, as no official act of any minister was involved, the question could not be debated on the second reading of the Appropriation Bill.[353:2] And thus, although there were many questions put on the subject, and some incidental discussion during the debates on other matters, the session of 1903 came to an end without any vote on fiscal policy.

[Sidenote: In 1904.]

When the House met again great changes had taken place in the ministry.

Both Mr. Chamberlain and his strongest opponents had resigned, and it was certain that the cabinet would take no positive att.i.tude on the fiscal question during the life of the Parliament. Yet the Liberals had several means of extracting a vote on the subject, which they had lacked in the second half of the preceding session. They began at once with the debate on the address, by moving that the removal of protective duties has conduced to the welfare of the population, and that any return to them would be injurious. The wording was not well adapted to drive a wedge into the government majority, for the ministers repudiated the charge that they contemplated protection. Only twenty-one Unionists voted for the amendment, which was rejected by 327 to 276.[353:3] Then came, on March 9, a private member's motion to the effect that the House expresses its condemnation of the continual agitation in favour of a protective tariff encouraged by the ministers. This also was not well conceived, and was rejected by 289 to 243, nineteen Unionists voting against the government. On May 18 another private member's motion came on; which stated that the House, believing a protective tariff on food burdensome to the people, welcomes the declaration that the government is opposed to it. It was a more dangerous attack, which the ministers met by moving an amendment that it was unnecessary to discuss the question. They succeeded by about the same majority as on the other occasions, for the amendment was carried by a vote of 306 to 251, seventeen Unionists in the minority.[354:1]

At last the Liberals asked for a day to move a vote of censure, and Aug.

1 was set apart for the purpose. The motion expressed regret that certain ministers had accepted official positions in the Liberal Unionist a.s.sociation, which had recently declared its adhesion to the policy of preferential duties, involving the taxation of food. But the form of the motion was unimportant, and the result ill.u.s.trates the nature of a vote of want of confidence, and the futility of using it to test the opinion of the House on any particular question of policy. No one voted against the ministers who was not prepared to turn them out, and the motion was rejected by a vote of 288 to 210.[354:2] Only one member cla.s.sed as a Unionist voted for it, while of those who had gone into the Opposition lobby on previous occasions one voted with the government, and the rest absented themselves. Although the fiscal question had been debated several times,[354:3] the Opposition had again been baffled throughout the session in their efforts to get a vote upon its merits.