FOOTNOTES:

The Speaker.

The Commons are always summoned to the bar in the House of Lords to hear any formal communication from the Crown, and when after a general election they meet on the day appointed, they are summoned there to hear the formal opening of the new Parliament. They are then desired in the name of the sovereign to choose a Speaker, and retire to their chamber for the purpose. As soon as he has been chosen, the mace is placed on the table before him, as a symbol of his authority and a token that the Commons are sitting as a House. But he is still only Speaker-elect, until the next day, when, followed by the Commons, he again presents himself at the bar of the Lords, announces his election, and asks for the royal confirmation, which is now, of course, never refused.

His Election.

If only one person is nominated for Speaker, he is called to the chair without a vote. If more than one, they are voted upon successively, a majority being required for election.[259:1]The proposer and seconder are always private members, for it is considered more fitting that the ministers should not be prominent in the matter.[259:2]The Speaker is, however, always selected by the government of the day, and a new Speaker is always taken from the ranks of the party in power. Sometimes the election is not uncontested, and this happened when Mr. Gully was chosen in 1895. But although the Speaker may have been opposed when firstchosen, and although he is elected only for the duration of the Parliament, it has now become the invariable habit to reëlect him so long as he is willing to serve. The last cases where a Speaker's reëlection was opposed occurred in 1833 and 1835, and on the second of those occasions he was defeated. The principle is well illustrated by the career of Mr. Gully. He was elected by a small majority, during the last few months of a moribund Liberal cabinet. His selection had not pleased the Conservatives, and he was warned that they held themselves at liberty not to reëlect him if they came to power in the next Parliament. Contrary to the ordinary rule his constituency was contested at the next general election, but although the Conservatives obtained a large majority in the new Parliament, he was returned to the chair without opposition.

His Powers over Debate.

The Speaker is purely a presiding officer. He has nothing to do with appointing any committees, or guiding the House in its work. He is not a leader but an umpire, otherwise he could not remain in the chair through changes of party. As an umpire, however, his powers are very great, and in some cases under the modern changes in the standing orders they are autocratic. He decides, for example, whether a motion to closure debate may be put, or whether it is an infringement of the rights of the minority;[260:1]he can refuse to entertain a dilatory motion if he considers it an abuse of the rules of the House;[260:2]and he can stop the speech of a member who "persists in irrelevance, or tedious repetition."[260:3]Moreover, from his decision on those matters, or on any points of order, there is no appeal.[260:4]The House can suspend or change its own rules by a simple majority vote, but it cannot in a concrete case override the Speaker's construction of them.[260:5]This is a general principle ofEnglish parliamentary law, which is applied in almost all public bodies.[261:1]It may render a conscientious man more careful in his rulings, but it certainly places in his hands enormous power.

His Power to Preserve Order.

Familiarity with representative bodies seems to breed contempt, for the last half century has been marked by an increase of disorderly scenes in the legislatures of many countries. In England such things were brought about by the growth of the Irish Home Rule party, which regarded the government of Ireland by the British Parliament as unjust on principle, and oppressive in fact; and which, to say the least, was not distressed by loss of dignity on the part of the House of Commons. In 1880 the Speaker was given the power to repress disorder, now embodied, with subsequent modifications, in Standing Order 18. He can name a member who disregards his authority or obstructs business, and then a motion is in order, to be decided at once without amendment or debate, to suspend that member.[261:2]When the standing orders were revised in 1902 they contained a clause prescribing the duration of the suspension for the first and subsequent offences, but this was struck out during the discussion, and a suspension is now indeterminate. It is obvious that to a party, in a hopeless minority, which denies the authority of Parliament, a disorderly scene followed by a suspension, and an opportunity to go home and make stirring speeches, may not be an undesirable form of protest.

Apart from occasional outbursts chiefly, though not exclusively, on the part of the Irish members, a stranger in the gallery is much impressed by the respect paid to the Speaker,and by his moral control over the House.[262:1]His emoluments are in proportion to the dignity of his position. He enjoys a salary of five thousand pounds a year, with an official residence in the Houses of Parliament and other perquisites; and although standing aloof from political leadership, he is regarded as the first commoner of the realm. He is, indeed, on the threshold of the House of Lords, for it has been the habit of late years to make him a peer when he retires.

He Votes Only in Case of a Tie.

The Chairman of Committees.

As late as 1870 the Speaker occasionally took part in debate, when the House was in Committee of the Whole where he does not preside;[262:2]but it would now be thought inconsistent with his position of absolute impartiality to speak or vote in committee. He therefore never votes unless he is obliged to do so by a tie occurring when he is in the chair. It is commonly said that he always gives his casting vote in such cases so as to keep the question open; but this is not strictly true. When, however, his vote involves a final decision, he bases it, not upon his personal opinion of the merits of the measure, but upon the probable intention of the House as shown by its previous action, or upon some general constitutional principle;[262:3]and it may be added that the chairman of a Committee of the Whole, when called upon to break a tie, follows the same practice.[262:4]The chair in Committee of the Whole is regularly taken by the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means—commonly called for that reason the Chairman of Committees—who, like the Speaker, withdraws, on his appointment, from political contests, speaking and voting in the House nowadays only on questions relating to private bills. He is nominated at the beginning of the Parliament by the ministry, from amongtheir prominent supporters, and retires from the position when they resign. Considering that his duties consist in presiding, like the Speaker, with strict impartiality, and in a purely non-partisan supervision of private bill legislation, it is somewhat strange that he should go in and out of office with the cabinet, but in fact one hears no criticism of his conduct on that score, largely, no doubt, because he always takes the Speaker as his model. Since 1855 he has acted as deputy speaker, when the Speaker is unavoidably absent,[263:1]and in order to prevent any possible inconvenience from the absence of both of these officers from the House, or of the Chairman of Ways and Means from the Committee of the Whole, provision was made in 1902 for the election of a deputy chairman who can fill the vacant place.[263:2]

Other Officers of the House.

The only other officers of the House that need be mentioned here are the Sergeant-at-Arms, who acts as the executive officer and chief of police of the House under the direction of the Speaker; the Clerk of the House; and the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, who is a legal adviser, and has important duties in connection with private bill legislation. It is a curious survival that the Sergeant-at-Arms,[263:3]and the Clerk of the House with his chief assistants,[263:4]are appointed by the Crown, and hold office permanently. Their work is, of course, of a non-partisan character, and they do not always belong to the party of the ministry that appoints them. Sir Courtenay Ilbert, for example, the present Clerk of the House, although a Liberal, was appointed by the Conservative government, and not by way of promotion in the service of the House, for he was at the time Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury.

[251:1]The question where the Peelites should sit in 1852 was much discussed among themselves. Morley, "Life of Gladstone," I., 422-23.

[253:1]Standing Orders 28-29, Com. Papers, 1905, LXII., 159. Under the new rule adopted in 1906 the Speaker orders the lobby to be cleared, and the members begin to pass through it at once.

[253:2]To refuse to do so has been treated as such a disregard of the authority of the chair as will justify suspending the member. May, "Parl. Practice," 10 Ed., 338.On March 5, 1901, twelve Irish Nationalists, who refused to go into the lobby because they had had no chance to speak when the closure was moved on a vote on account, were suspended; Hans. 4 Ser. XC., 692-96; and on Aug. 5, 1904, the Welsh members refused to vote as a protest against the use of closure on the Education (Local Authorities Defaults) Bill. After they had persisted so far that the Chairman reported the matter to the House, they consented to withdraw altogether, and no further steps were taken against them. Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXIX., 1259-68.

[253:2]To refuse to do so has been treated as such a disregard of the authority of the chair as will justify suspending the member. May, "Parl. Practice," 10 Ed., 338.

On March 5, 1901, twelve Irish Nationalists, who refused to go into the lobby because they had had no chance to speak when the closure was moved on a vote on account, were suspended; Hans. 4 Ser. XC., 692-96; and on Aug. 5, 1904, the Welsh members refused to vote as a protest against the use of closure on the Education (Local Authorities Defaults) Bill. After they had persisted so far that the Chairman reported the matter to the House, they consented to withdraw altogether, and no further steps were taken against them. Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXIX., 1259-68.

[254:1]S.O. 30.

[255:1]The standing orders relating to private business are much more elaborate and come far nearer to a code of procedure.

[255:2]This had not been the practice earlier; but the discussion of changes in the standing orders has sometimes been very long. In 1882 the new rules, which dealt with closure, the suspension of disorderly members and the creation of standing committees, were debated for thirty-three days. On the other hand, a change was made in 1901 on the motion of a private member, at a single sitting. Hans. 4 Ser. XCII., 555-75. In 1906 the changes were referred to a select committee and then each of them adopted on a motion by the government. Hans. 4 Ser. CLV., 197et seq.

[256:1]May, 145.

[256:2]Ibid., 145.

[256:3]S.O. 15.

[256:4]In his excellentRecht und Technik des Englischen Parlamentarismus—the only systematic history of procedure in the House of Commons—Dr. Redlich dwells on two tendencies in the evolution of the standing orders since 1832. One of these consists in giving to the ministry an ever greater control over the time, and hence over the activity, of the House; the other in keeping the House more and more strictly to its prearranged order of business for the day. Now the manifestations of this last tendency, which he makes very clear, can also be classed as changes made to save time or to arrange the distribution of time. Whether in the form of forbidding motions to vary the prescribed order of business, or to confine amendments and debate to matters relevant to the main question, or to exclude dilatory motions and others that open an indefinite field for discussion, they have the effect either of preventing waste of time by debating trivial questions or matters that the House does not care to take up, or of preventing the use for some other purpose of time allotted to the government or to a private member.Since this was written Dr. Redlich's book has happily been translated into English, but as the English edition has not yet been received the references to the German edition are left unchanged.

Since this was written Dr. Redlich's book has happily been translated into English, but as the English edition has not yet been received the references to the German edition are left unchanged.

[257:1]This is also Dr. Redlich's opinion,Recht und Technik, 246.

[258:1]May, 299.

[258:2]Ibid., 301.

[258:3]Ibid., 571.

[258:4]Ibid., 471.

[258:5]Ibid., 472-3.

[258:6]S.O. 36.

[258:7]S.O. 40.

[258:8]S.O. 32, 51.

[258:9]S.O. 53.

[258:10]E.g.S.O. 1 (7), 18, 26, 31, 91.

[258:11]S.O. 22, 23.

[259:1]May, 151.

[259:2]Cf. ibid., 150, note 3.

[260:1]S.O. 26.

[260:2]S.O. 23.

[260:3]S.O. 19.

[260:4]But the Speaker himself may submit a question to the judgment of the House. May, 331.

[260:5]The action of the Speaker can be brought before the House only by a motion made at another time after due notice, but this is, of course, almost useless for the purpose of reversing the ruling complained of: Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 10, 14. On the occasion when Speaker Brand made this ruling he intimated that a member making on the spot a motion to disagree with it would be guilty of disregarding the authority of the chair, and liable to suspension under the standing orders.Ibid., 9.

[261:1]The Lord Chancellor has far less power as presiding officer of the House of Lords. May, 186, 296, 307, 331.

[261:2]S.O. 18. If a member who is suspended refuses to leave the House, the Speaker may, on his own authority, suspend him for the remainder of the session.Ibid.

[262:1]In 1902 the provision, common in continental legislatures, which authorises the Speaker to suspend the sitting, in case of grave disorder, was embodied in S.O. 21. This has been used only once, on May 22, 1905, when the Opposition, thinking it was the duty of the Prime Minister to give an immediate explanation, refused with great disorder to hear another member of the government. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLVI., 1061-72.) One may hope that it will rarely be necessary to apply this undignified process of taking off the lid to allow the tea-pot to cool down.

[262:2]May, 348-49.

[262:3]May, 344-48.

[262:4]May, 361-62.

[263:1]May, 191; S.O. 81 (formerly S.O. 83).

[263:2]S.O. 81 (2). By S.O. 1 (9), the Speaker nominates a panel of not more than five members to act as temporary chairmen of committees, but this would seem to have been rendered less necessary by the new provision for a deputy chairman.

[263:3]May, 198.

[263:4]May, 195.

The Committees.

No great representative assembly at the present day can do all its work in full meeting. It has neither the time, the patience nor the knowledge required. Its sittings ought not to be frittered away in discussing proposals that have no chance of success; while measures that are to be brought before the whole body ought to be threshed out beforehand, their provisions carefully weighed and put into precise language, objections, if possible, met by concession and compromise, or brought to a sharp difference of principle. In short, they ought to be put into such a shape that the assembly is only called upon to decide a small number of perfectly definite questions. To enable it to do so intelligently it may be necessary also to collect information about doubtful facts. Modern assemblies have sought to accomplish these results mainly by committees of some kind; and in England where the parliamentary form of government has reached a higher development than anywhere else, the chief instrument for the purpose is that informal joint committee of the Houses, known as the cabinet. But unless Parliament were to be very nearly reduced to the rôle of criticising the ministers, and answering yes or no to a series of questions propounded by them, it must do a part of its work through other committees. The reasons why those committees have not become—as in some other European nations that have adopted the system of a responsible ministry—dangerous rivals of the cabinet, at times frustrating its objects and undermining its authority, will be discussed in thechapterson the relation between the cabinet and theHouse of Commons. We must consider here their organisation and duties.

The Committee of the Whole.

The most important committee, the Committee of the Whole, is not in this sense a committee at all. It is simply the House itself acting under special forms of procedure; the chief differences being that the Chairman of Committees presides, and that the rule of the House forbidding a member to speak more than once on the same question does not apply. But the fact that a member can speak more than once makes it a real convenience for the purpose for which it is chiefly used, that is, the consideration of measures in detail, such as the discussion and amendment of the separate clauses of a bill, or the debates upon different items of appropriations. The Committee of the Whole has had a long history.[265:1]It is called by different names according to the subject-matter with which it deals. For ordinary bills it is called simply the Committee of the Whole. When engaged upon appropriations it is called Committee of the Whole on Supply, or in common parlance the Committee of Supply. When providing money to meet the appropriations it is called the Committee of Ways and Means; and when reviewing the revenue accounts of India it is named from that subject. The committees of the whole called by these names are so far distinct that each of them can deal only with its own affairs, and the House must go into committee again in order to take up any other matter. But the simple Committee of the Whole can take up one bill after another which has been referred to it without reporting to the House and being reconstituted.[265:2]

Select Committees.

Of the real committees the most numerous are the select committees. Their normal size is fifteen members, although they are often smaller, and occasionally, by special leave of the House,[265:3]they are somewhat larger. They may be nominated from the floor, and elected by the House,[265:4]or chosen by ballot; but in order to avoid loss of time, and tosecure impartiality, the appointment of a part, at least, of the members is usually intrusted to the Committee of Selection.

Committee of Selection.

Some of the select committees are appointed regularly every year, and are therefore known as sessional committees. One of these, the Committee of Selection, has already been mentioned. It has been enlarged from time to time, and now consists of eleven members, chosen by the House itself at the beginning of the session.[266:1]The members are, in fact, designated by an understanding between the leaders of the two great parties in the House. But the object is to create an impartial body, and so far is this object attained that in the memoir of Sir John Mowbray, who was its chairman continuously for thirty-two years, we are told that divisions in the committee are rare, and never on party lines.[266:2]Its duties, so far as public business is concerned, consist in appointing members of select and standing committees. It appoints also the committees on all private and local bills, and divides those bills among them.[266:3]This is, indeed, the primary object of its existence, but, together with a description of the various committees employed in private bill legislation, it must be postponed to a laterchapter. It may, however, save confusion in the mind of a reader unfamiliar with parliamentary practice to insist here upon the distinction between a private member's bill and a private bill. The former is a bill of a public nature introduced by a private member, whereas a private bill is one dealing only with a matter of private, personal, or local interest.

Other Sessional Committees.

The remaining sessional committees are the Committee on Public Accounts,[266:4]which goes through the report of the Auditor and Comptroller General, considers in detail objections to the legality of any expenditures by the public departments, examines witnesses thereon, and reports to the House; the Committee on Public Petitions, appointed to inspect the numerous petitions presented to the House;[266:5]andthe Committee on the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms, which has importance for the members of the House, though not for the general public.[267:1]

Other Select Committees.

Their Object.

The other select committees are created to consider some special matter that is referred to them, either a bill, or a subject upon which the House wishes to institute an inquiry.[267:2]In either case the chief object of the committee is to obtain and sift information. Even where a particular bill is referred to it the primary object is not to take the place of debate in the House, and in fact by the present practice a select committee saves no step in procedure, a bill when reported by it going to the Committee of the Whole for discussion in detail, precisely as if no select committee had been appointed.[267:3]Select committees are the organs, and the only organs, of the House for collecting evidence and examining witnesses;[267:4]and hence they are commonly given power to send for persons, papers and records. They summon before them people whose testimony they wish to obtain; but although a man of prominence, or a recognised authority on the subject, would, no doubt, be summoned at his own request, there is nothing in their procedure in the least corresponding to the public hearings customary throughout theUnited States, where anybody is at liberty to attend and express his views—a practice that deserves far more attention than it has yet received.

Their Procedure.

In select committees the procedure follows as closely as possible that of a Committee of the Whole;[268:1]but they choose their own chairman, who has no vote except in case of a tie. They keep minutes, not only of their own proceedings, but also of all evidence taken before them; and these, together with the report of their conclusions, are laid before the House,[268:2]and published among the parliamentary papers of the session. Strictly speaking, a minority report is unknown to English parliamentary usage, although the habit of placing upon select committees representatives of the various groups of opinion in the House makes a disagreement about the report very common. Practically, however, the minority attain the same object by moving a substitute for the report prepared by the majority, and as the standing orders provide that every division in a select committee must be entered upon its minutes,[268:3]the substitute with the names of those who voted for it, are submitted to the House, and have the effect of a minority report.

The fact that men with all shades of opinions sit upon these committees, and have an opportunity to examine the witnesses, lifts their reports, and still more the evidence they collect, above the plane of mere party documents, and gives them a far greater permanent value. Many committees are not directly concerned with legislation, that is, with a bill actually pending, but only with inquiry into some grievance, some alleged defect in the law or in administration, yet their reports often lay the foundation for future statutes; and, indeed, a large part of the legislative or administrative reforms carried out by one or both of the great parties in the state, have been based upon the reports of select committees or royal commissions.

Joint Committees.

From obvious motives of convenience joint select committees from the Lords and Commons have been occasionallyappointed,[269:1]but owing to the different standing of the two Houses they are used chiefly for private bills, and for regulating the intercourse between the two bodies.[269:2]The principal exceptions of late years have been the joint committees on statute law revision bills and on the subject of municipal trading.

Standing or Grand Committees.

As the pressure for time in the House of Commons grew more intense, select committees that collected information were not enough. Something was needed that would save debate in the House, and for this purpose resolutions were adopted on Dec. 1, 1882, for setting up two large committees on bills relating to law and to trade, whose deliberations should take the place of debate in the Committee of the Whole. Such committees were at first an experiment, tried for a couple of sessions, but in 1888 they were revived by standing orders, and made permanent organs of the House.[269:3]As distinguished from select committees, which expire when they have made a report upon the special matters committed to their charge, they were made standing bodies, lasting throughout the session, and considering all the bills from time to time referred to them; one of them being created to deal with bills relating to law, courts of justice, and legal procedure; the other with those relating to trade, shipping, manufactures, agriculture, and fishing. They consist of not less than sixty nor more than eighty members of the House, appointed by the Committee of Selection, which has power to discharge members and substitute others during the course of the session. In order to secure the presence of persons who may throw light on any particular bill, the same committee can also appoint not more than fifteen additional members for the consideration of that bill.

Their Procedure.

A peculiar provision was made for the designation of the chairman. At the beginning of each session the Committee of Selection appoints a chairman's panel of not less than four nor more than six members, and this body selectsfrom among its members the chairmen of the standing committees[270:1]—a device intended to secure continuity of traditions and experience in the presiding officer. For the rest, the standing orders prescribed that the procedure in standing committees should be the same as in select committees;[270:2]but it would be more accurate to say, as May does,[270:3]that their proceedings were assimilated, as far as possible, to those of a Committee of the Whole House, for they were created to do precisely the same work.[270:4]They were to collect no evidence, examine no witnesses, but simply to debate the clauses of the bill in detail, being in fact a substitute for the Committee of the Whole; that step in the procedure upon a bill being entirely omitted when a bill goes to a standing committee. For this reason they are miniatures of the House itself, representing all the parties there in proportion to their numbers. They are samples that stand for the complete House, and like the Committee of the Whole they do not report their opinions, but report the bills referred to them with or without amendments.

In one respect only does their position differ materially from that of a Committee of the Whole. If the Committee of the Whole makes any amendments in a bill, they can be considered again, and further amendments can be made, upon the report stage. But if it makes no amendments, there is no report stage. This was equally true of the standing committees, so that if they did not amend a bill referred to them, the House never had an opportunity to do so, but must pass or reject the bill as first introduced; and, in fact, standing committees have been charged with refraining from minor changes in order to prevent amendments, which might hinder or delay the passage of the bill, from being proposed in the House itself.[270:5]This raised so much objection that in 1901 the standing orders were changed so as torequire a report stage in the House on all bills from standing committees whether amended or not.[271:1]

Kind of Bills Referred to Them.

The standing committees were designed primarily to deal with a technical class of bills, where the discussion of details would not be of general interest.[271:2]For reasons that will be described hereafter, it has been recognised that the bills referred to them ought to be of a non-contentious nature, that contentious measures, which arouse strong party feelings, are not suited for their consideration. This is the general principle, not always observed in practice, and there is sometimes a sharp difference of opinion upon the question whether a particular bill is contentious or not.

Their Utility.

Within their limits the utility of the standing committees in legislation cannot be doubted. On the average about one seventh of the public bills enacted year by year have passed through their hands, and the proportion has shown a slight tendency to increase.[271:3]Moreover, the pressure for time in the House of Commons has become so great that a bill has a better chance of getting through if referred to a standing committee than if it has to undergo the ordeal of a long debate in Committee of the Whole. Every year the government is obliged by lack of time to drop something like one third of the bills it has introduced, but those of its bills that are referred to the standing committees rarely fail to be enacted. In the case of bills brought in by private members the contrast is even more striking; for while scarcely one tenth of all such bills become law, more than one half of those among them fortunate enough to reach a standing committee are enacted.[271:4]In fact these committees furnishby far the best chance of passing private members' bills through the House of Commons.[272:1]

Standing Committee for Scotland.

When the two great committees were revived in 1888, motions were made to create others to consider bills relating to Scotland and Wales. The motions were all rejected at the time; but in 1894 the Liberal government took the matter up in the case of Scotland, and in that year and the next carried resolutions establishing such a committee for the session. It consisted of all the members for Scotch constituencies, seventy-two in number, and of fifteen or twenty others appointed by the committee of selection. On each occasion the plan was vigorously opposed,[272:2]the chief objections being; that it tended toward legislative dismemberment of the United Kingdom; that such a committee would not, like the other standing committees, reflect fairly the proportion of the parties in the House, because two thirds of the Scotch members were Liberals;[272:3]and that the bills referred to it would not be exclusively of a non-contentious nature. When the Conservatives came to power they quietly dropped this committee. Even had they felt no other reason for doing so, it would, no doubt, have been enough that, in spite of considerable losses at the general election of 1895, the Liberals were still in a majority among the Scotch members. The creation of such a body illustrates, however, the exceptional position of Scotland in the British Parliament; and any one who has followed a debate on an ordinary Scotch bill, and observed how largely it is confined to Scotch members, will realise that practically the resolution of 1894 did little more than sanction formally by means of a standing committee the kind of discussion that habitually takes place in the Committee of the Whole.

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