RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDANRICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDANFROM AN ENGRAVING BY J. HALL AFTER THE PAINTING BY SIR J. REYNOLDS
A good description of the sensations felt by a panic-stricken member making his debut is given by Lord Guilford, son of Lord North, whose appearance in the House was brief, if not exactly meteoric. "I brought out two or three sentences," he says, "when a mist seemed to rise before my eyes. I then lost my recollection, and could see nothing but the Speaker's wig, which swelled and swelled and swelled till it covered the whole House."[341]
The failure of a first speech has not always been the presage of a politician's future non-success. Addison broke down on the only occasion on which he attempted to address the House, yet he reached high office as Irish Secretary before he had been nine years in Parliament.[342]Walpole's first speech was a complete failure, as was, in a lesser degree, Canning's, though both were listened to in silence. Even the silver-tongued Sheridan himself made a poor impression upon the House with his earliest effort. After delivering his maiden speech, he sought out his friend Woodfall, who had been sitting in the gallery, and asked for a candid opinion. "I don't think this is your line," said Woodfall. "You had much better have stuck to your former pursuits." Sheridan pondered for a moment. "It isinme," he said atlength with conviction, "and, by God, it shall come out!"[343]It certainly did.
Disraeli, as is well known, was not even listened to, and had to bring his maiden speech to an abrupt end. "The time will come when youshallhear me!" he exclaimed prophetically as he resumed his seat. Such treatment was, however, unusual, for though the House of Commons is occasionally, as Pepys called it, a beast not to be understood, so variable and uncertain are its moods, new members are commonly accorded a patient and attentive hearing.
Sometimes a momentary breakdown has been retrieved under the stimulus of encouraging cheers from the House, and an infelicitous beginning has led to an eloquent peroration. Lord Ashley, afterwards Earl of Shaftesbury, had prepared a speech on behalf of the Treason Bill of 1695, which enacted that all persons indicted for high treason should have a copy of the indictment supplied to them and be allowed the assistance of counsel. He was, however, so overcome with nervousness on rising to his feet, that he could not proceed. Wittily recovering himself, "If I, who rise only to give my opinion on the Bill now depending, am so confounded that I am unable to express the least of what I proposed to say," he observed, "what must be the condition of that man who without any assistance is pleading for his life, and is under apprehensions of being deprived of it?" He thus contrived to turn his nervousness to good account. Again, when Steele was brought to the bar for publishing "The Crisis," a young member, Lord Finch, whose sister Steele had defended in the "Guardian" against a libel, rose to make a maiden speech on behalf of his friend. After a few confused sentences the youthful speaker broke down and was unable to proceed. "Strange," he exclaimed, as he sat down in despair, "that I cannot speak for this man, though I could readily fight for him!" This remark elicited so much cheering that the member took heart, rose oncemore, and made an able speech, which he subsequently followed up with many another.[344]
Although early failure is no sure gauge of a politician's reputation or worth, many a happy first speech has raised hopes that remained eternally unfulfilled. In the eighteenth century James Erskine, Lord Grange, made a brilliant maiden effort in the Commons and was much applauded. But the House soon grew weary of his broad Scots accent, and after hearing him patiently three or four times, gradually ceased to listen to him altogether.[345]William Gerard Hamilton, secretary to Lord Halifax (Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland), and afterwards Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer, though not fulfilling Bolingbroke's definition of eloquence,[346]earned the title of "single-speech Hamilton" by one display of oratory which was never repeated.
It is customary for the parliamentary novice to crave the indulgence of the House for such faults of manner or style as may be the result of youth or inexperience. This modest attitude on the part of a speaker inspires his audience favourably; they become infused with a glow of conscious superiority which is most agreeable and inclines them to listen with a kindly ear to the utterances of the budding politician. Not always, however, is this humility expressed. William Cobbett began his maiden speech on January 29, 1833, by remarking that in the short period during which he had sat in the House he had heard a great deal of vain and unprofitable conversation.[347]Hunt, the Preston demagogue, showed his contempt for the Commons and his own self-assurance by speaking six times on six different subjects on the very first night of his introduction.[348]William Cowper,afterwards Lord Chancellor, addressed the House three times on the day he took his seat.
In the House of Lords, too, can be heard maiden speeches delivered in many varying styles. One perhaps may be made by an ex-Cabinet Minister, a distinguished member of Parliament recently promoted to the Upper House, apologising in abject tones for his lack of experience, and commending his humble efforts to the indulgence of his audience. Another emanates from some youthful nobleman who has just succeeded to a peerage, whose political experience has yet to be won, and who addresses his peers in the didactic fashion of a headmaster lecturing a form of rather unintelligent schoolboys. It is not so very long ago that a young peer—who has since made the acquaintance of most divisions of the Supreme Court, from the Bankruptcy to the Divorce—astonished and entertained his colleagues by closing his peroration with a fervent prayer that God might long spare him to assist in their lordships' deliberations.
There is a golden mean between the two styles, the humble and the haughty, which it is well for the embryo politician to cultivate before he attempts to impress Parliament with his eloquence.
Oratory has been defined in many different ways by many different writers. Lord Chesterfield and Dr. Johnson, respectively, described it as the power of persuading people, or of beating down an adversary's arguments and putting better ones in their place. The business of the orator, according to Sir James Mackintosh, is to state plainly, to reason calmly, to seem transported into vehemence by his feelings, and roused into splendid imagery or description by his subject, but always to return to fact and argument, as that on which alone he is earnestly bent.[349]Gladstone, again, defined oratory as the speaker's power of receiving from his audience in a vapour that which he pours back upon them in a flood.
Oratory is perhaps the gift of the gods, but skill inspeaking is undoubtedly an art that can be acquired by practice, if sought diligently and with patience. Demosthenes gloried in the smell of the lamp; Cicero learnt every speech by heart. The former would go down to the seashore on a stormy day, fill his mouth with pebbles, and speak loudly to the ocean, thus accustoming himself to the murmur of popular assemblies; the latter on one occasion rehearsed a speech so diligently that he had little strength left to deliver it on the following day. The sight of a modern politician sitting on the pier at Brighton delivering a marine address as intelligibly as a mouthful of gravel would permit, is one that would only excite feelings of alarm in the bosoms of his friends; the thought of a Cabinet Minister fainting before his looking-glass, as the result of an excessive rehearsal of his peroration, is more pathetic than practical. There is, however, nothing to prevent a member of Parliament from practising his elocution upon the trees of the forest, as Grattan did,[350]or upon the House of Commons itself, and it is thus alone that he will acquire proficiency in that art in which it is so desirable for the statesman to excel. "It is absolutely necessary for you to speak in Parliament," Lord Chesterfield wrote to his long-suffering son. "It requires only a little human attention and no supernatural gifts."[351]
Charles James Fox resolved, when young, to speak at least once every night in the House. During five whole sessions he held manfully to this resolution, with the exception of one single evening—an exception which he afterwards regretted. He thus became the most brilliant debater that ever lived, "vehement in his elocution, ardent in his language, prompt in his invention of argument, adroit in its use."[352]He was, however, too impetuous to be as great an orator as hisrival Pitt, whose majestic eloquence was almost divine,[353]and offended continually by the tautology of his diction and the constant repetition of his arguments. The hesitation and lack of grace of his delivery detracted greatly from the force of his speeches; the keenness of his sabre, as Walpole said, was blunted by the difficulty with which he drew it from the scabbard.[354]In a comparison of the two statesmen, Flood calls Pitt's speeches "didactic declamations," and those of Fox "argumentative conversations."[355]
It was said that it required great mental exertion to follow Fox while he was speaking, but none to remember what he had said; but that it was easy to follow Pitt, but hard to remember what there was in his speech that had pleased one. The difference between the two men was the difference between the orator and the debater. It resulted largely from the fact that the one gave much time to the preparation of his speeches, while the other relied upon the inspiration of the moment. Pitt, as Porson says, carefully considered his sentences before he uttered them; Fox threw himself into the middle of his, "and left it to God Almighty to get him out again."[356]If the former was the more dignified as a speaker, the latter scored by being always so terribly in earnest. Grattan, who affirmed that Pitt's eloquence marked an era in the senate, that it resembled "sometimes the thunder, and sometimes the music, of the spheres," and admitted that Pitt was right nine times for once that Fox was right, declared that that once of Fox was worth all the other nine times of Pitt.[357]
No doubt the Parliament of those days was not so critical a body as it has since become. Lord Chesterfield, at least,held it in the profoundest contempt. "When I first came into the House of Commons," he says, "I respected that assembly as a venerable one; and felt a certain awe upon me; but, upon better acquaintance, that awe soon vanished; and I discovered that, of the five hundred and sixty, not above thirty could understand reason, and that all the rest werepeuple; that those thirty only required plain common-sense, dressed up in good language; and that all the others only required flowing and harmonious periods, whether they conveyed any meaning or not; having ears to hear, but not sense enough to judge."[358]This scathing indictment of the intelligence of the Commons may possibly have been true at the time when it was written: it would certainly not be applicable to-day. Meaningless periods, however harmonious, are no longer tolerated. In Lord Chesterfield's day, however, sound seems to have been more important than sense, as may be gathered from an account he gives elsewhere of a speech made in 1751 in the House of Lords. He was speaking upon a Bill for the Reform of the Calendar, a subject upon which he knew absolutely nothing. To conceal his ignorance he conceived the idea of giving the House an historical account of calendars generally, from Ancient Egyptian to modern times, being particularly attentive to the choice of his words, to the harmony of his periods, and to his elocution. The peers were enchanted. "They thought I informed," he explains, "because I pleased them; and many of them said that I had made the whole very clear to them, when, God knows, I had not even attempted it."[359]
The gift of oratory is most certainly heaven-born, but its development demands a vast amount of purely mundane labour. The best speeches have ever been those in the preparation of which the most time and trouble have been expended. Burke's masterpieces were essays, laboriously constructed in the study; Sheridan's elaborate impromptus were carefully devised beforehand, and, if successful,occasionally repeated.[360]Chatham, whose wonderful dominion over the House does not perhaps appear in his speeches, chose his words with the greatest care, and confided to a friend that in order to improve his vocabulary he had read "Bailey's Dictionary" twice through from beginning to end.
The fervid eloquence of such men as Plunket, Macaulay, Brougham, and Canning—"the last of the rhetoricians"—was the fruit of many an hour of laborious thought and study. Canning especially never spared himself. He would draw up for use in the House a paper, on which were written the heads of the subjects which he intended to touch upon. These heads were numbered, and the numbers sometimes extended to four or five hundred. Lord North, when he lost the thread of his discourse, would look through his notes with the utmost nonchalance, seeking the cue which was to lead him to further flights of eloquence. "It is not on this side of the paper, Mr. Speaker," he would declaim, still speaking in his oratorical tone; "neither is it on the other side!" Then, perhaps, he would suddenly come upon the desired note, and continue his unbroken oration without a sign of further hesitation.[361]Bright used to provide himself with small slips of paper, inscribed with his bon-mots, which he drew from his pocket as occasion required. He excelled, nevertheless, in scathing repartee. Once, during his absence through illness, a noble lord stated publicly that Bright had been afflicted by Providence with a disease of the brain as a punishment for his misuse of his talents. "It may be so," said Bright, on his return to the House, "but in any case it will be some consolation to the friends and family of the noble lord to know that the disease is one which even Providence could not inflict upon him."[362]He did not always get the best ofit, however, and when he ridiculed Lord John Manners for the youthful couplet—
"Let wealth and commerce, laws and learning die,But leave us still our old nobility!"
the author justly retorted that he would far sooner be the foolish young man who wrote those lines than the malignant old man who quoted them.
That speeches should be as effective when read as when delivered is the highest quality of oratory. For this reason, perhaps, some speakers write out their speeches and commit them to memory. Disraeli did so with his more important orations, a fact which greatly enhances the pleasure of their perusal. Macaulay followed the same practice, and, indeed, it is said that the excessive elaboration of his oratory sometimes weakened its effect. Lord Randolph Churchill's earlier speeches were all memorised in this fashion. But it is not every man whose memory is sufficiently retentive to enable him to accomplish this feat, and a breakdown in the very middle of a humorous anecdote thoughtfully interspersed in a speech is a catastrophe which casts ridicule upon the speaker.[363]
Though matter may be a most important element in parliamentary speaking, manner undoubtedly counts for a good deal. Demosthenes practised declaiming with sharp weapons suspended above him so as to learn to keep still, and, as we have already seen, had some obscure reason for filling his mouth with pebbles. Neither of these practices is to be commended to modern orators, many of whom already speak as though their mouths were filled with hot potatoes, while their habitual gesticulations, if made in the neighbourhood of dependent cutlery, would result in reducing their bodies to one huge wound. Sir Watkin Wynne and his brother were long known in the House of Commons as "Bubble and Squeak," theformer's voice being a smothered mumble suggestive of suppressed thunder, the latter's a childish treble. Mannerisms of gesture, as well as of speech, are easily contracted. Lord Mahon, "out-roaring torrents in their course," reinforced his stentorian lungs by violent gestures which were at times a source of bodily danger to his friends. Once, when speaking on a Bill he had brought in for the suppression of smuggling, he declared that this crime must be knocked on the head with one blow. To emphasize his meaning, he dealt the unfortunate Pitt, who was sitting just in front of him, a violent buffet on the head, much to the amusement of the House.[364]The gesticulations of Sir Charles Wetherell, the well-known member, were less dangerous, if quainter. He used to unbutton his braces in a nervous fashion while addressing the House, leaving between his upper and lower garments an interregnum to which Speaker Manners Sutton once alluded as the honourable gentleman's only lucid interval. The late Lord Goschen would grasp himself firmly by the lapel of his coat, as though (to quote a well-known parliamentary writer) "otherwise he might run away and leave matters to explain themselves."[365]
Parliamentary eloquence to-day makes up in quantity for what it lacks in quality. The number of members who follow the advice of the Psalmist and earn a reputation for wisdom by a continual policy of eloquent silence[366]has dwindled to vanishing point, since to speak in Parliament has come to be regarded as part of a member's duty to his constituents. In Gladstone's first session, in 1833, less than 6000 speeches were made in the House of Commons; fifty years later the number had increased to 21,000; to-day the steadily growingbulk of each volume of the "Parliamentary Debates" testifies to the swelling flood of oratory which is annually let loose within the precincts of Parliament. And if La Rochefoucauld's maxim be true, that we readily pardon those who bore us, but never those whom we bore, the House of Commons has need of a most forgiving spirit to listen patiently to so much of what can only be described asvox et praeterea nihil.
The level of eloquence is, no doubt, higher in the House of Lords than elsewhere. Peers include a greater number of orators among their numbers; opportunities for a display of their talents are more rare; their powers are not dissipated in prolonged debates, as in the Commons, but are reserved for full-dress occasions.
In neither House nowadays is there any exhibition of that old-fashioned rhetoric, florid and flamboyant, which was once so popular. What Mackintosh calls "an elevated kind of after-dinner conversation," such as Lord Salisbury affected so successfully, is the form taken by modern parliamentary eloquence. There are no appeals to sentiment, no quotations from the classics, no bombastic declamations.[367]The House of Commons is still "a mob of gentlemen, the greater part of whom are neither without talent nor information,"[368]and with such an audience learned generalities are out of place. Passion has to a large extent given way to business, and in Parliament to-day are rarely heard those "splendid common-places of the first-rate rhetorician," which Lord Morley considers necessary to sway assemblies.
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 unromanticvegetables 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 passionless 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 shillings—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 compass 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 arara 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 hisoratory. "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.
In their efforts to grapple successfully with the ever-increasing mass 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 passed 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 constitutional 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 Commonscontinued 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.
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.
Saturday 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 Saturday 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."
In more recent times it became the fashion 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; butlately 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 circumstances of special pressure they take holidays on Friday and Saturday, 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]
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 toaddress 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.
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 constituencies.
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]
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," divisionlists, 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 assigned 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 clashing 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 wasconfined 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.
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 institutions, 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]
As a substitute 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 instituted 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 temporarilyto 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 substitute 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 substitute for the Speaker, the House has never been willing to accord the complete consideration to which the Chair is entitled; 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]
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 rulewhich 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 hardships. 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]
In the year 1640, a prolonged session was the cause of many members absenting themselves from their places in the House of Commons. In order to ensure a more general attendance it was then determined that the Speaker should not take the Chair unless there were at least forty members present in the House. This rule still holds good, and to-day, if a quorum of forty is not obtainable before four o'clock, the sitting is suspended until that hour. Should the same difficulty arise after four o'clock, the House is adjourned until the next sitting day.[382]An exception is made in favour of the hour between 8.15 and 9.15, but if a division be taken during that hour in the absence of a quorum, the business in debate must be postponed and the next business brought on. When, too, a message from the Crown is delivered, the House of Commons is held to be "made" even though forty members are not present. On such an occasion the business of the day can be proceeded with so long as no notice is taken of the absence of a quorum.
It is not the Speaker's (or Chairman's) duty to notice the absence of a quorum, but if his attention is drawn to it by a member he must at once rise in his place and proceed to count the House. There is a well-known story of a prolixmember speaking to empty benches in the Commons who referred sarcastically to the packed audience hanging upon his words, and was interrupted by the Speaker, who at once proceeded to "count out" the House, and put an end to the sitting as well as to the member's oration. The Speaker's inability to count the House out of his own accord has occasionally given rise to inconvenient situations. Lord George Gordon once rose and requested permission to read from a book, which was granted. He then proceeded to read the Bible until the House dwindled from upwards of four hundred members to two, namely, the Speaker and Lord George himself, who had the indecency to keep the former in the Chair till the candles were "fairly in the socket."[383]
In the House of Lords three peers form a quorum. If, however, thirty lords are not present on a division upon any stage of a Bill, the question is declared to be not decided, and the debate is adjourned until the next sitting. Lord Rosebery, in 1884, recalled an occasion when a noble lord, Lord Leitrim, addressed a quorum of the House, consisting, besides himself, of the Lord Chancellor and the Minister whose duty it was to answer him, for four mortal hours. Another instance of the same kind is supposed to have occurred when Lord Lyndhurst was on the Woolsack and a noble lord spoke at considerable length to an audience of even smaller proportions. After a time the Chancellor became very weary and could scarcely conceal his impatience. "This is too bad," he said at length, "can't you stop?" Still, the peer prosed on, showing no sign of reaching his peroration. Finally, Lyndhurst could stand it no longer. "By Jove," he cried, suddenly inspired with a brilliant idea, "I will count you out!" As he and the speaker only were present in the House at the time, the Chancellor was able to do this, and the long-winded nobleman was effectually silenced.
In early times the daily sittings of Parliament werepreceded by Mass held in St. Stephen's Chapel. Later on it became the custom for the lords to repair to the Abbey, and the Commons to St. Margaret's Church, for a brief morning service. In the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth the Litany was read daily, and a short prayer offered up by the Speaker at the meeting of the House. Prior to 1563, no regular daily prayers were held, but on the first five days of any Parliament "an archbishop, bishop or famous clerk, discrete and eloquent," preached to the House.[384]This practice long continued, and we read of "Dr. Burgesse and Master Marshal," preaching to Parliament on a fast day in the year 1640 for "at least seven hours betwixt them"[385]—an occasion when their eloquence seems to have outrun their discretion.
Nineteen years later Richard Cromwell appointed the first regular chaplain to relieve the Speaker and the discreet and eloquent prelates and clerks of their duties. This official enjoyed no fixed emoluments, but was upheld and nourished by the consciousness of duty nobly done and the hope of subsequent preferment. His counterpart to-day is appointed by the Speaker and paid by the House, and his duties consist in reading the three brief prayers with which each daily session of the House commences.[386]In the Lords this task is undertaken by the bishops in rotation.
When prayers are over in the Lower House any "private business" that has to be taken is called on, and Private Bills pass through the initiatory stages of their career. The procedure in this case is, as a rule, purely formal, and lasts but a short time.
The dispatch of private business is immediately followed by the oral presentation of petitions by those members who have informed the Speaker of their intention to do so.
In these days of open courts of justice, a free Press, andwholesale publicity the need for petitions is not so great as it was in times when the voice of the people could not always obtain a hearing. To-day the papers are only too ready to lend their columns to the airing of any grievance, real or imaginary, and politicians are not unwilling to make party capital out of any individual instances of apparent injustice or oppression that may be brought to their notice.
A hundred years ago all petitions were read to the House by the members presenting them, and lengthy discussions often ensued. Much waste of time resulted from this practice, and the frequent arrival at Westminster of large bodies of petitioners caused great inconvenience, and sometimes led to rioting. In 1641, a huge crowd of women completely blocked the entrance of the House. They were led by a certain Mrs. Anne Stagg, "a gentlewoman and brewer's wife," and their object was to present a petition directed against the Popish bishops.[387]The Sergeant of the Parliamentary Guard appealed to the House for advice as to how he should treat these women, and was told to speak them fair and send them away. This he accordingly proceeded to do, but not without much difficulty.
Two years later three thousand other "mean women," wearing white ribbons in their hats, arrived at Westminster with another petition. "Peace! Peace!" they cried, in a manner which was little calculated to gain that which they were seeking. "Give us those traitors that are against peace, that we may tear them to pieces! Give us that dog Pym!" The conduct of these viragoes at length became so unruly that the trained bands were sent for, and the order was eventually given to fire upon the mob. "When the gentle sex can so flagrantly renounce their character, and make such formidable attacks on the men," says a contemporary historian, "they certainly forfeit the polite treatment due tothem as women"—and in this case their forgetfulness cost them the loss of several lives.[388]
To-day, under the provisions of the One Mile Act of George III.—the result of an attack made upon the Regent on his way from the opening of Parliament in 1817—no assembly of petitioners or public meeting is allowed within a mile of the Palace of Westminster. Petitions themselves are treated in a summary manner which permits of little time being wasted. No debate is permitted upon the subjects raised by petitions, and the formal method of presentation has given place to a more satisfactory (if somewhat perfunctory) fashion of dealing with them.
Behind the Speaker's Chair hangs a large bag. In this a petition may be placed, at any time during a sitting, by the member in charge of it. Thence it is sent to the Committee on Public Petitions, and presumably never heard of again. Petitions sometimes contain so many signatures, and are consequently so bulky, that no earthly bag could possibly contain them. In 1890, for instance, a petition eight miles in length, in favour of the Local Taxation Bill, was presented to Parliament, and in 1908 another, almost as voluminous, provided a material protest against the Licensing Bill. Petitions of such proportions are carried into the House on the shoulders of stout officials, and, after reposing for a brief space upon the floor, are presently borne away to be no more seen or remembered.
When petitions have been disposed of, motions for unopposed returns are taken, and other formal business; and then follows question-time, perhaps one of the most importanthours of the parliamentary day, when a hitherto languid House begins to take some interest in the proceedings.
Politicians would appear to be among the most inquisitive individuals on the face of the globe; their thirst for general information is as insatiable as it is amazing. The time spent by various Government officials in pandering to this craving for knowledge on the part of legislators is very considerable: it has even been hinted that the clerks at the Irish Office are employed exclusively upon the task of answering conundrums set by members of the House of Commons. Nothing is too insignificant, no matter is too sacred, to be made the subject of a question in the House. But, although any member has a perfect right to apply for a return, or to ask any question he pleases, within certain bounds, a Minister of the Crown may always refuse to supply the return, or decline to answer the question; nor need he give any reason for so doing. This rule provides a loophole for a Minister who is confronted with an awkward question to which it would need the powers of subtlety and casuistry of a Gladstone to find a non-committal reply.[389]
A member of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry in 1854 was attacked for not rendering a certain return that had been applied for. He made no comment at the time, but on a subsequent occasion produced and laid on the Table of the House a huge folio volume weighing 1388 lbs. and containing seventy-two reams of foolscap. The compilation of this return, as he informed the House, had caused the dispatch of 34,500 circular letters and the cataloguing and tabulating of 34,500 replies. The result of the figures mentioned therein had not been arrived at, the Minister went on to explain, as it would have taken two clerks a whole year to add them up. Further, he added, the return, if completed, would afford no information beyond that which the House already possessed.[390]
Ever since 1902, a written instead of an oral reply can be rendered to all questions that are not marked with an asterisk by the member who asks them. No questions may be asked after a certain hour, and the answers to those that have not been reached at that hour, as well as to those that are not marked with an asterisk, are printed and circulated, thus saving a great deal of valuable time.
Questions must be brief and relevant. No member may ask an excessive or unreasonable number, nor may he couch them in lengthy terms. They may not be framed argumentatively nor contain personal charges against individuals. The Speaker is empowered to disallow any question if he thinks fit, and often interposes to check supplementary questions which are not relevant, or which constitute an abuse of the right to interrogate Ministers; and the latter are always at liberty to refuse an answer on the grounds that a reply would be contrary to the public interest. Whenever our relations with foreign Powers are in any way strained, certain members seem to take a delight in asking questions calculated to hamper the movements of the Foreign Office, or to provide other nations with all the secret information they desire. And it is not always expedient or easy for Ministers to refuse to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of their friends or opponents, or to try and choke off the inquisitive or importunate with evasive answers. It was always said that "Darby Griffith destroyed Lord Palmerston's first Government," by asking perpetual questions which the Premier answered with a "cheerful impertinence which hurt his parliamentary power."[391]And the amount of patience and tact displayed by modern Ministers in replying to frivolous or petty queries is always a subject of admiration to the stranger.
Members no doubt feel it their duty to provide their constituencies with some material evidence of their parliamentary labours, and no easier method can be imagined than the asking of questions on subjects in which they possiblytake not the slightest interest. Some politicians openly confess that their secretaries have orders to make out a regular weekly list of conundrums which they can hurl at the heads of unoffending Ministers, with no other purpose than that of showing their constituents that they are taking an active interest in the affairs of the nation. The criticism made by a parliamentary writer fifty years ago is equally applicable to-day. "It would seem to be the chief amusement of some members diligently to read the newspapers in the morning, and to ask Ministers of State in the afternoon if they have read them too, and what they think of them."[392]
The growth of this yearning for information is very clearly shown by a glance at the parliamentary statistics for the last hundred years. In 1800 not a single question was put during the whole of one session. In 1846 the number of questions asked with due notice was sixty-nine. In 1850 the number had risen to 212, in 1888 to 5000; in 1901 over 7000 questions were put, and to-day the number is still steadily increasing.
At four o'clock, or earlier if questions have been disposed of, the House proceeds to the consideration of its public business and the "orders of the day," and the real business of Parliament begins.
The modern system of legislating by Bill and Statute dates from the reign of Henry VI. In earlier days legislation was effected by means of humble petitions presented to the Crown by the Commons, and granted or refused according as the King thought fit.
Every Act of Parliament commences its existence in the shape of a Bill. As such, it may be introduced in either House, though the Commons have the undoubted monopoly of initiating financial measures, and Bills for the restitution of honours and blood must originate with the Lords. In the Upper House, any peer may introduce a Bill without notice, but in the Commons a member must give notice of his intention either to present a measure or move for leave to do so. A Bill whose main object is to impose a charge upon the public revenue must first be authorized by a resolution of a Committee of the Whole House.
Bills may be roughly classified under the two headings of Public and Private, according as they affect the general interest or are framed for the benefit of individuals or groups of individuals, though there also exist hybrid Bills which cannot be rightly placed in either category. But whatever their nature, Bills must pass through five successive stages. In the House of Lords, however, the Committee and Report stages are occasionally negatived in the case of Money Bills, and the Committee stage of Private Bills is conducted outside the House either before the Chairman of Committees or, in case of opposition, by a Select Committee of the House.
In ancient days the proceedings were not so lengthy as they afterwards became, a Bill being sometimes read three times and passed in a single day;[393]but nowadays the passage through Parliament of a Controversial Bill is a tedious affair.
It will be sufficient for the purposes of this chapter to take the example of a Public Bill introduced in the House of Commons, and follow it from its embryonic state along the course of its career until, as an Act of Parliament, it finally takes its place in the statute-book of the land.
By obtaining the permission of the House, a Member of Parliament may bring in a Bill upon any conceivable subject, but it is not always possible for him to find the necessary opportunity for doing so, unless he happens to be exceptionally favoured by fortune.[394]In these days, when the time at the disposal of Parliament is altogether inadequate to the demands made upon it by legislation, the chances of passing a Bill without the support of the Government are for a private member extremely small. Even with official assistance this is not always an easy matter. It is perhaps as well that the passion for legislation latent in the bosom of every politician should to some extent be curbed. George II. said to Lord Waldegrave that Parliament passed nearly a hundred laws every session, which seemed made for no other purpose than to afford people the pleasure of breaking them, and his opinion that the less legislation effected by Parliament the better for the country is still popular in many quarters.[395]
On the third day of every session the question of the priority of members' claims to introduce Bills and motions is decided by ballot.
A member who is lucky, and has, if necessary, obtained the leave of the House, can introduce his Bill briefly and without debate. Taking his stand at the bar, he awaits the summons of the Speaker, when, advancing to the Table, he hands to the Clerk a "dummy" on which the title of the Bill is written. This the Clerk proceeds to read to the House. The Bill is then considered to have been read a first time, and ordered to be printed, and a day is fixed for the Second Reading.
The First Reading is looked upon as a mere matter of form, and rarely opposed.[396]It is on the Second Reading, when the principle of the Bill is by way of being discussed, that any real antagonism begins to make itself felt. Opponents may negative the motion that the Bill benowread a second time—in which case the motion may be repeated another day—or may adopt the more usual and polite method of moving that the Bill be read "this day six (or three) months"—the intention being to destroy the Bill by postponing the Second Reading until after the prorogation of Parliament. No Bill or motion on which the House has given such a decision may be brought up again during the same session, so that a postponement of the reading is merely a courteous way of shelving it altogether.[397]
A Bill that has successfully weathered a Second Reading stands committed to a Committee of the Whole House, unless the House, on motion, resolves that it be referred to some other kind of Committee, viz., a Grand Committee, a Select Committee, or a Joint Committee of both Houses.
When the House is to resolve itself into Committee amotion to that effect is made in the Lords, to which an amendment may be moved; in the Commons the Speaker leaves the chair, and the Chairman of Committees at once presides, sitting in the Clerk's chair at the Table. The Bill is then discussed clause by clause, and any number of amendments may be proposed to each line, and any number of speeches made by any member on each amendment. No limit is set to the number of amendments that may be moved, provided they are relevant and consistent with the policy of the Bill. This is therefore by far the most lengthy stage of the Bill, and it was in order to accelerate the progress of business that, in 1883, Standing Committees, consisting of from sixty to eighty members, were created to which Bills relating to Law and Trade were to be referred instead of to the Committee of the Whole House.
When the Bill has passed through the Committee stage, it is reported to the House with or without amendments. In the former case, a day is fixed for the discussion of its altered shape, and on this "Report" stage further amendments may be made. At the Third Reading a Bill may still be rejected, or postponed "for six months," or re-committed, but in the Commons no material amendments may be made to it. This stage is usually taken at once after the Report; but in the Lords the two stages must be on different days, and amendments may be made after due notice on the Third Reading.
When a Bill has safely passed all its stages in the Lower House, the Clerk of the Commons attaches to it a polite message in Norman-French—"soit baillé aux seigneurs"—and hands it to his colleague in the Lords. The latter lays it on the Table of the Upper House, where it lies until taken up by some peer—which must be done within twelve sitting days, if the Bill is not to be lost (though it may be raised from the dead by notice of a motion to revive it of the same duration)—when its subsequent treatment, with the few differences noted above, is very similar to that which it has already undergone.