A grave and beautiful place, the Palace of Westminster. I sometimes go
to that little chamber of it wherein the Commons sit sprawling or stand
spouting. I am a constant reader of the 'graphic reports' of what goes
on in the House of Commons; and the writers of these things always
strive to give one the impression that nowhere is the human comedy so
fast and furious, nowhere played with such skill and brio, as at St.
Stephen's; and I am rather easily influenced by anything that appears
in daily print, for I have a burning faith in the sagacity and
uprightness of sub-editors; and so, when the memory of my last visit to
the House has lost its edge, and when there is a crucial debate in
prospect, to the House I go, full of hope that this time I really shall
be edified or entertained. With an open mind I go, reeking naught of
the pro's and con's of the subject of the debate. I go as to a
gladiatorial show, eager to applaud any man who shall wield his sword
brilliantly. If a 'stranger' indulge in applause, he is tapped on the
shoulder by one of those courteous, magpie-like officials, and
conducted beyond the precincts of the Palace of Westminster. I speak
from hearsay. I do not think I have ever seen a 'stranger' applauding.
My own hands, certainly, never have offended.
Years ago, when to be a member of the House of Commons was to be (or to
deem oneself) a personage of great importance, the debates were
conducted with a keen eye to effect. Members who had a sense of beauty
made their speeches beautiful, and even those to whom it was denied did
their best. Grace of ample gesture was cultivated, and sonorous
elocution, and lucid ordering of ideas, and noble language. In fact,
there was a school of oratory. This is no mere superstition, bred of
man's innate tendency to exalt the past above the present. It is a fact
that can easily be verified through contemporary records. It is a fact
which I myself have verified in the House with my own eyes and ears.
More than once, I heard there--and it was a pleasure and privilege to
hear--a speech made by Sir William Harcourt. And from his speeches I
was able to deduce the manner of his coevals and his forerunners. Long
past his prime he was, and bearing up with very visible effort against
his years. An almost extinct volcano! But sufficient to imagination
these glimpses of the glow that had been, and the sight of these last
poor rivulets of the old lava. An almost extinct volcano, but majestic
among mole-hills! Assuredly, the old school was a fine one. It had its
faults, of course--floridness, pomposity, too much histrionism. It was,
indeed, very like the old school of acting, in its defects as in its
qualities. With all his defects, what a relief it is to see one of the
old actors among a cast of new ones! How he takes the stage, making
himself felt--and heard! How surely he achieves his effects in the
grand manner! Robustious? Yes. But it is better to exaggerate a style
than to have no style at all. That is what is the matter with these
others--these quiet, shifty, shamefaced others they have no style at
all. And as is the difference between the old actor and them, so,
precisely was the difference between Sir William Harcourt and the
modern members.
I do not desire the new actors to model themselves on the old, whose
manner is quite incongruous with the character of modern drama. All I
would have them do is to achieve the manner for which they are darkly
fumbling. Even so, I do not demand oratory of the modern senators.
Oratory I love, but I admit that the time for it is bygone. It belonged
to the age of port. On plenty of port the orator spoke, and on plenty
of port his audience listened to him. A diet-bound generation can
hardly produce an orator; and if, by some mysterious throw-back, an
orator actually is produced, he falls very flat. There was in my
college at Oxford a little 'Essay Society,' to which I found myself
belonging. We used to meet every Thursday evening in the room of this
or that member; and, when coffee had been handed round, one of us read
an essay--a calm little mild essay on one of those vast themes that no
undergraduate can resist. After this, we had a calm little mild
discussion 'It seems to me that the reader of the paper has hardly laid
enough stress on...' One of these evenings I can recall most
distinctly. A certain freshman had been elected. The man who was to
have read an essay had fallen ill, and the freshman had been asked to
step into the breach. This he did, with an essay on 'The Ideals of
Mazzini,' and with strange and terrific effect. During the exordium we
raised our eyebrows. Presently we were staring open-mouthed. Where were
we? In what wild dream were we drifting? To this day I can recite the
peroration. Mazzini is dead. But his spirit lives, and can never be
crushed. And his motto--the motto that he planted on the gallant banner
of the Italian Republic, and sealed with his life's blood, remains, and
shall remain, till, through the eternal ages, the universal air
re-echoes to the inspired shout--'GOD AND THE PEOPLE!'
The freshman had begun to read his essay in a loud, declamatory style;
but gradually, knowing with an orator's instinct, I suppose, that his
audience was not 'with' him, he had quieted down, and become rather
nervous--too nervous to skip, as I am sure he wished to skip, the
especially conflagrant passages. But, as the end hove in sight, his
confidence was renewed. A wave of emotion rose to sweep him ashore upon
its crest. He gave the peroration for all it was worth. Mazzini is
dead. I can hear now the hushed tone in which he spoke those words; the
pause that followed them; and the gradual rising of his voice to a
culmination at the words 'inspired shout'; and then another pause
before that husky whisper 'GOD AND THE PEOPLE.' There was no
discussion. We were petrified. We sat like stones; and presently, like
shadows, we drifted out into the evening air. The little society met
once or twice again; but any activity it still had was but the faint
convulsion of a murdered thing. Old wine had been poured into a new
bottle, with the usual result. Broken even so, belike, would be the
glass roof of the Commons if a member spouted up to it such words as we
heard that evening in Oxford. At any rate, the member would be howled
down. So strong is the modern distaste for oratory. The day for
oratory, as for toping, is past beyond redemption. 'Debating' is the
best that can be done and appreciated by so abstemious a generation as
ours. You will find a very decent level of 'debating' in the Oxford
Union, in the Balham Ethical Society, in the Pimlico Parliament, and
elsewhere. But not, I regret to say, in the House of Commons.
No one supposes that in a congeries of--how many?--six hundred and
seventy men, chosen by the British public, there will be a very high
average of mental capacity. If any one were so sanguine, a glance at
the faces of our Conscript Fathers along the benches would soon bleed
him. (I have no doubt that the custom of wearing hats in the House
originated in the members' unwillingness to let strangers spy down on
the shapes of their heads.) But it is not unreasonable to expect that
the more active of these gentlemen will, through constant practice, not
only in the senate, but also at elections and public dinners and so
forth, have acquired a rough-and-ready professionalism in the art of
speaking. It is not unreasonable to expect that they will be fairly
fluent--fairly capable of arranging in logical sequence such ideas as
they may have formed, and of reeling out words more or less expressive
of these ideas. Well! certain of the Irishmen, certain of the Welshmen,
proceed easily enough. But oh! those Saxon others! Look at them, hark
at them, poor dears! See them clutching at their coats, and shuffling
from foot to foot in travail, while their ideas--ridiculous mice, for
the most part--get jerked painfully out somehow and anyhow. 'It seems
to me that the Right--the honourable member for--er--er (the speaker
dives to be prompted)--yes, of course--South Clapham--er--(temporising)
the Southern division of Clapham--(long pause; his lips form the words
'Where was I?')--oh yes, the honourable gentleman the member for South
Clapham seems to me to me--to be--in the position of one who, whilst
the facts on which his propo--supposition are based--er--may or may not
be in themselves acc--correct (gasps)--yet
inasmuch--because--nevertheless...I should say rather--er--what it
comes to is this: the honourable member for North--South Clapham seems
to be labouring under a total, an entire, a complete (emphatic gesture,
which throws him off his tack)--a contire--a complete
disill--misunderstanding of the things which he himself relies on
as--as--as a backing-up of the things that he would have us take
or--er--accept and receive as the right sort of reduction--deduction
from the facts of...in fact, from the facts of the case.' Then the poor
dear heaves a deep sigh of relief, which is drowned by other members in
a hideous cachinnation meant to express mirth.
And the odd thing is that the mirth is quite sincere and quite
friendly. The speaker has just scored a point, though you mightn't
think it. He has just scored a point in the true House of Commons
manner. Possibly you have never been to the House of Commons, and
suspect that I have caricatured its manner. Not at all. Indeed, to save
space in these pages, I have rather improved it. If a phonograph were
kept in the house, you would learn from it that the average sentence of
the average speaker is an even more grotesque abortion than I have
adumbrated. Happily for the prestige of the House, phonographs are
excluded. Certain skilled writers--modestly dubbing themselves
'reporters'--are admitted, and by them cosmos is conjured out of chaos.
'The member for South Clapham appeared to be labouring under a
misapprehension of the nature of the facts on which his argument was
based (Laughter).' That is the finished article that your morning paper
offers to you. And you, enjoying the delicious epigram over your tea
and toast, are as unconscious of the toil that went to make it, and of
the crises through which it passed, as you are of those poor sowers and
reapers, planters and sailors and colliers, but for whom there would be
no fragrant tea and toast for you.
The English are a naturally silent race. The most popular type of
national hero is the 'strong silent man.' And most of the members of
the House of Commons are, at any rate, silent members. Mercifully
silent. Seeing the level attained by such members as have an impulse to
speak, I shudder to conceive an oration by one of those unimpelled
members... Perhaps I am too nervous. Surely I am too nervous. Surely
the House of Commons manner cannot be a natural growth. Such perfect
virtuosity in dufferdom can be acquired only by constant practice. But
how comes it to be practised? I can only repeat that the English are a
naturally silent race. They are apt to mistrust fluency. 'Glibness'
they call it, and scent behind it the adventurer, the player of the
confidence trick or the three-card trick, the robber of the widow and
the orphan. Be smooth-tongued, and the Englishman will withdraw from
you as quickly as may be, walking sideways like a crab, and looking
askance at you with panic in his eyes. But stammer and blurt to him,
and he will fall straight under the spell of your transparent honesty.
A silly superstition; but there it is, ineradicable; and through it,
undoubtedly, has come the house of Commons manner. Sometimes, through
sheer nervousness, a new member achieves something like that manner;
insomuch that his maiden speech is adjudged rich in promise, and 'the
ear of the House' is assured to him when next he rises. Then is the
dangerous time for him. He has conquered his nervousness now, but has
not yet acquired that complex and delicate technique whereby a man can
produce the illusion that he is striving hopelessly to utter something
which, really, he could say with perfect ease. Thus he forfeits the
sympathy of the House. Members stroll listlessly out. There is a buzz
of conversation along the benches--perhaps the horrific refrain ''Vide,
'Vide, 'Vide.' But the time will come when they shall hear him. Years
hence--a beacon to show the heights that can be sealed by
perseverance--he shall stand fumbling and floundering in a rapt senate.
Well! I take off my hat to virtuosity in any form. I admire
Demosthenes, for whom pebbles in the mouth were a means to the end of
oratory. I admire the Demosthenes de nos jours, for whom oratory is a
means to the end of pebbles in the mouth. But I desire that the
intelligent foreigner and the intelligent country cousin be not
disappointed when they visit the House of Commons. Hitherto, strangers
have expected to find there an exhibition of the art of speaking. That
is the fault partly of those reporters to whom I have paid a
well-deserved tribute. But it is more especially the fault of those
other 'graphic' reporters, who write their lurid impressions of the
debates. These gentlemen are most wildly misleading. I don't think they
mislead you intentionally. If a man criticises one kind of ill-done
thing exclusively, he cannot but, in course of time, lower his
standard. Seeing nothing good, he will gradually forget what goodness
is; and will accept as good that which is least bad. So it is with the
graphic reporter in Parliament. He really does imagine that Hob 'raked
the Treasury Bench with a merciless fire of raillery,' and that Nob
'went, as is his way, straight to the root of the subject,' and that
Chittabob 'struck a deep note of pathos that will linger long in the
memory of all who heard him.' If Hob, Nob, and Chittabob happen to be
in opposition to the politics of the newspaper which he adorns, he will
perhaps tell the truth about their respective performances. But he will
tell it without believing it. All his geese are swans--bless him!--even
when he won't admit it. The moral is that no man should be employed as
graphic reporter for more than one session. Then the public would begin
to learn the truth about St. Stephen's. Nor need the editors flinch
from such a consummation. They used to entertain a theory that it was
safest to have the productions at every theatre praised, in case any
manager should withdraw his advertisements. But there need be no such
fear in regard to St. Stephen's. That establishment does not advertise
itself in the press as a place of amusement. Why should the press
advertise it gratuitously?
For utility's sake, as well as for truth's, I would have the public
enlightened. Exposed to ruthless criticism, our Commons might be shamed
into an attempt at proficiency in the art of speaking. Then the
sessions would be comparatively brief. After all, it is on the nation
itself that falls the cost of lighting, warming, and ventilating St.
Stephen's during the session. All the aforesaid dufferdom, therefore,
increases the burden of the taxpayer. All those hum's and ha's mean so
many pence from the pockets of you, reader, and me.