“WHO GOES HOME?”
1
As a rule, the Parliament knows that its days are numbered long before
it is actually dissolved. I know of only one dissolution, that of
1880, which when announced was quite unexpected. In the abrupt way
it was heralded there was also a strange mixture of the comic and
dramatic. On March 8, 1880, the House of Commons met for nothing more
exciting than the disposal of some unimportant Orders of the Day.
The attendance was, therefore, small. Among the notable absentees
were Lord Hartington, titular Leader of the Liberal Opposition, and
its actual chief, Gladstone. When the questions on the paper were
asked and answered, Sir Stafford Northcote, the Leader of the House,
interposed with the desire--as he put it--to “make a few remarks.” In
this, of course, there was nothing unusual. Nor was there anything in
Northcote’s manner, or the tone of his voice, that implied a portentous
announcement. He made a few commonplace observations about the business
before the House, and seemed to have finished what he had to say and
to be about to sit down, when, as if starting afresh on another topic
as an afterthought, he said: “Being on my legs----.” Then came the
announcement that, as soon as financial business could be wound up, the
Parliament would be dissolved. For delightful casualness, that “being
on my legs” has no parallel in famous parliamentary phrases. Parliament
is actually dissolved by Royal Proclamation, which appears in the
_London Gazette_. But some weeks before this is published the ceremony
of prorogation takes place in the House of Lords. Though it means the
end of the Parliament, there is rarely anything in it officially to
distinguish it from the function that marks the end of any session.
2
In former times it was usual for Parliament to be dissolved by the King
in person. The most famous dissolution of the kind in recent times is
that for the purpose of taking the sense of the country on the first
Reform Bill of 1831. The second reading of the Bill had been carried in
the House of Commons at three o’clock on the morning of March 23 by a
majority of one, in the fullest House perhaps that ever was known--303
being for the Bill and 302 against it. During the following April the
Bill was slowly and with difficulty making its way through Committee,
being fought desperately word by word by the Tory Opposition, when
the Whig Government made up its mind to dissolve. The Cabinet Council
at which this decision was suddenly come to was held on Friday, April
22nd, at half-past eleven o’clock. The Government realized that it was
most important for their ends to have the King present in the House
of Lords. The Prime Minister, Earl Grey, and the Lord Chancellor,
Lord Brougham, went at once to the King, William IV, at the Palace,
with some fear and trembling, to try to persuade him to go down and
prorogue Parliament--with a view to its dissolution--at two o’clock
that very day. The King declared that he could not reconcile himself
to dissolving a Parliament that had just been elected and had treated
him so handsomely in the matter of the Civil List and had settled so
magnificent an annuity on his Consort. The Lord Chancellor insisted
that dissolution was inevitable, and that the King must go straightway
to Westminster. “But who,” demanded the King, “will carry the Sword of
State and the Cap of Maintenance?” That had been arranged, said the
noble lords. “But the Guards,” pleaded his Majesty, “have not been
ordered out.” Earl Grey, who had foreseen everything, assured the
King that they had. “Treason, high treason!” shouted the astonished
King, whose prerogative it was to order out the Guards. The Ministers
admitted their guilt, but declared their action necessary in the
interests of the State; and in the long run the King became calm
and went to Westminster. “This _coup d’état_ was so sudden,” writes
Greville in his _Memoirs_, “that nobody was aware of it until two or
three hours of the time, and many not at all.”
The proceedings in both Houses, when they met at two o’clock and the
unexpected decision of the Government was announced, were very violent.
In the House of Commons Sir Robert Peel, the Leader of the Opposition,
made a furious attack upon the Ministers. Suddenly, above the uproar
caused by his speech, the guns, announcing the arrival of the King,
were heard, and at each explosion the followers of the Government
shouted exultingly. Peel was still struggling to say bitter things of
the Ministers in the midst of every sort of noise and confusion, when
Black Rod knocked at the door to summon the Commons to the House of
Peers. In that exalted Chamber the proceedings were, if anything, still
more tumultuous. The peers on both sides were in a state of the wildest
excitement. They went so far as to shake their fists at each other.
Lord Chancellor Brougham was hooted by the Tories as he endeavoured to
defend the action of the Government in advising the King to dissolve
Parliament. He states in his _Memoirs_ that he purposely continued
speaking until the roar of the guns told him that his Majesty had
arrived. “Black Rod” stood at his elbow, crying: “My Lord Chancellor,
you must come; the King is waiting for you; come along; you must come”;
and he had to be almost dragged out of the House by that impatient
functionary. In the robing-room his Majesty asked the Lord Chancellor
what all the noise in the House was about. Brougham coolly replied: “It
is the Lords debating, sir.” _Hansard_ is not strong in descriptive,
but this is how that record of parliamentary proceedings describes
the manner in which the Lords debated after the Lord Chancellor had
left the Chamber: “It is impossible to describe the confusion, the
noise, the impetuosity, that prevailed from one end of the House to
the other. The peeresses seemed alarmed. Some of the peers were, as it
appeared in the confusion, almost scuffling, and as if shaking their
hands at each other in anger.” However, when the King entered the
tumult ceased. “George Villiers said that in his life he never saw
such a scene,” writes Greville; “and as he looked at the King upon the
Throne, with the Crown loose upon his head, and the tall, grim figure
of Lord Grey close beside him, with the Sword of State in his hand, it
was as if the King had got his executioner by his side, and the whole
picture looked strikingly typical of his and our future destinies.” The
Commons summoned by “Black Rod” were now at the Bar, the Speech from
the Throne proroguing Parliament “with a view,” it was stated in this
instance, “to its immediate dissolution,” was read by the King, and in
ten minutes all was over. Parliament was dissolved by proclamation on
the following day. It may be noted that Villiers’ lugubrious imaginings
have not been fulfilled. On the contrary, the Reform Bill, carried
triumphantly after the General Election, added strength and depth to
the foundations of the Constitution.
3
It is now the settled custom for Parliament to be prorogued, not by the
Sovereign in person, but by Commission. The Lords Commissioners--five
in number, of which the Lord Chancellor always is one--sit in their
scarlet robes and ermine on a bench in front of the great Throne, as
we have seen them when the Royal Assent was given to Bills. “Black
Rod” is forthwith directed to summon the House of Commons, and within
five minutes the Speaker appears at the Bar, accompanied by some of
the Ministers and a crowd of unofficial Members. The Lord Chancellor
then announces that the King, not thinking fit to be present, had
appointed a Royal Commission to do all other necessary things in his
Majesty’s name. But it is customary to make no reference whatever to
the impending death of the Parliament. The Royal Commission is then
declaimed at the Table by the Reading Clerk. The King’s Speech is read
by the Lord Chancellor. It contains congratulations to “My Lords and
Gentlemen” on the valuable additions to the Statute Book which their
labours during the session have produced. There is also a separate
paragraph specially expressing thanks for the supplies granted by
“the faithful Commons.” Thus the proceedings at prorogation, before
dissolution in the House of Lords, are brief and simple. When they
are over the Speaker and the Commons retire from the Bar. The Lords
Commissioners shake hands with the Lord Chancellor, and withdraw to
their robing-rooms behind the Throne. The Lord Chancellor, gathering up
his long robes, and attended by the Purse-bearer and the Mace-bearer,
walks down the floor to the Bar, and also disappears. So far as the
House of Lords is concerned, the ceremony is simply at an end, and
that is all. For the peers the General Election has no terrors. They
are untroubled by any apprehension that they may never again return
to the scarlet benches of the Gilded Chamber. Their position as
Members of Parliament is a permanency unaffected by dissolution and
the fluctuations of political opinion. It is true that only by virtue
of fresh writs of summons issued to them by the Crown can they again
take their seats after a dissolution. But it has been held by a series
of decisions of the House of Lords itself that under the existing law
or custom of the Constitution these fresh writs of summons cannot be
denied by the Crown. A peerage cannot be forfeited or affected except
by Act of Parliament. A peer cannot be expelled from the House of Lords
for any offence, however great. For only one thing is he disqualified
from sitting and voting, and that is bankruptcy, in accordance
with a statute passed in 1871. Yet during the World War the Crown
exercised the discretion of not issuing writs of summons to the Duke
of Cumberland and the Duke of Albany, as they had joined the King’s
enemies--the Germans.
4
With the Commons, however, it is entirely different. Few of them have
any certainty of coming back from the country. “It is so much easier
to go to the country than to return from it,” said Sir Wilfrid Lawson,
from bitter personal experience. It is not unlikely, therefore, that
thoughts tinged with melancholy prevail in the band of Members which,
faithful to the end, follows the Speaker from the House of Lords back
to the House of Commons for the last time for that Parliament. For how
many of them will it be the last time they shall be permitted to cross
the Bar of the House of Commons and take their places on the green
benches?
The Speaker walks up the floor of the Chamber, bowing to the empty
Chair. Then, standing at the head of the Table, he tells the Commons
that he had been to the House of Lords, and reads the King’s Speech,
with the contents of which they are already acquainted. Not a word is
officially said, as a rule, about the forthcoming dissolution. But the
shadow of it lowers forbiddingly over all, and fills their minds with
gloomy thoughts. And so the Speaker, lingering awhile by the Chair,
shakes hands with the Members that surround him, and wishes them
good fortune in the approaching battle in the constituencies. Then
he disappears from the Chamber. The Serjeant-at-Arms, with the Mace,
is also gone. Political friend and foe among the last little company
present clasp hands in a last farewell and depart. Only the Clerks,
in wig and gown, linger at the Table to collect their papers. All is
over. The great debating Chamber is silent and empty. The Parliament is
already but a phantom and a memory.
“Who goes home?” shouts the doorkeeper in the lobby. “Who goes home?”
echoes the policeman in all the corridors of the Palace of Westminster.
It is just as if it were but the end of an ordinary nightly sitting of
the House of Commons. But on this occasion the ancient familiar cry
falls incongruously, if not unfeelingly, upon the ear. Who goes home,
indeed? In the circumstances, it is not home they go--they to whom the
question is addressed--but to the North, the South, the East and the
West, to renew the wooing of the electors, to tread again for weeks
that steep and thorny way which leads to a seat in the House of Commons!
INDEX
Althorp, Lord, repugnance to Office, i. 163
Army officers and membership of the House of Commons, i. 46
Balfour, A. J., question to, as Chief Secretary for Ireland, i. 244
Ballot Act, 1872:
elections under open voting, i. 53;
Chartists and violence of non-electors, 56;
how the ballot was carried, 57
Barry, Charles:
architect of Houses of Parliament, i. 93;
his fee, 94
“Big Ben,” the chimes, i. 95
Bishops in House of Lords, ii. 59
Black Rod, reception in House of Commons, i. 104, ii. 43
Bradlaugh, Charles, imprisonment in Clock Tower, i. 227
Brand, H. B., Speaker, motion of censure on, i. 134
Bright, John, and red tape, i. 142
Broadhurst, Henry, from stonemason’s bench to Treasury Bench, i. 152
Budget Night, ii. 147
Burdett, Sir Francis, arrested by Serjeant-at-Arms, i. 229
Burke, Edmund:
constitutional position of M.P., i. 11;
defeated at Bristol, 13;
as a Party man, 15;
on payment of salaries to Ministers, 197
Burns, John, first manual worker in the Cabinet, i. 198
Carlisle, A. M., interrupts debate in House of Lords, ii. 63
Chairman of Committees, ii. 150
Chamberlain, Austen, non-voter and yet Chancellor of the Exchequer,
i. 43
Chamberlain, Joseph, as Party organizer, i. 18
Chancellor of the Exchequer, unpopular Office, i. 179
Charles I, raid on House of Commons, ii. 103
Clergymen and membership of the House of Commons, i. 45
Clerk, House of Commons, duties at opening of Parliament, i. 100
Cobden, Richard:
extracts from his letter bag, i. 68;
on lure of Parliament, 86;
service on Private Bill Committees, ii. 175
Cochrane, Lord, bribery at election for Honiton, i. 26
Commons, House of:
qualifications and disqualifications of membership, i. 39;
Members not racy of the soil of their constituencies, 40;
as a club, 81;
old men as Members, 84;
as a debating chamber, ii. 13
Comptroller and Auditor-General, ii. 164
Debate:
in House of Commons, ii. 9;
the closure, 11;
the guillotine, 29;
in the House of Lords, 61
Dickens, Charles:
on formation of new Ministry, i. 165;
as a parliamentary reporter, ii. 92
Disraeli:
as Party organizer, i. 18;
on the hustings, 54;
on making
a Government, 149;
relations with Sir Robert Peel, 159;
his political pension, 189;
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii. 136
Divisions:
in House of Commons, ii. 15;
publication of division lists, 18;
in the House of Lords, 75
Elections:
canvassing and kissing, i. 25;
old forms of bribery, 27;
new forms, 30;
Corrupt Practices Act, 1854 and 1883, 29;
secret of success at, 32;
sending on the writs, 37;
nominations, 38;
money deposits by candidates, 47;
at the polling booths, 47;
how voting papers are counted, 60;
returning officer’s casting vote in a tie, 62;
preservation of writs in Record Office, 64;
trial of election petitions, 64
Foreign Secretary, onerous duties of, i. 148
Forster, W. E., author of Ballot Act, i. 57
Fox, Charles J., in Opposition and in Office, i. 193
Franking, old privilege of, i. 99
Games at Westminster, i. 82
George V, speech from Throne at close of World War, i. 215
Gladstone, W. E.:
canvassing at Newark election, i. 24;
making a Government, 150;
age and office, 162;
standard of living in office and in Opposition, 196;
on emoluments of office, 197;
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, ii. 138
Grand Committees, ii. 30
Guy Fawkes, i. 112
Hastings, Warren, kneeling at Bar of the Lords, i. 232
King, the:
veto on Ministerial appointments, i. 166;
receiving new Ministers, 367;
kissing his hands, 168;
part in Speech from the Throne, 201;
supplied with reports of proceedings in the Commons, ii. 98
Library of the House of Commons, historical relics in, i. 99
Lloyd, George, at Board of Trade, i. 183
Lobby of the House of Commons, ii. 95
London, City of, privilege of Members, i. 110
Lord Chancellor:
duties at opening of Parliament, i. 105, 109;
presiding in the House of Lords, ii. 67;
delivering judgment in appeal cases, 85
Lords, House of:
three classes of hereditary peers, i. 36;
Irish and Scottish representative peers, 37;
writs issued to, 116;
introduction of a new peer, ii. 60;
disorder in the Chamber, 70;
as the Supreme Court of Appeal, 78;
life peers, 80;
powers in regard to Money Bills, ii. 158
Lowther, J. W.:
Speaker, i. 123;
on infallibility of Chair, 131
Macaulay:
on canvassing, i. 24;
on woes of an M.P., 66;
in Commons’ smoking-room, 81;
offer of office, 141
Members of Parliament:
relations with constituency, i. 11;
as Party delegates, 16;
patronage of, 69;
epistles they receive, 69;
offer of bribes, 73;
controlled by the Whips, 77;
his compensations, 80;
ancient distinctions abolished, 103;
prison in Clock Tower, 226;
“naming” a Member, 228;
expulsion from House, 229;
breaches of parliamentary manners, ii. 9;
resignations, 14
Mill, John Stuart:
an independent Member, i. 23;
on the hustings, 55;
an opponent of the ballot, 57
Ministers:
qualifications of, i. 142;
distribution between two Houses, 147;
law of re-election, 171;
salaries of, 175; pensions, 187;
their pecuniary worries, 195;
why they cling to office, 199
Morley, John:
on the daily round of an M.P., i. 85;
affirming in House of Lords, 117;
first appointment to office, 152
Oath of allegiance:
Lords, i. 115;
Commons, 117, ii. 121,
Privy Council, 168
O’Connell, Daniel, at Bar of House of Commons, i. 233
Pairing in House of Commons, ii. 124
Palmerston, Lord, “Where are the Colonies?” i. 143
Party:
Goldsmith and Burke on, i. 14, 15;
organizations, 16;
steadying influence on public opinion, 19;
overrides local interests, 32;
influence in House of Commons, ii. 116
Pepys, Samuel, at Bar of House of Commons, i. 233
Petitions to House of Commons, i. 239
Pitt, William:
long tenure of office, i. 193;
salaries, 194;
debts paid by Parliament, 194
Prayers in Lords and Commons, i. 239
Press and Parliament, ii. 87
Prime Minister:
place in precedence, i. 136;
town and country houses, 177
Public Accounts Committee, ii. 165
Pugin, Augustus W., decorator of Houses of Parliament, i. 94
Question-time in Commons, i. 239
Registration of voters, officers and their duties, i. 33
Returning Officers:
writs sent to, i. 37;
duties at nominations, 38;
on polling day, 47
Revenue and expenditure, ii. 143
Rosebery, Lord, on entering and leaving office, i. 174
Russell, Lord J.:
making a Government, i. 141;
on pecuniary worries of Ministers, 195
Schnadhorst, Francis, organizer of Liberal Party, i. 19
Serjeant-at-Arms, chief executive officer, House of Commons, i. 224
Shaftesbury, Earl of:
election as Lord Ashby for Dorset and free drinks, i. 28;
curious experiences in regard to office, 154;
contrasts Lords and Commons, ii. 63
Speaker, the:
election of, i. 105;
asserting rights and privileges of the Commons, 109;
duties of, 122;
continuity of tenure, 125;
disqualified from speaking and voting, 127;
casting vote in a tie, 129;
essential qualities, 130;
tested in emergencies, 132;
motions of censure for rulings, 134;
salary and emoluments, 135;
place in order of precedence, 136;
term of office, 139;
pension and peerage, 139
“Spying strangers”:
in House of Commons, ii. 194;
in House of Lords, 195
Terrace, the, as a society resort, i. 82, 101
Throne of England: in House of Lords, ii. 55
Treasury Bench, how to gain a seat on, i. 83
Victoria, Queen:
differences with Ministers relating to Speech from the Throne, i.
202, 204;
her first opening of Parliament, 208;
her last, 213
Westminster, Palace of:
the old, i. 89;
destruction by fire, 92;
building of the new, and its cost, 94;
extent of, 97;
St. Stephen’s Hall and Crypt, 98;
searching the vaults of, 112
Whipping in House of Commons, ii. 115
“Who goes home?” ii. 20
Wilberforce, William:
cost of election for York, i. 29;
on fascination of House of Commons, 87
“Wobblers,” influence on elections, i. 20
Women electors, how they first voted in 1918, i. 59
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