TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
Footnote anchors are denoted by [number], and the footnotes have been
placed at the end of the book.
Some minor changes to the text are noted at the end of the book.
THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT
VOL. I
+-----------------------------------+
| |
| CONTEMPORARY |
| |
| PORTRAITS: |
| |
| |
| Men of My Day in Public Life. By |
| the Rt. Hon. Sir ALGERNON WEST, |
| Author of “Recollections,” “One |
| City and Many Men.” With many |
| Illustrations. Demy 8vo, cloth. |
| |
| 18s. net. |
| |
| Sir Algernon West, at one time |
| secretary to Mr. Gladstone when |
| Prime Minister, and who has filled|
| a number of important official |
| positions, is well qualified by |
| his personal experience and the |
| number of his acquaintances in |
| the upper regions of the official |
| world to write this book, which |
| includes reminiscences of Sir |
| Louis Mallet, Lord Blachford, Lord|
| Sandford, Sir E. May, Lord Welby, |
| Matthew Arnold, Sir E. Bradford, |
| and many others. Sir Algernon |
| West, as his previous work shows, |
| is a delightful raconteur, and |
| the present is one of the most |
| informing and charming he has |
| written. |
| |
| T. FISHER UNWIN LTD. LONDON |
| |
+-----------------------------------+
[Illustration: SPEAKER’S CHAIR AND CLERKS’ TABLE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS.
(From Sir Benjamin Stone’s pictures, British Museum.)]
THE PAGEANT OF
PARLIAMENT
BY
MICHAEL MacDONAGH
AUTHOR OF “THE SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE”
AND “THE REPORTERS’ GALLERY”
VOL. I
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD
LONDON: ADELPHI TERRACE
_First published in 1921_
(_All rights reserved_)
PREFACE
The purpose of this book, briefly stated, is to describe Parliament
doing its work, as a living organization, in the framing of laws, in
the levying of taxes and in their spending, and in the consideration
of the discontents, anxieties and necessities of the Commonwealth,
with a view to their removal or amelioration. I have embodied in
my book—if I may say so without sounding the loud timbrel too
vain-gloriously—considerable experience as a journalist of General
Elections and by-elections in all parts of Great Britain and Ireland,
and of thirty-five years’ observation of the two Houses of Parliament
from the Reporters’ Gallery, supplemented by a study of their history
and traditions, laws and procedure, the careers of leading statesmen,
and the political principles by which they guided their management of
public affairs.
There are many valuable text-books on the Constitution by learned
lawyers and philosophical writers. My book does not aspire to be
classed with these grave and profound treatises. They are of high
documentary value, but I think it is doubtful whether one can really
get to know Parliament from a study of them alone. They ignore the
human side of Parliament. Often they seem to present Parliament as a
mere abstraction—a thing of rules, principles and theories unrelated
to the human personalities who compose its membership. Parliament
cannot be divorced from life any more than Literature. Rightly to
appreciate Parliament in its strength and in its weakness you must
have an acquaintance with it in being, and an understanding of
the politicians who, whether in office or out of office, whether
in Government or Opposition, bend it, or try to bend it, to their
will. Mr. Speaker Lowther, presiding at a lecture on the House of
Commons, told a story which serves to illustrate the difference
between theory and experience. When Sir William Anson, the author, as
Mr. Lowther truly said, of “a very grave and almost classical work”
on the British Constitution, was being escorted up the floor of the
House of Commons to take the oath and his seat for the first time,
an old and witty Radical member who happened to be sitting beside
Mr. Lowther said to him: “Is this the gentleman who has written a
great work on the House of Commons?” “Yes, that is the very man,”
replied Mr. Lowther. “Well,” the other remarked, “he will find it a
very different place from what he thought it was.” It is idle for
historical writers to try to depreciate the importance of personality
in affairs. Certainly in Parliament it is personality that, even more
than opinion, is the determining factor in every great political
crisis.
I trace the progress of a Parliament, its unfolding and development,
from the General Election, when it is constituted by the votes
of the people, until the day the Sovereign, on the advice of the
Cabinet, pronounces the sentence of its dissolution. I describe
its framework and machinery, its chief officers, its ceremonies,
usages and customs, its contrasts of solemnity and gaiety; the Party
forces which move it and direct its course; how Administrations
are made; the duties of Ministers; the pleasures and woes of the
M.P.; how Public and Private Bills are passed; how Supplies are
voted; the mode in which the proceedings of both Houses are reported
for the newspapers; and the varied elements, aspects and usages
of Parliament, whether it be regarded as the historic temple of
British liberties, equally ancient and venerable with Westminster
Abbey over the way; the scene of great achievements in oratory
and statesmanship; the institution by which, as the incarnation
of the current political thought of the day, questions affecting
the well-being of the community are determined by legislators and
administrators, or the field upon which the continuous and exciting
duel between Parties is fought at close quarters, with all the whims,
oddities, weaknesses of human nature as well as with its noble
qualities. I have made some excursions into the domain of history.
That, of course, was inevitable in writing about Parliament, whose
roots lie so deep in the past. But I have avoided as much as
possible the broad beaten tracks, and have turned down unfrequented
or little-trodden by-ways in search of fresh and apt anecdotes to
enliven my descriptions, in fact and in experience, of the Pageant of
Parliament.
There is one general observation which I should like to make, and
it may not be out of place to make it here. My studies have led to
the discovery that there has hardly ever been a time when it has not
been asserted by someone or other, in writing or in speech, that
the authority of Parliament and the esteem in which it is held have
sadly declined. There is nothing surprising in that. Cynics and wits
of all ages have tried their hand at making great institutions,
as well as great men, butts at which to shoot their ridicule and
contempt. Parliament has not escaped the common fate of the mighty
and the sublime. It has been described as inefficient and corrupt.
Its downfall has often been prophesied. Yet its foundations were
never deeper or better laid than they are to-day, broad-based as they
are on electoral comprehensiveness and the people’s will. Parliament
as I have presented it—even with all reverence and admiration—may
not be perfect. It has its faults. After all, its legislators and
administrators are but human. But it is, perhaps, as fine and perfect
an instrument of democratic government as can humanly be devised.
Ancient and renowned as it is, it stands not remote and apart. On
the contrary, it is of the fabric of the life of the people. It
makes a living reality of the great principle—“Government of the
people, by the people, for the people.” It is the country’s chief
political instrument of progressive civilization. It is idle, in
the light of experience, to talk of its being clumsy, inefficient,
slow. More than ever does it make possible the closest and quickest
impact of the country’s mind upon government and administration. In
the World War it signally proved its practical and speedy utility.
Statesmen obtained quickly and surely all the measures they deemed
necessary for the national safety and the enemy’s defeat. Whenever
Parliament seems to have lost caste the cause may be traced, not
to the institution itself but to its membership, the confusion of
its Parties, the weakness of its Ministry. The remedy is not to
destroy it, and put in its place some untried mode of government
and administration; but, by changing its composition, to restore it
to the proper service of the Nation. Parliament is fully capable of
accomplishing whatever may be asked of it, in the changing thoughts
of men, probably, till the end of all time, and of doing so soberly
and slowly by process of evolution, or with revolutionary rapidity
and completeness, as the situation demands.
MICHAEL MACDONAGH.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PREFACE 5
CHAPTER
I. THE MEMBER AND THE CONSTITUENCY 11
II. WOOING OF THE ELECTORS 20
III. A NEW PARLIAMENT IN THE MAKING 33
IV. THE COUNTRY’S VERDICT 53
V. TRIALS AND TRIBULATIONS OF THE M.P. 66
VI. THE FASCINATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 80
VII. PALACE OF WESTMINSTER 88
VIII. ASSEMBLING OF THE NEW PARLIAMENT 103
IX. TAKING THE OATH OF ALLEGIANCE 115
X. MR. SPEAKER 122
XI. “ORDER, ORDER!” 130
XII. HOW A GOVERNMENT IS MADE 141
XIII. DISAPPOINTED HOPES 154
XIV. THE KING AND HIS MINISTERS AND THE COUNTRY 166
XV. OFFICE AND ITS SPOILS 175
XVI. PENSIONS FOR MINISTERS 187
XVII. THE SPEECH FROM THE THRONE 201
XVIII. DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS TO THE KING 218
XIX. THE SERJEANT-AT-ARMS 225
XX. A NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS 235
THE PAGEANT OF PARLIAMENT
CHAPTER I
THE MEMBER AND THE CONSTITUENCY
1
At the General Election the Party in office throws down its superb
challenge to the Party in Opposition. “We appeal,” they say, “to
the solemn judgment of the Nation on the political issues in
contention between us.” This invoking of the electors’ decision
at once raises a question of political morality as well as of
constitutional practice—the relation in which a Member of Parliament
rightly stands to his constituency. Is the M.P. a representative
or a delegate? As these capacities may be said to be in a sense
identical, it is well to put the question in a fuller and more
definite form. Is the M.P. an agent sent to the House of Commons
by the electors of a certain geographical district to state their
opinions solely and act in accordance with them, or may he exercise
his own independent judgment, even against the will of those to
whom he owes his seat in the Assembly? Edmund Burke dealt with this
question on the hustings at Bristol, during the General Election
of 1774, in a speech that is memorable in political literature as
a classic statement of the constitutional position of an M.P., in
the opinion of the representative, at least, and also, it must be
said, in the opinion of a large body of the electors. Burke said
it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live
in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most
unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought
to have great weight with him, their opinions high respect, their
business unremitted attention. “But,” Burke goes on, “his unbiased
opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought
not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living.
These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the Law and
the Constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of
which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you not his
industry only, but his judgment, and he betrays instead of serves
you if he sacrifices it to your opinions.” Nevertheless, Burke was
returned to the House of Commons as Member for Bristol in 1774, for
no more exalted reason than that his political views were in accord
with those of the majority of the constituency in regard to the
matters that then divided Tories and Whigs.
In 1778 Burke supported two Bills that were presented to the House
of Commons, one relaxing some of the restrictions on Irish trade,
the other removing some of the civil disabilities of the Roman
Catholics. These votes were in conformity with Burke’s mature
judgment as a statesman as well as with his Irish prepossessions.
But they were also directly in opposition to the material interests
and the religious tenets of the people of Bristol. That being so,
Burke fell into disfavour, and, however honourably his unpopularity
was earned, it was inevitable that he should be brought to account
by his constituents on the first opportunity. This was afforded by
the General Election of 1780. In a noble speech from the hustings
in defence of his action, he exclaimed: “I did not obey your
instructions. No; I conformed to the instructions of truth and
Nature, and maintained your interests against your opinions with a
constancy that became me.” He went on, in passages of moving power
and earnestness, to declare that he did not stand before them accused
of any venality or neglect of duty. “No,” he cried, “the charges
against me are all of one kind: that I have pushed the principles
of general justice and benevolence too far, further than a cautious
policy would warrant, and further than the opinions of many would go
along with me. In every accident which may happen through life—in
pain, in sorrow, in depression, and distress, I will call to mind
this accusation and be comforted.” But the popular prejudice against
Burke—a prejudice aroused solely by the expression of his liberality
and broad-mindedness in action—was too strong to be overcome. The
great statesman and philosopher was compelled to retire early from
the contest, badly beaten.
The electors of Bristol have been put in the pillory for intolerance
and selfishness, while Burke stands, for all time, a shining
example of self-sacrificing devotion to independence of mind. Many
years have passed since then—years of steady advance in political
enlightenment, and in public duty on the part of electors as well as
of representatives—and questions, more vital and fundamental, arise
constantly for settlement. Yet where to-day is the constituency ready
to elect a man who is opposed to its political views, however great a
genius he may be, and however stainless his honour? There is nothing
more certain than that Bristol would expel Burke in the twentieth
century as it expelled him in the eighteenth, if his political
opinions were distasteful to the majority of the electors, or if his
parliamentary actions were opposed to what they conceived to be their
interests. A hundred years hence the Nation may have reason to bewail
our obtuseness, and, in resentment of the trouble we have caused
them, bitterly to cry out—“Fools, fools, fools!” The thought does
not disturb our political equanimity. We are resolved to yield our
opinions, prepossessions, prejudices to no man who would tell us to
think and act differently—aye, though he be our M.P.!
In no constituency will the plea be accepted that the Member must
be allowed to decide what is best ultimately for it against its
opinions, or even against its prejudices—if, indeed, the one can be
distinguished from the other in politics. It is not only that in this
conflict of one mind against many the wrong-headedness is just as
much likely to exist in the representative as in the constituents.
What is more, the representative system is a check, not on the
people, but for the people. The chief function of the House of
Commons is to protect the people’s rights and extend their social
well-being; and as under our democratic system the people are free to
vote as they please and for whom they please, it is inevitable that
they should constitute themselves, in each constituency, the supreme
judge as to the man best fitted faithfully to discharge a trust that
means so much to them. That is not to say that a Member of Parliament
is expected to outrage his honour and conscience by supporting
measures which he secretly abhors, or believes in his heart to be
detrimental in the long run to the true interests of the Nation,
because they find favour with a majority of his constituents, and to
oppose them would entail the loss of his seat. He votes, of course,
according to his convictions. Nor is it necessary for him to comport
himself in an attitude of servility towards the electorate. Once he
is returned he may, if he so pleases, entirely change his politics,
and cross the floor of the House of Commons without having beforehand
to go back to his constituency, as a delegate in a like situation
would be bound to refer to the body or society of which he was the
chosen spokesman. The constituency has no immediate control over the
representative. They cannot forthwith deprive him of his authority
and position, as a society or other body can recall and supersede
a delegate. But the representative who votes according to personal
convictions which are out of harmony with the political principles of
the majority of his constituency must be ready to pay the penalty of
this conflict between his opinion and their judgment—the penalty of
being summarily dismissed, like Burke, at the earliest opportunity.
In a word, such a representative is rejected by the constituency
for the very same reason that the country frequently discharges a
Government at the General Election—incompatibility of political
temper. The feeling of most electors is that they would be false to
themselves—false, at any rate, to their opinions—were they to vote
for a candidate with whom they were in disagreement on political
issues, no matter how great he might be as a man.
2
Goldsmith, in well-known lines, gently reproves Burke as one—
Who, born for the universe, narrowed his mind,
And to Party gave up what was meant for mankind.
On the contrary, it would be truer to say that Burke was politically
undone because he gave his grand talents to what he regarded as the
service of mankind rather than to Party, particularly in relation to
the French Revolution, when the action of his Party was, in his view,
opposed to the real interests of humanity. Moreover, Goldsmith uses
the word “Party” in a disparaging sense. His idea of Party politics
seems to have been that it was a game unscrupulously played for the
stakes of mere power and influence, greater wealth and station; and
there are people even to-day who agree with him. It is a strange
notion, and one that appears to me to be entirely without foundation.
Undoubtedly the inspiring force of Party is a sincere regard for
the good of the Commonwealth. It is true there are politicians,
with little principle and less scruple, who become Party men for
the advancement of personal ambitions which are mean and unworthy
in the circumstances. But all the Party movements—Conservative,
Unionist, Liberal, Radical, Labour, Irish Nationalist, Free Trade,
Protection—are each, in the main, an honest effort, however you or I
may think it mistaken, to effect the greatest good of the greatest
number. As to the ultimate object, all Parties are agreed. It is the
methods by which this common end had best be attained that creates
the fundamental differences between Parties and excites political
antagonisms.
“Party,” says Burke, “is a body of men united for promoting by their
joint endeavour the national interest upon some particular principle
upon which they are all agreed.” No one else has written more
powerfully in support of the view that Party discipline is essential
to strong and stable parliamentary government. Yet Burke himself
was a most indifferent Party man. He had that stern independence
of judgment which, refusing to yield even in details, is fatal
to the unity of purpose and action without which efficient Party
organization is impossible. From the Party point of view, Burke, with
all his political philosophy, was just what Fox described him—“a
damned wrong-headed fellow!” The theory advanced by Burke that a
Member of Parliament ought to be returned unfettered by political
pledges because it is his bounden duty to exercise his free and
independent judgment, irrespective of the constituency’s opinions
and desires, on the public questions that arise for decision, is an
exalted counsel of perfection. Perhaps it makes a demand too stern
and unbending for human nature under any form of Constitution,
however Utopian or perfect. In a Parliament based on the Party system
it is impossible of acceptance. The power of the House of Commons
is exercised not according to any fixed rule of law, but according
to certain broad general principles—Justice, Equity, Reason—and the
current interpretation of these principles is guided by the dominant
political opinions of the day.
Members of Parliament are, in practice if not in form, Party
delegates. To them the majority of the electorate have relegated
their authority to support or oppose in the House of Commons the
controversial political questions of the time in the light of certain
Party principles. Whatever local character the M.P. possesses may be
said to disappear as soon as he presents the return of the writ to
the Clerk at the Table of the House of Commons, shakes hands with the
Speaker, and then, amid Party cheers, makes his way to the Liberal,
or Unionist, or Labour benches, according to the Party views he was
really chosen to support. By that action he stands revealed as a
Party delegate. And yet he is a representative, in a sense deeper
and wider than that which prevailed of old, before the uprise of the
powerful Party organization. He is a representative not solely of the
local views of his constituency, but of one section of the paramount
and possibly abiding opinions of the Nation as a whole.
3
The country being, in the main, divided politically into three chief
groups of thought—Conservative, Liberal and Labour—the machinery
for the promotion of political principles and Party interests is
principally supplied by three great rival organizations. These are
the National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations,
controlled by the Conservative Central Office; the National Liberal
Federation, controlled by the Liberal Central Association; and the
Labour Party, controlled by the National Executive. Each of these
organizations is aided by several subsidiary but independent bodies,
which are formed for the promotion of sectional political interests
within the main movement to which they are attached.
The systems of the National Union, the Liberal Federation and the
Labour Party are much alike in methods. Those of the two ancient
political Parties may be taken for the purposes of illustration. In
most constituencies there is a branch of each organization. These
local bodies elect the council for the county or for the borough.
These councils send delegates to the annual conferences of the
Conservative Union, or the Liberal Federation, by which the programme
of each Party is considered, revised and confirmed, and a central
executive is appointed with supreme authority. The branches look
after Party interests locally. The Federation, or the Union, speak
for the Liberalism or Conservatism of the country as a whole.
But in reality Party organization is controlled, for the
Conservatives by the Conservative Central Office, and for the
Liberals by the Liberal Central Association. Both the Union and the
Federation are founded upon a popular and representative basis, and
their annual meetings, at least, are open to the Press. They each
fulfil the double functions of educating political thought in the
country, and of enabling the Party leaders in Parliament to gauge
the drift of opinion within the Party on current questions of the
day. But of the working of the Conservative Central Office and the
Liberal Central Association little or nothing is made public—nothing,
at any rate, that is really important. What is known is that each
consists of a staff of officials directed by a Chief Agent, who
is appointed by the parliamentary leaders of the Party. The Chief
Party Whip in the House of Commons is also a leading director of
the affairs of each of these central bodies. In each is vested the
expenditure of the Party fund, subscribed by wealthy supporters, and
popularly supposed to be immense. Each has a voice in the selection
of candidates. The favour of headquarters is often the best passport
to selection by the local association. Each body has an agent
permanently residing in constituencies where political opinion is
pretty evenly divided. “Give the men a smoking concert,” these Party
agents are advised in a little book called _How to Win an Election_,
“where they can obtain a reasonable quantity of good, pure, wholesome
beer, rather than a tea opened with a touch of the religious
element.” Each body also has gentlemen continually on the road—rival
political travellers, as it were, bringing round to the electors
the newest and most attractive samples of principles, Liberal or
Conservative.
Such is the British variant of the American Caucus. It was imported
from the country of its origin, in 1873, by Mr. Joseph Chamberlain—a
man who has profoundly influenced Party tactics and strategy, as
well as political opinion, in Great Britain—and was first set up
in Birmingham under the direction of Mr. Francis Schnadhorst. The
Caucus was at once attacked as a most mischievous element in public
life. It was contended by old-fashioned Liberals and Tories alike
that it would make impossible the free expression of the will of
the constituency. The electors would become an unthinking, passive
mass under the dominion of headquarters, and the destiny of the
Nation—controlled as it is by the exercise of the franchise—would
pass into the hands, perhaps, of unprincipled and artful demagogues.
But the Caucus had come to stay. It was adopted by the Conservatives
as well as by the Liberals. In fact, the idea of forming a Party
organization in this country first originated with Disraeli.
In the General Election of 1868 the Conservative Government, of which
Disraeli was Prime Minister, was hopelessly beaten at the polls.
There was practically no organization of the Conservatives at the
time, and the work of bringing it into existence was entrusted by
Disraeli to a young barrister who had been in the House of Commons
for a year or two—John Eldon Gorst. Gorst began by establishing
the “Central Conservative Office.” He then proceeded to create a
permanent system of local bodies throughout the country for the
registration of voters, linked them up in the National Union, and
kept at headquarters a register of approved candidates from which
the local bodies could make their own selection. The dissolution of
the Liberal Parliament in 1874, unexpected though it was, found the
Conservatives accordingly quite prepared, and they returned from
the polls victorious. The Liberals then set earnestly to work on the
same lines, and, improving upon the Conservative example, produced an
even more perfect electoral machine. In 1877 Schnadhorst founded the
National Liberal Federation, and, becoming the chief organizer and
electoral adviser of the Liberal Party, it was to his exertions that
the immense Gladstonian victory of 1880 was mainly due. Schnadhorst,
on his retirement in 1887, was presented with 10,000 guineas by the
Liberal Party as a slight recognition of his great services to their
cause.
In truth, the rise of the highly developed and powerful Central Party
organization was a destined stage of political development in Great
Britain as well as in the United States. An essential adjunct of a
constitutional system like the British—the two fundamental principles
of which are democracy and Party government—is the Party organization
for the education of public opinion in its tenets, and for having its
forces ready to take the field at the General Election, the outcome
of which is the supremacy of one Party or the other in the House
of Commons for a term of years, and, consequently, the paramount
influence of one set of political principles or the other in the
government of the Nation. Moreover, the effect of Party organization
has, on the whole, been beneficent. It is hardly too much to say that
to it is due the healthy political vitality of Great Britain. It has
aroused an interest in public affairs and government, and by the
propagation of ideas it has given to the democracy coherent political
convictions. If public opinion were unorganized, its aimless ebbing
and flowing—knowing not what it really desired—its tendency to
separate into numerous factions, some of them, possibly, with wild
and visionary aims, would have led in time to the instability of the
Constitution. The Party system, on the other hand, has undoubtedly
contributed to the strength and security of the State by bringing
about the convergence of the various streams of political thought
into three main channels, each with settled principles, Conservative,
Liberal and Labour in tendency, and pursuing ends that are on the
whole national as well as rational.