Parliament, comes from the nationalist movements of Scotland and Wales.
Supported by minorities fiercely antagonistic toward the Sassenach (as
they call the English), these movements provide emotional stimuli for
the very young and the very old. At best they are gallant protests
against the accretion of power to a central government, a process that
goes on in Britain as it does in the United States and elsewhere. At
worst, considering the extent of Britain's real problems, the national
movements are a nuisance.
But these are not rivals, and legally the Parliament in London can do
anything it desires. During the five-year life of a Parliament the
assembly can make or unmake any law, destroy the constitution, legalize
past illegalities and thus reverse court decisions. Parliament also has
the power to prolong its own life.
Is Parliament therefore supreme and absolute? Legally, yes. But
legislative authority is delegated increasingly to ministers, and
specific powers to local authorities and to public corporations. Such
delegated powers can be withdrawn at any time, although the pressure of
work on Parliament is so great that this is unlikely.
Finally, Britain has its own system of checks and balances. The
two-party system forbids arbitrary action, for the abuse of
parliamentary power by the party in power would invite repudiation by
the electors.
Of the two houses, the House of Commons is infinitely the more
powerful. In this popularly elected assembly there are 630 members. Of
these, 511 sit for English constituencies, 36 for Welsh, 71 for Scotch,
and 12 for Northern Irish. Each constituency elects one member. The
composition of the present House of Commons, elected in May 1955, is:
Conservatives and their supporters, 346; Labor, 277; Liberal, 6; and
the Speaker, who does not vote, 1.
What does Parliament do? It regulates the life of the community through
the laws it makes. It finances the needs of the people and appropriates
the funds necessary for the services of the State by legislative
action. It controls and criticizes the government.
One reason for the supremacy of the House of Commons is that bills
dealing with finance or representation are always introduced in that
house. Moreover, the Lords avoids the introduction of controversial
bills.
Almost all bills are presented by the government in power. They
reflect policy decisions taken in the cabinet at the instigation of
government departments that will be responsible for the administration
of the decisions when the bills become law. The principal exceptions
are Private Bills, which relate solely to some matter of individual,
corporate, or local interest, and Private Members' Bills, which are
introduced by individual MP's.
The manner in which Parliament--generally the House of
Commons--controls the government in power emphasizes the difference
between the British system and our own. The ultimate control is the
power of the House of Commons to pass a resolution of "no confidence"
in the government or to reject a proposal which the government
considers so vital to its policy that it has made the proposal's
passage a "matter of confidence." If such a proposal is rejected, the
government is obliged to resign.
In addition, there is that very British institution, Question Time.
Between 2:30 and 3:30 each afternoon from Monday through Thursday,
MP's may question any minister on the work of his department and the
Prime Minister on general national policy. The questions range from the
trivial to the significant. A query about the heating in a remote Army
barracks may be followed by one about progress on the hydrogen bomb.
The growth of Question Time as an institution has put a special premium
on those ministers or junior ministers best able to parry and riposte.
For the opposition can press the minister, and if his original reply
is unsatisfactory, the questioner will follow with a supplementary
question designed to reveal the minister as incapable and ignorant.
The majority of questions are put by the opposition in the hope
of focusing public attention on the government's weaknesses. But
government Members also put questions dealing with affairs in their
constituencies. A number of them also can be counted upon to offer
ministers congratulatory queries along the lines "Is the Right
Honorable Gentleman aware that his reply will be welcomed by all
those
...?"
Questions and answers are couched in the glistening phrases of polite
debate, but occasionally tempers rise and the Speaker intervenes.
Because of the variety of subject matter and the importance of some of
the questions, Question Time is an exciting period. It was never more
so than in the last administration of Sir Winston Churchill.
That Prime Minister, armed with the political experience of fifty
years, was a joy to watch in action. One of his last memorable sallies
was at the expense of Woodrow Wyatt, an earnest young Labor MP.
What plans had the government, Wyatt asked, for evacuating itself from
London in the event of atomic attack?
Sir Winston regarded him owlishly. "Surely the Honorable Member does
not wish me to take the bread out of the mouths of the Soviet secret
service," he said.
Even without these moments, Question Time would be useful as a sort
of national catharsis and as an example of democracy in action. The
spectacle of the House of Commons, representing a Britain beset by a
multitude of problems, pausing to discuss the affairs of a crippled
veteran in a remote Welsh village is a moving one.
There is a slight similarity between Question Time and the Presidential
press conference as it has developed in Washington. Both give the
executive a chance to explain the workings of policy and government.
But in Britain the penalties for failure to answer are much greater
than in Washington. The President is answering reporters, and he is
under no compulsion to answer the questions put to him. The Prime
Minister, on the other hand, is confronted directly by his political
foes. If he fails to answer a question or offers an unsatisfactory
reply, he may provoke debate later on the matter at issue.
Certainly the President is often roughly handled, but most of the
press-conference questions seem to lack the bite and sting of those
posed in the House of Commons. Perhaps this is inevitable under present
circumstances. President Eisenhower has answered the questions of
representatives of newspapers, magazines, and radio and television
systems that are overwhelmingly Republican. A British Prime Minister
and his ministers, on the other hand, must battle all the way.
Finally, all the government departments are represented in the House
of Commons, and their representatives, as well as the Prime Minister,
can be subjected to prolonged and, at times, merciless questioning.
A comparison of Hansard's Parliamentary reports and the reports of
Presidential press conferences since 1952 will show, I think, that
there is greater pressure and a good deal more precise information in
Question Time than in a Presidential press conference.
But Question Time is only one means by which the House of Commons
can criticize and control the government. The opposition can move
the adjournment of the House on a matter that the Speaker considers
definite, urgent, and the responsibility of the government. Or it can
use one of the days formerly devoted to consideration of the Estimates
in Committee of Supply for a debate on some part of government policy.
The big debates on such issues as foreign affairs and economic policy
are the summit of parliamentary effort. Government and opposition put
forward their leading spokesmen on the issue under debate. But debates
also provide an opportunity for the back benchers of all parties.
The back benchers--Members who are not in the government or in the
opposition's shadow cabinet--rise to make their points on the issue,
and often remarkably good speeches, as well as bad ones, are delivered.
But parliamentary business is concerned with much more than questions
and debates. Bills must be passed. This procedure is involved and
lengthy, paying due attention to the rights of the House and the people
it represents.
The bill receives a formal First Reading on its introduction and is
then printed. After a period varying from one to several weeks,
depending on the bill's nature, it may be given a Second Reading as the
result of a debate on its general merits. Then the bill is referred to
one of the standing committees.
During the committee stage, Members can amend the bill if a majority of
the House agrees. When this stage is finished, the bill is reported to
the House and a further debate takes place during which the Committee's
amendments may be altered, additional amendments may be suggested
and incorporated, and, if necessary, the bill may be recommitted to
committee. Finally, the bill is submitted for a Third Reading, and if
passed, it is sent on from the Commons to the House of Lords. There it
enters upon the same course.
There, also, it may awaken the interest of Lord Cholmondeley, my
favorite peer. Lord Cholmondeley spoke in the House of Lords recently
for the first time in thirty-two years. What he had to say--about
rabbits and other small game--was brief and to the point. To many, Lord
Cholmondeley must symbolize the vague absurdities of the House of Lords.
Yet this peculiar institution has its defenders, and these are not all
peers. There is something to be said, it is contended, for an upper
chamber that debates on terms other than partisan politics the great
issues of the day. The House of Lords, like the Crown, has influence
but, as money bills must be introduced in the House of Commons, little
direct power. From the standpoint of active politics its limited power
is of a negative nature. It can, for instance, delay the passage of
legislation by rejecting a bill previously passed by the House of
Commons.
This occurred when the Lords rejected the bill to nationalize the steel
industry and the bill to abolish capital punishment. These delaying
actions demonstrated that, although the powers of the House of Lords
have been drastically curtailed, they can still have considerable
political importance. Inevitably, such action evokes dark mutterings
from the Labor Party about the ability of hereditary peers to flout the
will of the people. The Lords retort that the bill in question is not
the will of the people at all, but the will of some of the people's
representatives.
Theoretically, the House of Lords is a good deal larger than the House
of Commons, consisting of 878 peers. Only about one tenth of them,
however, take an active part in the work of the House of Lords. The
peers include princes of the royal blood, who by custom take no part in
proceedings; 26 spiritual peers, the archbishops and senior bishops of
the Church of England; all hereditary peers of England, Great Britain,
and the United Kingdom; 16 hereditary peers of Scotland elected from
their own number for each Parliament; 5 representative peers of Ireland
elected for life; and the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary appointed to
perform the judicial duties of the House and holding their seats for
life.
Such are the bare bones of the parliamentary system of Britain. Like
many other British institutions, it conceals beneath a façade of
ceremonial and tradition an efficient, flexible machine. The debates,
the great speeches, and the days of pomp when the Queen rides amid the
Household Cavalry to open Parliament are in spectacular contrast to
the long grind of unremitting and, by modern standards, financially
unrewarding work by Members of both Lords and Commons.
When the visitor sits in the gallery high above the well of the Commons
and hears a minister patiently explaining some point connected with an
obscure aspect of British life, it is well to remember that this system
is one for which men fought and suffered, that this House is the cradle
of liberties and freedoms.
The members of the government--"Her Majesty's Government in the United
Kingdom," as it is formally titled in Britain--are all Members of the
House of Commons or the House of Lords. The government and the cabinet
are separate entities, for the government includes the following
ministerial offices: the Prime Minister, who is the recognized head of
the government but who has no department; the Departmental Ministers,
seven of whom are Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs, the Home
Department, Scotland, Commonwealth Relations, Colonies, War, and Air;
the Ministries, of which there are twelve, each headed by a Minister;
and some of the older posts with special titles such as the Chancellor
of the Exchequer, who is responsible for the Treasury, and the First
Lord of the Admiralty.
The government also includes non-departmental ministers who hold
traditional offices, such as the Lord President of the Council, the
Lord Privy Seal, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. With the
flexibility that is so conspicuous a part of the British system,
successive governments have found major responsibilities for these
posts.
The present Lord President of the Council, the Marquess of Salisbury,
is responsible to Parliament for two immensely important organizations:
the Atomic Energy Authority and the Department of Scientific and
Industrial Research. Yet Lord Salisbury, one of the most important
members of the present government, is not an elected representative of
the people but sits in the House of Lords as a peer.
The Lord Chancellor and the Law Officers are also members of the
government. The Lord Chancellor is in fact a Minister of the Crown
who is also head of the judiciary in England and Wales. The four Law
Officers of the Crown are the Attorney General and the Solicitor
General for England and Wales and the Lord Advocate and the Solicitor
General for Scotland.
Finally, there are Ministers of State--who are deputy ministers
in departments where there is a heavy load of work or where, as
in the case of the Foreign Office, the duties involve frequent
overseas travel--and junior Ministers, Parliamentary Secretaries, or
Parliamentary Under Secretaries of State.
The cabinet system, like so much else in British government, was not
the result of Olympian planning. It "just growed." The Tudors began
to appoint _ad hoc_ committees of the Privy Council. By the time of
Charles II the Privy Council numbered forty-seven. There then developed
an occasional arrangement in which a council of people in high office
was constituted to debate questions of domestic and foreign affairs.
Such committees or cabinets persisted until the reign of Queen Anne.
Usually, but not always, they met in the presence of the sovereign. In
1717, George I, the first Hanoverian King, ceased to attend cabinet
meetings. Until recently the accepted historical reason for this was
the King's ignorance of English--a circumstance that might, one would
think, enable him to bear long debates with fortitude. However, J.H.
Plumb in his recent life of Sir Robert Walpole has suggested that
the King's absence from the cabinet was due to a quarrel between the
monarch and the Prince of Wales.
At any rate, the cabinet system continued to flourish. Its members
consistently ignored the provision in the Act of Settlements (1725)
which forbade office-holders to sit in the Commons. The direct
influence of the sovereign was reduced, although his indirect
influence, as Lord North and "the King's Friends" demonstrated, was
great.
Nowadays the members of the cabinet are selected from the government by
the Prime Minister. Usually it has fewer than twenty members.
The cabinet determines the policy the government will submit to
Parliament, it controls the national executive in accordance with
policy approved by Parliament, and it co-ordinates and limits the
authority of the departments of the government. In its operations the
cabinet makes great use of the committee system, referring problems to
one of the standing committees or to a temporary committee composed of
the ministers chiefly concerned.
A British cabinet operates under the rule of collective responsibility
and of individual responsibility. That is, ministers share collective
responsibility for the policy and actions of the government and
individual responsibility to Parliament for the functioning of
their departments. A cabinet minister in Britain must appear before
the legislature, of which he is a member, and submit to a lengthy
questioning upon the work of his department. He must defend his
department in debate. No such procedure affects American cabinet
members, although they can, of course, be questioned by Congressional
committees.
The members of the cabinet in Britain are a good deal more than
advisers to the Prime Minister. Their relationship to ultimate policy
is closer and their responsibility greater. Hence it is unusual, almost
impossible, in Britain to find the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs saying one thing about foreign policy and the Prime Minister
another. Lord Melbourne said it did not matter what the members of his
government said as long as they all said the same thing. This principle
has been hallowed by time.
Although members of the cabinet often disagree furiously in private,
there is an absence of open bickering. Moreover, the authority of the
cabinet and the House of Commons is supreme. There have been no British
General MacArthurs. Field Marshal Lord Montgomery is a wise, cogent,
and talkative man. Occasionally he has offered the country his views on
non-military matters. Invariably he has been told to leave government
matters to the elected representatives of the people. When the cabinet
requires the advice of the Chief of the Imperial General Staff or
the First Sea Lord (not to be confused with the First Lord of the
Admiralty) on military matters, the cabinet asks for it.
The cabinet minister is bound to secrecy. If he resigns from the
cabinet because of a disputed issue, he must obtain through the Prime
Minister the permission of the sovereign before he can make any
statement involving a disclosure of cabinet discussions.
Nor may a cabinet minister repudiate either in Parliament or in his
constituency policies that have been approved by the cabinet or propose
policies that have not been agreed on with other ministers. He must
be prepared to vote with the government on all issues and to speak in
support or defense of its policy. Inability to agree or compromise
with the view of the majority in the cabinet usually results in the
minister's resignation from the government. A minister who remained in
the cabinet under such circumstances would be held responsible for the
policy he opposed.
Political conflict flourishes in Britain. Yet for many reasons
the government of the day and the opposition practice a basic
bipartisanship on basic issues. To a considerable degree this is
the result of the change in Britain's position over the last two
decades. There is an unspoken recognition by the leaders of the two
great parties that the present situation of the United Kingdom is too
precarious for prolonged and violent differences on essentials. There
are, of course, exceptions. Violent controversy does break out on
essentials between party and party and within a party.
Consider two essentials of British policy: the Anglo-American alliance
and the decision to make the hydrogen bomb.
The relations between the United States and Britain developed
their contemporary form in World War II. Since 1945 they have been
strengthened by the rise of an aggressive Soviet Union. There are other
contributing factors, some of which are not particularly attractive
to political or economic groups within each partner to the alliance.
Moreover, there has never been a time when there were not powerful
critics of various aspects of the alliance in both countries.
Aneurin Bevan and his friends on the radical left of the Labor Party
have often lambasted the United States and Britain's dependence on
her. Similar criticisms could be heard in private from Tories. When
the United States voted with the Soviet Union against Britain in the
United Nations after the British and French had invaded Suez, the
Conservatives were moved to put their protest into the form of a motion
in the House of Commons. This was accompanied by much sharp criticism,
which had a therapeutic effect in encouraging some realistic thinking
about the alliance.
A great deal of the anxiety about United States policy, of the jealousy
of United States power, of the anger at Mr. Dulles's self-righteous
sermons about colonialism was vented during this period. It did some
harm, certainly. But from the standpoint of the honest expression of
Conservative Party opinion and of American realism about the British
attitude, it also did some good.
The alliance is an essential. Even when indignant Conservatives--and a
number of Socialists, too--were thinking up pet names for Mr. Dulles,
the leaders of the party were doing their best to mollify their
followers. They were themselves anxious and angry, but they never
suggested defection from the alliance.
It may be suggested that the British had nowhere else to go. This may
be true, but even so it would be no bar to their departure. They are
happy when they are on their own, and many on this little island would
count the alliance well lost in exchange for a vigorous reassertion of
independence.
In 1940 the cockney, the inevitable cockney, used to remark, for the
edification of American correspondents: "Cor, we're alone. What of it,
guv?" Now, I have always regarded this not as a piece of patriotic
rhetoric but as a natural response to events by a brave people.
Shakespeare, of course, said it better.
Come the three corners of the world in arms,
And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,
If England to itself do rest but true.
The important word is "itself." If there comes a time of great outside
pressure when alliances and confederations are in danger, Americans
will be well advised to remember that word.
The decision to make the hydrogen bomb, a project involving the
expenditure of great sums that Britain could ill afford, again was a
bipartisan matter. The Conservative government proposed it. The Labor
opposition (with Mr. Bevan dissenting in a burst of Welsh oratory)
agreed. There have been recurrent criticisms of how the work was being
done, of the cost, of the necessity for testing the weapon, and of the
arrangements for the tests. But there has been very little criticism of
the bomb's manufacture from the leaders of the Labor Party--excepting
always Mr. Bevan.
Bipartisanship is assisted by consultation on issues of major national
importance between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition.
But the achievement of bipartisan policies owes much more to a general
understanding in both parties in the House of Commons of the country's
present position.
Socialist reform and experimentation in the years between 1945 and
1951 aroused Conservative fears as fierce as Labor Party hopes. The
enmity aroused in the largely Conservative middle class by the Labor
governments of those years certainly has not disappeared. But much
of it has been re-directed against the moderate policies of the
Conservative government, which has long claimed the allegiance of the
middle class.
The leaders of the two great parties--Harold Macmillan, Lord Salisbury,
and R.A. Butler for the Conservatives, and Hugh Gaitskell, Harold
Wilson, Jim Griffiths for Labor--are moderates. On the periphery of
each party stand the radicals advocating extreme measures at home and
abroad. Should Britain's economic and international troubles persist,
the moderate approach to their solution may not satisfy either the
Conservative or Socialist voters.
British politics in May of 1955 continued one of those rhythmic changes
of direction which feature political life in every democratic nation.
The Conservatives won a smashing victory in the general election and
became the first party in ninety years to be returned to office with an
increased majority.