lapse from the decent gravity of dress in the House of Commons. It
was Lord Wolmer who first flashed a kamarband within sight of the
astonished Mace, a circumstance that made resistance hopeless. Had the
fashion been adventured by some frisky but inconsiderable new member,
it might have been frowned down before it had time to spread. But when
the thing was seen round the moderately slim waist of the son, not only
of an ex-Lord Chancellor, but of the gravest-mannered peer in the House
of Lords, all was lost. Mr. Austen Chamberlain promptly followed suit;
Mr. McArthur seized the opportunity to display an arrangement in silk
of the Maori colours. The Irish members, determined that ordinarily
slighted Ireland should not lag behind, met in Committee Room No. 15,
and subscribed a shilling each to purchase a brilliant green kamarband
for their Whip, Sir Thomas Esmonde. The fashion spread till, looked
upon at question time of a summer afternoon, the House in the aggregate
presented something of the appearance of a crazy quilt. The Front
Opposition Bench had already succumbed to the epidemic. Every day when
the House met members turned instinctively towards the Treasury Bench
to see if Sir William Harcourt and the Solicitor-General had yielded
to the prevailing influence. Happily before that befell the weather
changed, the thermometer fell, and waistcoats were worn again.
[Illustration: LORD WOLMER'S KAMARBAND.]
[Sidenote: THE HOUSE OF LORDS.]
Whilst members of the House of Commons have no special dress even
for gala days, the House of Lords cherishes the immemorial custom of
wearing robes on State occasions. Whenever a new peer takes his seat,
not only is he robed himself, but is the cause of robing in others.
The peers who introduce him are clad in raiment of scarlet cloth,
slashed with ermine in varying fashion, indicating their rank in the
Peerage. With them comes Garter King-at-Arms, the Royal Arms of England
embroidered on his back.
[Illustration: GARTER KING-AT-ARMS AND NEW PEER.]
The only time the Lords sit robed _en masse_ is on the occasions,
now rare, when the Queen opens Parliament in person. That is one of
the stateliest scenes in the pageantry of English public life. In
modern times its most effective rendering was seen on the day when Mr.
Disraeli, just made Earl of Beaconsfield, escorted his Sovereign to the
throne, holding before him the sword of State. When "Dizzy" was yet a
young man pushing his way to the front, he used to write almost daily
to his sister, giving her a piquant account of scenes in which he had
taken part. Of all his published works this, perhaps the least known,
is the most charming. On the day when Vivian Grey, having realized the
dream of his youth and become Lord Beaconsfield, marched into the House
of Lords escorting his Sovereign, the sister was dead, and for "Dizzy"
the opportunity and habit of writing familiar letters had passed away.
A pity this, for an account of the scene and of the impressions made on
his mind, written in the sprightly style of Disraeli the Younger, would
be invaluable.
Years have passed since the event, but I can see, as if it had stridden
past this morning, the familiar figure, looking taller by reason of the
flowing robe that encircled it, the wrinkled face with eyes reverently
bent down, and over all an air of supernatural solemnity.
[Sidenote: "BAKER PASHA."]
There is no one like Sir Patrick O'Brien left to the present House
of Commons, neither is there anyone who resembles Mr. Biggar or Mr.
Dawson, sometime Lord Mayor of Dublin, a patriot with fuller allowance
of spirit than of inches. It was he who, during debate on a provision
of the Peace Preservation Bill, sternly regarding the bulky form of
Mr. Forster, then Chief Secretary, warned him that if, armed with
the powers of this infamous Act, he were to approach the bedside of
Mrs. Dawson in the dead of the night it should be over his (the Lord
Mayor's) body. "Baker Pasha," as he was called in recognition of his
commercial pursuits before drawn into the vortex of politics, went back
to his shop, his early rolls, and his household bread, and soon after
flitted to still another scene.
[Illustration: MR. FORSTER.]
[Sidenote: "PAM'S" COUNSELLOR.]
Captain Stacpoole was not much known to the reader of Parliamentary
reports, but was long a familiar figure in the House. He had sat in it
whilst Palmerston was leader, and his intimate friends had reason to
believe that he had more to do with the direction of that statesman's
policy and the destinies of the world than met the eye in contemporary
records. It was Captain Stacpoole's custom of an afternoon to stand in
the Lobby with his hat pressed on the back of his head, his legs apart,
his hands thrust in his trousers pockets--with the exception of his
little fingers, for occult State reasons always left outside. In this
attitude, swinging backwards and forwards on heel and toe, he told at
length what he had said to "Pam" on occasion, and what "Pam" had said
to him.
He did not often interpose in debate, his best remembered appearance
on the scene not being altogether successful. It happened, I think, in
the year 1877, in debate on the Irish Sunday Closing Bill. The Captain
joined a minority of some dozen of the Irish Nationalist members in
opposing the measure. Mr. Macartney, father of the member for South
Antrim, who at this day worthily maintains the Parliamentary prestige
of the family, observed that of this group of members there was not one
who was not connected with the liquor trade. Hereupon Captain Stacpoole
jumped up, and, falling into his favourite position, shouted out, "I
deny that. I have no connection with the trade."
"I beg the hon. member's pardon," said Mr. Macartney, "he is the one
exception to the rule. He is not a producer, he is only a consumer," a
hit at the Captain's convivial habits much appreciated by the Committee.
[Sidenote: MAJOR O'GORMAN.]
Captain Stacpoole has gone to rejoin his old friend and pupil, "Pam."
Gone, too, are the O'Gorman Mahon, Mr. Delahunty, Mr. Ronayne, and
Major O'Gorman, noblest Roman of them all. The Major had physical
advantages which placed him head and shoulders above all contemporary
humorists, conscious or unconscious. Whether he sailed up the House
like an overladen East Indiaman; whether he sat on the bench with the
tips of his fingers meeting across his corpulence, whilst his mouth
twitched sideways as if he were trying to catch a fly; or whether he
stood on his feet addressing the House apparently through a speaking
trumpet, the Major irresistibly moved to laughter.
I suppose no man was so genuinely surprised as he when his maiden
speech was received with shouts of laughter, members literally rolling
about in their seats, holding with both hands their pained sides.
The occasion was Mr. Newdegate's annual motion for the inspection
of convents. The Major, not only a chivalrous gentleman but a good
Catholic, was shocked at the threat of desecration of the privacy
of Irish ladies by Commissioners armed with the authority of the
law. He had devoted much care and research to the preparation of a
speech opposing Mr. Newdegate's motion. The choicest part of it, to
which everything led up, was the picture of some historic nun, boldly
facing the Commissioners, with a verbatim report of her remarks on
the occasion. It was understood that the nun in question was of Royal
birth, who, either wearied of pomp and vanity, or driven from her high
estate by cruel man, had betaken herself to a nunnery.
The House had with difficulty kept merriment within bounds up to the
moment when the Royal recluse faced the wicked Commissioners. Thereupon
the Major, having to speak the nun's part, with dramatic instinct
assumed a plaintive, almost a piping, voice. The nun was supposed
to give a summary of her personal history to the Commissioners. But
the Major never got beyond the detail, "I had a sister, her name was
Sophia----." Even Disraeli, accustomed to sit sphinx-like on the
Treasury Bench, joined in the shout of laughter that greeted this
effort, and brought the Major's address to incoherent conclusion. This
speech lifted the Major into a favoured position occupied by him till,
cut off by the relentless command of Mr. Parnell, who had no sympathy
with this kind of thing, he exchanged the Senate for the Board Room of
the Waterford Poor Law Guardians.
[Illustration: THE SPHINX SMILES.]
Possibly there is no place in the present Parliament for a Major
O'Gorman. Certainly there was no one returned at the last General
Election who could fill it.
[Sidenote: BALLOTING FOR PLACES.]
Among the not least substantial reforms effected in the present Session
is that whereby, on the opening day, the process of balloting for
places for private motions was relegated to an upper chamber. When,
last year, the House of Commons, fresh from the polls, met on the eve
of a memorable Session, two full hours of its precious time were wasted
by a process that would not be tolerated in any other business assembly
of the world. Out of a total of 670 members, 400 came down inflamed
with desire to set somebody or something right. This they proposed
to do either by moving a resolution or introducing a Bill. The House
of Commons, whose order of procedure dates back to the Commonwealth,
has ever been accustomed to this human weakness. It provided for it
by the regulation that private members so possessed should ballot for
precedence. Ministers, who also have a Bill or two to bring in, being
masters of the situation, forthwith fix the day upon which they will
take action. Private members must take the chances of the ballot.
That was all very well in former times, when at the opening of a new
Session ten, twenty, or at most thirty members struggled for "an early
day." On Tuesday, the 1st of February, 1893, the day which marked the
doom of an ancient practice, over four hundred members desired to give
notice of motion. Whilst preliminary business was going forward, the
stranger in the Gallery would see a long line of members slowly making
their way between the table and the Front Opposition Bench, to the
great inconvenience of right hon. gentlemen seated thereon. Arrived by
the clerk's desk, each man wrote his name on a sheet of foolscap, and
passed gloomily on, making himself a fresh nuisance by returning to his
seat along the crowded back benches. Each line of the foolscap on which
a name was written was numbered. The clerk at the table prepared slips
of paper carrying corresponding numbers, which he twisted up and threw
into the box before him.
When the House presumably sat down to business, the Speaker took in
hand the sheets of foolscap containing the list of members desiring to
give notice. The clerk at the table tossed together the folded pieces
of paper in the box, as if he were making a salad with his fingers.
Then he took one out and called aloud the figure printed on it. Say it
was 380. The Speaker, turning over his sheaf of papers, found that on
the line 380 was written the name of Mr. Weir or Dr. Macgregor, and
in sonorous voice recited it. That meant that the member in question
had secured first place for his motion, and was at liberty to select
what with due regard to all circumstances he looked upon as the most
favourable day.
Suppose Mr. Weir were the happy man. He would rise, glance slowly
round the House, produce his _pince-nez_, place it on his nose with
solemn gesture, and in thrilling voice observe: "Mr. Speaker, Sir--I
beg to give notice that on such and such a day I shall ask leave to
bring in a Bill authorizing the local authorities at Ardmurchan Point
to remove the village pump three yards and a half to the west of the
point at which it now stands." What French reporters call _mouvement_
consequent upon this announcement having subsided, Mr. Milman, most
patient and long-suffering of men, dived once more into the lucky box
and fished out, with ostentatious integrity, another chance missive.
The Speaker consulted his list again; possession of the second place
was determined--and so on to the melancholy end.
[Sidenote: A PARLIAMENTARY PARLOUR GAME.]
Regarded as a parlour game, this performance has recommendations at
least equal to Consequences, or Cross Questions and Crooked Answers.
There is the excitement amongst members whose names have been written
down as to who may be concerned in the fateful figure just drawn. Then
there is the sort of book-keeping by double entry that must needs go
on throughout the process. When the chances of the ballot have given
away the best day, the next best day must be ticked off, and members
yet uncalled must be ready to spring up when their time comes and claim
it. For the general body of members there is the joke, endeared by long
acquaintance, of the member who has written his name first on the list,
having his number turn up, as it usually does, at the end of the first
hour and a half of the process.
[Illustration: MR. WEIR: "MR. SPEAKER, SIR."]
Even regarded as a parlour game, it palls upon one after the first
hour and a half. Writing about it in the _Daily News_, of the 2nd of
February in last year, I ventured to describe it as "a mechanical
performance which might well be added to the useful labours of the
Committee clerks, leaving the Speaker and the House of Commons
opportunity for devoting their energies to more delicate duties."
Twelve months later, Mr. Gladstone, incited by a question on the paper,
privily brought the subject under the notice of the Speaker, who, with
that courage which enables him from time to time to rise superior to
effete traditions--and such courage when displayed in the Chair of the
House of Commons is heroic--undertook to make an end of the absurdity.
When the House of Commons met for the new Session in March last, the
process of balloting for places was quietly and effectively carried
on by private members in one of the Committee rooms, and two hours of
time, with much vexation of spirit, was saved to the House of Commons.
[Sidenote: IN DEBATE ON THE ADDRESS.]
Now this absurdity has been boldly grappled with there is hope that
another anachronism may be relegated to its appropriate limbo. It is
quite time the House of Commons, if it is to vindicate its claim to
be a business assembly, should make an end of the whole machinery of
the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne. This, also, was
well enough in the days of Old Sarum. It is now, for all practical
purposes, as archaic as the hunt for traces of Guy Fawkes, which to
this day precedes the opening of each Session, and it is not nearly so
picturesque.
The object with which debate on the Address was originally devised
was to provide convenient opportunity of challenging the existence of
the Government, or at least of seriously debating some crucial line
of their policy. It was a full-dress affair, chiefly confined to the
giants of debate. If business were not meant, the conversation was
usually brought to a conclusion before the dinner-hour on the opening
night of the Session. It was confined to the mover and seconder of the
Address, the Leader of the Opposition who criticised the Ministerial
programme, and the Leader of the House who replied. There, as a
rule, was an end of it. Even if fighting were meant and a division
contemplated, it was only on rare occasions that the combat was carried
over a single night. The House cheerfully sat till one or two in the
morning to reach a conclusion of the matter.
The last time the House of Commons completed the debate on the Address
at a single sitting was in the first Session of the Parliament elected
in 1874. That same Parliament saw the birth of a party which, in a
few years, changed many things in the ordinary procedure of the House
of Commons. It was the Irish members, with Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar
just coming to the front, who discovered the opportunities latent in
the ceremony of debate on the Address for obstructing business and
embarrassing the Ministry. The lesson was quickly assimilated by other
factions, and of late years it has come to be a matter of course that
debate on the Address shall be extended beyond a week. Last year ten
of the freshest days of the young Session were thus wasted. If the
Address were the only opportunity presented for raising miscellaneous
questions of public interest, the procedure would be defensible, even
commendable. What happens is, that on the Address prolonged preliminary
conversations take place round subjects which already stand upon the
agenda of business, and will, in due course, be discussed again at
further length, upon a notice of motion or the introduction of a Bill.
[Illustration: MR. FENWICK.]
The House of Commons framing its Rules of Procedure, and anxious above
all things to provide even overlapping opportunities for speech-making,
supplies a final illimitable opportunity on the Appropriation Bill.
This is brought in at the close of a Session, and upon its second
reading members may discuss any subject under the sun. Any speech a
member may have prepared at an earlier period of the Session, upon any
subject whatsoever, may, failing the first legitimate opportunity, be
worked off on the Appropriation Bill. This measure plays the part of
the seven baskets in the parable. All the elocutionary or disputatious
fragments that remain after the feast of the Session are picked up and
crammed within its ample folds.
That is bad enough. But since discovery was made of potentialities of
debate on the Address, that occasion has been utilized in analogous
fashion. Now we have an Appropriation Bill debate at the beginning of
the Session, with pleasing prospect of another at its close.
[Sidenote: INNOVATION.]
The present Session will be memorable in the long record, since it
witnessed an innovation that is probably the beginning of the end of an
absurd custom. From time immemorial it has been ordained that members
moving and seconding the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne
shall array themselves in uniform if they have the right to wear it.
Failing that, they must strut in the velvet and ruffles of Court dress.
This Session Mr. Fenwick was selected to second the Address. The member
for the Wansbeck Division of Northumberland is one of the most highly
esteemed members of the House of Commons, a man of modest mien and
great capacity, an excellent speaker, who has the priceless gift of
conveying to an audience conviction that he knows what he is talking
about and means what he says.
[Illustration: MOVER AND SECONDER.]
Mr. Fenwick, as he has proudly recorded in the pages of "Dod," began
his career as a working collier, and when, in 1885, elected to a
seat in the House of Commons, he threw down his pick in the Bebside
Colliery as a preliminary to having a good wash, changing his clothes,
and going up to Westminster. Court dress is, of course, not common at
Bebside, neither is the crimson and gold lace of the dauntless Colonel
of Militia, or the epaulettes and tightly-buttoned frock-coat of the
Rear-Admiral. If Mr. Fenwick had been inclined to act up to the spirit
of the ordinance, he might have appeared in his old collier's garb.
With pick and spade under his arm, and lantern in his hand, he would
have made a picturesque figure. That, however, did not seem to occur
to him, and he had the good sense to break through the tradition by
appearing in his ordinary Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, leaving his
colleague who moved the Address to dazzle the House with sight of the
uniform of the 4th Oxfordshire Light Infantry.
[Sidenote: THE HORSE GUARDS' GATE.]
A member of Parliament may at this day send from the House of Commons,
post free, a certain number of copies of Parliamentary papers. This
is a poor relic of the privilege of franking, long since abolished.
Ministers still have the privilege of sending their letters post
free. This is done by the medium of the stamp that marks an envelope
"Official: Paid." Presumably this limits the privilege to official
correspondence. But the line is, as a rule, not too closely drawn.
When is added the fact, only recently established, and, I believe,
not widely known in the House, that members may obtain from the
post-office in the Lobby packets of excellent envelopes at the bare
cost of the postage-stamps with which they are embossed, the list of
special privileges pertaining to the estate of a member of the British
Parliament corresponding with those enjoyed by foreign legislatures is
completed.
There is one privilege much coveted by members domiciled in the
neighbourhood of the House of Commons. It is the opportunity of
approaching the West-end by driving through the Horse Guards' entrance
by Whitehall. A supporter of the late Government who lived in Whitehall
Gardens, and to whom this avenue would have been a particular
convenience, used all his influence to obtain the coveted permission.
In reply to his importunate demands, significantly addressed to the
Chief Whip of his party, then in power, he received for answer: "My
dear fellow, if you like I'll get you made an Irish Peer. But not being
on the list, you may not ride or drive through the Horse Guards."
The thing has, nevertheless, been done. A popular Q.C. is accustomed to
ride every morning along the Embankment to the Courts. One day, taking
the upper ride skirting St. James's Park, he came out on the Horse
Guards' Parade, and thought he would try the sentinelled passage into
Whitehall. Walking his horse through, he was challenged by the sentry.
"Don't you know me?" he sternly said. "I am one of Her Majesty's
Counsel."
The soldier saluted, and Mr. Frank Lockwood gravely rode on.
[Illustration]
[Illustration:
THE IRON CASKET
FROM THE GERMAN
A STORY FOR CHILDREN.]
In Bagdad, in the little lane by the Golden Bridge, lived, ages ago, a
merchant named Kalif. He was a quiet, retiring man, who sat early and
late in his little shop, and went but once a year to Mosul or Shiraz,
where he bought embroidered robes in exchange for otto of roses.
On one of these journeys, chancing to have fallen a little in the rear
of his caravan, he heard roarings and trampling of horses' hoofs in
the thicket close by the roadside. Drawing his sword, which he wore
on account of thieves, he entered the thicket. On a little green,
surrounded by trees, he saw a horseman in a light blue mantle and a
turban, fastened by a flashing diamond. The horse, an Arab of purest
blood, seemed to have lost its senses. Rearing upright with a piercing
neigh, it struggled vainly to dislodge an enormous panther which had
fixed its great claws in the horse's flanks. The rider had lost all
control over it; blood and foam poured from its mouth and nostrils.
Kalif sprang boldly out, and with a mighty stroke split the panther's
skull, and flinging away his sword, ran to the horse's head, thereby
enabling the rider to dismount. Having calmed the trembling animal, the
horseman begged his rescuer to follow him.
"I had lost my way in the chase," he said, "and should have fallen
a victim to the panther if Allah had not sent you to my aid. I will
reward you well for your bravery. Come! let us seek my companions;
there, behind that wood, my camp must be."
"I did what any other would have done in my place," answered Kalif,
simply, "and expect no reward. But, if you so will it, I will accompany
you to your tents."
The stranger took his horse by the rein and walked in silence at the
merchant's side till they arrived at an opening in the trees. Here,
surrounded by several smaller ones, stood one large tent of purple
linen. A number of richly clad men threw themselves on their faces
before the new comer. Then Kalif knew whom he had saved: it was the
Shah himself! He was about to fall at his feet, but the Shah seized his
hand and led him into the tent. Inside, standing on five stools, were
five caskets, the first of gold set with jewels, the second of gold
alone, the third silver, the fourth copper, and the fifth of iron.
"Choose one of these caskets," said the Shah.
Kalif hesitated. At length he said:--