Commons must be the desire of every lover of freedom; but the conduct of
its business must be brought into harmony with modern methods, and the
mechanical side of the assembly made as perfect as possible. Not from me
will fall one word derogatory to the venerable "mother of free
parliaments." The House of Commons has done too much for England, its
example has done too much for liberty the wide world through, to allow
any but the ribald and the unthinking to speak lightly of its history or
scornfully of its achievements. For the People's Chamber is not merely
the most powerful portion of the High Court of Parliament; it is not
alone the central force of the British Constitution, to which kings and
nobles have had, and may again have, to bow; it is the directly elected
body before whose gaze every wrong can be displayed, and to whose power
even the humblest can look for redress. It deals forth justice to the
myriad millions of India as to a solitary injured Englishman; it is a
sounding board which echoes the claims of a single peasant or an entire
people; and it practically commands the issues of peace and war,
involving the fate of thousands, and of life and death, involving that
of only one. No policy is vast beyond its conception, no person
insignificant beyond its sight. It is a mighty engine of freedom,
responsive to the heart-throbs and aspirations of a whole people, which
has baffled tyrants, liberated slaves, and raised England to that
position among the nations which our children and our children's
children should be proud to maintain.
Such is the assembly which needs reform. Often enough and with much
success has there been raised a cry for "parliamentary reform," but this
has meant an amendment of the method of electing members, not of the
manner of conducting business; and it is this latter which now is
urgently required. The stately ship which has sailed the ocean of public
affairs for six centuries has naturally attracted weeds and barnacles
which cling to its hull and retard its progress. These must be swept
away if the vessel is to pursue a safe and speedy course; and as little
irreverence is involved in the process as in cleaning and repairing the
old _Victory_ herself.
The cardinal defect of the existing system is that it strives to do
modern work by ancient modes, an attempt which is as certain to fail in
public concerns as it would be if any one were sufficiently ill-advised
to try it in private. And when there is contemplated on the one side the
vast and growing mass of affairs cast upon the consideration of
Parliament, and on the other the rusty and creaking machinery employed
to cope with it, little wonder can be felt that much needful work is
left undone, and a deal of that which is accomplished is done badly.
By granting to Ireland the right to manage her domestic affairs, and by
providing some system by which England, Scotland, and Wales can in local
assemblies each deal for herself with her own concerns, much will be
accomplished in the way of real parliamentary reform. But even then more
will remain to be done. The multiplied stages of each measure laid
before the House of Commons must be lessened. It is possible to-day to
have a debate and a division upon the motion for leave to introduce a
bill, upon the first reading, the second reading, the proposal to go
into committee, the report stage, the third reading, and the final
proposition "That the bill do pass," while financial bills have even
more stages to go through; and although, of course, all these
opportunities for almost unlimited obstruction are not often made use
of, they exist and should be diminished.
Another fruitful source of wasted parliamentary time is the provision
that if a bill is dropped at the end of a session, however far it may
have progressed short of actual passing, it has to be started afresh
when the House re-assembles, and every stage has to be as laboriously
again gone through as if the measure had never been heard of before. One
can understand why a new Parliament should start with a clean sheet, for
no decision of a previous one in favour of the principle of a certain
measure can bind it to pass that measure into law. But within the limits
of the same Parliament, a decision once given should be so far binding
that it should not be necessary for a bill to pass the stage of second
reading four or five years running, because effluxion of time had
prevented it passing into law during any of the sessions.
Against such waste of time as this--waste which is imposed by the very
rules under which Parliament works--the closure is no remedy. It is a
weapon with which it is right that the majority should be armed, but it
requires great skill in the wielding lest the legitimate efforts of the
minority be stifled. What is wanted is the better ordering of the whole
machine. When private bills and purely local business are taken
elsewhere, when the stages of each measure are lessened, and when bills
which have passed their second reading are not killed at the session's
end, but allowed to remain in a state of animated expectancy, even then
other means will have to be sought to make the machine move more surely
and with greater expedition.
Something has been done to this end by the earlier hour of assembling
and fixed hour of adjourning which the House has now adopted. But why
should not the process be carried further, and the affairs of the
country be settled by day instead of by night? The first answer is that
it would not be possible for a legislative body to do its business
during the day; and a sufficient answer should be that the French
Assembly and the German Reichsrath do theirs during that period. The
next is that Ministers could not get through their work if the hours of
meeting were made earlier; the reply is to the same effect--that what
French and German Ministers can accomplish, English Ministers must be
taught to do. A further contention is that such barristers and business
men as are members would not be able to attend sooner than at present;
and the answer of many as to the barristers would be that it were well
for the country if three-fourths of those in the House never attended at
all, for it is largely owing to the number of lawyers in Parliament that
the law is a complicated and costly process, often proving an engine of
injustice in the hands of the rich, and a ruinous remedy for the injured
poor; while as to the business men who cannot attend earlier than now,
their number is so exceedingly limited that their convenience ought not
to be consulted to the detriment of parliamentary institutions. There is
one more argument which would be of greater weight than all the rest if
present conditions were likely to continue, and that is, that it would
be a serious hindrance to private bill legislation, because members
would be loth to serve on committees during the time the House was
deliberating; but it is obvious to all observers of the parliamentary
machine that the greater portion of private business will have soon to
be delegated to other bodies, and the main point of an undeniably strong
argument will thus be destroyed.
But even such a reform in the hours of work would not expedite matters
to a sufficient extent, if the present power of unlimited talk be
preserved. Every member has the right of speaking once at each stage of
a bill, and as many times as he likes during committee. If the number of
stages be lessened, as they are likely to be, there will not be much to
be objected to in the continuance of this right; but its retention
should be contingent upon the shortening of each speech. This is a
proposal which can be justified on "plain Whig principles," and has
certainly a plain Whig precedent. For Lord John Russell, when Prime
Minister, brought forward in 1849 a proposal to limit the duration of
all speeches to one hour, except in the case of a member introducing an
original motion, or a minister of the Crown speaking in reply. The
proposal fell through, but that it was made by so cautious a Premier is
a proof that there is much to be said in favour of compulsorily
shortening speeches.
The proposition that Parliaments should be chosen more frequently in
order that they may preserve a closer touch with the people should be
earnestly pressed forward. In the early days of the House of Commons
annual Parliaments were practically the rule, an assembly being summoned
to vote supplies and do certain necessary business and then dissolved.
When matters were put upon a more certain footing, after the Great
Rebellion, Parliaments elected for three years were ordained, and this
term was extended to seven years shortly after the Hanoverian Accession,
in order to guard against a Jacobite success at the hustings, which
might seriously have endangered an unstable throne. The time has now
come to ask that a term adopted in a panic, and for reasons which have
long passed away, should be shortened. A four years' Parliament has been
found to be long enough for France, Germany, and the United States; and
as the average of the last half-century has proved a seven years' period
to be unnecessarily long for England, the briefer should be enacted. Now
that the suffrage is on so wide a basis, it is essential that members of
Parliament should be in as close touch with the people as possible. Once
elected, members frequently forget that they are not the masters of
those who have chosen them, and that, though called in one sense to rule
the country, there is another sense in which they are called to serve.
It is necessary that this truth should be enforced upon such members as
are apt to ignore it, and shorter Parliaments would enforce it.
There are some who believe that by payment of members a better
representation of the people would be secured. The example of other
countries can certainly be quoted in favour of such a proposition, but
there appears no necessity for any general payment in England. As,
however, it is in the highest degree desirable that representatives of
every class in the community should appear at Westminster, some
provision should be made by which members, upon making a statutory
declaration of the necessity for such a course, would be able to claim a
certain moderate allowance for their expenses during the session. There
would be nothing revolutionary in this; the fact of members being paid
would be merely a return to the practice which prevailed for close upon
four centuries after the House of Commons was established upon its
present basis.
XIII.--IS OUR ELECTORAL SYSTEM COMPLETE?
Many would be surprised if told that there remained serious deficiencies
in our electoral system; and would ask, "How can that be? We now have
the ballot at elections, household suffrage in both counties and
boroughs, and a nearer approach to equal electoral districts than the
most sanguine Radical ten or even five years ago would have thought
possible?"
But has the suffrage really been extended to every householder? As a
fact, it has not; it is largely a merely nominal extension; and tens of
thousands of qualified citizens are disfranchised for years at a time by
the needless restrictions and petty technicalities which now clog the
electoral law. Registration should be so simplified that every qualified
person would be certain of finding his name on the list; and the duty of
compiling a correct register should be imposed upon some local public
official, compelled under penalty to perform it.
The common belief is that a twelvemonth's occupation qualifies for a
vote, but all that it does is to qualify for a place on the register,
which is an altogether different matter, the register being made up
months before it comes into operation. At the very least, a man must
have gone into a house a year and a half before he has a vote for it,
and it often happens that he has to be in it for two years and a
quarter, and even more, before he possesses the franchise. Let me state
such a case. A man goes into a house at the half-quarter in August,
1888; he will not be entitled to be placed on the register in the
autumn of 1889, because he was not occupying on July 15 of the previous
year; if he continues to occupy, he will, however, be placed there in
the autumn of 1890; but it is not until January 1, 1891, that he will be
able to exercise the suffrage. So that all taking houses from July 15,
1888, are in the same position as those who take them up to July 15,
1889, and will have to wait for a vote until 1891.
"But," it may be said, "when a man once has his vote he is able to
retain it as long as he holds any dwelling by virtue of 'successive
occupation.'" That is so only as long as he remains within the
boundaries of the constituency wherein he possessed the original
qualification. He may move from one division of Liverpool to another, or
from one division of Manchester to another, or from one division of
Birmingham to another, and retain his vote by successive occupation; but
if he goes from Liverpool to Birkenhead, from Manchester to Salford, or
from Birmingham to Aston, his vote is lost for the year and a half or
the two years and a quarter before explained. The effect of this is most
apparent in London, where thousands of working men are continually
moving from one district to another, treating the whole metropolis as
one great town, but by passing out of their original borough they are
disfranchised. And this is the more a grievance because the
Redistribution Act, though dividing the larger provincial towns into
single-member districts, left them as boroughs intact; while the old
constituencies in London were not merely divided, but split up into
separate boroughs. Lambeth thus became three boroughs--Lambeth,
Camberwell, and Newington--each with its own divisions; Hackney was
severed into the boroughs of Hackney, Shoreditch, and Bethnal Green;
Marylebone into the boroughs of Marylebone, Paddington, St. Pancras, and
Hampstead; and so throughout the metropolis. And the consequence of the
purely artificial nature of the boundary lines thus created is that many
a man who merely moves from one side of the street to the other, or even
from one house to another next door, is disfranchised for a couple of
years. The obvious remedy for this peculiar evil is that London should
be treated as one single borough, like Liverpool, Manchester, and
Birmingham; but the remedy for the whole evil is that when a man has
once qualified for a place on the register, proof of successive
occupation in any part of the country should suffice to give him his
vote in the constituency to which he moves.
When we pass from the household to the lodger franchise, we are faced by
one of the hugest shams in the electoral system. There are certain
constituencies which contain hundreds of lodgers, and of these not more
than tens are on the register. The reason is twofold: it is not merely a
trouble to get a vote, but there is a yearly difficulty in retaining it.
For a lodger, as for a household vote, a twelvemonth's occupation is
necessary to qualify, and the purely nominal nature of this
qualification is the same in both; but the lodger has the additional
hardship of being deprived of even as much benefit as "successive
occupation" gives the householder, for if he moves next door, though
with the same landlord, he is disfranchised, while the landlord retains
his vote. And, further, he has to make a formal claim for the suffrage
every succeeding summer, an operation too troublesome for the vast
majority of lodgers to undergo, and one from which the householder is
spared. And thus this particular franchise is a mockery, and the
proportion of lodger voters to qualified lodgers is absurdly small.
Of course, the term "householder," equally with the term "lodger,"
presupposes at present that the one who bears it is a man, and, equally
of course, an agitation is on foot to give the franchise to women. This
is a matter which is likely to be settled in favour of the other sex,
and the only question is as to how far it should go. The extreme
advocates of female suffrage would give it to married women, but what
appears the growing opinion is that spinsters and widows, qualified for
the suffrage as men are qualified, should receive it; and this is a
settlement which will probably soon be reached.
Much dissatisfaction would continue to be felt, even were these points
granted, if "faggot-voting" were still suffered, or a single person
allowed to possess a multitude of votes. The "forty-shilling freehold"
is a prolific source of bogus qualifications: abolished in Ireland by
the Tories because it gave the people too much power, it ought to be got
rid of throughout the kingdom by the Liberals because it leaves the
people too little. For it is largely by its means that some men are able
to boast that they can exercise the franchise in six, or ten, or even a
dozen constituencies. Men of this type occupy themselves at a general
election by travelling around, dropping a vote here and a vote there,
and they ought to be restrained. That this can be done without violating
any right is evident even under the present system. However many
qualifications a man obtains, he can vote for only one of them in any
constituency; and more, if he has qualifications in every division of
the same borough he has, when the register is made up, to state for
which division he will vote, and in that division alone can he claim a
ballot paper. If it is right to prevent him from having more than a
single vote in any one division--or, which is a still stronger point, in
any one borough--it must be equally right to limit him to a single vote
throughout the country. "One man, one vote," should be the rule in a
democratic state. If a person possesses qualifications for various
constituencies, let him be called upon to do what he is now compelled to
do if he has qualifications for different parts of the same
constituency--vote for only one of them; and that one should be the
place in which he habitually resides.
An indirect method of practically securing the "one man, one vote,"
result would be to have all the elections throughout the country on the
same day. Under the existing system, the polls drag on for weeks, and
not only does this distract the attention of the nation and put a
hindrance to business for a far longer period than is necessary, but it
has the further evil effect of causing many voters in the constituencies
which are later polled to waver until they see whither the majority
elsewhere are tending, and then "go with the stream." The only instance
in recent electoral history when the later polls reversed the verdict of
the earlier was at the general election of 1885, when the boroughs,
speaking broadly, voted Tory and the counties Liberal; but that, owing
to the recent extension of the county franchise, was an abnormal period,
and the rule is that the stream gathers as it goes, and the waverers are
swept into the torrent. That it is possible for a great country to be
polled on the same day is evident from the examples of Germany and
France, and it is only adherence to worn-out forms which prevents its
accomplishment here.
The remedy, therefore, for the anomalies caused by the defective
"successive occupation," the presence of "faggot voters," and the
prolongation of the pollings, is simply to treat the kingdom as one vast
constituency, in which a man once on the register remains as long as he
has a qualification, in which no one has more than a single vote, and in
all the divisions of which the poll is taken on the same day.
This suggested single constituency would, of course, resemble the great
county and borough constituencies of to-day in having divisions, but it
would not be single in the sense proposed in Mr. Hare's original scheme
of "proportional representation," by which the possessor of a vote could
cast it where and for whom he liked. Those who have adopted Mr. Hare's
ideas, while modifying his methods, have not been successful in
discovering any feasible plan for representing public opinion in the
proportion in which it is held, the sort of Chinese puzzle proposed by
Sir John Lubbock and Mr. Courtney having failed to commend itself to any
practical politician. It is wrong, however, to imagine that the present
system of single-member districts roughly secures that the minority
shall be duly represented while the majority retains its due share of
power; for it was proved in some striking instances, the very first time
it was put in operation, that, so far from retaining, it often
sacrifices the rights of the majority. At the general election of 1885
the Liberals of Leeds cast 23,354 votes, and the Tories 19,605, and yet
the latter gained three seats and the former only two; the Sheffield
Liberals won but two seats with 19,636 votes, while the Tories secured
three with 19,594; and the Hackney Liberals could win only one seat with
9,203 votes, and the Tories two with 8,870; while, on the other side,
the Southwark Tories, with 9,324 votes, returned one member, and the
Liberals, with 9,120, returned two. The reason is obvious: a party with
overwhelming majorities in one or two districts is liable to be beaten
by narrow majorities in most of the divisions, and the minority thus
elects a majority of members. The present system, therefore, is
evidently imperfect. It was adopted in haste and without due
discussion; it has failed in France, Switzerland, and the United States;
and in at least the divided boroughs it ought to give place to double or
triple member districts.
The question of having second ballots, so as to provide that, as in
Germany and France, where there are several candidates and none secures
an absolute majority of votes given, another ballot shall be held, is
not an immediately pressing one, though much may be said in its favour;
but that of the payment of election expenses out of the rates ought to
be dealt with at once. It is highly unfair that a candidate should be
fined heavily, by the enforced payment of the official expenses, for his
desire to serve the country in Parliament; and it is the more unfair
because the official expenses of elections for town councils, school
boards, and boards of health and of guardians are paid by the public.
This fine helps to keep men of moderate means out of the House, though
their abilities might prove to be most useful there; and another method
by which the wealthy have the advantage in parliamentary contests ought
equally to be attended to. People are forbidden by law to hire
conveyances for carrying voters to the poll, but they are allowed to
borrow them, with the result that constituencies on an election day
swarm with carriages of peers and other rich people, who have nothing
whatever to do with the district, and who yet affect by this influence
the voting. The use of carriages should not be prohibited, for the aged
and infirm ought not to be disfranchised; but no importation of vehicles
should be allowed, and while an elector, and an elector only, should be
entitled to use his own, it should, as a means of identification, be
driven by himself. Such a provision would largely diminish the present
interference of peers in elections. They may address as many meetings as
they like; but, as long as they have a legislative assembly of their
own, they must not be allowed to use their wealth and position to
interfere with the voters for the Commons House of Parliament.
XIV.--SHOULD THE CHURCH REMAIN ESTABLISHED?
From the great concerns of the State it is natural to come to the
Church, and when that point is arrived at, the problem of
disestablishment at once arises. "_Can_ the Church be disestablished?"
is a question sometimes put, and the answer is plain, for that answer is
"Most certainly," and a further question "Where is the Act establishing
the Church?" as if the non-production of such an enactment would prevent
Parliament from severing the link which binds Church and State, may be
replied to by another. Supposing one asked, "Where is the Act
establishing the monarchy?" would the non-production of that measure
prove that it is not a parliamentary monarchy under which we live? By
the Act of Succession, Parliament "settled" the monarchy; by various
Acts in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Elizabeth, and Charles
II., Parliament has "settled" the Church. There is no authority in this
realm higher than Parliament; and if Parliament chooses to "unsettle"
either monarchy or Church, it can do so.