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Title: The Government of England (Vol. I)
Author: Lowell, A. Lawrence, 1856-1943
Language: English
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Transcriber's Notes: Words in italics in the original are surrounded by
_underscores_. Words in bold are surrounded by =equal signs=. Variations
in spelling and hyphenation remain as in the original. Ellipses match
the original. A complete list of typographical corrections follows the
text.
THE
GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND
VOLUME I
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
THE
GOVERNMENT OF ENGLAND
BY
A. LAWRENCE LOWELL
PROFESSOR OF THE SCIENCE OF GOVERNMENT
IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
VOLUME I
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1908
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1908,
BY A. LAWRENCE LOWELL.
Set up and electrotyped. Published May, 1908. Reprinted June, 1908.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
PREFACE
Measured by the standards of duration, absence of violent commotions,
maintenance of law and order, general prosperity and contentment of the
people, and by the extent of its influence on the institutions and
political thought of other lands, the English government has been one of
the most remarkable the world has ever known. An attempt, therefore, to
study it at any salient epoch cannot be valueless; and the present is a
salient epoch, for the nation has now enjoyed something very near to
manhood suffrage in the boroughs for forty years, and throughout the
country more than twenty years, a period long enough for democracy to
produce its primary if not its ultimate effects. Moreover, England has
one of the most interesting of popular governments, because it has had a
free development, little hampered by rigid constitutional devices. It is
an organism constantly adapting itself to its environment, and hence in
full harmony with national conditions. An endeavour has been made in
these volumes to portray the present form of that organism and the
forces which maintain its equilibrium.
In preparing a study of this kind one feels the need of limiting its
scope, by reducing the denominator as Arthur Helps remarked. Hence the
work covers only the English government as it stands to-day; and
further, only those institutions, national and local, that have a
general bearing. The British Constitution is full of exceptions, of
local customs and special acts with which town clerks must be familiar.
They fill the path of these men with pitfalls, but they do not affect
seriously the general principles of the government, and no attempt is
made to describe them here. Even the institutions of Scotland and
Ireland, interesting as they are in themselves, have been referred to
only so far as they relate to the national government or throw light
upon its working.
Even so limited, the subject is not without difficulties. The forces to
be studied do not lie upon the surface, and some of them are not
described in any document or found in any treatise. They can be learned
only from men connected with the machinery of public life. A student
must, therefore, rely largely upon conversations which he can use but
cannot cite as authorities, and the soundness of his conclusions must be
measured less by his references in footnotes than by the judgment of the
small portion of the public that knows at first-hand the things whereof
he speaks. The precise effect of the various forces at work must be a
matter of opinion on which well-informed people may differ, and the
writer has drawn the picture as it appeared to him.
To undertake a study of this kind would be impossible without manifold
assistance from others; and the writer is glad of this chance to express
his sense of obligation to the many persons who have given him help and
information, men in public life belonging to different parties,
permanent officials, national and local, officers of political
associations, jurists, publicists and many others. It is pleasant for
him to recall the constant courtesy with which he was treated, not
infrequently, in the case of local officers, without any introduction or
claim of any kind. Among many men to whom he owes much he desires to
acknowledge his debt to Rt. Hon. Joseph Chamberlain, Lord Fitzmaurice,
Rt. Hon. John Morley, the late Sir William Harcourt, Lord Reay, Mr.
Frederic Harrison, Sir William James Farrer, Sir Alexander Hargreaves
Brown, Sir Frederick Pollock, Sir C. P. Lucas, Sir Horace Plunkett, Mr.
Sidney Webb, Mr. Graham Wallas, Dr. William Cunningham, Mr. Francis W.
Hirst, the late Capt. R. W. E. Middleton, Mr. A. E. Southall of the
National Union of Conservative Associations and Mr. Charles Geake of
the Liberal Publication Department.
His thanks are especially due to Professor A. V. Dicey, Sir Courtenay
Ilbert, Professor H. Morse Stephens, now of the University of
California, and Professor W. B. Munro of Harvard University, who,
besides giving him information, have kindly read a part of the
manuscript or proof sheets and made many valuable suggestions. Above all
he feels the deepest gratitude to Rt. Hon. James Bryce, now happily
British ambassador to the United States, the master and guide of all
students of modern political systems, whose unwearied assistance,
counsel and encouragement have been a constant help throughout the
preparation of this work, and who has read the whole of the proof sheets
except the chapters that deal with the Empire. These friends have made
the writing of the book possible, and saved the author from many
blunders. It is needless to say that none of them are in any way
responsible for any opinions in these pages; and in fact the writer has
tried not to express, and so far as possible not to form, opinions on
matters of current party politics.
The writer is indebted also to a number of his students at Harvard, who
have made researches in several different subjects. While some of the
more important of these contributions have been referred to in the
notes, it has been impossible to do this in all cases. Finally he
desires to acknowledge the help he has received in his investigations
from three assistants: Mr. Emerson David Fite, now of Yale University,
Mr. Robert Lee Hale, now of the Harvard Law School, and Mr. Thomas N.
Hoover of the Harvard Graduate School, the last of these having also
verified the citations and prepared the index.
APRIL, 1908.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME I
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON THE CONSTITUTION 1
PART I.--THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER I
THE CROWN 16
CHAPTER II
THE CROWN AND THE CABINET 27
CHAPTER III
THE CABINET AND THE MINISTERS 53
CHAPTER IV
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS 81
CHAPTER V
THE TREASURY 115
CHAPTER VI
MISCELLANEOUS OFFICES 131
CHAPTER VII
THE PERMANENT CIVIL SERVICE 145
CHAPTER VIII
THE MINISTERS AND THE CIVIL SERVICE 173
CHAPTER IX
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--CONSTITUENCIES AND VOTERS 195
CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--ELECTORAL PROCEDURE 219
CHAPTER XI
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--DISQUALIFICATIONS, PRIVILEGE,
SESSIONS 239
CHAPTER XII
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--THE HOUSE, ITS RULES
AND OFFICERS 248
CHAPTER XIII
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--COMMITTEES AND
PUBLIC BILLS 264
CHAPTER XIV
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--MONEY BILLS AND
ACCOUNTS 279
CHAPTER XV
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--CLOSURE 292
CHAPTER XVI
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS--SITTINGS AND ORDER
OF BUSINESS 302
CHAPTER XVII
THE CABINET'S CONTROL OF THE COMMONS 309
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COMMONS' CONTROL OF THE CABINET 327
CHAPTER XIX
THE FORM AND CONTENTS OF STATUTES 356
CHAPTER XX
PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION 367
CHAPTER XXI
THE HOUSE OF LORDS 394
CHAPTER XXII
THE CABINET AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS 405
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CABINET AND THE COUNTRY 423
PART II.--THE PARTY SYSTEM
CHAPTER XXIV
PARTY AND THE PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM 435
CHAPTER XXV
PARTY ORGANISATION IN PARLIAMENT 448
CHAPTER XXVI
NON-PARTY ORGANISATIONS OUTSIDE OF PARLIAMENT 458
CHAPTER XXVII
LOCAL PARTY ORGANISATIONS 466
CHAPTER XXVIII
ACTION OF LOCAL ORGANISATIONS 491
CHAPTER XXIX
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS--THE LIBERALS 501
CHAPTER XXX
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS--THE CONSERVATIVES 535
VOLUME II
CHAPTER XXXI
ANCILLARY PARTY ORGANISATIONS 1
CHAPTER XXXII
THE FUNCTIONS OF PARTY ORGANISATIONS 18
CHAPTER XXXIII
THE LABOUR PARTY 24
CHAPTER XXXIV
CANDIDATES AND ELECTIONS 46
CHAPTER XXX
THE STRENGTH OF PARTY TIES 71
CHAPTER XXXV
POLITICAL OSCILLATIONS 101
CHAPTER XXXVII
THE EXISTING PARTIES 113
PART III.--LOCAL GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER XXXVIII
AREAS OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT 129
CHAPTER XXXIX
BOROUGHS--THE TOWN COUNCIL 144
CHAPTER XL
BOROUGHS--THE PERMANENT OFFICIALS 171
CHAPTER XLI
BOROUGHS--POWERS AND RESOURCES 181
CHAPTER XLII
LONDON 202
CHAPTER XLIII
THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL 215
CHAPTER XLIV
MUNICIPAL TRADING 233
CHAPTER XLV
OTHER LOCAL AUTHORITIES 268
CHAPTER XLVI
CENTRAL CONTROL 284
PART IV.--EDUCATION
CHAPTER XLVII
PUBLIC ELEMENTARY EDUCATION 295
CHAPTER XLVIII
SECONDARY EDUCATION 324
CHAPTER XLIX
THE UNIVERSITIES 343
CHAPTER L
EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND 354
PART V.--THE CHURCH
CHAPTER LI
ORGANISATION OF THE CHURCH 362
CHAPTER LII
REVENUES OF THE CHURCH 374
CHAPTER LIII
THE FREE CHURCH FEDERATION 380
PART VI.--THE EMPIRE
CHAPTER LIV
COMPONENT PARTS OF THE EMPIRE 386
CHAPTER LV
THE SELF-GOVERNING COLONIES 392
CHAPTER LVI
THE CROWN COLONIES 408
CHAPTER LVII
INDIA AND THE PROTECTORATES 420
CHAPTER LVIII
IMPERIAL FEDERATION 430
PART VII.--THE COURTS OF LAW
CHAPTER LIX
HISTORY OF THE COURTS 439
CHAPTER LX
THE EXISTING COURTS 451
CHAPTER LXI
THE ENGLISH CONCEPTION OF LAW 471
CHAPTER LXII
EFFECTS OF THE CONCEPTION OF LAW 489
PART VIII.--REFLECTIONS
CHAPTER LXIII
ARISTOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY 505
CHAPTER LXIV
PUBLIC, PRIVATE AND LOCAL INTERESTS 514
CHAPTER LXV
THE GROWTH OF PATERNALISM 520
CHAPTER LXVI
PARTY AND CLASS LEGISLATION 531
CHAPTER LXVII
CONCLUSION 539
INDEX 541
INTRODUCTORY NOTE ON THE CONSTITUTION
[Sidenote: Different Meanings of the word Constitution.]
De Tocqueville declared that the English Constitution did not really
exist,[1:1] and he said so because in his mind the word "constitution"
meant a perfectly definite thing to which nothing in England conformed.
An examination of modern governments shows, however, that the thing is
by no means so definite as he had supposed.
[Sidenote: A Document Embodying the Chief Institutions.]
The term "constitution" is usually applied to an attempt to embody in a
single authoritative document, or a small group of documents, the
fundamental political institutions of a state. But such an attempt is
rarely, if ever, completely successful; and even if the constitution
when framed covers all the main principles on which the government is
based, it often happens that they become modified in practice, or that
other principles arise, so that the constitution no longer corresponds
fully with the actual government of the country. In France, for example,
the principle that the cabinet can stay in office only so long as it
retains the confidence of the popular chamber, the principle, in short,
of a ministry responsible in the parliamentary sense, was not mentioned
in the charters of 1814 or 1830, and yet it was certainly firmly
established in the reign of Louis Philippe; and it is noteworthy that
this same principle, on which the whole political system of the English
self-governing colonies is based, appears neither in the British North
American Act nor in the Australian Federation Act. The first of those
statutes, following the English tradition, speaks of the Privy Council
for Canada,[1:2] but never of the cabinet or the ministers; while the
Australian Act, going a step farther, refers to the Queen's Ministers of
State,[1:3] but ignores their responsibility to the parliament.[2:1]
Again, in the United States, the provision that the electoral college
shall choose the President has become so modified in practice that the
electors must vote for the candidate nominated by the party to which
they owe their own election. In choosing the President they have become,
by the force of custom, as much a mere piece of mechanism as the Crown
in England when giving its assent to acts passed by the two Houses of
Parliament. Their freedom of choice is as obsolete as the royal veto. So
far, therefore, as this meaning of the term is concerned, the
constitution of England differs from those of other countries rather in
degree than in kind. It differs in the fact that the documents, being
many statutes, are very numerous, and the part played by custom is
unusually large.
[Sidenote: Not Changeable by Ordinary Legislation.]
[Sidenote: Rigid and Flexible Constitutions.]
De Tocqueville had more particularly in mind another meaning which is
commonly attached to the term "constitution." It is that of an
instrument of special sanctity, distinct in character from all other
laws; and alterable only by a peculiar process, differing to a greater
or less extent from the ordinary forms of legislation. The special
sanctity is, of course, a matter of sentiment incapable of exact
definition, and it may be said to belong to the British Constitution
quite as much as to some others. The peculiar process of amendment, on
the other hand,--the separation of the so-called constituent and
law-making powers,--upon which Mr. Bryce bases his division of
constitutions into rigid and flexible,[2:2] has had a long history and
been much discussed; but although the contrast between the two types is
highly important, the creation of intermediate forms has made it less
exact as a basis of classification. The later constitutions, and the
more recent practice, have tended to obscure the distinction. A
separation between the constituent and law-making powers does not, in
fact, always exist in written constitutions. The Italian _Statuto_, for
instance, which contains no provision for amendment, can be, and in fact
has been, altered by the ordinary process of legislation;[3:1] and the
same thing was true of the French Charter of 1830.[3:2] The last Spanish
constitution omits all provision for amendment, but one may assume that
if it lasts long enough to require amendment the changes will be made by
ordinary legislative process.
From countries which can change their fundamental constitution by the
ordinary process of legislation we pass by almost imperceptible degrees
to those where the constitutional and law-making powers are in
substantially different hands. Thus the procedure for changing the
constitution in Prussia differs from that for the enactment of laws only
by the requirement of two readings at an interval of twenty-one days.
Here there is a difference legally perceptible between the methods of
changing the constitution and other laws; but it may be remarked that a
provision in the constitution to the effect that all laws should require
two readings at an interval of twenty-one days, would not essentially
change the nature of the constitution, and yet in theory it would make
that constitution flexible instead of rigid. As it is, the fundamental
laws are quite as much under the control of the legislature in Prussia
as they are in England.[3:3] This is almost equally true of France; for
although the changes in her constitution are made by the National
Assembly, composed of the two chambers sitting together, yet the
Assembly can meet only after the two chambers have passed a concurrent
resolution to that effect; and in fact the chambers are in the habit of
determining beforehand by separate votes the amendments which shall be
submitted to the Assembly. So that in France, also, the constitution is
virtually under the unrestricted control of the legislature.
[Sidenote: The Distinction has Lost Practical Importance.]
The separation of constituent and law-making powers has been rendered of
much less practical importance in some countries not only by making the
process of amending the constitution more simple, but also by making the
enactment of laws more complex. In Switzerland, for example, changes in
the Constitution of 1848 required a popular vote, while changes in the
laws did not; but after the referendum on ordinary laws was introduced
in 1874, this distinction largely disappeared, and at the present day
the differences between the methods of passing constitutional amendments
and ordinary laws are comparatively slight. In the case of ordinary laws
a popular vote is taken only on the petition of thirty thousand citizens
or eight cantons, and the popular majority is decisive; whereas
constitutional amendments must be submitted to the people whether a
petition is presented or not, and for their ratification a majority vote
in more than half the cantons as well as a majority in the Confederation
as a whole is required.[4:1]
In those European countries where the difference in the procedure for
changing constitutional and other laws is the most marked, the special
formalities for the former consist in requiring more than a majority
vote in the legislature, or that a general election shall take place
before the amendment is finally adopted, or both. Now the last of those
conditions is practically not unknown in England. There is a growing
feeling that no fundamental or far-reaching change ought to be made
unless, as a result of a general election fought on that issue,
Parliament has received from the nation a mandate to make the change.
Such a doctrine does not affect the law, but it does affect that body
of customs which is a not less vital part of the British Constitution.
The classical distinction between constituent and law-making powers, and
hence between rigid and flexible constitutions, has also been somewhat
effaced by extending the requirement of a special procedure to the
enactment of certain classes of ordinary law. Thus in the German Empire
the only peculiar formality for amendments to the constitution is found
in the provision that they are defeated by fourteen adverse votes in the
Bundesrath.[5:1] This gives Prussia with her seventeen votes a veto upon
them, but she has also a veto in the Bundesrath upon any measures
affecting the army, the navy, customs-duties or excises.[5:2]
[Sidenote: Growing Variety in Written Constitutions.]
In the middle of the last century written constitutions in Europe were
framed for the most part upon the same model and were much alike, so
that a written constitution usually implied a definite type of limited
monarchy, where the same class of matters were removed from the direct
control of the legislature and placed, in theory at least, under special
protection. But now written constitutions all over the world have come
to differ a great deal, some of them being simpler, and others more
comprehensive than of old. The constitutional laws of France, for
example, provide only for the bare organisation of the public
authorities, and can be amended virtually at will by the legislature;
while the constitutions of Switzerland, Germany and the United States go
into great detail, and that of the United States can be amended only
with the greatest difficulty. The result is that the French
constitution, although written and technically rigid, bears from the
point of view of rigidity a far closer resemblance to the constitution
of England than to that of the United States.
It would seem, therefore, that the distinction between constitutions
which are flexible and those which are rigid, while valuable, has ceased
to mark a contrast between widely separated groups; and that it might be
well to regard the distinction as one of degree rather than of kind.
From this aspect it may be said that of late years constitutions have
tended on the whole to become more flexible; and at the same time there
has been a tendency toward greater variations in flexibility, the
constitutions of England and of Hungary standing at one end of the
scale, and that of the United States at the other.
[Sidenote: A Constitution as a Supreme Law.]
[Sidenote: Meaning of Law where the Common Law Prevails.]
If the term "constitution" does not necessarily imply that the so-called
constituent and law-making powers are in different hands, still less
does it imply the existence of a law of superior obligation which
controls legally the acts of the legislature. Before discussing that
question, one must understand clearly what is meant by a law. In
England, and in the countries that have inherited the Anglo-Norman
system of jurisprudence, a law may be defined as a rule that will be
enforced by the courts. This results from the fact that officers of the
government, like private persons, are subject to judicial process, and
liable to have the legality of their actions examined and determined by
the ordinary tribunals. Hence a rule recognised as law by the courts
will be enforced against both officials and private citizens; and a rule
which they do not recognise cannot be enforced at all, for they will
entertain suits and prosecutions against officials who try to apply it,
and will afford protection to individuals who resist them.[6:1] Assuming
this definition of law, the famous decision of Chief Justice
Marshall[6:2] that an Act of Congress inconsistent with the Constitution
of the United States must be treated as invalid was a logical necessity.
The Constitution was certainly intended to be a law, and as such it
could be enforced by the courts. But if that law came into conflict with
another law, an Act of Congress for example, the court must consider, as
in any other case of conflict of laws, which law was of superior
authority; and there could be no doubt that the Constitution was the
superior of the two. The same principle is applied in the British
colonies, when colonial acts come into collision with the Acts of
Parliament establishing the colonial government;[7:1] and it has been
incorporated into the constitutions of the Spanish American republics.
[Sidenote: Where the Civil Law Prevails.]
But, except for those Latin countries which have copied it from the
United States, the doctrine is almost entirely confined to the places
where the Common Law prevails,[7:2] for elsewhere the same definition of
law does not obtain. In accordance with the French interpretation of the
theory of the separation of powers, it is the general rule on the
continent of Europe that the ordinary courts administer only private law
between private citizens, and that questions affecting the rights and
duties of public officials are withdrawn from their jurisdiction. Such
questions are now usually, though not universally, submitted to special
tribunals known as administrative courts. The rules administered by
these tribunals are laws, but they form a distinct and separate branch
of the law from that applied by the ordinary courts. On the continent,
therefore, a constitution may or may not be properly regarded as a law,
but even if it be so regarded it is not of necessity enforced by any
court. On the contrary, if an ordinary court is not suffered to pass
upon the legality of the actions of a policeman, it would be hardly
rational that it should pass upon the validity of an act of the national
legislature; and it would be even more irrational to intrust any such
power to the administrative courts which are under the influence of the
executive branch of the government.[8:1]
[Sidenote: Legal Restraints on Power of Legislature are Rare.]
The conception of a constitution as a law of superior obligation, which
imposes legal restraints upon the action of the legislature, is really
confined to a very few countries, chiefly to America and the English
self-governing colonies.[8:2] In Europe it has no proper place, for
whether a constitution in continental states be or be not regarded as a
supreme law, no body of men has, as a rule, been intrusted with legal
authority to enforce its provisions as against the legislature; and in
England there is no law superior in obligation to an Act of Parliament.
There can, indeed, be no doubt that the Acts of Union with Scotland and
Ireland were intended to be, in part at least, forever binding, but as
they created no authority with power either to enforce or to amend the
Acts, the united Parliament assumed that, like its predecessors, it
possessed unlimited sovereignty; and it has, in fact, altered material
provisions in each of those statutes.[8:3]
[Sidenote: Sources of the English Constitution.]
The English Constitution--speaking, of course, of its form, not its
content--differs, therefore, from those of most other European nations
more widely in method of expression than in essential nature and legal
effect. They have been created usually as a result of a movement to
change fundamentally the political institutions of the country, and the
new plan has naturally been embodied in a document; but since the
Restoration England has never revised her frame of government as a
whole, and hence has felt no need of codifying it. The national
political institutions are to be found in statutes,[9:1] in customs
which are enforced and developed by the courts and form a part of the
Common Law, and in customs strictly so called which have no legal
validity whatever and cannot be enforced at law. These last are very
appropriately called by Professor Dicey the conventions of the
constitution. The two chief peculiarities of the English Constitution
are: first, that no laws are ear-marked as constitutional,--all laws can
be changed by Parliament, and hence it is futile to attempt to draw a
sharp line between those laws which do and those which do not form a
part of the constitution;--second, the large part played by customary
rules, which are carefully followed, but which are entirely devoid of
legal sanction. Customs or conventions of this kind exist, and in the
nature of things must to some extent exist, under all governments. In
the United States where they might, perhaps, be least expected, they
have, as already observed, transformed the presidential electors into a
mere machine for registering the popular vote in the several states, and
this is only the most striking of the instances that might be
cited.[9:2] England is peculiar, not because it has such conventions,
but because they are more abundant and all-pervasive than elsewhere. The
most familiar of them is, of course, the rule that the King must act on
the advice of his ministers, while they must resign or dissolve
Parliament when they lose the confidence of the majority in the House of
Commons.
It is impossible, however, to make a precise list of the conventions of
the constitution, for they are constantly changing by a natural process
of growth and decay; and while some of them are universally accepted,
others are in a state of uncertainty. Hence one hears from time to time
a member of the Opposition assert that some action of the government is
unconstitutional, meaning that it is an unusual breach of a principle
which in his opinion ought to be recognised as inviolable. It was said,
for example, that the Parliament of 1900, having been elected on the
issue of the South African war, was not justified in enacting measures
of great importance on other subjects, but that a fresh mandate from the
nation ought to be obtained by another general election. As claims of
this kind are in dispute, those customs alone can safely be said to be a
part of the constitution which are generally assumed to be outside the
range of current political controversy.
[Sidenote: The Relation of Law and Custom.]
The relation between law and custom in the English government is
characteristic. From the very fact that the law consists of those rules
which are enforced by the courts, it follows that the law,--including,
of course, both the statutes and the Common Law,--is perfectly distinct
from the conventions of the constitution; is quite independent of them,
and is rigidly enforced. The conventions do not abrogate or obliterate
legal rights and privileges, but merely determine how they shall be
exercised. The legal forms are scrupulously observed, and are as
requisite for the validity of an act as if custom had not affected their
use.[10:1] The power of the Crown, for example, to refuse its consent to
bills passed by the two Houses of Parliament is obsolete, yet the right
remains legally unimpaired. The royal assent is given to such bills with
as much solemnity as if it were still discretionary, and without that
formality a statute would have no validity whatever. Public law in
countries where it is administered not by the ordinary courts, but
solely by the executive, or with the aid of special tribunals composed
of administrative officials, must of necessity contain a discretionary
element, and that element is always affected by political conventions.
Hence there is a likelihood that the line between law and convention
will become blurred, but this is not so in England. There the law and
the conventions of the constitution are each developing by processes
peculiar to themselves, but the line between them remains permanently
clear. The conventions are superimposed upon the law, and modify
political relations without in the least affecting legal ones. In fact
Freeman declared that the growth of the unwritten conventions of the
constitution began after the supremacy of the law had been firmly
established by the revolution of 1688, and that they could not have been
evolved if that condition had not existed.[11:1]
[Sidenote: The Sanction of Custom.]
The question why the conventions of the constitution are so scrupulously
followed, when they have no legal force, is not a simple one.
Impeachment as a means of compelling the observance of traditions has,
of course, long been obsolete. Professor Dicey maintains that the
ultimate sanction of these conventions lies in the fact that any
ministry or official violating them would be speedily brought into
conflict with the law of the land as enforced by the courts.[11:2] He
takes as illustrations the omission to summon Parliament every year, and
the retention of office by a ministry against the will of the Commons
without dissolving; and he shows in each case how the ministry would be
brought into conflict with the law by the failure to enact the annual
army bill or to pass the appropriations. He proves that in such cases
the wheels of government would be stopped by the regular operation of
the law; and that the House of Commons can readily bring about this
result if it pleases.[12:1] There is, however, another question, and
that is why the House is determined to exert its power so as to maintain
the conventions of the constitution as they stand to-day. It has long
possessed the necessary authority, but the conventions were evolved
slowly. The House of Representatives in Washington has the same power to
stop appropriations, but it does not try to use it to force a
responsible ministry upon the President; a result which has, on the
other hand, been brought about in France almost as conclusively as in
England, and that without the sanction arising from the risk of conflict
between the government and the courts. Any parliament could use its
authority if it chose to keep the ministry in office indefinitely, as
well as to make it responsible. It could pass a permanent army act,
grant the tea and income taxes for a term of years, charge all ordinary
expenses upon the Consolidated Fund, and so make the existing ministry
well-nigh independent of future parliaments.
The question seems to resolve itself into two parts: first, why a custom
once established is so tenaciously followed in England; and, second, why
the conventions have assumed their present form. In regard to the first
it may be suggested that while the consequences mentioned by Professor
Dicey form, no doubt, the ultimate sanction of the most important
conventions of the constitution, they are not the usual, or in fact the
real, motive for obedience; just as the dread of criminal punishment is
not the general motive for ordinary morality. The risk of imprisonment
never occurs, indeed, to people of high character, and in the same way
the ultimate sanctions of the law are not usually present in the minds
of men in English public life. In the main the conventions are observed
because they are a code of honour. They are, as it were, the rules of
the game, and the single class in the community which has hitherto had
the conduct of English public life almost entirely in its own hands is
the very class that is peculiarly sensitive to obligation of this kind.
Moreover, the very fact that one class rules, by the sufferance of the
whole nation, as trustees for the public, makes that class exceedingly
careful not to violate the understandings on which the trust is held.
The key to the question why the conventions have assumed their present
form is to be found mainly in Professor Dicey's remark[13:1] that all of
them exist for the sake of securing obedience to the deliberately
expressed will of the House of Commons, and ultimately to the will of
the nation. Their effect has been to bring the prerogatives of the Crown
more and more completely under the control of the cabinet, and the
cabinet itself under the control of the House of Commons; to restrain
the opposition of the Lords to any policy on which the Commons backed by
the nation are determined; and, finally, through the power of
dissolution to make the House of Commons itself reflect as nearly as may
be the views of the electorate. In England there is, in fact, only one
conclusive means of expressing the popular will--that of an election to
the House of Commons; and in ordinary cases there is only one body that
has power to interpret that expression, the cabinet placed in office by
the House so elected.
[Sidenote: The Effects of Custom.]
Professor Dicey has also pointed out a singular result of the
conventions. If the growing power of the House of Commons, instead of
being used to impose customary restraints on the exercise of authority
by the Crown and the House of Lords, had been exerted to limit that
authority by law, the Crown and the House of Lords would have been far
more free to exercise at their discretion the powers still left in their
hands; and hence the House of Commons could not have obtained its
present omnipotence. By leaving the prerogative substantially untouched
by law, and requiring that it should be wielded by ministers responsible
to them, the Commons have drawn into their own control all the powers
of the sovereign that time has not rendered entirely obsolete.
The great part played by custom has had another effect upon English
public life. It has tended to develop a conservative temperament. If
laws are changed the new ones may have the same authority as the old;
but if customs are changed rapidly they lose their force altogether.
Stability is necessary for the very life of custom. The conventions of
the constitution could not exist without respect for precedent, and
where the institutions and liberties of a country depend not upon a
written code, but upon custom, there is a natural tendency to magnify
the importance of tradition and precedent in themselves. In England,
therefore, there is a peculiar veneration for custom, and a disposition
to make as little change in it as is compatible with changing times. The
result is a constant tinkering, rather than remodelling, of outworn
institutions,--a spirit which is strongly marked throughout the whole of
English public life.
[Sidenote: English System not Logical but Scientific.]
Critics and apologists both assert that the English political system is
not logical; and the statement is true in the sense that the system was
not excogitated by an _a priori_ method. But on the other hand the very
fact that it has grown up by a continual series of adaptations to
existing needs has made it on the whole more consistent with itself, has
brought each part more into harmony with the rest, than is the case in
any other government. In this it is like a living organism. There are,
no doubt, many small anomalies and survivals that mar the unity for the
purpose of description; but these, like survivals of structure in
animals, like the splint bones in the leg of a horse for example, do not
interfere seriously with the action of the whole. It may be said that in
politics the Frenchman has tended in the past to draw logical
conclusions from correct premises, and that his results have often been
wrong, while the Englishman draws illogical conclusions from incorrect
premises, and his results are commonly right. The fact being that all
abstract propositions in politics are at best approximations, and an
attempt to reason from them usually magnifies the inaccuracy. But in
England the institutions being empirical have resulted from experience,
although men have often tried to explain them afterwards by a somewhat
artificial and incongruous process of reasoning. In this sense French
political principles may be said to be the more logical, the English
government--not the theories about it--the more scientific. It is more
important, therefore, to describe the organs of the English government
and their relations to one another than to consider the traditional
principles that have been supposed to underlie the system. But the very
nature of the English government renders it peculiarly difficult to
portray. As the laws that regulate its structure are overlaid by customs
which moderate very greatly their operation without affecting their
meaning or their validity, it is necessary to describe separately the
legal and customary aspects of the constitution. It is almost
unavoidable to pass in review first the legal organisation of each
institution, and then its actual functions. Such a process is sometimes
tedious, especially for a person already familiar with the subject, but
an attempt has been made in the following pages to separate as far as
possible the dry legal details from a discussion of the working forces,
so that the former may be skipped by the judicious reader.
FOOTNOTES:
[1:1] _La Démocratie en Amérique_, I., Ch. vi.
[1:2] 30-31 Vic., c. 3, § 11.
[1:3] 63-64 Vic., c. 12, Const., §§ 64-65.
[2:1] The provisions about the responsibility of the ministers are
almost identical in the constitutions of Belgium (Arts. 63, 64, 65, 88,
89, 90) and Prussia (Arts. 44, 45, 60, 61); but in Belgium the cabinet
is politically responsible to the chamber, while in Prussia it is not.
[2:2] "Studies in History and Jurisprudence," Essay III.
[3:1] _Cf._ Brusa, _Italien_, in Marquardsen's _Handbuch des
Oeffentlichen Rechts_, 12-16, 181-82.
[3:2] Professor Dicey points out ("Law of the Constitution," 5 Ed., 116
and Note 2) that De Tocqueville considered the Charter unalterable by
reason of this omission, but that it was, in fact, changed like an
ordinary law.
[3:3] For the purpose of the argument it is unimportant that Prussia is
not a sovereign state, and for sixteen years it did exist as an
independent sovereign state under its present constitution.
[4:1] Constitutional amendments can also be proposed by popular
initiative, and ordinary laws cannot.
[5:1] Const., Art. 78.
[5:2] _Ibid._, Art. 5.
[6:1] By far the best exposition of this matter is to be found in
Professor Dicey's "Law of the Constitution." It is discussed more fully
in Chapter xl., _infra_.
[6:2] Marbury _vs._ Madison, 1 Cranch, 137.
[7:1] The Australian Federation Act (§ 74) refers particularly to the
decision of such questions, limiting the right to bring them on appeal
before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
[7:2] There are a few exceptions. Provisions giving such a power to the
courts are to be found in the constitutions of the little Swiss cantons
of Uri (Art. 51) and Unterwalden nid dem Wald (Art. 43). The Swiss
national constitution, on the other hand (Art. 113), directs the Federal
Tribunal to apply every law enacted by the national legislature. Some
discussion has taken place on the question in Germany. (See Brinton
Coxe, "Judicial Power and Unconstitutional Legislation," Ch. ix., and
the writer's "Governments and Parties in Continental Europe," I.,
282-84.) Curiously enough, a struggle over this question occurred in the
Transvaal not long before the South African War (Bryce's "Studies in
History and Jurisprudence," 378; Kruger's "Memoirs," 254-57). In his
next inaugural address President Kruger quoted Scripture to prove that
the principle of holding statutes unconstitutional had been invented by
the devil. (Kruger, 354-55.)
[8:1] Esmein (_Elements de droit constitutionel_, 425-28) describes the
various proposals made at different times in France for annulling
unconstitutional laws. One of these, Sieyes's _jurie constitutionaire_,
bears a curious resemblance to an institution for a somewhat analogous
purpose in Athens: Goodwin, "Demosthenes on the Crown," Essay II.,
316-27.
[8:2] It must be observed, also, that the English colonies are not
legally independent or sovereign states, and hence their parliaments are
legally subordinate legislatures. We may note in this connection that
the Swiss Federal Tribunal can hold unconstitutional laws of the cantons
which violate the constitution either of the confederation or of the
canton.
[8:3] Professor Dicey argued that the first Home Rule Bill if enacted
might have restricted the legal sovereignty of Parliament. "England's
Case against Home Rule," 238, _et seq._ This result was denied by the
other side. Bryce, "Studies in Hist. and Jur.," 176, note.
[9:1] Boutmy in his _Etudes de droit constitutionel_ (1 Ed., 9) adds
treaties or quasi-treaties (the Acts of Union), and solemn agreements
such as the Bill of Rights. But all these are in legal effect simply
statutes.
[9:2] Bryce, American Commonwealth, Ch. xxxiv.
[10:1] The habit of collecting new or increased duties or excises as
soon as the resolution to impose them passes the House of Commons is an
apparent exception to this principle, for the taxes are not legally
payable until laid by Act of Parliament. The object of the custom is to
prevent a large loss of revenue by importations made after it is known
that the duty will be levied and before it goes into effect. The act
when passed contains, of course, a clause authorising and thereby making
legal the collection from the date of the resolution, and if it fails to
pass the tax is refunded.
[11:1] "Growth of the English Constitution," 107, 112-13, 119.
[11:2] "Law of the Constitution," Ch. xv.
[12:1] All this is true only of conventions that give effect to the will
of the majority of the House of Commons, not of those that secure fair
play to the minority, which are in fact not less important.
[13:1] "Law of the Constitution," 360, 384.
PART I.--CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
CHAPTER I
THE CROWN
Political liberty and romance in English history are both bound up with
the shifting fortunes of the throne. The strong hand of the Norman and
Angevin kings welded the whole country into a nation, and on that
foundation were built the solid structures of a national Common Law, a
national Parliament, and a long series of national statutes. When in the
fulness of time the Crown had accomplished its work of unification, it
came into conflict with Parliament, and after a series of convulsions,
in which one king lost his head and another his throne, political
evolution resumed its normal course. The House of Commons gradually drew
the royal authority under its control. But it did so without seriously
curtailing the legal powers of the Crown, and thus the King legally
enjoys most of the attributes that belonged to his predecessors,
although the exercise of his functions has passed into other hands. If
the personal authority of the monarch has become a shadow of its former
massiveness, the government is still conducted in his name, and largely
by means of the legal rights attached to his office. With a study of the
Crown, therefore, a description of English government most fittingly
begins.
[Sidenote: The Title to the Crown.]
Ever since 1688, when James II., fleeing in fear of his life, "withdrew
himself out of the kingdom, and thereby abdicated," the title to the
Crown has been based entirely upon parliamentary enactment. At the
present day it rests upon the Act of Settlement of 1700,[16:1] which
provided that, in default of heirs of William and of Anne, the Crown
should pass to the Electress Sophia, and the heirs of her body, being
Protestants. Sophia was the granddaughter of James I., through her
mother, wife of the Elector Palatine; and while not his nearest heir,
was the nearest who was a Protestant.
[Sidenote: The Rules of Succession.]
The rules of descent are in the main the same as those for the
inheritance of land at Common Law.[17:1] That is, the title passes to
the eldest son; or, if he is not living, through him to his issue, male
or female, as if he had himself died upon the throne. If the first son
has died without issue, then to, or through, the eldest son who is
living, or has issue living; and in default of any sons living, or
leaving issue, then to, or through, the eldest daughter. The rule is,
however, subject to the qualification that any one who is, or becomes, a
Catholic is excluded from, and forfeits, the right to the Crown, which
then passes to the next heir. In order to insure a test that will make
this last provision effective, the sovereign is obliged to take an oath,
abjuring the Catholic religion, in words which have proved offensive to
members of that faith. After the accession of Edward VII., therefore,
but before his coronation, an effort was made to modify the form of the
oath, and a bill was introduced into the House of Lords for that
purpose; but it was not then found possible to arrange a phrase
satisfactory to all parties, and the bill was dropped.
[Sidenote: Incapacity of the Sovereign.]
In other monarchies permanent provision has been made by law for the
possible incapacity of the monarch, whether by reason of infancy or
insanity. But this has never been done in England. Each case has been
dealt with as it arose, and usually after it has arisen, so that, in
default of any person competent to give the royal assent to bills,
Parliament has been driven into the legal absurdity of first passing a
regency bill to confer such a power upon a regent, and then directing
the Chancellor to affix the Great Seal to a commission for giving assent
to that bill. Until recent times it was also thought necessary to
appoint officers, Lords Justices or others, to exercise the royal
powers when the sovereign went out of the kingdom; but with the rapidity
of modern travel and communication this has become unnecessary, and it
has not been done since the accession of Queen Victoria.
[Sidenote: The Powers of the Crown.]
The authority of the English monarch may be considered from different
points of view, which must be taken up in succession; the first question
being what power is legally vested in the Crown; the second how much of
that power can practically be exercised at all; the third how far the
power of the Crown actually is, or may be, used in accordance with the
personal wishes of the King, and how far its exercise is really directed
by his ministers; the fourth, how far their action is in turn controlled
by Parliament. The first two questions, which form the subject of this
chapter, cannot always be treated separately, for it is sometimes
impossible to be sure whether a power that cannot practically be
exercised is or is not legally vested in the Crown. An attempt to make
use of any doubtful power would probably be resisted, and the legality
of the act could be discussed in Parliament or determined by the law
courts; but it is very rare at the present day that any such attempt is
made. There are powers that have been disputed, or fallen into disuse,
and that no government would ever think of reviving; and thus the
question of law never having been settled, the legal right of the Crown
to make use of them must remain uncertain.
[Sidenote: The Prerogative.]
The authority of the Crown may be traced to two different sources. One
of them is statutory, and comprises the various powers conferred upon
the Crown by Acts of Parliament. The other source gives rise to what is
more properly called the prerogative. This has been described by
Professor Dicey[18:1] as the original discretionary authority left at
any moment in the hands of the King; in other words, what remains of the
ancient customary or Common Law powers inherent in the Crown. The
distinction is one not always perfectly easy to draw, for many parts of
the prerogative have been regulated and modified by statute, and in such
cases it is not always clear whether the authority now exercised is
derived from statute or from the prerogative. Nevertheless the
distinction is often important, because where the powers have been
conferred by Parliament the Crown acts by virtue of a delegated
authority which lies wholly within the four corners of the statute, and
exists only so far as it is expressly contained therein; while the
prerogative not being circumscribed by any document is more indefinite,
and capable of expanding or contracting with the progress of the suns.
[Sidenote: Legislative Power.]
All legislative power is vested in the King in Parliament; that is, in
the King acting in concert with the two Houses. Legally, every act
requires the royal assent, and, indeed, the Houses can transact business
only during the pleasure of the Crown, which summons and prorogues them,
and can at any moment dissolve the House of Commons. But it is important
to note that by itself, and apart from Parliament, the Crown has to-day,
within the United Kingdom,[19:1] no inherent legislative power whatever.
This was not always true, for legislation has at times been enacted by
the Crown alone in the form of ordinances or proclamations; but the
practice may be said to have received its death-blow from the famous
opinion of Lord Coke, "that the King by his proclamation cannot create
any offence which was not an offence before, for then he may alter the
law of the land."[19:2] The English Crown has, therefore, no inherent
power to make ordinances for completing the laws, such as is possessed
by the chief magistrate in France and other continental states. This
does not mean that it cannot make regulations for the conduct of
affairs by its own servants, by Orders in Council, for example,
establishing regulations for the management of the Army, or prescribing
examinations for entrance to the civil service. These are merely rules
such as any private employer might make in his own business, and differ
entirely in their nature from ordinances which have the force of law,
and are binding quite apart from any contract of employment.
Power to make ordinances which have the force of law and are binding on
the whole community is, however, frequently given to the Crown[20:1] by
statute, notably in matters affecting public health, education, etc.,
and the practice is constantly becoming more and more extensive, until
at present the rules made in pursuance of such powers--known as
"statutory orders"--are published every year in a volume similar in form
to that containing the statutes. Some of these orders must be submitted
to Parliament, but go into effect unless within a certain time an
address to the contrary is passed by one of the Houses, while others
take effect at once, or after a fixed period, and are laid upon the
tables of the Houses in order to give formal notice of their adoption. A
fuller description of these orders must, however, be postponed to the
chapters that deal with Parliament. It is only necessary here to point
out that in making such orders the Crown acts by virtue of a purely
delegated authority, and stands in the same position as a town council.
The orders are a species of subordinate legislation, and can be enacted
only in strict conformity with the statutes by which the power is
granted; and being delegated, not inherent in the Crown, a power of this
kind does not fall within the prerogative in its narrower and more
appropriate sense.
[Sidenote: Executive Power.]
The Crown is at the head of the executive branch of the central
government, and carries out the laws, so far as their execution requires
the intervention of any national public authority. In fact all national
executive power, whether regulated by statute, or forming strictly a
part of the prerogative, is exercised in the name of the Crown, and by
its authority, except when directly conferred by statute upon some
officer of the Crown, and in this case, as we shall see, it is exercised
by that officer as a servant of the Crown, and under its direction and
control. Legally some of the executive powers are indeed vested in the
Crown in Council--that is, in the King acting with his Privy
Council--but as the Council has no independent authority, and consists,
for practical purposes, of the principal ministers appointed by the
Crown, even these powers may be said to reside in the Crown alone.
[Sidenote: Appointments to Office.]
All national public officers, except some of the officials of the Houses
of Parliament, and a few hereditary dignitaries whose duties are purely
ceremonial,[21:1] are appointed directly by the Crown or by the high
state officials whom it has itself appointed; and the Crown has also the
right to remove them, barring a small number whose tenure is during good
behaviour. Of these last by far the most important are the judges, the
members of the Council of India, and the Controller and Auditor General,
no one of whom has any direct part in the executive government of the
kingdom.[21:2] Now the right to appoint and remove involves the power to
control; and, therefore, it may be said in general that the whole
executive machinery of the central government of England is under the
direction of the Crown.
[Sidenote: Other Powers under the Prerogative.]
The Crown furthermore authorises under the sign manual the expenditure
of public money in accordance with the appropriations made by
Parliament, and then expends the money. It can grant charters of
incorporation, with powers not inconsistent with the law of the land, so
far as the right to do so has not been limited by statute; but in
consequence of the various reform acts, municipal corporation acts, and
local government acts, no charter conferring political power can now be
created except in pursuance of statute, while even commercial companies
usually require privileges which can be given only by the same
authority.[22:1] The Crown grants all pardons, creates all peers, and
confers all titles and honours. As head of the Established Church of
England it summons Convocation with a license to transact business
specified in advance. It virtually appoints the archbishops, bishops and
most of the deans and canons, and has in its gift many rectorships and
other livings.[22:2] As head of the Army and Navy it raises and controls
the armed forces of the nation, and makes regulations for their
government, subject, of course, to the statutes and to the passage of
the Annual Army Act. It represents the empire in all external relations,
and in all dealings with foreign powers. It has power to declare war,
make peace, and conclude treaties, save that, without the sanction of
Parliament, a treaty cannot impose a charge upon the people, or change
the law of the land, and it is doubtful how far without that sanction
private rights can be sacrificed or territory ceded.[22:3]
[Sidenote: Executive Powers under Statutes.]
Just as Parliament has often conferred legislative authority upon the
Crown, so it has conferred executive power in addition to that possessed
by virtue of the prerogative. I do not refer here to the cases where a
statute creates new public duties to be performed directly by the Crown
and confers upon it the authority needed for the purpose. Such powers,
although statutory, are exercised in the same way as those derived from
the prerogative. I refer to statutes that regulate the duties or
privileges of local and other bodies, and give to the Crown, not a
direct authority to carry out the law, but a power of supervision and
control. Statutes of this kind have become very common during the last
half century in relation to such matters as local government, public
health, pauperism, housing of the working-classes, education, tramways,
electric lighting and a host of other things. Even without an express
grant of authority, supervisory powers have often been conferred upon
the Crown by means of appropriations for local purposes which can be
applied by the government at its discretion, and hence in accordance
with such regulations as it chooses to prescribe. This has been true,
for example, of the subsidies in aid of the local police, and of
education. By such methods the local authorities, and especially the
smaller ones, have been brought under the tutelage of the Crown to an
extent quite unknown in the past.
[Sidenote: Wide Extent of the Powers of the Crown.]
All told, the executive authority of the Crown is, in the eye of the
law, very wide, far wider than that of the chief magistrate in many
countries, and well-nigh as extensive as that now possessed by the
monarch in any government not an absolute despotism; and although the
Crown has no inherent legislative power except in conjunction with
Parliament, it has been given by statute very large powers of
subordinate legislation. "It would very much surprise people," as
Bagehot remarked in his incisive way, "if they were only told how many
things the Queen could do without consulting Parliament . . . Not to
mention other things, she could disband the army (by law she cannot
engage more than a certain number of men, but she is not obliged to
engage any men); she could dismiss all the officers, from the General
Commanding-in-Chief downwards; she could dismiss all the sailors too;
she could sell off all our ships of war and all our naval stores; she
could make a peace by the sacrifice of Cornwall, and begin a war for the
conquest of Brittany. She could make every citizen in the United
Kingdom, male or female, a peer; she could make every parish in the
United Kingdom a 'university'; she could dismiss most of the civil
servants; she could pardon all offenders. In a word, the Queen could by
prerogative upset all the action of civil government within the
government."[24:1] We might add that the Crown could appoint bishops,
and in many places clergymen, whose doctrines were repulsive to their
flocks; could cause every dog to be muzzled, every pauper to eat leeks,
every child in the public elementary schools to study Welsh; and could
make all local improvements, such as tramways and electric light,
well-nigh impossible.
[Sidenote: Powers that have been Lost.]
Great as the prerogative is to-day, it was, in some directions, even
more extensive in the past, and men are in the habit of repeating the
phrases derived from that past after they have lost their meaning. This
is done by writers who are not under the slightest misapprehension in
regard to the actual legal authority of the Crown. It is the habit, for
example, to speak of the Crown as the fountain of justice, and even an
author so learned and accurate as Todd repeats Blackstone's statement
that "By the fountain of justice, the law does not mean the author or
original, but only the distributor. Justice is not derived from the
king, as from his free gift, but he is the steward of the public, to
dispense it to whom it is due. He is not the spring, but the reservoir,
from whence right and equity are conducted by a thousand channels to
every individual."[24:2] Now apart from public prosecution by the state,
which is less common in England than elsewhere, and the use of the
King's name in judicial process, the only legal connection of the Crown
with the distribution of justice to-day lies in the appointment of the
judges; and to call it on that account the reservoir of justice is
merely fanciful. There was a time when the Crown was really the fountain
or reservoir of justice, when it might fairly have been said to
administer justice by deputy. It created the Common Law courts, and
after the growth of civilisation had produced more refined and complex
ideas of justice it received petitions for the redress of wrongs not
recognised before, and established new courts to deal with them. Stubbs
has compared the process to that of the sun throwing off a series of
nebulous envelopes, which rolled up into compact bodies, but left the
old nucleus of light to assert its vitality, unimpaired by successive
emanations.[25:1] In this way the courts of equity arose to give relief
in cases where there was no remedy by the strict rules of the Common
Law, while the Star Chamber performed an analogous function in criminal
matters. This last tribunal came to be used as a political engine under
the Stuarts, and was abolished by statute[25:2] early in the struggle
with Charles I. With the fall of the Stuarts the power of the Crown to
create new courts came to an end altogether. In 1689 the Bill of Rights
declared the "Court of Commissioners for Ecclesiastical Causes, and all
other Commissions and Courts of a like Nature," illegal, and since that
time an Act of Parliament has been necessary to create any new court of
justice in England.
The Crown has been deprived in the same way of other powers once
possessed or claimed under the prerogative. The Bill of Rights, for
example, declared illegal the suspending or dispensing with laws, and
the maintenance of a standing army in time of peace without the consent
of Parliament. Some powers have, from long disuse, become obsolete and
have been lost; such as the right to confer on boroughs the privilege of
electing members to the House of Commons;[25:3] and the power to create
life peers with votes in the House of Lords.[25:4] Other powers again,
although legally unimpaired, have become obsolete in practice, and can
no longer be exerted. The illustration commonly given of this is the
right of the Crown to withhold its assent to a bill passed by
Parliament,--popularly called, or miscalled, the veto. The right has
not been exercised since the days of Queen Anne; but it may not be gone
so completely beyond revival as is generally supposed. It could, of
course, be used only on the advice of the ministry of the day, and under
ordinary circumstances a ministry willing to withhold the royal assent
to a bill would be bound to treat the passage of that bill by the House
of Commons as a ground for resignation or dissolution. One can imagine,
however, a case where after a bill has passed the Commons the ministry
should resign, and the House of Lords should insist on passing the bill
in spite of the opposition of the new cabinet. It would be rash to
assert that in such a case the royal assent would not be withheld.
Something of the kind very nearly occurred in 1858, when the ministry
threatened to advise the Queen to withhold her assent to a private bill
unless the Lords gave permission to the Board of Works to appear before
the private bill committee and oppose the plans.[26:1]
[Sidenote: Powers of the Crown exercised by Ministers.]
Since the accession of the House of Hanover the new powers conferred
upon the Crown by statute have probably more than made up for the loss
to the prerogative of powers which have either been restricted by the
same process or become obsolete by disuse. By far the greater part of
the prerogative, as it existed at that time, has remained legally vested
in the Crown, and can be exercised to-day; but it is no longer used in
accordance with the personal wishes of the sovereign. By a gradual
process his authority has come more and more under the control of his
ministers, until it is now almost entirely in the hands of the cabinet,
which is responsible to Parliament, and through Parliament to the
nation. The cabinet is to-day the mainspring of the whole political
system, and the clearest method of explaining the relations of the
different branches of the government to each other is to describe in
succession their relations with the cabinet.
FOOTNOTES:
[16:1] 12-13 Will. III., c. 2.
[17:1] Except, of course, that the eldest of several sisters succeeds
instead of all having equal rights as co-parceners.
[18:1] "Law of the Constitution," 355.
[19:1] The statement is made with this limitation because the Crown has
always had inherent authority to legislate directly for Crown colonies
acquired by conquest; but if the Crown once grants a representative
legislature to such a colony without reserving its own legislative
authority, it surrenders that authority over the colony forever. See
Jenkyns, "British Rule and Jurisdiction Beyond the Seas," 4-6, 95;
Campbell _vs._ Hall, Cowp., 204.
[19:2] Coke's Reports, XII., 76.
[20:1] Or more strictly to the Crown in Council.
[21:1] Such as the hereditary Earl Marshal and Grand Falconer.
[21:2] On the power of removal from an office held during good
behaviour, and on the effect of the provision that the three classes of
officers mentioned above may be removed upon the address of both Houses
of Parliament, see Anson, "Law and Custom of the Constitution," II.,
213-15. The references to Anson are to the 3 Ed. of Vol. I. (1897); the
2 Ed. of Vol. II. (1896).
[22:1] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed. (1887), Ch. xiv.
[22:2] See the later chapter on The Church.
[22:3] _Cf._ Anson, "Law and Custom," II., 297-99; Dicey, "Law of the
Constitution," 393. Heligoland was ceded to Germany by treaty in 1890,
subject to the assent of Parliament, which was given by 53-54 Vic., c.
32.
[24:1] "English Constitution," 2 Ed. (Amer.), Introd., 31.
[24:2] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," I., 570.
[25:1] "Const. Hist. of England," 4 Ed., I., 647.
[25:2] 16 Car. I., c. 10.
[25:3] It may be maintained that the right, if not already lost by
disuse, was by implication, though not expressly, taken away by the
Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1885, which created new boroughs and
disfranchised old ones.
[25:4] See the debate in the Lords on the Wensleydale case. Hans., 3
Ser., CXL., _passim_.
[26:1] The Victoria Station and Pimlico Railway Bill, Hans., 3 Ser.,
CLI., 586-89, 691-93, 797-98. See Todd, II., 392.
CHAPTER II
THE CROWN AND THE CABINET
It is not within the province of this book to trace the process whereby
the King became irresponsible both at law and before the nation, while
the responsibility for his acts became transferred to his ministers. The
story has been told by others far better than the writer could tell it,
and the object here is only to note the results of that process in the
existing constitution.
[Sidenote: The King can do no Wrong at Law;]
The doctrine that "the King can do no wrong" had its beginnings as far
back as the infancy of Henry III., and by degrees it grew until it
became a cardinal principle of the constitution. Legally it means that
he cannot be adjudged guilty of wrong-doing, and hence that no
proceedings can be brought against him. He cannot be prosecuted
criminally, or, without his own consent, sued civilly in tort or in
contract in any court in the land.[27:1] But clearly if the government
is to be one of law, if public officers like private citizens are to be
subject to the courts, if the people are to be protected from arbitrary
power, the servant who acts on behalf of the Crown must be held
responsible for illegal conduct from the consequences of which the King
himself is free. Hence the principle arose that the King's command is no
excuse for a wrongful act, and this is a firmly established maxim of the
Common Law in both civil and criminal proceedings.[27:2] To prevent
royal violations of the law, however, it is not enough to hold liable a
servant who executes unlawful orders, if the master still has power to
commit offences directly. A further step must be taken by restraining
the Crown from acting without the mediation of a servant who can be made
accountable, and for this reason Edward I. was informed that he could
not make an arrest in person.[28:1] But, as the kings and queens are not
likely to be tempted into personal assaults and trespasses, the
principle that they can act only through agents has had little
importance from the point of view of their liability at law, although it
is a matter of vital consequence in relation to their political
responsibility.
[Sidenote: or in Politics.]
The doctrine that the King can do no wrong applies not only to legal
offences, but also to political errors. The principle developed slowly,
as a part of the long movement that has brought the royal authority
under the control of public opinion; not that the process was altogether
conscious, or the steps deliberately planned, but taking constitutional
history as a whole, we can see that it tended to a result, and in
speaking of this it is natural to use terms implying an intent which the
actors did not really possess. To keep the Crown from actual violations
of law was not always easy, but it was far more difficult to prevent it
from using its undoubted prerogatives to carry out an unpopular policy.
Parliament could do something in a fitful and intermittent way by
refusing supplies or insisting upon the redress of particular
grievances, but that alone was not enough to secure harmony between the
Crown and the other political forces of the day. There could, in the
nature of things, be no appropriate penalty for royal misgovernment. In
the Middle Ages, indeed, a bad king or a weak king might lose his throne
or even his life; but in more settled times such things could not take
place without a violent convulsion of the whole realm,--a truth only too
well illustrated by the events of the seventeenth century. An orderly
government cannot be founded on the basis of personal rule tempered by
revolution. Either the royal power must be exercised at the personal
will of the monarch, or else other persons who can be made accountable
must take part in his acts of state.
[Sidenote: A Minister Responsible for Each of his Acts.]
As early as the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the King's Council
had begun to encumber the affixing of the various seals with a series of
formalities which involved the intervention of one or more royal
officers. The process continued until custom or statute required that
almost every public act which the Crown was in the habit of performing
directly--except the appointment and removal of the great officers of
state themselves--must either be done in the Privy Council, or by means
of an instrument authenticated by seals or countersignatures affixed by
one or more officers of state.[29:1] The object of these formalities was
to protect the Crown from improvident grants, and to secure the
influence of the Council over the administration,[29:2] rather than to
create any responsibility to Parliament or the public; and yet it was
easy to maintain, when the time was ripe, that the officer who sealed or
signed assumed thereby responsibility for the act. Then if a wrong was
committed some one could be held to account; for misconduct some one
could be punished; for acts that were unpopular, or a policy that was
odious, some one beneath the throne could be assailed; and if a strong
expression of resentment did not deter the offender, Parliament had as a
last resort the weapons of impeachment and bill of attainder. These
weapons were a stage in the process of evolution, a stepping-stone in
the progress of parliamentary control, but they were far too rough to
produce a true accord between the Crown and Parliament; and when the
political experiments of William and of Anne, fostered by the timely
accident of two unkingly foreigners upon the throne, evolved at last the
system of a responsible ministry in its present form, even impeachment
became obsolete, or rather it lingered only as a means of retribution
for personal malfeasance in office.
[Sidenote: Nature of Modern Responsibility.]
The rules requiring seals or signatures to be affixed to royal acts,
though somewhat simplified, remain in force to-day, but they have ceased
to be the real source of responsibility. The effort to fasten upon a
particular person the actual responsibility for each public act of the
Crown by compelling some officer to put his approval of it on record,
has been superseded by the general principle that the responsibility
must always be imputed to a minister. Though ignorant of the matter at
the time it occurred, he becomes answerable if he retains his post after
it comes to his knowledge; and even though not in office when the act
was done, yet if he is appointed in consequence of it, he assumes with
the office the responsibility for the act. This happened to Sir Robert
Peel in 1834. Believing, as every one at that time did believe, that the
King had arbitrarily dismissed Lord Melbourne's cabinet, he said, "I
should by my acceptance of the office of First Minister become
_technically, if not morally_, responsible for the dissolution of the
preceding government, although I had not the remotest concern in
it."[30:1] The rule is so universal in its operation "that there is not
a moment in the King's life, from his accession to his demise, during
which there is not some one responsible to Parliament for his public
conduct."[30:2] A minister is now politically responsible for everything
that occurs in his department, whether countersignature or seal is
affixed by him or not; and all the ministers are jointly responsible for
every highly important political act. A minister whose policy is
condemned by Parliament is no longer punished, he resigns; and if the
affair involves more than his personal conduct or competence, if it is
of such moment that it ought to have engaged the attention of the
cabinet, his colleagues resign with him. Thus punitive responsibility
has been replaced by political responsibility, and separate has been
enlarged to joint responsibility.
[Sidenote: The King must Follow the Advice of Ministers;]
The ministers, being responsible to Parliament for all the acts of the
Crown, are obliged to refrain from things that they cannot justify, and
to insist upon actions which they regard as necessary. In short, the
cabinet must carry out its own policy; and to that policy the Crown must
submit. The King may, of course, be able to persuade his ministers to
abandon a policy of which he does not approve, and of his opportunities
for doing so we shall have more to say later; but if he cannot persuade
them, and, backed by a majority in Parliament, they insist upon their
views, he must yield. It is commonly said that he must give his
ministers his confidence, but it would be more accurate to say that he
must follow their advice. With the progress of the parliamentary system
this custom has grown more and more settled, the ministers assuming
greater control, and the Crown yielding more readily, not necessarily
from any dread of the consequences, but from the force of habit.
[Sidenote: or Find Others who will Accept Responsibility.]
According to the older theory of parliamentary government, it was merely
necessary that the King should have ministers who would accept
responsibility for his acts; and, therefore, he might disregard their
advice if he could find others who were willing to adopt his policy, and
assume responsibility for it. Such an alternative is a very remote
possibility in England to-day. It could only be brought about in one of
two ways.
In the first place it might be brought about by the dismissal of the
cabinet. William IV. was long supposed to have dismissed arbitrarily
Lord Melbourne's cabinet in 1834, and for many years his action in so
doing was freely criticised; but on the publication of the Melbourne
Papers[32:1] it appeared that the Prime Minister himself, meeting with
great difficulty in carrying on the government, virtually suggested the
dismissal to the King; and thus the incident was rather in the nature of
a resignation than a dismissal. The right to dismiss a ministry,
although unquestionably within the legal prerogative of the Crown, seems
to be regarded as one of those powers which the close responsibility of
the cabinet to the House of Commons has practically made obsolete. As in
the case of some other powers, however, it is hardly safe to predict
that it will never be used again, for circumstances might arise in which
it was evident that the ministry and the House of Commons no longer
represented the opinion of the country. Before Mr. Gladstone's last
administration few people would have hesitated to say that the House of
Lords would never again venture to reject a bill on which a House of
Commons, fresh from a general election, was thoroughly in earnest, when
the subject of the bill had been one of the chief issues in that
election. Yet the Lords rejected the last Home Rule Bill of 1893,
without losing popularity by so doing; and in 1906 it destroyed the
Education Bill. It is conceivable that under similar conditions the
Crown might, by dismissing a ministry, force a dissolution, and appeal
to the electorate. Such an event, though highly improbable, cannot be
said to be impossible.
The dismissal of a ministry must, of course, be carefully distinguished
from the dismissal of an individual minister. This would be done, as in
the case of Lord Palmerston,--the last of the kind that has
occurred,--at the request of the Premier, and therefore not contrary to,
but in accordance with, the advice of the person chiefly responsible for
the acts of the Crown.
The other way in which a change of ministry could be brought about by
the Crown would be by a refusal to consent to some act which the
ministry deemed essential to their remaining in office. Some cases of
the exercise of such a right by the representative of the Crown have
taken place in the self-governing colonies, but they are not such as are
likely to occur in England. A request, for example, by the ministry to
be allowed to dissolve a colonial legislature has on several occasions
been refused by the governor, usually on the ground that a general
election had recently been held, or that there was no important issue
pending between the parties which the people could properly be called
upon to decide.[33:1] In England, on the other hand, such a request by a
ministry has never been refused since William Pitt in 1784 invented the
principle that a government faced by a hostile majority in the House of
Commons may appeal to the electorate instead of resigning; nor is it
probable that it will be refused, because the rules of political fair
play are so thoroughly understood among English statesmen that the power
is not likely to be misused for party purposes.
An interesting discussion on the right of a colonial governor to reject
the advice of his ministers was raised in the case of Governor Darling
of Victoria in 1865. The story has been often told. It grew out of a
quarrel between the Assembly and the Legislative Council, which were
both elective, but happened to be on opposite sides in politics. The
Assembly, wishing to enact a protective tariff, to which a majority of
the Council was known to be opposed, tacked it to the annual
appropriation bill; and the Council, unable to amend such a bill,
rejected it altogether. Thereupon the Governor, yielding to the pressure
of his ministers, sanctioned the levy of the new duties, the issue of a
loan, and the payment of official salaries, without the authority of any
act regularly passed by both branches of the legislature. For
permitting, on the advice of his ministers, such a violation of law,
Governor Darling was rebuked, and finally dismissed by the Secretary of
State for the Colonies.[34:1] It is needless to say that no such
situation has ever arisen, or is likely to arise, in England.
[Sidenote: Selection of a New Premier.]
There is one matter in which the Crown cannot really be bound by the
advice of ministers, and that is in the selection of a Premier. It would
be obviously improper, not to say absurd, that the King in the selection
of a new Prime Minister should be obliged to follow the opinion of the
old one who has just resigned in consequence of a change of party in the
House of Commons. That Mr. Balfour, for example, should have had the
right to dictate whether Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman or Lord Rosebery
should be his successor would have been grotesque. There is usually one
recognised leader of the Opposition, and when that is the case the Crown
must intrust the formation of the new ministry to him. This was
illustrated in 1880. Mr. Gladstone had, some years before, retired from
the leadership of the Liberals in Parliament, and the Queen, after their
success at the general election, sent for Lord Hartington, then leading
them in the House of Commons; but she found that Mr. Gladstone, who had
really led the party in the country to victory, was the only possible
head of a Liberal government.[34:2]
If the party that has obtained a majority in Parliament has no
recognised leader, the Crown may intrust the formation of a ministry to
any one of its chief men who is willing to undertake the task; or if, as
is sometimes the case, the parties have become more or less
disintegrated, so that only a coalition ministry can be formed, the
Crown can send for the head of any one of the various groups. Not to
speak of earlier days, when the King had more freedom than at present in
the formation of his cabinets, it happened several times in the reign of
Queen Victoria that the question who should be Prime Minister was
determined by her personal choice. In 1852, for example, Lord
Aberdeen's coalition cabinet was formed by her desire.[35:1] In 1859 she
selected Lord Palmerston rather than Lord John Russell;[35:2] and in
1868 and 1894, when in each case the existing cabinet lost its head, she
selected the minister who was to succeed, designating in the first case
Mr. Disraeli, and in the last Lord Rosebery.[35:3] Such opportunities,
however, are likely to be less common in future, for it is altogether
probable that a party will prefer to choose its own leader rather than
to leave the selection to the Crown.
[Sidenote: Selection of Other Ministers.]
The choice of the other members of the cabinet is a very different
matter; for although former sovereigns insisted on having a decisive
voice in the composition of the ministry, it may be said that with
Peel's appointment to office in 1834 the principle was definitely
established that the Prime Minister chooses his colleagues, and is
responsible for their selection.[35:4] The royal authority in this
matter gave a last dying flicker in the bed-chamber question of 1839,
where Peel's clumsiness and the Queen's impetuosity gave rise to a
misunderstanding. Peel wished to replace some of the ladies attendant on
the Queen, who were exclusively Whigs, by Conservatives; and the Queen,
getting the impression that he intended to replace them all,
refused.[35:5] When Peel came into office two years later part of the
Whig ladies retired and were replaced; and it has since been settled
that the Mistress of the Robes, like the Gentlemen of the Household,
shall change with the administration, but that the other ladies shall
remain. The Mistress of the Robes, however, must always be a duchess,
and during the last years of the Queen's life it happened that there was
no duchess who was a Liberal.
At the present day all persons whose offices are considered political
are appointed in accordance with the advice of the Prime Minister. This
does not mean that the sovereign may not urge his own views, perhaps
with success, and on one occasion, at least, the Queen secured, it is
said, a place in the cabinet for a former minister whom the incoming
Premier had either forgotten or meant to leave out. It does mean,
however, that if the minister insists upon his advice it must be
accepted. More than once, for example, the Queen tried in vain to
exclude from the Foreign Office Lord Palmerston, who was a constant
grief of mind to her. As Mr. Morley puts it in the chapter, in his "Life
of Walpole," which is understood to express Mr. Gladstone's views upon
the cabinet, "Constitutional respect for the Crown would inspire a
natural regard for the personal wishes of the sovereign in
recommendations to office, but royal predilections or prejudices will
undoubtedly be less and less able to stand against the Prime Minister's
strong view of the requirements of the public service."[36:1]
[Sidenote: For what Acts Ministers are Responsible.]
The responsibilities of the ministers may be classified as technical and
complete. Thus for acts which happen before they come into office, and
which they could not possibly have advised, they assume what may be
called a technical, or perhaps a nominal, responsibility. A premier is
technically responsible for his own selection; but as responsibility of
that kind means merely the obligation to resign on an adverse vote of
the House of Commons, and as he would be obliged to do this in any
event, he assumes no additional responsibility by reason of his own
selection; and the same thing may be said of all acts which happen
before the ministers come into power, and which they do not by accepting
office effectually sanction or condone. They become responsible, for
example, for the condition of the public departments of which they take
charge; and yet it may be for the very purpose of changing that
condition that they were put in office. In other words, there is a
difference between those things for which they are technically
responsible but not to blame, and those things which have been done by
their advice, and for the consequence of which they may be said to be
morally or completely responsible. The distinction is unimportant from
the point of view of the conventions of the constitution, but its
practical consequences are considerable as regards the position of the
cabinet before Parliament and the public. Now the ministers are
completely responsible for all political acts done by the Crown during
their tenure of office, even those which appear to be most directly the
work of the sovereign himself. All communications with the
representatives of foreign powers, for example, pass through their
hands. The creation of peers, the granting of honours, are now
unquestionably subject to their advice; and although when King Edward's
list of coronation honours was announced in 1901, _The Times_ declared
that the names were the personal choice of the monarch, it took pains to
add that the constitutional responsibility must, of course, rest with
the ministers.[37:1]
In short, the ministers direct the action of the Crown in all matters
relating to the government. The King's speech on the opening of
Parliament is, of course, written by them; and they prepare any answers
to addresses that may have a political character. All official letters
and reports to the King, and all communications from him, must pass
through the hands of one of their number. A letter addressed to the
sovereign as such by a subject, or other private person, passes through
the office of the Home Secretary; and even peers, who have a
constitutional right to approach him, must make an appointment for the
interview through the same office. This does not mean that the Crown may
not consult any one it pleases. That question came up in relation to
Prince Albert, whom the ministers at first held at arm's length, and
whose presence at their interviews with the Queen they refused for a
couple of years to permit, while he, on the other hand, called himself
the Queen's "confidential adviser" and "permanent minister."[38:1]
Confidential adviser he certainly was, but minister he certainly was
not, because in the nature of things he could not be responsible for her
acts. Mr. Gladstone in his "Gleanings of Past Years"[38:2] seems to have
defined the true position of the Queen and Prince Consort when he said
that she has a right to take secret counsel with any one, subject only
to the condition that it does not disturb her relation with her
ministers. She cannot, as a rule, consult the Opposition, because they
are directly opposed to the ministry; but she can consult any one else,
provided it does not affect the responsibility of her ministers; that
is, provided that in the end she follows their advice.
[Sidenote: Public and Private Acts of the Crown.]
The ministers are responsible for the public, not the private, acts of
the Crown; but it is sometimes hard to distinguish between the two.
Queen Victoria, for example, had relatives on many of the thrones of
Europe to whom it was absurd that she should not write private letters;
while other crowned heads were constantly writing letters to her on
public business which they did not intend the ministers to see. The rule
was, therefore, adopted that all her correspondence with foreign
sovereigns, not her relatives, should pass through the ministers'
hands,--an arrangement which, though a necessary result of English
responsible government, was galling to the Queen, who was often made to
express in her own handwriting opinions quite different from those which
she really held.[38:3] In domestic matters, also, it is hard to draw the
line between what is public and what is private. The Queen's marriage,
which was felt at the time to have a greater political importance than
it would have to-day, was arranged by herself, without consultation with
her ministers, and merely announced to them. On the other hand, when the
Princess Louise was betrothed to the Marquis of Lorne, Mr. Gladstone
stated in the House of Commons that the marriage with a subject had not
been decided upon without the advice of the ministers of the
Crown.[39:1] The risk of a strong infusion of British blood in the veins
of some future occupant of the throne is, it seems, a political matter,
for which the cabinet must hold itself responsible. But this is not true
of purely social affairs. One of the chief functions of the Crown is
that connected with its duties as the head of the social life of the
capital. These duties the Queen virtually abandoned for many years after
her husband's death; but although there were loud complaints on the part
of the public, the question was not regarded as a political one for
which the ministers could be called to account.
[Sidenote: The King's Name not Brought into Public Controversy.]
Since the King can do no wrong, he can do neither right nor wrong. He
must not be praised or blamed for political acts; nor must his ministers
make public the fact that any decision on a matter of state was actually
made by him.[39:2] His name must not be brought into political
controversy in any way, or his personal wishes referred to in argument,
either within or without Parliament.[39:3] This principle was not fully
recognized until after the accession of Queen Victoria. At the first
election of her reign the Tories complained, apparently with reason,
that the Whigs used her and her name as party weapons,[40:1] and three
years later we find Wellington referring to the Queen as the head of the
party opposed to the Conservatives.[40:2] Almost the only public acts
that can be done by the Crown before the public eye are ceremonies,
public functions, speeches which have no political character and deeds
of kindness that are above criticism. When the Queen, for example, made
her last visit to Ireland, the public were allowed to understand that it
was her own suggestion, and the same thing was true of her order
allowing Irish soldiers to wear the shamrock, it being assumed that such
acts could not have a political bearing, and would excite no hostile
comment.
[Sidenote: Actual Influence of the Sovereign.]
According to the earlier theory of the constitution the ministers were
the counsellors of the King. It was for them to advise and for him to
decide. Now the parts are almost reversed. The King is consulted, but
the ministers decide. It is commonly said that, with the sovereign,
influence has been substituted for power; or as Bagehot puts it in his
own emphatic way, the Crown has "three rights--the right to be
consulted, the right to encourage, the right to warn. And a king of
great sense and sagacity would want no others."[40:3] But after the
advice and warning have been given the final decision must remain with
the ministers. It is for them to determine whether their opinion is of
such importance that they feel obliged to insist upon it in spite of the
objections of the King, and if they do he must yield. Bagehot goes on to
describe how effective the right to advise may become in the hands of a
sage and experienced monarch, but he admits how small the chance must be
that the occupant of the throne will possess the qualities needed for
making a good use of the right, and adds that the attempt of the
ordinary monarch to exercise it would probably do more harm than good.
[Sidenote: He is Consulted after a Decision is Reached.]
Historians have often observed that the absence of the sovereign from
cabinet meetings, since the accession of the House of Hanover, has been
a great factor in the growth of cabinet government. His absence had,
indeed, three distinct effects. It helped to free the individual members
of the cabinet from royal pressure; it made it easier for them to act as
a unit in their relations with the monarch; and it tended to remove him
from the discussion of public policy until it had been formulated. This
last point is highly important, and has a bearing upon the influence of
the King to-day, because it is before the ministers have formed an
opinion that his advice and warning are most effective. It is while some
of them are reluctant and others are hesitating that the weight of his
views has the best chance of turning the scale. After the matter has
been threshed out and an agreement reached the decision is far less
likely to be reversed, or even seriously modified, by his personal
preferences.
Now the sovereign is not usually consulted about matters of domestic
legislation and policy until the opinion of the cabinet has taken shape.
For although he is informed in general terms of what is done at cabinet
meetings, and sometimes discusses with a minister the proposed measures
relating to his department, yet a matter is commonly talked over and
agreed upon by the ministers before it is submitted to him for approval.
In this way "the sovereign is brought into contact only with the net
results of previous inquiry and deliberation,"[41:1] and the views of
the cabinet are "laid before" him "and before Parliament, as if they
were the views of one man."[41:2] Queen Victoria tried, indeed, to
insist upon the right of "commenting on all proposals before they are
matured;"[41:3] but apparently without much success. This was not
equally true, however, of all departments of the government. On the
contrary, after a long struggle with Lord Palmerston, in which she
suffered many exasperating rebuffs, the autocratic foreign minister by
his impulsiveness and lack of perfect candour gave her at last an
advantage. She succeeded in establishing, by the memorandum of August,
1850, the rule that she must be kept informed of foreign correspondence
and despatches before they were sent, so that foreign matters should be
intact and not already compromised when they were brought to her
attention. Mr. Gladstone has criticised the principles laid down at that
time because they meant that the comments of the Premier on despatches
were to be made, not privately to the foreign minister, but after the
draft had been submitted to the Queen.[42:1] In other words, he
complained that the Queen was consulted before the tenor of the despatch
had been finally settled between the Premier and the foreign minister.
His criticism seems, therefore, to be levelled at the practice of
consulting the Crown before the policy has been agreed upon by those who
are responsible for it,[42:2] in this case the Prime Minister and the
Foreign Secretary, for despatches are not ordinarily brought before the
full cabinet for consideration.
The opportunity for an exertion of royal influence is much less in those
matters which are settled in cabinet meeting than in others. In the
former case the sovereign is not usually consulted until the question
has been thoroughly discussed, and the cabinet has reached a decision
which is the more difficult to change because it is often the result of
a compromise, and has, therefore, something of the binding force of an
agreement; whereas, in questions which are not brought directly before
the cabinet, the Crown when consulted has to overcome only the opinion,
and perhaps the hasty opinion, of one or two ministers. This is true in
such matters as the less important foreign relations, ecclesiastical and
other patronage, and the ordinary executive work of the various
departments. But herein another difference must be observed. The
executive action of the government in domestic affairs is usually
brought under very close scrutiny by Parliament, and is subjected to a
galling fire there. Hence the minister, with the volley of questions
levelled at the Treasury Bench ever before his mind, finds it more
difficult in these affairs to yield his opinion to that of the monarch
than he does in the case of foreign negotiations, and of ecclesiastical,
judicial and military patronage, which are not habitually discussed in
Parliament.[43:1] It would seem, therefore, that under ordinary
circumstances the personal influence of the King in political matters is
not likely to be very effectively asserted outside of foreign affairs,
church patronage, and some other appointments to office.
[Sidenote: Personal Influence of Queen Victoria.]
Although one can perceive the general limitations upon the personal
influence of the monarch imposed by the conditions under which it is
exercised, one can never know how vigorously it is being used at the
moment; and, indeed, it is difficult to estimate its actual effect
during any comparatively recent period. There is no use in going back
beyond the reign of Queen Victoria, to times when the parliamentary
system was so imperfectly developed that ministers sometimes gave
individual and contrary advice to the King;[43:2] and since the Queen
came to the throne very little has been published which throws light
upon the subject. From the various memoirs and letters of her ministers
almost everything has been eliminated that bears upon the actual
influence she exerted. Nevertheless certain facts appear. There can be
no doubt that the personal opinions of the monarch were deemed of
greater importance at the time of the Queen's accession than they are
to-day. Of late years, indeed, many popular writers have tended to
neglect the royal influence altogether. With the love of broad
generalisation, which is at once valuable and perilous in political
philosophy, publicists have been in the habit of speaking of the Queen
as a figurehead; but statesmen who have seen the inner life of the
cabinet know that the metaphor is inexact. Mr. Gladstone is reported to
have said that every treatise on the English government which he had
read failed to estimate her actual influence at its true value; and in
his "Gleanings of Past Years"[44:1] he remarks, "there is not a doubt
that the aggregate of direct influence normally exercised by the
sovereign upon the counsels and proceedings of her ministers is
considerable in amount, tends to permanence and solidity of action, and
confers much benefit on the country." Perhaps at a later period he might
have stated this less strongly; and although no final judgment can yet
be formed, one may venture an estimate of the Queen's influence in the
different branches of the government.
[Sidenote: In Domestic Policy.]
The effect of the Queen's personal preferences in the selection of the
Prime Minister and his colleagues has already been discussed, and it may
be added that on two or three occasions a cabinet, instead of resigning
on a defeat in the Commons, dissolved Parliament in deference to her
wishes;[44:2] but except for this it is hard to find definite traces of
her influence upon the general domestic policy of the country. Yet in
some departments, at least, of the public service she took a very lively
interest. At times she was prodigal of suggestions and advice, which
bore, as far as one can see, no positive fruit. She held her opinions
strongly, expressed them boldly, and was frank in her criticism of
measures, but did not succeed apparently in persuading her ministers to
abandon or even to modify them. On more than one occasion she used her
personal influence over the peers to prevent a disagreement between the
Houses, but this was never done to give effect to her own personal
views, and in the case of the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill it was
done to secure the passage of a government measure with which she was
not herself in sympathy.[45:1] In short her personal influence in
domestic affairs, either in the form of initiating policy, or of
effecting changes in that of her ministers, seems to have been very
slight. To this statement, however, a couple of exceptions must be made,
which relate to the Army and the Church. The Queen, who regarded the
Army as peculiarly dependent upon the sovereign, procured the
appointment of a royal duke as Commander-in-Chief, and for a time she
resisted successfully all attempts to change the vague relation of that
office to the Crown,[45:2] although in the end it was made completely
subordinate to the minister responsible to Parliament.[45:3] In the
matter of ecclesiastical appointments her opinions were expressed with
still greater effect, bishops and deans having in several cases been
selected by her, sometimes in preference to candidates proposed by the
Prime Minister.
[Sidenote: In Foreign Affairs.]
But it was in foreign affairs that the Queen's efforts were most
untiring, and on the whole most successful, in spite of many
disappointments. For years she was opposed to Lord Palmerston's
aggressive attitude, and while she never effected a radical change of
policy, she appears at times to have softened it to some extent.[45:4]
Throughout her reign she insisted upon the right to criticise
despatches, and not infrequently she caused changes to be made in them;
sometimes, as in the European crisis of 1859-1861, by appealing from the
Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister to the cabinet as a
whole.[46:1] The most famous case is that of the Trent Affair in 1861,
where the changes made in a despatch, in accordance with the suggestions
of the Prince Consort a few days before his death, avoided a danger of
serious trouble with the United States. In foreign affairs, therefore,
it is safe to conclude that while the Queen never initiated a policy,
her influence had on several important occasions a perceptible effect in
modifying the policy of her ministers.
[Sidenote: Changes during the Queen's Reign.]
In the closing chapter of his biography of the Queen, Mr. Lee says that
her "personal influence was far greater at the end of her life than at
her accession to the throne. Nevertheless it was a vague intangible
element in the political sphere, and was far removed from the solid
remnants of personal power which had adhered to the sceptre of her
predecessors."[46:2] No doubt her long experience, and the veneration
due to her age and unblemished character, caused her opinions to be
treated with growing respect; but there can be no doubt, also, that the
political influence of the sovereign faded slowly to a narrower and
fainter ray during her reign. One sees this in Peel's remark at her
accession, that the personal character of a constitutional monarch
counteracts the levity of ministers and the blasts of democratic
passions.[46:3] One sees it in the great importance attached at that
time to the persons surrounding the Queen, to the Ladies of the
Bedchamber, to the question of her private secretary, and to the
position of the Prince Consort. The Queen herself seems to have held
views about her own position that were drawn from the past rather than
the present.[46:4] At least this is the impression one forms, and it is
fortified both by her defence of her seclusion in 1864, on the ground
that she had higher duties to discharge which she could not neglect
without injury to the public service; and by her complaint that some of
her ministers did not allow her time enough to consider and decide
public questions, when in reality the decision was not made by her at
all. The Crown has been compared to a wheel turning inside the engine of
state with great rapidity, but producing little effect because
unconnected with the rest of the machinery. This is, no doubt, an
exaggeration; but the actual influence of Queen Victoria upon the course
of political events was small as compared with the great industry and
activity she displayed. What the influence of the sovereign will be in
the future cannot be foretold with precision. It must depend largely
upon the insight, the tact, the skill, the industry and the popularity
of the monarch himself; and as regards any one department, upon his
interest in that department. The monarch is not likely to be inured to a
life of strenuous work, and yet in addition to the political routine,
which is by no means small, his duties, social and ceremonial, are
great. Moreover, with the highest qualifications for the throne, his
opportunities must be very limited, for there is certainly no reason to
expect any growth in irresponsible political authority.
[Sidenote: Utility of the Monarchy; as a Political Force.]
Bagehot's views upon the utility of the monarchy have become classic.
Recognising the small chance that an hereditary sovereign would possess
the qualities necessary to exert any great influence for good upon
political questions, he did not deem the Crown of great value as a part
of the machinery of the state; and he explained at some length how a
parliamentary system of government could be made to work perfectly well
in a republic, although up to that time such an experiment had never
been tried. But he thought the Crown of the highest importance in
England as the dignified part of the government. Writing shortly before
the Reform Bill of 1867, he dreaded the extension of democracy in Great
Britain, for he had a low opinion of the political capacity of the
English masses. He felt that the good government of the country depended
upon their remaining in a deferential attitude towards the classes
fitted by nature to rule the state, and he regarded the Crown as one of
the strongest elements in keeping up that deferential attitude.
According to his conception of English polity the lower classes believed
that the government was conducted by the Queen, whom they revered, while
the cabinet, unseen and unknown by the ignorant multitude, was thereby
enabled to carry on a system which would be in danger of collapsing if
the public thoroughly understood its real nature. Whatever may have been
the case when Bagehot wrote, this state of things is certainly not true
to-day. The English masses have more political intelligence than he
supposed, or more political education than when he wrote. A traveller in
England does not meet to-day people who think that the country is
governed by the King, nor does he find any ignorance about the cabinet,
or any illusions about the part played by the chief leaders in
Parliament. The English workingman is now bombarded from the platform,
in the newspapers and in political leaflets, with electioneering appeals
which do not refer to the King, but discuss unceasingly the party
leaders and their doings. The political action of the Crown is, in fact,
less present to men's minds than it was half a century ago. Mr. Lee
tells us that he was impressed by the outspoken criticism of the Queen's
actions in the early and middle years of her reign.[48:1] To-day the
social and ceremonial functions of the Crown attract quite as much
interest as ever; but as a political organ it has receded into the
background, and occupies less public attention than it did formerly. The
stranger can hardly fail to note how rarely he hears the name of the
sovereign mentioned in connection with political matters; and when he
does hear it the reference is only too apt to be made by way of
complaint. If the foreign policy is unpopular, if there is delay in the
formation of a cabinet, one may hear utterly unfounded rumours
attributing the blame to the King. Even if a committee of inquiry is
thought not to have probed some matter to the bottom, it is perhaps
whispered that persons in favour at court are involved. Fortunately such
reports are uncommon. In general the growth of the doctrine of royal
irresponsibility has removed the Crown farther and farther out of the
public sight, while the spread of democracy has made the masses more and
more familiar with the actual forces in public life. One may dismiss,
therefore, the idea that the Crown has any perceptible effect to-day in
securing the loyalty of the English people, or their obedience to the
government.
On the other hand, the government of England is inconceivable without
the parliamentary system, and no one has yet devised a method of working
that system without a central figure, powerless, no doubt, but beyond
the reach of party strife. European countries that had no kings have
felt constrained to adopt monarchs who might hold a sceptre which they
could not wield; and one nation, disliking kings, has been forced to set
up a president with most of the attributes of royalty except the title.
If the English Crown is no longer the motive power of the ship of state,
it is the spar on which the sail is bent, and as such it is not only a
useful but an essential part of the vessel.
[Sidenote: As a Social and Moral Force.]
The social and ceremonial duties of the Crown are now its most
conspicuous, if not its most important, functions. There can be no
question that the influence of the Queen and her court was a powerful
element in the movement that raised the moral tone of society during the
first half of the last century. But such an influence must vary with the
personal character of the monarch. It may be exerted for good or for
evil; and it may not be so strong in the future as it has been in the
past.
[Sidenote: As a Pageant.]
In its relation to the masses royalty may be considered in another
aspect. Within a generation there has been a great growth of interest in
ceremony and dress. Antiquated customs and costumes have been revived,
and matters of this kind are regarded by many people as of prime
importance. A kindred result of the same social force has been a marked
increase in what Bagehot called the spirit of deference, and what those
who dislike it call snobbishness--a tendency by no means confined to the
British Isles. All this has exalted the regard for titles and offices,
and enhanced the attractiveness of those who bear them. In prestige the
titled classes have profited thereby, and although their position is
less and less dependent upon court favour, the royal family has also
profited directly. The presence of some one of its members is sought at
ceremonies of all kinds, whether it be the opening of a new building,
the inauguration of a charity, or an anniversary celebration at a
university. The attendance of the King on such occasions insures an
extended report in all the newspapers of the country, and is, therefore,
a most effective form of advertisement.
[Sidenote: As a Symbol.]
A century or more ago people who had learned nothing from the history of
Greece or Rome, and above all of Venice, were wont to assert that the
sentiment of loyalty requires a person for its object. No one would make
such a statement now. No one pretends that the English would be less
patriotic under a republic; and yet with the strengthening conception of
the British Empire, the importance of the Crown as the symbol of
imperial unity has been more keenly felt. To most countries the visible
symbol of the state is the flag; but curiously enough there is no
British national flag. Different banners are used for different
purposes; the King himself uses the Royal Standard; ships of war carry
at the peak the White Ensign; naval reserve vessels fly the Blue Ensign,
and merchantmen the Red Ensign; while the troops march, and Parliament
meets, under the Union Jack; and all of these are freely displayed on
occasions of public rejoicing. There is a tendency at the moment to
speak of the Union Jack as the national flag, but a recent occurrence
will illustrate how far this is from being justified. A British subject
residing at Panama had been in the habit of flying the Red Ensign,
until one day he hoisted in its place the Union Jack. Now, according to
the regulations the Jack is displayed from the consulates, and the
British consul requested his patriotic fellow-citizen not to use it on
his private house. The question was finally referred to the British
Foreign Office, which in deference to a law of Panama forbidding all
private display of alien flags, supported the position of the consul,
but refrained from expressing any opinion on the right of an English
citizen to hoist the Union Jack in foreign parts.[51:1] Each of the
self-governing colonies has, moreover, its own flag, which consists of
the Union Jack with some distinctive emblem upon it. One of the first
acts of the new Commonwealth of Australia was to adopt a separate flag
of this kind. The government held a competition in designs, and some
thirty thousand were presented. From these one was selected which showed
at the same time the connection with the empire and the self-dependence
of the commonwealth. It is the Union Jack with a southern cross and a
six-pointed star at one end,--a design that seems to have been more
shocking to heraldic than to imperialist sensibilities.
The Crown is thus the only visible symbol of the union of the empire,
and this has undoubtedly had no inconsiderable effect upon the reverence
felt for the throne.
[Sidenote: Popularity of the Monarchy.]
Whatever the utility of the Crown may be at the present time, there is
no doubt of its universal popularity. A generation ago, when the Queen,
by her seclusion after the death of Prince Albert, neglected the social
functions of the court, a number of people began to have serious doubts
on the subject. This was while republican ideals of the earlier type
still prevailed, and before men had learned that a republic is
essentially a form of government, and not necessarily either better or
worse than other forms. The small republican group in England thought
the monarchy useless and expensive; but people have now learned that
republics are not economical, and that the real cost of maintaining the
throne is relatively small.[52:1] So that while the benefits derived
from the Crown may not be estimated more highly, or admitted more
universally than they were at that time, the objections to the monarchy
have almost entirely disappeared, and there is no republican sentiment
left to-day either in Parliament or the country.
FOOTNOTES:
[27:1] If a person has a claim against the Crown for breach of contract,
or because his property is in its possession, he may bring a Petition of
Right, and the Crown on the advice of the Home Secretary will order the
petition indorsed "Let right be done," when the case proceeds like an
ordinary suit.
[27:2] Anson, II., 4, 5, 42, 43, 278, 279, 476-80. But a servant of the
Crown is not liable on its contracts, for he has made no contract
personally, and he cannot be compelled to carry out the contracts of the
Crown. Gidley _vs._ Lord Palmerston, 3 B. & B., 284. The rule that the
sovereign cannot be sued has been held to prevent a possessory action
against a person wrongfully in the possession of land as agent of the
Crown: Doe. d. Legh. _vs._ Roe., 8 M. & W., 579. It would seem that in
such a case the courts might have held that as the King could do no
wrong, the wrongful act, and consequently the possession, was not his;
in other words, that the agency could not be set up as a defence to the
wrongful act. Compare United States _vs._ Lee, 106 U.S., 196, where land
had been illegally seized by the government of the United States.
[28:1] Coke, Inst. (4 Ed.), II, 186-87. "Hussey Chief Justice reported,
that Sir John Markham said to King E. I. that the King could not arrest
any man for suspicion of Treason, or Felony, as any of his Subjects
might, because if the King did wrong, the party could not have his
Action."
[29:1] Anson, II., 27, 42-54. Dicey, "The Privy Council," 34 _et seq._
[29:2] Dicey, _Ibid._, 40-42.
[30:1] Mahon and Cardwell, "Memoirs by Sir Robert Peel," II., 31.
[30:2] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., I., 266.
[32:1] Pp. 220-26.
[33:1] A description of these cases may be found in Todd, "Parl. Govt.
in the British Colonies," 525-73.
[34:1] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in the British Colonies," 105 _et seq._
[34:2] _Cf._ Morley, "Life of Gladstone," Book II., Ch. vii.
[35:1] Sidney Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 1 Ed., 232-33.
[35:2] Ashley's "Life of Lord Palmerston," II., 154-57. Lee, "Life of
Queen Victoria," 296.
[35:3] Lee, _Ibid._, 511.
[35:4] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., I., 323 _et seq._
[35:5] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 391 _et seq._, and Lee, "Life of
Queen Victoria," 97-103.
[36:1] Morley, "Walpole," 158.
[37:1] _The Times_, June 26, 1902.
[38:1] Martin, "Life of the Prince Consort," 4 Ed., I., 74.
[38:2] I., 73.
[38:3] Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 1 Ed., 211-13.
[39:1] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., I., 266, note _y_. Hans.,
3 Ser. CCIV., 173, 370.
[39:2] Disraeli's opponents were right for criticising him for letting
it be known that it was the Queen who had decided whether to accept his
resignation or to dissolve in 1868: Hans., 3 Ser. CXCI., 1705, 1724,
1742, 1788, 1794, 1800, 1806, 1811. There was no objection to allowing
her to decide if he pleased,--that is, he might accept her opinion as
his own,--but he ought to have assumed in public the sole responsibility
for the decision.
[39:3] In 1876 Mr. Lowe in a public speech expressed his belief that the
Queen had urged previous ministers in vain to procure for her the title
of Empress of India. The matter was brought to the attention of the
House of Commons, and he was forced to make an apology, which was
somewhat abject, the Queen through the Prime Minister having denied the
truth of his statement: Hans., 3 Ser. CCXXVIII., 2023 _et seq._; and
CCXXIX., 52-53.
An apparent, though not a real, exception may be found in the rule which
requires that before a bill affecting the prerogative can be introduced
into Parliament, notice of the King's assent thereto must be given. If
the bill affects only the private property of the Crown it is not a
political matter. If it affects the public powers of the Crown, then the
assent is given on the responsibility of the ministers.
[40:1] Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 74-75.
[40:2] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 415 _et seq._
[40:3] English Const., 1 Ed., 103.
[41:1] Gladstone, "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 85.
[41:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 155.
[41:3] This was in 1880. Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 451.
[42:1] "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 86, 87.
[42:2] For the same reason the President of the Board of Control
objected in 1842, when Lord Ellenborough, the Governor General of India,
took upon himself to write directly to the Queen, a proceeding which
would undoubtedly not be permitted to-day. Parker, "Life of Sir Robert
Peel," II., 591.
In 1885 Lord Randolph Churchill tendered his resignation as Secretary of
State for India, because the Prime Minister, without consulting him, had
transmitted to the Viceroy a suggestion by the Queen that one of her
sons should be appointed to the command of the forces in Bombay. The
appointment was not made, and Lord Randolph withdrew his resignation.
Winston Churchill, "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," I., 503-13.
[43:1] _Cf._ Dicey, "Law of the Constitution," 5 Ed., 392.
[43:2] _Cf._ Parker, "Life of Sir Robert Peel," I., 334.
[44:1] I., 42.
[44:2] Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 133, 295, 387, and see page 39,
note 2, _supra_.
[45:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 267 _et seq._ Davidson and
Benham, "Life of Archbishop Tait," 2 Ed., II., 20-27, 35-36, 40-42.
[45:2] Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 266, 302.
[45:3] 33-34 Vic., c. 17. Order in Council, June 4, 1870.
[45:4] _Cf._ Lee, "Life of Queen Victoria," 299, 336, 349.
[46:1] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 159. But see Morley, "Life of
Gladstone," I., 415.
[46:2] Pp. 544-45.
[46:3] "Croker Papers," II., 317. A couple of years earlier Peel had
dreaded the advent of a ministry that might appear to be dictated to the
King by the House of Commons, and continue in office independently of
his will and control. Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 302. No statesman
would repeat either of these remarks to-day.
[46:4] In Prince Albert's letter to his daughter, the Crown Princess of
Prussia, on the advantages of a responsible ministry, he speaks of the
power of the monarch to settle the principles on which political action
is to be based, in terms not applicable in England. Martin, "Life of the
Prince Consort," IV., 218.
[48:1] "Life of Victoria," Pref., vii-viii.
[51:1] _The Times_, Sept. 17, 1903.
[52:1] Hans., 4 Ser. XCIV., 1500. The Civil List of Edward VII. was
fixed at his accession at £543,000, to which must be added about £60,000
of revenues from the Duchy of Lancaster, and also the revenues from the
Duchy of Cornwall which go to the heir apparent as Duke of Cornwall.
Rep. Com. on Civil List, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 607.
CHAPTER III
THE CABINET AND THE MINISTERS
[Sidenote: Absence of Fixed Traditions.]
A German professor in a lecture on anatomy is reported to have said to
his class, "Gentlemen, we now come to the spleen. About the functions of
the spleen, gentlemen, we know nothing. So much for the spleen." It is
with such feelings that one enters upon the task of writing a chapter
upon the cabinet; although that body has become more and more, decade by
decade, the motive power of all political action. The fact is that the
cabinet from its very nature can hardly have fixed traditions. In the
first place, it has no legal status as an organ of government, but is an
informal body, unknown to the law, whose business is to bring about a
coöperation among the different forces of the state without interfering
with their legal independence. Its action must, therefore, be of an
informal character. Then it meets in secret, and no records of its
proceedings are kept, which would in itself make very difficult the
establishment and preservation of a tradition. This could, indeed,
happen only in case of a certain permanence among the members who could
learn and transmit its practice. But a new cabinet contains under
ordinary circumstances none of the members of its predecessor. A
Conservative minister knows nothing of the procedure under Liberal
administrations; and we find even a man of the experience of Sir Robert
Peel asking Sir James Graham about the practice of a Liberal cabinet, of
which that statesman--who at this time changed his party every
decade--had formerly been a member.[53:1] No doubt the mode of
transacting business varies a good deal from one cabinet to another,
depending to a great extent upon the personal qualities of the members.
Still, the real nature of the work to be done, and hence the method of
doing it, have changed during the last half century less in the case of
the cabinet than of any of the other political organs of the state, and
one can observe certain general characteristics that may be noted.
[Sidenote: Nature of the Cabinet.]
The conventions of the constitution have limited and regulated the
exercise of all legal powers by the regular organs of the state in such
a way as to vest the main authority of the central government--the
driving and the steering force--in the hands of a body entirely unknown
to the law. The members of the cabinet are now always the holders of
public offices created by law; but their possession of those offices by
no means determines their activity as members of the cabinet. They have,
indeed, two functions. Individually, as officials, they do the executive
work of the state and administer its departments; collectively they
direct the general policy of the government, and this they do
irrespective of their individual authority as officials. Their several
administrative duties, and their collective functions are quite
distinct; and may, in the case of a particular person, have little or no
connection. The Lord Privy Seal, for example, has no administrative
duties whatever; and it is conceivable that the work of other members
might not come before the cabinet during the whole life of the ministry.
[Sidenote: Functions of the Cabinet.]
The essential function of the cabinet is to coördinate and guide the
political action of the different branches of the government, and thus
create a consistent policy. Bagehot called it a hyphen that joins, a
buckle that fastens, the executive and legislative together; and in
another place he speaks of it as a committee of Parliament chosen to
rule the nation. More strictly, it is a committee of the party that has
a majority in the House of Commons. The minority are not represented
upon it; and in this it differs from every other parliamentary
committee. The distinction is so obvious to us to-day, we are so
accustomed to government by party wherever popular institutions
prevail, that we are apt to forget the importance of the fact. Party
government as a system has developed comparatively recently; but it has
now become almost universal. The only exception among democratic
countries (that is, the only case where the executive body habitually
contains members of opposing parties) is in Switzerland. Still the
system is carried to a greater extent in some countries than in others;
and the amount of power concentrated in the hands of a single party
leader, or a body of party leaders, varies very much. The President of
the United States, for example, is the representative of a party; but he
rules the nation only in part. The legislature is neither in theory or
in practice under his control; and this is so far true that even when
Congress is of the same party as himself, neither he nor any committee
of the party so controls both executive and legislative that any one
body can be said to rule the nation. But where the parliamentary system
prevails, the cabinet, virtually combining in its own hands, as it does,
the legislative and executive authorities, may fairly be said to rule
the nation; although the degree in which this is true must depend upon
the extent of its real control over the legislature. Now, although the
legal power of the executive government is in some respects less in
England than in most continental countries, the actual control of the
cabinet over the legislature is greater than anywhere else.
The cabinet is selected by the party, not directly, but indirectly, yet
for that very reason represents it the better. Direct election is apt to
mean strife within the party, resulting in a choice that represents the
views of one section as opposed to those of another, or else in a
compromise on colourless persons; while the existing indirect selection
results practically in taking the men, and all the men, who have forced
themselves into the front rank of the party and acquired influence in
Parliament. The minority of the House of Commons is not represented in
the cabinet; but the whole of the majority is now habitually
represented, all the more prominent leaders from every section of the
party being admitted. In its essence, therefore, the cabinet is an
informal but permanent caucus of the parliamentary chiefs of the party
in power--and it must be remembered that the chiefs of the party are all
in Parliament. Its object is to secure the cohesion without which the
party cannot retain a majority in the House of Commons and remain in
power. The machinery is one of wheels within wheels; the outside ring
consisting of the party that has a majority in the House of Commons; the
next ring being the ministry, which contains the men who are most active
within that party; and the smallest of all being the cabinet, containing
the real leaders or chiefs. By this means is secured that unity of party
action which depends upon placing the directing power in the hands of a
body small enough to agree, and influential enough to control. There
have, of course, been times when the majority was not sufficiently
homogeneous to unite in a cabinet; when a ministry of one party has
depended for its majority upon the support of a detached group holding
the balance of power. The Peelites in 1850, the Liberal Unionists in
1886, and the Irish Nationalists in 1892 formed groups of this kind; but
such a condition of things is in its nature temporary and transitional,
and usually gives place to a coalition ministry, followed by party
amalgamation.
[Sidenote: Formation of the Cabinet.]
The statesman sent for by the Crown and intrusted with the formation of
a ministry becomes himself the Prime Minister, and selects his
colleagues. It may be added, also, that he has virtually power to
dismiss a minister; that is, subject to his responsibility to the
cabinet as a whole and to Parliament, he can request the Crown to
dismiss a colleague--a request which the Crown cannot practically
refuse.[56:1] In the selection of the cabinet his choice is, however,
decidedly limited both as to persons and offices. In the first place,
all the men still in active public life who served in the last cabinet
of the party have a claim, a very strong claim, to sit in the new
cabinet, and hence it is unusual to discard a man who is willing to
return to office.[57:1] This in itself fills a goodly number of the
cabinet positions. Then all the prominent leaders in Parliament, and
especially in the House of Commons, must be included. In fact, as Mr.
Bagehot puts it, the Prime Minister's independent choice extends rather
to the division of the cabinet offices than to the choice of cabinet
ministers. Still, he has some latitude in regard to the men whom he will
admit; especially the younger men, who are appointed to offices in the
ministry but not in the cabinet, and this may be a matter of great
moment. One cannot tell, for example, how different the history of
Parliament in the middle of the century might have been had Peel decided
to invite Disraeli to join his ministry in 1841.[57:2] Although the
Prime Minister has by no means a free hand in the selection of his
colleagues, the task is often extremely difficult and vexatious. It is
like that of constructing a figure out of blocks which are too numerous
for the purpose, and which are not of shapes to fit perfectly together;
for with the selection of the members of the cabinet the difficulties
are by no means over. The distribution of the offices among them may
raise additional problems. One man will take only a particular office,
while others may object to serving if he occupies that post. Where
parties are a good deal broken up, or are evenly divided, obstacles like
these have sometimes prevented the formation of a cabinet altogether;
and there is always some disappointment and consequent discontent on the
part of men who thought themselves sufficiently prominent to be
admitted to the ministry, and whose chagrin may drive them into an
independent attitude.
There are, indeed, two ways in which an ambitious young member of the
House of Commons can render his services indispensable to the Prime
Minister. He must, of course, first get the ear of the House, and make
himself a power there. Then he may vote regularly with the party whips,
support the leaders of his party on all occasions, and speak in their
favour whenever he can be of use to them. In that case he is likely to
be regarded as a promising young man of sound principles who can be
relied upon by his chiefs. Or, he may follow the opposite course of the
candid friend, criticising and even attacking the leader of his party,
showing the weak points in his arguments, and the errors in his policy.
In that case, if the young man has achieved so important a position that
he cannot be disregarded, he stands a good chance of being given an
office as a dangerous critic who must be conciliated and attached firmly
to the government. The first of these methods is slower but safer. The
second has sometimes been tried with startling success, notably in the
case of Lord Randolph Churchill; but it has also been tried too
obviously, and without the necessary social or parliamentary influence;
and when it does not succeed it is likely to leave its victim hopelessly
stranded below the gangway.
[Sidenote: Increase in Size.]
The number of members in the cabinet has varied very much at different
times,[58:1] and of late years it has shown a marked tendency to
increase. William Pitt had only six colleagues. A generation ago the
cabinets contained from a dozen to sixteen members; but they have now
run up to eighteen or twenty. There are several reasons for the change.
In the first place, as the sphere of the state activity extends and the
government grows more paternal, the range of affairs that come within
the action of the cabinet is greater; and hence from time to time there
is need of admitting a representative of some fresh department to its
consultations. Then, on the political side, the development of the
parliamentary system has made it necessary for the cabinet to have an
ever stronger and stronger hold upon the House of Commons; and,
therefore, the different shades of feeling in the party that has a
majority in that House must be more and more fully represented in the
cabinet. This alone would tend to increase the number of its members;
but far more important still is the fact that a seat in the cabinet has
become the ambition of all the prominent men in Parliament. Consequently
the desire to be included is very great, and the disappointment
correspondingly acute. For these various reasons there is a constant
pressure to increase the size of the cabinet. The result is not without
its evils. A score of men cannot discuss and agree on a policy with the
same readiness as a dozen. There is more danger of delay when action
must be taken. There is a greater probability of long discussions that
are inconclusive or result in a weak compromise. There is, in short, all
the lack of administrative efficiency which a larger body always
presents; unless, indeed, that body is virtually guided and controlled
by a small number of its own members. That some recent cabinets have
been actually so controlled there can be little doubt; and this must
become more and more the case as the cabinet grows larger, if it is to
retain its great suppleness and strength. One sometimes hears of an
interior junto, or cabinet within the cabinet, that really determines
the policy. This is undoubtedly an exaggeration; a giving of formal
shape to informal conferences among leaders on special questions, which
have always taken place; but it appears not improbable that if the
growth in the size of the cabinet continues, some such interior nucleus
may develop which will bear to the cabinet something of the relation
that the cabinet now bears to the ministry.
[Sidenote: Offices in the Cabinet.]
Certain offices always bring their holders into the cabinet. These are
the positions of First Lord of the Treasury (a post almost invariably
held either by the Prime Minister himself, or by the leader of the
House of Commons if the Prime Minister is a peer and takes some other
office); Lord Chancellor (a great political as well as judicial office);
the great English executive offices, those of the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, the five Secretaries of State, and the First Lord of the
Admiralty; and a couple of dignified positions without active
administrative duties, those of President of the Council and the Lord
Privy Seal. Certain other officers have been of late years always in the
cabinet; such are the Presidents of the Board of Trade, the Local
Government Board, and the Board of Education, and the Chief Secretary
for Ireland,--except when his nominal superior, the Lord Lieutenant for
Ireland, is himself a member. On the other hand, the Secretary for
Scotland and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster are usually in the
cabinet; while the President of the Board of Agriculture and the
Postmaster-General are often there; the First Commissioner of Works and
the Lord Chancellor for Ireland occasionally so. The tendency at the
present day is certainly in the direction of including the head of every
considerable branch of the administration.
The counsel of a statesman who was incapacitated for the performance of
steady administrative work, or unwilling to undertake it, was
occasionally secured in former times by giving him a seat in the cabinet
without any office under the Crown. He then became what is known on the
continent as a minister without portfolio. The last case of this kind in
England was that of Lord John Russell in 1854-1856; but the same object
is practically attained to-day by means of the office of Lord Privy
Seal,[60:1] which involves no real administrative duties, and those of
President of the Council,[60:2] and Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, where the duties are very light.
[Sidenote: The Ministers must have Seats in Parliament.]
As the continental practice whereby ministers are allowed to address
the legislature, whether they have seats in it or not, is unknown in
England, every member of the cabinet, and indeed of the ministry, must
have a seat in one or other House of Parliament;[61:1] the last
exception being that of Mr. Gladstone, who held the office of Secretary
of State for the Colonies during the last few months of Sir Robert
Peel's administration in 1846, although he had failed of reëlection to
the House of Commons.[61:2] The reason commonly given for such a
limitation in the selection of ministers is that otherwise they could
not be made responsible to Parliament, where they must be present in
order to answer questions, and give information relating to their
departments. From the standpoint of Parliament this is perfectly true,
but the converse is also true. The head of a department sits in the
House of Commons quite as much in order to control the House, as in
order that the House may control him. In his chapter on "Changes of
Ministry," Bagehot has shown how defenceless against attack any
department is sure to be without a spokesman in Parliament, and he cites
as a forcible illustration the fate of the first Poor Law
Commission.[61:3] All this applies, of course, only to the House of
Commons, for although the presence of ministers in the House of Lords is
a convenience in debate, and an appropriate recognition of the legal
equality of the two chambers, there is no responsibility to be secured
thereby, and it is not the essential means of controlling the action of
the peers.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet System and Administrative Efficiency.]
The men who win places in the ministry have usually, although by no
means invariably, made their mark in debate. It is a strange assumption
that a good talker must be a good administrator, and that a strong
government can be formed by parcelling out the offices among the leading
debaters in the legislative body. At first sight it appears as
irrational as the other corollary of the parliamentary system, that the
public service is promoted by dismissing an excellent foreign minister,
because the House of Commons does not like an unpopular clause in an
education bill. Any one with a sense of humour can point out the
incongruities in any human organisation, whether it works in practice
well or ill. But there is, in fact, reason to expect that a leading
debater will make a good head of a department. Influence is rarely
acquired over a body so permanent as the House of Commons by mere showy
eloquence. Real weight there must be based upon a knowledge of men, and
a power to master facts and grasp the essential points in a situation.
It must be based, in other words, upon the qualities most essential to a
good head of a department in a government where, as in England, the
technical knowledge, the traditions, and the orderly conduct of affairs,
are secured by a corps of highly efficient permanent officials. No doubt
all leading debaters do not make good administrators. Sometimes a
minister is negligent or ineffective, and occasionally he is rash. There
are men, also, who have outlived their usefulness, or who were once
thought very promising, and have not fulfilled their promise, but who
cannot be discarded and must be given a post of more or less importance.
The system works, however, on the whole very well, and supplies to the
government offices a few extraordinary, and many fairly efficient,
chiefs, although it puts some departments under the control of poor
administrators.
The power of creating peers would make it possible to select for the
head of a department a tried administrator altogether outside of the
parliamentary field. Something like this was attempted in the recent
case of Lord Milner, who was offered, on Mr. Chamberlain's resignation,
the post of Secretary of State for the Colonies. Lord Milner was,
indeed, a peer at the time the place was tendered to him, but he had
attended in the House of Lords only to take his seat. He had never
spoken or voted there, and in fact had had no parliamentary career, his
nearest approach to St. Stephens having consisted in standing on one
occasion as a candidate for the House of Commons without success.
Formerly a statesman regularly began his official life as a
parliamentary under-secretary; and he did not become the head of a
department, or win a seat in the cabinet, until he had in this way
served his apprenticeship in public administration--a practice which
furnished both a guarantee of experience and a test of executive
capacity. Of late years there have been a number of exceptions to this
rule. Mr. Chamberlain, Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Morley and Mr.
Birrell, for example, were admitted to the cabinet, and put at the head
of great departments without any previous training in the service of the
government. As a rule, however, the old system is likely to prevail,
because it is difficult for a man to make his mark in Parliament unless
he begins his work there very young; and the exceptions occur only in
cases of men of great ability.
[Sidenote: The Need of Unity in the Cabinet.]
In the earlier part of the century, before the party system had
developed as fully as it has to-day, complete unity in the cabinet was
much less necessary than it is now. At that time it was not uncommon to
have matters, sometimes very important ones, treated as open questions
in the cabinet, and a good deal of discussion has taken place upon the
advantages and the evils of such a practice.[63:1] Members of the
cabinet occasionally spoke and voted against government measures,
although a difference carried to that length was always rare. One even
finds colleagues in the ministry standing as opposing candidates at an
election.[63:2] Such occurrences would be impossible to-day, because, as
will appear more fully when we come to treat of the political parties,
parliamentary government in its present highly developed form requires
a very strong cohesion among the members of the majority in the House of
Commons, and, therefore, absolute harmony, or the appearance of harmony,
among their leaders. It is necessary to present a united front to the
Opposition, but if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall
prepare himself for the battle? Any one watching the course of events
during the early summer of 1903 must have observed how rapidly the
process of disintegration went on in the Conservative party while it was
known that the ministers were at odds over the tariff. Party cohesion,
both in the House and in the cabinet, is, indeed, an essential feature
of the parliamentary system; but since men, however united on general
principles, do not by nature think alike in all things, differences of
opinion must constantly arise within the cabinet itself.[64:1] Sometimes
they are pushed so far that they can be settled only by a division or
vote, but this is exceptional, for the object of the members is, if
possible, to agree, not to obtain a majority of voices and override the
rest.[64:2] The work of every cabinet must, therefore, involve a series
of compromises and concessions, the more so because the members
represent the varying shades of opinion comprised in the party in power.
A minister who belongs to one wing of the party may, in fact, be more
nearly in accord with a member of the front Opposition Bench than with
some colleague who stands at the other political pole of opinion, and
yet he will stay in the cabinet unless the measures proposed are such
that he feels conscientiously obliged to resign. So long as he remains
in the government he will attempt to agree with his colleagues, but when
he has finally left them his personal opinions will take full course,
and he may go off at a tangent. In this way the behaviour of an
ex-minister towards his former colleagues, which is sometimes attributed
to rancour, may very well be due to a natural expansion of opinions
which were held in check while he clung to the cabinet.
[Sidenote: Need of Secrecy.]
Men engaged in a common cause who come together for the purpose of
reaching an agreement usually succeed, provided their differences of
opinion are not made public. But without secrecy harmony of views is
well-nigh unattainable; for if the contradictory opinions held by
members of the cabinet were once made public it would be impossible
afterwards to make the concessions necessary to a compromise, without
the loss of public reputation for consistency and force of character.
Moreover a knowledge of the initial divergence of views among the
ministers would vastly increase the difficulty of rallying the whole
party in support of the policy finally adopted, and would offer
vulnerable points to the attacks of the Opposition. Secrecy is,
therefore, an essential part of the parliamentary system, and hence it
is the habit, while making public the fact that a meeting of the cabinet
has taken place, and the names of the members present, to give no
statement of the business transacted. Not only is no official notice of
the proceedings published, but it is no less important that they should
not be in any way divulged. In fact, by a well-recognised custom, it is
highly improper to refer in Parliament, or elsewhere, to what has been
said or done at meetings of the cabinet, although reticence must at
times place certain members in a very uncomfortable position.[65:1]
Occasionally it becomes well-nigh intolerable. This is true where a
cabinet breaks up owing to dissensions over an issue that excites keen
public interest, and in such cases the story of what happened may be
told in a way that would be thought inexcusable under other
circumstances.[66:1]
When we consider the great public interest that attaches to the
decisions of the cabinet, and the great value that premature information
would have for journalists and speculators, it is astonishing how little
cabinet secrets have leaked out. In curious contrast with this are the
reports of select committees of Parliament, the contents of which are
often known before the report is made,[66:2] probably in most cases not
from any deliberate disclosure, but as a result of the piecing together
of small bits of information, no one of which alone would seem to be a
betrayal of confidence. The reason this does not happen in the case of
cabinets is no doubt to be sought in the complete reliance of the
members upon one another, and their disbelief in the statements of any
one who pretends to have obtained information from a colleague. The best
proof of the real silence of ministers is found in the fact that
although on two or three occasions the press has been remarkably shrewd
in guessing at probable decisions, members of the cabinet have seldom
been guilty of talking indiscreetly. The one or two instances where it
is alleged to have occurred have, indeed, acquired the sort of notoriety
of exceptions that prove the rule.[66:3]
At one time, it seems, before the reign of Queen Victoria, minutes of
cabinet meetings were kept, showing the opinions held, with the reasons
given therefor, and these were transmitted to the King.[67:1] Even as
late as 1855 regular cabinet dinners took place, marked by the possible
convenience that no reports of the topics of discussion were sent to the
sovereign, as in the case of more formal meetings.[67:2] At the present
day he receives only a general statement of the matters discussed, with
formal minutes of decisions that require his approval; and it would be
considered improper to inform him of the conflicting opinions held by
the different ministers.[67:3] In fact no records of the cabinet are
kept. This results in occasional differences of recollection on the
question whether a definite conclusion was reached on certain matters or
not; but possible difficulties of that kind are probably of far less
consequence than the facility in compromising differences of opinion and
reaching a harmonious conclusion that comes from the entire informality
of the proceedings. So little formal, indeed, are the meetings that a
person not a member of the cabinet is occasionally brought in for
consultation. This occurred in 1848, for example, when the Duke of
Wellington attended a Liberal cabinet to give advice upon measures to be
taken in view of the danger of the Chartist riots.
[Sidenote: Times of Meeting.]
It is an old practice, and obviously a necessary one, to hold one or
more meetings of the cabinet in the autumn to consider the measures to
be presented to Parliament during the coming session; to arrange, as it
were, the government's parliamentary programme. Other meetings are held
from time to time whenever necessary; sometimes as often as once a week
during the session; occasionally even more frequently when urgent and
difficult matters are to be decided. After the session of Parliament
comes to an end in August, the ministers usually take their vacation in
travel, sport, or public speaking; and cabinet meetings are suspended
unless political questions of a pressing nature arise.
In the rare cases where the cabinet is obliged to settle its policy by
the crude method of a division or vote, the voices of its members count
alike; but questions are usually decided by preponderance of opinion,
not by votes; and the weight of the opinions of the ministers is
naturally very unequal. Such a difference must be particularly marked in
the large cabinets of the present day; and some of the members must be
perfectly well aware that they are expected to follow rather than to
lead. The relative influence of the different ministers over their
colleagues, both at the cabinet meetings and elsewhere, depends, of
course, primarily upon their personal qualities; although the post
occupied is, in some cases, not without importance. This is particularly
true in the case of the Prime Minister.
[Sidenote: The Prime Minister.]
Until 1906 the Prime Minister, like the cabinet itself, was unknown to
the law,[68:1] but the position has long been one of large though
somewhat ill-defined authority. It has grown with the growth of the
cabinet itself; and, indeed, the administrations of the great Prime
Ministers, such as Walpole, Pitt and Peel, are landmarks in the
evolution of the system.[68:2] We have, fortunately, from two of the
chief Prime Ministers in the latter half of the nineteenth century,
descriptions both of the cabinet and the premiership, which are
authoritative;[68:3] and although they do not add a great deal to what
is popularly known, they enable us to state it with greater confidence.
At the meetings of the cabinet the Prime Minister as chairman is no
doubt merely _primus inter pares_. His opinion carries peculiar weight
with his colleagues mainly by the force it derives from his character,
ability, experience and reputation; but apart from cabinet meetings he
has an authority that is real, though not always the same or easy to
define.
In the first place the Prime Minister has a considerable patronage at
his disposal. Subject to the limitations imposed by political
exigencies, he virtually appoints all the members of the ministry. The
ecclesiastical offices also, from the bishoprics to the larger livings
in the gift of the Crown, are bestowed on his recommendation; and so as
a rule are peerages and other honours; and he has a general presumptive
right to nominate to any new office that is established under the
Crown.[69:1]
[Sidenote: His Supervision.]
He is both an official channel of communication and an informal
mediator. The duties of the Prime Minister, if one may use the
expression, surround the cabinet. He stands in a sense between it and
all the other forces in the state with which it may come into contact,
and he even stands between it and its own members. Matters of
exceptional importance ought to be brought to his attention before they
are discussed in the cabinet; and any differences that may arise between
any two ministers, or the departments over which they preside, should be
submitted to him for decision, subject, of course, to a possible appeal
to the cabinet. He is supposed to exercise a general supervision over
all the departments. Nothing of moment that relates to the general
policy of the government, or that may affect seriously the efficiency of
the service, ought to be transacted without his advice. He has a right
to expect, for example, to be consulted about the filling of the highest
posts in the permanent civil service.[69:2] All this is true of every
branch of the government, but the foreign relations of the country are
subject to his oversight in a peculiar degree, for he is supposed to
see all the important despatches before they are sent, and be kept
constantly informed by the Foreign Secretary of the state of relations
with other powers.
The extent to which a Prime Minister actually supervises and controls
the several departments must, of course, vary in different cabinets. One
cannot read the memoirs of Sir Robert Peel without seeing how closely he
watched, and how much he guided, every department of the
government.[70:1] A score of years later we find Lord Palmerston
lamenting that when able men fill every post it is impossible for the
Prime Minister to exercise the same decisive influence on public
policy;[70:2] and recently Lord Rosebery has told us that owing to the
widening of the activity of the government no Premier could, at the
present day, exert the control that Peel had over the various branches
of the public service.[70:3] It is certain that a Prime Minister cannot
maintain such a control if his time is taken up by the conduct of a
special department; and this, combined with some natural recklessness in
speech, accounts for the strange ignorance that Lord Salisbury displayed
at times about the details of administration, as in the case when he
excused the lack of military preparation for the South African War on
the ground that the Boers had misled the British War Office by smuggling
guns into the country in locomotives and munitions of war in
pianos.[70:4] It has been usual, therefore, for the Prime Minister to
take the office of First Lord of the Treasury, which involves very
little administrative work, and leaves its occupant free for his more
general duties.[70:5]
[Sidenote: He Represents the Cabinet.]
The Prime Minister stands between the Crown and the cabinet; for
although the King may, and sometimes does, communicate with a minister
about the affairs relating to his own department, it is the Premier who
acts as the connecting link with the cabinet as a whole, and
communicates to him their collective opinion. To such an extent is he
the representative of the cabinet in its relations to the Crown that
whereas the resignation of any other minister creates only a vacancy,
the resignation of a Premier dissolves the cabinet altogether; and even
when his successor is selected from among his former colleagues, and not
another change is made, yet the loss of the Premier involves technically
the formation of a new cabinet.
Unless the Prime Minister is a peer he represents the cabinet as a whole
in the House of Commons, making there any statements of a general
nature, such as relate, for example, to the amount of time the
government will need for its measures, or to the question of what bills
it will proceed with, and how far the lack of time will compel it to
abandon the rest. The other ministers usually speak only about matters
in which they are directly concerned. They defend the appropriations,
explain the measures, and answer the questions relating to their own
departments; but they do not ordinarily take any active part in the
discussion of other subjects, unless a debate lasts for two or three
days, when one or more of them may be needed. They are, indeed, often so
busy in their own rooms at the House that it is not uncommon, when a
government measure of second-rate importance is in progress, to see the
Treasury Bench entirely deserted except for the minister in charge of
the bill. But the Prime Minister must keep a careful watch on the
progress of all government measures; and he is expected to speak not
only on all general questions, but on all the most important government
bills. He can do this, of course, only in the House of which he happens
to be a member; and the strength of his all-pervading influence upon the
government depends to no slight extent upon the question whether he
sits in the Lords or the Commons.
As the House of Commons is the place where the great battles of the
parties are fought, a Prime Minister who is a peer is in something of
the position of a commander-in-chief who is not present with the forces
in the field. He must send his directions from afar, and trust a
lieutenant to carry them out. In such a case the leader of the House of
Commons stands in something of the position of a deputy premier. He is,
of necessity, constantly consulted by his colleagues in the House, and
he can, if so disposed, draw into his own hands a part of the authority
belonging to the head of the cabinet. As Mr. Gladstone remarked, "The
overweight, again, of the House of Commons is apt, other things being
equal, to bring its Leader inconveniently near in power to a Prime
Minister who is a peer. He can play off the House of Commons against his
chief; and instances might be cited, though they are happily most rare,
when he has served him very ugly tricks."[72:1] It is certainly true
that the Prime Ministers who have most dominated their cabinets, and
have had their administrations most fully under their control, have all
been in the Commons. It may be added that a high authority has declared
that "no administrations are so successful as those where the distance
in parliamentary authority, party influence, and popular position,
between the Prime Minister and his colleagues in the cabinet, is wide,
recognised and decisive."[72:2]
[Sidenote: Relation of the Ministers to One Another.]
Not only does the Prime Minister stand above and apart from his
colleagues, but they do not all stand upon one plane. The influence of a
minister depends upon his personal force, but it may be affected by the
office that he holds, and perhaps by his nearness to the Prime Minister
himself; for although there is no formal interior junta, or cabinet
within the cabinet, yet the Premier is apt to take counsel informally
with other leading ministers, and if he is a masterful man those who
can command or win his confidence have the better chance of shaping the
policy of the government while it is still formless and malleable. The
cabinet, moreover, does not always act as a whole. It sometimes appoints
committees to consider special subjects, and indeed it has an old and
well-established practice of appointing committees to prepare important
government bills.[73:1]
[Sidenote: Joint and Several Responsibility.]
It is commonly said that the ministers are severally responsible to
Parliament for the conduct of their own departments, and jointly
responsible for the general policy of the government. Like many other
maxims of the British Constitution, this has the advantage of being
sufficiently vague to be capable of different interpretations at
different times. With the growth of the parliamentary system, and the
more clearly marked opposition between the parties, the joint
responsibility has in fact become greater and the several responsibility
less. The last instances where a single minister resigned on an adverse
vote of the House of Commons were those of Mr. Lowe, who retired from
the vice-presidency of the Committee on Education in 1864 in consequence
of a vote charging him with improper mutilation of the reports of
inspectors, and Lord Chancellor Westbury, who resigned in 1866 on
account of a vote censuring his grant of a pension to a registrar in
bankruptcy charged with misconduct.[73:2] If at the present day the
cause of complaint were a personal error on the part of the minister, he
would probably be brought to resign voluntarily before there was a
chance of his resignation being forced by a hostile vote in the House;
and if the question were one of policy, the government would, save in
very exceptional cases, assume the responsibility for that policy,
treating a hostile vote as showing a want of confidence in itself. The
majority in the House of Commons, on the other hand, while it may
question, criticise and blame a minister in debate, is reluctant to
permit a vote of censure upon him which is liable to involve the fall of
the ministry.[74:1]
Each minister is responsible to the cabinet for the conduct of his
department. He is constantly meeting with problems which may involve
criticism in Parliament, and where a mistake might entail serious
consequences for the whole government. In such cases he must decide how
far he can assume to settle the question in accordance with his own
opinion, and what matters he ought to bring before the cabinet. He must
not, on the one hand, take up its time in discussing trivialities, and
he must not, on the other, commit his colleagues to a course of action
which really involves general policy. If in doubt he can, of course,
consult the Prime Minister; but in spite of this privilege annoying
blunders must inevitably occur.
A minister naturally has charge in the cabinet of the business relating
to his own department, but how far he takes an active part in other
things will depend upon the interest that he feels in them. Lord
Palmerston, for example, when Secretary for Foreign Affairs, took, as
his letters show, little interest in anything else; but when he became
Home Secretary he took not only an active but a leading part in
directing the foreign relations of the country. This he was fully
entitled to do, because the cabinet is both an assemblage of ministers
at the head of the separate branches of the administration, and a
council of state which must form a collective judgment upon the
questions submitted to it. A minister is, therefore, justified in
pressing his views on any subject, whether connected with his own
department or not; and on no other basis could collective responsibility
be maintained. The practice is particularly marked in the case of
foreign affairs, which usually form a large part of the business at the
meetings.
[Sidenote: The Treasury and Other Departments.]
It is not only on questions of general policy, brought before the
cabinet, that differences of opinion between ministers may arise, for
there are many matters of current administration that affect more than
one department. In such cases the ministers concerned confer together,
and if they cannot agree their differences must be submitted to the
Prime Minister, and ultimately to the cabinet. There is, indeed, one
department which is continually brought into contact--one might almost
say conflict--with all the others; that is the Treasury. Any vigorous
branch of the public service always sees excellent reasons for
increasing its expenditure, and proposes to do so without much regard
for the needs of the other branches; while the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, who is obliged to find the money, must strive to restrict the
aggregate outlay. If he did not, the expenditure of the government would
certainly be extravagant. As a preliminary step to the preparation of
the budget the Treasury issues in the autumn a circular to the other
departments asking for estimates of their expenses during the coming
fiscal year. These are made up in the first instance by the permanent
officials, and then laid before the parliamentary head of the
department, who revises and perhaps reduces them. When they reach the
Treasury they are scrutinised by the permanent officials there, and if
anything is not clear, an explanation is sought from the department
concerned. The estimates are then submitted by the Treasury officials to
their parliamentary chiefs, and if there is an objection to any item it
is the duty of the Financial Secretary of the Treasury to confer with
the head of the department whose estimates are in question.[75:1] If the
parliamentary head of the department does not agree with the Financial
Secretary he may go to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if they
cannot settle the matter they must appeal to the Prime Minister and as
a last resort to the cabinet. Being placed in such a relation to his
colleagues, it is not unnatural that the Chancellor of the Exchequer
should often differ with them. As Gladstone notes in his diary in 1865,
"Estimates always settled at the dagger's point."[76:1] Like other
differences in the cabinet, these occasionally come to light, especially
when they have been so sharp as to cause the Chancellor's resignation.
Lord Randolph Churchill resigned in 1886 because the cabinet insisted
upon appropriations for the Army which he opposed; and Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach has told us recently that had it not been for the fact that
his protests against the growth of expenditure were received with
indifference he might not have quitted the office.[76:2] One cause,
moreover, of the final resignation of Mr. Gladstone--who although not
then Chancellor of the Exchequer, always looked upon matters from the
Treasury standpoint--was a difference of opinion between him and his
colleagues on the question of the cost of national defence.[76:3]
Whatever the policy of the cabinet at any moment may be, the scale of
expenditure is ultimately determined by the feeling in the House of
Commons, and this in turn depends upon the state of public opinion.
Except for a few short periods of extravagance, the seventy years that
followed the close of the Napoleonic wars were marked by a decided
tendency in favour of economy. People felt the pressure of taxation,
worried little about the condition of the Army or the Navy, and had no
strong desire to increase the expenses of the government in any
direction. Latterly the tendency has been reversed. The country has felt
rich; there have been a series of alarms about national defence, and at
the same time the general growth of paternalism has brought in a desire
for improvement and expenditure in many ways.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet and the Ministry.]
The ministry is composed, as has already been pointed out, of an inner
part that formulates the policy of the government, and an outer part
that follows the lines laid down; the inner part, or cabinet, containing
the more prominent party leaders, who are also holders of the principal
offices of state, while the outer part consists of the heads of the less
important departments, the parliamentary under-secretaries, the whips
and the officers of the royal household. All of these persons are
strictly in the ministry, and resign with the cabinet; but the officers
of the household have, as such, no political functions, and do not
concern us here. The heads of departments without seats in the cabinet
have become, with the increase in size of that body, very few. By far
the greater part of the ministers outside of the cabinet are the
parliamentary under-secretaries, who have two distinct sets of duties,
one administrative and the other parliamentary. Their administrative
duties vary very largely, mainly in accordance with personal
considerations. Some of them are really active in their departments,
doing work which might fall upon the parliamentary chief, or upon the
permanent under-secretary, while others have little or no administrative
business; but in any case the real object of their existence is to be
found on the parliamentary side. Whatever duties, parliamentary or
administrative, may be assigned to an under-secretary, he is strictly
subordinate to his chief, who retains both the authority and the
responsibility for the decision of all questions that arise in the
department;[77:1] although an active under-secretary in the Commons may
sometimes attract more public notice than his real chief in the Lords.
It is commonly said that as a minister can speak only in the House of
which he is a member, there must be two parliamentary representatives
for every department, one in each House. This, however, is not strictly
true. Going back, for example, over the period of a generation, we find
that the Foreign, Colonial and Indian Offices have practically always
been represented in both Houses.[78:1] The other great departments have,
of course, always been represented in the Commons;[78:2] but the War
Office and the Admiralty have not always been represented in the Lords.
The Board of Trade has often, and the Local Government Board and Home
Office have usually, had no spokesman of their own there;[78:3] while
all the parliamentary officers of the Treasury invariably sit in the
Commons. The system of under-secretaries, therefore, is by no means
always used in order to give a representative to the department in both
Houses. It not infrequently happens that both, or in the case of the War
Office and the Admiralty all three, representatives sit in the House of
Commons. An under-secretary, even when he sits with his chief in the
Commons, is, however, a convenience for those departments which have a
great deal of business to attend to, and many questions to answer.
Moreover, the large number of under-secretaryships has the advantage
already noticed of including within the ministry a considerable number
of lesser party lights who have not achieved sufficient prominence to be
included in the cabinet, and yet whose interest in the fortunes of the
ministry it is wise to secure.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet and the Privy Council.]
One of the great changes in administrative machinery that has taken
place in the civilised world within the last two hundred years is the
substitution of an informal cabinet composed of the heads of
departments, for a formal governing council of members who had
themselves no direct administrative duties. The form of the old council
has survived in England under the name of the Privy Council, but its
functions have become a shadow. The Privy Council never meets as a whole
now except for ceremonial purposes. Its action is, indeed, still legally
necessary for the performance of many acts of state, such as the
adoption of Orders in Council, and the like; but this is a formal
matter, requiring the presence of only three persons, who follow the
directions of a minister, for all cabinet ministers are members of the
Privy Council. The Council does real work to-day only through its
committees. Of these the most notable is the Judicial Committee, which
sits as a court of appeal in ecclesiastical and colonial cases, and will
be more fully described in a later chapter. Other committees, such as
those on trade and on education, have at times rendered great service to
the state, but the more important administrative committees have now
been transformed into regular departments of the government. It is by no
means certain, however, that the Privy Council may not, through its
committees, become in the future an organ by means of which important
political functions, especially in connection with the growth of the
empire, will be evolved. At present it is mainly an honorary body. Its
members are appointed for life, and bear the title of Right Honourable;
and, indeed, of late years membership in the Council has been conferred
as a sort of decoration for services in politics, literature, science,
war, or administration.
[Sidenote: Future of the Cabinet.]
Mr. Gladstone was of opinion that the cabinet had "found its final
shape, attributes, functions, and permanent ordering,"[79:1] and so far
as its relation to Parliament alone is concerned, this may very well be
true; but Parliament is gradually ceasing to be the one final arbiter in
public life. The cabinet is daily coming into closer contact with the
nation, and what modifications that may entail we cannot foresee. It may
be observed, however, that while the members of the cabinet present a
united front, and say the same thing in Parliament, they do not always
say the same thing to the country. The ministers agree on a policy
before announcing it in Parliament, but they are not always in the
habit of taking counsel together about the speeches that they make upon
the platform. Mr. Chamberlain's sudden declaration of a policy of
preferential tariffs in his speech at Birmingham in 1903 is only an
extreme example of what sometimes occurs. Absolute unanimity may not,
indeed, prove to be so necessary to the ministers in order to maintain
their authority before the people as it is to hold their position in the
House of Commons.[80:1] But no serious changes in the structure of the
cabinet are probable so long as parliamentary government continues in
its present form; and it is too early to speculate on the changes that
may occur if the parliamentary system itself becomes modified under the
pressure of political parties acting in a democratic country.
FOOTNOTES:
[53:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 496.
[56:1] This is the opinion of two of the most prominent Prime Ministers
of the century. Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 330; Morley, "Life of
Walpole," 159; the latter representing, as has already been pointed out,
the views of Mr. Gladstone.
[57:1] For an example of the difficulties that arise on this score,
_cf._ Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 628-29. Lord Rosebery, who,
after being Prime Minister in 1895, was left out of the next Liberal
cabinet in 1905, had taken himself out of the field by saying that he
could not serve in a ministry whose chief held the views on Home Rule
that Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman had expressed.
[57:2] _Cf._ Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 486-89; III., 347-48.
[58:1] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., II., 189-90.
[60:1] If the post of Lord Privy Seal is not needed for this purpose, it
is given, without salary, to the holder of some other office.
[60:2] The President of the Council had in the past a somewhat undefined
authority in connection with the Committee of the Council on Education,
but this committee has now been replaced by a Board.
[61:1] The Law Officers present occasional exceptions.
[61:2] As in the case of Mr. Birrell in the present ministry, a man who
is not in Parliament may, of course, be included in a new cabinet in the
expectation that he will win a seat at the impending dissolution.
[61:3] Eng. Const., 1 Ed., 228-30.
[63:1] _Cf._ Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," II., 405, note _w_.
[63:2] This happened, for example, in 1825, when Palmerston, Goulburn
and Copley (all three in the ministry) were three out of the six
candidates for the two seats for Cambridge University. Bulwer, "Life of
Palmerston," I., 153 _et seq._
[64:1] One cannot read Mr. Morley's "Life of Gladstone" without being
struck by the frequency of such differences. One feels that in his
twenty-five years of life in the cabinet Gladstone must have expended
almost as much effort in making his views prevail with his colleagues as
in forcing them through Parliament.
[64:2] In Gladstone's cabinet of 1880-1885 the practice of counting
votes was complained of, as an innovation. Morley, "Life of Gladstone,"
III., 5.
[65:1] This obligation has been said to rest upon the cabinet minister's
oath of secrecy as a privy councillor (Todd, 2 Ed., II., 83-84, 240).
But this would seem to be another case of confusion between the law and
the conventions of the constitution. Although the permission of the
sovereign must be obtained before proceedings in the cabinet can be made
public (_cf._ Hans., 3 Ser. CCCIV., 1182, 1186, 1189), yet in fact the
duty of secrecy is not merely a legal obligation towards the sovereign
which he can waive under the advice, for example, of a ministry of the
other party. It is a moral duty towards one's colleagues, which ceases
when by lapse of time, or otherwise, the reason for it has been removed;
and the secrets must be kept from other privy councillors, the leaders
of the Opposition for example, as well as from the rest of the world.
Sometimes sharp discussions have occurred on the limits of the
permission given to reveal what has taken place at cabinet meetings.
This occurred after Mr. Chamberlain's resignation in 1886. Churchill,
"Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," II., 85-86.
[66:1] _E.g._ Hans. (1886), 3 Ser. CCCIV., 1181 _et seq._, 1811 _et
seq._, and (1904), 4 Ser. CXXIX., 878, 880; CXXX., 349 _et seq._;
CXXXI., 403 _et seq._, 709 _et seq._
[66:2] _E.g._ Rep. Com. on Civil List, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 607.
[66:3] There is some interesting gossip about instances of this kind in
MacDonagh, "Book of Parliament," 337-49.
[67:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 496-99.
[67:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 151. Cabinet dinners have occasionally
taken place of late years, but it is safe to say that they have not been
held with that object.
[67:3] Mr. Gladstone "was emphatic and decided in his opinion that if
the Premier mentioned to the Queen any of his colleagues who had opposed
him in the cabinet, he was guilty of great baseness and perfidy."
Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 575. But this seems to have applied
only to giving their names. _Ibid._, III., 132.
[68:1] In 1906 the position was recognized by being accorded a place in
the order of precedence. _Cf._ Hans., 4 Ser. CLVI., 742.
[68:2] Walpole repudiated the title of First or Prime Minister, although
he was, in fact, the first man to occupy such a position.
[68:3] See Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 329-30; Gladstone,
"Gleanings of Past Years," I., 242. See also the description in Morley,
"Life of Walpole," 150-65, which, as already pointed out, represents Mr.
Gladstone's views.
[69:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 383.
[69:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 159-60.
[70:1] "Sir Robert Peel, from his Private Correspondence"; _cf._ Parker,
"Sir Robert Peel"; Morley, "Life of Gladstone," I., 248, 298.
[70:2] Ashley, "Life of Palmerston," II., 257; _cf._ Morley, "Life of
Gladstone," II., 35.
[70:3] In his review of Parker's "Sir Robert Peel," in the first number
of the _Anglo-Saxon Review_.
[70:4] Hans., 4 Ser. LXXVIII., 27.
[70:5] At the end of his first ministry, and at the beginning of his
second, Mr. Gladstone held the office of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
With this exception, and with that of Lord Salisbury, no Prime Minister
has been at the head of a department since 1835.
[72:1] "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 242.
[72:2] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 164-65. This would hardly be stated in
such broad terms to-day.
[73:1] During the late war in South Africa, there was a special Cabinet
Committee on National Defence, which was afterwards enlarged and made
permanent, as explained in the following chapter.
[73:2] See a collection of instances in Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England,"
2 Ed., II., 471 _et seq._, and I., 444-49, 668-87. The vote in 1887 to
adjourn in order to draw attention to the conduct of the police in the
case of Miss Cass might very well have been regarded as a censure upon
the Home Secretary, Mr. Matthews; but he did not think it necessary to
resign. Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXVI., 1796-1830.
[74:1] The vote to reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War
in 1895 was anomalous. It was a trick which will be explained in a later
chapter.
[75:1] Com. on Nat. Expenditure, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 1 and
3.
[76:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 140.
[76:2] Hans., 4 Ser. CXXIII., 348-49.
[76:3] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 506-09.
[77:1] It may be noted that the Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant
of Ireland is not a parliamentary under-secretary, but the real head of
the Irish Office, unless the Viceroy is in the cabinet; also that until
the creation of the recent Board of Education the relations between the
President and Vice-President of the Committee of Council on Education
were not clearly defined.
[78:1] In the Liberal cabinet of 1905, however, both representatives of
India are in the Commons.
[78:2] The Board of Works and the Post-Office have at times been
represented in the Commons by the Treasury.
[78:3] Some member of the government is always ready to answer questions
for them, and if need be to defend a department not directly
represented.
[79:1] Morley, "Life of Walpole," 165.
[80:1] The Duke of Argyle found fault with this practice as early as the
cabinet of 1880-1885. Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 4. Mr.
Gladstone thought that liberty of speech should be used by a cabinet
minister "sparingly, reluctantly, and with much modesty and reserve"
(_Ibid._, 113), although his own incautious remark about the American
Civil War had at an earlier time caused the cabinet of which he was a
member no little embarrassment. _Ibid._, II., 75-86.
CHAPTER IV
THE EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENTS
The departments of state are very different from one another, both in
historical origin and in legal organisation; and they have gone through
transformations of all kinds, until the nomenclature has in some cases
almost ceased to bear any relation to the facts. The title of an officer
often gives no clear idea of his functions. The most striking case is
that of the Treasury, whose regular chief, from the time of Henry VIII.
to the death of Anne, was the Lord High Treasurer. Since 1714 the office
has always been in commission; that is, its duties have been intrusted
to a board composed of a number of Lords of the Treasury. But while the
board is still regularly constituted by Letters Patent whenever a new
ministry is formed, and still retains its legal authority, all political
power has, in fact, passed from its hands. The board never meets, most
of its members have little or no connection with the Treasury, and its
functions are really performed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who
is not now a chancellor, and does not control the work of what is more
properly called the Exchequer. Thus, by a strange process of evolution
the powers of the Lord High Treasurer have, by law, become vested in a
board; and by a still later custom they are actually wielded by quite a
different officer, whose title indicates neither his succession to the
Treasurer nor the nature of his present duties.
Although in origin and legal organisation the departments of state are
very unlike, yet the growth of custom, and the exigencies of
parliamentary life, have, for practical purposes, forced almost all of
them into something very near one common type. Whatever the legal form
of the authority at their head, the actual control is now in nearly
every case in the hands of a single responsible minister, usually
assisted by one or more parliamentary subordinates, and supported by a
corps of permanent non-political officials, who carry on the work of the
office.
[Sidenote: Origin of the Departments.]
[Sidenote: The Former Great Offices.]
The historical origin of most of the departments may be traced to one of
three sources: the great offices of an earlier time; the secretariat of
state; and the more recent boards and commissions. Many of the former
offices of state survive as honorary posts, or with duties connected
solely with the royal household.[82:1] The only ones that are still in
touch with public administration are those of the Lord High Chancellor,
who has retained the greater part of his ancient authority; of the Lord
High Treasurer, the transformations of whose office have already been
mentioned; and of the Lord High Admiral, whose powers have also gone
into commission, and are vested in the Admiralty Board.
[Sidenote: The Secretariat of State.]
The secretariat is an old institution, although the standing of its
members has varied much at different times. There are now five
secretaries of state, but their position is peculiar in this, that they
all share, from a legal point of view, the same office; and except so
far as statutes have conferred special authority upon one or another,
each of them can perform the duties of all the rest. During the greater
part of the eighteenth century there were two secretaries, one for the
northern and the other for the southern department, the former having
charge of the relations with the northern powers, the latter of those
with the southern powers together with home and colonial affairs. A
series of changes made at the end of the century resulted in an increase
of the number of secretaries to three, and a redistribution of their
work, so that one had charge of foreign relations, another of home
affairs, and the third of war and the colonies. The Crimean War brought
about in 1854 the separation of the colonial and war departments, with
the creation of a fourth secretary of state; and, finally, the mutiny in
India, and the consequent transfer of the direct government of that
country to the Crown, caused the appointment of a fifth secretary of
state to take charge of Indian affairs.
[Sidenote: The Recent Boards and Commissions.]
[Sidenote: Sham Boards.]
The third great source of public departments has been the creation in
comparatively recent times of a number of administrative boards or
commissions, whose duties (except in the case of the Board of Works) are
not primarily executive; that is, they are not concerned mainly with
direct administration, but rather with the supervision and control of
local authorities and of bodies exercising functions of a public or a
quasi-public nature. There are now five boards of this kind, the Board
of Trade, the Local Government Board, the Board of Works, the Board of
Agriculture, and the Board of Education. Some of them, the first and
last named, for example, have developed from committees of the Privy
Council; while others have grown out of administrative commissions which
were not originally regarded as political, and had no representatives of
their own in Parliament. Except in the case of the Board of Trade,[83:1]
both their organisation and their functions now rest upon
statutes,[83:2] and in general character they are all very much alike.
Each of them consists of a president,[83:3] of the five secretaries of
state, and of other high dignitaries, such as the Lord President of the
Privy Council, the First Lord of the Treasury, or the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, and sometimes, in the case of the older boards, even of the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Speaker of the House of Commons. But
the board never meets; the president alone constitutes a quorum, and he
conducts the business of the department, with the assistance, in the
case of the Board of Trade, of the Local Government Board and the Board
of Education, of a secretary who is not himself a member of the board,
but is, like the president, capable of sitting in the House of Commons,
and occupies, in short, the position of a parliamentary under-secretary.
In practice, therefore, these boards are legal phantoms that provide
imaginary colleagues for a single responsible minister; and, indeed, the
only department in the English government conducted by a board that
really meets for the transaction of business is the Admiralty.[84:1]
A satirical observer has remarked that the English Constitution is a
bundle of shams; and this is inevitable where law fails to keep pace
with custom--where the legal organisation has ceased to express the real
working of the system. But it is difficult to penetrate the motive for
deliberately constructing a sham; and yet that was done in the creation
of the Board of Agriculture in 1889, and the Board of Education ten
years later. In the last case the measure was criticised upon this
ground;[84:2] and Sir John Gorst in reply said that, as there were other
boards, the general desire of the House was thought to be in favour of a
Board of Education, and that, although these boards did not often meet,
they were potential.[84:3] He denied that the Committee of Council on
Education had never met, and referred to an occasion, about twenty years
earlier, when it had been called together, and actually transacted
business.[84:4] A better statement of the reason, or rather the absence
of any reason, for the creation of a sham board, was made with
characteristic frankness by the Duke of Devonshire, who said, "as far as
I remember, the point was mooted when the bill was first prepared, but I
quite admit that I am unable, at the present moment, to recollect the
reasons which weighed in favour of a board rather than a secretariat. It
has the advantage, at all events, of numerous precedents, and it is
perfectly well understood that there will be no board at all."[85:1]
In giving in this chapter a sketch of the executive departments nothing
will be said of those offices to which no substantial administrative
duties, or none outside of the royal household, are attached. There are
about a dozen such posts, which are regarded as so far political that
their holders retire upon a change of ministry; but they are omitted
here, because the object is to describe not the offices of state, but
the different branches of the public service and the distribution of
business among them. Most of the departments require for our purpose
only a few words, to point out the general nature of their duties and
anything unusual in their structure or method of working. The functions
of some others, such as the Colonial Office, the Local Government Board
and the Board of Education, can be passed over rapidly, because they
will be treated more fully in the chapters devoted to the subjects under
their control; while the Army, the Navy and the Treasury are described
at greater length on account of the peculiarities in their organisation,
and the fact that their work is not dealt with in any other part of the
book.
[Sidenote: The Foreign Office.]
The Foreign Office has at its head a secretary of state, who, like the
chief of every normal department, is supported by a parliamentary
under-secretary and also by a permanent staff consisting of an
under-secretary, several assistant under-secretaries--in this instance
three--besides clerks and other permanent officials. For convenience of
administration there are in the Foreign Office a number of departments,
the business being distributed among them partly on a geographical
basis, and partly according to the nature of the subject.[86:1] The
office has, of course, charge of foreign relations, controlling for that
purpose the diplomatic representatives and the consuls. The only odd
thing about its duties is the fact that in addition to the ordinary
functions of a foreign office it governs certain dependencies of the
Crown. The expansion of European influence over the less favoured
portions of the globe has produced among other new things the
"protectorate," which involves, by a political fiction, an international
as well as a philanthropic relation between the ruler and the ruled. The
result is that protectorates not closely connected with existing
colonies are administered by the Foreign Office. This has been true of a
number of protectorates in Africa, and notably of Egypt, which is still
nominally ruled by the Khedive under the suzerainty of the Turkish
Sultan, but is practically governed by a British agent.
[Sidenote: Position of the Foreign Secretary.]
The conduct of the relations with foreign powers requires from its very
nature a peculiar method of procedure. Much of the work of the Foreign
Office consists, no doubt, in examining and pushing the private legal
claims of British subjects, and to some extent work of that kind has a
routine character. But apart from this there is comparatively little of
the detailed administration--so common in other departments--which,
involving merely the application of settled principles to particular
cases, can be conducted by subordinates without consulting the political
chief. Much of the correspondence with foreign powers may entail serious
consequences, and hence must ordinarily be laid before the Secretary of
State. The permanent officials play, therefore, a smaller part in the
management of affairs than in most branches of the public service, a
matter that will be discussed more fully in a subsequent chapter.[87:1]
Moreover, the representatives at foreign courts are kept, by means of
the telegraph, under more constant instructions than formerly, and it
has become the habit in all countries to retain diplomatic negotiations
very closely in the hands of the home government. Even the functions of
foreign envoys as the eyes and ears of the state have declined in
importance; and it has been observed that as gatherers of political
information they have been largely superseded by the correspondents of
the press.
All this has the effect of concentrating the direction of foreign
relations in the hands of the Secretary of State. At the same time he is
singularly free from immediate parliamentary control. Diplomatic
correspondence is ordinarily confidential, and it is usually a
sufficient answer to any question in Parliament, touching foreign
relations, to say that the information sought cannot be given without
detriment to the public service. It follows that the presence of the
minister in the House of Commons is less necessary than in the case of
other departments; while his arduous duties make it hard for him to find
the time required for attendance at the long sittings. These facts,
coupled with the strange provision of law which permits only four of the
five secretaries of state to sit there, resulted in placing peers at the
head of the Foreign Office continuously from 1868 to 1905, the
under-secretary alone representing the department in the popular
chamber. But if the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs is less under
the direct control of Parliament than other ministers, he is more under
the control of his colleagues. We have already seen that every important
despatch ought to be submitted, before it is sent off, both to the Prime
Minister and to the sovereign; and, as a rule, the telegrams, together
with correspondence of peculiar interest, are also circulated among all
the members of the cabinet.[88:1] In fact there is probably no
department where the executive action of the minister is so constantly
brought to the notice of his colleagues.
[Sidenote: The Colonial Office.]
Ever since England began to extend her dominion beyond the seas her
foreign relations have been complicated by her distant possessions, and
it is therefore natural to pass from the offices of the Secretary of
State for Foreign Affairs on one side of the doorway in Downing Street
to those of the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the other. But it
is needless to speak of the Colonial Office at length here, because the
government of the dependencies will form the subject of later chapters.
The Secretary of State for the Colonies is assisted by his parliamentary
and permanent under-secretaries, and by a staff of subordinate
officials. There are in this office four permanent assistant
under-secretaries; one of whom has charge of questions of law, and also
at present of business connected with Canada, Australasia and a number
of islands; another of South Africa; a third of the East and West
Indies, emigration, prisons and hospitals, with a mass of miscellaneous
matters; and the fourth of East and West Africa.[88:2] But the division
of the colonies among these officers is not fixed, and varies to some
extent with their personal experience. There are, in close connection
with the office, agents for each of the dependencies, those for the
self-governing colonies being real representatives appointed by the
colonial governments, while the three who act on behalf of the crown
colonies are selected by the Colonial Office itself.
It may be observed that the Colonial Office has by no means charge of
all the outlying dependencies of the British Crown. Besides the
protectorates governed by the Foreign Office, there are a number of
smaller places under the care of other departments. The Isle of Man and
the Channel Islands, for example, are under the Home Secretary; some
small islets are used only for lighthouses by the Board of Trade; while
by an official fiction the Island of Ascension is considered a vessel of
war, and as such is commanded by the Admiralty. But larger by far than
any of these, more populous than all the other parts of the British
Empire put together, is India. It is not classed among the colonies, for
that term is confined to the places under the Colonial Office, and does
not extend to a country ruled by a distinct administrative system of its
own.
[Sidenote: The India Office.]
The Secretary of State for India has the usual parliamentary and
permanent staff; but he has in addition a Council of India, composed of
not less than ten or more than fifteen members, appointed for a term of
ten years. In order to insure a familiarity with Indian conditions, it
is provided that nine of the members must have lived in India within ten
years of their appointment.[89:1] The Council is a consultative body. It
has no power of initiative, but except for matters requiring secrecy or
urgency (such as war and peace, or the relations of India with foreign
powers or with the native states), all questions must be brought before
it for consideration. The Secretary of State is not, however, bound by
its decision, save in a few cases, of which the most important are the
expenditure of the Indian revenues, and the issue of Indian loans.[89:2]
Legally, the government of India is directed by the Secretary of State
and his Council. Even the laws made in India can be disallowed by the
Crown on their advice; but in spite of the ease of communication
furnished by the telegraph, the internal affairs of the country are
still in the main managed by the authorities in India, happily without
much interference from England. Parliament, moreover, exercises little
control over Indian administration. Some matters--the use of the Indian
revenues, for example, to pay for expeditions beyond the
frontier--require its consent; and in other cases notice of action taken
must be laid before it within a certain time. But the ordinary
opportunities for bringing pressure to bear do not exist, because the
salary of the Secretary of State for India, being paid out of the Indian
revenues, does not furnish an occasion for a debate in Parliament; and
although the Indian budget is regularly submitted, it does not need to
be approved. On one of the last days of the session, when the work of
the year is almost done, and the members are weary of attending, this
budget, which is merely a financial statement, is introduced, and in
order to give an opportunity for debate a formal motion is made that the
Indian accounts show such and such totals of receipts and expenses. A
discussion follows on the part of members who deem themselves qualified
to express opinions on the government of India, and then the vote is
passed. An illustration of the small authority of Parliament in Indian
matters may be found in the fact that in 1891 (April 10) the House of
Commons carried against the ministers a motion condemning the opium
revenue; and in 1893 (June 2) a resolution that the examinations for the
Indian Civil Service ought to be held in India, as well as in England,
was carried in the same way; yet, on each occasion, the government after
studying the subject came to the conclusion that the opinion of the
House had been wrong, and did not carry it into effect. Such a condition
of things is highly fortunate, for there is probably no body of men less
fitted to rule a people than a representative assembly elected in
another land by a different race.
If the vast colonial empire has complicated foreign relations it has
also caused England to become the greatest of maritime powers, with an
enormous navy to protect her dependencies, her merchant ships, and not
least important, the routes of her food supply. The effective
organisation of a naval force is, therefore, of more importance in her
case than in that of any other nation.
[Sidenote: The Admiralty.]
It has already been observed that the Admiralty is the only department
of state conducted by a board that really meets for the transaction of
business, yet even in this case the statement may convey a false
impression of the character of the body. The board as created by Letters
Patent under the Great Seal consists of a First Lord, four Naval Lords
and a Civil Lord; but by a series of Orders in Council, and by the
practice of the department, the parliamentary and permanent secretaries
also sit as members of the board.[91:1] The First Lord, the Civil Lord
and the parliamentary secretary are capable of sitting in the House of
Commons, and are, in fact, always members of one or other House of
Parliament. The permanent secretary is, as his name implies, a permanent
official, and hence excluded from the House of Commons altogether. The
Naval Lords, on the other hand, although eligible to Parliament,[91:2]
are very rarely members,[91:3] and yet they are not permanent officials.
They occupy the anomalous position of non-political officials, who
nevertheless retire upon the fall of the ministry. This does not mean
that they belong necessarily to the party in power, or that they may not
be reappointed under the commission issued when a new ministry comes
into office. In order to preserve a continuity of administration, and a
knowledge of the work, the new patent usually includes one, and
sometimes more, of the Naval Lords who served under the preceding
cabinet, and commonly another who held the place under some earlier
ministry of the party that has taken office.
[Sidenote: Position of the First Lord.]
According to the language of the patent all of the members of the Board
of Admiralty are equal in authority; but in fact the First Lord, who is
always in the cabinet, is held by Parliament responsible for the conduct
of the department, and as the other members of the board can be changed
if necessary on his recommendation, they must adopt the course which he
can justify in Parliament. With the evolution of the cabinet system,
therefore, the power of the First Lord has increased until he has become
practically a minister of marine assisted by an advisory council. The
relation was sanctioned, not created, by Orders in Council of Jan. 14,
1869, and March 19, 1872, which declared the First Lord responsible for
all business of the Admiralty,[92:1] and thus "the department now
possesses more the character of a council with a supreme responsible
head than that of an administrative board."[92:2]
[Sidenote: The Other Lords.]
The Civil Lord and the financial or parliamentary secretary are
subordinate ministers, who occupy substantially the position of
parliamentary under-secretaries. They are civilians, as is the permanent
secretary also; while the four Naval Lords are naval officers, usually
of high rank, who bring an expert knowledge to bear upon the
administration of the department. But the members of the board, like the
cabinet ministers, have individual as well as collective duties. By the
Orders in Council of March 19, 1872, and March 10, 1882, and the
regulations made in pursuance thereof, the work of the office is
distributed among the members of the board, each of whom is at the head
of a branch of the service, and responsible for it to the First Lord. By
virtue of this arrangement the First Lord retains in his own hands the
general direction of political questions, and the appointment of flag
officers and the commanders of ships. The First Naval Lord, who is also
the principal adviser of his chief, has charge of strategical questions,
the distribution of the fleet, discipline, and the selection of the
higher officers not commanding ships. The Second Naval Lord has charge
of the recruiting and education of officers and men, and the selection
of the lower officers. The Third Naval Lord, who is the "Controller,"
attends to the dockyards, and to construction, repairs and ordnance;
while the Junior Naval Lord has charge of the transport and medical
service, and the victualling and coaling of the fleet. The Civil Lord
attends to the civil establishments, and the contracts relating to
stores and to land. The parliamentary secretary is responsible for
finance; and the permanent secretary for the personnel in the Admiralty
Office, for routine papers and correspondence and for the continuity of
business on the advent of a new board.[93:1]
Thus the actual administration of the Navy devolves upon the members of
the board charged with the superintendence of the different branches of
the service, while the full board meets frequently for the consideration
of such questions as the First Lord wishes to refer to it.[93:2] There
have been at times complaints about the working of the board, and the
existing organisation is the result of gradual adaptations,[93:3] but at
the present day the system appears to be highly satisfactory, and in
fact it is constantly held up as a model to the less fortunate chiefs of
the Army.
[Sidenote: The War Office.]
[Sidenote: Effect of the Crimean War.]
The organisation of the War Office has undergone far more changes than
that of the Admiralty, and has been the subject of a great deal more
criticism both in and out of Parliament.[93:4] Like other countries with
a popular form of government, England has found it hard to reconcile
military command and civil control. In the War Office, as in the
Admiralty, there has been a tendency to transfer supreme power gradually
to the hands of the parliamentary chief; but owing to a number of
causes--one of which was the tenacity with which the Queen clung to the
idea of a peculiar personal connection between the Crown and the
Army--the process of change in the War Office has been slow and halting.
Up to the time of the Crimean War the Army was controlled by several
different authorities, whose relations to one another were not very
clearly defined, and who were subordinate to no single administrative
head. This naturally produced friction and lack of efficiency, which
was forcibly brought to public attention by the sufferings of the
troops during the war. The result was the creation of a distinct
Secretary of State for War, and the concentration in his hands of
most of the business relating to the Army; but the change was made
without a thorough reorganisation of the War Office, and without
defining the relative authority of the Secretary of State and the
Commander-in-Chief.[94:1] This last office was held at that time by the
Queen's cousin, the Duke of Cambridge; and the fact that he was a royal
duke, coupled with the Queen's feelings about the Army, threw an
obstacle in the way of bringing the office fully under the control of
the Secretary. In 1870, however, the Queen was prevailed upon to issue
an Order in Council providing that the Commander-in-Chief should be
completely subordinate to the Secretary of State.[95:1] Unfortunately,
this order by no means settled either the organisation of the War
Office, or the relation between the Secretary and the Commander-in-Chief.
[Sidenote: Lord Hartington's Commission.]
A number of commissions have examined the subject, one of the most
important of late years being Lord Hartington's Commission, which
reported in 1890.[95:2] At that time[95:3] the Adjutant General, who was
charged with the general supervision of the military department, was the
first staff officer of the Commander-in-Chief, and as such was
responsible to him for the efficiency of the forces; while the other
principal military officers--the Quartermaster General, Military
Secretary, Director of Artillery, Inspector of Fortifications, and
Director of Military Intelligence--were also immediately responsible not
to the Secretary of State, but to the Commander-in-Chief, and approached
the latter through the Adjutant General. Thus, while all the officers in
the department were nominally subordinate to the Secretary of State,
practically between him and them stood the Commander-in-Chief, who had
the privilege of approaching the Crown directly and without the
intervention of the Secretary. The commission thought that such a system
failed to make the heads of the different branches of the service
effectively responsible to the Secretary, or to provide any satisfactory
system for giving him expert advice. They recommended, therefore, the
virtual abolition of the office of Commander-in-Chief, and a division of
the duties among a number of officers, who should be individually
responsible for their administrative work to the Secretary, and should
collectively advise him as a War Office Council. They recommended, in
short, a system not unlike that of the Admiralty.
[Sidenote: The Changes of 1895.]
As a preliminary to bringing about a change of this kind Sir Henry
Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal Secretary of State for War, procured the
resignation of the Duke of Cambridge in 1895, and Lord Wolseley was
appointed Commander-in-Chief for five years. The Secretary then
announced a plan in accordance with the main principles suggested by the
Hartington Commission. But just at that time the Liberal administration
fell,[96:1] and Lord Lansdowne, the new Secretary of State, made a
change in the plan, which left more power in the hands of the
Commander-in-Chief. The policy thus adopted was embodied in an Order in
Council of Nov. 21, 1895, followed by a memorandum setting out in
greater detail the duties of the heads of the different branches of the
service thereunder.[96:2] According to the new system the
Commander-in-Chief exercised the general command, issued army orders,
inspected troops, took charge of the distribution of the Army, and
prepared strategical plans, having under him for that purpose the
Director of Military Intelligence. He was also to have the general
supervision of all the military departments, and to be the principal
military adviser of the Secretary of State, all important questions
going to him before submission to the Secretary. The Adjutant General
was to have charge of the discipline and training of officers and men,
and the patterns of their uniforms,--a matter which seems to involve as
many changes in fashion as a dressmaking establishment. The
Quartermaster General had charge of food, forage, transports and
remounts. The Inspector of Fortifications constructed and maintained
forts, barracks, etc., and supervised the engineer corps. The Inspector
General of Ordnance looked after the supply of warlike stores and
equipments, and each of these officers advised the Secretary of State on
questions connected with his department. The Financial Secretary had
charge of all questions of expenditure, and of the audit of accounts.
Until 1899 he was also at the head of the manufacturing departments, but
by an order of that year they were transferred to the Inspector General
of Ordnance, whose title was changed to Director. By the memorandum
which followed the order a War Office Council was created, consisting of
the heads of the military departments, the under-secretaries of state,
and the Financial Secretary, together with any other officers who might
be summoned; its function being to discuss subjects referred to it by
the Secretary of State. An Army Board, composed of the heads of the
principal military departments, was also established, which was to
report upon promotions to the higher grades in the Army, upon estimates,
and upon other questions submitted to it by the Secretary of State.
[Sidenote: Their Results.]
The two great changes made at this time were the modification in the
powers of the Commander-in-Chief, and the creation of consultative
boards in the War Office. Neither of them can be said to have attained
the object aimed at. The attempt to create advisory councils of that
kind has been tried more than once, but after working usefully for a
time they have ceased to meet regularly and have fallen into disuse.
This appears to have been the case with the War Office Council and Army
Board created in 1895 and reorganized in 1899 and 1900.[97:1]
The position of Commander-in-Chief under the Order in Council of 1895
has been the subject of severe criticism. At the expiration of his term
of five years, Lord Wolseley recorded in a memorandum his opinion that
the attempt to give the Commander-in-Chief a supervision over the
departments of the War Office, and yet make their heads responsible to
the Secretary of State, involved a contradiction, and had resulted in
depriving the Commander-in-Chief of all effective control, and in making
his office a high-sounding title with no real responsibility. He
insisted that no army could be efficient unless the command, discipline
and training of the troops were in the hands of one man, and that man a
soldier; and he urged that the Commander-in-Chief should either be made
the real head of the forces, or that the office should be abolished, and
the Secretary of State for War should be himself a military man.[98:1]
The only direct result that the memorandum had on the organisation of
the War Office was the reëstablishmemt of the control of the
Commander-in-Chief over the department of the Adjutant General by an
Order in Council on Nov. 4, 1901.[98:2] But a statement by Lord Wolseley
of his views, in a speech in the House of Lords in March, 1901, led to
an unseemly altercation with Lord Lansdowne, the late Secretary of State
for War, in which each sought to cast upon the other the blame for the
lack of preparation for the war in South Africa.[98:3] The occurrence
would appear to show that the relations between the military and civil
authorities at the War Office are not yet upon a well-recognised or
satisfactory basis; and it shows also that this relation is very
different from that which ordinarily prevails between ministers and
their expert officials. For reasons that will be explained in a later
chapter, such a dispute in any other department would be well-nigh
inconceivable. From a political point of view the Army and Navy officers
are, in fact, in an exceptional situation. They are not subject to the
general rule which excludes from the House of Commons all office-holders
who are not ministers.[98:4] And just as military officers are allowed
to play a part in politics forbidden to other public servants, so those
among them who hold high administrative posts stand in a position
peculiar to themselves, a position which in the case of the Admiralty is
definite and satisfactory, although anomalous, but in the case of the
Army is not altogether definite or satisfactory.
[Sidenote: Effect of the South African War.]
The efficiency of the War Office was put to a rude test by the South
African War, and some branches of the service did not stand the test
very well. The results recalled, although in different respects, the
experiences of the Crimean War. The commission on the war found that,
both as regards plans and stores, there had been a grave lack of
preparation which was not wholly due to the suddenness of the
emergency.[99:1] There was not merely a deficiency in warlike stores,
such as guns[99:2] and ammunition for them,[99:3] cavalry-swords[99:4]
and clothing;[99:5] but some of the stores were unfit for use. Such
clothing, for example, as there was on hand six months before the war
broke out was all red and blue cloth, quite unsuitable for the campaign;
and even after the manufacture of khaki suits had begun, changes were
ordered first in the material and then in the pattern.[99:6] More than
one third of the small arms ammunition on hand was found to be
unserviceable and was discarded;[99:7] and all the reserve rifles were
wrongly sighted, so that at a distance of five hundred yards they shot
eighteen inches to the right--an occurrence the more extraordinary
because the government had been manufacturing those weapons for some
years, and never discovered the defect until after the war broke
out.[99:8]
It would be a mistake to suppose that all the shortcomings in the South
African War arose from defects in the War Office. Some of them were of a
kind certain to occur where a military organisation is suddenly expanded
beyond its normal size. Still, the errors already described certainly
showed a lack of efficiency, and they have led to a remodelling of the
office. In November, 1903, another commission was appointed for this
purpose, and its principal recommendations[100:1] were put into effect
in the course of the following year.[100:2]
[Sidenote: The Changes of 1904.]
According to this last system, for which the Admiralty served as a
pattern, an Army Council has been formed, consisting of the Secretary of
State for War, the parliamentary under-secretary, the Financial
Secretary to the War Office, and of four military members. The post of
Commander-in-Chief having been abolished, and that of Chief of Staff
created instead, the four military members of the council are the Chief
of Staff, the Adjutant General, the Quartermaster General, and the
Master General of Ordnance. By the terms of the Order in Council the
military members are responsible to the Secretary of State for so much
of the business relating to the organisation, disposition, personnel,
armament and maintenance of the Army as he assigns to them or each of
them, while the Financial Secretary is responsible for finance, and the
parliamentary under-secretary for the other matters that are not
strictly military. The permanent under-secretary acts as secretary of
the council, which has also under its orders a new officer, the
Inspector General of the Forces, charged with the duty of reporting to
it upon the results of its policy, and of inspecting and reporting upon
the training and efficiency of the troops, and the condition of the
equipment and fortifications. But the Army Council has in the last
resort only advisory powers, for the Secretary of State is expressly
declared responsible to the Crown and to Parliament for all its
business.
[Sidenote: Lack of Initiative among Officers.]
An army, and especially a standing army, is liable during a long period
of peace to fall into habits that impair its efficiency in war. One of
the chief criticisms made after the South African War related to the
lack of initiative, and of capacity to assume responsibility, on the
part of the officers both in the War Office and in the field.[100:3]
Now, this is precisely the defect that one would expect to find under
the circumstances. With the traditions of strict discipline ingrained in
military men, there is a natural tendency in time of peace to regulate
everything with precision, leaving to subordinate officers little
independence of action. And in fact the Committee on War Office
Organisation in 1901 reported that the Army was administered by means of
a vast system of minute regulations, which tended on the one hand to
suppress individuality and initiative, while on the other their
interpretation led to protracted references, and to absorbing the time
of high officials by matters of routine.[101:1] The evidence presented
to the Committee on the war in South Africa pointed to the same evil,
for it showed that the deficiencies of the officers arose from their
being too much controlled and supervised during their training.[101:2]
[Sidenote: Their Training.]
The excessive tendency to routine, and the consequent lack of
initiative, might be counteracted in some measure by a keen intellectual
interest in the profession on the part of the younger officers; but the
military education they receive is hardly of a character to stimulate
such an interest. As a rule the candidates for commissions, after
leaving the great public schools, such as Eton, Harrow and Rugby, where
the sons of the upper classes are educated, obtain admission to the
military academies by means of competitive examinations based upon the
curriculum of those schools. The ordinary time then spent in studying at
Woolwich, where the engineer and artillery officers are taught, is two
years; that at Sandhurst, the school for the infantry and cavalry, was
eighteen months before the South African War, and later only a year.
Periods of this length are obviously too short to give a thorough
training, or even a strong interest, in military science; and, in fact,
the object is rather to produce a good subaltern than a highly educated
officer.[102:1] If a man is ambitious for promotion he is expected to
pursue his studies by himself, or to attend the staff college, later in
life. Now, with the modern application of science to warfare, a military
officer has become a member of a learned profession. But in England the
preliminary teaching is insufficient for this purpose; and what is more,
the conditions of the service are very unlike those of learned
professions, and hardly such as to stimulate intellectual activity.
Moreover, the private contributions to the mess, and the other expenses
of an officer, are often so great that it is difficult for a man without
private means to follow the Army as a career. In short, after the
abolition of the purchase of commissions in 1871, the Army ceased to be
a caste without becoming a profession.[102:2]
[Sidenote: Advantages of the Navy.]
The fact that the Navy escapes some of the difficulties that beset the
Army is not due altogether to better organisation. The Navy has in many
ways great natural advantages as compared with the Army. Most civilians
feel that after a short experience they could lead a regiment, but few
landsmen have the hardihood to believe that they could ever command a
ship. The Navy is a mystery which ordinary men do not pretend to
understand, and with which they do not attempt to interfere; and this is
a security for expert management. Again the Navy is less exposed to the
dangers of peace. Warships are constantly in service. If they do not
fight, at least they go to sea; and hence the Navy is far less likely
than the Army to suffer from the demoralising influence of minute and
antiquated regulations.
[Sidenote: The Training of Naval Officers.]
This has an effect also upon the training of naval officers. Under the
old plan which is now being superseded, the theoretical education given
them was by no means high. The cadets destined for executive naval
officers entered "The Britannia" at the age of about fifteen, and spent
there a little less than a year and a half. They then had a service of
about three years at sea, where besides learning the practical side of
their profession, they were expected to study elementary mathematics,
mechanics, physics, navigation, surveying, etc. Then followed a couple
of months at Greenwich preparing for the final examination in those
subjects; and, lastly, before receiving their commissions as
sub-lieutenants, five or six months at Portsmouth studying pilotage,
gunnery, and torpedo practice. Thus the average age for obtaining the
commission was not far from twenty years. The theoretical study pursued
was certainly not of an advanced character. In mathematics, for example,
it did not include the calculus, or even conic sections. In fact,
according to the syllabus as revised in 1899, one of the optional
subjects which men who desired to go farther than the rest might pursue,
if they desired, was projectiles, "treated so as not to require a
knowledge of conic sections."[103:1]
The principal changes made by the new plan, which began to go into
effect in 1903, were, first, making the executive, engineer and marine,
officers more nearly into a single corps, and therefore giving them a
common training until they reach the grade of sub-lieutenant; and,
second, reducing the age for entering "The Britannia" to between twelve
and thirteen. This last change enables the cadets to remain at the
school four years, and will, it is hoped, insure a sounder education.
They are then to get a training at sea for three years, followed by
three months at Greenwich and six at Portsmouth. At that point they are
to receive their commissions as sub-lieutenants, and those who join the
executive branch of the service will go to sea again, while the engineer
and marine officers attend their respective colleges for some time
longer.[104:1] Whatever good effects the new plan may have in other
directions, it can hardly increase materially the scientific education
of the cadet.
But if the education in the theory of naval science has not been carried
far, the junior naval officer has much greater opportunities for
learning the practice of his profession than the officer in the army. In
fact, if not a master of naval science he becomes an excellent seaman,
and this, in the opinion of many officers, is much the more important of
the two.
[Sidenote: The Defence Committee.]
One of the chief criticisms of Lord Hartington's Commission on the
administration of the naval and military departments, bore upon the lack
of combined plans of operation for the defence of the empire. They
suggested the formation of a naval and military council, to be presided
over by the Prime Minister, and to consist of the parliamentary heads of
the two services, and their principal professional advisers.[104:2] In
partial fulfilment of this recommendation a committee of the cabinet was
formed, consisting of the Prime Minister, the parliamentary heads of the
Army and the Navy, the First Lord of the Treasury, with the addition, if
need be, of the Colonial Secretary. The committee was intended to deal
with questions unsettled between the two departments, matters in which a
joint policy was advisable, and questions relating to the relative
importance of expenditures; and it differed from other committees in
that minutes were to be kept of its proceedings, and formally recorded
by the departments. The committee seems, however, not to have fulfilled
the intentions of the Hartington Commission, for it has been openly
stated in Parliament that it never met;[105:1] and even the Secretary
of State for War admitted that it acted mainly with regard to estimates,
and to questions within the War Office and the Admiralty, while, in his
opinion, it ought to act on larger questions of policy. A new Defence
Committee was, therefore, created in 1903, to consist, besides members
of the cabinet, of the most influential experts of the two services, and
when necessary of representatives of the Indian and Colonial Offices.
The committee is intended to deal not only with estimates, but with
larger questions of military policy.[105:2] But whether this result will
be permanently attained, or whether the committee will meet with the
usual fate, and find itself absorbed by details of administration and of
expenditure, is yet to be seen.
The departments of state that remain to be considered in this chapter
need not detain us long. They are all concerned with the internal
government of the kingdom, and so far as their work is of general
interest it will be touched upon again.
[Sidenote: The Home Office.]
The Home Office is a kind of residuary legatee. It is intrusted with all
the work of the secretariat that has not been especially assigned to the
remaining secretaries of state, or to the other administrative
departments. Its duties are, therefore, of a somewhat miscellaneous
character. As the heir to the residue of the secretariat, the Home
Secretary is the principal channel of communication between the King and
his subjects, and countersigns the greater number of the King's acts. He
receives addresses and petitions addressed to the sovereign, and
presents them if he thinks best. Among others he receives petitions of
right--that is, claims to be allowed to sue the Crown--and consults the
Attorney General about the answer to be given. Outlying places, such as
the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are not from an
administrative point of view a part of the United Kingdom and yet are
not colonies, fall under his jurisdiction. He has charge of questions of
naturalisation and extradition. But more important still, the central
control over the police, not having been transferred to the Local
Government Board, remains in his hands, and this gives him wide powers
of supervision. The metropolitan police of London is, indeed,
administered directly by the national government under his immediate
control;[106:1] and although the police elsewhere is not under his
orders, yet the fact that the central government pays one half of the
cost on condition his regulations are observed, enables him to prescribe
the organisation, equipment and discipline of the local police all over
England. Moreover, all by-laws of counties and boroughs, except those
relating to nuisances, must be submitted to him for approval, and may on
his advice be disallowed by the Crown.[106:2] As a part of his authority
in matters of police he manages the prisons, both the national prisons
for convicts and the county and borough gaols. He is responsible for the
appointment and removal of recorders and stipendiary magistrates. He
appoints the Director of Public Prosecutions, and makes regulations
about costs in criminal proceedings. By virtue of special statutes he
sees to the enforcement of the acts relating to factories, mines,
burial-grounds, inebriates, anatomy, vivisection, explosives, and other
kindred matters.
He is assisted by a parliamentary under-secretary, and by a large staff
of permanent officials, beginning with a permanent under-secretary, and
including a prison commissioner, a metropolitan police commission, and a
host of inspectors for factories, mines, police, and so forth.
It will be observed that although primarily responsible for public
order, the Home Secretary is by no means a minister of the interior in
the continental sense, for apart from the police he has very little to
do with local government. The supervision of matters of that kind,
although in part scattered among different departments, is mainly
concentrated in the hands of the Local Government Board. The Home
Secretary has, on the other hand, some of the functions of a minister of
justice; and this will be referred to again when we come to speak of the
Law Officers of the Crown.
[Sidenote: The Board of Works.]
The Board of Works is not regarded as a department of great political
importance, and for this reason it presents one of the two or three
cases where the minister has no parliamentary under-secretary. For a
score of years the public lands and buildings were under the care of a
body called the Commissioners of Woods and Forests; but in order to keep
the revenue from land separate from the expenditure upon buildings, and
so bring the latter more completely under the control of Parliament, the
duties were divided in 1852. The Commissioners of Woods, Forests and
Land Revenues were made a permanent non-political body under the
Treasury, while the Board of Works was established to take charge of the
construction and maintenance of parks, palaces and other buildings. At
that time many of the public buildings were, in fact, committed to the
care of the departments that occupied them; but by a series of statutes
these have now been transferred almost wholly to the Board of Works.
Now, although the amount of money that passes through its hands is very
large, the board is by no means entirely free, for without the sanction
of the Treasury it can undertake no work not directly ordered by
Parliament, and it can make no contracts for the erection of large
public buildings without submitting them to the same authority,[107:1]
which also appoints the ordinary permanent staff of the office.[107:2]
[Sidenote: The Board of Trade.]
The Board of Trade occupies, on the contrary, a position of great and
growing importance. It has had a long and chequered history, and
although in the course of its career it has lost duties enough to keep
an active department busy, these have been more than replaced under
that modern tendency toward state regulation of industry which is
constantly adding to its burdens. It deals not only with trade, but with
many of the chief agencies of trade, and especially with transportation.
As in the case of the three other boards to be described hereafter, the
Board of Trade is engaged not in direct administration, but in
supervising and regulating the action of private bodies and local
authorities, and in keeping a watch upon the enforcement of the law.
Speaking broadly, its powers have grown by the process of making it
responsible for the application of a great many statutes.
Its functions may be classified roughly under the heads of collecting
information, registration, inspection, and authorising acts or
undertakings of a public nature; although any such classification is
sadly confused by the fact that duties of more than one kind have been
conferred upon the board in regard to the same subject-matter, and even
by the same statute. To the first of these classes belong its functions
in collecting and publishing statistics relating to domestic and foreign
trade, and giving advice on commercial matters to other departments of
the government. To that class belong also its functions as a labour
bureau in preparing statistics about labour, wages and other matters
touching the interests of workingmen. In this connection it has power
also to act as a board of conciliation in labour disputes, and to name
arbitrators or conciliators. Under the head of registration may be
mentioned its duties in maintaining the standards of weights and
measures; registering joint-stock companies; examining and recording
patents and trade-marks; and keeping a register of ships and seamen.
Under the head of inspection come its functions in ascertaining that
merchant vessels are in a seaworthy condition, and properly laden,
officered, manned and equipped; with the power to detain unseaworthy
craft. Under the same head may be classed its control over harbours, its
duty to see to the enforcement of the laws relating to railways[109:1]
and to inquire into the causes of railway accidents and disasters at
sea. As an example of the final class of powers may be cited the fact
that the by-laws of a railway company require for their validity the
approval of the board; but a far more important instance is to be found
in its control over the building of new lines of railway, over new
undertakings for the supply of water, gas and electric light, and over
the construction of tramways and light railways, the last being a recent
invention legally very different, but physically indistinguishable, from
tramways. This control is exercised by means of provisional orders,
prepared by the board after an investigation and a hearing of all the
persons interested, and then confirmed by Parliament.[109:2] The
petitioner is not, indeed, compelled to resort to a provisional order,
but may avoid the direct control of the Board of Trade by means of a
private bill in Parliament. But a provisional order is far less
expensive; and even when the procedure is by private bill the board
endeavours to exert its influence by scrutinising the bill, and bringing
to the notice of the officers of the House any departures from the
general policy of legislation.[109:3] The result is that the board has
an effective, although by no means an absolute, control over these
matters.
The subject of bankruptcy has also been placed in the hands of the Board
of Trade, and except for legal questions which come before the courts,
it has the entire charge of the cases, maintaining for that purpose a
staff of inspectors, examiners and official receivers.
The nearest approach to actual administrative work intrusted to the
board is in the case of lighthouses, buoys and beacons, which are
maintained by Trinity House, an ancient corporation composed of
self-elected brethren but financially under the control of the Board of
Trade.
[Sidenote: The Local Government Board.]
Until the era of the Reform Bill local affairs in England were managed
in the main by justices of the peace and town councillors, whose powers
were derived from a host of statutes covering many subjects in great
detail. These officers were kept rigorously within the limits of their
authority because the legality of their acts could be tested in the
courts of law; but they were almost entirely free from administrative
control. The first wide breach in the system was made by the Poor Law
Amendment Act of 1834, which aimed at a reform in the method of giving
poor relief, and set up for the purpose a commission to supervise the
local bodies. The new commissioners, being vigorous and efficient,
aroused hostility, and as they were not permitted to sit in Parliament,
they found it hard to defend their policy. In fact the experience they
went through is used by Bagehot as an illustration of the impotence of
an executive department without a representative in the House of
Commons.[110:1] In 1847 the body was reorganised under the title of the
Poor Law Board, with a responsible minister at its head, and thenceforth
received from time to time additions to its duties. Various functions
relating to public health and local government had in the meanwhile been
intrusted to the Home Secretary and the Privy Council; and, finally, in
1871 the greater part of them were transferred to the Poor Law Board,
which was given the name of Local Government Board.
Legislation of this kind has entirely transformed the nature of English
local government. Partly by bringing the exercise of existing powers
under the supervision of the central government, partly by subjecting to
systematic control the new powers called into life by the wants of the
time, the old system of local self-government--limited by law, but
independent of any administrative superior--has been replaced by a
system where the local bodies, and especially those outside of the great
towns, are to a considerable extent under the tutelage of the state. The
subjection is not the same as that which prevails in other European
countries, and it is not so great, but it is in some respects more
nearly akin to the continental system than to that of England in the
eighteenth century.
Except for such matters as police, education, and the supply of
transportation, light and water, the control over the local authorities
is almost entirely vested in the Local Government Board; but as the
subject of local government, and therefore the powers of the board, will
be considered at some length in another part of this book, we do not
need to enumerate its functions here. We need only point out that it has
the unusual number of five assistant under-secretaries, and a large
staff of clerks, auditors and inspectors. But although the amount of
head work to be done, and therefore the number of permanent officials of
high grade, is large, yet from a political point of view the department
is not regarded as of the first class.
[Sidenote: The Board of Agriculture.]
The creation in 1889 of a new department of state to attend to the
matters that have been transferred from various commissions to the Board
of Agriculture hardly seems to have been necessary; and, indeed, the
board is not important enough to require a parliamentary
under-secretary. It has inherited the duty of shaking the dry bones of
ancient tenures by dealing with such subjects as the commutation of
tithes, the enfranchisement of copyhold, the enclosure of commons,
allotments to labourers, and the improvement of land by limited owners.
The control of fisheries, the promotion of agriculture and the
prevention of contagious diseases among animals are also placed under
its care, and it has been given power, or rather authority, to muzzle
dogs and destroy the Colorado beetle.
[Sidenote: The Board of Education.]
The Board of Education is the youngest of all the boards, but in reality
it is only a committee of the Privy Council reorganised with some
additional powers. The most remarkable thing about the act creating
it--apart from the erection of a sham board--is the extent of the
authority delegated to the executive. Instead of prescribing minutely
the organisation and functions of the department of education, the act
empowered the government, in its discretion, to set up such a
consultative committee as it saw fit, and to transfer to the board any
educational duties of the Charity Commissioners or the Board of
Agriculture that it thought best.[112:1] Both of these powers have been
exercised by Orders in Council of Aug. 7, 1900, and the Consultative
Committee has been made to consist of representatives selected by the
universities and by other bodies interested in education. But the
subject of public education will be treated in subsequent chapters, and
it is enough here to note that by means of elaborate regulations,
commonly known as the Education Code, the board prescribes the
instruction to be given in all schools aided by public money;[112:2]
that it inspects endowed or private secondary schools at their
request;[112:3] and that it has charge of the museums at South
Kensington and Bethnal Green, and of the Geological Museum and Survey.
[Sidenote: The Post Office.]
From the point of view of the national government the Post Office has
two functions. It is a great administrative department which conducts a
huge business, with a minister at its head; and it is a source of
income, its gross receipts forming about one seventh of the total
revenues of the United Kingdom, its disbursements only about one tenth
of the total expenditure. For that reason it is under a financial
control by the Treasury so strict as to leave very little chance for
independent action, and this renders the position of Postmaster General
far less important than it would otherwise be. The office has been
regarded as political since 1837; but until 1866 the holder could not
sit in the House of Commons, and since that time he has occasionally
been a peer, the Post Office in such a case being usually represented in
the Commons by the Financial Secretary of the Treasury. The duties of
the Postmaster General are minutely prescribed by statute, and while he
has power to make regulations for the management of the postal service,
it is not easy to make substantial changes or improvements without
affecting the receipts or the expenses, and when that is done he comes
at once under the control of the Treasury. The rates of postage, for
example, and the compensation for carrying the mails, when not fixed by
Act of Parliament, are subject to the approval of the Treasury; and so
are the purchase or sale of land, and any lease of the right to carry on
a telegraph or telephone business. The same approval is also required
for his regulations touching money-orders, post office savings-banks,
and the telegraph, although in these cases the revenue would not appear
to be necessarily involved. In short, as Sir William Anson puts
it,[113:1] "The Postmaster General is no more than the acting manager of
a great business, with little discretionary power except in the exercise
of the very considerable patronage of his office."[113:2]
The business of the department is certainly enormous, the number of
persons employed being little short of two hundred thousand. In addition
to the usual work of transmitting letters, books, parcels and
money-orders, the Post Office in England maintains savings-banks, with
deposits of about £150,000,000; and it has been given exclusive control
of the telegraph by provisions which have been held to include the
telephone also. But while the administration of the telegraph has been
retained by the government in its own hands, the right to conduct the
telephone business was granted, by means of temporary licenses, to
private companies, and to some extent to local authorities also; and the
government has only recently decided to take over the management as soon
as the licenses expire.
FOOTNOTES:
[82:1] Such are the offices of the Lord Steward and the Lord
Chamberlain, the latter having in his charge also the censorship of
plays and theatrical performances.
[83:1] The name of the Board of Trade is now statutory (25-26 Vic., c.
69, § 2; 52-53 Vic., c. 63, § 12, cl. 8). Its composition, however, is
fixed not by statute but by Order in Council at the beginning of each
reign, save that an act of 1867 (30-31 Vic., c. 72) abolished the office
of Vice-President, and provided instead that one of the secretaries to
the board might sit in Parliament.
[83:2] For the organisation of the Board of Works, see 14-15 Vic., c.
42; 37-38 Vic., c. 84; for the Local Government Board, 34-35 Vic., c.
70; Board of Agriculture, 52-53 Vic., c. 30; Board of Education, 62-63
Vic., c. 33.
[83:3] In the case of the Board of Works he is styled First
Commissioner.
[84:1] The Council of India, described hereafter, has some of the
characteristics of a board.
[84:2] Hans., 4 Ser. LXVIII., 678-9; LXX., 338, 351; LXXIII., 632, 666.
[84:3] _Ibid._, LXXIII., 676.
[84:4] In the course of the debate Lord Norton declared (Hans., 4 Ser.
LXVIII., 676) that he had served on two different boards, and could
remember only one instance where a board had been called together or
consulted in any way.
[85:1] Hans., 4 Ser. LXX., 353. There may have been good reasons for not
creating a sixth secretary of state, and among them the fact that a
secretary of state receives a salary of £5000, while the president of
the board receives £2000. But, as Mr. Bryce pointed out (Hans., 4 Ser.
LXXIII., 632), a secretary might have been appointed who, like the
Secretary for Scotland, should not be a secretary of state. The salary
of the Secretary for Scotland is, in fact, £2000.
[86:1] Until a few years ago the departments were: (1) the Eastern
(Eastern Europe and Central Asia); (2) Western (Western Europe,
Northwest Africa and the Pacific Islands); (3) American and Asiatic
(which includes China, Japan and Siam); (4) Consular (including East and
West Africa); (5) Commercial; (6) The Chief Clerk's (which has charge of
financial business); (7) The Library (with the papers of the office);
(8) The Treaty Department. (Fourth Rep. of the Comn. on Civil
Establishments, Com. Papers, 1890, XXVII., 1.) Within a few years four
new departments have been created: an African, an African Protectorates,
a Far Eastern and a Parliamentary. (See the Foreign Office List.)
[87:1] Ch. viii. The permanent under-secretary at the head of the staff
holds, however, an important place.
[88:1] See Hammond, "The Adventures of a Paper in the Foreign Office."
Rep. of Sel. Com. on Trade, Com. Papers, 1864, VII., 279, Q. 1384.
[88:2] Colonial Office List, 1907, XIII.
[89:1] Three of the members may, however, be appointed for life, and any
other member may be reappointed for five years. Ilbert, "Government of
India," 112.
[89:2] _Ibid._, 152-55.
[91:1] Report of Comrs. on Admn. of Naval and Mil. Depts., Com. Papers,
1890, XIX., 1, pp. viii-ix.
[91:2] 2-3 Will. IV., c. 40, § 1.
[91:3] Lord Charles Beresford was a Naval Lord and a member of the House
of Commons from 1886 to 1888.
[92:1] Rep. of Comrs. on Admn. of Naval and Mil. Depts., Com. Papers,
1890, XIX., 1, p. viii.
[92:2] _Ibid._, p. x.
[93:1] Return on the Distribution of Business between the Members of the
Admiralty Board, Com. Papers, 1890, XLIV., 605.
[93:2] Rep. of Comrs. on Admn. of Naval and Mil. Depts., Com. Papers,
1890, XIX., 1, p. ix.
[93:3] Todd, II., 767 _et seq._
[93:4] The military forces consist of the regular army (with the
reserves, that is, the men who have served their time but are liable to
be recalled in case of war); and of the militia, yeomanry and
volunteers. The militia are a little more like regular troops than the
volunteers. They are formally enlisted and their period of training is
longer. None of the auxiliary forces can be ordered out of the United
Kingdom; but while the volunteers are intended solely to support the
regular army in defending the country in case of invasion, the militia
have always offered their services in time of war, and have often been
used for garrison duty both at home and abroad, and even for field
service abroad. The yeomanry are a body of cavalry forming part of the
militia. A royal commission on the militia and volunteers reported in
1904 that both of these forces were unfit to take the field against a
regular army; that the period of training ought to be increased in each
case; and that a home defence army, capable of protecting the United
Kingdom in the absence of the greater part of the regular army could be
raised only by universal compulsory military service. (Com. Papers,
1904, XXX., 175, pp. 6, 9, 11, 15-16.) This last suggestion was received
with general disfavour.
[94:1] For the History of the War Office up to this time, see Clode,
"Military Forces of the Crown."
[95:1] Order in Council, June 4, 1870, Com. Papers, XLII., 683.
[95:2] Com. Papers, 1890, XIX., 1.
[95:3] By virtue of Orders in Council of Dec. 29, 1887, and Feb. 21,
1888. _Ibid._, App. viii.
[96:1] On account of a vote at the close of the same debate in which
this change was announced.
[96:2] Com. Papers, 1896, LI., 483.
[97:1] Rep. of Com. on War Office Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901, XL.,
179, p. 21; Rep. of Com. on the War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904,
XL., 1, pp. 138-42.
[98:1] Com. Papers, 1901, XXXIX., 243.
[98:2] _Ibid._, 1902, LVIII., 717.
[98:3] Hans., 4 Ser. XC., 327 _et seq._; XCI., 6 _et seq._
[98:4] 6 Anne, c. 7, § 28. (In the Rev. Sts. it is c. 41, § 27.)
[99:1] Rep. in Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1, pp. 28, 30.
[99:2] _Ibid._, p. 89.
[99:3] _Ibid._, p. 87.
[99:4] _Ibid._, p. 94.
[99:5] _Ibid._, pp. 94-96.
[99:6] _Ibid._, pp. 94-95.
[99:7] _Ibid._, pp. 86-87.
[99:8] _Ibid._, pp. 93-94.
[100:1] Com. Papers, 1904, VIII., 101.
[100:2] _Cf._ Orders in Council of Aug. 10, 1904, Com. Papers, 1905,
XLVI., 291, 295, 299.
[100:3] Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1,
pp. 52-56.
[101:1] Rep. of Com. on War Office Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901, XL.,
179, p. 2.
[101:2] Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1,
pp. 52-56.
[102:1] The recent Committee on Military Education evidently approved of
that object. Com. Papers, 1902, X., 193, p. 24.
[102:2] The Committee on Military Education were impressed by the
widespread dissatisfaction with the education of army officers, and in
Sandhurst, especially, much was found to criticise. The education of the
junior officers after leaving the military academies was reported to be
in a most unsatisfactory state. They were said to be lamentably wanting
in military knowledge, and in the desire to study the science and master
the art of their profession; while the examinations for promotion
encouraged "the customs of idleness with a brief period of cram." Com.
Papers, 1902, X., 193. There may well be some exaggeration in the
criticism of the moment, due to a natural revulsion from the military
self-complacency that preceded the war.
[103:1] Rep. of Com. on Training and Examination of Junior Naval
Officers, Com. Papers, 1901, XLII., 621, p. 15.
[104:1] Memorandum, Com. Papers, 1902, LXI., 675. Since this was written
another change has been made dividing naval officers into a sea-faring
and fighting branch and an engineer branch.
[104:2] Com. Papers, 1890, XIX., 1, pp. vi-viii.
[105:1] Lord Charles Beresford, Hans., 4 Ser. CXII., 1146, 1147.
[105:2] Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1,
pp. 135-36. Hans., 4 Ser. CXVIII., 291.
[106:1] The "City" of London is an oasis with its own police force.
[106:2] Glen on Public Health, 12 Ed., 443, 1169, 1341.
[107:1] Rep. Com. on Nat. Expend., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, Q. 1425.
[107:2] 14-15 Vic., c. 42, §§ 16, 17.
[109:1] In 1873 the settlement of railway controversies was transferred
to a judicial body, the Railway and Canal Commission.
[109:2] In the case of light railways the orders are made by the Light
Railway Commission and confirmed by the Board of Trade, the members of
the Commission being appointed by the President of the Board. 59-60
Vic., c. 48; 1 Edw. VII., c. 36.
[109:3] Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 183.
[110:1] "English Const.," 1 Ed., 228-30.
[112:1] 62-63 Vic., c. 33, §§ 1-4.
[112:2] This does not, of course, apply to special establishments, like
the naval and military schools, which are managed by other departments.
[112:3] Throughout this chapter statements relating to local government
must be understood not to apply to Scotland or Ireland; but in this case
Wales, with Monmouthshire, is also excluded because, by the Welsh
Intermediate Education Act of 1889, a special board chosen by the local
authorities inspects the secondary schools there.
[113:1] "Law and Custom of the Constitution," II., 184.
[113:2] It may be observed that for many years after 1868 the Postmaster
General was rarely in the cabinet, and hence he has not acquired the
authority possessed by a regular cabinet minister. He has, however, now
been in the cabinet continuously since 1892.
CHAPTER V
THE TREASURY
The most important of all the departments, and the one that exhibits in
the highest degree the merits of the English government, is the
Treasury. It is the central department of the administration, which
keeps in touch with all the others, and maintains a constant financial
control over them. But before considering how that is done it may be
well to explain the process by which money flows in and out of the
national purse. The part played by Parliament in the imposition of
taxes, and the authorisation of expenditure by means of appropriations,
will be described in chapter XIV, and we are concerned here only with
the machinery for collecting those taxes, and giving effect to the
appropriations.[115:1]
[Sidenote: The Consolidated Fund and the Bank of England.]
Until the Commonwealth, taxes were, as a rule, granted to the King, who
used the proceeds to carry on the government as he saw fit; but under
Charles II. Parliament began to appropriate parts of the revenue for
specific purposes, and after the revolution of 1688 this developed into
a comprehensive system, so that the whole revenue was appropriated, to
be used only for the objects, and in the sums, designated by
Parliament.[115:2] It was the custom, however, to appropriate for
specific objects the proceeds of particular taxes, a practice that made
the public accounts needlessly complex. In 1787 William Pitt, following
earlier partial experiments, simplified matters by creating a single
Consolidated Fund into which all revenues from every source were
turned, and from which all payments were made.[116:1] The Consolidated
Fund is deposited in the Bank of England and the Bank of Ireland, which
have a right to use it like any other deposit, and perform, in fact, for
the government much the same service that an ordinary bank does for a
merchant. This method of dealing with the national finances continued
substantially intact until a few years ago,[116:2] when it was
complicated by two innovations, one of which allows a department to use
incidental revenues, under the name of "appropriations in aid," to
defray expenses, and the other sets aside certain parts of the national
income to supplement local taxation, in each case without passing
through the Consolidated Fund.[116:3] The second of these exceptions is
due to the great increase of local expenditure, and the narrow range of
local taxation, which have caused a demand for national subventions, and
have resulted in setting apart for the purpose the proceeds of specific
sources of revenue. In this way the income from the local taxation
licenses, and a portion of the income from the death duties and the
duties on spirits and beer, are now collected by the central government
and paid directly into the Local Taxation Account.[116:4] But saving
these cases, all the national receipts are paid into, and all the
disbursements are made from, the Consolidated Fund.
[Sidenote: Method of Getting Money into the Consolidated Fund.]
[Sidenote: The Sources of Revenue.]
The financial procedure of the Treasury is now regulated by the
Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866,[117:1] and the Public
Accounts and Charges Act of 1891.[117:2] By these acts the gross
revenue--after making the deductions already mentioned--is paid into the
"account of His Majesty's Exchequer," at the Banks of England and
Ireland, to be used as a single fund. The three chief collectors of
revenue are the Commissioners of Customs, the Commissioners of Inland
Revenue and the Post Office. With the growth of the principles of free
trade the customs duties became confined to coffee, chicory, cocoa,
dried fruit, tea, tobacco, wine, and a number of articles, such as
spirits, on which duties are laid to countervail the excise upon similar
articles produced at home. To these were added at the time of the South
African War an export duty on coal, and import duties on sugar and
grain, the last being again dropped in 1903, while the coal duty was
repealed in 1906. Under normal fiscal conditions in times of peace, the
customs duties yield about one fifth of the total revenue, the receipts
being mainly from tobacco, tea and spirits. The gross receipts from the
Post Office (including the telegraphs) form about one seventh of the
revenue, but this is really misleading, because three quarters of those
receipts are paid out again for the expenses of the department. All but
a very small fraction of the remaining receipts come through the
Commissioners of Inland Revenue, and their sources of income are of a
miscellaneous character. The largest item is the excise, mainly on beer
and spirits, which yields more than a quarter of the total national
revenue.[117:3] The next largest is the income tax, which varies very
much from time to time, and has produced during the last score of years
from one seventh to one quarter of the total revenue. Then there are the
death duties, a progressive tax on property passing at death, which
yield one tenth of the revenue. The ancient land-tax, and the
inhabited-house duty produce comparatively small sums; and, finally,
there are the stamp duties on all kinds of transactions, articles and
licenses which yield all together about one twelfth of the revenue. Some
of the license fees collected under the head of excise are so small as
to appear rather vexatious than productive, such as one guinea for the
display of armorial bearings not used upon a carriage, fifteen shillings
for a license to have a manservant, or keep a carriage with less than
four wheels, and fourpence a day for the privilege of occasionally
selling tobacco.[118:1]
[Sidenote: Permanent and Annual Taxes.]
Neither the expenditure nor the proceeds of taxes being absolutely
constant, it is necessary, in order to maintain a close balance between
them, to adjust the sources of revenue to some extent from year to year,
and this is done by means of a small number of variable charges. Most of
the taxes are imposed by permanent statutes, changed only at long
intervals, but the rates of assessment under the tea duty and the income
tax are fixed each year in the annual Finance Act; and since 1894
certain additional duties on beer and spirits have also been laid for a
year at a time.
[Sidenote: Accuracy of the Budget.]
It has been the aim of English statesmen to make the revenue and
expenditure of each year balance one another as closely as possible, and
their skill in doing so has been extraordinary. While the South African
War was raging such a result was naturally impossible, but during the
preceding twenty-five years the difference between receipts and
expenditures (including payments on account of the debt) was never more
than about four per cent, and in fifteen of those years it did not
exceed one and a half per cent. The taxes are, indeed, of such a
character that it is possible to forecast their proceeds with great
accuracy. The Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to make his
calculations so as to leave a margin of safety, and yet during the
period under consideration the difference between the estimated and
actual receipts was never more than about three and a half per
cent.[119:1]
Accurate fiscal administration is very much promoted by the rule that
any part of an appropriation unexpended at the end of the financial year
in which it is voted shall lapse, and cannot afterwards be used unless
it is granted afresh by Parliament.[119:2] The rule has been thought to
lead to wastefulness by provoking improvident haste in spending the
whole appropriation before March 31.[119:3] But such an evil is surely
far smaller than that of allowing the appropriations to run on, with the
result, well known in France, for example, that the annual accounts
cannot be finally made up, and the extent of the deficit determined,
until several years have passed.
Like all other excellent things devised by men, the English system of
finance is not without its drawbacks. If it promotes careful
administration, and rivets attention upon any increase in the budget, it
also makes the revenue inelastic in emergencies. A great deal has been
said in Parliament of late about broadening the basis of taxation, but
that is a very difficult thing to do suddenly, without dislocating the
commercial as well as the fiscal system; and while the existing taxes
are elastic up to a certain point, an attempt to raise them too much
would diminish rather than increase their productiveness.
[Sidenote: Method of Getting Money out of the Consolidated Fund.]
Just as there are two kinds of taxes, one permanent and the other
annual, so there are two classes of expenditure, one regulated by
standing laws, and the other by annual appropriations. All the ordinary
expenses of the government require parliamentary sanction every year,
both on the theory that the money collected from the nation ought not to
be spent without the consent of its representatives, and also in order
that Parliament may be able to oversee the administration and criticise
it in every session. But there are certain matters that ought to be kept
aloof from current politics, and ought not to be brought in question in
the heat of party conflict. The principal charges that have been
regarded in this light are the interest on the national debt, the Civil
List or personal provision for the King, annuities for the royal family,
certain pensions, and the salaries of the judges, of the Comptroller and
Auditor General, of the Speaker, and of a few officers of lesser
importance. These charges amount to nearly one quarter of the total
expenditures; and they are called Consolidated Fund charges, because by
statute they are paid directly out of the Consolidated Fund without the
need of any further action by Parliament. The other expenditures are for
what are known as the supply services, because the appropriations for
them are voted by the House of Commons in Committee of Supply.
The administrative procedure for getting money out of the Consolidated
Fund to pay the Consolidated Fund charges and the supply services is not
precisely the same. In the case of the supply services a royal order for
the amounts appropriated by Parliament is made under the King's sign
manual, countersigned by two of the Commissioners of the Treasury. The
Treasury then requires the Comptroller and Auditor General to grant
credits at the Banks of England and Ireland for those amounts, and if
satisfied that the authority from Parliament is complete, he makes an
order on the banks granting the credits. From time to time the Treasury
requests the banks to transfer to the various supply accounts, for
disbursement, sums of money not exceeding the credits so granted.[121:1]
The procedure in the case of Consolidated Fund charges differs from this
only in the fact that a royal order is not needed, and the Comptroller
and Auditor General, on the requisition of the Treasury, grants
quarterly credits for the amounts prescribed by statute.[121:2] By this
process a highly effective security is provided that no money shall be
spent without the authority of Parliament. The Consolidated Fund is
deposited in the banks of England and Ireland, which are liable if any
of it is withdrawn without an order from the Comptroller and Auditor
General, while that officer is given the same independence as the
judges. Like them he is appointed during good behaviour, with a salary
charged upon the Consolidated Fund. The security is not absolutely
perfect, for there are some moneys, such as the appropriations in aid,
that do not pass through the Consolidated Fund; and as no foresight can
be unfailing, the government is given a limited power to meet unforeseen
contingencies, and to cover expenses that have inevitably proved larger
than was anticipated.[121:3] But all matters of this kind are fully
reported to Parliament by the Comptroller and Auditor General.
[Sidenote: Audit of the Accounts.]
The Treasury lays before Parliament annually the Finance Accounts of the
preceding year, while the Comptroller and Auditor General submits at a
later date a separate report. Therein he examines the Consolidated Fund
charges, and makes for the supply services more elaborate statements,
called the Appropriation Accounts, in three volumes, relating to the
Army, the Navy and the civil service. The accounts are rendered to him
by the several departments, and after auditing them he transmits them to
the House of Commons with his comments.[121:4]
The money granted by Parliament is divided into votes, of which there
are in all about one hundred and forty.[122:1] In the estimates these
votes are subdivided into subheads and items; but the votes would appear
to be the only limitation expressly placed by Parliament upon
expenditure; for the Annual Appropriation Act provides that the sums
granted shall be deemed to be appropriated "for the services and
purposes expressed in Schedule (B) annexed" thereto, and that schedule
gives a list of the votes, but not of the subheads or items.
Nevertheless, the Comptroller and Auditor General is enjoined by the
Exchequer and Audit Departments Act of 1866 to ascertain whether the
money expended has been applied to the purpose or purposes for which
each grant was intended to provide,[122:2] and hence the reports that he
submits note the excess or saving with the reasons therefor, under each
subhead, and sometimes, as in the case of votes for the construction of
new buildings, under each item. He adds, also, his own comments wherever
it seems to him necessary to do so. All this is done, even where the
saving under one subhead more than counterbalances the excess under
another in the same vote. When that happens, however, no action by
Parliament is required; but if the total amount of a vote has been
overspent, the excess is entirely unauthorised, and must be covered by a
deficiency appropriation, which Parliament grants upon the reports of
the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Committee on Accounts of the
House of Commons. To the last rule there is one exception. In order to
facilitate the administration of the Army and Navy, the Annual
Appropriation Act declares that the Treasury may authorise expenditure,
not provided for, to be defrayed temporarily out of any surplus effected
upon other votes in each of those departments; and the Act goes on to
recite and sanction the transfers of surplus so authorised by the
Treasury in the last year for which the accounts are complete.[123:1]
This brings us to another important question, that of the financial
control of the Treasury over the other branches of the administration.
[Sidenote: Treasury Control over Other Departments.]
[Sidenote: Control over Estimates.]
There has been a great deal of discussion about Treasury control over
the receipt and expenditure of public money. In the case of the receipts
it is a simple matter, for the financial control over the Post Office
has already been described, and the other great revenue departments are,
as will shortly be explained, virtually subordinate to the Treasury. The
question of control over expenditure is far more complicated. Committees
of the House of Commons have, at different times, collected evidence on
the subject,[123:2] but the statements made have often been vague, and
tend to confuse the control of the Treasury over the estimates, with its
control over expenditure after the appropriations have been voted by
Parliament. The control over the estimates has been discussed in the
preceding chapter. It is only necessary here to repeat that such a
control is by no means absolute, because any important question of
expenditure becomes a question of policy to be decided, in case of
disagreement, by the Prime Minister or the cabinet; and to point out
that the departments supported by their political chiefs are usually too
strong for the Treasury to resist.[123:3]
[Sidenote: Control over Expenditure.]
It might be supposed that after the appropriations had been voted the
departments would be free in expending them, subject only to their
responsibility to Parliament; but this is not altogether true. In the
first place a statute sometimes requires that the expenses of a
department shall be sanctioned by the Treasury.[124:1] Then it is not
infrequently provided that the salaries shall be fixed by the Treasury,
or that alterations in the establishment shall require its consent.
Moreover, the salaries of certain grades of clerks are regulated by
Orders in Council,[124:2] which are changed only on the advice of the
Treasury. Apart, however, from statutes and Orders in Council there is a
general customary principle forbidding any increase in the civil
establishment of a department,--that is, any increase in the number or
salary of permanent officials,--without the approval of the Treasury;
and this although the appropriations would not be exceeded.[124:3]
[Sidenote: Transfer of a Surplus.]
Over certain departments the control is even more extensive, for not
only do the contracts made by the Post Office require its approval, but
contracts entered into by the Board of Works are also the subject of
discussion between the Treasury and the First Commissioner.[124:4] In
the case of the Army and Navy the fact that the Treasury can authorise a
transfer of the surplus under one vote to cover a deficiency under
another gives it a certain authority; and, indeed, its sanction is to
some extent sought even for transfers between subheads of the same vote.
This last is, of course, a matter of custom rather than of law, and
practice differs in the two services. The Admiralty, which always plays
the part of the good boy, comes very frequently to the Treasury for
permission to make transfers between subheads before it acts; while the
Army, save in exceptional cases, comes only at the end of the year for a
formal approval.[125:1] The exceptional cases are, however, numerous.
They sometimes extend even to separate items, and are regulated by a
code of rules made by the Treasury and the department.[125:2] Every
excess, for example, of a certain size in an item for a new building,
the payment of any excess to a contractor, the discharge of a loss, or
the insertion of a new item, require the sanction of the Treasury; and
in fact the Appropriation Accounts of the Army and Navy are followed by
many pages of correspondence on matters of this kind between the
Treasury and the department. In the case of the civil services, where
the Treasury has no authority to sanction transfers between votes, the
system is less elaborate and the correspondence is not printed in full.
Still there are frequent references in the accounts to Treasury letters
sanctioning expenditures under subheads or items, especially in relation
to such matters as salaries, the purchase of land, large excesses over
estimates for construction, the abandonment of claims, and unforeseen
expenditures.[125:3]
[Sidenote: Effect of Treasury Control.]
The control by the Treasury is sometimes vexatious in small
matters,[126:1] but it does not seriously hamper the administration, or
impair the efficiency of the service;[126:2] and while it can hardly
prevent an expenditure on which a department is seriously
determined,[126:3] the very need of consultation can hardly fail to act
as a restraint upon extravagance.[126:4]
In addition to its control over the application of the sums voted by
Parliament, and its authority to permit the use of appropriations for
purposes not contemplated in the estimates, the Treasury has a limited
power to open the national purse in case of necessity when no grant has
been made by Parliament. For this purpose it has three sources of supply
at its disposal: the Treasury Chest Fund, limited to £1,000,000, may be
used to make temporary advances for carrying on the public service, to
be repaid out of sums afterwards appropriated; the Civil Contingencies
Fund, limited to £120,000, is available on similar terms for unforeseen
contingencies and deficiencies; and, finally, any incidental receipts,
not granted by Parliament as appropriations in aid, may be used as such
under the authority of a Treasury minute to be laid before the
Houses.[126:5]
[Sidenote: The Organisation of the Treasury.]
In the remarks on the history of the Treasury Board, at the beginning of
the last chapter, it was pointed out that the board no longer meets.
The Treasury minutes are still drawn up in the name of "My Lords," but
this is merely the survival of a form, and all the members of the board,
except the Chancellor of the Exchequer, have ceased to take part in
directing the financial administration. The three junior lords have at
times some small departmental duties, but their real functions are to
act as assistants to the Parliamentary or Patronage Secretary, who is
the chief government whip in the House of Commons. All the four whips
receive salaries from the state on the theory that it is their duty to
keep a House, or in other words to insure the presence of a quorum,
while the supplies are being voted. But in fact they are officers, not
of the state, but of the party in power, and it is their business to see
that whenever a vote is taken in which the ministry is interested, their
partisans are present in greater force than those of the Opposition. The
relation of the First Lord to the Treasury is anomalous. He is usually
the Prime Minister, and as such is supposed to keep a general
supervision upon all branches of the administration, and to act as a
sort of umpire between the different ministers, and, therefore, between
the Treasury and the other departments. But whether he is Prime Minister
or not he has a real connection with the Treasury. The functions of that
office cover a much wider field than its name would imply, including
subjects of a most miscellaneous character; and while the finances are
entirely under the charge of the Chancellor of the Exchequer,--who is,
in fact, the Minister of Finance, with the Financial Secretary of the
Treasury as his parliamentary under-secretary,--the First Lord may be
said, speaking very roughly, to be at the head of the outlying
departments which are not concerned with financial affairs.
[Sidenote: The Subordinate Departments.]
The Treasury has been described as a superintending and controlling
office that has properly no administrative functions;[127:1] and this,
in a sense, is true, for even in money matters its duty as an organised
department is financial direction and control, not the actual
collection and disbursement of the revenue. It prepares the budget,
reviewing the estimates submitted to it, and devising the means of
defraying them; it supervises the collection of the revenue, and keeps
watch over the expenditure. In this work the political chiefs are
assisted by a body of clerks, headed by the permanent under-secretary,
whose office is generally regarded as the highest in the permanent civil
service. The offices that have direct charge of the collection of
revenue have separate organisations with distinct staffs of permanent
officials; but, except for the Post Office, they have no political
chiefs of their own, and are in fact subordinate branches of the
Treasury. The four great offices of this kind are the Post Office, which
has already been described; and the departments of Customs, of Inland
Revenue, and of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues, each of which is
managed by commissioners who are members of the permanent civil service,
and do not change with changes of ministry.[128:1]
The Treasury bears a similar relation to the departments that deal with
purely fiscal payments, the National Debt Office, the Public Works Loan
Board, and the Paymaster General's Office, through which almost all
disbursements are now made. For, although the Paymaster General is a
political officer, he has ceased to have any real connection with his
department, and it is administered under the direction of the
Treasury.[129:1]
[Sidenote: The Outlying Departments.]
Besides the departments subordinate to the Treasury, there are a number
of outlying departments more or less closely connected with it which
have already been referred to as having nothing to do with financial
affairs; and, indeed, one may say that in theory, at least, every branch
of the public service--except the Ecclesiastical and Charity
Commissions[129:2]--that does not have a political chief of its own, and
is not connected with some other department, is under the supervision of
the Treasury and represented in Parliament thereby. But while the
commissioners, or other heads of such offices, are as a rule appointed
on the recommendation of the First Lord, or of the Prime Minister, the
degree of control exercised over them by the Treasury varies a great
deal; and in some cases its responsibility, apart from regulating the
amount of expenditure, is somewhat illusory. Several institutions in
this position are intended to be entirely outside the range of party
controversy; and the boards of trustees of the British Museum, the
National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery habitually contain
members of Parliament who would never think of resigning their posts by
reason of a change of ministry. The principal outlying departments of
the Treasury directly connected with national administration, are: the
Civil Service Commission, which examines the candidates for the various
branches of the civil service; the Parliamentary Counsel's office, which
drafts all the bills introduced by the ministers; and the stationery
office, which does all the government printing.
Throughout a great part of the nineteenth century the influence of the
commercial classes was strong, the government was conducted on strict
business principles, and the Treasury as the representative of those
principles was the keystone of the administrative arch, or to change the
metaphor, the axle on which the machinery of the state revolved. For a
long time, indeed, there was a marked tendency to consider the office of
Chancellor of the Exchequer as the most important in the cabinet after
that of the Prime Minister, to regard the person who held it as heir
presumptive to the premiership, and to make him leader in the House of
Commons when his chief was a peer. But with the waning desire for
economy, and the growth of other interests, the Treasury has to some
extent lost its predominant position. A symptom of this may be seen in
the fact that during the last dozen years of Lord Salisbury's
administrations, the Commons were led, not by the Chancellor of the
Exchequer, but by a First Lord of the Treasury appointed for the
purpose. The turning point came at the beginning of that period, when
Lord Randolph Churchill in 1886 quarrelled with his colleagues over the
estimates for the Army. The occurrence did not produce, but it did mark,
a change in the tone of public opinion; and although the Treasury will
no doubt maintain its control over the details of expenditure, one
cannot feel certain that its head will regain the powerful influence
upon general or financial policy exerted thirty years ago.
FOOTNOTES:
[115:1] An excellent description of the existing financial procedure may
be found in Sir Courtney Ilbert's "Legislative Methods and Forms,"
284-99.
[115:2] This did not apply to the hereditary revenues of the Crown
until, with the exception of the revenues belonging to the Duchies of
Lancaster and Cornwall, they were surrendered by George III., in return
for a fixed Civil List.
[116:1] 27 Geo. III., c. 13.
[116:2] The rule had not been absolutely without exceptions, for the
Mercantile Marine Fund, derived from port charges on vessels, was used
to defray part of the expenses of the Board of Trade without going
through the Consolidated Fund. _Cf._ 2d Rep. Com. on Civil Estab., Com.
Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 18211-26. In 1898 this process was
restricted to the maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons. It may
be observed, also, that the Act of 1891 concerning "appropriations in
aid" (54-55 Vic., c. 24, § 2) declares that it merely gives statutory
authority to an existing practice. Such appropriations are now regularly
granted by Parliament in aid of the votes for the services in which they
occur. The amount in aid of each vote is fixed, and listed in a separate
column in the schedule to the Appropriation Act, only the excess above
that amount being paid into the Consolidated Fund.
[116:3] Ilbert, "Legislative Methods and Forms," 294-95; Glen, "Law of
Public Health," 1343, 1344.
[116:4] This innovation has been vigorously criticised as tending to
confuse the national accounts. See a memorandum by Sir E. W. Hamilton,
Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 12.
[117:1] 29-30 Vic., c. 39.
[117:2] 54-55 Vic., c. 24.
[117:3] The sums paid to the Local Taxation Account not being included.
[118:1] These license fees go into the Local Taxation Account, not into
the National Exchequer.
[119:1] It is noteworthy that from 1858 to 1895 the amount of money
raised by taxation for national purposes was never less than £2 4_s._
5_d._ and never more than £2 9_s._ 11_d._ per head of population. Of
late years it has shown a steady tendency to increase. In 1899, the year
before the war, it was £2 13_s._ 6_d._; and in 1902 it was £3 8_s._
8_d._, the expenditure being £4 13_s._ 11_d._ Between 1857 and 1900 the
national debt was reduced by gradual payments from £837,144,597 to
£628,978,783. In 1902 it had increased in consequence of the South
African War to £747,911,107.
[119:2] For the history of this rule see Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England,"
II., 44-46.
[119:3] Rep. of the Com. on War Office Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901,
XL., 179, p. 6. But see 3d Rep. Com. Pub. Accounts, Com. Papers, 1901,
V., 47, p. iv.
[121:1] 29-30 Vic., c. 39, §§ 13, 15.
[121:2] _Ibid._, § 13.
[121:3] For the provision made for such cases, see page 126, _infra_.
[121:4] The Finance Accounts give only the issues to the departments
from the Exchequer, not the actual expenditures. These last are
contained only in the Appropriation Accounts of the Auditor General.
Except for certain departments, like the Navy, where Sir James Graham
began the practice of submitting them as early as 1832, the actual
expenditures were not submitted as a whole to Parliament until the Act
of 1866. Memorandum by Lord Welby, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 13.
Hatschek, _Englisches Staatsrecht_, I., 495-502, gives an interesting
description of the influence of French methods upon the English system
of keeping public accounts, including the introduction of double-entry
bookkeeping.
[122:1] Fifteen or sixteen relate to the Navy; as many more to the Army;
something over one hundred to the various branches of the civil service,
grouped into seven classes; and five to the revenue departments.
[122:2] 29-30 Vic., c. 39, § 27, and see Todd, II., 53-67.
[123:1] For the history of this matter, see Todd, II., 31-42.
[123:2] See, for a history of the question, Todd, II., 27-43, 543-45,
and for recent collections of evidence the 2d and 3d Reps. of Com. on
Civil Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873, VII., 391, 415; 2d Rep. of Com. on
Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1; Rep. of Com. on War Office
Organisation, Com. Papers, 1901, XL., 179; Reps. of Com. on Nat.
Expenditure, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15; 1903, VII., 483.
[123:3] Rep. of Com. on Civil Estab., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1,
Evid. of Sir R. E. Welby, Perm. Sec. of Treas., Qs. 10704-9, 10713,
10721-26, 10766.
[124:1] This was true, for example, of the Act creating the Board of
Agriculture (52-53, Vic., c. 30, § 5).
[124:2] For clerks of the second division by Order in Council, March 21,
1890, §§ 3-6, Com. Papers, 1890, LVIII., 167. Positions of higher grade
are regulated "by the heads of the departments to which they belong,
subject to approval by the Commissioners of the Treasury;" Order in
Council, Feb. 12, 1876, § 3, Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, p. 571; but
no vacancies in these positions can be filled or new appointments made
until the Treasury is satisfied that the number of officers in the
department with salaries higher than those of the second division will
not be excessive; Order in Council, Nov. 29, 1898, § 4, following Order
of Feb. 12, 1876, § 4. The evidence before the Committees of 1873 and
1888 was, however, conclusive on the impotence of the Treasury in
forcing reductions, whatever its actual power might be in preventing an
increase of establishment.
[124:3] _Cf._ 3d Rep. Com. on Civil Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873, VII.,
415, Qs. 474, 4902-03; 2d Rep., Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers,
1888, XXVII., 1, pp. xi, xii, and Qs. 10957, 14090-91, 14918-20, 18088;
Rep. Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, Q. 1429.
[124:4] Rep. Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, Q. 1425.
[125:1] Rep. of Com. on War Office Org., Com. Papers, 1901, XL., 179,
Qs. 3038-41. An excess on the subheads for food and forage, for example,
would be met as a matter of course by a saving on fuel or rents.
_Ibid._, p. 425.
[125:2] Memoranda on Treasury control by F. T. Marzials, Accountant
General of the Army, _Ibid._, pp. 424-26; and by Robert Chalmers, Rep.
Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 3.
[125:3] The control of the Treasury over expenditure connected with the
courts is less than it is in the case of other branches of the civil
service; but the salaries of the clerks are fixed as a rule by an
understanding between the judges and the Treasury. 2d Rep. Com. on Civil
Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873, VII., 391, pp. vi-viii.
[126:1] Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs.
18076, 18088, 19150, 19165, 19171-75, 19178-82. As Lord Farrer, formerly
permanent under-secretary of the Board of Trade, expressed it, "We can
cheat them in big things; they may bully us in little things." _Ibid._,
Q. 20,021.
[126:2] Rep. of Com. on War Office Org., Com. Papers, 1901, XL., 179, p.
8; Rep. of Com. on War in South Africa, Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1, p.
143.
[126:3] _Cf._ Sir R. E. Welby, Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers,
1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 20382-83.
[126:4] The real sanction of the control of the Treasury lies in the
support it is almost certain to receive from the Committee on Accounts
of the House of Commons. In 1901, for example, in a case where the War
Office, without exceeding its total vote, but before seeking the
approval of the Treasury, paid to a contractor an addition of £1000 upon
a contract for which no item appeared in the votes of the year, the
Committee of Accounts remarked, "Your Committee deprecate in the
strongest manner any diversion of Parliamentary funds without Treasury
sanction." 3d Rep. Com. of Pub. Accounts, Com. Papers, 1901, V., 13, pp.
iv-v.
[126:5] Public Accounts and Charges Act, 54-55 Vic., c. 24, § 2 (3).
[127:1] Todd, II., 545.
[128:1] The organisation of all these offices, and their relation to the
Treasury, has been described at great length in Gneist, _Das Englische
Verwaltungsrecht_, 3 Auf., Buch III., Kap. 4.
The office of Woods, Forests and Land Revenues collects the revenue from
the Crown lands, except those belonging to the Duchies of Lancaster and
Cornwall, the revenues from these last never having been surrendered to
the nation, and being still enjoyed by the King and the Prince of Wales
respectively. It collects also some other bits of hereditary revenue;
but the total amount of its receipts is small, and the commissioners are
only two in number. The Customs Establishment, which collects all duties
on imports and exports, is managed by a chairman, a deputy chairman and
one other commissioner; and, finally, the Inland Revenue Office, which
collects the excises, and all the other national taxes, is a huge
concern, and has at its head a chairman, deputy chairman and two other
commissioners. This department was formed by uniting the boards of
Excise, of Taxes and of Stamps; and it has been suggested that the
departments of Customs and of Inland Revenue should be combined, but
that has been thought inadvisable. (_Cf._ 3d Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs.,
Com. Papers, 1889, XXI., 1.)
[129:1] The Chancellor of the Exchequer is also _ex officio_ Master of
the Mint.
[129:2] The Ecclesiastical Commission manages the episcopal estates and
other church property, using the revenues to pay the income of the
bishops, and to promote the work of the Established Church in poor and
populous places. It is not connected with any department of the
government, and in fact is rather an institution belonging to the Church
than a branch of the public service. The commissioners include all the
bishops, several cabinet ministers, and a number of other laymen, of
whom a couple sit in Parliament.
The Charity Commission, a body possessing semi-judicial powers in the
regulation of charitable trusts, occupies a position more like that of
an administrative department. Of the four commissioners one is unpaid,
and represents the body in Parliament.
These two commissions are, therefore, in the anomalous position of
having been deliberately provided with spokesmen in Parliament, who are
not responsible ministers of the Crown. The British Museum, the National
Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery are in this respect in the
same situation.
CHAPTER VI
MISCELLANEOUS OFFICES
[Sidenote: The Government and the Administration of Law.]
There is in England no single officer corresponding to the minister of
justice, or attorney general, in other countries, some of the duties
performed by them elsewhere being divided in England among a number of
authorities, while others are not performed at all. The principal
officers who fill this important gap are the Lord Chancellor, the Law
Officers of the Crown, and the Director of Public Prosecutions.
[Sidenote: The Lord Chancellor.]
The greatest political dignitary in the British government, the one
endowed by law with the most exalted and most diverse functions, the
only great officer of state who has retained his ancient rights, the man
who defies the doctrine of the separation of powers more than any other
personage on earth, is the Lord Chancellor. Apart from his duties as a
judge, as the presiding officer of the House of Lords, and as a member
of the cabinet, all of which have been or will be described in other
places, he has many powers of a miscellaneous character connected for
the most part with the administration of the law.[131:1] He is, for
example, at the head of the Crown Office in Chancery. This, as the place
where the Great Seal is affixed, is legally and formally, although not
politically, important. The Commissioners in Lunacy, also, report to
him. The regulations relating to public prosecutions require his
approval, and the control of the Land Registry Office devolves mainly
upon him. Almost all the judicial patronage, moreover, is in his hands,
for he is consulted about the highest posts, the selection of the puisne
judges of the High Court is made on his recommendation, and he appoints
and removes the county court judges and justices of the peace.[132:1]
Although the Lord Chancellor is a party leader, and is at once an active
member of the legislative, the executive and the judicial branches of
the government, the evils that might be supposed to result from such a
combination of powers in the same hands do not in fact appear. He might,
indeed, when sitting in the Judicial Committee, or in the House of
Lords, be called upon to construe a statute which he had a share in
enacting, but this does no great harm. The really serious matter is a
confusion of the executive and judicial powers, the sitting in judgment
by a political officer upon a question on which he has acted, or which
may affect his future action, in an administrative capacity. But since
the Chancellor never holds court alone at the present day, such a
question could come before him only in the Court of Appeal, the House of
Lords, or the Judicial Committee, where he sits with other judges, who
have no connection with the ministry. Moreover, the Chancellor, although
the legal member of the cabinet, is not its sole, nor indeed its
official, legal adviser; and the government would never think of acting
upon any doubtful point of law without obtaining the opinion of the Law
Officers of the Crown. These gentlemen hold no judicial position; and
curiously enough, while a part of the ministry, are never in the
cabinet.
[Sidenote: The Law Officers of the Crown.]
The principal Law Officers of the Crown are the Attorney General, and
the Solicitor General, who is his colleague and substitute.[133:1]
Their opinion on questions of law may be asked by the government, and by
any department, although many of the departments are provided with
permanent legal counsel of their own whose advice is sufficient for all
ordinary matters. The Attorney and Solicitor General conduct personally
a few prosecutions of unusual importance, file criminal informations,
and appear in cases where the rights of the Crown are involved, or where
their intervention is necessary to protect charitable endowments. They
defend in Parliament the legality of the government's action, and
explain incomprehensible legal points in its measures. While they are no
longer permitted to engage in private practice, their salaries and fees
are so large[133:2] that these posts are among the great political
prizes for lawyers who have made their mark in the warfare of the House
of Commons,[133:3] prizes the greater because, in addition to the direct
emoluments, they confer a presumptive claim to the very highest places
on the bench that may become vacant while the party is in power.
[Sidenote: Public Prosecutions in England.]
It has been observed that the Law Officers of the Crown conduct in
person only a few criminal cases of unusual importance. In other
countries the prosecution of offenders is the affair of the state, and
is conducted in all the courts great and small by public officers. This
is true in Scotland also, where the matter is in the hands of a body of
officers, known as procurators fiscal, with the Lord Advocate at their
head; and even in Ireland a similar system has developed informally by
the employment of crown counsel acting under the control of the Attorney
General for that kingdom. But in England criminal prosecutions in the
vast majority of cases are still, in theory at least, conducted by
private persons.[134:1] Any one, whether a person injured or not, may
prosecute the offender.[134:2] As a rule the examining magistrate, after
committing the accused for trial, binds some one over to
prosecute--either the complainant, the person injured, a policeman, the
magistrate's own clerk, or a solicitor employed for the purpose. The
case is usually conducted by the solicitor to the local magistrate, but
the person bound over may employ his own counsel to take charge of it.
The costs of the trial are, however, at the present day, allowed by the
court, and paid out of the national treasury, under regulations made by
the Home Secretary.
[Sidenote: The Director of Public Prosecutions.]
It has always been the habit for the Attorney General to conduct great
state trials, cases, for example, of high treason; and it gradually came
to be the practice for the legal officers attached to the different
departments to prosecute in certain other cases, such as offences
against the coinage. But about the middle of the last century there
arose a demand for a general system of state prosecutions under the
charge of a ministry of justice.[134:3] This movement culminated, or
evaporated, in the Acts of 1879 and 1884,[134:4] whereby the Solicitor
to the Treasury, who is the permanent legal adviser of that department,
and is also charged with a number of other duties of a legal nature, has
been made the Director of Public Prosecutions. The regulations governing
his actions in this capacity are made by the Attorney General with the
approval of the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary. They provide in
substance[134:5] that he shall prosecute in all capital cases, in
offences against the coinage, cases of fraudulent bankruptcy, cases
where he is directed to do so by the Attorney General or the Home
Secretary, and cases where such action appears to him necessary in the
public interest. He may employ counsel to conduct both the cases that he
brings, and any other criminal proceedings before the high courts where
no counsel has been retained; and he may also assist a private
prosecutor by authorising special expenses for evidence or counsel. It
is his duty to give advice to the clerks of justices of the peace, and
to police officers; and, finally, he is in all these matters subject to
the control of the Attorney General.
The Director of Public Prosecutions makes to Parliament an annual report
of his doings, enlivened by narratives of the most interesting cases.
But in spite of his activity the vast bulk of the prosecutions are
conducted as of old under private direction; for out of the many
thousands of criminal cases tried every year, only from three hundred
and fifty to five hundred are in his charge, and the number shows no
marked tendency to increase.
Enough has been said to justify the statement that no single officer
exercises any considerable part of the functions of a minister of
justice. Such duties are not only divided among a number of persons, but
scattered in small fragments among different departments. An
illustration of this is furnished by the Return of Public Prosecutions,
which is submitted to Parliament by the Home Secretary, and bears his
signature on the first page; while the return itself is signed by the
Director of Public Prosecutions, and dated from the Treasury. Gneist, in
his work on the English administrative system, portrays the Lord
Chancellor as the minister of justice for civil, and the Home Secretary
for criminal, matters,[135:1] but such a generalisation is overstrained
and misleading, and it is safer to assert that when the English bring
confusion into any administrative department they usually succeed in
confounding utterly all general principles, and making all general
statements inaccurate.
[Sidenote: The Church.]
If there is no minister of justice in England, still less is there a
minister of religion such as is commonly found in countries that possess
established churches. The government of the Church of England will be
treated in another chapter, and it is only necessary here to point out
that although a strictly national institution, often deeply involved in
political controversy, the Church is in many ways singularly free from
the control of the executive government. It is, no doubt, regulated by
laws that cannot be altered without the authority of Parliament. Its
organisation, its ritual, and its articles of faith can be changed only
by statute. But in administrative affairs its dependence upon the state
is very much less. The King is, indeed, its supreme head; he virtually
appoints the bishops and other high dignitaries, and his assent is
necessary to the exercise of their limited powers by the Convocations of
the two provinces.[136:1] Beyond this, however, the Crown does not
interfere in the government of the Church, or the discipline of its
members, which are left under the charge of its own officers.
Proceedings against a clergyman for doctrinal errors or violation of the
ritual can be taken only with the consent of the bishop, the government
having no part in it; and although the Crown appoints a portion of the
members of the Ecclesiastical Commission, which manages much of the
Church property, the bishops form a large majority of the body, and the
commission itself is not subordinate to any minister of state. The only
control, therefore, exercised by the cabinet upon the administration of
the Church is to be found in the restraint upon Convocation, and in the
fact that the responsibility for the selection of high ecclesiastics
rests with the Prime Minister, who, curiously enough, is not
necessarily, and in the last two cabinets actually has not been, a
member of the Church of England. The Prime Minister also nominates the
incumbents of a number of large livings, while the Lord Chancellor
presents to several hundred others that happen to lie in the gift of
the Crown.[137:1] Except for these things no minister is responsible for
the conduct of the Church or of its members.
The connection between Church and State in England is thus a peculiar
one. In some ways the relation is very close, but it is rather
legislative and judicial than administrative. The Church is minutely
regulated by state laws, the judge of its principal tribunal must be
confirmed by the Crown, and appeals lie to a secular court;[137:2] but
it lives upon its own revenues without any grant from Parliament, and
although its highest officers are appointed by the state, and sit in the
upper House of Parliament, yet once appointed, they, like all the rest
of the clergy, are practically free from the supervision and control of
the executive government.
[Sidenote: Scotland.]
These are all the public offices in the English government that it is
necessary to mention. A description of the peculiar institutions of
Scotland and Ireland is not within the scope of this book, except so far
as they affect the central government. Until twenty years ago the
connection of the government with matters relating exclusively to
Scotland was maintained chiefly through the Home Office, but the Lord
Advocate was virtually the parliamentary under-secretary for Scotch
business, and took entire charge of it, unless his chief was a
Scotchman, and cared to assert himself. In 1885 a Secretary for Scotland
was created, one might perhaps say revived, and to him were intrusted
for that kingdom duties corresponding to those discharged in England by
the Home Office, the Local Government Board and the Board of Education.
In fact he may be said to be the general representative for Scotch
purposes of all the various civil departments of state; and in
particular he is at the head of the Scotch Local Government Board and
the Scotch Education Department. He is not one of the secretaries of
state and receives a much smaller salary than they do, but he is a
member of the ministry, usually, though not invariably, with a seat in
the cabinet, and he is always a member of one or the other House of
Parliament.
The contrast between the relations of England to Scotland and to Ireland
is striking. By the Act of Union of 1707 England and Scotland became one
state, with a common Parliament and a common executive government, but
political differences have not been obliterated. The Act of Union
preserved the ecclesiastical and legal institutions of Scotland; and at
the present day she has her own established church, which is
Presbyterian; her own system of education, which is quite different from
the English; and her own system of law, based upon the Civil not the
Common Law, and adorned by a nomenclature so disfigured as to pass for
her own. With such differences as these it has been not uncommon for
Parliament, even where the same legislative principles were to be
applied on both sides of the Tweed, to enact them in separate statutes,
each adapted to the institutions of the country in which it is to
operate. Socially, also, the fusion has not been complete. Every
Scotchman is an Englishman, but an Englishman is not a Scotchman. The
Scotch regard themselves as an elect race who are entitled to all the
rights of Englishmen and to their own privileges besides. All English
offices ought to be open to them, but Scotch posts are the natural
heritage of the Scots. They take part freely in the debates on
legislation affecting England alone, but in their opinion acts confined
to Scotland ought to be, and in fact they are in the main, governed by
the opinion of the Scotch members. Such a condition is due partly to the
fact that Scotch institutions and ideas are sufficiently distinct from
those of England to require separate treatment, and not different enough
to excite repugnance. It is due in part also to the fact that the
Scotch are both a homogeneous and a practical people, so that all
classes can unite in common opinions about religion, politics and social
justice. The result is that Scotland is governed by Scotchmen in
accordance with Scotch ideas, while Ireland has been governed by
Englishmen, and until recently, in accordance with English ideas.
[Sidenote: Ireland.]
The Act of Union with Ireland in 1801 abolished the Irish Parliament,
and vested the whole legislative power for the United Kingdom in the
joint Parliament at Westminster; but the executive government for
Ireland was left at Dublin. It is conducted in the name of the Lord
Lieutenant as the representative of the Crown.[139:1] The work is
nominally done by him in his Privy Council, subject to such instructions
as may be sent to him by the English government through the Home
Secretary. In practice, however, matters have worked out very
differently, for the administration of Ireland has been far too
important to rest under the wing of the Home Office. The Lord Lieutenant
is always a great nobleman, and he is expected to keep up a vice-regal
state, sometimes at an expense exceeding his enormous salary of £20,000
a year; but he is not ordinarily the real head of the Irish Office.
Since 1868 he has been a member of the cabinet less than eleven years,
whereas his Chief Secretary has been in the cabinet during the whole of
that period, except from 1882 to 1885, and for three other intervals
that were very brief. Moreover, the Chief Secretary is always a member
of the House of Commons, where he must defend the administration of
Ireland against the attacks of the Irish members, and often of the
English Opposition also. Thus it has come about that the Chief Secretary
habitually plays the part of minister for Ireland, and is practically
the ruler of the country. He is at the head of the Irish Local
Government Board, Congested Districts Board and Department of
Agriculture and Technical Instruction, and in general he is held
responsible for all administration of a political character, except in
the case of the revenue and the Irish Board of Works, which are under
the direct control of the Treasury.[140:1] He possesses, indeed, not
only the authority vested in a number of ministers in England, but also
powers not conferred upon them at all. During the greater part of the
time since the Union in 1801, Ireland has been subject to a long series
of coercion acts, temporary in duration, but renewed at short intervals
under different names.[140:2] The provisions have varied, but the object
has always been to arm the Irish government with extraordinary and
arbitrary powers for the suppression of disorder. Moreover, the police
of Ireland, instead of being, as in England and Scotland, under the
control of the local authorities, is under the direct orders of Dublin
Castle. This force, the Royal Irish Constabulary, contains over twelve
thousand men, a number twice as large in proportion to the population as
that of the police in Great Britain.
[Sidenote: Causes of Misgovernment.]
The administration of Ireland has been the conspicuous failure of the
English government. Its history for a century has been a long tale of
expedients, palliations and concessions, which have never availed to
secure either permanent good order or the contentment and loyalty of the
inhabitants. Each step has been taken, not of foresight, but under
pressure. The repressive measures have been avowedly temporary, devised
to meet an emergency, not part of a permanent policy; while concessions,
which if granted earlier might have had more effect, have only come when
attention to the matter has been compelled by signs of widespread and
grievous discontent. Catholic emancipation was virtually won by the
Clare election; disestablishment of the Anglican Church was hastened by
the Fenian movement; the Home Rule Bill followed the growth of the Irish
parliamentary party, culminating in Parnell's hold upon the balance of
power in the House of Commons; and the land laws have resulted from
agrarian agitation. It has been said that the same thing is true of
English reforms, that Parliament seldom gives redress until a wrong has
been brought forcibly to its notice, and this is no doubt a natural if
not an inevitable result of the parliamentary form of government. It is
a part of the general tendency to treat symptoms rather than causes, to
which we shall have occasion to refer again. But while Parliament, now
that all classes are represented there, is certain to be made aware of
an English grievance long before it has become intolerable, it is by no
means so keenly sensitive to an Irish one. The fact is that Irish
problems lie beyond the experience of the English member and his
constituents. Being unable to distinguish readily a real grievance from
an unreasonable demand, he does not heed it until he is obliged to; and
the cabinet, with its hands already full, is not inclined to burn its
fingers with matters in which the House is not deeply or generally
interested. All this is merely one of many illustrations of the truth
that parliamentary government can work well only so far as the nation
itself is fairly homogeneous in its political aspirations.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of the Problem.]
But if the parliamentary system has proved an instrument ill-fitted for
ruling Ireland, it is also true that the problem has been one of extreme
difficulty. English statesmen might have repeated what Lord Durham said
of Canada in his famous report: "I expected to find a contest between a
government and a people. I found two nations warring in the bosom of a
single state."[141:1] For centuries Ireland has remained a conquered
land without a thorough fusion of the victors and the vanquished; the
native stock has been subjected without being assimilated, and the
difference of race has been intensified by a difference of creed. The
Celt still looks upon his Saxon landlord, and upon the Orangemen in
Ulster, as aliens, and upon the constabulary as the garrison of a
foreign power. This has not only made the management of Ireland an
exceedingly hard thing for an English government to carry on, but it
also stands in the way of any other solution of the problem. To allow
the Irish to govern themselves means putting the under dog on top and
the upper dog underneath. The difficulty has been further increased by a
deep-seated divergence in the conceptions of law and justice. Unlike
Scotland, Ireland has the English system of jurisprudence. Her courts
are modelled on those at Westminster, and administer the English Common
Law, while most of the statutes affecting civil rights are the same.
But, as men have often pointed out, there are in times of agitation two
laws, and two governments, in the country; on one side the English law,
administered by the English government through its officials, and on the
other a hostile system resting upon very different principles, and
applied by an extra-legal political organisation, but in fact more
vigorously enforced than the first, and often more in harmony with the
popular sense of justice.
[Sidenote: The Land Question.]
The divergence between the legal conceptions of the English and Irish is
most marked in the case of land. According to the ideas of Englishmen,
and of Irish landlords, the land belongs to the owner, and apart from
special statutory provisions, the tenant has only a contractual right of
possession, during the continuance, and subject to the terms, of his
contract. But the tenants feel that, subject to somewhat indefinite
duties towards the landlord in the way of rent, they have rights in the
land, of which their forbears were robbed, and which they have reclaimed
from the waste.[142:1] Such a difference is fundamental, and cannot be
adjusted to the satisfaction of both parties. People speak of the hunger
of the Irish for land, as if that were the cause of the difficulty, but
the Irishman has no general land-hunger. When he has emigrated to
America, instead of going, like the Swede, to the great open prairies
where any industrious man can easily own a farm, he has settled, like
the landless Hebrew, in the great cities. What the Irish want is Irish
land, and to this they think they have a right.
Various remedies for solving the relation of landlord and tenant have
been tried. First came the Act of 1860, which based that relation
strictly upon contract, though restraining to some extent its
enforcement by summary eviction. Ten years later the Act of 1870
proceeded upon quite a different principle, for it extended the Ulster
tenant-right over the whole country, giving to the tenant a salable
property in his holding. It granted, even to a tenant from year to year,
a claim against his landlord for disturbance; and it conferred a right
to compensation for past as well as future improvements. But these
provisions did not set the questions at rest. Later followed in 1881 the
judicial reduction of rents,--the fixing by public authority of fair
rents as they were called. But here trouble arose on both sides. If the
landlord's views were right, and the land belonged absolutely to him, it
was clearly unjust to deprive him of its market value in rent, and he
was entitled to feel that the government was giving away his property to
smooth its own political difficulties.[143:1] On the other hand, the
fair rents did not end the matter for the tenant. The English, deeply
impressed with the sanctity of contract, meant the new rents to be paid
as rents are paid in England; but the Irishman, living in what might
almost be called a world of status, and brought up under a system of
rack rent, had far less respect for contract, and regarded rents as
things to be paid approximately rather than exactly. The result was more
friction, and a further judicial reduction in 1887. Finally, after a
series of land-purchase acts designed to promote peasant proprietorship,
but too limited in scope to affect general social conditions, had been
tried, a number of landlords and some of the Irish leaders held a
conference in 1902, and virtually agreed that as both parties claimed
rights in the land, the government should pay the landlord for it and
transfer it to the tenant, an arrangement the more easy because by that
time the landlords' interest had fallen greatly in value. The government
undertook to carry out the plan by the Land Purchase Act of 1903, making
not indeed an immediate gift, but a loan of its credit, and charging the
tenant a low rent which is expected eventually to repay the advance, and
leave him the owner of the land.[144:1] Since that time the purchase and
distribution of estates, under the act, has been going on, but the
process naturally takes time, and as might be expected, it has been far
more rapid in the prosperous than in the poor parts of the country. One
may hope that by this means the land question will in time be solved,
but he must have a blind faith who believes that with it the Irish
question will disappear.
A crude outline of the land legislation has been given simply to show
the enormous difficulty of governing a country where the legal
conceptions of rulers and ruled are irreconcilable, and yet that is
precisely the kind of obstacle that arises at every step in the Irish
problem.
FOOTNOTES:
[131:1] He has some powers that have no relation to the law, such as the
appointment to a large number of Crown livings; and in this connection
it may be noted that the offices of Lord Chancellor of Great Britain and
Lord Lieutenant of Ireland are the only ones that cannot be held by
Roman Catholics. The subject is not free from doubt. See Anson, II.,
158, and the debate in 1891, Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXLIX., 1733 _et seq._ On
that occasion the House of Commons refused to remove any disability that
might exist.
[132:1] The list of justices of the peace for each county is in practice
drawn up by the Lord Lieutenant, except in Lancashire, where it is made
by the Chancellor of the Duchy, and that list is almost always adopted
by the Lord Chancellor. No little controversy has, however, arisen of
late over this subject.
[133:1] There are also a Lord Advocate and a Solicitor General for
Scotland, and an Attorney General and a Solicitor General for Ireland.
[133:2] The salary of the Attorney General is £7000; that of the
Solicitor General £6000; and the fees in each case amount to about £1000
more.
[133:3] The Solicitor General for Scotland, and the Attorney and
Solicitor General for Ireland, although political officers who change
with the ministry, are not always in Parliament.
[134:1] See the excellent chapter on prosecution in Maitland's "Justice
and Police."
[134:2] The prosecution is, however, in the name of the King, and the
Attorney General can put a stop to it by _nolle prosequi_ if he
considers it vexatious.
[134:3] In an article in the _Fortnightly Review_ for March, 1873,
entitled, "The Organisation of a Legal Department of Government," Mr.
Bryce showed the need, and sketched the outline, for such a ministry.
[134:4] 42-43 Vic., c. 22; 47-48 Vic., c. 58.
[134:5] Com. Papers, 1886, LIII., 321.
[135:1] _Englische Verwaltungsrecht_, II., 1022-26.
[136:1] Without action by Parliament these extend only to the making of
canons binding on the clergy.
[137:1] All Crown livings with less than £20 of yearly revenue are in
the gift of the Lord Chancellor, Hans., 3 Ser. CLXIX., 1919, and so are
many livings of considerable size. Hans., 3 Ser. CLXX., 131. The
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster nominates to Crown livings
belonging to the Duchy, and the Home Secretary to those in the Channel
Islands and the Isle of Man. Hans., 3 Ser. CCCXLIX., 1745-46.
[137:2] The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
[139:1] The provisions of the Test Act still apply to this office, so
that the Lord Lieutenant must necessarily be of a faith different from
that of the large majority of the people he is appointed to rule.
[140:1] Public non-technical education is directed by the Commissioners
of Irish National Education, and the Board of Intermediate Education.
These boards are not political, but the members, who must be partly
Protestant and partly Roman Catholic, are appointed by the Lord
Lieutenant, and the Chief Secretary has a certain measure of control
over them.
[140:2] The last of them, the Crimes Act of 1887, is a permanent
statute, but its provisions come into force only on a proclamation by
the Lord Lieutenant, which is revocable at any time.
[141:1] Com. Papers, 1839, XVII., 1, p. 8.
[142:1] The fact that improvements have been generally made by the
landlord in England, and by the tenant in Ireland, has much to do with
this feeling.
[143:1] The case for the landlords has been very strongly stated by Mr.
Lecky in his "Democracy and Liberty," I., 167-212.
[144:1] 3 Edw. VII., c. 37. The Act of 1903 was hailed with joy, but the
Irish members soon complained of its administration, and on July 20,
1905, they moved successfully to reduce by £100 the appropriation for
the Land Commission as an expression of dissatisfaction. Hans., Ser.
CXLIX., 1409-86.
CHAPTER VII
THE PERMANENT CIVIL SERVICE
[Sidenote: Sharp Distinction between Political and Non-Political
Officials.]
The history of the permanent civil service would be one of the most
instructive chapters in the long story of English constitutional
development, but unfortunately it has never been written. The nation has
been saved from a bureaucracy, such as prevails over the greater part of
Europe, on the one hand, and from the American spoils system on the
other, by the sharp distinction between political and non-political
officials. The former are trained in Parliament, not in administrative
routine. They direct the general policy of the government, or at least
they have the power to direct it, are entirely responsible for it, and
go out of office with the cabinet; while the non-political officials
remain at their posts without regard to party changes, are thoroughly
familiar with the whole field of administration, and carry out in detail
the policy adopted by the ministry of the day. The distinction has
arisen gradually with the growth of the parliamentary system.
[Sidenote: Exclusion of Non-Political Officials from Parliament.]
A dread of the power of the King to control Parliament, by a
distribution of offices and pensions among its members, gave rise to a
provision, in the Act of Settlement of 1700, that after the accession of
the House of Hanover no person holding an office or place of profit
under the Crown should be capable of sitting in the House of
Commons.[145:1] But before this act took effect the disadvantages of
excluding entirely from the House the great officers of state was
perceived. The provision was, therefore, modified so as to shut out
absolutely only the holders of new offices created after Oct. 25, 1705,
and of certain specified posts already existing. Members of the House of
Commons appointed to other offices were to lose their seats, but be
capable of reëlection.[146:1] As there were many old offices the number
of placemen in Parliament continued large, and no sharp line was drawn
at once between the great officers of state and their subordinates. But
two processes went on which in time rendered the distinction effective.
When a new office of a political nature was created it became the habit
to make a special statutory provision permitting the holder to sit in
the House of Commons; and, on the other hand, place bills were passed
from time to time excluding from Parliament whole classes of officials
of a lower grade. These acts apply, for example, to all the clerks in
many of the government departments,[146:2] and together with the
provision excluding the holders of all new offices created since 1705,
they cover a large part of all the officials under the rank of
minister.[146:3] The distinction between the offices which are and those
which are not compatible with a seat in the House of Commons, is made
complete by the regulations of the service itself. These cannot render
void an election to the House which is not invalid by statute. They
cannot make the holding of office a disqualification for Parliament, but
they can make a seat in Parliament a reason for the loss of office. They
can and do provide that if any civil servant intends to be a candidate
he must resign his office when he first issues his address to the
electors.[146:4]
If it were not for three or four ministers, such as the Irish Law
Officers, who are expected to get themselves elected to Parliament if
they can, but whose tenure of their positions does not depend upon their
doing so, one might say that the public service is divided into
political officers who must sit in Parliament, and non-political
officers who must not.
[Sidenote: Permanent Officials take no Active Part in Politics.]
[Sidenote: But are not Disfranchised]
In a popular government, based upon party, the exclusion of the
subordinate civil servants from the legislature is an essential
condition both of their abstaining from active politics and of their
permanence of tenure. But it does not by itself necessarily involve
either of those results. This is clear from the example of the United
States, where office-holders of all grades are excluded from Congress by
the provisions of the Constitution, but by no means refrain from party
warfare. The keeping out of politics, however, and the permanence of
tenure must, in the long run, go together; for it is manifest that
office can be held regardless of party changes only in case the holders
do not take an active part in bringing those changes to pass; and if, on
the other hand, they are doomed to lose their places on a defeat at the
polls of the party in power, they will certainly do their utmost to
avert such a defeat. In England the abstinence and the permanence have
been attained, and it is noteworthy that they are both secured by the
force of opinion hardening into tradition, and not by the sanction of
law.[147:1] At one time, indeed, large classes of public servants were
deprived of the parliamentary franchise. An Act of 1782, for
example,[147:2] withdrew the right to vote from officers employed in
collecting excises, customs and other duties, and from postmasters; but
these disqualifications were removed in 1868.[147:3] The police, also,
were, by a series of acts, deprived of the franchise in the
constituencies where they held office. Except as regards Ireland,
however, these statutes were, in their turn, repealed in 1887;[148:1]
and the only disqualifications now attaching to public officials relate
to such positions as those of returning officers at elections.[148:2]
England enfranchised her officials at the very time when she was
enlarging the suffrage and the number of office-holders. In some other
countries the political danger of a large class of government employees
has been keenly felt. This has been particularly true of the new
democracies in Australia with their armies of public servants on the
state railroads; and, indeed, the pressure constantly brought to bear in
the legislature in favour of this class caused Victoria in 1903 to
readjust her election laws.[148:3] The employees of the government have
not been disfranchised altogether, but they have been deprived of the
right to vote in the regular constituencies, and have been allotted one
representative in the legislative council and two in the assembly to be
elected entirely by their own class. They have, therefore, their
spokesmen in the legislature, but they are no longer able to influence
the other members as of old.
[Sidenote: Effect of Giving them Votes.]
In England these dangers are by no means unknown; but they have not
taken the form of work done by civil servants for purely party ends.
From that evil the country has been almost wholly free; for although all
office-holders, not directly connected with the conduct of elections,
have now a legal right to vote, and are quite at liberty to do so, it is
a well-settled principle that those who are non-political--that is, all
who are not ministers--must not be active in party politics. They must
not, for example, work in a party organisation, serve on the committee
of a candidate for Parliament, canvass in his interest, or make speeches
on general politics. All this is so thoroughly recognised that one
rarely hears complaints of irregular conduct, or even of actions of a
doubtful propriety. In this connection it is worthy of note that the
revenue officers were disfranchised in 1782 at their own request. At
that time the government controlled through them seventy seats in the
House of Commons, and Lord North sent them notice that it would go hard
with them if they did not support his party. His opponents sent them a
similar warning, and the result was that in self-protection they sent up
a strong petition asking for exclusion from the franchise.[149:1] The
bill to reënfranchise them was carried in 1868 against the wishes of the
government of the day.[149:2] But on that occasion, and in 1874, when
the acts imposing penalties upon their taking an active part at
elections were repealed, it was perfectly well understood that they
would not be permitted to go into party politics, and that the
government was entitled to make regulations on the subject.[149:3] Those
regulations are still in force,[149:4] and it is only by maintaining
them that the civil servants can continue to enjoy both permanence of
tenure and the right to vote.
[Sidenote: Attempts to Improve their Position.]
[Sidenote: The Dockyards.]
The danger arising from the votes of public servants has been felt in a
different way. While the government employees have kept clear of party
politics, they have in some cases used their electoral rights to bring
pressure to bear upon members of Parliament in favour of increasing
their own pay and improving the conditions of their work. This has been
peculiarly true of the dockyards. The members of the half dozen boroughs
where the state maintains great shops for the construction and repair of
warships are always urging the interests of the workmen; and they do it
with so little regard to the national finances, or to the question
whether they are elected as supporters or opponents of the ministry,
that they have become a byword in Parliament under the name of
"dockyard-members."[149:5]
[Sidenote: Other Officials.]
Unfortunately the difficulty has not been confined to the dockyards. At
the time when the revenue and post-office employees were enfranchised,
Disraeli dreaded their use of the franchise for the purpose of raising
their salaries;[150:1] and Gladstone said he was not afraid of
government influence, or of an influence in favour of one political
party or another, but of class influence, "which in his opinion was the
great reproach of the Reformed Parliament."[150:2] These fears have not
proved groundless. As early as 1875 it was recognised that the salaries
paid by the government were above the market rate;[150:3] and ever since
the officials in the revenue and postal departments obtained the right
to vote, pressure on behalf of their interests has been brought to bear
by them upon members of Parliament, and by the latter upon the
government. Complaints of this have been constant.[150:4] It has been a
source of criticism that members should have attended meetings of civil
servants held to demand an increase of pay,[150:5] and that they should
receive whips urging their attendance at the House when questions of
this sort are to come up.[150:6] Owing to the concentration of
government employees in London the pressure upon the metropolitan
members is particularly severe.
[Sidenote: Recent Efforts of Postal Officials for More Pay.]
For nearly a score of years a continuous effort has been made in
Parliament to secure the appointment of a committee to inquire into the
pay of postal and telegraph employees, and into grievances which are
said to exist in the service. The government has in part yielded, in
part resisted; but in trying to prevent pressure upon members of
Parliament, it took at one time a step that furnished a fresh cause of
complaint. The story of this movement illustrates forcibly the dangers
of the situation. In 1892 the Postmaster General, Sir James Fergusson,
called the attention of the House of Commons to a circular addressed by
an association of telegraph clerks to candidates at the general
election, asking whether if elected they would vote for a committee to
inquire into the working of the service.[151:1] He then sent to the
clerks an official warning that it is improper for government employees
to try to extract promises from candidates with reference to their pay
or duties.[151:2] Nevertheless two of the clerks, Clery and Cheesman,
who had been chairman and secretary of the meeting which had voted to
issue the circular, signed a statement that the notice by the Postmaster
General "does not affect the policy of the Association." Immediately
after the election these two men were dismissed.[151:3] That became a
grievance in itself, and year after year attempts were made in
Parliament to have them reinstated. Shortly after they had been
dismissed Mr. Gladstone came into office; and he made a vague statement
to the effect that the government intended to place no restraint upon
the civil servants beyond the rule forbidding them to take an active
part in political contests.[151:4] But it would seem that Fergusson's
warning circular was not cancelled,[151:5] and certainly Clery and
Cheesman were not taken back.
[Sidenote: Demand for a Parliamentary Committee.]
[Sidenote: Pressure Brought to Bear.]
The motions for a parliamentary committee to inquire into the conditions
of the service were kept up; and in 1895 the government gave way so far
as to appoint a commission, composed mainly of officials drawn from
various departments, which reported in 1897 recommending some increases
of pay both in the postal and in the telegraph service. These were at
once adopted, and in fact further concessions were made shortly
afterward, but still the agitation did not cease. The employees would be
satisfied with nothing but a parliamentary committee, no doubt for the
same reason that led the government to refuse it, namely the pressure to
which members of Parliament were subject,[152:1] and the additional
force that pressure would have if brought to a focus upon the persons
selected to serve on a committee.[152:2] Year after year grievances on
one side, and on the other charges of almost intolerable pressure were
repeated. In 1898 the interest centred in a motion to the effect that
public servants in the Post Office were deprived of their political
rights. A long debate took place in which the whole history of the
subject was reviewed,[152:3] and Hanbury, the Financial Secretary of the
Treasury, exclaimed, "We have done away with personal and individual
bribery, but there is a still worse form of bribery, and that is when a
man asks a candidate to buy his vote out of the public purse."[152:4] In
1903 Mr. Austen Chamberlain stated that members had come to him, not
from one side of the House alone, to seek from him, in his position as
Postmaster General, protection in the discharge of their public duties
against the pressure sought to be put upon them by the employees of the
Post Office.[152:5] He consented, however, to appoint a commission of
business men to advise him about the wages of employees; but again there
was a protest against any committee of inquiry not composed of members
of Parliament.[152:6] The report of the commission was followed in 1904
by a debate of the usual character.[152:7] Finally in 1906 the new
Liberal ministry yielded, and a select committee was appointed.[152:8]
There are now employed in the postal and telegraph services about two
hundred thousand persons, who have votes enough, when organised, to be
an important factor at elections in many constituencies, and to turn the
scale in some of them. If their influence is exerted only to raise wages
in a service recruited by competitive examination,[153:1] the evil is
not of the first magnitude; but it is not difficult to perceive that
such a power might be used in directions highly detrimental to the
state. There is no reason to expect the pressure to grow less, and
mutterings are sometimes heard about the necessity of taking the
franchise away from government employees. That would be the only
effective remedy, and the time may not be far distant when it will have
to be considered seriously.
As we shall have occasion to see hereafter, the pressure in behalf of
individuals is comparatively small, and it is characteristic of modern
English parliamentary government that political influence should be used
to promote class rather than personal interests.
[Sidenote: Permanence of Tenure of Officials.]
Permanence of tenure in the English civil service, like the abstinence
from partly politics, is secured by custom, not by law, for the
officials with whom we are concerned here are appointed during pleasure,
and can legally be dismissed at any time for any cause. Now, although
the removal, for partisan motives, of officials who would be classed
to-day as permanent and non-political, has not been altogether unknown
in England, yet it was never a general practice. The reason that the
spoils system--that is, the wholesale discharge of officials on a change
of party--obtained no foothold is not to be found in any peculiarly
exalted sense, inherent in the British character, that every public
office is a sacred trust. That conception is of comparatively modern
origin; for in the eighteenth century the abuse of patronage, and even
the grosser forms of political corruption, were shamelessly practised.
It is rather to be sought in quite a different sentiment, the sentiment
that a man has a vested interest in the office that he holds. This
feeling is constantly giving rise, both in public and private affairs,
to a demand for the compensation of persons displaced or injured by a
change of methods which seems strange to a foreigner.[154:1] The claim
by publicans for compensation when their licenses are not renewed, a
claim recognised by the Act of 1904, is based upon the same sentiment
and causes the traveller to inquire how any one can, as the result of a
license ostensibly temporary, have a vested right to help other people
to get drunk.
The habit of discharging officials on party grounds never having become
established, it was not unnatural that with the growth of the
parliamentary system the line between the changing political chiefs and
their permanent subordinates should be more and more clearly marked, and
this process has gone on until at the present day the dismissal of the
latter on political grounds is practically unheard of, either in
national or local administration.
[Sidenote: Former Party Patronage.]
While the discharge of public servants on political grounds never became
a settled custom in England, such vacancies as occurred in the natural
course of events were freely used in former times to confer favours on
political and personal friends, or to reward party services. Such a
practice was regarded as obvious, and it continued unchecked until after
the first Reform Act. It was particularly bad in Ireland, where Peel,
who was Chief Secretary from 1812 to 1818, took great credit to himself
for breaking up the habit of treating the Irish patronage as the
perquisite of the leading families, and for dispensing it on public
grounds, that is, using it to secure political support for the party in
power.[155:1] That the patronage was used for the same purpose in
England at that period may be seen in the reports and evidence laid
before Parliament in 1855, 1860 and 1873 after a different system had
begun to take its place.[155:2] It was no doubt an effective means of
procuring political service, and Lord John Russell speaks of the Tories
in 1819 as apparently invincible from long possession of government
patronage, spreading over the Church, the Law, the Army, the Navy, and
the colonies.[155:3] The support most needed by the ministry was that of
members of the House of Commons, and they received in return places for
constituents who had been, or might become, influential at elections.
Thus it came about that the greater part of the appointments, especially
to local offices, were made through the members of Parliament.[155:4]
The system hampered the efficiency of administration, and harassed the
ministers. Writing in 1829, the Duke of Wellington used words that might
have been applied to other countries at a later time,--"The whole system
of the patronage of the government," he wrote, "is in my opinion
erroneous. Certain members claim a right to dispose of everything that
falls vacant within the town or county which they represent; and this is
so much a matter of right that they now claim the patronage whether they
support upon every occasion, or now and then, or when not required, or
entirely oppose; and in fact the only question about local patronage is
whether it shall be given to the disposal of one gentleman or
another."[156:1]
[Sidenote: The Introduction of Examinations.]
At last a revulsion of feeling took place. Between 1834 and 1841 pass
examinations, which discarded utterly incompetent candidates, were
established in some of the departments, and in several cases even
competitive examinations were introduced. But the great impulse toward a
new method of appointment dates from 1853, and it came from two
different quarters. In that year the charter of the East India Company
was renewed, and Parliament was not disposed to continue the privilege
hitherto enjoyed by the directors of making appointments to
Haileybury--the preparatory school for the civil service in India. A
commission, with Macaulay at its head, reported in the following year
that appointments to the Indian service ought to be made on the basis of
an open competitive examination of a scholastic character. The plan was
at once adopted, Haileybury was abandoned, and with some changes in
detail, the system of examination recommended by the commission has been
in operation ever since.[156:2]
[Sidenote: Open Competition.]
In 1853, also, Sir Stafford Northcote and Sir Charles Trevelyan, who
were selected by Mr. Gladstone to inquire into the condition of the
civil service in England, reported in favour of a system of appointment
by open competitive examination. The new method met with far more
opposition at home than in India, and made its way much more slowly.
Foreseeing obstacles in the House of Commons, Lord Palmerston's
government determined to proceed, not by legislation, but by executive
order, resorting to Parliament only for the necessary appropriation. An
Order in Council was accordingly made on May 21, 1855,[156:3] creating a
body of three Civil Service Commissioners,[156:4] who were to examine
all candidates for the junior positions in the various departments of
the civil service. The reform was not at the outset very radical, for
political nomination was not abolished, and the examinations--not
necessarily competitive--were to be arranged in accordance with the
desires of the heads of the different departments. The change could
progress, therefore, only so fast as the ministers in charge of the
various state offices might be convinced of its value; but from this
time the new method gained favour steadily with high administrative
officials, with Parliament and with the public. In 1859[157:1] it was
enacted that (except for appointments made directly by the Crown, and
posts where professional or other peculiar qualifications were required)
no person thereafter appointed should, for the purpose of superannuation
pensions, be deemed to have served in the permanent civil service of the
state unless admitted with a certificate from the Civil Service
Commissioners. In 1860 a parliamentary committee reported that limited
competition ought to supersede mere pass examinations, and that open
competition, which does away entirely with the privilege of nomination,
was better than either.[157:2] The committee, however, did not think the
time ripe for taking this last step, and the general principle of open
competition was not established until June 4, 1870. An Order in Council
of that date,[157:3] which is still the basis of the system of
examinations, provides that (except for offices to which the holder is
appointed directly by the Crown, situations filled by promotion, and
positions requiring professional or other peculiar qualifications, where
the examinations may be wholly or partly dispensed with) no person shall
be employed in any department of the civil service until he has been
tested by the Civil Service Commissioners, and reported by them
qualified to be admitted on probation.[157:4] It provides further that
the appointments named in Schedule A, annexed to the Order, must be
made by open competitive examination; and this list has been extended
from time to time until it covers the greater part of the positions
where the work does not require peculiar qualifications, or is not of a
confidential nature, or of a distinctly inferior or manual character
like that of attendants, messengers, workmen, etc.[158:1]
[Sidenote: A Test of Capacity rather than Fitness.]
Since the general introduction of open competition, by the Order in
Council of 1870, two tendencies have been at work which are not
unconnected. The first is towards simplification, by grouping positions
that have similar duties into large classes, with a single competition
for each class, and thus diminishing the number of examinations for
separate positions.[158:2] The second is the tendency so to examine the
candidates as to test their general ability and attainments, and hence
their capacity to become useful in the positions assigned to them,
rather than the technical knowledge they possess.[159:1] This
distinction marks an important difference between the system of civil
service examinations as it exists in the United States, and the form
which the system has assumed in England. For in the United States the
object is almost entirely to discover the immediate fitness of the
candidates for the work they are expected to do; in England the object
in most cases is to measure what their ability to do the work will be
after they have learned it. The difference arises partly from the fact
that in America the examinations were superimposed upon a custom of
rotation in office and spoils, while in England permanence of tenure was
already the rule; and partly from the fact that the system is applied in
America mainly to positions requiring routine or clerical work, whereas
in England it affects also positions involving, directly or
prospectively, a much greater amount of discretion and responsibility.
Now, it is clear that if men are to be selected young for a lifelong
career, especially if that career involves responsible administrative
work, any acquaintance with the details of the duties to be performed,
and any present fitness for the position, are of far less consequence
than a thorough education, keen intelligence and capacity for
development. Proceeding upon this assumption, Macaulay's commission on
the Indian Civil Service laid down two principles: first, that young men
admitted to that service ought to have the best general education
England could give; and, second, that ambitious men should not be led to
spend time in special study which would be useless if they were not
successful in the competition. The commission urged, therefore, that the
examinations should be closely fitted to the studies pursued in the
English universities. This plan was adopted, and although at one time
the age of admission, and with it the standard, was lowered, they were
afterwards restored; and the same principle is now also applied to the
higher grades in the home service. For the lower positions in that
service, where the work is of a clerical nature, and hence less
discretion and responsibility are involved, it was formerly the habit to
make the examinations more of a test of immediate preparation for the
duties of the office; but this, as we shall see, has recently been
replaced by a system based upon Macaulay's ideas, though applied, of
course, to an inferior scale of education.
[Sidenote: The Different Grades in the Civil Service.]
The permanent officials of a typical department comprise a permanent
under-secretary at the head, and one or more assistant under-secretaries
and chiefs of branches. These offices are treated as not subject to
examination under the Order of 1870, either because they are filled by
promotion, or on the ground that the positions require peculiar
qualifications.[160:1] As a matter of fact such posts are by no means
always filled by promotion, and persons are sometimes selected for them
who are outside of the service altogether. Next in rank come the
principal clerks; but they are recruited entirely by promotion from the
first-class clerks, who are, therefore, the highest grade of officials
entering the service by competitive examination. Below them are the men
now properly called clerks of the second division, although the title of
this class of civil servants has been changed so often that one finds
strange variations of nomenclature in the different departments. Below
these again come the assistant clerks (abstractor class), and finally
the boy clerks.
[Sidenote: Their Origin.]
The sharp separation of the clerks into classes, with distinct
examinations for each class, did not arise at once. The first
examinations under the original order of 1855 were required only for a
"junior situation in any department," and they were not the same in the
different departments. They were elementary affairs,[161:1] evidently
designed to sift out incompetence rather than to test superiority; for
it must be observed that in only a very small proportion of these
examinations was there even a limited competition.[161:2] When, however,
the Order of 1870 extended the admission examinations to all positions
in the service, not specially excepted or filled by promotion, and set
up the principle of open competition, it became necessary to distinguish
between the higher posts, involving discretionary powers and requiring a
liberal education, and the lower ones where the duties are of a clerical
kind; to distinguish, in other words, between the administrator and the
clerk. Such a distinction was made by the commissioners in their
earliest regulations under the Order of 1870,[161:3] the two classes
being recruited separately by examinations of different character, the
first of which was adapted to university graduates, and the second to
young men from commercial life. At the outset the line was drawn
somewhat at haphazard without sufficient attention to the real nature of
the work to be done, and it was readjusted several times before it
assumed its present form.[161:4]
[Sidenote: Exceptional Positions.]
Aside from the regular grades of clerks recruited by open competition,
there are various kinds of inspectors, clerks and other special
officials, appointed after open competition, limited competition, pass
examination or no examination at all. In fact the departments are full
of anomalies, some of them the necessary result of peculiar conditions
of service, and others due apparently to no very rational cause. The
reader will, no doubt, be sufficiently wearied by a description of the
more common methods of examination, without going into the
eccentricities of the system. It may be convenient to consider first the
open competitions, and then the appointments that are made in other
ways.
[Sidenote: The First-class Clerkships.]
The highest posts in the permanent civil service to which admission is
obtained by competitive examination are known as the first-class
clerkships. In 1895 the examinations for these positions and for the
Indian Civil Service were consolidated, and in the following year those
for the Eastern Cadets[162:1] were added; so that a single annual
competition is now the gateway to all three careers, the successful
candidates being allowed, in the order of their rank at the
examination, to choose the service they will enter. In spite of the
smaller pay the first men on the list have usually selected the home
service, because the life is more agreeable; and so far as the vacancies
make it possible they are assigned to the particular department they
prefer.
[Sidenote: The Entrance Examinations.]
Although these positions are called clerkships, the work is not of a
clerical, but of an administrative, and in the upper grades of a highly
responsible, character. The aim of the commissioners is, therefore, to
recruit young men of thorough general education for an important and
lifelong administrative career. With this object the candidates are
required to be between twenty-two and twenty-four years of age, and the
examination, which has no direct connection with their subsequent
duties, is closely fitted to the courses of study in the universities.
As a matter of fact the papers in mathematics and natural science are
based upon the requirements for honour degrees at Cambridge, the papers
in classical and other subjects upon those at Oxford; and thus it
happens that by far the larger part of the successful candidates come
from one or other of these two great universities.[163:1] The range of
subjects is naturally large, and a candidate is allowed to offer as many
as he pleases, but by an ingenious system of marking a thorough
knowledge of a few subjects is made to yield a higher aggregate of marks
than a superficial acquaintance with a larger number.[163:2] The
examination papers are set, and the books are read, by well-known
scholars, instructors at the universities and others, who are selected
for the purpose. That the papers are severe any one may convince
himself by looking at them. Moreover the number of candidates, which is
two or three times as large as the vacancies in all three services
together, insures a rigorous competition; and the result is that the
candidates who win the appointments are men of education and
intellectual power. They belong to the type that forms the kernel of the
professions; and many of them enter the civil service simply because
they have not the means to enable them to wait long enough to achieve
success in a professional career. They form an excellent corps of
administrators, although the time has not come to express an opinion on
the question whether they will prove the best material from which to
draw the permanent under-secretaries and the other staff officers at the
head of the different services. As yet few of them have attained
positions of this grade, but it must be remembered that they have only
recently begun to reach an age when they could be expected to do so.
[Sidenote: Their Social Effect.]
When the government was considering the introduction of competitive
examinations, in 1854, fears were expressed that such a system would
result in driving the aristocracy out of the civil service, and
replacing it by a lower social class.[164:1] Mr. Gladstone himself did
not share that belief. On the contrary, he thought the plan would give
to the highly educated class a stronger hold than ever upon the higher
positions in the service.[164:2] In this he proved a better prophet than
his critics. By far the greater part of the successful competitors for
the Class I clerkships now come, as we have seen, from Oxford and
Cambridge; and the men educated at those universities are still drawn
chiefly from the upper classes, from the aristocracy, the gentry, the
sons of clergymen, of lawyers, of doctors, and of rich merchants who
have made, or who hope to make, their way into the higher strata of
society. Men of more humble extraction go, as a rule, to the provincial
colleges. The Civil Service Commissioners have given in some of their
annual reports the occupations of the fathers of the successful
candidates at the chief open competitions; and while in the case of the
joint examination for the Class I clerkships and the Indian Civil
Service the list includes no peers, and does include some tradesmen, yet
on the whole it consists of persons belonging to the upper and the upper
middle class. Thus it has come about that competitive examinations,
instead of having a levelling tendency, by throwing the service open to
a crowd of quick-witted youths without breeding, has helped to
strengthen the hold of the upper classes upon the government, by
reserving most of the important posts for men trained in the old
aristocratic seats of learning. In this connection it may be observed
that the highest positions in the civil service are often held by men of
noble blood, and it has sometimes happened that the permanent
under-secretary has been a man of higher social position than his
political chief. Sir Robert Herbert and Sir Courtenay Boyle, for
example, who were recently the permanent heads of the Colonial Office
and the Board of Trade, were scions of ancient families in England and
Ireland; and the latter had at one time as his political chief Mr.
Mundella, who had begun life as a printer's devil.[165:1]
[Sidenote: The Second Division Clerkships.]
Ranking below the Class I clerkships, there is a large body of persons
whose work is mainly clerical. These are known as the second division
clerks, and they are recruited by open competition. The standard of
education required by the examination is naturally much less high than
in the case of the first-class clerks, and the candidates are
consequently younger, the competition being now limited to youths
between seventeen and twenty years of age.[165:2]
[Sidenote: Nature of Examinations.]
As the work done by the second division is of the same general character
as that performed by clerks in commercial houses, the examination was at
first devised on the supposition that the candidates would have a
commercial training, and it was adapted to test their immediate fitness
for that work. Besides the elementary general subjects of writing,
English composition, arithmetic, geography and English history, it
covered copying, indexing, digesting returns and bookkeeping. Such a
test was not inappropriate in the earlier days, when appointments were
made by nomination and the object of the examination was simply to
eliminate individual appointees who were unfit for their duties; but it
was continued long after the system of open competition, with its crowd
of eager young candidates almost devoid of actual commercial training,
had brought in a very different state of things. In 1896 the Association
of Head Masters pointed out, in a memorandum, the bad effect produced on
general education. They showed that, in order to improve their chance of
success, boys were prematurely taken from school and placed in the hands
of crammers to acquire "a high degree of polish upon a rather low though
useful order of accomplishment"; and they asked that the examination
might be brought more into line with the curriculum of the schools. This
was done, without giving up the former methods altogether, by
introducing a number of options, so that a candidate need offer only the
subjects ordinarily taught in a secondary school.[166:1] The result in
the future will no doubt be to make proficiency in regular school work
the real test for appointment, and thus, in accordance with Macaulay's
principle, to base the selection upon general education instead of
technical knowledge.
Unlike the first-class clerks, the clerks of the second division are
drawn mainly from the middle and lower middle classes, and their
education has been obtained in the grammar schools and other schools of
a similar kind. Although a distinct corps, recruited by a different
examination, and intended for a lower grade of work, they are not
altogether cut off from the higher positions. After eight years of
service they can, in exceptional cases, be promoted to first-class
clerkships, and this is sometimes done. But as the number of second
division clerks appointed each year is about three hundred, and the
number promoted to first-class clerkships is on the average only about
four, the chance of reaching that grade is very small.[167:1]
[Sidenote: Assistant Clerks.]
Within the last few years a new grade, called assistant clerks
(abstractor class), has been formed, recruited at present by competitive
examinations among the boy clerks. The work is chiefly in the nature of
copying, but an assistant clerk may for special merit be appointed to
the second division without competing in the examination.[167:2]
[Sidenote: Boy Clerks.]
The lowest grade of officials recruited in common for a number of
departments is that of boy clerks.[167:3] These come from much the same
class in the community as the clerks of the second division, and the
competitive examination, though more elementary, is of the same
character,[167:4] the limits of age being fifteen and seventeen years.
The employment is essentially temporary, and in fact boy clerks are not
retained after they are twenty; but the position is a step towards
further advancement, for the boy clerks alone can compete for the
assistant clerkships, and if they go into the examination for the second
division a credit for the service they have done is added to the marks
they obtain. Yet the examination for boy clerks is one of the few
competitions for a large number of positions, where the quantity of
candidates is insufficient.
[Sidenote: Other Competitive Examinations.]
Besides the open competitions for the general grades of clerks, there
are many others for special classes of employees in the different
departments. Some of these positions require no peculiar qualifications,
and there is no obvious reason for having a number of separate
examinations differing slightly from one another; but certain
departments still cling to their own schemes, and the Post Office to
several schemes. All this is being gradually simplified, by having the
same examination for a number of distinct services, that for the second
division clerks, for example, being now used for recruiting the clerks
in the Custom House.[168:1] The examinations for the second division
could, probably, be combined with those for clerks in the Customs and
Inland Revenue, just as a combination has been made in the case of the
first-class clerkships, the Indian Civil Service and the Eastern
Cadets--and that will, no doubt, be the tendency in the future. The same
criticism does not, of course, apply to all the examinations. Some of
them require very different degrees of education; for others, such as
those for draughtsmen, law clerks, and many more, professional or
technical training is obviously necessary; while certain positions are
reserved for women. Each of these examinations is governed by
regulations prescribing the age of the candidates, the fee to be paid,
and the subjects included, but it is clearly needless for our purpose to
follow them in detail.[168:2]
[Sidenote: Limited Competition.]
In most of the departments there are positions in the permanent civil
service not filled by competition, because the kind of experience and
capacity needed cannot be tested, or fully tested, by examination; and
in that case the examination may be wholly or partially dispensed with
under Clause VII of the Order in Council of 1870. There are other
positions where open competition is inapplicable because the places to
be filled are not numerous enough, or sufficiently tempting, to attract
competitors at large; or, because, as in the case of the higher class
clerks in the Foreign Office, of attachés of legation, and of inspectors
of various kinds, the work is of a delicate and confidential nature, and
can be intrusted only to persons whose character is well known. In such
cases it is common to have competitive examinations limited to
candidates selected for the purpose.[169:1] Even a limited competition
has a tendency to raise the standard, but it must be remembered that in
order to obtain a chance to compete in such cases some influence, direct
or indirect, is indispensable; although the power of nomination does
not, in fact, appear to be abused for political purposes.
[Sidenote: Nomination with a Pass Examination.]
There are positions for which no competition is held, but where a single
person is nominated subject to an examination to test his competence.
Some of these places might very well be open to competition, and,
indeed, there are still strange anomalies in various branches of the
civil service; the strangest being the fact that the employees of the
Education Department are, almost invariably, appointed without any
examination at all, and this is true not only of inspectors, whose work
requires peculiar qualifications, but even of clerks of the abstractor
class. There are, however, positions in the civil service where the
technical knowledge or experience needed are really such as to render a
competition difficult. Even in manual occupations this is believed to be
the case. In the royal dockyards, for example, although the apprentices
are recruited by open competition, the artificers are appointed subject
to a pass examination touching only their skill in their trade, while
the foremen are usually selected by a limited competition which includes
something more. Provincial postmasters also form a class by themselves.
Until a few years ago they owed their positions to political influence;
for long after the members of Parliament had lost all control over other
appointments, they retained the power to fill any vacancies that might
occur in the postal service within their constituencies, provided, of
course, they belonged to the party in power. But this last remnant of
parliamentary patronage was abolished in 1896, and provincial
postmasters are now appointed on the recommendation of the surveyors of
the postal districts.[170:1]
[Sidenote: Nomination without Examination.]
Finally there are the appointments made entirely without examination of
any kind, either because examination is dispensed with under Clause VII
of the Order in Council of 1870, or because the position is one excepted
altogether from the operation of the Order. Such posts are chiefly at
the top or at the bottom of the service. They include positions of
responsibility at one end of the scale; and those of messengers,[170:2]
porters and servants at the other.
[Sidenote: Promotions.]
Political influence has not only ceased almost entirely to affect
appointments to office, but it has also been very nearly eliminated in
the matter of promotion. The struggle on this subject began as early as
1847, and the government has been strong enough to declare that an
effort to bring influence to bear will be treated as an offence on the
part of the employee; or as the minutes adopted by the Treasury in 1867,
and by the Admiralty a couple of years later, ingeniously and forcibly
express it, the attempt by a public officer to support his application
by any solicitation on the part of members of Parliament, or other
persons of influence, "will be treated . . . as an admission on the part
of such officer that his case is not good upon its merits."[171:1]
These measures seem to have had the desired effect.[171:2]
[Sidenote: Why the Civil Service was Easily Freed from Political
Influence.]
If we seek to understand how it happened that the baneful influence of
political patronage in the civil service, which had been dominant in
England in the eighteenth century, was thrown off with comparative ease
a hundred years later, while in some other nations that influence was,
at the same period, growing in strength, and has proved extremely
tenacious; if we seek to explain this contrast, we must take account of
a striking peculiarity of English public life at the present day that
has come with the evolution of the parliamentary system. For reasons
that will be discussed hereafter a member of the majority of the House
of Commons votes on the side of the government with singular constancy;
and as compared with most other countries under a popular form of
government politics turn to an unusual extent upon public questions. The
House is engaged in almost ceaseless battles between the two front
benches with the ranks of their followers marshalled behind them; and
the battles are over public matters. Questions affecting private,
personal or local interests occupy a relatively small share of the
attention of the member of Parliament. He is primarily the
representative of a national party elected to support or oppose the
cabinet, rather than the delegate of a district sent to watch over the
interests of his constituents, and push the claims of influential
electors. The defence, said to have been triumphantly made elsewhere, by
a member accused of absence from important divisions, that he had
procured more favours for his constituency than any other
representative, could not be pleaded as an excuse in England. Hence the
ministry is not compelled to enlist personal support either in the
legislature or at the polls, by an appeal to private gratitude. It can
afford to turn a deaf ear to solicitations for patronage, and stand
upon its public policy alone. In short, the enormous strength of party,
in the legitimate sense of a body of men combined for a common public
object, has enabled the government to do what it could not have done so
easily had party required the support of artificial props. The political
condition that has strengthened the government for this work is not in
itself an unmixed good. It brings with it evils, which will be noticed
in due course; but to its credit must be placed the purification of the
civil service.
At the outset ministers feared that the change would meet with
resistance in Parliament, but using one's influence to procure favours
for others is not a wholly agreeable task, especially when more
supplicants are disappointed than gratified. The reform brought to the
House of Commons relief from pressure by importunate constituents, and
all the later steps have been taken with the approval of the members
themselves.
[Sidenote: Pensions.]
With the elimination of politics the civil service has become a career,
steady and free from risk. But the salaries are not high in relation to
the capacity required, and as a rule they begin low with a small
increment for each year of service. They are not large enough to provide
for illness and old age; and, hence, along with the progress of reform
there grew up a demand for pensions. The law on the subject, although
frequently amended, is still based upon the Superannuation Act of 1859,
which grants to "persons who shall have served in an established
capacity in the permanent civil service of the state" for ten years, and
retire at sixty years of age or by reason of infirmity, a pension equal
to ten sixtieths of their final salary. For every additional year of
service another sixtieth is added up to a maximum of forty sixtieths.
Provision has been made, also, for the case of injuries received in the
public service; while more recent statutes have authorised gratuities to
women employees upon marriage--an allowance apparently given, as in the
case of the other grants, rather in a spirit of commiseration, than in
order to encourage matrimony.
FOOTNOTES:
[145:1] 12-13 Will. III., c. 2, § 3. For a description of earlier
efforts to the same end, see Todd, Parl. Govt. in England, II., 114-121.
[146:1] 4 Anne, c. 8, and 6 Anne, c. 7, §§ 25, 26. By § 28 of this act
officers in the Army and Navy are exempted from its operation. They may
sit in the House of Commons, and they do so in considerable numbers,
although they are as a rule required to resign their seats when given an
active command. Military officers occupy, indeed, a position quite
different from that of other public servants, for they not only sit in
Parliament, and take an active part there in the discussion of questions
relating to the service; but they are constantly talking to the public,
a practice that would not be permitted for a moment in the case of
civilians in government employ. The statements in this chapter are,
therefore, confined to the members of the civil service.
[146:2] _Cf._ Rogers on Elections, 16 Ed., II., 21-24.
[146:3] For a list of such statutes, see Anson, I., 93-96.
[146:4] Treasury Minute of Nov. 12, 1884, Com. Papers, 1884-1885, XLV.,
171.
[147:1] Electioneering by civil servants has been the subject of
legislation. An Act of 1710 (9 Anne, c. 10, § 44) rendered liable to
fine and dismissal any post-office official who "shall, by Word,
Message, or Writing, or in any other Manner whatsoever, endeavour to
persuade any Elector to give or dissuade any Elector from giving his
Vote for the Choice of any Person . . . to serve in Parliament." _Cf._
Eaton, "Civil Service in Great Britain," 85.
[147:2] 22 Geo. III., c. 41. Rogers on Elections, I., 196-97.
[147:3] 31-32 Vic., c. 73. All penalties attaching to any of their acts
in relation to elections were abolished by 37-38 Vic., c. 22.
[148:1] Rogers, I., 197-200.
[148:2] _Ibid._, 207-08.
[148:3] Victoria Constitution Act, Com. Papers, 1903, XLIV., 109, pp.
7-8.
[149:1] _Cf._ Hans., 4 Ser. LIII., 1133-34.
[149:2] _Ibid._, CXCIII., 389 _et seq._
[149:3] In fact in 1874 the bill was amended so as to make this clear.
Hans., 3 Ser. CCXIX., 797-800. For 1868 see Hans., 3 Ser. CXCIII.,
405-06.
[149:4] _Cf._ Hans., 4 Ser. XVI., 1218; LIII., 1131.
[149:5] _Cf._ Courtney, "The Working Constitution of the United
Kingdom," 151.
[150:1] Hans., 3 Ser. CXCIII., 393.
[150:2] _Ibid._, 397.
[150:3] Rep. of Com. on Increased Cost of Tel. Service, Com. Papers,
1875, XX., 643, p. 5; 1st Rep. Civil Serv. Inq. Com., Com. Papers, 1875,
XXIII., 1, p. 9. For information and references on the efforts of the
civil servants to raise their pay, and on their pressure upon members of
Parliament, I am indebted to Mr. Hugo Meyer, who kindly showed me his
manuscript on "The Nationalisation of the Telegraphs in England."
[150:4] See, for example, Hans., 3 Ser. CCLXV., 141; CCLXXI., 429; 4
Ser. XXXIX., 596-98; LI., 351-52, 355; LIII., 1107 _et seq._; LXVI.,
1523 _et seq._; LXXII., 119; LXXXII., 199 _et seq._; XCIV., 1382-83;
CVI., 680; CXXI., 1023; and CXXXIX., 1617, 1618, 1629, 1632. 2d Rep.
Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 17444-47,
17821-28, 20238; Rep. Com. on Post Office, Com. Papers, 1897, XLIV., 1,
Q. 11706.
[150:5] 2d Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs.
10562-63, 10742, 10745-49, 17444-47.
[150:6] Hans., 3 Ser. CCCLII., 870.
[151:1] Hans., 4 Ser. V., 1123 _et seq._
[151:2] _Ibid._, 1536 _et seq._
[151:3] _Ibid._, VII., 188-90.
[151:4] _Ibid._, XVI., 1218.
[151:5] _Ibid._, LIII., 1138-39.
[152:1] Hans., 4 Ser. CXXI., 1023.
[152:2] _Ibid._, LXVI., 1550.
[152:3] _Ibid._, LIII., 1107 _et seq._
[152:4] _Ibid._, 1138. In the course of his speech he pointed out that
the membership of the trade-unions in the postal and telegraph service
had grown very much of late years. But he declared that they were
accorded all the privileges enjoyed by trade-unions elsewhere.
[152:5] _Ibid._, CXXI., 1023.
[152:6] _Ibid._, CXXII., 329, 331, 333.
[152:7] _Ibid._, CXXXIX., 1600-36.
[152:8] _Ibid._, CLIII., 357.
[153:1] It may be observed that the use of competitive examinations was
made general by the Act of 1870, passed shortly after the
enfranchisement of revenue officials.
[154:1] The prevailing American sentiment, on the other hand, is
expressed in the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of
Massachusetts, adopted in 1780, which says (Art. viii), "In order to
prevent those who are vested with authority from becoming oppressors,
the people have a right at such periods and in such manner as they shall
establish by their frame of government, to cause their public officers
to return to private life; and to fill up vacant places by certain and
regular elections and appointments." This lays down the principle of
rotation in office, and although by no means so intended by its framers,
may be said to be the charter of the spoils system.
[155:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," I., 50, 160-62, 222, 269. At this
time the permanent under-secretary in Ireland was expected to take an
active part in politics, for we find Peel writing to him to use every
exertion to get the Irish members to support the government on the
Catholic question. _Ibid._, 73.
[155:2] Dorman B. Eaton, "Civil Service in Great Britain." Although not
always accurate, this is the best, and indeed almost the sole, history
of the patronage system and the gradual substitution therefor of
appointment by examination.
[155:3] "Recollections and Suggestions," 33.
[155:4] Sir Thomas Erskine May, although writing when this system was
passing away, seemed to regard it as essential to party government.
Speaking of the effects of parliamentary reform upon the state of
parties, he says, "But throughout these changes, patronage has been the
mainspring of the organisation of parties." "Const. Hist. of England" (1
Am. Ed.), II., 99.
[156:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 140.
[156:2] _Cf._ Lowell and Stephens, "Colonial Civil Service."
[156:3] Com. Papers, 1854-1855, XLI., 369.
[156:4] These have since been reduced to two.
[157:1] 22 Vic., c. 26; §§ 4, 17.
[157:2] Com. Papers, 1860, IX., 1.
[157:3] _Ibid._, 1870, XIX., 1, p. vii.
[157:4] §§ 2, 7, and Schedule B. _Cf._ Orders in Council, Aug. 19, 1871,
§ 1; Sept. 15, 1902. The Order of 1870 requires a certificate of
qualification from the Civil Service Commissioners as a condition of
employment in "any situation or appointment in any department of the
civil service," not specially excepted from the operation of the Order.
The exceptions were enumerated in Schedule B, and are those described in
the parenthesis of the sentence to which this is a note. The order
originally applied, therefore, to all other positions whatever their
nature; but by § 8 the chief authorities of any department were given
power, with the concurrence of the Treasury, to add to the schedules, or
withdraw situations therefrom; and this power has been used to add to
Schedule B, and thus exempt from examination altogether a number of
positions, almost exclusively menial, such as those of messengers,
porters, charwomen, etc. The Orders in Council and Treasury Minutes
relating to the civil service may be found at the end of the Civil
Service Year Book.
[158:1] Schedule A at first contained a list, not of situations, but of
departments; so that the system of open competition applied to all the
positions (not specially expected) in some departments, and to none of
those in others. This irrational classification recurs constantly in the
history of the civil service examinations, but in the case of open
competitions it has been changed under the reserved power to modify
Schedule A. Clerkships, and other posts, in departments not previously
included, have been added to the schedule; while large classes of
situations have been withdrawn therefrom. These are, for the most part,
manual occupations, such as office keepers, messengers, porters,
foremen, artisans, labourers, matrons and domestic servants. Some of
them, as explained in the preceding note, have been exempted from
examination altogether, and for the rest the candidates are nominated
subject to a pass examination, or a limited competition. The
requirements in the case of the more important classes among them will
be described in a later part of this chapter.
[158:2] _Cf._ 45 Rep. Civil Serv. Comrs., Com. Papers, 1901, XVIII.,
129, pp. lxxxiii-lxxxvii.
[159:1] _Cf. Ibid._, pp. lxxiii-lxxv.
[160:1] Under Order in Council June 4, 1870, § 7, and Schedule B.
Playfair's commission remarked of these positions, that in order to
obtain superannuation pensions the holders must have been appointed with
a certificate from the Civil Service Commissioners, or must, under
Section 4 of the Superannuation Act of 1859, be excepted from the rule
by the Treasury on the ground that the office is one requiring peculiar
qualifications. The commission found that in fact the examination was
not in general required. (Com. Papers, 1875, XXIII., 1, p. 6.)
[161:1] They covered reading, writing and arithmetic, often dictation,
précis, geography, English history, Latin and French, sometimes
bookkeeping, and occasionally something more; 3d Rep. of Civil Serv.
Comrs., Com. Papers, 1857-1858, XXV., 1, App. B.
[161:2] Rep. of the Com. on Civil Service Appointments, Com. Papers,
1860, IX., 1, pp. vii-viii.
[161:3] 16th Rep. Civil Serv. Comrs., Com. Papers, 1871, XVII., 1, App.
1.
[161:4] In 1873 a Committee on Civil Service Expenditure suggested
abolishing the distinction altogether, and having a single examination
for admission to each department, the men to stand upon an equality as
regards subsequent promotion by merit. (3d Rep., Com. Papers, 1873,
VII., 415, p. iv.) No action was taken on this recommendation; and two
years later Playfair's Commission on Admission to the Civil Service
reported (Com. Papers, 1875, XXIII., 1) that the distinction between a
higher division to do the responsible work, and a lower division to do
the routine work, ought to be maintained. But they criticised the
existing division into Classes I and II, on the ground that there was no
possibility of promotion from the second to the first, and that the
distinction did not correspond with the real difference in the nature of
the work, so that mechanical work was done by the first class and
responsible work by the second, while the clerks in some of the
departments belonged wholly to one class. They recommended that there
should be in every department a lower division of men and boy clerks;
that its members should serve in any department to which they were
appointed or transferred; and that after ten years' service they might,
if they had shown exceptional capacity, be promoted to the upper
division. These recommendations were embodied in the Order in Council of
Feb. 12, 1876. The organisation of the civil service was thereby
simplified and improved, but it was still imperfect. The Commission on
Civil Establishments, in their second report, in 1888 (Com. Papers,
1888, XXVII., 1), said that in practice the work of the two divisions
had overlapped, and the line between them had been drawn too low. They
suggested also that the name of the lower division should be changed to
second division. This was carried into effect by an Order in Council of
March 21, 1890, which constituted the second division of the civil
service, with a higher grade to be reached by promotion, and made the
boy clerks into a separate division. The rules affecting the second
division have since been embodied in a new Order in Council of Nov. 29,
1898, amended by another Order of Sept. 15, 1902. The first division,
known as Class I of the Civil Service, was regulated afresh by an Order
in Council of Aug. 15, 1890, which created there also an upper grade to
be reached by promotion.
It may be added that appointments made as the result of competitive
examination are not absolute at once, but are probationary for a certain
period.
[162:1] These are the men entering the civil service of the Eastern
colonies, Ceylon, Hong Kong, the Federated Malay States, etc.
[163:1] Of the 514 successful candidates for the Class I clerkships, the
Indian Civil Service and the Eastern Cadets, from 1896 to 1900
inclusive, 262 had studied at Oxford, 148 at Cambridge, 83 at other
universities in the United Kingdom, 7 in colonial and Indian
universities, and 14 in no university at all. (45th Rep. of the Civil
Serv. Comrs., Com. Papers, 1901, XVIII., 129, pp. lxxix-lxxxii.) The
proportion from Oxford and Cambridge in the Class I clerkships alone
would be somewhat larger still. The later reports of the Civil Service
Commission show that these proportions have not been very much changed.
[163:2] A more detailed statement of the method of conducting the
examination and its results may be found in Lowell and Stephens,
"Colonial Civil Service."
[164:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," I., 511.
[164:2] In a letter to Lord John Russell he wrote: "It must be
remembered that an essential part of any such plan as it is now under
discussion is the separation of _work_, wherever it can be made, into
mechanical and intellectual, a separation which will open to the highly
educated class a career, and give them a command over all the higher
parts of the civil service, which up to this time they have never
enjoyed." _Ibid._, 649.
[165:1] For Mundella's origin see Davidson, "Eminent English Liberals,"
Ch. xii.; Hinton, "English Radical Leaders," Ch. viii.
[165:2] As in all such cases, the upper limit is extended to some extent
for men who have served the public in a military or other capacity.
[166:1] 45th Rep. Civil Serv. Comrs., Com. Papers, 1901, XVIII., 129,
pp. lxxiii-iv. Under the present regulations, writing (with copying),
arithmetic and English composition are required; and of the eight
optional subjects--précis (including indexing and adjusting of returns),
bookkeeping and shorthand, geography and English history, Latin, French,
German, elementary mathematics (plane geometry and algebra), and
chemistry and physics--not more than four may be offered, including not
more than two of the three languages.
[167:1] During the thirteen years from 1886 to 1898, inclusive, 147
first-class clerks were appointed by open competition, 34 were promoted
from the second division (or the corresponding class that preceded it),
and 8 came from other sources (virtually by transfer from distinct
services). During the same period 123 second division clerks were
promoted to other posts carrying an increase of salary. Com. Papers,
1899, LXXVII., 751. From the later reports of the Civil Service
Commissioners it would appear that the proportion of first-class
clerkships filled by promotion does not increase.
[167:2] Order in Council, Nov. 29, 1898, § 15.
[167:3] Or boy copyists. They were formerly two separate classes, but
are now combined.
[167:4] The nature of the examination was changed at the same time, and
for the same reason as that of the second division clerks.
[168:1] 45th Rep. of the Civil Serv. Comrs., Com. Papers, 1901, XVIII.,
129, pp. lxxxiii-vii.
[168:2] _Ibid._, 129, pp. lxxxiii-vii.
[169:1] The Committee on Civil Establishments reported that this method
of appointment was a necessity in the Foreign Office. Com. Papers, 1890,
XXVII., 1, p. 9.
[170:1] Courtney, "The Working Constitution," 149-50. The local member,
however, is still often consulted, but rather as having local knowledge
than with a view to political influence.
[170:2] Messengers are often examined in the three R's.
[171:1] Com. Papers, 1883, XXXVIII., 543.
[171:2] Third Rep. of the Com. on Civil Serv. Exp., Com. Papers, 1873,
VII., 415, Qs. 4270-72, 4727, 4762, 4764. There was at that time some
trouble in the case of dismissals. _Ibid._, Qs. 4271-72.
CHAPTER VIII
THE MINISTERS AND THE CIVIL SERVICE
[Sidenote: The Need of both Expert and Layman.]
As scientific and technical knowledge increase, as the relations of life
become more complex, there is an ever-growing need of men of special
training in every department of human activity; and this is no less true
of the government than of every other organisation. Any work, therefore,
carried on at the present day without the assistance of experts is
certain to be more or less inefficient. But, on the other hand, experts
acting alone tend to take disproportionate views, and to get more or
less out of touch with the common sense of the rest of the world. They
are apt to exaggerate the importance of technical questions as compared
with others of a more general nature--a tendency which leads either to
hobbies, or, where the organism is less vigorous, to officialism and red
tape. These evils have become so marked in the case of some governments
as to give rise to the ill name of bureaucracy. In order, therefore, to
produce really good results, and avoid the dangers of inefficiency on
the one hand, and of bureaucracy on the other, it is necessary to have
in any administration a proper combination of experts and men of the
world. Now, of all the existing political traditions in England, the
least known to the public, and yet one of those most deserving
attention, is that which governs the relation between the expert and the
layman.
[Sidenote: The Judge and Jury.]
The first branch of the English government to reach a high point of
development was that which dealt with the administration of justice; and
it is here that we first see the coöperation of professional and lay
elements. They appear in the form of judge and jury; and in that form
they have worked together from the Middle Ages to the present day. The
judge, a royal officer of high rank, supplies the expert knowledge,
while the lay influence is exerted by means of a panel of twelve men of
average ignorance, drawn from the community by lot for the occasion; and
although this is not the usual method of combining the two elements,
their reciprocal control has certainly been effective.
[Sidenote: The Justice of the Peace and his Clerk.]
It was not, however, in the superior courts of law alone that the
principle made itself felt. Its working, if less evident on the surface,
may be traced no less clearly in the exercise of petty jurisdiction by
the justices of the peace sitting without a jury. But here the mutual
relation of the two elements was reversed. The justice of the peace was
in most cases a landowner, a country gentleman, not skilled in law. In
the earlier period the commission included a number of trained lawyers,
who were said to be of the quorum, because without the presence of one
of them the justices were not by law competent to act.[174:1] But in
process of time the trained lawyers ceased to be appointed, while the
names of almost all the justices came to be inserted in the quorum
clause;[174:2] and thus it happened that judicial authority was vested
in a squire who knew little of the law he was called upon to administer.
But the justice supplied, in fact, the lay, not the professional,
element in his own court; the requisite legal knowledge being usually
furnished by his clerk, who was learned in the law; or, at least,
learned in the duties of the justice of the peace as set forth in the
statutes and in the manuals published for the purpose.
The office of clerk of the peace for the county must be of considerable
age, for it is referred to in a statute of Richard II. in 1388.[174:3]
But besides this office, which is a public one, it has been the habit
time out of memory for an active justice to retain a private clerk of
his own to assist him when acting as a single magistrate; such a clerk
being paid partly out of the justice's pocket, partly from the fees
that accrued.[175:1]
[Sidenote: As Portrayed in Literature.]
More important than the age of these offices is the question of the real
power exerted by their holders. That the influence of a clerk over the
justice who employed him has long been both great and notorious is clear
from the frequent references to it in literature. Early in the
seventeenth century Fletcher, in "The Elder Brother," makes Miramont say
to Brissac:[175:2]--
"Thou monstrous piece of ignorance in office!
Thou that hast no more knowledge than thy Clerk infuses."
Near the end of that century the same idea was expressed with singular
frankness in a manual on "The Office of the Clerk of the Peace,"
published in 1682. In an address "to the reader," which precedes the
second part of the volume, the author explains the object of the book.
After saying of the justices of the peace that their birth is a glory to
their seats, he continues:--
"But divers of these Gentlemen having not been conversant in the
Practice of the Ordinary Courts of Justice, often in the absence of
those worthy Persons, who be associated with them for their Learning in
the Law, meet with many difficulties and discouragements."
Coming down to the eighteenth century there is the case of Squire
Western and his clerk in "Tom Jones"; and later in the same novel the
scene in the inn at Upton, where the strange justice is unwilling to act
because he has not with him his book or his clerk. The reader will
probably remember Justice Foxley and his clerk in "Redgauntlet"; and
also Dickens's burlesque of the relation in the scene at Ipswich, where
after much whispering between the justice (Mr. Nupkins) and his clerk
(Mr. Jinks) the magistrate says to Mr. Pickwick:--
"An information has been sworn before me that it is apprehended you are
going to fight a duel, and that the other man, Tupman, is your aider and
abettor in it. Therefore--eh, Mr. Jinks?"
"Certainly, Sir."
"Therefore, I call upon you both to--I think that's the course, Mr.
Jinks?"
"Certainly, Sir."
"To--to--what, Mr. Jinks?" said the magistrate pettishly.
"To find bail, Sir."
"Yes. Therefore, I call upon you both--as I was about to say, when I was
interrupted by my clerk--to find bail."
The satire here is particularly keen, because before the public the
magistrate always takes the whole credit to himself, and is very
sensitive about having the world believe that he is under the control of
his clerk.
[Sidenote: Lay Chief with Expert Subordinate an English Usage.]
Leslie Stephen, I think, remarks somewhere that the characteristic
feature of the English system of government is a justice of the peace
who is a gentleman, with a clerk who knows the law; and certainly the
relationship between the titular holder of a public post, enjoying the
honours, and assuming the responsibility, of office, and a subordinate,
who, without attracting attention, supplies the technical knowledge and
largely directs the conduct of his chief, extends throughout the English
government from the Treasury Bench to the borough council. Perhaps,
indeed, it is not altogether fanciful to attribute the ease with which
the principle has become established in the national government to the
fact that the members of Parliament, and the ministers as well, have
been drawn in the past mainly from the same class as the justices of
the peace, and have brought with them to a larger sphere the traditions
of the local magistrate.
[Sidenote: Influence of Permanent Officials in the Colonial Office.]
The extent of the control exerted in the national administration by the
permanent officials is forcibly illustrated by the history of the
Colonial Office. My colleague, Professor Edward Channing, has pointed
out to me that the records of the American colonies reveal how largely
the Committee for Trade and Plantations was in the hands of Blathwayt,
its secretary. In spite of all the violent political upheavals of the
time that functionary retained his post without interruption from the
latter part of the reign of Charles II. until some years after the
revolution of 1688; and if a colony wanted anything done by the home
government it was he that must be persuaded, sometimes by inducements of
a pecuniary nature.
The power, but happily not the corruption, of the permanent officials in
the Colonial Office can be traced still more clearly at a much later
time. In 1839 Lord Durham, in his famous "Report on the Affairs of
British North America," complains that owing to the repeated changes in
the political chiefs of the Colonial Office, the real management of the
colonies fell into the hands of "the permanent but utterly irresponsible
members of the office"; and he quotes from a report made in the
preceding year by a select committee of the Assembly of Upper Canada, to
show that this was felt by the colonists themselves as a
grievance.[177:1] The group of English colonial reformers, with whom
Lord Durham was associated, held the same opinion. Gibbon Wakefield
tells us, in his "View of the Art of Colonization" that "The great
bulk, accordingly, of the labours of the office are performed, as
the greater portion of its legislative and executive authority is
necessarily wielded, by the permanent under-secretary and the
superior clerks."[177:2] Wakefield and his school disapproved of the
colonial policy of the day, and disliked cordially the permanent
officials and their methods. "Our colonial system of government,"
Wakefield adds, "is the bureaucratic, spoiled by being grafted on
to free institutions."[178:1] He had a special aversion for Sir
James Stephen--long the legal adviser, and afterwards permanent
under-secretary, to the Colonial Office--whom he regarded as the
archetype, if not the founder, of the class of officials that had become
the real arbiters of the destinies of the colonial empire.[178:2]
[Sidenote: Mr. Mothercountry.]
Wakefield quotes from Charles Buller's "Responsible Government for
Colonies" (a work published in 1840, but at that time already out of
print), an extract entitled "Mr. Mothercountry, of the Colonial
Office."[178:3] Parliament, Buller declares, takes no interest in the
colonies, and exercises no efficient control over the administration and
legislation affecting them; and hence the supremacy of England really
resides in the Colonial Office. But the Secretary of State holds a
shifting position. Perplexed by the vast variety of questions presented
to him, he is obliged at the outset to rely on one or other of the
permanent officials, and the official who thus directs the action of the
British government Buller calls "Mr. Mothercountry." He is familiar with
every detail of his business, and handles with unfaltering hand the
piles of papers at which his superiors quail. He knows the policy which
previous actions render necessary; but he never appears to dictate. A
new Secretary of State intends to be independent, but something turns up
that obliges him to consult Mr. Mothercountry. He is pleased with the
ready and unobtrusive advice which takes a great deal of trouble off his
hands. If things go well, his confidence in Mr. Mothercountry rises. If
badly, that official alone can get him out of the colonial or
parliamentary scrape; and the more independent he is the more scrapes he
falls into. Buller goes on to point out the faults of Mr. Mothercountry;
his love of routine, his tendency to follow precedent, his dislike of
innovation, and his dread of being criticised.
[Sidenote: Memoirs of Colonial Officials.]
Any one, with even a slight knowledge of government offices in England,
will recognise that the portrait of Mr. Mothercountry and his influence
is hardly overdrawn, in cases where the political chief either holds his
place for a short time, or is not a man of commanding ability. The
impression of the critics of colonial administration is, indeed,
strikingly reënforced in this respect by memoirs of the permanent
officials themselves; although some allowance must, no doubt, be made
for a natural overestimate of their own importance.[179:1] Sir Henry
Taylor confided to the world in his autobiography a number of remarks
that throw light on the internal working of the Colonial Office in the
second quarter of the century. While never its permanent
under-secretary, he was for a great many years a highly influential
person there, as may be seen from the fact that early in his career he
drew up, on his own judgment, a despatch recalling a governor, which the
secretary signed.[179:2] Taylor tells us that Lords Goderich and Howick,
who became the political chiefs of the Colonial Office in 1831, were
"not more in pupilage than it is necessary and natural that men should
be who are new to their work."[179:3] He says that when Lord Stanley was
appointed Secretary of State, in 1833, he asked no advice from his
subordinates, and a measure he prepared was blown into the air by the
House of Commons; whereupon he had recourse to Mr. Stephen,[179:4] "who
for so many years might better have been called the Colonial Department
itself than the 'Counsel to the Colonial Department.'"[179:5] A little
later he repeats this last statement, saying that while Lord Glenelg was
Secretary "Stephen virtually ruled the Colonial Empire."[179:6] Taylor's
own influence was shown when complaints were made of his administration
of the West Indies. The House of Commons appointed a committee of
inquiry, and the report of that committee, with the exception of the
last few sentences, was entirely drawn up by Taylor himself.[180:1]
Sir Frederick Rogers (afterwards Lord Blachford), who was permanent
under-secretary from 1860 to 1871, has left in his letters suggestive
comments upon most of his political chiefs. The Duke of Newcastle, he
says, is "very ready to accept your conclusions, very clear in his own
directions, and extremely careful (which I respect very highly) never to
throw back on a subordinate any shadow of responsibility for advice that
he has once accepted."[180:2] "Cardwell," he remarks, "is happily
absent, though not so much as I could wish";[180:3] and, finally, he
writes that he likes Lord Granville, who "is very pleasant and friendly,
and I think will not meddle beyond what is required to keep us clear of
political slips."[180:4] Some people outside of the office evidently
thought that the secretaries of state had not meddled overmuch, for
George Higginbottom, afterwards Chief Justice of Victoria, once remarked
in the Assembly, "It might be said with perfect truth that the million
and a half of Englishmen who inhabit these colonies, and who during the
last fifteen years have believed they possessed self-government, have
been really governed during the whole of that time by a person named
Rogers";[180:5] and in the same vein Rees, in his "Life and Times of Sir
George Grey," refers to Sir Robert Herbert (permanent under-secretary
from 1871 to 1892) as the man who "controls the destinies of the
Colonial Office."[180:6]
[Sidenote: Influence of Permanent Officials in Other Departments.]
With the growing interest in the empire, there has come a change; but
until a very recent period the fact that British statesmen knew little
of the subject, and did not care much more, no doubt made the power of
the permanent officials peculiarly great in the Colonial Office.
Their influence, however, upon the policy of the government in the
other departments, if less absolute, has nevertheless been very large.
This impression one obtains both from published documents, and from
private conversations, although the former alone can be cited as
evidence. As far back as 1845 we find the Lord Lieutenant speaking of
the permanent under-secretary as "the main-spring of your government in
Ireland."[181:1] But more important than scattered statements of this
kind is the information derived from the testimony taken by
parliamentary committees of inquiry. One cannot read, for example, the
evidence collected in 1900 by the Committee on Municipal Trading[181:2]
without being convinced that not only the efficiency, but also in large
measure the current policy, of the Board of Trade depended upon the
permanent official at its head, and this is true of every branch of the
administration.[181:3] Sir Lyon Playfair gave the reason for it when he
said: "The secretary being a very busy man is very apt to take the
advice of the clerk who has been looking over all the details and the
correspondence before it comes to him."[182:1] A superior, indeed,
lacking the time to become thoroughly familiar with the facts, must be
to a great extent in the hands of a trusted subordinate who has them all
at his fingers' ends. It is the common case of the layman and his
confidential expert; and it must be observed in this connection that
with exacting parliamentary and other duties, the cabinet ministers
cannot devote all their time to the work of their departments.
[Sidenote: Theoretical Relation of Political and Permanent Heads.]
The theoretical relation between the political chief and his permanent
subordinate is a simple one. The political chief furnishes the lay
element in the concern. His function is to bring the administration into
harmony with the general sense of the community and especially of
Parliament. He must keep it in accord with the views of the majority in
the House of Commons, and conversely he must defend it when criticised,
and protect it against injury by any ill-considered action of the House.
He is also a critic charged with the duty of rooting out old abuses,
correcting the tendency to red tape and routine, and preventing the
department from going to sleep or falling into ruts; and, being at the
head, it is for him, after weighing the opinion of the experts, to
decide upon the general policy to be pursued. The permanent officials,
on the other hand, are to give their advice upon the questions that
arise, so as to enable the chief to reach a wise conclusion and keep him
from falling into mistakes. When he has made his decision they are to
carry it out; and they must keep the department running by doing the
routine work. In short the chief lays down the general policy, while his
subordinates give him the benefit of their advice, and attend to the
details. It is easy enough to state a principle of this kind, but in
practice it is very hard to draw the line. The work of a public
department consists of a vast mass of administrative detail, the
importance of which is not self-evident until some strain is brought to
bear upon it; and all the acts done, however trifling in themselves,
form precedents, which accumulate silently until they become as
immovable as the rocks of the geologic strata. To know how far the
opinion of an expert must be followed, and how far it may be overruled;
to know what is really general policy, and what is mere detail; to know
these things is the most valuable art in life. The capacity of an
administrator on a large scale depends upon what he attends to himself,
and what he commits to others. But the political chief of a department
is so situated that it is difficult for him to determine what questions
he will reserve for himself and what he will leave to his subordinates.
To understand why that is the case it is necessary to know something of
the procedure in the government offices.
[Sidenote: Procedure in the Public Departments.]
The method of doing business in a public office is of necessity more
elaborate than in a private concern. There is more responsibility for
the work done; more subjection to public criticism in small matters; and
a stronger obligation to treat every one alike, which means a more
strict adherence to precedent. All this entails a complicated machinery
that is less needed in private business, where a man can say that if he
makes a mistake the loss falls upon himself and is no other person's
affair. In a public office, therefore, more writing is done, more things
are preserved and recorded, than in a private business, and there are
more steps in a single transaction.[183:1] Now although the procedure in
the English departments varies somewhat in detail, the general practice
is much the same throughout the public service.
When a minister wishes to prepare a measure for Parliament, or to make
any change in administrative policy, he consults the permanent
under-secretary and any other officials especially familiar with the
subject; if, indeed, the matter has not been suggested to him by them.
He weighs their advice, and states his conclusion to the permanent
under-secretary, who in turn gives his directions to the proper
subordinates for carrying it into effect. In such a case the procedure
is obvious; but by far the greater part of the action in the central
offices begins at the other end, and comes from the contact of the
government with the public, or from questions that arise in the course
of administration. When anything of this kind occurs, whether it be in
the form of a despatch, a petition, a complaint, a request for
instructions, or a communication of any sort, it is sent by the official
charged with the opening of correspondence to the principal, or senior,
clerk within whose province it falls. The senior clerk intrusts it to
one of the junior first-class clerks in his division. He examines the
paper, and unless it is of such a purely routine character that he feels
authorised to dispose of it, he affixes to it a minute or memorandum,
which gives a history of the matter, the precedents in similar cases,
and any other information that may assist his superiors in reaching a
decision, commonly adding a suggestion of the course to be pursued. The
paper then goes back to the senior clerk, who inspects it, and if the
question is of small consequence approves the minute or directs a
different disposition, subscribing his initials. If the affair is more
weighty, he adds his own comments in the form of a second minute, and
transmits the paper to the permanent under-secretary.[184:1] That
officer, as the permanent head of the department, gives the final
directions,[184:2] and returns the paper, unless the matter is of great
importance, or involves a new question of policy, or is likely to give
rise to discussion in Parliament, when he submits it to his political
chief with a further minute of his own.[184:3]
[Sidenote: Each Official a Reader for his Superior.]
Each permanent official thus performs a double service for his
immediate superior. He collects all the material that bears upon a
question, presenting it in such a form that a decision can be readily
and quickly made; and he acts to a certain extent as a reader, examining
a mass of papers that the superior would be quite unable to go through,
and making up his own mind how far they contain anything that requires
his chief's attention.[185:1] This system runs throughout the
department, from the junior first-class clerks to the parliamentary
head, each official deciding what he will submit to his superior; in the
same way that the minister himself determines what matters he will
settle on his own authority, and what he had better lay before the
cabinet. No doubt a subordinate in undertaking to decide a question
occasionally makes a mistake for which the minister must assume the
responsibility; but that is not a serious danger. The besetting sin of
bureaucracy is the tendency to refer too much to a higher authority,
which cannot become familiar with the facts of each case, and finds its
only refuge in clinging to hard and fast rules. It is fortunate,
therefore, that the growth in the machinery of central administration in
England has been accompanied by greater deconcentration within the
departments.[185:2] The process has not been without effect on the
position of the permanent under-secretary. By relieving him of detail it
has made him more free to devote his attention to general policy; and,
in fact, a departmental committee reported a few years ago that he ought
"to divest himself of all but the most important matters in which the
application of a new principle is involved." No question, the report
continued, ought to reach him until it has been threshed out by the
responsible head of a division, and is ripe for decision. "The permanent
secretary should be able to devote himself to such work as conferring
with and advising his Parliamentary chiefs, framing or elaborating
proposals for new legislation or administrative reform, considering all
questions in Parliament, receiving members of Parliament, or
representatives of the Public on questions of difficulty, and generally
controlling and directing the conduct of the Department."[186:1]
[Sidenote: Differences between the Departments.]
The point to which deconcentration is carried is not the same in all
branches of the public service. Mr. Gladstone declared that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer could not take as active a part as other
ministers in the current business of his department;[186:2] while in the
Foreign Office, on the other hand, it has been the tradition that the
Secretary of State ought to see almost everything. No doubt this is in
part due to the very nature of diplomatic relations, but there can also
be no doubt that in the past it has been carried much too far. When Mr.
Hammond was under-secretary for foreign affairs he insisted on making
the first minute on all papers in the office.[186:3] A change has been
made in this respect, and the practice brought more into accord with
that which prevails in other departments;[186:4] but the Foreign
Secretary is still expected to give his personal attention to a greater
mass of detail than other ministers.[186:5]
[Sidenote: Effect of the Procedure on the Power of Officials.]
Now any subordinate who determines what questions he may decide himself,
and what he will refer to his superiors, and who prepares the materials
for a final judgment in the cases that he does refer, is certain to
exert a great deal of influence. The permanent under-secretary, holding
his position, as he does, for an indefinite period, devoting his whole
time to the work, and becoming thoroughly familiar with the affairs of
his department, can, no doubt, regulate the class of questions that
shall be referred to him, and can acquire complete control over the
administration. But the minister, who is usually unfamiliar with the
department to which he is assigned, who remains at its head a
comparatively short time, and whose attention is largely engrossed by
the more exciting scenes enacted in the cabinet, in Parliament, and on
the platform, must, unless gifted with extraordinary executive capacity,
be to a considerable extent in the hands of his permanent subordinates.
[Sidenote: Need of Mutual Confidence between Political and Permanent
Heads.]
The smooth working of a system of this kind evidently depends upon the
existence of mutual respect and confidence between the minister and the
permanent under-secretary. If the minister, knowing that the
under-secretary does not share his own political views, fails to treat
him with perfect frankness, or if, after one party has been long in
power, the permanent officials have little sympathy with a new ministry
from the other party, and do not give it their active and cordial help,
then mistakes are certain to be made, the efficiency of the service
suffers, and the plans of the government are likely to miscarry. The
permanent under-secretary ought to feel, and in fact does feel, a
temporary allegiance to his chief, although of a different political
party. He gives his advice frankly until the chief has reached a
decision, and then he carries that out loyally. Confidential
communications--and they are numberless--he treats as sacred even from
the next parliamentary chief. If one minister prepares a measure which
never sees the light, the permanent under-secretary might refuse to show
the documents to the succeeding minister, and the latter would
recognise the propriety of such a course. The minister on his part
seeks the advice of the under-secretary on all questions that arise,
making allowance for bias due to preconceived political or personal
conviction. This does not mean that if a government comes into power
pledged to a definite policy, such as Home Rule or a preferential
tariff, the under-secretary would be consulted about the general
principle. In a case of that kind the policy has been settled in
Parliament or by a general election, and the advice of the permanent
officials would be limited to the details of the measure proposed.
The system has, of course, its limits. There are cases where the known
opinions of the under-secretary would make it almost impossible for him
to conduct a certain policy effectively. When the Conservatives, for
example, came into office in 1895 with a policy of coercion for Ireland,
they found as permanent Irish under-secretary Sir Robert Hamilton, who
was known to be a strong Home Ruler, and believing that it would be very
difficult for them to govern the country through his agency, they
promoted him out of the way; such cases must sometimes occur, but they
are extremely rare. It is, indeed, astonishing how far the system can be
carried; to what an extent an under-secretary can act as the loyal
adviser and administrator for chiefs of totally different political
opinions.
[Sidenote: Actual Relation Depends on Personality.]
The actual relations between the minister and the permanent
under-secretary depend in any particular case very much upon the
personality of the men. Peel and Gladstone, for example, maintained a
close supervision and control over the departments under their charge,
while John Bright felt that his real field of usefulness was in the
House of Commons, and left the affairs of the Board of Trade almost
altogether in the hands of the permanent officials. The system naturally
works at its best when minister and under-secretary are both strong,
good-tempered men, when each is active, but recognises clearly the
province of the other. The saying has become almost proverbial that the
most valuable minister is one who knows nothing about his department
when appointed, and like most paradoxes it contains a distorted truth. A
good minister must be a good administrator, but he must look to results,
and not suppose that he knows as much about the technical side of the
work as his permanent subordinate. For, as Bagehot quotes Sir George
Cornwall Lewis, "It is not the business of a Cabinet Minister to work
his department. His business is to see that it is properly
worked."[189:1] If he attempts to go beyond his province, to be dogmatic
and to interfere in details, he will cause friction and probably come to
grief.
[Sidenote: Methods of Controlling a Minister.]
The permanent officials have, indeed, several means of controlling a
minister who ventures to disregard them. They have been heard to say
that a fool, if given rope enough, will hang himself. If he does not
care for their advice they need not tender it, and then he is sure to
make mistakes for which he alone will be held responsible. If, on the
other hand, he tries, with the best intentions, to go too much into
detail, nothing is easier than the trick, familiar, probably, to every
bureaucracy, of overwhelming him with detail. He wishes to decide
questions himself. The papers bearing upon them are brought to him in
ever-increasing piles, until he finds himself hopelessly unable to cope
with the mass of documents, and virtually surrenders at discretion. Then
there are the means of control arising from the audit of accounts and
from questions in Parliament. The permanent under-secretary points out
to his chief that an expenditure he proposes is likely to be disallowed
by the auditor, or that an action he suggests may very well give rise to
an embarrassing question in the House of Commons, and to these things a
minister is highly sensitive. Questions afford, indeed, a means of
mutual control, for the permanent officials are usually far more afraid
of the House of Commons than the minister is himself, and tend to be
reticent in preparing answers.
The Treasury Bench is not so omniscient as it appears when answering
questions in the House. After notice of a question has been given, the
materials for a reply are prepared, and often the answer itself is drawn
up, by some permanent official in the department. Sometimes the minister
merely reads the answer as it has been placed in his hands, but more
commonly while keeping the substance, he puts it into words of his own
that he thinks better suited to the temper of the House. The labour of
working up the answers to innumerable questions on every conceivable
subject, and of every degree of importance and triviality, is in the
aggregate very great, and places a heavy burden upon the permanent
officials during the session of Parliament. But no satisfactory method
of limiting the privilege has yet been devised, and although abused, it
has the effect of keeping the administration up to the mark. The system
affords an opportunity for constant public criticism, and while it gives
the permanent officials some control over the minister, it is, on the
other hand, a most effective means of preventing the growth of a
bureaucratic spirit.
[Sidenote: Evils where a Minister is Inactive.]
If the permanent officials can restrain a minister from interfering
overmuch, there is no similar means of preventing him from neglecting
his duties. Yet in that case the service suffers. It is apt to become
numbed and bureaucratic. Permanent officials tend to follow precedent,
and, indeed, the force of precedent furnishes the basis of their power,
but the tendency to be too rigid in their rules is the curse of all
their tribe. They shrink from innovation, rarely making a new precedent
themselves. This is particularly true in the lesser offices, giving
rise, at times, to complaint; and the political chief has to insist upon
the need of making exceptions in hard cases, without allowing the hard
cases themselves to make bad law. The surest remedy for an excess of
routine is a parliamentary head who is interested in the department, and
with him a permanent under-secretary of large calibre and wide
experience in affairs.
[Sidenote: Influence of Permanent Officials not Increasing.]
Speaking in 1884 about the Reform Bill then pending, Sir Stafford
Northcote predicted that an extension of the franchise would increase
the power of the permanent officials;[191:1] and many people think that
the prophecy has been fulfilled. But this would seem to be one of the
cases where an impression is due not so much to a real change of
conditions, as to the fact that a state of things already existing has
become recognised. The power of the civil service has undoubtedly grown
very much within the last hundred years; owing partly to the fact that
the ministers, instead of being primarily administrators, have become
legislators, engrossed by the work of Parliament and by general
politics; partly to the much shorter periods for which they hold office.
During the one hundred and two years from 1721 to 1823 there were
nineteen chancellors of the exchequer; of whom five held office for more
than ten years apiece, the aggregate length of their services being
seventy-eight years. In the eighty-two years from 1823 to 1905,
twenty-three men held the office, one of them for thirteen years,
another for nine, and no one else for more than about six years. The
effect of such a shortening of the minister's tenure of office upon the
position of his permanent subordinates is self-evident. But the present
conditions of political life have now existed with little change for a
generation; and, in the opinion of men well qualified to form a
judgment, the power of the permanent officials, while varying from time
to time with the personnel of the ministry, has not of late years shown
any general tendency to increase.
[Sidenote: Self-Effacement of the Civil Servants.]
Although the civil servant enjoys a great deal of the substance of
power, yet he purports to act only under the directions of his political
chief. Sir Stafford Northcote was admonished early in his career by Mr.
Gladstone "that references from the Opposition Bench to opinions of the
permanent officers of Government, in contradiction to the opinion of the
Minister who is responsible in the matter at issue, were contrary to
rule and to convenience."[192:1] If this were not so the principle of
ministerial responsibility could hardly be maintained. The minister is
alone responsible for everything done in his department, and he receives
all the credit and all the blame. The civil servant never talks in
public about the policy of his department,[192:2] never claims anything
done there as his own work; and, on the other hand, the minister ought
not to attribute blunders or misconduct to a subordinate unless prepared
at the same time to announce his discharge. This rule is not, indeed,
always observed in the military services, for within a few years the
House of Lords has heard the late Secretary of State for War and the
Commander-in-Chief charge each other with the responsibility for the
lack of preparation in South Africa;[192:3] and in 1901 the First Lord
of the Admiralty in the House of Lords laid the blame for the capsizing
of the royal yacht at her launching upon the naval constructor, while
praising, at the same time, his skill in designing battleships.[192:4]
In the civil services the principle has been, as a rule, very strictly
followed; although here, also, in the case of Sir Antony MacDonnell, the
under-secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, an exception occurred
which caused no small stir at the time.[192:5] Nor is the
responsibility of the minister merely formal and conventional, for the
mistakes of the officials in his department go into the great balance of
good and evil report, whereby the reputation of the cabinet is made, and
its fate at the next election is determined. In short, the permanent
official, like the King, can do no wrong. Both are shielded by the
responsibility of the minister, and in fact it may happen that a policy
adopted, let us say by the Foreign Office, which is popularly attributed
to the personal wishes of the King, is in reality the work of some
permanent subordinate.
Fifty years ago the public was not aware of the power of the civil
servants, and Parliament, regarding them as clerks, paid little
attention to them. But now that their importance has come to be
understood there is, in the opinion of some of their own members, a
danger that they will be made too prominent, that the screen which
protects them from the public gaze will be partly drawn aside, and that
they will thereby lose their complete irresponsibility, and with it
their permanence and their non-political character. Whether such a
danger will prove serious is at present only a matter for conjecture.
[Sidenote: Honours Conferred upon Civil Servants.]
While the permanent official can win no credit for particular acts, a
life of exceptional service does not pass unrecognised. Sir Robert Peel,
who appreciated their importance, lamented that honours were not
conferred upon them more freely.[194:1] Such a complaint could hardly be
made to-day, for a number of them are knighted every year, and
occasionally a permanent under-secretary, on retiring from office, is
even raised to the peerage. In spite of self-effacement, therefore, the
career of a permanent official is honourable and attractive. If he is
debarred from the excitement and the glory of the political arena, he is
spared its hazards, its vexations, and its disappointments. He wields
great power, takes a real part in shaping the destinies of the nation,
and if capable and fortunate he may end his days in the subdued lustre
of the House of Lords.
FOOTNOTES:
[174:1] _Cf._ Gneist, "Self-Government in England," 3 Auf., 196-97.
[174:2] Blackstone, Bk. I., 351.
[174:3] 12 Ric. II., c. 10 (4). _Cf._ 32 Hen. VIII., c. 1.
[175:1] Gneist, "Self-Government," 212.
[175:2] Act II., Sc. I. The characters of the play purport to be French,
but the manners and customs are, of course, English. Fletcher died in
1625. An earlier, though less definite, reference to the power of the
clerk is found in William Lambard's "Eirenarcha or, Of the Office of the
Justices of Peace," published in 1581 (p. 468): "Howbeit, I do not
thinke, that in our case, this dutie of Estreating is so peculiar to the
Clarke of the Peace, but that the Justices of the Peace themselves,
ought also to have a common and carefull eye unto it . . . least
otherwise, it lye altogither in the power of the Clarke of the Peace, to
Save or Slay (as one sayd) the Sparrow that he holdeth closed in his
hand."
[177:1] Com. Papers, 1839, XVII., 1, pp. 37-38.
[177:2] P. 235.
[178:1] P. 235.
[178:2] P. 268.
[178:3] P. 279.
[179:1] For the quotations from these memoirs I am indebted to Mr. Evan
Randolph, who made, while a student at Harvard College, a careful
examination of the subject.
[179:2] "Autobiography," London Ed. (1885), I., 70.
[179:3] _Ibid._, 130.
[179:4] _Ibid._, 133.
[179:5] _Ibid._, 136.
[179:6] _Ibid._, 233, _cf._ 123. It was during Lord Glenelg's time that
Stephen became permanent under-secretary.
[180:1] "Autobiography," II., 38.
[180:2] Marindin, "Letters of Lord Blachford," 227.
[180:3] _Ibid._, 252.
[180:4] _Ibid._, 275.
[180:5] Morris, "Memoirs of Higginbottom," 183.
[180:6] II., 505.
[181:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 184.
[181:2] Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 183.
[181:3] In that same year much discussion was provoked by Lord
Salisbury's sweeping remark that the British Constitution was not a good
fighting machine on account of the power of the Treasury to restrain
military expenditure. (Hans., 4 Ser. LXXVIII., 32, 237, 239.) It was
pointed out that if the political chiefs of the Army and Navy want to
increase their expenditure they cannot be blocked by the Treasury
clerks. They can confer with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and if he
will not consent, they can appeal to the Prime Minister, and ultimately
to the cabinet. Nevertheless it is true that if the political chief does
not consider a matter of first-class importance--and many of the most
far-reaching matters do not appear so at the time--or does not want to
fight about it, the opinion of the Treasury officials may prevail, even
to the extent of blocking useful reforms that cost a little money.
Moreover, if a matter is fought out between the political chiefs, their
opinions may very well be derived from their permanent subordinates.
When the subject of Treasury control was investigated by the Committee
on Civil Establishments, Sir Reginald (now Lord) Welby was asked, "Is
not this question not so much between political ministers as between
permanent heads of departments?" He answered "Yes, but the permanent
heads of departments to (_sic_) convince their political chiefs behind
whom they fight," and added that the political chiefs commonly support
their subordinates. (Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 10721, 10723.)
[182:1] Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Q. 20168.
[183:1] _Cf._ Giffen's Ev., 2d Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers,
1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 19131-32, 19139.
[184:1] If there is an assistant under-secretary the paper passes, of
course, through his hands; and in case local conditions require to be
examined an inspector is sent down to report.
[184:2] It has already been observed that in some departments the
parliamentary under-secretary is the administrative head for some
matters.
[184:3] Todd, with his unfailing industry, searched the Blue Books for
information on this subject. (Parl. Govt. in England, 2 Ed. II., 542,
614, 628-31, 645-46, 671, 708.) Since he wrote, a great deal of evidence
on the procedure in the several departments has been collected by the
Com. on Civil Estabs. (2d Rep., Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs.
10992-11001, 11849-51, 12034-35, 12072-78, 12360-64, 12887-91, 19434,
19442-43).
[185:1] Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs. 12072-78.
[185:2] In the Home Office, for example, the minuting for replies to
papers was formerly done by the permanent under-secretary alone. Later
the senior clerks were allowed to make minutes, and now the process
begins with the junior clerks. (Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII., 1, Qs.
10992-11001.) The same tendency has been at work in the Foreign Office,
as will be explained later.
[186:1] Rep. on clerical staff of Local Gov. Board, Com. Papers, 1898,
XL., 429, p. 12.
[186:2] He said "The relation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the
Treasury is somewhat anomalous; it does not correspond at all with that
of a Secretary of State to his department, because of course he lies a
good deal outside the Treasury, and a good deal of the current business
never comes before him at all." (3d Rep. Com. on Pub. Accounts, Com.
Papers, 1862, XI., 467, Q. 1640.)
[186:3] _Cf._ Mr. Hammond's memorandum entitled "The Adventures of a
Paper in the Foreign Office," Rep. of Sel. Com. on Trade, Com. Papers,
1864, VII., 279, Q. 1384; reprinted in 1st Rep. of Com. on Dip. and
Cons. Services, Com. Papers, 1871, VII., 197, Qs. 1145-46.
[186:4] Com. Papers, 1871, VII., 197, Qs. 1145-46. Hans. 3 Ser.
CCXXXII., 1058.
[186:5] 4th Rep. Com. on Civil Estabs., Com. Papers, 1890, XXVII., 1,
Ev. of Mr. Bryce, Qs. 27927-31, Sir Charles Dilke, Q. 29252.
The position of the Secretary of State for War, and the First Lord of
the Admiralty, although in most ways not unlike that of the other
ministers, is peculiar in the fact that they are the lay heads of great
professions. Their relation to the military officers detailed for
service in the principal administrative posts in their departments has
already been discussed in Chap. IV.
[189:1] "The English Constitution," 1 Ed., 240.
[191:1] "After that there will come a bureaucratic despotism; that is to
say, the permanent officials will take the management of affairs into
their hands, and Parliament will have little to do." Andrew Lang, "Life,
Letters, and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote," 2 Ed., II., 219.
[192:1] Lang, "Life, Letters, and Diaries of Sir Stafford Northcote,"
I., 160.
[192:2] After resigning his post in the Education Department in 1903,
Sir George Kekewich condemned publicly the Education Bill which had been
passed while he was in office, but it may safely be said that even this
is not regarded as the best form.
[192:3] Hans. 4 Ser. XC., 327 _et seq._, XCI., 6 _et seq._
[192:4] _Ibid._, XCVI., 969.
[192:5] Sir Antony MacDonnell, who had distinguished himself greatly as
an Indian administrator, and had just been given a place on the Council
of India, was appointed by Mr. Wyndham under-secretary for Ireland in
September, 1902, in spite of the fact that he was an Irishman, a Roman
Catholic and a Liberal in politics. In the summer of 1904, believing
that he had the approval of Mr. Wyndham, the Chief Secretary, in so
doing, he assisted Lord Dunraven to formulate the policy of devolution
in Ireland. But Mr. Wyndham hastened to make public his disapproval of
that policy as soon as the plan appeared in the press. When Parliament
met in February, 1905, Mr. Wyndham, in reply to questions of the Irish
Unionists, stated these facts, adding that Sir Antony MacDonnell had
been censured by the cabinet, which was, however, thoroughly satisfied
that his conduct was not open to the imputation of disloyalty. (Hans. 4
Ser. CXLI., 324-26.) The occurrence gave rise to a good deal of hot
discussion in both Houses of Parliament in the latter half of February,
in the course of which Mr. Wyndham said that he could not invite such a
man as Sir Antony MacDonnell to come and help him as a clerical
assistant, that he was invited rather as a colleague than as a mere
under-secretary. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 650, and see Lord Lansdowne's
remarks, _Ibid._, 461.) The letters that passed between Mr. Wyndham and
Sir Antony MacDonnell at the time of his appointment were then produced,
and they contain a stipulation couched in language that can fairly be
interpreted as implying either a position of exceptional importance, or
merely such influence as an under-secretary possessing the full
confidence of his chief might enjoy. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 979-81.) The
debate led to the resignation of Mr. Wyndham; and his successor, Mr.
Long, as well as Mr. Balfour, insisted that no agreement made with Sir
Antony gave him a position different from that of other
under-secretaries in the civil service. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLI., 995;
CXLII., 1225-26; CXLIV., 647-48, 1278-79). An aftermath of the trouble
came in the autumn of 1906 when Mr. Long challenged Sir Antony
MacDonnell to publish any letters bearing upon the events of 1904-1905,
but these the Conservative government, when in power, had declined to
produce in Parliament. (The _Times_, Aug. 30, 31, Sept. 1, 4, 1906.)
Correspondence of this nature cannot, of course, be published, at the
good pleasure of the possessor. The whole episode illustrates clearly
the difficulties that arise when a parliamentary chief fails to assume
complete responsibility for everything that happens in his department.
It shows also that the relations between the political chief and his
permanent subordinate are fixed by the nature of the parliamentary
system, and cannot be effectively changed in special cases.
[194:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," II., 35-36.
CHAPTER IX
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Constituencies and Voters_
[Sidenote: Electors and Constituencies Offer Distinct Problems.]
The composition of any representative body involves two separate things;
the electors and the constituencies. During the first part of the
nineteenth century public attention outside of England was mainly
concentrated upon the electors, or in other words upon the extension of
the franchise. But now that something like universal suffrage has been
introduced into most of the countries which have a popular element in
their government, the franchise is little discussed, and much more is
said about the constituencies, that is, the method of combining the
voters into groups. The change is largely due to discontent with some of
the results of democracy, a feeling which finds vent in widespread
criticism of representative institutions.[195:1]
It was formerly assumed that the interests of the masses of the people
were fundamentally identical; and hence the mode in which the electors
were grouped was comparatively unimportant, the main question being the
enlargement of the basis of representation. We have now learned that the
formation of the constituencies offers a distinct problem with grave
practical effects, and popular government not having brought the
millennium that was foretold, men seek a remedy in different methods of
combining the voters. We constantly see discussions of this subject. We
hear of the relative advantage of _scrutin d'arrondissement_ and
_scrutin de liste_; that is, single electoral districts or large areas
choosing a number of representatives apiece. We hear about the grouping
of voters on the basis of their natural economic relations into urban
and rural constituencies; or on the basis of wealth, as in the
three-class system of Prussia. We hear suggestions of possible grouping
on the basis of occupations;[196:1] and a vast amount of literature has
been published to prove the advantage of a grouping on the basis of
opinions, by some form of proportional representation.
[Sidenote: How Treated in England.]
In England the two questions of the electors and the constituencies,
although usually considered, and made the subject of legislation, at the
same time, have always been kept distinct. Each of the great series of
measures of parliamentary reform has touched both subjects, but in
unequal degree; and, in fact, it was really the state of the
constituencies that forced both problems upon public attention.
The Reform Act of 1832 brought in a general franchise for boroughs in
place of the multifarious, and on the whole highly exclusive, privileges
which had existed before. It also changed, though in a less radical way,
the franchise in the counties. But as a political measure its greatest
importance lay in its effect upon the constituencies by the
redistribution of seats. It took from small boroughs in various stages
of decay and rottenness one hundred and forty-three seats, and gave them
to the counties, and to new large towns hitherto unrepresented. The Act
of 1867, on the other hand, while transferring seats to some extent, was
mainly a measure for extending greatly the borough franchise. In 1884
and 1885 both subjects were dealt with radically. By the Act of 1884 the
franchise for counties was much enlarged; and by that of 1885 the
distribution of seats was reorganised upon a basis closely akin to equal
electoral districts.
[Sidenote: The Constituencies.]
The constituencies for the English Parliament are of three kinds;
counties, boroughs and universities. The last are quite different from
the others in nature and franchise, and a word may be said about them
here.
[Sidenote: Universities.]
Oxford and Cambridge were given two seats apiece by James I. The
University of Dublin, which had already one seat, obtained another by
the Reform Act of 1832; and, finally, the Act of 1868 gave one member to
London University, one to Glasgow and Aberdeen combined, and another to
Edinburgh and St. Andrews. The franchise for the universities belongs in
general to the registered graduates.[197:1]
[Sidenote: The Reform Act of 1832.]
Until 1832 each county, and each borough that had the privilege of being
represented, elected, as a rule, two members of Parliament. This,
however, was not true of the Scotch boroughs, which were, with few
exceptions, grouped into districts returning a single member apiece; a
system that has been maintained to the present day. Some of the English
boroughs had been given the right of electing members by the Tudors and
the early Stuarts, not because they were places of importance, but, on
the contrary, because they were not populous, and their members could be
easily controlled by the Crown--the electoral rights being commonly
vested in the governing council, which was a close corporation. Other
boroughs that had once been places of consequence had, in the course of
time, fallen into decay. So that by the beginning of the nineteenth
century many members of the House represented no substantial
communities, and were really appointed either by small self-perpetuating
bodies, or by patrons, who, owning the land, controlled the votes of the
few electors in the constituency. This condition of things was made
scandalous by the open practice of selling elections to Parliament for
cash; and the demand for reform, which had been checked by the long
struggle with France, began again after the peace, culminating finally
in the Reform Act of 1832.[197:2] The object of this measure was to
remove a manifest abuse, rather than to reorganise the representation
of the country on a new basis, and it applied to the conditions a
somewhat rough and inexact remedy. The boroughs with less than two
thousand population by the census of 1821 were disfranchised altogether,
those with more than two thousand and less than four thousand lost one
member, and the seats thus obtained were divided about equally between
the counties and the new large towns that had hitherto been
unrepresented.[198:1] But the constituencies still remained very uneven
in population--and, indeed, the framers of the act had no desire for
equal electoral districts.
[Sidenote: The Reform Act of 1867.]
The same process was continued by the Act of 1867, which again took
members from little towns and gave them to larger ones and to the
counties. While there was no general attempt to make the number of
representatives proportional to the size of a constituency, a few
of the largest provincial towns were given three members; and in
that connection an interesting experiment was tried. With the
object of providing for minority representation, the electors in
the boroughs returning three members--the so-called three-cornered
constituencies--were allowed to vote for only two candidates apiece.
This resulted in diminishing the real representation of the borough, as
compared with the rest of the country. If Manchester, for example, was
Liberal, she would probably be represented by two Liberals and one
Conservative. But in a party division the Conservative would neutralise
one of the Liberals, so that Manchester would count for only one vote,
and would, therefore, have only half as much weight as a much smaller
borough with two members both belonging to the same party. The
experiment gave so little satisfaction that it was afterward abandoned;
and it is chiefly interesting to-day because the effort to organise a
large party majority so as to compass the election of all three members
gave rise to the Birmingham Caucus, whose birth and whose progeny will
be described in a subsequent chapter. Except for the few three-member
constituencies, and a much larger number of boroughs having only a
single seat, the constituencies still returned two members apiece; and
this continued to be the rule until the third and last of the great
measures of parliamentary reform.
[Sidenote: The Reform Act of 1885.]
The Redistribution Act of 1885, although, like all English measures of
reform, to some extent a compromise between the old ideas and the new,
rested upon the principle of equal electoral districts each returning a
single member. The proportion of one seat for every 54,000 people was
roughly taken as the basis of representation; and in order to adapt the
principle to the existing system with the least possible change,
boroughs with less than 15,000 inhabitants were disfranchised
altogether, and became, for electoral purposes, simply a part of the
county in which they were situated. Boroughs with more than 15,000 and
less than 50,000 people were allowed to retain, or if hitherto
unrepresented were given, one member; those with more than 50,000 and
less than 165,000, two members; those above 165,000 three members, with
an additional member for every 50,000 people more. The same general
principle was followed in the counties.[199:1]
The boroughs that had hitherto elected two members, and were entitled to
the same number under the new scheme, remained single constituencies for
the election of those two members. Of these boroughs there are
twenty-three,[199:2] which, with the City of London, and the three
universities (Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin), makes in all twenty-seven
cases where two members are elected together. All the other
constituencies are single-member districts, a result which was brought
about by a partition of the counties, of boroughs with more than two
members, and of the new boroughs with only two members, into separate
electoral divisions, each with its own distinctive name.
It may be interesting to note that the Reforms of 1832 and 1867 did not
change the total number of members of the House, but merely
redistributed the existing 658 seats. By the disfranchisement, after
1867, for corrupt practices, of four boroughs returning six members, the
number was reduced to 652; and the Reform Act of 1885 increased it to
670, where it has since remained.
[Sidenote: Inequalities in Representation.]
The distribution of seats under the Act of 1885 was only a rough
approximation to equal electoral districts; and in time it has become
far less close, until to-day the difference in the size of the
constituencies is very great. The smallest is the borough of Newry in
Ireland, which had at the census of 1901 a population of only 13,137;
or, if we leave Ireland aside on account of its peculiar conditions, the
smallest in Great Britain is the city of Durham with a population of
14,935; while the largest is the southern division of the County of
Essex, with 217,030 inhabitants; so that the largest constituency to-day
is nearly fifteen times as populous as the smallest.[200:1] Nor are the
inequalities confined to extreme cases; for they exist in lesser degree
throughout the electoral body, many of the constituencies being two or
three times as large as many others.
But unless one assumes that the exact equivalence of all votes is a
fundamental principle of political justice, differences of this kind are
of little consequence, provided one part of the community, or rather one
set of opinions or interests, is not distinctly over-represented at the
expense of another. Now, in Parliament an over-representation of this
kind does exist; not, indeed, in regard to the different social classes
or economic interests in the nation--for inequalities of that sort are
not marked enough to be important--but between the different parts of
the country.
[Sidenote: Over-Representation of Ireland.]
Some parts of Great Britain have grown very rapidly, while the
population of Ireland has actually diminished during the last half
century; and the result is that whereas in the United Kingdom as a whole
there is now, on the average, one member of Parliament for every 62,703
people, England has only one for every 66,971; and Ireland one for every
44,147. If a redistribution of seats were to be made in strict
proportion to population, Ireland would therefore lose thirty members,
and England would gain about as many, while Scotland would gain one
seat, and Wales would lose three.
The question of the proportional representation of England and Ireland
is a burning one, because the parliamentary system cannot work well
unless one party has a majority which can give to the ministry a stable
support. But eighty of the Irish members are Nationalists, who do not
belong to either of the great parties, and may at any general election
acquire a balance of power, and cause confusion in politics, as they did
after the election of 1885. The loss of twenty-five seats, which they
would suffer by a reduction of the Irish representation, would
materially lessen that danger. The Conservative government was
constantly urged by its supporters to make the transfer of seats from
Ireland to England, and was actually preparing to do so at the time it
resigned in 1905. On behalf of Ireland it was argued that this would be
a violation of the Act of Union, which was in the nature of a treaty,
and allotted to Ireland one hundred members in the House of
Commons.[201:1] On the other hand the advocates of the policy replied
that the terms of the Act of Union cannot be forever binding under a
change of circumstances; they referred to the fact that in 1868 the
Church of England was disestablished in Ireland, notwithstanding the
provision in the Act for its perpetual establishment there;[201:2] and
they said that conditions had so changed as to justify a redistribution
of seats. The Irish, however, claim that the great bulk of their people
wanted disestablishment, and that Ireland could waive provisions made in
her behalf; but it may be urged that the provision about the Church was
made for the benefit not of Ireland, or its people, but of a minority
there.
The formation in England of new constituencies for the seats transferred
would raise great practical difficulties. Even if it did not involve a
general redistribution bill, it would necessitate changing many of the
districts. Quite apart from the danger of incurring a charge of
gerrymandering for party purposes, there would be a host of personal
interests of members of Parliament to be considered. Each member
affected would be anxious that the change should not make his seat less
secure than before; and claims of this sort have peculiar weight in a
country where, as in England, the sitting member has almost a
prescriptive right to renomination by his party.
[Sidenote: Effect of the English Method of Distributing Seats.]
The English practice of rearranging the constituencies, and apportioning
the representatives among them, only at long intervals, of treating a
bill for the purpose as an exceptional measure of great political
importance, instead of the natural result of each new census, has the
advantage of preventing frequent temptations to gerrymander. But, on the
other hand, it raises the matter of electoral districts to the height of
a constitutional, and almost a revolutionary, question, preceded
sometimes by long and serious agitation, and always fought over on party
grounds. This is a perpetual difficulty, for the shifting of population,
which must always be changing the ratio of representation, will from
time to time make a redistribution of seats inevitable.
[Sidenote: The Franchise.]
The extension of the franchise was long a grave constitutional question
also, but it has now been so nearly worked out that it can hardly be
regarded in that light in future. Before the Reform Act of 1832 the
franchise in the counties depended entirely upon the ownership of land,
an old statute of 1429,[202:1] having confined the right of voting to
forty-shilling freeholders; that is, to men who owned an estate of
inheritance, or at least a life estate, in land of the annual value of
forty shillings.[203:1]
In the boroughs the franchise was based upon no uniform principle, but
varied according to the custom or charter of the borough. Sometimes it
depended upon the tenure of land; and, since residence was by no means
always necessary, it might happen that the voters did not live in the
place, and there were even cases where members were returned to
Parliament by boroughs that had no longer a single inhabitant. Sometimes
the right belonged to the governing body of the town; sometimes to all
the freemen; sometimes to all householders who paid local taxes; and in
one place, at least, it extended to all the inhabitants. In these last
cases the franchise was actually wider before the Reform Act of 1832
than it was afterward, so that although the act enlarged the electorate
very much on the whole, and preserved the rights of all existing voters,
it narrowed the franchise seriously for the future in a few
places.[203:2]
[Sidenote: Reform Act of 1832.]
[Sidenote: Counties.]
In the counties the Act of 1832 continued to treat the right to vote as
dependent upon the tenure of land, although in some ways restricting and
in others much more largely extending it. In order to prevent the
manufacture of forty-shilling freeholders for electoral purposes, the
act provided that a voter must have been in possession of his land for
six months, unless it came to him by descent, devise, marriage or
promotion to an office;[203:3] and, also, that if he held only a life
estate he must either have acquired it by one of these methods, or must
be in actual occupation, unless again it was of the clear yearly value
of ten pounds.[203:4] On the other hand the act extended the right of
voting in counties to persons entitled to copyholds, and leaseholds for
sixty years, of the annual value of ten pounds; to leaseholds for twenty
years of the value of fifty pounds; and to leaseholds of fifty pounds
annual value without regard to the length of the term, if the tenant was
in actual occupation of the land.[204:1]
[Sidenote: Boroughs.]
In the boroughs the Reform Act wrought a complete change. Except that it
preserved the personal rights of living voters,[204:2] and retained the
privileges of freemen in towns where they existed,[204:3] it swept away
all the old qualifications,[204:4] and replaced them by a single new
franchise based exclusively upon the tenure, or rather the occupation,
of land. The new qualification was uniform throughout England, and
included every man who occupied, as owner or tenant, a house, shop, or
other building, worth, with the land, ten pounds a year. But while the
franchise in the boroughs was thus based, like that in the counties,
upon land, the effect was entirely different, and was intended to be so.
It has been said that the framers of the act meant the county members to
represent property, and the borough members to represent numbers. The
boroughs, as will appear later, did not really stand for numbers, but
the counties did certainly represent property, and that in spite of the
Chandos Clause which admitted fifty-pound leaseholders and was resisted
by the authors of the bill. The electorate in the counties consisted of
the landholders with a few large farmers, while in the towns it
comprised the great middle class.
Later in the same session acts of a similar nature were passed for
Scotland[204:5] and Ireland;[204:6] and in fact it was the practice
until 1884 to deal with the franchise in the three kingdoms by separate
statutes.
[Sidenote: Effect of the Act of 1832.]
As the practice of keeping a register of persons entitled to vote at
parliamentary elections did not begin until this time, it is impossible
to say precisely how much the Act of 1832 increased the size of the
electorate. But from returns made just prior to the passage of the
Act,[205:1] it would appear that the number of borough electors in
England and Wales was then about 180,000; whereas immediately after the
Act had gone into effect it was 282,398.[205:2] The total increase in
the borough electorate, which was the one chiefly affected, was
therefore about 100,000, and a great part of this increase consisted of
the voters in the large towns that had been given seats for the first
time by the Act.
The new system was in no sense either democratic or proportionate to
population. The average ratio of electors to population for the whole
United Kingdom was about one in thirty; but the variation in different
constituencies and different parts of the kingdom was very great. In the
English and Welsh counties the ratio ran all the way from one in five in
Westmoreland, to one in thirty-seven in Lancashire, one in thirty-nine
in Middlesex, and one in sixty in Merioneth. In the English and Welsh
boroughs it ran from nearly one in four in Bedford and Aylesbury, where
practically all adult males were voters, to one in forty-five in the
manufacturing towns. In Scotland even a smaller part of the population
enjoyed the franchise. In the counties the ratio ran from one in
twenty-four in Selkirk, to one in ninety-seven in Sutherland; and in
boroughs or districts, from one in twenty in the Elgin district, to one
in forty in that of Linlithgow. In the Irish counties it ran from one in
fifty-eight in Carlow, to one in two hundred and sixty-one in Tyrone;
and in the boroughs from one in nine in Carrickfergus and Waterford, to
one in fifty-three in Tralee.
The proportion of members of Parliament to population was far more
uneven still. As reformers at a later date were constantly pointing out,
one half of the borough population of England was contained in sixteen
boroughs, and elected only thirty-four members; the other half,
numbering less than two and a half millions, still returning two hundred
and ninety-three members; while the counties with eight millions of
people returned one hundred and forty-four members. Thus it happened
that less than one fifth of the population in England elected nearly one
half of the representatives; and as these came from the boroughs it can
hardly be said that the borough members represented numbers.[206:1]
[Sidenote: Later Reform Bills.]
Mr. G. Lowes Dickinson, in his "Development of Parliament during the
Nineteenth Century,"[206:2] has pointed out that while the framers of
the Act of 1832 had not the least intention of introducing democracy,
the measure itself could not have furnished a permanent settlement of
the franchise, and was destined inevitably to lead to further steps in
the direction of universal suffrage. The first step was a slight
reduction, in 1850, of the amounts required for the qualification of
voters in Ireland.[206:3] This was followed by a series of moderate
English reform bills, which failed to pass the House of Commons.[206:4]
[Sidenote: The Act of 1867.]
In 1867 Disraeli, who had educated his reluctant party until it accepted
the political need of extending the franchise, brought in a bill with
elaborate safeguards against the predominance of the masses. Under the
existing law a small fraction of the working classes had votes in the
boroughs;[206:5] and it was Disraeli's intention to admit a larger
number of the more prosperous workingmen without giving them an
overwhelming weight in the electorate. But the parliamentary situation
was peculiar. The Conservative government, which had come into power
only through the quarrels of its opponents, had not a majority in the
House of Commons, and could not insist upon its own policy; while the
Liberals were not under the sense of responsibility that comes with
office. The result was that the bill was transformed by amendments, the
safeguards proposed by the cabinet were swept away, and a far longer
stride toward universal suffrage was taken than any one had expected.
In the counties the Act of 1867[207:1] reduced the ten-pound
qualification for owners and long leaseholders to five pounds, and
created a new twelve-pound occupation franchise. But a far greater
extension was made in the boroughs, where two new franchises were
introduced. The most important of these was that of the "householder,"
whereby a vote was given to every man who occupied, as owner or tenant
for twelve months, a dwelling-house, or any part of a house used as a
separate dwelling, without regard to its value.[207:2] The other
franchise admitted lodgers who occupied for the same period lodgings of
the clear value, unfurnished, of ten pounds a year.[208:1] In the
course of the next session acts, in general similar, were passed for
Scotland and Ireland.[208:2]
[Sidenote: Its Effects.]
From 1832 to 1862, in spite of the general gain in wealth, the electors
had increased very little faster than the population; in England and
Wales, indeed, the voters remained about one twentieth of the
people,[208:3] while in Scotland they had risen only from one thirty
seventh to one thirtieth.[208:4] But the Acts of 1867 and 1868 almost
doubled the electorate. In the counties the voters, who numbered 768,705
just before those acts, were, by 1871, 1,055,467; while the borough
voters increased from 602,088 to 1,470,956.[208:5]
[Sidenote: The Act of 1884.]
It was evident that the qualifications for voting could not long remain
far wider in one class of constituencies than in another; that the
franchise of the boroughs must, in time, be extended to the counties.
This was done in 1884,[208:6] and the change more than doubled the
county electorate. The franchise, therefore, is now substantially
uniform throughout the United Kingdom, except that certain owners and
leaseholders have a right to vote in counties, and that in some old
towns the freemen still possess the suffrage. Inasmuch as most of the
boroughs are included in counties, the occupier, householder, or lodger
would be entitled on the same qualifying property to vote in both; and
hence a man in a borough would have two votes at an election, while
another man with the same qualification outside of the borough would
have only one. To avoid this result it is provided that a man shall not
be entitled to vote at an election for a county in respect of the
occupation of a dwelling-house, lodging, land or tenement in a
borough;[209:1] but he may vote in the county on account of the
ownership of land in a borough which he does not occupy, or on account
of land which he both owns and occupies if he occupies other land in the
borough sufficient to qualify him there.[209:2]
[Sidenote: The Existing Qualifications.]
Although the franchise is now substantially uniform, it is not exactly
the same for the different parts of the United Kingdom; nor is it by any
means simple. The latest acts have not codified the law. It must still
be sought in many statutes, whose provisions are so complicated, and
often obscure, that they can be understood only by studying the
interpretation put upon them by the courts. The reader who wishes to
ascertain the law on a special point must refer to treatises upon the
subject, such as Rogers on "Elections." It will be enough for our
purpose to summarise the various franchises as they exist to-day.
[Sidenote: Property.]
There are two qualifications which are not universal. One of these,
relating to property rights in land, applies only to counties, and to
some extent to boroughs which are counties in themselves.[209:3] It
confers the right to vote on owners of land[210:1] of forty shillings
yearly value, who hold an estate of inheritance; or who hold an estate
for life, and are in actual occupation of the land, or have acquired it
by some means other than purchase, or whose land is of five pounds clear
yearly value.[210:2] Under this franchise come, also, the leaseholders
of land of five pounds yearly value if the original term was not less
than sixty years, and fifty pounds value if the term was not less than
twenty years.[210:3] The corresponding qualifications for Scotland and
Ireland are slightly different in their conditions and in the values
required.
[Sidenote: Freemen.]
The other franchise which is not universal is that of freemen in those
towns where they had a right to vote before 1832. The privilege still
exists in a number of old boroughs, but, except in the City of London,
is confined to freemen who have become such by birth or apprenticeship.
[Sidenote: Occupiers, Householders, and Lodgers.]
The three remaining franchises are universal, though not precisely
uniform. They are those of the ten-pound occupiers, the householders,
and the lodgers. The first of these gives the right to vote to a man who
occupies, as owner or tenant, any land or tenement of the clear yearly
value of ten pounds. The second confers the right on a man who occupies,
as owner or tenant, any dwelling-house, or part of a house used as a
separate dwelling, without regard to its value. The qualification
extends also to men who are not owners or tenants, but who occupy by
virtue of an office, service, or employment, a dwelling-house in which
the employer does not himself reside. The third of these franchises
confers the right to vote upon a man who occupies lodgings of the value,
unfurnished, of ten pounds a year.
The application of these franchises to particular cases has given rise
to a great amount of litigation, and in particular the courts have found
it almost impossible to distinguish between a householder and a lodger.
For the general reader, who is concerned with the study of the English
government, and not with the effort to get the largest possible number
of party members registered, such questions have little interest; but
there are two or three matters that ought to be noted, because they have
an important bearing on the actual size of the electorate.
[Sidenote: Period of Occupation.]
One matter of political consequence relates to the period of occupation
required. Owners of land in counties, who have acquired it by descent,
marriage, promotion to an office, etc., are not required to have owned
it for any period. All other owners must have held the title for six
calendar months before the 15th of July preceding the registration; and
all other voters, except freemen, must have been in occupation of the
qualifying premises, or some other premises within the same
constituency, for one year preceding the 15th of July.[211:1] This, of
course, has the effect of disqualifying entirely persons whose
occupation has not been continuous for the whole of that year, and as
the register does not take effect until the 1st of January following,
and then remains in effect a whole year, voters who have moved to
another part of the country within eighteen months after their year of
occupation can vote only by a journey back to their former place of
abode.
[Sidenote: Residence.]
A second matter that must be noticed is the question of residence.
Before the Reform Act of 1832 the qualification for counties was based
upon ownership; that for boroughs varied very much; but in those places
where the franchise was broad it was based mainly upon residence. This
distinction has, to some extent, persisted. In general it may be said
that for English and Scotch counties, and in Ireland for both boroughs
and counties, residence is not required, except so far as the occupation
of a dwelling-house or lodging may involve residence and this is not
necessarily the case.[211:2]
In English boroughs a voter must have resided for six calendar months
previous to the 15th of July in the borough, or within seven miles
thereof;[212:1] and in Scotland he must have resided there for a whole
year.
The requirement of residence does not, however, imply quite so much as
might appear, because, according to English law, the possession of a
chamber in which a man occasionally sleeps, and to which he can return
at any time, is enough to constitute residence; and, hence, he may have
a residence in more than one place.[212:2] In the counties, therefore,
residence is unnecessary, and even in the boroughs the requirement of
residence does not limit a man to voting in a single constituency. The
importance of this will shortly be pointed out.
[Sidenote: Payment of Rates.]
The third matter to be noticed is the question of rating. We have
already observed that at one time the personal payment of rates by the
voter was much discussed, and was regarded as an important guarantee of
character.[212:3] In England poor rates are assessed upon the occupiers,
not the owners, of the property, and it is still provided that all
voters whose qualification depends upon the occupation of land (except
lodgers, who are not from the legal point of view occupiers) must have
been rated and must have paid their rates.[212:4] But this means only
that the rates must have been paid on their behalf; and the practice of
compounding by the landlord for small tenements is so universal that
practically the landlord pays the rates in almost all cases where the
occupiers would be likely to fail to do so. In England, therefore, the
requirement that the rates must have been paid has little or no effect
on the electorate. In Scotland, on the other hand, this is not the case.
There the rates are divided between the owner and the occupier, and the
practice of compounding does not exist. The result is that many
occupiers are omitted from the parliamentary register every year on
account of their failure to pay rates. For the whole of Scotland the
number reaches fifty thousand.[213:1]
[Sidenote: Actual Extent of the Suffrage.]
A comparison of the number of electors on the register with the total
population shows that England is not very far to-day from manhood
suffrage. The ratio is about one in six,[213:2] whereas the normal
proportion of males above the age of twenty-one years (making no
allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons disqualified by the
laws of all countries), is somewhat less than one in four. The only
classes excluded from the franchise are domestic servants, bachelors
living with their parents and occupying no premises on their own
account, and persons whose change of abode deprives them of a vote. Now,
these are not necessarily the worst political elements in the community.
No doubt the provision requiring twelve months' occupation excludes
vagrants, but it also excludes excellent artisans who migrate with
changes of trade, and other persons whose calling compels them to move
from place to place. In 1902 a school-teacher, in a plaintive letter to
_The Times_,[213:3] described how he had never been able to vote at a
general election. He had graduated with honours from his university, was
nearly forty years old, married, and prosperous; but his very success in
his profession, by involving changes of residence, had always cost him
the right to vote. It is a common saying that many respectable people
are disfranchised from this cause, although the slums, which move
little, are not.
The present condition of the franchise is, indeed, historical rather
than rational. It is complicated, uncertain, expensive in the machinery
required, and excludes a certain number of people whom there is no
reason for excluding, while it admits many people who ought not to be
admitted if any one is to be debarred. But the hardship or injustice
affects individuals alone. No considerable class in the community is
aggrieved, and neither political party is now anxious to extend the
franchise. The Conservatives are not by tradition in favour of such a
course, and leading Liberals have come to realise that any further
extension would be likely to benefit their opponents.
[Sidenote: Plural Voting.]
Although there is no urgent demand for a closer approach to manhood
suffrage, there has long been a strong desire to restrict each man to a
single vote. That a man should have a vote in two different
constituencies is as clearly a breach of political equality as if he had
two votes in the same place; and for this reason, as well as from the
fact that most of the men who have more than one vote are Conservatives,
a demand for the abolition of plural voting has been for many years an
article in the Liberal programme. So far as the franchise is not
dependent upon residence there is nothing to prevent a man from voting
in every constituency where he possesses a qualification.[214:1] Now for
the counties and the universities residence is not necessary; and even
in the boroughs, where it is required, plural voting is restrained only
in part, because a man may have more than one residence, and because
residence within seven miles of the borough is enough, so that the men
who carry on their business in the town and live in the suburbs are
qualified in the borough by reason of their offices or workshops, and in
a suburban borough or the county by reason of their dwellings.
It is not easy to determine how many persons are entitled to vote in
more than one constituency, or how much they affect the result of
elections. In a return of resident and non-resident voters made to
Parliament in 1888,[214:2] it appeared, as was natural, that the
proportion of the latter was greatest among the freeholders in the
counties, nearly one quarter of whom were non-residents. In all there
were about two hundred thousand non-resident voters in England and
Wales. This is between four and five per cent. of the total electorate,
which does not seem an important fraction; but it fails to express the
full effect of plural voting, because it does not include the persons
who have more than one residence, or who live outside the limits of a
borough but within seven miles of it, or those again who reside in a
borough that forms part of a county and are qualified to vote in both.
Moreover, the men with more than one vote, although a small proportion
of the whole electorate of the kingdom, are quite numerous enough to
turn the scale in a close constituency.
One of the first acts of the new Liberal ministry in the session of
1906, was to bring in a bill to abolish plural voting altogether. This
could not be done simply by making residence a condition of the
franchise, because in England a man may have more than one residence.
The measure provided, therefore, that the voter must elect in which of
the places where he possessed a qualification he would be registered,
and forbade him to vote anywhere else. The bill was passed by the House
of Commons, but rejected forthwith by the Lords.
[Sidenote: Number of Electors by Classes.]
It is interesting to observe the number of voters registered under the
different franchises. In 1906 the figures for the United Kingdom were as
follows:--
Owners 579,827
Occupiers 6,357,817
Lodgers 226,191
Freemen, etc. 57,728
Univs. 45,150
---------
Total 7,266,706
By far the greater part of the voters are registered as occupiers, a
class which includes both the householders and the ten-pound occupiers.
The table contains a surprisingly small number of lodgers; and this is
due to the fact that whereas the lists of owners and freemen are
virtually permanent, and the list of occupiers is made up by the
overseers of the poor from the rate-book,[216:1] a lodger alone must
make every year a personal application to be registered.[216:2] The
result is that no one seeks to be enrolled as a lodger if he has any
other franchise; and no doubt many lodgers, who have no other
qualification, neglect to register at all.
[Sidenote: Disqualifications for Voting.]
A characteristic, although not in itself a very important peculiarity of
the English electoral law, is the rule depriving peers of the right to
vote;[216:3] and in fact the Commons still profess to be highly jealous
of any part taken in electoral campaigns by members of the House of
Lords.[216:4] In other respects the disqualifications for voting in
England are now much the same as in other countries. There are the usual
rules excluding aliens, infants, idiots, paupers, convicts, and persons
who have been guilty of corrupt practices at elections. Formerly there
were also provisions excluding large classes of public officers, but
these have been repealed, except in the case of the Irish police, of
certain officers directly concerned in the conduct of elections, and of
persons employed and paid by the candidates.
Women cannot vote for members of Parliament, although they possess the
franchise for almost all local elections. This question has of late
aroused much interest. Although both of the political parties have at
times adopted resolutions in favour of woman suffrage, the leading men
in both are divided about it, and the Labour Party may be said to be the
only political organisation of men in England that want it heartily. But
many women are agitating for it very vigorously, and the most
enthusiastic of them have sought martyrdom by refusing to pay taxes, by
creating a disturbance in the ladies' gallery of the House of Commons,
and by getting arrested for speech-making in the Palace Yard. They are
known as Suffragettes, and evidently have faith in the old adage that
Parliament never redresses grievances until they are brought forcibly to
its notice. Women will no doubt ultimately obtain the suffrage if they
are substantially united in wanting it, and the principle is certainly
making great headway among them in England to-day.
[Sidenote: Registration.]
It is not enough that a man possesses the requisite qualifications for
the franchise. His name must also be upon the register of voters for the
constituency, and the process of compiling the register is cumbrous and
expensive. This is due in part to the complicated nature of the various
franchises, which may involve intricate questions of law and of fact,
and partly to the practice of leaving the duty of proving claims and
objections mainly in the hands of private individuals. The lists are
made up in the first instance by the overseers of the poor in each
parish; but any person whose name is omitted may claim to have it
inserted, and any person whose name is on the lists may file an
objection to any other name which he thinks ought not to have been
included. These claims and objections are heard in September by the
Revising Barrister--a barrister of not less than seven years' standing,
appointed for the purpose by the judge in whose circuit the constituency
lies, and paid by the Treasury. It is his duty to revise the register by
adding the names of persons who prove their claims, and by striking off
names improperly inserted. In doing this he is not limited to names
against which objections have been filed, for he has a right to make
inquiries and summon witnesses on his own motion.[217:1] In practice,
however, the cases are prepared beforehand, and argued before him, by
the local agents of the two political parties, whose object is to get
the names of their partisans on to the register and keep off those of
their opponents.
The process is repeated every year, and the work and cost involved are
considerable, the money being provided by the candidate for Parliament,
or by means of subscriptions to the party funds. This is one of the
things that makes elections expensive; and it helps to explain the
desire of each party in a constituency to have a candidate at all times,
even when an election is not impending. In Scotland registration is far
less of a burden upon the parties, and costs the candidate very little,
because the qualifications of all the voters, except the lodgers, are
investigated by a public officer, called the assessor, and a corps of
assistants, with the result that there are few claims or objections for
the political agents to contest. There seems to be no self-evident
reason why this should not be done everywhere, and for every class of
voter.
FOOTNOTES:
[195:1] This feeling was forcibly expressed by Godkin in his essay on
"The Decline of Legislatures."
[196:1] This is elaborately discussed by Charles Benoist, _La Crise de
l'État Moderne_.
[197:1] For "keeping one's name on the books" the university sometimes
requires a fee which diminishes seriously the number of graduates
entitled to vote either for Parliament or on academic questions. In
Cambridge, for example, the electors are only about one half the
graduates.
[197:2] For England, 2 Will. IV., c. 45. For Scotland, 2-3 Will. IV., c.
65. For Ireland 2-3 Will. IV., c. 88.
[198:1] Scotland obtained eight additional members, and Ireland five.
[199:1] In several cases small Scotch counties are combined in pairs for
the election of a single member, but this antedated the Act of 1885.
[199:2] Whereof twenty are in England, and one each in Wales, Scotland,
and Ireland.
[200:1] This is not because the county constituencies are essentially
larger or smaller than those of the boroughs. The Borough of Wandsworth,
for example, had, in 1901, a population of 179,877. These figures are
taken from single-member constituencies; for it so happens that the
two-member boroughs, when their population is divided by two, are
neither among the largest or the smallest. Com. Papers, 1905, LXII., 333
_et seq._
[201:1] 39-40 Geo. III., c. 67, Art. 4.
[201:2] _Ibid._, Art. 5.
[202:1] 8 Hen. VI., c. 7.
[203:1] In Scotland the value of the land, if not of "old extent," had
to be £400 a year. In Ireland an Act of 1829 had raised the limit of
annual value to £10, to restrain the practice of manufacturing fagot
voters on the eve of an election.
[203:2] In Ireland the borough franchise was multifarious as in England.
In Scotland it was wholly in the hands of the councils of the royal
burghs.
[203:3] 2-3 Will. IV., c. 45, § 26.
[203:4] _Ibid._, § 18.
[204:1] 2-3 Will. IV., c. 45, §§ 19, 20. The last provision was added
during the passage of the bill, and is known from its proposer as the
Chandos Clause.
[204:2] _Ibid._, § 33.
[204:3] _Ibid._, § 32; but freemen thereafter admitted could vote only
if made such by birth or servitude.
[204:4] _Ibid._, § 33. By § 31, 40_s._ freeholders retained the
franchise in boroughs that are counties by themselves.
[204:5] 2-3 Will. IV., c. 65.
[204:6] _Ibid._, c. 88.
[205:1] Com. Papers, 1831-1832, XXXVI., 489.
[205:2] It is interesting to observe that of these, 108,219, or nearly
two fifths were freemen, scot and lot voters, potwallopers and other
persons whose ancient rights had been preserved. They belonged, of
course, only to the old boroughs. Election Returns (Boroughs and
Counties), Com. Papers, 1866, LVII., 215, p. 8.
[206:1] These figures, about the proportion of electors and members to
population, are taken from a Report on Electoral Expenses, Com. Papers,
1834, IX., 263, App. A.
[206:2] Pp. 47 _et seq._
[206:3] 13-14 Vic., c. 69.
[206:4] In reading the debates on these bills a foreigner is often
puzzled by the distinction between ratable value and clear yearly value.
The latter is what is called gross estimated rental in the Rate Book,
while the ratable value is supposed to be the net yearly value, and it
is obtained by making a reduction from the gross, which varies from
place to place, but is on the average about ten per cent.
[206:5] Of the borough electors in England and Wales 26.3 per cent
belonged to the working classes; Com. Papers, 1866, LVII., 47, p. 5. In
Scotland the proportion was 18.3 per cent. _Ibid._, 805, p. 12.
[207:1] 30-31 Vic., c. 102.
[207:2] One of the safeguards in the bill was the provision that
householders must be separately rated for the relief of the poor, and
must have paid their rates; and in order to insure personal payment by
the householder, the Act forbade the common practice of rating the owner
of dwellings in lieu of the occupier. But the practice saved the local
authorities much trouble. It enabled them to receive the rates in a
single payment from the owner of a number of houses, instead of
collecting small sums from many tenants; and they were in the habit of
allowing a commission or rebate to owners who paid in this way.
The convenience of the old practice was so great that in 1869 it was
again permitted; and the Act (32-33 Vic., c. 41) also provided that such
a payment by the owner should be deemed a payment by the occupier for
the purpose of the franchise, thus sweeping away the safeguard of
personal payment of rates.
The practice is called compounding for rates, and the tenant whose rates
were paid by the landlord was the subject of fierce discussion under the
name of "compound householder," although it was in fact the rate, and
not the house or the holder thereof, that was compounded.
[208:1] It will be observed that the £10 occupier differed from the
householder in the fact that he might occupy any shop, warehouse, or
other building, whereas the householder was qualified only by a
dwelling-house. On the other hand, the premises occupied by a £10
occupier must be of the clear yearly value of £10, whereas the
householder was qualified without regard to the value of the house.
By the Act of 1867 the householder might occupy any part of a house used
as a separate dwelling; while the £10 occupier must occupy a whole
building. This difference was, however, done away with in 1878 by an act
(41-42 Vic., c. 26, § 5), which provided that the occupation might be of
any separate part of the building, if that part were of the yearly value
of £10.
[208:2] 31-32 Vic., cc. 48, 49.
[208:3] They ran from a little less than one in twenty-one to a little
more than one in twenty. _Cf._ Com. Papers, 1866, LVII., 215, 569.
[208:4] _Ibid._, 643. The extension of the franchise in Ireland in 1850
nearly trebled the number of county voters there, in spite of the
falling off in population.
It may be observed that the growth in registered voters is not an exact
measure of the increase in the number of persons qualified for the
franchise, because with the organisation of the political parties there
has been a greater and greater effort to make every man register who is
entitled to do so.
[208:5] Com. Papers, 1872, XLVII., 395.
[208:6] 48-49 Vic., c. 3. The Act also extended the household
qualification--both for counties and boroughs--to men who occupy a
dwelling-house not as owners or tenants, but by virtue of their office
or employment, provided the employer does not also occupy the house, the
object of that proviso being to exclude domestic servants. This
qualification is known as the "service franchise."
[209:1] 48-49 Vic., c. 3, 6; and see also 2-3 Will. IV., c. 45, § 24,
and 30-31 Vic., c. 102, § 59.
[209:2] Rogers on Elections, I., 64-66. The references to Rogers are to
the 16th Ed. of Vol. I., to the 17th Ed. of Vol. II.
[209:3] The amount required for the qualification of freeholders in
boroughs which are counties is not exactly the same as in counties; and
the leasehold qualifications do not extend to them. In England there are
now only four boroughs which retain these rights: Bristol, Exeter,
Norwich, and Nottingham. Rogers on "Elections," I., 160 _et seq._
[210:1] Rent charges, whether arising from the commutation of tithes or
otherwise, are realty, and qualify a voter as land.
[210:2] If the land is copyhold or other tenure, it must in any case be
of the yearly value of £5.
[210:3] The £50 leaseholders admitted by the Chandos Clause in the Act
of 1832 were required to occupy the land, and are now included in the
£10 occupation franchise.
[211:1] Rogers, I., 61-63, 125.
[211:2] _Ibid._, 27, 66.
[212:1] Rogers, I., 148-49, 162. In the City of London he may reside
within twenty-five miles.
[212:2] _Ibid._, 149-50.
[212:3] Page 207, note 2, _supra_.
[212:4] Rogers, I., 27, 30, 126 _et seq._, 142 _et seq._
[213:1] Com. Papers, 1898, LXXX., 755.
[213:2] It is slightly less in Scotland than in England and Ireland.
[213:3] Aug. 30.
[214:1] A man cannot vote in more than one division of the same borough.
48-49 Vic., c. 23, § 8. But there is no such limitation in the case of
divisions of a county. _Ibid._, § 9. Metropolitan London is not a single
borough, but a collection of boroughs, several of which contain more
than one division, and hence the effect of this provision is quite
irrational there.
[214:2] Com. Papers, 1888, LXXIX., 907.
[216:1] Where the landlord compounds for the rates he is required to
give to the overseers a list of the actual occupiers. Rogers, I., 130.
[216:2] Rogers, I., 265, 266, 268.
[216:3] An Irish peer actually sitting for a constituency in Great
Britain can vote.
[216:4] They adopt every year a sessional order that for a peer "to
concern himself in the election of members" is "a high infringement of
the liberties and privileges of the Commons."
[217:1] For the duties of the Revising Barrister, see Rogers, I.,
297-336. From the decision of the Revising Barrister an appeal lies on
questions of law to the King's Bench Division of the High Court of
Justice.
CHAPTER X
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Electoral Procedure_
All elections to Parliament, whether general elections following a
dissolution, or the so-called by-elections resulting from an accidental
vacancy, take place in pursuance of a writ under the Great Seal, issued
from the Crown Office, and directed to the returning officer of the
constituency. In all counties, and in Scotch and Irish boroughs, the
returning officer is the sheriff or his deputy. In English boroughs he
is the mayor.
[Sidenote: Procedure at Elections.]
[Sidenote: Before the Ballot Act.]
Until 1872 candidates for Parliament were nominated _viva voce_ at the
hustings,--a temporary platform erected for the purpose. If more names
were proposed than there were seats to be filled, the election was said
to be contested, and a show of hands was called for. Many of the persons
present were probably not entitled to vote, but that was of no
importance, because the show of hands was merely formal, and a poll was
always demanded. A time for taking it was then fixed, extending over a
number of days, during which the electors declared their votes publicly.
This gave a chance for bribery, for the intimidation of voters, and for
disturbances of various kinds, not seldom deliberately planned. The
disorderly scenes that accompanied an election have often been described
both in histories, and in novels such as "The Pickwick Papers" and
"Coningsby," written by men familiar with the old polling days. In 1872
the method of conducting elections was changed by the Ballot Act,[219:1]
which introduced secret voting, and made the procedure more orderly in
many other respects.
[Sidenote: Existing Procedure.]
[Sidenote: Nomination.]
Nominations are now made in writing by proposer, seconder, and eight
others, all registered voters. If only one person is nominated for a
seat, the candidate, or candidates if it be a two-member constituency,
are at once declared elected; nor is this a hypothetical case, because,
for reasons that will be described hereafter, usually more than one
fourth, and sometimes more than one third, of the seats are not
contested at a general election.
[Sidenote: Election Days.]
If, on the other hand, the election is contested, a day is fixed for the
poll; for voting is now confined to a single day in each constituency.
It is not the same day in all of them, on account of the latitude still
given to the returning officer. He has a right, within certain limits
which are different for counties and boroughs, to determine how many
days shall elapse between his receipt of the writ and the election (that
is, the nomination) and how many between the election and the
poll.[220:1] The result is that in boroughs the voting may take place
anywhere from four to eight days after the receipt of the writ; and in
counties anywhere from six to seventeen days. Now, as the writs are sent
out by mail at the same time, the voting at the general election covers
a period of more than two weeks.
It might be supposed that such a power to arrange the order of elections
would be used by the returning officer to help his own party, and this
is said to be done, not systematically over the country, but in
particular places. The multiplicity of election days has another and
more important political effect; for it gives time to the out-voters, as
the non-residents are called, to get from one constituency to another,
and thus it facilitates voting in more than one place. For this reason
the Liberal party--which is opposed to plural voting--has demanded in
its platform that all elections should take place on the same day. To
this it has been objected that the change would, by lengthening the
electoral period in the boroughs, increase the fatigue and cost to
borough candidates; and in view of the rate at which labour and money
are expended on such occasions the objection is not altogether without
foundation.
[Sidenote: Method of Voting.]
For the convenience of voting the constituency is divided into a number
of polling districts; and when an election is contested, the vote is
taken in these districts between eight in the morning and eight in the
evening of the appointed day. The method of voting under the Australian
system of secret ballot, which was adopted in 1872, need not be
described, because in some form its use has become well-nigh universal
in civilised countries.[221:1] It may be noted, however, that the Ballot
Act has never been extended to the universities, where voting is still
done orally, or by means of a voting paper tendered at the polls by
another elector to whom it has been intrusted.[221:2] In fact most of
the university votes are given by proxy--a practice which was introduced
in 1861,[221:3] and would be abolished by the ballot.
[Sidenote: Legislation against Corruption.]
Before the Reform Act of 1832, huge sums of money were sometimes
expended at parliamentary elections, and bribery and corruption were
rife. Nor did the disfranchisement of rotten boroughs, and the extension
of the franchise, by any means put an entire stop to the practice. Even
as late as 1880 the special commissions appointed to inquire into the
conduct of a number of boroughs, for which election petitions had been
filed, found a bad state of affairs.[221:4] In Macclesfield and
Sandwich about half the voters had been guilty of bribery and other
corrupt practices;[222:1] and as a result of the investigation those two
boroughs, which were decidedly the worst, were entirely disfranchised. A
series of attempts have been made to root out the evil by legislation.
They have been more and more elaborate, and reached their culmination in
the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act of 1883.[222:2] These laws seek to
restrain improper conduct at elections by several methods; first, by
forbidding altogether certain classes of acts, which either interfere
directly with the purity of elections, or have proved a source of
inordinate expense; second, by limiting the total amount that can be
spent, and the purposes for which it can be used; third, by requiring
that disbursements shall be made through one recognised agent, who is
obliged to return to the government a full account thereof; and, fourth,
by imposing for violation of these provisions penalties, political and
other, inflicted not only by criminal process, but also summarily by the
tribunal that tries the validity of a controverted election.
[Sidenote: Corrupt Practices.]
The most demoralising acts forbidden by law are known as corrupt
practices. They are bribery, treating, undue influence, and
personation.[222:3]
[Sidenote: Bribery.]
Bribery at elections is, of course, criminal in all countries; and in
England the offence is defined in great detail, for just as there are
seven recognised kinds of lies, so the English statutes describe seven
distinct methods by which bribery can be committed.[222:4] It is
unnecessary for anybody who is not engaged in electoral work to remember
these; and it is enough here to point out that they include a promise,
or endeavour, to procure any office or employment for a voter in order
to influence his vote.
[Sidenote: Treating.]
Treating differs from bribery in the fact that bribery involves a
contract for a vote, express or implied, whereas the person who treats
obtains no promise from the voter, and relies only upon his general
sense of gratitude. But, as one of the judges remarked in the trial of
an election petition some years ago, it is difficult in the large
constituencies of the present day to bribe successfully, while a small
amount of treating is sufficient to procure a great deal of
popularity.[223:1] This is particularly true in England, where the habit
of treating is made easy by the existence of sharp class distinctions.
Treating was forbidden as long ago as the days of William III., and it
is now defined[223:2] as giving, or paying the expense of giving, "any
meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person for the
purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to give
or refrain from giving his vote."
[Sidenote: Undue Influence.]
Undue influence is defined by the Act of 1883[223:3] as making use, or
threatening to make use, of any force, violence, or restraint, or
inflicting, or threatening to inflict, any temporal or spiritual injury
on any person in order to influence, or on account of, his vote; or by
duress or fraud impeding the free exercise of the franchise by any man.
These provisions cover threats by an employer to discharge
workmen,[223:4] and the denunciation by priests of spiritual penalties
on political opponents.[223:5]
Personation it is unnecessary to describe.
[Sidenote: Corrupt Practices avoid the Election.]
All these corrupt practices are criminal offences punishable by fine or
imprisonment, and by the loss of political rights for seven
years.[223:6] What is more important for our purpose, they are liable to
cost the member his seat; for if upon the trial of a controverted
election the court reports that any corrupt practice has been committed
by the candidate, or that bribery or personation has been committed with
his knowledge and consent, his election is void, and he is forever
incapable of being elected to Parliament by that constituency.[224:1]
Moreover, if the election court reports that a corrupt practice has been
committed by his agents, although he may be personally quite innocent,
his election is void, and he is incapable of being chosen by that
constituency for seven years.[224:2]
[Sidenote: But only if done by the Candidate or his Agents.]
It will be observed that in order to set aside an election, the corrupt
practice must be brought home to the candidate, personally or through
his agents. In accordance with the older traditions of English public
life, the election is regarded as the affair of the candidates alone.
The action of party organisations, or other bodies, is not taken into
account,[224:3] and their conduct has no effect upon the result, unless
their relations with the candidate have been such as to make them his
agents. So long as a political association is urging the general
interests of the party, rather than supporting a particular candidate,
he is not responsible for their acts. It has been held, for example,
that a candidate is not responsible for treating by such an association,
although he was present and spoke at the meeting where it was done, if
it was got up by them for their own purposes, and not to assist in his
election.[224:4] It has been held, also, that a payment by a party
organisation of bills for music and beer at public meetings, previous to
an election, and even the candidate's subscription to their funds, need
not be included in his election expenses, unless the organisation was a
sham supported by him.[224:5]
In all such cases it is difficult to prove agency to the satisfaction of
an election court. The time must come in any election, however, when the
local party association by active assistance to the candidate becomes
his agent.[225:1] But this is not true of other bodies less directly
connected with the party organisation, which are, nevertheless, in the
habit of doing a great deal of work at elections. Thus it has been held
that a Licensed Victuallers Association, having a distinct and direct
interest in the election, did not become the agent of the candidate,
although it played an important part in the campaign.[225:2] That this
leaves a door wide open for corrupt influence is self-evident.
[Sidenote: General Corruption.]
To the general principle that a corrupt practice must be brought home to
the candidate there is one exception. If bribery, treating, personation,
intimidation, or undue influence, whether physical or ecclesiastical,
has been general in the constituency--that is, so extensive that the
voting could not have been the free expression of the will of the
electorate--the result of the election is invalid at common law,
although neither the candidate nor his agent are directly
implicated.[225:3]
[Sidenote: Distinction between Corrupt and Illegal Practices.]
Besides corrupt practices, certain other acts are forbidden under the
name of illegal practices; but the provisions relating to them are
mainly designed to restrain the expense of elections, and will be
described under that head. The essential distinction between the two
practices is much like that which lawyers were formerly in the habit of
drawing in the case of crimes between _malum prohibitum_ and _malum in
se_. A corrupt practice involves moral turpitude, and it is necessary to
prove a corrupt intent.[225:4] A gift to a voter, for example, is not
bribery unless it is made for the purpose of influencing his vote; but
an illegal practice is simply an act forbidden by statute, and as
such--in the case, for instance, of a payment of expenses above the
maximum fixed by law--is illegal without regard to the motive with which
it is done. For this reason a corrupt practice cannot be
excused,[226:1] while the election court may grant relief from the
consequences of an illegal practice where it is trivial in itself, and
was committed without the connivance of the candidate who took all
reasonable means to prevent it; or where, although the direct act of the
candidate or his election agent, it arose from inadvertence, accidental
miscalculation, or other reasonable cause; or, finally, where a failure
to make a return of expenses has been due to illness.
[Sidenote: Practices Tending to Lower the Tone of Elections.]
Some acts which, without involving great expense, tend to lower the tone
of elections, are treated as illegal practices, and forbidden by
statute. Such are the use for committee rooms[226:2] of premises where
liquor is sold, and the furnishing of voters with cockades, ribbons, or
other marks of distinction,[226:3] a proceeding which is believed to
engender broils.
[Sidenote: Restraint of Expenditure.]
Other acts apparently harmless are prohibited in order to prevent
extravagance. The most curious example of this is the provision
forbidding the use of hired carriages to take voters to the
polls.[226:4] Such a rule may seem unnecessary; but before the Act of
1883, by which it was enacted, thousands of pounds were said to have
been spent in certain cases for the conveyance of electors. The Act does
not forbid the use of carriages, but only of hired ones; and the result
is that the private carriages and motor cars of wealthy partisans,
sometimes blazoned with ancient armorial bearings, are placed at the
disposal of the candidate. In fact in estimating the chances of an
election one constantly hears that the Conservative has the advantage of
a larger number of carriages.
[Sidenote: Authorised Expenses.]
[Sidenote: Employment.]
But by far the most systematic effort to restrain extravagance at
elections is found in the provisions that prescribe on the one hand the
objects of expenditure, and on the other its total amount. A schedule to
the Act of 1883 enumerates the objects for which expenses may be
legally incurred, and the first part of the schedule deals with the
persons who may be employed. These are: one election agent;[227:1] a
polling agent to watch the voting at each polling station; and clerks
and messengers in proportion to population, the allowance being somewhat
more liberal in counties than in boroughs on account of the greater area
of the constituency. The act provides that, except as authorised by this
schedule, no person shall be employed for pay;[227:2] and that no paid
employee shall vote.[227:3] It may be noticed that among the list of
persons who can be employed, canvassers are not mentioned, and hence the
use of paid canvassers is illegal.[227:4] Now, as canvassing, that is
the personal solicitation of votes, is by far the most effective part of
the work done at an election, each candidate is always assisted by an
army of volunteers. Wherever possible he is also helped by the agents of
other constituencies, or of distinct associations, who, not being paid
by him, and in fact, receiving no additional pay for their services on
this occasion, are not within the prohibition of the law.
[Sidenote: Other Expenses.]
The other expenditures authorised by the schedule are printing,
advertising, stationery, postage, and the like; public meetings; one
committee room for every five hundred electors;[227:5] and miscellaneous
expenses not exceeding two hundred pounds for matters not otherwise
illegal. The candidate is also allowed to incur personal expenses for
travelling and hotel bills;[227:6] and, finally, there are the charges
of the returning officer for the cost of erecting polling booths, the
payment of persons on duty thereat, and the other expenses attending the
election.[227:7] These last charges are divided between the candidates
and they are by no means small, as may be seen from the fact that at
the general election of 1900 they amounted, for the whole United
Kingdom, to £150,278 10_s._ 11_d._, or nearly one fifth of the whole
expense incurred.[228:1] The National Liberal Federation has, indeed,
repeatedly urged in its programme that such charges ought to be defrayed
by the state, instead of being a burden upon the candidates.
[Sidenote: Maximum Expenditure.]
In order to reduce the cost of elections, Parliament has not only
enumerated the objects for which money may be used, but has also set a
maximum limit to the amount that may be spent.[228:2] In the case of
boroughs this is fixed at three hundred and fifty pounds if the
registered electors do not exceed two thousand, with an additional
thirty pounds for every thousand electors above that number. In the
counties the scale is somewhat higher, six hundred and fifty pounds
being allowed where the registered electors do not exceed two thousand,
with sixty pounds for each thousand electors more.[228:3] These sums do
not, however, represent the total cost, for they include neither the
personal expenses of the candidate to an amount of one hundred pounds,
nor the charges of the returning officers.
[Sidenote: Penalties for Illegal Payments.]
The rules in regard to election expenses are furnished with sanctions of
the same nature as those attached to corrupt practices, although the
penalties are less severe. In addition to the criminal punishments that
may be inflicted, it is provided that a candidate, or his election
agent, who violates those rules shall be guilty of an illegal
practice;[228:4] and that if a candidate is guilty, personally or by his
agents, of an illegal practice (from the consequences of which he has
not been relieved as heretofore described) he shall lose his seat, and
cannot be elected by the same constituency during the life of that
Parliament.[228:5]
[Sidenote: The Election Agent.]
It is one thing to make elaborate regulations about election expenses,
and it is quite a different thing to insure their observance. The device
adopted for this purpose in England is that of requiring each candidate
to appoint an election agent, who is responsible for the disbursements.
Except for the personal expenses of the candidate, to an amount not
exceeding one hundred pounds, no payment of election expenses can be
made by the candidate, or by any person on his behalf, except through
the election agent,[229:1] and no contract for any such expenses is
valid unless made by him.[229:2] Within thirty-five days after the
election the agent must give to the returning officer an account of all
his payments, and of all sums that he has received from the candidate or
any one else, for the purposes of the campaign; and the candidate must
certify that the account is true to the best of his knowledge and
belief.[229:3]
The class of person selected for this duty is not only a matter of great
importance to the candidate, but upon it depends also in large measure
the purity of elections. A candidate may act as his own election agent,
but this is rarely done. Usually, though by no means invariably, he
takes the paid secretary of the local political association, who has the
advantage of knowing the constituency better than any one else; and the
Practical Manual for Parliamentary Elections, issued by the Conservative
party, advises that course.[229:4] Rogers, on the other hand, in his
work on Elections,[229:5] warns candidates that it is unwise to select
such persons, because "when this is done attempts are frequently made to
saddle the candidate with responsibility for the acts of the association
and its members." "A further danger," he remarks, "arises in such cases
of the election expenses being confused with or concealed under
registration or other expenses of the association." With the modern
organisation of parties a confusion of that kind is liable to occur in
any event; and perhaps it is not so much dreaded by candidates as the
author of the text-book on elections might imply. In spite of any
dangers that may lurk in the practice, it is not only common, but
apparently growing; and in fact the occupation of a paid secretary and
agent has developed into a profession whose characteristics will be
discussed in the chapters on party organisations.
[Sidenote: The Election Court.]
Formerly the validity of elections was decided by the House of Commons
itself, with the natural consequence that politics were a large factor
in the result. To such an extent was this true that the fall of Sir
Robert Walpole was brought about by a hostile vote on an election case.
In 1770 the matter was placed by statute in the hands of select
committees of the House; but that did not put an end to political bias,
and finally in 1868, the trial of election petitions, whether filed on
the ground of a miscount, or of corrupt or illegal practices, was
committed to a judicial body. The tribunal now consists of two judges of
the King's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, selected by the
other judges of that division.[230:1]
A defeated candidate, or any voter, may present to the court a petition
stating the grounds on which he claims that the election is invalid, and
the case is then tried, witnesses are examined, and costs are awarded,
according to the usual course of judicial proceedings. The decision
takes the form of a report to the Speaker of the House of Commons, but
it is really a final judgment upon the questions involved, for if the
court finds that corrupt or illegal practices have taken place, the
report has the effect not merely of avoiding the election, but of
subjecting the candidate, and any guilty persons, to the political
incapacities which those practices entail.[230:2]
[Sidenote: Results of the Corrupt Practices Act.]
[Sidenote: Reduction of Expense.]
So far as the reduction of the cost of elections is concerned, the
English method of dealing with the subject has certainly been
successful. According to the returns laid before Parliament, the total
aggregate expenses incurred by candidates throughout the United Kingdom
at the general election of 1880--the last that took place before the
Corrupt Practices Act of 1883--was £1,736,781; at the next election in
1885 it fell to £1,026,645, and on every subsequent occasion it has been
less than that. In 1900 it was £777,429, which is not far from the
average in these days. The expense of English elections is, however, far
from small to-day. In 1900 the average cost for the United Kingdom in
constituencies that were not uncontested was four shillings and four
pence, for every vote cast.[231:1]
[Sidenote: Returns of Expenses Sometimes Incomplete.]
Moreover the returns undoubtedly do not in every case include all that
is spent. A recent series of letters to _The Times_, under the title
"The worries of a parliamentary representative," throws light on this
subject.[231:2] It opened with a letter from the member for a Welsh
borough complaining that about a month after he had signed the return of
his election expenses he received a note from his agent in regard to
claims by workers at the election; that upon his refusal to pay any such
claims in violation of the Corrupt Practices Act the agent wrote asking
whether he would or would not fulfil the obligations made on his behalf
during the election. His continued refusal, the member declared, had
made him unpopular with many of his former supporters, who were now
trying to prevent his renomination. In answer to this charge the agent,
in a letter to _The Times_, explained that all he had meant was that the
member "should find some way--legal, of course--of expressing his
gratitude to men who had worked splendidly in his cause;" and he added
that this way had eventually been found, its name being "undoubted
distress." In his reply in _The Times_ the member denied that his relief
of distress in the constituency had any relation to the election, or was
a mode of expressing gratitude to men who had worked for him. It would
be rash to assert that indirect means of rewarding party workers are not
often found; and in fact another election agent stated in a letter to
_The Times_[231:3] in the course of the foregoing controversy, that
promises of such a nature, made in behalf of the candidate, were
unfortunately too common.
[Sidenote: Ease of Evasion.]
[Sidenote: Difficult to Prove Agency;]
Apart from occasional acts involving direct violations of the Corrupt
Practices Act by the candidate himself, the statute has holes through
which others can pass so readily that an election agent has been known
to speak of the return of expenses as largely a farce. In fact the
elaborate provisions of the law can easily be evaded if the candidate
and his agent have a mind to do so. If they only keep their eyes shut
tight enough, and are sufficiently ignorant of what goes on, it is very
difficult to connect them with corrupt or illegal practices in such a
way as to avoid the election.[232:1] An agent from another constituency
may pay the railway fares of out-voters. The Primrose League, or some
other body, may give picnics, teas and what not, which would be corrupt
treating if done by the candidate, but for which he is not held
responsible. The brewers may furnish free beer in public houses where
voters are collected before going to the polls, and yet the candidate
has done nothing to forfeit his seat. Nor is this an imaginary danger;
for, with the introduction of what is known as the tied-house system,
the publicans have come under the control of the great brewing
establishments, which have to-day a huge stake in the results of
parliamentary elections. Agency, in short, is a very difficult thing to
establish in such cases. As Rogers, who devotes a whole chapter to the
subject, remarks: "It is to conceal agency, and so to relieve the
candidate from the consequences of corruption practised on his behalf,
that efforts of unscrupulous men engaged in the conduct of an election
have been generally directed, and it is not too much to say that an
election inquiry has been more frequently baffled from a failure in the
proof of agency than from all other causes put together."[232:2]
[Sidenote: Or Know When Election Period Begins.]
Then there is the uncertainty when the election period begins, and hence
what payments must be included in the return of election expenses. The
Act of 1883 defines a candidate, unless the context otherwise requires,
as one who is nominated or declared to be such on or after the issue of
the writ or the dissolution or vacancy in consequence of which it is
issued.[233:1] But clearly this does not mean that a corrupt act
committed earlier will not avoid the election. On the contrary it is
settled by repeated decisions that a man may become a candidate, and his
election expenses may begin, before that date;[233:2] although it is
impossible to lay down any hard and fast limit of time.[233:3] A great
deal must depend on the nature of the expense itself. Registration, for
example, is something entirely distinct from the election, and the cost
of registration, whenever incurred, need not be included in the return
of expenses.[233:4] On the other hand proof of the actual purchase of a
vote at any time would certainly cost the candidate his seat.[233:5]
Between these two extremes there are a great many acts whose character
is affected by the proximity of an election. A subscription to a local
political organisation, made when the dissolution was impending, has
been held to be a part of the election expenses,[233:6] when it would
not be so under other circumstances;[233:7] and in the same way the
question whether a gift of money or food to relieve distress in the
constituency is or is not made with a corrupt purpose of influencing
votes may depend upon the expectation of an election in the near
future.[233:8]
[Sidenote: Nursing Constituencies.]
As general elections in England come at irregular intervals, and at
short notice, it is common to select candidates without regard to the
prospect of a dissolution, sometimes years before it occurs; and in fact
the sitting member, having a presumptive right to stand again, is
regarded in the light of a permanent candidate. Under these conditions
it is the habit in most places for a candidate, who can afford it, to
ingratiate himself with his constituents by subscribing liberally to
public and charitable objects; and since a payment to be corrupt must be
made for the purpose of influencing particular voters[234:1]
subscriptions of this kind are not deemed corrupt; nor, unless given
near the time of an election, are they election expenses or illegal
payments.[234:2] The practice is called nursing a constituency, and it
takes a great variety of forms, from a subscription for a cricket club
to the founding of a hospital. The sums expended vary very much with the
nature of the place and the wealth of the candidate, and no one knows
how large they are in the aggregate, because men do not state publicly
what they give in this way; but as far as one can form an opinion, it
would appear that such gifts by a member of Parliament commonly amount
to a number of hundred pounds a year. It is obvious that the custom of
nursing, combined with the uncertainty about the time when the election
period begins, opens a door to abuse.
[Sidenote: Difficulty in Getting Evidence.]
Another difficulty in a strict enforcement of the election laws is
connected with the proof of the offence. A witness cannot, indeed,
refuse to give evidence on the ground that it will incriminate him, for
the law provides that he must testify; and if he tells the truth he is
entitled to a certificate of indemnity, which protects him against
prosecution.[234:3] But the facts that tend to establish bribery, for
example, are directly known, as a rule, only to persons who have the
strongest motives for concealing them; and the same thing is true to a
greater or less extent of other breaches of the election law. It is
clear, therefore, that if the offence must be proved by legally
competent evidence beyond reasonable doubt, as in criminal cases, an
election procured by improper means may well stand, just as many
criminals escape punishment; and this brings us to another question,
that of the efficiency of the election courts.
[Sidenote: Merits of the Election Courts.]
The system of sending petitions for trial to a couple of judges selected
by the bench itself has provided a court as free as any human tribunal
can be from the party bias that always affects the decisions of such
questions by a legislative body.
[Sidenote: Their Defects.]
[Sidenote: Expense of Petitions.]
But no institution is altogether without defects. A select committee on
the subject of election petitions reported in 1898 that the grievances
alleged to exist in the present system related to delay, to the expense
involved, and to the lack of security for costs in favour of the
successful party; and it recommended some changes in procedure to
improve these matters.[235:1] The expense of an election trial is
undoubtedly great--sometimes thousands of pounds--and since the charges
are borne by the litigants, and a favourable judgment involves a fresh
election, while the trial itself is likely to entail a certain amount of
unpopularity, it is not surprising that a defeated candidate hesitates
to file a petition.
[Sidenote: Uncertainty of the Result.]
With all respect to the select committee of the House of Commons, it
would seem to a foreign observer that the defects it reported are not
the only ones to be found in the existing system. The bringing of
election petitions is discouraged not only by the cost involved, but
also by uncertainty both in the result and in the grounds on which it
will be based. A candidate may feel convinced that his defeat was due to
corruption practised by his opponent, by the publicans, and by the local
political organisation, and yet the court, finding some of these charges
unproved, may think it unnecessary to inquire into others because much
graver questions are decisive of the case; the graver matter being
that, contrary to the provision forbidding "marks of distinction," the
defendant's agent furnished his supporters with cards to wear in their
hats.[236:1] Where serious corrupt practices are charged, the election
may be set aside on account of the payment of a railway fare to an
out-voter.[236:2] And in a case where the facts stated by the court
portrayed a bacchanalian orgy in the form of a drunken procession
through the streets, headed by the candidate himself in a barouche, with
some direct evidence that he offered free drink to the crowd, the judges
found that there was no sufficient evidence of treating; but avoided the
election on account of the payment of two shillings for conveying a
voter to the polls.[236:3]
[Sidenote: Attitude of the Judges.]
Such results are thoroughly unsatisfactory for both parties; to the
defeated party because he loses his seat; to the successful party
because he does not want to have an election, which he believes to be
vitiated by gross corruption, set aside on account of a trivial breach
of the law. The main difficulty seems to lie in the attitude of mind of
the judges. They require a degree of proof of corrupt intent, which is
very proper in criminal cases, but which would seem to be out of place
in an election petition. On a charge, for example, that an agent of the
candidate, to whom pay was promised, had voted, it was held necessary to
prove an actual express promise of payment, and not such an implied
promise as would support a civil action.[236:4] So, also, where a
candidate named Lowles caused to be distributed among the poor, some
time before an election, his own visiting cards exchangeable for food,
and it was announced in a newspaper that gifts of food had been arranged
by the Unionist candidate, one of the judges said: "I cannot bring
myself to believe in the circumstances of this case that the motive of
Mr. Lowles in giving away the tickets, months before any election was
imminent; was to influence voters."[237:1] Nor is this an isolated
instance. Where soup and coal tickets were distributed largely at the
expense of a candidate, who reminded voters, when the election came on
some months later, that he had given away soup, the court said that
"although . . . it would have been more prudent for the Respondent had
he kept aloof from the immediate distribution of the relief, we cannot
infer, from the evidence before us, that his motive or conduct was
corrupt."[237:2]
The difficulty seems to lie to some extent in the fact that a report of
corrupt or illegal practices by the court involves not only the setting
aside of an election, but the same loss of political rights as would
follow upon a conviction;[237:3] and, hence, the judges tend to require
the kind of evidence that would support a criminal prosecution.
Moreover, they seem to find it incredible that a candidate for
Parliament can be guilty of the grosser kind of offences. One feels this
very strongly in reading the opinions in election cases.
[Sidenote: How Much Corruption Still Exists.]
If the present system of trying election petitions is not a complete
success, it is nevertheless certain that the old electoral abuses have
been very much reduced. There is a current impression both in England
and elsewhere that the bribery of voters in Great Britain has been
entirely rooted out. But any one familiar with English elections knows
that this is by no means altogether true.[237:4] That the cases where
gross corruption occurs are not made public by means of election
petitions is due, partly to the reluctance to bring such petitions which
has already been pointed out, and partly to the fact that where bribery
is extensive both sides are usually guilty. Bribery in England is
disappearing. In by far the greater part of the constituencies it does
not exist, and the elections are, on the whole, pure; but in a few
places the old traditions still persist. These are mostly boroughs in
the South of England containing a considerable number of ancient
freemen, among whom corruption is sometimes widespread. The writer has
heard the number of such places estimated by persons in a position to
know the facts at a score or two dozen. The names of several of them are
well known to every one who takes an active part in electoral work; but
even in these boroughs the increase in the number of voters has lowered
the price paid for votes, and in some of them the practice is slowly
dying out. It is only fair to add that it does not receive any
countenance or encouragement from the central authorities of the great
political organisations.
FOOTNOTES:
[219:1] 35-36 Vic., c. 33.
[220:1] He must, within a day after receiving the writ in boroughs and
two days in counties, give notice of the day of election. This must be
not less than three days in boroughs, or four in counties, after the
notice is given; and must be in boroughs within four days of the receipt
of the writ, and counties within nine days. If, on the day fixed for
nomination, the election is contested, he must appoint for the polling a
date falling within the next three days in boroughs, and not less than
two nor more than six days distant in counties.
[221:1] "In one only of the three kingdoms the ballot helped to make a
truly vital difference; it dislodged the political power of the Irish
landlord. In England its influence made for purity, freedom, and
decency, but it developed no new sources of liberal strength." Morley,
"Gladstone," II., 370. But the ballot is also said to have slowly
strengthened the Liberal party in English rural districts by shielding
the agricultural labourer.
[221:2] 35-36 Vic., c. 33, §§ 27, 31. Rogers, II., 118.
[221:3] 24-25 Vic., c. 53.
[221:4] Com. Papers, 1881, XXXVIII.-XLV.
[222:1] Com. Papers, 1881, XLIII., XLV., and schedules to these reports.
[222:2] 46-47 Vic., c. 51.
[222:3] _Ibid._, § 3.
[222:4] 17-18 Vic., c. 102, §§ 2, 3.
[223:1] Hexham Div., 4 O'M. & H., 143, at 147. After the general
election of 1906 a member was unseated on this ground. Bodmin Div., 5
O'M. & H., 225.
[223:2] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 1.
[223:3] _Ibid._, § 2.
[223:4] Rogers, II., 316-19.
[223:5] So. Meath & No. Meath, 4 O'M. & H., 130, 185.
[223:6] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 6.
[224:1] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 4.
[224:2] _Ibid._, § 5.
[224:3] In the return of election expenses the candidate and his agent
must declare that to the best of their knowledge or belief no person,
club, society, or association has made any payment in respect to the
conduct of the election. _Ibid._, Sched. 2. But this merely requires
them to take care to be ignorant of any such payment.
[224:4] Cockermouth Div., 5 O'M. & H., 155. St. George's Div., 5 O'M. &
H., 89, at 97-98. In the first of these cases the treating was done by a
Liberal Unionist Association; in the second by an Irish Unionist
Alliance.
[224:5] Lancaster Div., 5 O'M. & H., 39, at 42-43.
[225:1] Walsall, 4 O'M. & H., 123, per Pollock B, at 124.
[225:2] _Ibid._
[225:3] Rogers, II., 293, 308, 325-329, 335.
[225:4] A false statement in the return of election expenses, if made
knowingly, is a corrupt and not illegal practice. 46-47 Vic., c. 51, §
33 (7).
[226:1] Here, again, there is an exception; for relief may be given in
the case of treating or undue influence committed by an agent, other
than the election agent, if trivial in itself, and if the candidate and
his election agent did not connive at it, but took all reasonable means
to prevent corrupt and illegal practices. 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 22.
[226:2] _Ibid._, § 20
[226:3] 17-18 Vic., c. 102, § 7.
[226:4] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, §§ 7, 14.
[227:1] And in counties a sub-agent for each polling station.
[227:2] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 17.
[227:3] _Ibid._, § 36 and Sched. I., Part 1 (7).
[227:4] Rogers, II., 156, 160, 350.
[227:5] In counties one central committee room, and in each polling
district one committee room for every five hundred voters.
[227:6] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 31.
[227:7] 38-39 Vic., c. 84; 48-49 Vic., c. 62.
[228:1] Com. Papers, 1901, LIX., 145, p. 84.
[228:2] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, Sched. I., Part IV.
[228:3] In Ireland the limit both for boroughs and counties is somewhat
lower.
[228:4] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 21.
[228:5] If the offence was committed with his knowledge and consent, the
incapacity continues seven years. _Ibid._, § 5.
[229:1] _Ibid._, §§ 28, 31.
[229:2] _Ibid._, § 27.
[229:3] _Ibid._, § 33 and Sched. II.
[229:4] 2 Ed. (1892), 14.
[229:5] II., 152-153.
[230:1] 31-32 Vic., c. 125; 42-43 Vic., c. 75; 44-45 Vic., c. 68, § 13.
[230:2] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, §§ 4, 5, 11.
[231:1] Com. Papers, 1901, LIX., 145, p. 85.
[231:2] July 22, 26, 29, 1904.
[231:3] July 25, 1904.
[232:1] See the cases already cited in the discussion of agency.
[232:2] Rogers, II., 360. In a case at the general election of 1906,
where bribery was proved, the election was upheld because the judges
disagreed on the question of agency. Great Yarmouth, 5 O'M. & H., 176.
[233:1] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 63.
[233:2] Rogers, II., 157-58.
[233:3] Counties of Elgin and Nairn, 5 O'M. & H., 1.
[233:4] Rogers, II., 162.
[233:5] _Ibid._, 259, 268.
[233:6] Lichfield Div., 5 O'M. & H., 27, at 34-38.
[233:7] Counties of Elgin & Nairn, 5 O'M. & H., 1.
[233:8] _Cf._ Lichfield Div., 5 O'M. & H., 27; Haggerston Div., _Ibid._,
68, at 72-88, St. George's Div., _Ibid._, 89. So of treating, Great
Yarmouth, _Ibid._, 176, at 198.
[234:1] Hastings, 1 O'M. & H., 217, at 218.
[234:2] Subscriptions _bona fide_ made for public or charitable purposes
are not election expenses, Rogers, II., 161-62. But it is not easy to
say what is _bona fides_; for gifts of this kind by a candidate for
Parliament who has no other connection with the constituency must always
be made, in part at least, for the sake of indirectly gaining votes by
increasing his popularity.
[234:3] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, § 59.
[235:1] Com. Papers, 1898, IX., 555.
[236:1] Walsall, 4 O'M. & H., 123, at 126.
[236:2] Pontefract, 4 O'M. & H., 200.
[236:3] Southampton, 5 O'M. & H., 17.
[236:4] Lichfield Div., 5 O'M. & H., 27, at 29-30.
[237:1] Haggerston Div., 5 O'M. & H., 68, at 84.
[237:2] St. George's Div., 5 O'M. & H., 89, at 96.
[237:3] 46-47 Vic., c. 51, §§ 4, 11.
[237:4] After the general election of 1906 one member was unseated for
bribery by his agents. Worcester, 5 O'M. & H., 212.
CHAPTER XI
THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Disqualifications, Privilege, Sessions_
[Sidenote: Disqualifications for Parliament.]
No property qualification is now required for sitting in the House of
Commons, and any male British subject may be elected, who is not
specially debarred.[239:1]
Infants are excluded both at Common Law, and by statute, although this
rule has been disregarded in several notable instances, the best known
cases being those of Charles James Fox and Lord John Russell who entered
Parliament before they came of age. Incurable insanity was a
disqualification at Common Law, and so by statute is confinement in a
lunatic hospital. But it would seem that a temporary lunatic, if at
large, is not incompetent to sit and vote.
Peers are also excluded; and this is true even of those Scotch peers
who, not having been chosen among the sixteen representatives of the
peerage of Scotland, have no right to sit in the House of Lords. There
is one exception, however, to the rule that peers are ineligible to the
House of Commons, for a peer of Ireland, who is not selected to
represent that kingdom in the House of Lords, may sit for any county or
borough in Great Britain, but not for an Irish constituency. The rule
excluding peers is sometimes a hardship on a rising young man
transferred by the death of his father from the active battlefield of
politics in the House of Commons to the dignified seclusion of the House
of Lords. But it has had, on the other hand, some effect in preventing
the House of Commons from absorbing all the political life of the
country, and has thus helped to maintain the vitality of the House of
Lords. Among the peers there have always been men of great national
authority who would have preferred to sit in the other House. It is safe
to say that in the year 1900 two of the statesmen who possessed the
greatest influence with the people--Lord Salisbury and Lord
Rosebery--would have been in the House of Commons had it not been for
the rule excluding peers.
The clergy of the Roman Catholic Church and the Church of England, and
ministers of the Church of Scotland, are disqualified by statute;[240:1]
but these provisions do not include dissenting ministers; and it may be
added that at the present day a clergyman of the Church of England may
by unfrocking himself remove his disqualification.[240:2]
As in most other countries, there are in England rules disqualifying
persons who, by assuming certain relations with the government, or by
misconduct, have rendered themselves unfit to serve; such are government
contractors, and holders of pensions not granted for civil or diplomatic
services; bankrupts,[240:3] and persons convicted of treason or of
felony, or guilty of corrupt practices.
[Sidenote: Office-holders.]
The exclusion of permanent officials has already been discussed; and it
will be remembered that by the compromise effected in the reign of Queen
Anne the holders of certain specified offices, or of any offices created
after Oct. 25, 1705, are absolutely disqualified; while a member
accepting any other office from the Crown loses his seat, but can be
reëlected.[240:4] It will be remembered, also, that by later statutes or
by custom all holders of civil offices not distinctly political are now
excluded from the House of Commons; and so are the judges of the higher
courts, and most of those in the lower ones.
Now the offices held by ministers are either old offices within the
meaning of the Act of Anne, and therefore compatible with a seat in
Parliament, or new offices that have been taken out of the rule by
special statutes passed usually when the office was created. This is
not, indeed, universally true; for by special provision of statute only
four of the five secretaries of state, and four of their
under-secretaries, can sit in the House of Commons at one time. With
that limitation every minister is capable of sitting; but on his
appointment he loses his seat, and must go back to his constituents for
a new election. The last rule, however, like every other, has its
exceptions. The under-secretaries of state occupy _old_ offices, but as
they do not accept them _from_ the Crown they are not obliged to undergo
a fresh election on their appointment; and they are not, in fact, in the
habit of doing so.[241:1] The same privilege has been extended by
statute to the Financial Secretary of the War Office. There is, indeed,
no self-evident reason to-day why it should not be extended to all the
ministers. The original fear of influence on the part of the Crown no
longer applies; and the only important effect of the rule is that if a
new cabinet comes into power when Parliament is in session, all business
there has to be suspended while the ministers are seeking reëlection. A
number of attempts have been made to do away with the rule, and they
have been supported by very eminent statesmen, but they have been
constantly defeated, mainly on the ground that a constituency, having
elected a man while he was in an independent position, has a right to
reconsider its choice when he assumes the burden of public
office.[241:2] Such reasoning is characteristic of English political
life. It either proves nothing or it proves too much, for if it is
sound, the same principle applies with quite as much force to the
under-secretaries, and with a great deal more force to the Speaker.
This objection to a change was avoided, while a part of the practical
inconvenience was removed, by a provision in the Reform Act of 1867 that
a person who has been elected to Parliament since he became a minister
shall not vacate his seat on account of accepting a different office in
the ministry.[242:1]
[Sidenote: Extinct Disqualifications.]
Formerly there were a number of other qualifications and
disqualifications that have now been swept away, such as the requirement
of ownership of land, and of residence in the constituency,[242:2] and
the provision for oaths and declarations intended mainly to exclude
Roman Catholics. It is curious that after the disabilities of the Roman
Catholics were removed in 1829 the oath continued to be an impediment to
the admission of Jews and atheists, although it had never been aimed at
them. In each case the law was changed, but only after the matter had
been brought somewhat violently to the attention of the House. The last
religious impediment was taken away in 1888 at the conclusion of the
unseemly wrangle with Mr. Bradlaugh.
[Sidenote: Resignation.]
A disqualification not only prevents a person from sitting in the House,
but is also the only way in which he can voluntarily get out of it. A
man cannot resign his seat, and hence the regular method of
accomplishing the same result is the acceptance of a disqualifying
office. Two or three sinecures are retained for that purpose, the best
known being the stewardship of the Chiltern Hundreds, a position which
the member desiring to leave Parliament applies for, accepts, and
immediately gives up. The place is, in fact, not an office, but an exit.
It may be added that the House has power, for reasons satisfactory to
itself, to declare a seat vacant, and to expel a member.
[Sidenote: Privileges of the House.]
[Sidenote: Freedom from Arrest.]
It is unnecessary to say much here about the privileges of the House of
Commons. Most of them are matters of historical rather than present
political significance. At the opening of each new Parliament, the
Speaker, after being confirmed by the Crown, demands the ancient and
undoubted rights and privileges of the Commons, the most important of
which are freedom from arrest and liberty of speech. The freedom from
arrest, which is enjoyed by members during the session and forty days
before and after it, does not protect a member from the consequences of
any indictable offence, or of contempt of court; nor in civil actions
does it now prevent any process against him except arrest.
[Sidenote: Liberty of Speech.]
Freedom of speech was not acquired without a long struggle; but since
the Bill of Rights of 1689 it has been a settled principle that "the
freedom of speech, and debates or proceedings in Parliament, ought not
to be impeached or questioned in any court or place out of Parliament."
A man cannot, therefore, be prosecuted criminally, or made civilly
responsible, for anything he has said in the House; although the House
itself may punish what it deems an abuse of the forms of debate.
[Sidenote: Publication of Debates.]
Curiously enough the privilege of free speech in the House does not
necessarily include the right to publish that speech outside. This
matter has had an eventful history. Until about one hundred years ago
the House attempted to prevent the report of its debates in the public
press, and in the course of the struggle became entangled in the
memorable controversy with Wilkes. The question has never been dealt
with by legislation, and it is still assumed that the House might
declare the publication of its debates a breach of privilege, and put a
stop to it. But the struggle came to an end because the House changed
its mind. Instead of objecting to the publication of the debates it
came, in time, to desire it; and whereas it had attempted earlier to
keep out reporters, it now strove to protect them.
The privilege of free speech covered only words uttered in the House and
matter printed for circulation among the members alone. It did not
extend to the printing of a speech, or to documents intended for
general distribution even though issued by order of the House itself;
and in its later attempt to insist upon its right of publication, as in
its earlier effort to insist upon its right to prevent publication, the
House came into conflict with the judiciary. In the case of Stockdale
_v_. Hansard[244:1] the Queen's Bench held that a publisher might be
liable in damages to a person injured by defamatory matter contained in
a report made to the House of Commons, although the printing was ordered
by the House itself. The question was then set at rest by a
statute[244:2] providing that publication by order of either House
should be a defence to any civil or criminal proceedings. But this has
no effect upon the newspapers, and although a fair account of a debate
published in the ordinary course of reporting is not in itself
libellous, even if it contain defamatory matter, yet a faithful report
of a speech published with a malicious intent is still libellous, and it
is never safe to go to a jury on a question of intent.
If the attitude of the House of Commons toward the publication of its
debates has changed entirely, it is because its relation to the public
has undergone a complete transformation. Every member of Parliament
to-day is seeking for the approbation of his constituents, and far from
dreading publication of what he says in the House, his effort is rather
to attract attention to himself by the reports in the local press of his
remarks in Parliament. Moreover, the House as a whole depends more than
ever upon popular support; and one may find a striking illustration of
the way the same thing produces different political effects under
different conditions by observing that while the cabinet would lose
authority if its discussions were not secret, Parliament would suffer if
its debates were not public.
[Sidenote: Privilege in the Courts of Law.]
Sir William Anson remarks that "The Privileges of Parliament, like the
Prerogative of the Crown, are rights conferred by Law, and as such their
limits are ascertainable and determinable, like the limits of other
rights, by the Courts of Law."[245:1] This principle has not always
been accepted by the House, which has on several occasions come into
collision with the courts; but the latter have always maintained, and
maintained successfully, that when a question involving a privilege of
the House comes before them for decision, it is their duty to ascertain
whether the privilege exists or not, and to determine its effect upon
the case before them. They have further maintained that they must decide
the question for themselves, and that a claim to the privilege on the
part of the House is not conclusive.
In one respect the authority of the courts is incomplete; for the House
has a right to order a man committed to prison for contempt, and the
question what constitutes a contempt is so far within the discretion of
the House that the court will not order the prisoner set at liberty on
_habeas corpus_ where the return to the writ simply states that he is
committed for contempt by order of the House. Referring to this subject,
Professor Dicey says: "The powers exercised by the Houses, and
especially in practice by the House of Commons, make a near approach to
an authority above that of the ordinary law of the land."[245:2] Such a
power, however, is exceedingly unlikely to be used in any dissension
with the courts to-day; and if it were used, the courts would be almost
certain to win, because the commitment by the House terminates with the
session.
[Sidenote: Summons and Dissolution.]
There remain to be considered only the methods of calling Parliament
together, and of putting an end to its labours.
Parliament can be summoned and dissolved, and its sessions can be opened
and closed by the Crown alone, the only legal restraint upon the
arbitrary power of the sovereign in the matter being the Act of William
and Mary, which provides that a new Parliament shall be summoned within
three years after a dissolution.[245:3] This statute is now, of course,
unnecessary; and, in fact, the same proclamation which dissolves one
Parliament always announces the issue of writs for the election of
another. If Parliament is not dissolved by the Crown, its term expires
at the end of the seven years prescribed by the Septennial Act of 1716;
but, as a matter of fact, Parliament never dies a natural death, and if
its life is not cut off earlier, a dissolution takes place shortly
before the end of the seven years.
Until 1867 the death of a sovereign always wrought a dissolution of
Parliament; but this rule, which depended more on ancient theory than on
modern convenience, was abolished by the Reform Act of that year.
[Sidenote: Prorogation and Adjournment.]
[Sidenote: Effect on Unfinished Business.]
While a session can be brought to a close only by prorogation, either
house may adjourn for any period at its pleasure, subject only to the
right of the Crown to terminate an adjournment of more than fourteen
days. Although a prorogation is made by the Crown, and adjournment by
the House itself, practically both are virtually in the hands of the
ministry to-day, and the really important difference between them is
that a prorogation terminates all unfinished business, while an
adjournment does not. For that reason a government which has business
that it cannot put through during the regular session, and does not want
to abandon, will sometimes resort to an adjournment instead of a
prorogation. This was done, for example, in 1902 in order to complete
the stages of the Education Bill in the autumn, and again in 1906
chiefly in order that the House of Lords might consider the pending
government measures. The wisdom of the rule that the close of the
session puts an end to all measures that have not finished their course
in both Houses is not so clear in the case of Parliament, as in that of
legislative bodies where a vast number of measures are brought in by
irresponsible members. In such bodies the rule may result in killing a
great many bills that had better die, but in Parliament this is far less
true. Almost all important legislation relating to public affairs is now
introduced by the ministers; and every year measures to which both they
and the House have devoted much time and thought are killed by the
close of the session. A day comes when the leader of the House arises
and states what bills he is obliged by lack of time to drop, a process
commonly known as the slaughter of the innocents. The necessity would
seem to be unfortunate.
In fact the House of Commons spends so much time in debating each bill
that it gets through its work slowly; and whereas many other popular
chambers are reproached with legislating too much, Parliament is accused
of legislating too little. Moreover the House of Commons suffers less
from an excess of the easy good nature, which, in America at least, is
the parent of many ill-considered and unwise laws; yet the present rule
does act as a serious check upon the persistent member with a mission,
and perhaps it kills off, on the whole, more bad bills than good ones.
[Sidenote: Suspending Private Bills.]
There is, however, a class of measures on which the rule, if carried out
strictly, would have a distinctly injurious effect. These are the
private bills--a term applied to projects which relate to private or
local interests, such as bills for the extension of a railway, or for
authority to supply water, gas, tramways and the like. Legislation of
that kind is, as we shall see, conducted in Parliament by a
semi-judicial process, and as it is highly expensive for both sides, it
would be unreasonable that the closing of the session, for reasons quite
unconnected with these matters, should oblige the promoters and
objectors to incur the cost of beginning proceedings all over again. In
practice this seldom happens, for in the few cases where such a bill
cannot be completed before the end of the session it is usually
suspended by a special order providing that the stages it has already
passed shall be formally taken at the opening of the next session, so
that the bill really begins its progress again at the point it had
already reached. When, as in 1895, Parliament comes to an untimely end
in the midst of a session, a general provision of this kind is made
suspending all unfinished private bills, and thus a great deal of
unnecessary hardship is avoided.
FOOTNOTES:
[239:1] In a couple of instances natives of India have been elected.
[240:1] The question was raised in 1801 in the famous case of Horne
Tooke, and set at rest for the future by an Act of that year: 41 Geo.
III., c. 63. The provision in regard to the Roman Catholic clergy was
made in 1829: 10 Geo. IV., c. 7, § 9.
[240:2] 33-34 Vic., c. 91.
[240:3] A cause that disqualifies will not always unseat. For the latter
purpose bankruptcy and lunacy must have continued six months. Rogers,
II., 43, 44.
[240:4] 6 Anne, c. 7, §§ 25, 26. Referred to in the Revised Statutes as
6 Anne, c. 41.
[241:1] Statement by the Attorney General, Hans. 3 Ser., CLXXIV.,
1236-37.
[241:2] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., II., 331-39.
[242:1] 30-31 Vic., c. 102, § 52, and Sched. H.
[242:2] This became obsolete by long-continued disregard. It is said to
be the only case of a statute which is deemed to have been annulled by
"contrarius usus." It was afterwards expressly repealed by statute.
Rogers, II., 38.
[244:1] 9 A. & E., 1.
[244:2] 3-4 Vic., c. 9.
[245:1] "Law and Custom of the Constitution," I., 175.
[245:2] "Law of the Constitution," 5 Ed., 56, note.
[245:3] Anson, I., 287-88.
CHAPTER XII
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_The House, its Rules and Officers_
[Sidenote: Small Number of Seats.]
To the traveller who cares for history, either of the past or in the
making, there is no place more interesting than the long sombre building
with a tower at each end, that borders the Thames just above Westminster
Bridge. Apart from occasional meetings at other places during the Middle
Ages, the Mother of Parliaments has sat close to this spot for more than
six hundred years. Except for old Westminster Hall, almost the whole of
the present structure was, indeed, built after the fire of 1834. Yet if
it contains little that is really venerable, save memories, the smoke of
London has given to the gothic panelling of the outer walls the dignity
of apparent age. The interior has a more modern air, for it is not only
well planned with a view to its present use, but in some parts it
expresses with peculiar fitness the purposes it serves. From opposite
sides of the large central lobby corridors lead to the two Houses, but
the hall of the Lords seems designed for ornament, that of the Commons
for doing work. The House of Commons is seventy-five feet long by
forty-five feet wide and forty-one feet high, panelled in dark oak, and
lit by long stained glass windows and sky-lights in the ceiling. From
the main entrance a broad aisle runs the whole length of the chamber,
with the clerks' table filling nearly the whole upper end of it, and
beyond this a raised chair for the Speaker with a canopy over his head.
Facing the aisle on each side long rows of high-backed benches, covered
with dark green leather, slope upward tier above tier to the walls of
the room; and through them, at right angles to the aisle, a narrow
passage, known as the gangway, cuts across the House. There is also a
gallery running all around the room, the part of it facing the Speaker
being given up to strangers, while the front rows at the opposite end
belong to the reporters, and behind them there stands, before a still
higher gallery, a heavy screen, like those erected in Turkish mosques to
conceal the presence of women, and used here for the same purpose. The
structure and arrangement of a legislative chamber are not without
influence upon the mode of transacting business. The whole number of
seats in the House of Commons is far from large, not large enough for
all the members. The two side galleries are reserved for them, but they
are very narrow, containing only a little more than one hundred seats
apiece, and although they are occupied on very crowded nights, they are
practically useless for any one who intends to take part in debate. A
small portion of the space under the strangers' gallery is also
appropriated for visitors, and the rest of the floor contains only three
hundred and sixty seats, enough for little more than one half of the six
hundred and seventy members of the House. During the greater part of the
time even those seats are not filled, for they are adapted only for the
transaction of the business of the House. They are merely benches with
no means for writing. If a member wants to carry on his correspondence,
he goes to the library, or to one of the other rooms near by. In the
House he can only speak, listen, and applaud.
[Sidenote: Attendance Often Small.]
On a great occasion, like the introduction by Mr. Gladstone of his first
Home Rule Bill, every seat in the House is taken. At the opening of an
ordinary sitting, also, while questions to the ministers are asked and
answered, and at a time when the leaders of the two great parties are
speaking about a measure of general interest, most of the seats on the
floor are occupied; but as soon as the lesser lights arise the members
begin to drop off, going to the lobby, the library, the smoking-room,
the dining-room, or the terrace. Nor is it always the lesser lights
alone that speak to nearly empty benches, or rather to the reporters'
gallery. The writer well remembers, on the first occasion when he saw
the House, now more than twenty years ago, that Sir William Harcourt,
then Home Secretary, made a speech an hour and three quarters long upon
a bill which he had brought in to reform the government of London, and
that, during a great part of the time, the only persons present besides
the officers of the House, were the Lord Mayor, the Chairman of the
Metropolitan Board of Works, and a casual who sat on one of the upper
benches behind the minister. This is the smallest number of members the
writer has ever beheld in the House, but to see only a score or two on
the benches is by no means unusual. Many more, however, although not
within ear-shot, are potentially present. Forty members constitute a
quorum, but if any one suggests that they are not there, electric bells
are rung all over the building, summoning the members into the House, a
two-minute sand-glass is turned, and the members are not counted until
it has run out. The same process takes place whenever a division--that
is a vote by count--is challenged.
[Sidenote: Effect of This on Debates.]
The small size of the chamber makes it easy to hear an ordinary tone of
voice; and this, coupled with the still smaller attendance, discourages
flights of oratory or popular eloquence, and gives to the debates a
businesslike and almost conversational character. Moreover, the very
fact that members do not stay in the House if not interested in what is
being said, prevents the distracting hum of conversation which is
sometimes annoying in other representative bodies. All this makes the
spectator feel that the members are present for public business and
nothing else. Except for occasional scenes enacted for the most part by
the Irish members, the proceedings are orderly, and respect for the
dignity of the House, and the authority of the chair, are almost
universal.
[Sidenote: The Arrangement of Seats.]
Even the arrangement of seats in the House is not without its bearing
upon political life; and although a small matter, it affords another
illustration of the principle that an institution which, instead of
being deliberately planned, is evolved slowly, will develop in harmony
with its environment, or force its environment into harmony with itself.
The front bench at the upper end of the aisle, close at the right hand
of the Speaker, is called the Treasury Bench, and is reserved for the
ministers; the corresponding bench on the other side being occupied by
the former ministers of the party now in Opposition. Behind these two
benches sit for the most part men whose fidelity to their respective
parties is undoubted, members whose allegiance is less absolute
generally preferring seats below the gangway on either side.
Of course, on a crowded night members cannot always find seats that
express their exact sentiments. Still, the arrangement is fairly well
preserved, especially in the case of prominent men, with whom it is
sometimes a matter of no little consideration.[251:1] Any group that
desires to emphasise its freedom from regular party control always sits
below the gangway. The Fourth Party, for example, sat in 1884 below the
gangway on the Opposition side, the Labour Party has sat there since the
election of 1906, and the same position is occupied by the Irish
Nationalists under every ministry; while the Liberal Unionists at the
time of their breach with Mr. Gladstone over his first Home Rule Bill
took up their seats below the gangway on the government side. The House
at a great debate resembles a martial array, with the leaders face to
face in the van, supported by their troops in ranks behind them. The
minister leans over the table, and points in indignation or in scorn at
the "honourable gentlemen opposite." All this expresses the idea of
party government, and lends a dramatic effect to parliamentary warfare.
[Sidenote: Mode of Treating the Subject of Procedure.]
Nowhere in the whole range of British institutions does the interaction
of law and custom baffle any attempt at logical description so much as
in the case of procedure in Parliament. The cabinet, which is becoming
more and more exclusively the motive force in all important legislative
action, is not, indeed, so completely unknown to the rules of the House
as it is to the statute-book; and yet a study of the rules alone would
give but a faint idea of the authority of the Treasury Bench. On the
other hand, it is impossible to understand how the government is
attacked, and how it carries through its plans, unless one is familiar
with the rules themselves. At the present day the discussions connected
with appropriations, for example, turn little on financial questions,
and are used mainly as an opportunity for criticising administrative
conduct; but to understand how this is done, and to what extent the
government has sought to limit the practice, a knowledge of the process
of granting supply is essential.
The actual working of the House of Commons involves three problems:
first, the regular forms of procedure; second, the action of the cabinet
and of private members, operating subject to those forms; and third, the
methods by which the cabinet maintains a control over its own
supporters, and through them over the House itself. To deal with these
three matters together would involve so much confusion, that it has
seemed better to take up one of them at a time. This chapter and the two
succeeding ones are, therefore, devoted solely to the organisation of
the House and the forms of procedure on public matters, the relation of
the government to the work of the House being described in the chapters
that follow, while the machinery for keeping the majority compact and
under the lead of the Treasury Bench will be dealt with at a later stage
under the head of "Party Organisation in Parliament." Legislation for
private and local objects, which has had a peculiar and instructive
development, is treated in a chapter by itself.
[Sidenote: The Method of Voting.]
[Sidenote: A division.]
Before describing the organisation and procedure of the House it may be
well to explain the method of voting, because frequent reference must be
made to it, and the terms are technical. After stating the question to
be voted upon, the Speaker, or the Chairman, calls in the ordinary way
for the ayes and noes. According to the apparent preponderance of voices
he then says, "I think the ayes (or noes) have it." If no objection is
raised, he adds a moment later, "The ayes (or noes) have it," and the
vote is so recorded. If, on the other hand, any of the minority doubt
the result, or wish the numbers and names recorded, they cry out
contrary to the Speaker, "The noes (or ayes) have it." Whereupon the
Speaker directs strangers to withdraw (except from the places reserved
for them), the division bells are rung all over the building, the
two-minute sand-glass is turned, and when it has run the doors are
locked, and the question and vote are repeated in the same way.[253:1]
If the Speaker's opinion of the result is again challenged--and this is
almost always done--he orders a division of the House, that is, he
directs the ayes to go to the right, the noes to the left; and he
appoints two tellers from each side, one of each pair to count the ayes,
and the other the noes, in order to check one another. The ayes then go
into the lobby that runs parallel to the House on the Speaker's right,
the noes into that on his left; and until 1906 every member in the
House, except the Speaker, was obliged to go into one lobby or the
other, unless he was physically disabled, when his vote might be counted
in the House.[253:2] The tellers, standing at the door of each lobby,
count the members as they pass between them in returning to the House,
while clerks at tables in the lobbies take down their names.
Ever since 1836, when the method of taking a division assumed its
present form, the names of members voting on each side have been printed
and preserved, although curiously enough these division lists are not
included among the parliamentary papers. The process may seem a clumsy
way of counting votes, but under the system in force until 1906 it took,
on the average, only twenty minutes, and under the new system, whereby
the recording of names begins when the sand-glass is turned, it takes
not much more than half as long. This is less time than would be
consumed by a roll-call, and the system has been found so satisfactory
that it was adopted by the House of Lords.
Until recently a division was the only means, apart from an oral vote,
of taking the sense of the House; and any one member could force a
division by challenging the result of an oral vote, or rather any two
members could do so, for a division cannot take place unless two tellers
can be found for each side. In 1888, however, as a part of the movement
to prevent obstruction and waste of time, the Speaker or Chairman was
empowered, if he thinks a division frivolously or vexatiously claimed,
to call upon the ayes and noes to rise in their places. He can then
count them, and declare the result;[254:1] but this is in fact rarely
done.
The names of the men selected as tellers indicate the political nature
of the vote. If the government intend to treat the question, I will not
say as one of confidence, (for there are cases of secondary importance
where a ministry may be beaten without feeling that they have lost the
confidence of the House and must resign), but if they intend to treat it
as one where an adverse vote is a defeat for them, if they desire to
rally their followers to vote solidly upon it, then the government whips
are appointed tellers. If in the same way the Opposition want to treat
it as a party question, their whips are appointed tellers upon the
other side. But if on one side or the other this is not the case,
private members who have made or seconded the motion or taken an active
part in debate are selected by the chair as tellers, and if so any
member may, without disloyalty to his party, vote according to his own
unaided convictions.
[Sidenote: Standing and Sessional Orders.]
Like other legislative bodies the House of Commons has printed rules,
and the most important of these, the standing orders, are published
every year among the parliamentary papers. But the standing orders are
by no means a code of procedure, for they cover only a fraction, and so
far as they relate to public business a small fraction, of the
subject.[255:1] The procedure rests essentially upon custom, to be
gathered in part from precedents and the rulings of Speakers, in part
from unrecorded tradition known by personal experience. Many standing
orders have, in fact, been adopted from time to time in order to modify
or forbid an existing practice, and hence their effect is mainly
negative. No particular formality is required for the adoption of these
rules, but in 1902, when extensive changes were made, the proposals were
read several times, and were, in fact, submitted to a procedure similar
to that for the enactment of a bill.[255:2]
[Sidenote: Standing Orders Endure from One Parliament to Another.]
The standing orders differ from the rules of legislative bodies in some
other countries in two important respects. In the first place they do
not have to be adopted afresh by each new House of Commons, but once
established they continue in force from Parliament to Parliament until
repealed. There are, indeed, sessional orders which require to be
renewed at the beginning of each session, and sometimes a new rule after
proving its utility in this way is given the permanent form of a
standing order. Orders or resolutions without any fixed duration are
also adopted at times. These expire upon prorogation, but it sometimes
happens that without being formally revived they continue to be observed
as a part of customary practice of the House.[256:1]
[Sidenote: They Can be Suspended by a Simple Vote.]
The second peculiarity of the standing orders lies in the fact that they
can be suspended by a simple majority vote. Notice of a motion for that
purpose is usually required and given, but it may be dispensed with; and
it is not even necessary to refer in the motion to the standing orders
at all. Any order or resolution, inconsistent with their terms, has, if
adopted, the effect of suspending them,[256:2] and the House is, in
fact, constantly adopting special orders which change the course of
procedure as prescribed by the standing orders or the customary
practice. This has often been done when the government has needed to
take, for its own measures, part of the time allotted to private
members, or has wanted to extend the sitting beyond the usual hour. Many
of these cases are now provided for by the new rules adopted in 1902;
but the most effective form of cutting short debate, the process known
as the "guillotine," although now regulated by standing order in the
case of supply,[256:3] is still applied in the case of all other bills
solely by a special order of the House adopted for a particular bill on
the motion of a minister.
[Sidenote: Tendency of Changes in the Standing Orders.]
Most of the changes in the standing orders made during the last fifty
years have been aimed at preserving order, or preventing waste of time,
or altering the distribution of time.[256:4] Those of the first class,
such as the provisions authorising the suspension of a member for
disorder, arose from the conduct of the Irish members, and may be
regarded as an accident unconnected with the normal evolution of the
parliamentary system. This is not true of the rules designed to prevent
waste of time; for although the provisions to cut off debate grew out of
Irish obstruction, the subsequent history of closure has shown that some
process of this kind was certain to come sooner or later in the natural
course of things, and that the Irish merely hastened it.[257:1]
[Sidenote: Efforts to Save Time.]
The changes made in order to save time are commonly attributed to the
increase in the amount of business the House is called upon to despatch,
and if in that business be included the enlarged control of the House
over administrative detail by means of questions and otherwise, this is
undoubtedly true, but so far as legislation is concerned, it would be
more accurate to attribute the changes to the fact that it requires more
time to transact business than it did formerly. There are a far larger
number of members who want to interrogate and criticise the ministers,
and to take part in debate. The pages of Hansard are more numerous in
proportion to those of the statute-book. Now the old procedure was very
elaborate. In the passage of an ordinary public bill through the House
there were, apart from amendments, more than a score of different steps,
upon each of which debate might take place, and a division might be
claimed. Then motions to adjourn, and other dilatory tactics could be
used indefinitely. Moreover, the general rule that amendments and
debate must be relevant to the question before the House[258:1] was
subject to wide exceptions, if, indeed, there could be said to be any
such general rule at all. The debate upon a dilatory motion, for
example, was not limited to the motion itself;[258:2] and every time a
motion was made to go into Committee of the Whole on Supply, any
grievance could be brought forward and discussed.[258:3]
All this was unimportant so long as the battles between the parties were
confined to occasional full-dress debates, and the rest of the time was
devoted to the real work of legislation. But when systematic obstruction
arose, and when without any intent to obstruct it became the recognised
business of the Opposition to oppose, and in the case of measures that
aroused strong party feeling to oppose at every step, the opportunities
for doing so were too numerous to endure. Some of the steps in the
enactment of a bill, such as engrossment,[258:4] passage,[258:5] and
first and second reading in the Committee of the Whole,[258:6] have been
discontinued altogether. Others, such as taking up the consideration of
a bill,[258:7] or going into Committee of the Whole on a bill,[258:8] or
bringing up a report from Committee of the Whole,[258:9] are taken as a
matter of course without question put. In other cases again the question
is put, but no debate is allowed.[258:10] With the same object debate
upon a dilatory motion has been limited to the subject-matter of the
motion, and the Speaker or Chairman has been empowered to forbid debate
upon it, or even to refuse to put the question at all, if he considers
the motion an abuse of the rules of the House.[258:11]
The opportunities for criticising the government both in going into
Committee of Supply, and by other means, have also been limited in
various ways, and above all the system of cutting short debate by means
of closure has been brought of late years to a condition of great
efficiency. These matters, and the distribution of time between the
government and private members will be considered more fully hereafter,
and it is only necessary to remark now that the tendencies noted are
permanent, because although a party while in Opposition may object to
changes in the rules that enhance the control of the government over the
conduct and time of the House, it finds itself compelled to maintain
them when it comes into office. The tendencies are, in fact, the natural
result of the more and more exclusive responsibility of the ministry for
all public action, legislative as well as executive.
[Sidenote: The Speaker.]
The Commons are always summoned to the bar in the House of Lords to hear
any formal communication from the Crown, and when after a general
election they meet on the day appointed, they are summoned there to hear
the formal opening of the new Parliament. They are then desired in the
name of the sovereign to choose a Speaker, and retire to their chamber
for the purpose. As soon as he has been chosen, the mace is placed on
the table before him, as a symbol of his authority and a token that the
Commons are sitting as a House. But he is still only Speaker-elect,
until the next day, when, followed by the Commons, he again presents
himself at the bar of the Lords, announces his election, and asks for
the royal confirmation, which is now, of course, never refused.
[Sidenote: His Election.]
If only one person is nominated for Speaker, he is called to the chair
without a vote. If more than one, they are voted upon successively, a
majority being required for election.[259:1] The proposer and seconder
are always private members, for it is considered more fitting that the
ministers should not be prominent in the matter.[259:2] The Speaker is,
however, always selected by the government of the day, and a new Speaker
is always taken from the ranks of the party in power. Sometimes the
election is not uncontested, and this happened when Mr. Gully was chosen
in 1895. But although the Speaker may have been opposed when first
chosen, and although he is elected only for the duration of the
Parliament, it has now become the invariable habit to reëlect him so
long as he is willing to serve. The last cases where a Speaker's
reëlection was opposed occurred in 1833 and 1835, and on the second of
those occasions he was defeated. The principle is well illustrated by
the career of Mr. Gully. He was elected by a small majority, during the
last few months of a moribund Liberal cabinet. His selection had not
pleased the Conservatives, and he was warned that they held themselves
at liberty not to reëlect him if they came to power in the next
Parliament. Contrary to the ordinary rule his constituency was contested
at the next general election, but although the Conservatives obtained a
large majority in the new Parliament, he was returned to the chair
without opposition.
[Sidenote: His Powers over Debate.]
The Speaker is purely a presiding officer. He has nothing to do with
appointing any committees, or guiding the House in its work. He is not a
leader but an umpire, otherwise he could not remain in the chair through
changes of party. As an umpire, however, his powers are very great, and
in some cases under the modern changes in the standing orders they are
autocratic. He decides, for example, whether a motion to closure debate
may be put, or whether it is an infringement of the rights of the
minority;[260:1] he can refuse to entertain a dilatory motion if he
considers it an abuse of the rules of the House;[260:2] and he can stop
the speech of a member who "persists in irrelevance, or tedious
repetition."[260:3] Moreover, from his decision on those matters, or on
any points of order, there is no appeal.[260:4] The House can suspend or
change its own rules by a simple majority vote, but it cannot in a
concrete case override the Speaker's construction of them.[260:5] This
is a general principle of English parliamentary law, which is applied
in almost all public bodies.[261:1] It may render a conscientious man
more careful in his rulings, but it certainly places in his hands
enormous power.
[Sidenote: His Power to Preserve Order.]
Familiarity with representative bodies seems to breed contempt, for the
last half century has been marked by an increase of disorderly scenes in
the legislatures of many countries. In England such things were brought
about by the growth of the Irish Home Rule party, which regarded the
government of Ireland by the British Parliament as unjust on principle,
and oppressive in fact; and which, to say the least, was not distressed
by loss of dignity on the part of the House of Commons. In 1880 the
Speaker was given the power to repress disorder, now embodied, with
subsequent modifications, in Standing Order 18. He can name a member who
disregards his authority or obstructs business, and then a motion is in
order, to be decided at once without amendment or debate, to suspend
that member.[261:2] When the standing orders were revised in 1902 they
contained a clause prescribing the duration of the suspension for the
first and subsequent offences, but this was struck out during the
discussion, and a suspension is now indeterminate. It is obvious that to
a party, in a hopeless minority, which denies the authority of
Parliament, a disorderly scene followed by a suspension, and an
opportunity to go home and make stirring speeches, may not be an
undesirable form of protest.
Apart from occasional outbursts chiefly, though not exclusively, on the
part of the Irish members, a stranger in the gallery is much impressed
by the respect paid to the Speaker, and by his moral control over the
House.[262:1] His emoluments are in proportion to the dignity of his
position. He enjoys a salary of five thousand pounds a year, with an
official residence in the Houses of Parliament and other perquisites;
and although standing aloof from political leadership, he is regarded as
the first commoner of the realm. He is, indeed, on the threshold of the
House of Lords, for it has been the habit of late years to make him a
peer when he retires.
[Sidenote: He Votes Only in Case of a Tie.]
[Sidenote: The Chairman of Committees.]
As late as 1870 the Speaker occasionally took part in debate, when the
House was in Committee of the Whole where he does not preside;[262:2]
but it would now be thought inconsistent with his position of absolute
impartiality to speak or vote in committee. He therefore never votes
unless he is obliged to do so by a tie occurring when he is in the
chair. It is commonly said that he always gives his casting vote in such
cases so as to keep the question open; but this is not strictly true.
When, however, his vote involves a final decision, he bases it, not upon
his personal opinion of the merits of the measure, but upon the probable
intention of the House as shown by its previous action, or upon some
general constitutional principle;[262:3] and it may be added that the
chairman of a Committee of the Whole, when called upon to break a tie,
follows the same practice.[262:4] The chair in Committee of the Whole is
regularly taken by the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and
Means--commonly called for that reason the Chairman of Committees--who,
like the Speaker, withdraws, on his appointment, from political
contests, speaking and voting in the House nowadays only on questions
relating to private bills. He is nominated at the beginning of the
Parliament by the ministry, from among their prominent supporters, and
retires from the position when they resign. Considering that his duties
consist in presiding, like the Speaker, with strict impartiality, and in
a purely non-partisan supervision of private bill legislation, it is
somewhat strange that he should go in and out of office with the
cabinet, but in fact one hears no criticism of his conduct on that
score, largely, no doubt, because he always takes the Speaker as his
model. Since 1855 he has acted as deputy speaker, when the Speaker is
unavoidably absent,[263:1] and in order to prevent any possible
inconvenience from the absence of both of these officers from the House,
or of the Chairman of Ways and Means from the Committee of the Whole,
provision was made in 1902 for the election of a deputy chairman who can
fill the vacant place.[263:2]
[Sidenote: Other Officers of the House.]
The only other officers of the House that need be mentioned here are the
Sergeant-at-Arms, who acts as the executive officer and chief of police
of the House under the direction of the Speaker; the Clerk of the House;
and the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, who is a legal adviser, and has
important duties in connection with private bill legislation. It is a
curious survival that the Sergeant-at-Arms,[263:3] and the Clerk of the
House with his chief assistants,[263:4] are appointed by the Crown, and
hold office permanently. Their work is, of course, of a non-partisan
character, and they do not always belong to the party of the ministry
that appoints them. Sir Courtenay Ilbert, for example, the present Clerk
of the House, although a Liberal, was appointed by the Conservative
government, and not by way of promotion in the service of the House, for
he was at the time Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury.
FOOTNOTES:
[251:1] The question where the Peelites should sit in 1852 was much
discussed among themselves. Morley, "Life of Gladstone," I., 422-23.
[253:1] Standing Orders 28-29, Com. Papers, 1905, LXII., 159. Under the
new rule adopted in 1906 the Speaker orders the lobby to be cleared, and
the members begin to pass through it at once.
[253:2] To refuse to do so has been treated as such a disregard of the
authority of the chair as will justify suspending the member. May,
"Parl. Practice," 10 Ed., 338.
On March 5, 1901, twelve Irish Nationalists, who refused to go into the
lobby because they had had no chance to speak when the closure was moved
on a vote on account, were suspended; Hans. 4 Ser. XC., 692-96; and on
Aug. 5, 1904, the Welsh members refused to vote as a protest against the
use of closure on the Education (Local Authorities Defaults) Bill. After
they had persisted so far that the Chairman reported the matter to the
House, they consented to withdraw altogether, and no further steps were
taken against them. Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXIX., 1259-68.
[254:1] S.O. 30.
[255:1] The standing orders relating to private business are much more
elaborate and come far nearer to a code of procedure.
[255:2] This had not been the practice earlier; but the discussion of
changes in the standing orders has sometimes been very long. In 1882 the
new rules, which dealt with closure, the suspension of disorderly
members and the creation of standing committees, were debated for
thirty-three days. On the other hand, a change was made in 1901 on the
motion of a private member, at a single sitting. Hans. 4 Ser. XCII.,
555-75. In 1906 the changes were referred to a select committee and then
each of them adopted on a motion by the government. Hans. 4 Ser. CLV.,
197 _et seq._
[256:1] May, 145.
[256:2] _Ibid._, 145.
[256:3] S.O. 15.
[256:4] In his excellent _Recht und Technik des Englischen
Parlamentarismus_--the only systematic history of procedure in the House
of Commons--Dr. Redlich dwells on two tendencies in the evolution of the
standing orders since 1832. One of these consists in giving to the
ministry an ever greater control over the time, and hence over the
activity, of the House; the other in keeping the House more and more
strictly to its prearranged order of business for the day. Now the
manifestations of this last tendency, which he makes very clear, can
also be classed as changes made to save time or to arrange the
distribution of time. Whether in the form of forbidding motions to vary
the prescribed order of business, or to confine amendments and debate to
matters relevant to the main question, or to exclude dilatory motions
and others that open an indefinite field for discussion, they have the
effect either of preventing waste of time by debating trivial questions
or matters that the House does not care to take up, or of preventing the
use for some other purpose of time allotted to the government or to a
private member.
Since this was written Dr. Redlich's book has happily been translated
into English, but as the English edition has not yet been received the
references to the German edition are left unchanged.
[257:1] This is also Dr. Redlich's opinion, _Recht und Technik_, 246.
[258:1] May, 299.
[258:2] _Ibid._, 301.
[258:3] _Ibid._, 571.
[258:4] _Ibid._, 471.
[258:5] _Ibid._, 472-3.
[258:6] S.O. 36.
[258:7] S.O. 40.
[258:8] S.O. 32, 51.
[258:9] S.O. 53.
[258:10] _E.g._ S.O. 1 (7), 18, 26, 31, 91.
[258:11] S.O. 22, 23.
[259:1] May, 151.
[259:2] _Cf. ibid._, 150, note 3.
[260:1] S.O. 26.
[260:2] S.O. 23.
[260:3] S.O. 19.
[260:4] But the Speaker himself may submit a question to the judgment of
the House. May, 331.
[260:5] The action of the Speaker can be brought before the House only
by a motion made at another time after due notice, but this is, of
course, almost useless for the purpose of reversing the ruling
complained of: Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 10, 14. On the occasion when
Speaker Brand made this ruling he intimated that a member making on the
spot a motion to disagree with it would be guilty of disregarding the
authority of the chair, and liable to suspension under the standing
orders. _Ibid._, 9.
[261:1] The Lord Chancellor has far less power as presiding officer of
the House of Lords. May, 186, 296, 307, 331.
[261:2] S.O. 18. If a member who is suspended refuses to leave the
House, the Speaker may, on his own authority, suspend him for the
remainder of the session. _Ibid._
[262:1] In 1902 the provision, common in continental legislatures, which
authorises the Speaker to suspend the sitting, in case of grave
disorder, was embodied in S.O. 21. This has been used only once, on May
22, 1905, when the Opposition, thinking it was the duty of the Prime
Minister to give an immediate explanation, refused with great disorder
to hear another member of the government. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXLVI.,
1061-72.) One may hope that it will rarely be necessary to apply this
undignified process of taking off the lid to allow the tea-pot to cool
down.
[262:2] May, 348-49.
[262:3] May, 344-48.
[262:4] May, 361-62.
[263:1] May, 191; S.O. 81 (formerly S.O. 83).
[263:2] S.O. 81 (2). By S.O. 1 (9), the Speaker nominates a panel of not
more than five members to act as temporary chairmen of committees, but
this would seem to have been rendered less necessary by the new
provision for a deputy chairman.
[263:3] May, 198.
[263:4] May, 195.
CHAPTER XIII
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Committees and Public Bills_
[Sidenote: The Committees.]
No great representative assembly at the present day can do all its work
in full meeting. It has neither the time, the patience nor the knowledge
required. Its sittings ought not to be frittered away in discussing
proposals that have no chance of success; while measures that are to be
brought before the whole body ought to be threshed out beforehand, their
provisions carefully weighed and put into precise language, objections,
if possible, met by concession and compromise, or brought to a sharp
difference of principle. In short, they ought to be put into such a
shape that the assembly is only called upon to decide a small number of
perfectly definite questions. To enable it to do so intelligently it may
be necessary also to collect information about doubtful facts. Modern
assemblies have sought to accomplish these results mainly by committees
of some kind; and in England where the parliamentary form of government
has reached a higher development than anywhere else, the chief
instrument for the purpose is that informal joint committee of the
Houses, known as the cabinet. But unless Parliament were to be very
nearly reduced to the rôle of criticising the ministers, and answering
yes or no to a series of questions propounded by them, it must do a part
of its work through other committees. The reasons why those committees
have not become--as in some other European nations that have adopted the
system of a responsible ministry--dangerous rivals of the cabinet, at
times frustrating its objects and undermining its authority, will be
discussed in the chapters on the relation between the cabinet and the
House of Commons. We must consider here their organisation and duties.
[Sidenote: The Committee of the Whole.]
The most important committee, the Committee of the Whole, is not in this
sense a committee at all. It is simply the House itself acting under
special forms of procedure; the chief differences being that the
Chairman of Committees presides, and that the rule of the House
forbidding a member to speak more than once on the same question does
not apply. But the fact that a member can speak more than once makes it
a real convenience for the purpose for which it is chiefly used, that
is, the consideration of measures in detail, such as the discussion and
amendment of the separate clauses of a bill, or the debates upon
different items of appropriations. The Committee of the Whole has had a
long history.[265:1] It is called by different names according to the
subject-matter with which it deals. For ordinary bills it is called
simply the Committee of the Whole. When engaged upon appropriations it
is called Committee of the Whole on Supply, or in common parlance the
Committee of Supply. When providing money to meet the appropriations it
is called the Committee of Ways and Means; and when reviewing the
revenue accounts of India it is named from that subject. The committees
of the whole called by these names are so far distinct that each of them
can deal only with its own affairs, and the House must go into committee
again in order to take up any other matter. But the simple Committee of
the Whole can take up one bill after another which has been referred to
it without reporting to the House and being reconstituted.[265:2]
[Sidenote: Select Committees.]
Of the real committees the most numerous are the select committees.
Their normal size is fifteen members, although they are often smaller,
and occasionally, by special leave of the House,[265:3] they are
somewhat larger. They may be nominated from the floor, and elected by
the House,[265:4] or chosen by ballot; but in order to avoid loss of
time, and to secure impartiality, the appointment of a part, at least,
of the members is usually intrusted to the Committee of Selection.
[Sidenote: Committee of Selection.]
Some of the select committees are appointed regularly every year, and
are therefore known as sessional committees. One of these, the Committee
of Selection, has already been mentioned. It has been enlarged from time
to time, and now consists of eleven members, chosen by the House itself
at the beginning of the session.[266:1] The members are, in fact,
designated by an understanding between the leaders of the two great
parties in the House. But the object is to create an impartial body, and
so far is this object attained that in the memoir of Sir John Mowbray,
who was its chairman continuously for thirty-two years, we are told that
divisions in the committee are rare, and never on party lines.[266:2]
Its duties, so far as public business is concerned, consist in
appointing members of select and standing committees. It appoints also
the committees on all private and local bills, and divides those bills
among them.[266:3] This is, indeed, the primary object of its existence,
but, together with a description of the various committees employed in
private bill legislation, it must be postponed to a later chapter. It
may, however, save confusion in the mind of a reader unfamiliar with
parliamentary practice to insist here upon the distinction between a
private member's bill and a private bill. The former is a bill of a
public nature introduced by a private member, whereas a private bill is
one dealing only with a matter of private, personal, or local interest.
[Sidenote: Other Sessional Committees.]
The remaining sessional committees are the Committee on Public
Accounts,[266:4] which goes through the report of the Auditor and
Comptroller General, considers in detail objections to the legality of
any expenditures by the public departments, examines witnesses thereon,
and reports to the House; the Committee on Public Petitions, appointed
to inspect the numerous petitions presented to the House;[266:5] and
the Committee on the Kitchen and Refreshment Rooms, which has
importance for the members of the House, though not for the general
public.[267:1]
[Sidenote: Other Select Committees.]
[Sidenote: Their Object.]
The other select committees are created to consider some special matter
that is referred to them, either a bill, or a subject upon which the
House wishes to institute an inquiry.[267:2] In either case the chief
object of the committee is to obtain and sift information. Even where a
particular bill is referred to it the primary object is not to take the
place of debate in the House, and in fact by the present practice a
select committee saves no step in procedure, a bill when reported by it
going to the Committee of the Whole for discussion in detail, precisely
as if no select committee had been appointed.[267:3] Select committees
are the organs, and the only organs, of the House for collecting
evidence and examining witnesses;[267:4] and hence they are commonly
given power to send for persons, papers and records. They summon before
them people whose testimony they wish to obtain; but although a man of
prominence, or a recognised authority on the subject, would, no doubt,
be summoned at his own request, there is nothing in their procedure in
the least corresponding to the public hearings customary throughout the
United States, where anybody is at liberty to attend and express his
views--a practice that deserves far more attention than it has yet
received.
[Sidenote: Their Procedure.]
In select committees the procedure follows as closely as possible that
of a Committee of the Whole;[268:1] but they choose their own chairman,
who has no vote except in case of a tie. They keep minutes, not only of
their own proceedings, but also of all evidence taken before them; and
these, together with the report of their conclusions, are laid before
the House,[268:2] and published among the parliamentary papers of the
session. Strictly speaking, a minority report is unknown to English
parliamentary usage, although the habit of placing upon select
committees representatives of the various groups of opinion in the House
makes a disagreement about the report very common. Practically, however,
the minority attain the same object by moving a substitute for the
report prepared by the majority, and as the standing orders provide that
every division in a select committee must be entered upon its
minutes,[268:3] the substitute with the names of those who voted for it,
are submitted to the House, and have the effect of a minority report.
The fact that men with all shades of opinions sit upon these committees,
and have an opportunity to examine the witnesses, lifts their reports,
and still more the evidence they collect, above the plane of mere party
documents, and gives them a far greater permanent value. Many committees
are not directly concerned with legislation, that is, with a bill
actually pending, but only with inquiry into some grievance, some
alleged defect in the law or in administration, yet their reports often
lay the foundation for future statutes; and, indeed, a large part of the
legislative or administrative reforms carried out by one or both of the
great parties in the state, have been based upon the reports of select
committees or royal commissions.
[Sidenote: Joint Committees.]
From obvious motives of convenience joint select committees from the
Lords and Commons have been occasionally appointed,[269:1] but owing to
the different standing of the two Houses they are used chiefly for
private bills, and for regulating the intercourse between the two
bodies.[269:2] The principal exceptions of late years have been the
joint committees on statute law revision bills and on the subject of
municipal trading.
[Sidenote: Standing or Grand Committees.]
As the pressure for time in the House of Commons grew more intense,
select committees that collected information were not enough. Something
was needed that would save debate in the House, and for this purpose
resolutions were adopted on Dec. 1, 1882, for setting up two large
committees on bills relating to law and to trade, whose deliberations
should take the place of debate in the Committee of the Whole. Such
committees were at first an experiment, tried for a couple of sessions,
but in 1888 they were revived by standing orders, and made permanent
organs of the House.[269:3] As distinguished from select committees,
which expire when they have made a report upon the special matters
committed to their charge, they were made standing bodies, lasting
throughout the session, and considering all the bills from time to time
referred to them; one of them being created to deal with bills relating
to law, courts of justice, and legal procedure; the other with those
relating to trade, shipping, manufactures, agriculture, and fishing.
They consist of not less than sixty nor more than eighty members of the
House, appointed by the Committee of Selection, which has power to
discharge members and substitute others during the course of the
session. In order to secure the presence of persons who may throw light
on any particular bill, the same committee can also appoint not more
than fifteen additional members for the consideration of that bill.
[Sidenote: Their Procedure.]
A peculiar provision was made for the designation of the chairman. At
the beginning of each session the Committee of Selection appoints a
chairman's panel of not less than four nor more than six members, and
this body selects from among its members the chairmen of the standing
committees[270:1]--a device intended to secure continuity of traditions
and experience in the presiding officer. For the rest, the standing
orders prescribed that the procedure in standing committees should be
the same as in select committees;[270:2] but it would be more accurate
to say, as May does,[270:3] that their proceedings were assimilated, as
far as possible, to those of a Committee of the Whole House, for they
were created to do precisely the same work.[270:4] They were to collect
no evidence, examine no witnesses, but simply to debate the clauses of
the bill in detail, being in fact a substitute for the Committee of the
Whole; that step in the procedure upon a bill being entirely omitted
when a bill goes to a standing committee. For this reason they are
miniatures of the House itself, representing all the parties there in
proportion to their numbers. They are samples that stand for the
complete House, and like the Committee of the Whole they do not report
their opinions, but report the bills referred to them with or without
amendments.
In one respect only does their position differ materially from that of a
Committee of the Whole. If the Committee of the Whole makes any
amendments in a bill, they can be considered again, and further
amendments can be made, upon the report stage. But if it makes no
amendments, there is no report stage. This was equally true of the
standing committees, so that if they did not amend a bill referred to
them, the House never had an opportunity to do so, but must pass or
reject the bill as first introduced; and, in fact, standing committees
have been charged with refraining from minor changes in order to prevent
amendments, which might hinder or delay the passage of the bill, from
being proposed in the House itself.[270:5] This raised so much objection
that in 1901 the standing orders were changed so as to require a report
stage in the House on all bills from standing committees whether amended
or not.[271:1]
[Sidenote: Kind of Bills Referred to Them.]
The standing committees were designed primarily to deal with a technical
class of bills, where the discussion of details would not be of general
interest.[271:2] For reasons that will be described hereafter, it has
been recognised that the bills referred to them ought to be of a
non-contentious nature, that contentious measures, which arouse strong
party feelings, are not suited for their consideration. This is the
general principle, not always observed in practice, and there is
sometimes a sharp difference of opinion upon the question whether a
particular bill is contentious or not.
[Sidenote: Their Utility.]
Within their limits the utility of the standing committees in
legislation cannot be doubted. On the average about one seventh of the
public bills enacted year by year have passed through their hands, and
the proportion has shown a slight tendency to increase.[271:3] Moreover,
the pressure for time in the House of Commons has become so great that a
bill has a better chance of getting through if referred to a standing
committee than if it has to undergo the ordeal of a long debate in
Committee of the Whole. Every year the government is obliged by lack of
time to drop something like one third of the bills it has introduced,
but those of its bills that are referred to the standing committees
rarely fail to be enacted. In the case of bills brought in by private
members the contrast is even more striking; for while scarcely one tenth
of all such bills become law, more than one half of those among them
fortunate enough to reach a standing committee are enacted.[271:4] In
fact these committees furnish by far the best chance of passing private
members' bills through the House of Commons.[272:1]
[Sidenote: Standing Committee for Scotland.]
When the two great committees were revived in 1888, motions were made to
create others to consider bills relating to Scotland and Wales. The
motions were all rejected at the time; but in 1894 the Liberal
government took the matter up in the case of Scotland, and in that year
and the next carried resolutions establishing such a committee for the
session. It consisted of all the members for Scotch constituencies,
seventy-two in number, and of fifteen or twenty others appointed by the
committee of selection. On each occasion the plan was vigorously
opposed,[272:2] the chief objections being; that it tended toward
legislative dismemberment of the United Kingdom; that such a committee
would not, like the other standing committees, reflect fairly the
proportion of the parties in the House, because two thirds of the Scotch
members were Liberals;[272:3] and that the bills referred to it would
not be exclusively of a non-contentious nature. When the Conservatives
came to power they quietly dropped this committee. Even had they felt no
other reason for doing so, it would, no doubt, have been enough that, in
spite of considerable losses at the general election of 1895, the
Liberals were still in a majority among the Scotch members. The creation
of such a body illustrates, however, the exceptional position of
Scotland in the British Parliament; and any one who has followed a
debate on an ordinary Scotch bill, and observed how largely it is
confined to Scotch members, will realise that practically the resolution
of 1894 did little more than sanction formally by means of a standing
committee the kind of discussion that habitually takes place in the
Committee of the Whole.
[Sidenote: The Four Standing Committees of 1907.]
With a view to enlarging the legislative capacity of Parliament a select
committee on Procedure in the House of Commons reported on May 25, 1906,
in favour of increasing the number of standing committees from two to
four, and making the reference of bills to them the normal, instead of
an exceptional, proceeding. In pursuance of this recommendation the
House on April 16, 1907, changed standing orders 46, 47, and 48[273:1]
so that there should be four standing committees, one of which is in
effect the former Scotch Committee, while the other three are to
consider any bills that may be referred to them, and not as heretofore
only those relating to law or to trade.[273:2] All bills, except money
bills and bills for confirming provisional orders, are to be referred to
one of the standing committees, unless the House otherwise order on a
motion to be decided without amendment or debate; and the bills are to
be distributed among the committees by the Speaker.
The object of the change was to give a better chance of enactment for
measures which there is not time to debate in Committee of the Whole;
and the provision that the House may vote not to send a bill to a
standing committee was designed chiefly for the great party measures of
the government which must always be debated in the House itself. The new
procedure has not been in operation long enough to judge of its effects,
but something will be said of its relation to the parliamentary form of
government in the chapter on the "Cabinet's Control of the Commons."
[Sidenote: The Procedure on Public Bills.]
The steps through which an ordinary public bill must still pass are very
numerous, but while formerly a debate and division might take place at
each of them, of late years the opportunity for this--and practically
the number of steps--has been much reduced by causing some of them to be
taken as a matter of course without a vote, and by permitting no debate
on others. This is well illustrated at the outset of a bill's career,
where, indeed, an old complex procedure and a later and simpler one
continue to exist side by side.
[Sidenote: Introduction and First Reading.]
A bill may be introduced in one of three ways. A motion may be made for
an order for leave to bring it in, accompanied by a speech explaining
its objects, and followed by a debate and vote. This was formerly the
only method, and debates lasting over several days have occurred at this
stage.[274:1] Amendments might be moved hostile to the provisions of the
bill. In fact the adoption of such an amendment to a militia bill caused
the fall of Lord John Russell's ministry in 1852. Now only important
government bills are introduced in that way; for by a standing order
adopted in 1888 a motion to bring in a bill may be made at the
commencement of public business, and after brief explanatory statements
by the mover and one opponent the Speaker may put the question.[274:2]
From the length of time taken by the speeches this is known as the
ten-minute rule. After an order to bring in a bill has been obtained in
either of these ways, the question that the bill be read a first time is
voted upon without amendment or debate.[274:3] Finally, in 1902, a still
more expeditious process was established. It permits a member to present
his bill, which is read a first time without any order or vote of the
House whatever.[274:4]
[Sidenote: Second Reading.]
The next step, and, except on great party measures, the first occasion
for a debate, is the second reading. This is the proper stage for a
discussion of the general principles of the bill, not of its details,
and amendments to the several clauses are not in order. The methods of
opposing the second reading are somewhat technical. The form of the
question is "that this bill be _now_ read a second time"; and a negative
vote does not kill the bill, because it does not prevent a motion to
read it being made on a subsequent day.[274:5]
In order to shelve the bill without forcing a direct vote upon it, the
habit formerly prevailed of moving the previous question;[275:1] but
this was open to the same objection, and had, in fact, the effect of the
American practice of moving to lay the bill upon the table. A similar
difficulty arises when an amendment is moved stating some special reason
for not reading the bill. It may express the sense of the House, but it
does not necessarily dispose of the measure. Of late years, therefore,
it has been customary to move that the bill be read this day six months,
or three months, the date being such as to fall beyond the end of the
session. On the general principle that a question which the House has
decided cannot be raised again, such a vote kills the bill. Nor does it
make any difference that the House happens to be sitting at the end of
six months, for that date is treated as a sort of Greek calends that
never comes.[275:2]
[Sidenote: Committee of the Whole.]
After the second reading a bill, until 1907, went normally to the
Committee of the Whole, with or without instructions,[275:3] and now it
goes there if the House so decides. When the order of the day for the
Committee of the Whole is reached the Speaker leaves the chair, and the
House goes into committee without question put.[275:4] This is the stage
for consideration of the bill in detail, and the clauses are taken up
one after another, the amendments to each clause being disposed of in
their order. Then new clauses may be proposed, and finally the bill is
reported back to the House.
[Sidenote: Reference to a Select Committee]
[Sidenote: or Standing Committee.]
Normally a bill goes either to the Committee of the Whole or to a
standing committee, but after it has been read a second time a motion
may be made to refer it to a select committee. Such a reference simply
adds a step to the journey of the bill, for when reported it goes to a
standing committee or to the Committee of the Whole. A standing
committee, on the other hand, is, as already explained, a substitute for
the Committee of the Whole. It deals with the bill in precisely the same
way, reporting it back to the House amended or unchanged.
[Sidenote: Report.]
When a bill has been reported from the Committee of the Whole with
amendments,[276:1] and when it has been reported from a standing
committee whether amended or not,[276:2] it is considered by the House
in detail, upon what is known as the report stage. The object is to give
the House an opportunity to review the work done in committee, and see
whether it wishes to maintain the amendments there adopted. But the
House is not restricted to confirming or reversing the changes made in
the bill, and although the process of going through the measure clause
by clause is not repeated, fresh amendments may be proposed and new
clauses added.[276:3]
If the bill is reported from a Committee of the Whole without
amendments, it is assumed that the details are satisfactory to the
House, and there is no report stage.
[Sidenote: Third Reading.]
The next, and now the last, stage of a bill in the House of Commons is
the third reading. Like the second reading, this raises only the
question whether or not the House approves of the measure as a whole,
and the moves for compassing its defeat are the same. Verbal amendments
alone are in order, and any substantial alteration can be brought about
only by moving to recommit.
Usually the several steps in the enactment of a bill are taken on
different days,[277:1] but there is nothing in the rules of the House of
Commons to require this, and urgent measures have at times passed
through all their stages in both Houses in one day. The last case was
that of the Explosive Substances Bill passed in 1883 under the pressure
of the dynamite scare.[277:2]
[Sidenote: Lords' Amendments.]
When a bill passed by one House is amended by the other, it is sent back
for the consideration of those amendments. If they are agreed to, the
bill is ready for the royal assent. If not, the bill is returned, and a
committee is appointed to frame a message to the other House, stating
the reasons for disagreement.[277:3] The other House may, of course,
waive its amendments, insist upon them or modify them, and the bill
might thus, with new changes, go back and forth between the Houses
indefinitely. Formerly it was the habit, when the Houses failed to
agree, to appoint managers to hold a conference, but this practice has
fallen into disuse,[277:4] and in the case of government bills--almost
all important bills to-day are government bills--negotiations are
carried on between the ministers and the leading peers who oppose them.
[Sidenote: Summary of the Procedure.]
Leaving out of account the first reading, which rarely involves a real
debate, the ordinary course of a public bill through the House of
Commons gives, therefore, an opportunity for two debates upon its
general merits, and between them two discussions of its details, or one
debate upon the details if that one results in no changes, or if the
bill has been referred to a standing committee. When the House desires
to collect evidence it does so after approving of the general
principle, and before taking up the details. Stated in this way the
whole matter is plain and rational enough. It is, in fact, one of the
many striking examples of adaptation in the English political system. A
collection of rules that appear cumbrous and antiquated, and that even
now are well-nigh incomprehensible when described in all their involved
technicality, have been pruned away until they furnish a procedure
almost as simple, direct and appropriate as any one could devise. Many
old forms remain, but they have been shorn of their meaning, and often
amount to nothing but entries in the journal. Even the first reading,
which seems anomalous, has its use. A real debate at that stage occurs
only in the case of great party measures, where both sides of the House
want to be familiar with the scope of the bill, the objections that may
be made to it, and the way it strikes the public, before the first
effective debate upon its merits opens. The procedure upon money bills,
which appears at first sight still more arbitrary, and complex, is
perfectly rational also, and the differences from the method of passing
ordinary measures arise from the nature of the case. There can be no
doubt about the general principle of the annual appropriation bill.
Supplies must be voted to carry on the government, and the only
questions arise over particular grants. Hence there is no object in
opening with a first or second reading, and the procedure begins in
committee. But in order to understand how this works out one must again
go back to the technical rules.
FOOTNOTES:
[265:1] _Cf._ Redlich, 474-78.
[265:2] S.O. 33.
[265:3] _Cf._ S.O. 55.
[265:4] _Cf._ S.O. 56-57.
[266:1] Standing Orders (relative to private business), 98.
[266:2] "Seventy Years at Westminster," 267 _et seq._
[266:3] _Ibid._, 103-15.
[266:4] S.O. 75.
[266:5] S.O. 76-80.
[267:1] "At the commencement of every session an order is made 'That a
committee of privileges be appointed,' but no members have been
nominated to it since 1847." "Manual of Procedure of the House of
Commons," prepared in 1904 by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, Clerk of the House,
§ 110. There are also a couple of sessional committees whose work is
wholly concerned with private bills and are described therewith.
[267:2] The question often arises whether inquiry shall be conducted by
a committee of the House, or by a commission appointed by the
government. When the matter is distinctly political a committee of the
House is the proper organ; but when the judgment of outside experts is
needed the other alternative is obviously preferable, several members of
Parliament being often included in such cases. Naturally enough, the
ministry and the members chiefly interested in pushing an inquiry do not
always agree about the matter. One instance of a dispute on this point
has already been referred to--that in relation to the grievances of Post
Office employees. Another famous example occurred upon the charges made
by _The Times_ against Parnell in connection with the forged Pigott
Letters.
[267:3] May, 469-70.
[267:4] The private bill committees to be described in a later chapter
are select committees.
[268:1] May, 383-89, 471.
[268:2] S.O. 59-61, 63.
[268:3] S.O. 61.
[269:1] May, 398-99.
[269:2] Redlich, 463.
[269:3] S.O. 46-50; May, 371-77.
[270:1] S.O. 49.
[270:2] S.O. 47.
[270:3] May, 374.
[270:4] As in the House itself, the attendance during debate is
sometimes small. Complaints are heard of this, and of the practice of
fetching members in to take part in divisions. Hans. 4 Ser. XCII., 570.
The divisions, by the way, are taken by roll-call.
[270:5] Hans. 4 Ser. XCII., 562, 566.
[271:1] S.O. 50. _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. XCII., 555-75.
[271:2] See the remarks of Gladstone in proposing them in 1882, Hans. 3
Ser. CCLXXV., 145-46.
[271:3] In the sixteen years from 1888 (when these committees were
revived) through 1903, 1080 public bills were enacted, of which 109
passed through their hands. During the eight years from 1896 to 1903,
this was true of 73 bills out of the 446 enacted.
[271:4] From 1888 to 1903, 77 of the 83 government bills referred to a
standing committee were enacted; from 1896 to 1906, 48 were so referred,
and all but two of them were enacted. From 1888 to 1903, 32 out of 58
private members' bills so referred were enacted; and from 1896 to 1903,
27 out of 41. _Cf._ Return in Com. Papers, 1902, LXXXII., 229, and the
Annual Returns for 1901-03.
[272:1] _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. XCII., 563, 567.
[272:2] _Cf._ Hans. (1888) 3 Ser. CCCXXIII., 403 _et seq._, 474 _et
seq._; (1894) 4 Ser. XXII., 1116 _et seq._, 1487 _et seq._; XXIII., 648
_et seq._, 991 _et seq._, 1589 _et seq._; (1895) XXXIII., 822 _et seq._;
XXXIV., 170 _et seq._
[272:3] This objection was partially met by a provision in regard to the
additional members. Hans. 4 Ser. XXIII., 1613; XXXIV., 1881.
[273:1] _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. CLXXII., pp. lxxix-lxxx.
[273:2] A committee to which a bill relating exclusively to Wales and
Monmouthshire is referred must comprise all the members from that part
of the kingdom. In order to provide chairmen enough, the maximum of the
chairmen's panel was raised from six to eight.
[274:1] May, 437, note 1.
[274:2] S.O. 11.
[274:3] S.O. 31. This is also true when a bill is brought from the
Lords.
[274:4] S.O. 31.
[274:5] _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. CLVII., 744.
[275:1] Until 1888 the form of the motion was "that that question be now
put," and the mover voted in the negative; but after the closure was
introduced with a motion in these same words, the previous question was
changed, and put in the form "that that question not be now put." May,
269. If under either form the House decided in favour of putting the
question, the vote upon the second reading was taken without further
debate. May, _Ibid._ But as the previous question was itself subject to
a discussion which might cover the principles of the bill, it did not
have the effect of cutting off debate. (_Cf._ Report of Com. on Business
of the House. Com. Papers, 1871, IX., 1, Qs. 54-55.)
[275:2] May, 446.
[275:3] By S.O. 34, committees of the whole are instructed to make such
amendments, relevant to the bill, as they think fit. The object of a
special instruction is merely to empower the committee to make
amendments, within the general scope and framework of the bill, which it
would not possess under the standing order. Ilbert, "Manual," §§ 175-76.
[275:4] S.O. 51. Adopted in 1888.
[276:1] S.O. 39.
[276:2] S.O. 50.
[276:3] _Cf._ S.O. 38-41. Unless a motion is made to recommit, the bill
is considered on report, when reached, without question put. S.O. 40.
[277:1] Except that the third reading often follows immediately upon the
report stage. May, 472.
[277:2] May, 487. In the Lords this requires a suspension of the rules.
Some kinds of bills are subject to special forms of procedure which it
seems hardly necessary to mention. A bill for the restitution of honours
begins in the Lords, and in the Commons is referred to a select
committee which takes the place of a Committee of the Whole. A bill for
a general pardon originates with the Crown, and is read only once in
each House. May, 435-36.
[277:3] May, 479; Ilbert, "Manual," § 209.
[277:4] May, 412-16; Ilbert, § 250 note.
CHAPTER XIV
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Money Bills and Accounts_
The procedure in the case of financial measures differs in important
respects from that followed in passing other bills. It will be
remembered that, with some exceptions already described, all the
national revenues are first paid into the Consolidated Fund, and then
drawn out of it to meet the expenditures of the government. The
financial work of Parliament, like that of the administration, turns,
therefore, upon the processes of getting money into and out of that
fund. The second process comes first in the order of parliamentary
business, and its nature is fixed by two standing orders, which date
from the early years of the eighteenth century. One of them, adopted in
1707, provides that the House will not proceed upon any petition or
motion for granting money but in Committee of the Whole House;[279:1]
the other, that it will not receive any petition, or proceed upon any
motion, for a grant or charge upon the public revenue unless recommended
from the Crown.[279:2]
[Sidenote: The Rule that Appropriations Require Consent of the Crown.]
This last rule, first adopted by a resolution in 1706, and made a
standing order in 1713,[279:3] was designed to prevent improvident
expenditure on private initiative. It has proved not only an invaluable
protection to the Treasury, but a bulwark for the authority of the
ministry.[280:1] Its importance has been so well recognised that it has
been embodied in the fundamental laws of the self-governing
colonies;[280:2] while some foreign countries, like France and Italy,
that have copied the forms of parliamentary government, without always
perceiving the foundation on which they rest, have suffered not a little
from its absence.[280:3]
Even in England the rule has been at times evaded. About the middle of
the last century, it was the habit to bring in bills involving the
expenditure of public funds, and avoid a violation of the rule by
inserting a clause that the expenses incurred should be "defrayed out of
moneys to be hereafter voted by Parliament." But a vote in favour of
such a bill was clearly an expression of opinion that well-nigh
compelled the ministers to include the expense in their next estimates.
This practice was stopped in 1866 by changing the standing order so as
to provide that the House will not "proceed upon any motion for a grant
or charge upon the public revenue, whether payable out of the
consolidated fund, or out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, unless
recommended from the Crown."[280:4] The change, however, does not
absolutely prevent the House from forcing the hands of the government. A
resolution can be passed in abstract and general terms in favour of a
certain kind of expenditure, the construction of harbours of refuge, for
example; or an address to the Crown can be adopted asking for an
expenditure, and promising "that this House will make good the same," a
procedure followed in erecting statues on the death of great leaders of
the House.[281:1]
As late as 1877 Mr. Gladstone lamented the loss of financial control by
the Crown, complaining that, by addresses, resolutions, and even bills,
the House pledged itself to expenditure for local claims or the
interests of classes and individuals, and that the government was
morally bound to redeem the pledges. This he thought was carried so far
as to be a great public mischief.[281:2] Whether such a statement was an
exaggeration at that time or not, it would hardly be repeated now; for
on the one hand the control of the cabinet over the House, and on the
other the obstacles encountered by private members in passing measures,
have increased so much that it is very difficult, without the help of
the Treasury Bench, to get the House to adopt anything to which there is
serious opposition.
[Sidenote: The Rule Prevents Increase of the Estimates.]
Although in terms the rule applies only to a motion for making a grant,
it has been construed to cover any amendment for increasing a grant
beyond the amount recommended from the Crown,[281:3]--an extension
certainly needed to protect both the Treasury and the authority of the
ministers. When, therefore, the minister moves that a sum of money be
granted for a definite purpose, no amendment is in order either to
increase that sum or to alter its destination.[281:4] But the rule does
not forbid a reduction. It follows that if any member deems the sum
named too small, his only course is to move to reduce it in order to
draw attention to its insufficiency. Reductions of one hundred pounds
are, in fact, constantly moved to make an occasion for discussing some
grievance connected with the service in question, and they afford a
ready means of protest, free from peril to the Treasury.[282:1]
[Sidenote: The Rule is Applied to Taxes.]
A still greater extension of the rule is made in its application to
taxes; but this depends not upon the standing order, but upon a general
constitutional principle which has gradually been evolved therefrom. The
principle has, in fact, been expanded until it may be stated in the
general form that no motion can be made to raise or expend national
revenue without a recommendation from the Crown, or to increase the sum
asked for by the Crown. The government has accordingly the exclusive
right to propose fresh national taxation, whether in the form of new
taxes or of higher rates for existing ones,[282:2] and no private member
can move to augment the taxes so proposed.[282:3] He can, however, move
to reduce them, and he is even free to bring in a bill to repeal or
reduce taxes which the government has not proposed to touch.[283:1]
Moreover, as the principle merely forbids him to urge an increase of the
burdens upon the people beyond the point at which they stand, or the
point at which the ministers propose to place them, he can, when the
government suggests a reduction of a tax, move an amendment to reduce it
less,[283:2] and when the government brings in a plan for a revision of
taxation, he can move to substitute a somewhat different tax for the one
proposed, provided the amount of revenue yielded will not be
greater.[283:3] But these rights are seldom used, and almost never with
success; otherwise they would, no doubt, be found objectionable and
swept away.
The House of Commons, at the present day, certainly stimulates
extravagance, rather than economy; but this is done by opinions
expressed in debate, not by specific proposals made by the members. It
is done by criticising the administration, by complaints, for example,
that the Army and Navy are insufficient for the defence of the empire.
The result is a growth in the budgets prepared by the ministry; but this
is a very different thing from expenditure directly caused by the
irresponsible action of private members. The former is deliberate and
reflects public opinion, the latter may originate in personal or local
feelings, and then be adopted through heedless good nature or skilful
log-rolling.
[Sidenote: Committee of Supply.]
As grants of money can be taken up only in Committee of the Whole, and
only on the recommendation of the Crown,--that is, of a minister--the
House resolves itself, early in the session, into Committee of the Whole
on Supply, to consider the estimates submitted by the government.[283:4]
[Sidenote: Consolidated Fund Charges.]
[Sidenote: Estimates for the Supply Services.]
Now it will be remembered that certain charges, such as the interest on
the national debt, the royal civil list, and the salaries of the judges,
are payable by statute out of the Consolidated Fund, and hence do not
require an annual vote of Parliament, or come before the Committee of
Supply. The estimates for the rest of the expenditures for the coming
year, known as the supply services, are divided into three parts,
relating to the Army, the Navy, and the civil services. The last of the
three is divided into classes, and all of them are divided into grants
or votes, which are in turn subdivided into subheads and items. Each
grant is the subject of a separate vote in Committee of Supply, and
amendments may be moved to omit or reduce any item therein.
[Sidenote: Votes on Account.]
The English financial system aims at precision. It is deemed of great
importance that the estimates should be as accurate as they can be made,
and hence they must be prepared as short a time as possible before going
into effect. They are made up in the several departments late in the
autumn, then submitted for revision to the Treasury, and laid before
Parliament shortly after it meets about the middle of February. But as
the financial year begins on April 1, it is manifest that the Committee
of Supply cannot finish its discussion of them by that time. With the
work it must do in passing upon supplementary estimates for the current
year, it can, in fact, make little progress with those of the coming
year during March, and yet money must be spent, and there must be legal
authority to spend it, especially as the unspent balances of
appropriations lapse at the close of the financial year in which they
are voted. The committee, therefore, passes votes on account to cover
the time until the regular appropriations are made. The reader will,
perhaps, recall the fact that in the military and naval services an
excess on one grant may, with the approval of the Treasury, be used to
cover deficiencies on other grants, and hence it is the habit in the
case of those services to vote in March the grant for the pay and wages
of the men for the whole year, and use the money so obtained for all
purposes until the appropriations have been completed. In the civil
services, where this is not allowed, votes on account are passed for all
the grants, large enough to carry on the government for four or five
months.
[Sidenote: Supplementary Grants.]
With the utmost effort at accuracy in the estimates they will always
prove to be insufficient in some branch of the service, or an unexpected
need for expenditure will arise; and to provide funds in such cases
supplementary estimates must be presented and voted before the close of
the financial year.
[Sidenote: Excess Grants.]
There may also be other expenses outside the estimates, which have, by
the authority vested in the Treasury, been temporarily met by advances
from the Civil Contingencies Fund or the Treasury Chest Fund, or from
extra receipts of the department. These do not require an immediate
appropriation; but they are reported to the Committee on Public Accounts
at the next regular session after the close of the financial year, and
then presented to the Committee of Supply to be covered at once by an
excess grant.
Before the end of March, therefore, the Committee of Supply must pass
the supplementary grants for the year then coming to a close, the excess
grants for the preceding year, the votes on account for the coming year,
and make such progress as it can with the regular estimates for that
year.
[Sidenote: Consolidated Fund Acts.]
But the committee merely passes and reports to the House resolutions in
favour of those grants, and the money cannot be paid out of the
Consolidated Fund without the authority of a statute. The next step is
taken in the Committee of the Whole on Ways and Means, where on the
motion of a minister another resolution is passed, that to make good the
supply already voted, the sum required be granted out of the
Consolidated Fund. This in turn must be reported to and confirmed by the
House.[285:1] A bill called a Consolidated Fund Bill is then brought in
to give effect to the resolution. The bill, with the separate grants
annexed in a schedule, goes through the ordinary stages; but the time
spent upon it is short, because its only object being to authorise the
issue of money to cover the supply already voted, no amendment can be
moved to reduce the amount, or change the destination, of the
grants.[286:1]
[Sidenote: The Appropriation Act.]
The first Consolidated Fund Act must be passed in time to receive the
royal assent before April 1. One or two more follow from time to time as
the Committee of Supply makes its way slowly through the
estimates.[286:2] Finally, after the whole supply for the year has been
voted, the Appropriation Bill is brought in, which sums up and embodies
all the grants for the services of the year, prescribes their
application by means of the schedules annexed, and authorises their
payment out of the Consolidated Fund. This is usually passed on the last
day of the session.
[Sidenote: The Budget.]
So much for the process of getting money out of the Consolidated Fund.
That of getting money into the fund goes on at the same time, but
independently. It is usually early in April that the Chancellor
introduces his budget in the Committee of Ways and Means. In an
elaborate speech he reviews the finances of the past year, comparing the
results with the estimates, and dealing with the state of trade and the
national debt. He then refers to the estimates already submitted, and
coming to the gist of his speech, and the part of it that is awaited
with curiosity, he explains how he proposes to raise the revenue
required to meet the expenditures. As he could have no right to take the
floor without a motion before the House, he concludes by moving one or
more of a series of resolutions containing the changes in taxation, or
the continuation of temporary taxes, that he desires.
About three quarters of the revenue is derived from permanent taxes,
which are rarely changed, and require no action by Parliament from year
to year. But in order to adjust the income closely to expenses, certain
taxes are voted for a year at a time, their rates being raised or
lowered as may be required to balance the budget. For many years the
only imposts so treated were the income tax and the duty on tea; one of
them being regarded as a direct tax levied upon property, and the other
as an indirect tax resting upon the mass of the people. Recently,
however, the duties on tobacco, beer and spirits, and the corresponding
excises on beer and spirits, have been increased, and the additions so
made have been voted from year to year.
The budget speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is followed by a
general discussion of the questions he has raised, and either at once,
or on subsequent days, by debates and votes upon the resolutions he has
brought in. The resolutions when adopted are reported to the House for
ratification, but as in the case of supply, they have no legal effect
until enacted in the form of a statute. Perhaps it would be more correct
to say that they have no legal validity; because in order to prevent
large importations made to avoid a projected increase in a duty, it is
customary to prescribe in the resolution a date near at hand when the
tax shall take effect, and to collect it from that date if the
resolution has been agreed to by the House on report. The collection is
quite unauthorised by law at the time, but it is afterward ratified by a
statute which fixes the same date for the operation of the tax; and this
gives the transaction complete legal validity, because Parliament has
power to pass a retroactive law. If for any reason the provision for the
tax fails of enactment, the duties that have been collected are, of
course, refunded.
[Sidenote: The Finance Act.]
It was formerly the habit to include in the fiscal resolutions based
upon the budget, and in the act to give them effect, the annual and
temporary taxes alone; the permanent taxes, and especially those imposed
rather for economic reasons than for the purpose of revenue, being dealt
with by special acts.[287:1] But the use of taxation for revenue only,
and still more a quarrel with the House of Lords, brought about a change
of system. In 1860 the government determined to repeal the paper duties,
which hindered the publication of cheap newspapers, and were decried as
a tax on knowledge. The loss of revenue was taken into account in the
financial plans of the year; but according to custom the repeal of the
duties was contained in a separate bill by itself. The Lords, after
passing the act to give effect to the rest of the budget, rejected this
bill. At the moment the Commons could do nothing save express their
opinions; but the next year they included the repeal of the paper duties
in the annual tax bill, and the Lords were constrained to pass it; for
although the Peers do not formally admit the claim of the Commons that
they must accept or reject money bills without alteration, they never
venture to amend them. The policy of including all the taxes in one bill
has developed into a permanent practice, and under the name of the
Finance Bill this now includes all fiscal regulations relating both to
the revenue and to the national debt.[288:1]
[Sidenote: The Public Accounts.]
The whole initiative, as regards both revenue and expenditure, lies with
the government alone. The House has merely power to reject or reduce the
amounts asked for, and it uses that power very little. Financially, its
work is rather supervision than direction; and its real usefulness
consists in securing publicity and criticism rather than in controlling
expenditure. It is the tribunal where at the opening of the financial
year the ministers must explain and justify every detail of their fiscal
policy, and where at its close they must render an account of their
stewardship. This last duty is highly important. The House receives
every year reports of the administration of the finances from three
independent bodies, or to be more accurate, it receives two distinct
sets of accounts and one report.
[Sidenote: The Finance Accounts.]
As soon as possible after the close of the financial year, the Treasury
submits the Finance Accounts, which cover all receipts paid into, and
all issues out of, the Consolidated Fund, giving the sources from which
the revenue was derived and the purpose for which the issues were
made.[289:1] As these accounts are based, not upon the sums expended by
the different branches of the government, but upon the amounts
transferred to their credit at the Banks of England and Ireland, they
can be compiled quickly; and, in fact, they are laid before Parliament
near the end of June, about three months after the close of the
financial year to which they relate.
[Sidenote: The Appropriation Accounts.]
Meanwhile the Comptroller and Auditor General--who holds his office
during good behaviour, with a salary paid by statute directly out of the
Consolidated Fund, and who considers himself in no sense a servant of
the Treasury, but an officer responsible to the House of
Commons[289:2]--examines the accounts of the several departments. This
is a matter requiring much time, and it is not until the opening of the
next regular session that he presents what are known as the
Appropriation Accounts,[289:3] covering in great detail the actual
expenditures in all the supply services, with his reports and comments
thereon.[289:4]
[Sidenote: The Committee of Public Accounts.]
His accounts and reports are referred to the Committee of Public
Accounts, which consists of eleven members of the House chosen at the
beginning of the session,[289:5] and includes the Financial Secretary
of the Treasury, some one who has held a similar office under the
opposite party, and other men interested in the subject. It inspects the
accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General's notes of the reason
why more or less than the estimate was spent on each item. It inquires
into the items that need further explanation, examining for the purpose
the auditing officers of the departments, and other persons; and it
makes a series of reports to the House, which refer in detail to the
cases where an excess grant must be made by Parliament, or a transfer
between grants in the military departments must be approved.[290:1]
The Committee of Public Accounts has undoubtedly great influence in
keeping the expenditures very strictly within the appropriations, and
from time to time it expresses its opinions strongly about any laxity in
that respect--remarks that are not forgotten by the officials. But there
has been much complaint that the House itself, while criticising the
administrative conduct of the government freely in the discussion of the
estimates, takes little interest in their financial aspect; and,
therefore, the recent Committee on National Expenditure has suggested
that one day, at least, should be set apart for the discussion of the
report of the Committee on Public Accounts.[290:2]
[Sidenote: Indian Revenue Accounts.]
There are a couple of anomalous cases where, by statute, the estimates
for a service are not voted by Parliament, but the accounts are
afterward submitted to it for approval. This is true of India; and the
provision is a wise one, for it allows the government of that country to
be conducted by the authorities on the spot, who are alone competent to
do it, and yet it reserves to the House of Commons an opportunity for
supervision and criticism. On one of the last days of the session a
motion is made to go into Committee of the Whole to consider these
accounts, and on that motion a general debate on Indian affairs is in
order. In the committee itself only a formal motion is made certifying
the total revenue and expenditure, and debate is confined to the
economic and financial condition of the dependency.[291:1] In the same
way the expenses of Greenwich Hospital are, by statute, defrayed out of
its revenues, but the accounts are submitted to the House annually, with
a resolution for their approval.[291:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[279:1] S.O. 67.
[279:2] S.O. 66. May (527) points out that these two rules, together
with S.O. 68, adopted in 1715, that the House will receive no petition
for compounding a revenue debt due to the Crown without a certificate
from the proper officer stating the facts, were for more than a century
the only standing orders of the House.
[279:3] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," 2 Ed., I., 691.
[280:1] As an illustration of the fact that the rise of the authority
exerted by ministers over Parliament was contemporary with the loss by
the King of personal legislative power, Todd (II., 390) remarks that
this rule was first adopted in 1706, and the last royal veto was given
in 1707.
[280:2] British North Amer. Act, § 54. Commonwealth of Australia
Constitution Act, § 56.
After the government of India was transferred from the East India
Company to the Crown, in 1856, the rule was extended to motions for a
charge upon the Indian revenue. S.O. 70.
[280:3] For France, _cf._ Dupriez, _Les Ministres_, II., 416-17, 421-30;
Lowell, "Govts. and Parties," I., 116-17; for Italy, Dupriez, I.,
316-19; Lowell, 207-9. Owing to the greater cohesion of parties, and to
the fact that the expenditures are contained in a series of separate
acts which can hardly be changed without disturbing the financial
equilibrium, Belgium has suffered little from this cause. Dupriez, I.,
249-52.
[280:4] Todd, I., 692-96. When the main object of a bill is the creation
of a public charge, a resolution for that charge must be passed in
Committee of the Whole upon a recommendation from the Crown before the
bill is introduced. But when the charge is merely subsidiary or
incidental, the bill can be brought in previously, the clauses or
provisions creating the charge being printed in italics. The words so
printed are regarded as mere blanks with an indication of the way they
are eventually intended to be filled, and they cannot be considered by
the House until a Committee of the Whole has passed the necessary
resolutions on a recommendation from the Crown. May, 528-29, 539.
[281:1] May, 538-40; Todd, I., 699-701. By S.O. 69 an address of this
kind must be adopted in Committee of the Whole.
[281:2] "Gleanings of Past Years," I., 81.
[281:3] May, 532, 580.
[281:4] _Ibid._, 580-81. Todd, I., 753.
[282:1] Such reductions are sometimes carried. There was the famous case
in 1895 when a motion was made to reduce the salary of the Secretary of
State for War to draw attention to the alleged lack of supply of
cordite. The defeat of the government in this case furnished the
occasion for the resignation of Lord Rosebery's cabinet. (Hans. 4 Ser.
XXXIV., 1685-1711, 1742.)
In 1904 Mr. Redmond, the leader of the Irish Nationalists, moved to
reduce by £100 the appropriation for education in Ireland, and obtained
a majority of 141 to 130. Mr. Balfour, declining to treat the matter
seriously, remarked that the Irish leader had succeeded in reducing the
grant to Ireland by £100; to which the latter replied that defeating the
government at a cost of £100 was money well spent. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXI.,
1141-47.)
Again in 1906 a motion to reduce by £100 the appropriation for the Irish
Land Commission was carried by a vote of 199 to 196. (Hans. 4 Ser.
CXLIX., 1459-86.) After some reflection the government decided that it
was not a sufficient cause either for resignation or dissolution,
although the ministry was undoubtedly losing its hold upon the country.
In each of these three cases the defeat of the government was an
accident, the result of a "snap vote."
[282:2] May, 532-33, 589. Todd, I., 709-12. But this does not apply to
local taxation for local purposes. May, 565-67; Todd, I., 710.
[282:3] May, 533, 589; Todd (I., 711) says that a motion can be made to
increase a tax proposed by the government, but of the two precedents he
cites, one (Hans. 3 Ser. LXXV., 1020) was a motion by the minister to
restore in a sugar duties bill the rate of duty which had been proposed,
but reduced in Committee of Ways and Means; the other (Hans. 3 Ser.
CCXVIII., 1041) was a motion to renew the existing rate of 3_d._ for the
income tax, the government having proposed to reduce it to 2_d._
[283:1] May, 540, 567; Todd, I., 713 _et seq._ Provided the bill does
not incidentally increase some other tax. May, 533.
[283:2] May, 533-35.
[283:3] _Ibid._, 589; Todd, I., 711.
[283:4] S.O. 14 provides that the Committees of Supply and Ways and
Means shall be set up as soon as the address in reply to the King's
speech has been agreed to.
[285:1] On the procedure in the Committee of Ways and Means, and on
Report from Committee of Supply and of Ways and Means, see May, 588 _et
seq._
[286:1] May, 526; Ilbert, "Manual," § 245, note.
[286:2] In order to provide money enough in the Consolidated Fund in
anticipation of receipts from taxation, each of these bills authorises
the Bank of England to advance the sums required, and the Treasury to
borrow on Treasury bills. May, 558, n. 3; Ilbert, § 244.
[287:1] May, 556-57; Todd, I., 791.
[288:1] The name Customs and Inland Revenue Act was changed to Finance
Act in 1894 when the death duties were included in it. In 1899 the
provisions for the sinking-fund were also included. Courtney, "The
Working Constitution of the United Kingdom," 26-28; and see the recent
Finance Acts.
[289:1] In the case of the consolidated fund services the separate
items, _e.g._ the individual salaries, are given. In the case of the
supply services only the amounts issued on account of each grant are
given for the civil service; and for the Army and Navy only the total
amounts.
[289:2] See his evidence before the Com. on Nat. Expend., Com. Papers,
1902, VII., 15, Qs. 764-69, 831.
[289:3] Thus the Parliamentary Papers for 1903 contain the Finance
Accounts for the financial year ending March 31, 1903, and the far more
elaborate Appropriation Accounts for the year ending March 31, 1902.
[289:4] He presents also separate accounts of the consolidated fund
services, and other matters, with reports upon them.
[289:5] S.O. 75. For a brief history of the system of audit, and the
laying of accounts before Parliament, see the memorandum by Lord Welby.
Rep. Com. on Nat. Expend., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15, App. 13. See
also the description by Hatschek, in his _Englisches Staatsrecht_
(495-500), of the introduction into England of double entry and the
French system of keeping the national accounts.
[290:1] All the reports of the Committees on Public Accounts from 1857
to 1900, with the minutes made in consequence by the Treasury, have been
collected and printed together from time to time in blue books. There
are now three of these published in 1888, 1893, and 1901, the last
containing an index of all three (Com. Papers, 1888, LXXIX., 331; 1893,
LXX., 281; 1901, LVIII., 161).
[290:2] Rep. Com. on Nat. Expend., Com. Papers, 1903, VII., 483, p. v.
[291:1] May, 564. On July 20, 1906, an amendment to the motion that the
Speaker leave the chair was proposed, to the effect that the salary of
the Secretary of State for India ought to be placed among the regular
Treasury estimates, in order to give a better chance to discuss the
government of India. One of the chief objections made to this was that
it would tend to bring the Indian administration into party politics,
and the amendment was rejected by a large majority. (Hans. 4 Ser. CLXI.,
589-610.)
[291:2] May, 565.
CHAPTER XV
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Closure_
[Sidenote: The Need of Closure.]
Almost all great legislative bodies at the present day have been forced
to adopt some method of cutting off debate, and bringing matters under
discussion to a decisive vote. They have been driven to do so partly as
a defence against wilful obstruction by minorities, and partly as a
means of getting through their work. Although following the path with
great reluctance, the House of Commons has been no exception to the
rule. With the evolution of popular government it has become more
representative and less self-contained. Formerly an important public
measure gave rise to one great debate, conducted mainly by the leading
men, and the vote that followed was deemed to settle the question. The
case had been argued, Parliament had rendered its verdict, and that
ended the matter. But now every one has his eye upon the country
outside. The ordinary member is not satisfied to have the case argued
well; he wants to take part in the argument himself. He wants the
public, and especially his own constituents, to see that he is active,
capable, and to some extent prominent.[292:1] He watches, therefore, his
chance to express his views at some stage in the proceedings.
Moreover, the strategy of the leaders of the Opposition has changed.
They are not trying merely to persuade the House, or to register their
protests there. They are speaking to the nation, striving to convince
the voters of the righteousness of their cause, and of the earnestness,
devotion, and tenacity with which they are urging it. Hence they take
every opportunity for resistance offered by the rules, and fight
doggedly at every step. Just as in war the great battle that settled a
campaign has been replaced by a long series of stubborn contests behind
intrenchments; so in the important issues of parliamentary warfare, the
single conclusive debate has given way to many struggles that take place
whenever the rules afford a means of resistance. This may not be done
for the sake of obstruction or delay, but it consumes time, and it has
made some process of cutting off debate and reaching a vote an absolute
necessity.
[Sidenote: First Used in 1881.]
The first resort to such a process was brought about by deliberate
obstruction. This had been felt to be an evil for a dozen years,[293:1]
and was made intolerable by the tactics of the Irish members in opposing
the introduction of the coercion bill of 1881. Several nights of debate
were followed by a continuous session of forty-one hours; when the
Speaker, on his return to the chair, of which he had been for a time
relieved by his deputy, interrupting the discussion, said that the
dignity, the credit and the authority of the House were threatened, and
that he was satisfied he should but carry out its will by putting the
question forthwith.[293:2] His action was not authorised by standing
order or by precedent, but whether justifiable or not, it marked an
epoch in parliamentary history.
[Sidenote: The Urgency Resolution of 1881.]
Brand, the Speaker, had not come to his decision without consulting
Gladstone, then Prime Minister; and had made his action conditional upon
the introduction of some regular process for coping with
obstruction.[293:3] Gladstone at once gave notice of an urgency
resolution, which was speedily adopted, thanks to the suspension of all
the Irish members for interrupting debate contrary to the orders of the
chair. The resolution enabled a minister to move that the state of
public business with regard to any pending measure was urgent. This
motion was to be put forthwith without debate, and if carried by a
majority of three to one in a House of not less than three hundred
members, was to vest in the Speaker, for the purpose of proceeding with
such measure, all the powers of the House for the regulation of its
business.[294:1]
[Sidenote: Urgency Rules.]
[Sidenote: Closure Rule of 1882.]
The language was vague, but the intent was clear. The urgency resolution
sanctioned for the future the authority recently assumed by the chair.
The Speaker, however, not wishing to make what might appear to be an
arbitrary use of his new powers, laid before the House a number of rules
by which he should be guided;[294:2] and these have furnished the
suggestions for much of the later procedure for curtailing
debate.[294:3] The one dealing with the primary object of the resolution
provided that when it appeared to the Speaker, or to the Chairman in
Committee of Supply or Ways and Means, to be the general sense of the
House that the question should be put, he might so inform the House, and
then a motion made to that effect should be voted upon without debate,
and if carried by a majority of three to one, the original question
should be put forthwith. The urgency motion was used at once to push
through a couple of bills relating to Ireland; but the resolution
expired with the session, and after being revived for a short time the
next year, it was replaced in the autumn of 1882 by a standing order
based upon the Speaker's rules.[295:1] The new order made, however, two
changes in the procedure. Instead of being applicable only after urgency
had been voted, on a motion by a minister, in regard to some particular
measure, it could be used at any time; and instead of requiring a vote
of three to one, it required either a bare majority, if two hundred
affirmative votes were cast, or one hundred affirmative votes, if there
were less than forty votes against it. Instead, therefore, of being a
weapon that could be used only in cases of exceptional obstruction by a
small group, it became a process applicable at any time to limit debate
by the minority. But although apparently a regular part of the procedure
of the House, the motion to cut off further debate could be made only on
the suggestion of the Speaker, and this vested in him an arbitrary
initiative which he was loth to exercise. The standing order was, in
fact, put into operation on two occasions only, on Feb. 24, 1885, and on
Feb. 17, 1887.
[Sidenote: Closure Rule of 1887.]
The difficulty that had been felt in using the procedure was avoided by
the adoption in 1887 of a new standing order[295:2] transferring the
initiative to the members of the House, while securing fair play to
minorities by leaving with the Speaker a power of veto. The rule
provides that any member may claim to move that the question pending be
now put, "and unless it shall appear to the chair that such motion is an
abuse of the rules of the House, or an infringement of the rights of the
minority," it shall be put forthwith. If carried, the pending question,
and following it the main question before the House, with all others
depending upon it, must be put without further amendment or
debate.[295:3] The process, now entitled for the first time "closure,"
was modified in 1888, so that the only requirement about the size of
the majority was that one hundred votes must be cast in the affirmative.
In this form it has ever since remained, and it has been freely used,
having been actually applied from one score to four score times each
year.[296:1]
[Sidenote: The Speaker's Consent.]
The requirement of the Speaker's assent has proved to be no mere
formality. This is especially true where closure has been moved by
private members, for his consent, or that of the Chairman of Committees,
has been refused in one third of such cases.[296:2] Largely for that
reason, no doubt, the use of closure by private members has become far
less common than it was formerly. During the first ten years after 1887
it was moved by private members on the average about forty times a year,
but since that period the average has been only twelve. Even in the case
of motions made by a minister, consent has often been withheld. It
happened very frequently during the earlier years, but of late has been
much less common.[296:3] Evidently the Treasury Bench and the Speaker
have come to adopt very nearly the same standard for determining when a
matter has been sufficiently debated. To a spectator in the gallery the
discussion seems to proceed until the House must be thoroughly weary of
it before closure is moved; and, indeed, the House itself very rarely
rejects the motion when it gets a chance to vote upon it--a fact which
shows that if the Speaker had not power to withhold his consent, the
majority would cut short debate more drastically than it does now. But
although debate may have gone on until the House is weary, and the
benches are nearly empty, until the speeches consist mainly of the
reiteration of arguments in less incisive form, yet there are almost
always members who are longing in vain for a chance to make a few
remarks. In great debates the order of the chief speakers on each side
is commonly arranged between the whips, and given to the presiding
officer; who usually follows it, though not without occasional
exceptions. For the rest he gives the preference, among the members who
try to catch his eye, to those who have the ear of the House, or who are
likely to say something worth hearing, not forgetting to call on a new
man who rises to make his maiden speech. By seizing on the dull hours,
when the House is not full, an undistinguished member can often get his
chance. Still, there are many men who sit impatiently with what they
believe to be effective little speeches ready to be fired off upon an
appreciative public, and see their chance slipping away.[297:1] Perhaps
they are bores, but on them the closure falls as a blight, and they
raise the bitter cry of the curtailment of the rights of private
members.
[Sidenote: Closure at the End of a Sitting.]
The closure can be moved at any time, even when a member is speaking,
but perhaps its most effective use is at the close of the sitting. A
standing order adopted in 1888 provides[297:2] that when the hour
arrives for the cessation of debate--technically known as the
interruption of business,--the closure may be moved upon the main
question under consideration, with all others dependent upon it. This
gives an opportunity of finishing a bit of work without appearing to cut
off discussion arbitrarily, and it is especially valuable now that the
new rules of 1902 have established on four days of the week[297:3] two
regular sittings with an interruption at the end of each.
[Sidenote: The Guillotine.]
While the closure is effective in bringing to an end debate on a single
question, or in getting past some one particularly difficult point in
the career of a bill, it is quite inadequate for passing a great,
complicated government measure that provokes relentless opposition. Here
it is as useless as the sword of Hercules against the Hydra. Amendments
bristle by the score at every clause, and spring up faster than they can
be cut off. The motion that certain words "stand part of a clause," or
that a "clause stand part of the bill," was intended to work like the
hero's hot iron, because if the motion is adopted no amendment can
afterward be moved to that word or that clause. But in practice such
motions cannot be used ruthlessly. The government discovered the
insufficiency of the closure under the Standing Order of 1887, during
the debates on the very bill whose enactment it had been adopted to
secure, and resorted to a procedure which had already been used by Mr.
Gladstone on a couple of Irish coercion bills in 1881.[298:1] Five days
had been consumed on the first reading of the Irish Crimes Act of 1887,
seven on the second reading, and fifteen days more had been spent in
Committee of the Whole on four out of the twenty clauses of the bill;
when the government moved that at ten o'clock on June 17, being the end
of the next week, the Chairman should, without further debate, put all
questions necessary to bring the committee stage to an end.[298:2] The
motion was adopted, and from its trenchant operation the process was
known as the "guillotine." It served its purpose, but from the point of
view of parliamentary deliberation it was a very imperfect instrument,
for all the clauses after the sixth were put to vote without amendment
or debate.[299:1]
[Sidenote: Closure by Compartments.]
The defect of the guillotine, that it resulted in needlessly long
discussions on a few early clauses, to the entire neglect of the rest,
was largely remedied in the case of the Home Rule Bill of 1893. After
twenty-eight nights had been spent in committee on the first four
clauses, the House, on June 30, adopted a resolution that debate on
clauses five to eight should close on July 6, on clauses nine to
twenty-six on July 13, on clauses twenty-seven to forty on July 20, and
on the postponed and new clauses on July 27.[299:2] This form of
procedure, sometimes called closure by compartments, has the merit of
distributing the discussion over different parts of the measure, and of
affording at least a probability that any provision exciting general
interest will receive some measure of attention. It was used again on
the Evicted Tenants Bill in 1894,[299:3] and the Education Bill in
1902;[299:4] and may now be said to have become a regular, because a
necessary, practice in the case of difficult and hotly contested
measures. But save in the case of supply, it has been the subject of a
special resolution passed for a particular bill, under what have been
treated as exceptional conditions, and it has found no mention in the
standing orders.[299:5]
[Sidenote: Closure of Supply.]
The guillotine has been applied more systematically to supply. Formerly
the estimates were taken in their order, with the result that much time
was wasted early in the session over trivial matters, like the repairs
of royal palaces in Class I.; while great appropriations of important
departments were rushed through at the fag end of the session.[300:1]
But at the instance of Mr. Balfour a sessional order was passed in 1896
allowing in that session twenty days for supply, with a provision for
taking a vote, without further debate, on every grant left when the days
expired, the time allowed being, he thought, about the average amount
heretofore devoted to the subject.[300:2] As the grants in supply,
unlike the clauses of a bill, can be brought before the House in any
order that the minister may choose, there was not the same need of a
closure by compartments; but in order to remove any fear that the
government might hold back certain appropriations, Mr. Balfour said that
the important grants, and those which any group of members wanted to
discuss, would be taken first.[300:3] The resolution was renewed from
year to year[300:4] until by the new rules of 1902 it was permanently
embodied in the standing orders.[300:5]
As the rule now stands, twenty days,[300:6] all to come before Aug. 5,
are allotted for the consideration of the estimates,[300:7] and on the
days so allotted no other business can be taken before midnight.[300:8]
At ten o'clock on the last day but one the Chairman must put to vote
every question needed to dispose of the grant under consideration; and
then put in succession all the outstanding grants by classes, those in
each class being taken together and put as a single question. At ten
o'clock on the last day the Speaker follows the same process for closing
the report stage of the estimates.
The real object of the debates in supply at the present day is not
financial discussion, but criticism of the administration of the
departments, their work being brought under review as their estimates
are considered.[301:1] In that light the new procedure has worked very
well. Complaint has been made that the government no longer cares what
grants are brought forward for debate--leaving that to the
Opposition,--or how long the discussion upon them may take, or whether
it ends with a vote upon them or not, knowing very well that all these
grants must be adopted under closure when the twenty days expire.[301:2]
This is perfectly true; but on the other hand the procedure gives the
fullest opportunity for criticising the administration, and forcing a
discussion of grievances, the matters to be criticised being selected by
the critics themselves. Although the Opposition, as in duty bound,
resisted the adoption of some portions of the rule, it may be safely
said that the rule itself will not be repealed by any government that
may come to power.
FOOTNOTES:
[292:1] Lecky attributed what he called "the enormous and portentous
development of parliamentary speaking" partly to the scenes of violence
and obstruction, which have weakened both the respect for the House and
the timidity that imposed a restraint on idle speech; partly to the
growth of the provincial press which reports members in full in their
own constituencies; and partly to the vast increase in stump oratory
which has given nearly all members a fatal facility. ("Democracy and
Liberty," I., 146-47.) A traveller is struck both by the universal
fluency, and by the ephemeral character, of public speaking in England,
at the present day.
[293:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVII., 1141-42.
[293:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXVI., 2032-33.
[293:3] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 52-53.
[294:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 155-56.
[294:2] _Ibid._, 435-38, 1070-71, 1343-44; CCLIX., 888-90; also
published in Com. Papers, 1881, LXXIV., 1-9.
[294:3] Such as that debate on dilatory motions should be confined to
the motion; that the House should go in and out of committee without
question put; that divisions frivolously claimed, and dilatory motions
made for delay might be refused by the chair; and most striking of all,
a provision for stopping debate altogether upon a certain stage of a
bill by putting all outstanding amendments and clauses at a fixed
time--a shadow of the future guillotine. This process was, indeed,
employed by Mr. Gladstone to pass two Irish bills in that very session.
[295:1] A number of new rules were added at this time, and the standing
orders were rearranged and put into their present sequence. Com. Papers,
1882, LII., 139, 243. The standing order on this subject became No. 14.
[295:2] The Standing Order of 1882 was not repealed until 1888.
[295:3] In the same way a motion may be made to put forthwith the
question that certain words stand part of a clause, or that a clause
stand part of the bill, and this cuts off summarily all amendments to
those words or that clause. These standing orders are now Nos. 26 and
27.
[296:1] Owing partly to the extension of an automatic form of closure,
to be explained hereafter, the applications in 1903 fell to thirteen.
[296:2] From 1887 to 1905, inclusive, the closure was moved by private
members 517 times, and consent was refused in 178 of these cases. The
proportion of refusals is almost uniform throughout the period, rather
increasing during the last few years.
Closure has failed for lack of 100 affirmative votes only once in the
last ten years. That was in 1905.
[296:3] From 1887 to 1896, inclusive, the closure was moved by the
government 313 times, and consent was withheld in 52 of these cases.
From 1897 to 1905 it was so moved 338 times, but consent was withheld
only 23 times.
[297:1] _Cf._ Palgrave, "The House of Commons," Ed. of 1878, 41-42.
[297:2] Now S.O. 1 (4).
[297:3] It is commonly stated that closure cannot be used in a standing
committee, (Ilbert, "Manual," §§ 80, note, 135 note); but it was done on
July 12, 1901, in the Standing Committee on Law; and although the
persons aggrieved stated that they should bring the matter to the
attention of the House, they did not feel confidence enough in their
case to do so. (See _The Times_, July 17, 1901, and the Political Notes
in the number for July 13. Curiously enough the incident is not
mentioned in the report of the meeting of the committee in that number.)
For other statements of its use in a standing committee, _cf._ 2d Rep.
of Sel. Com. on House of Commons (Procedure), May 25, 1906, Qs. 418,
420.
Since this was written closure in standing committees has been
sanctioned by a change in the standing orders; twenty affirmative votes
being required.
[298:1] After giving notice of his intention to do so, he moved, on Feb.
21, 1881, that all clauses and amendments of the Protection of Life and
Property (Ireland) Bill should be put to vote in Committee of the Whole
at twelve o'clock that night. This was done, and repeated upon the
report stage of the bill (Hans. 3 Ser. CCLVIII., 1092, 1344, 1392, 1472,
1608, 1665, 1672-75). The same process was adopted a few days later for
the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill. (Hans. 3 Ser. CCLIX., 657, 659,
691-95,697, 740, 762-65.)
[298:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCCXV., 1594.
[299:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCCXVI., 484-88.
[299:2] Hans. 4 Ser. XIV., 590.
[299:3] Hans. 4 Ser. XXVII., 1410-46. In this case, for the first time,
the report stage was included in the original motion.
[299:4] Hans. 4 Ser. CXIV., 735-38.
[299:5] One of the latest and most elaborate examples of its use was on
the Territorial and Reserve Forces Bill of 1907. Hans. 4 Ser. CLXXIII.,
1367-70, 1463-66.
[300:1] _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. XXXVII., 727.
[300:2] _Ibid._, 732.
[300:3] _Ibid._, 728-730.
[300:4] It may be assumed that the House will never reject any of the
outstanding grants, but a useless number of divisions might be forced in
voting upon them. As the number of such grants is usually little short
of one hundred, the time wasted in walking through the lobbies on the
last night might be monstrous. To avoid this a rule was adopted in 1901
that when the allotted time expired, all the remaining grants in any one
class should be put to vote together. Hans. 4 Ser. XCVIII., 1619-20.
[300:5] S.O. 15.
[300:6] Three more days may be added by special order.
[300:7] These include the votes on account, but only one day can be
given to each of the three votes on account, and only one sitting, or
half a day, to the report of such a vote. Days devoted to supplementary
estimates or votes of credit are not included; nor are those days on
which the question must be put that the Speaker leave the chair, because
those days are really occupied not by the votes of supply, but by
general criticism of the government. (See Chap. XVIII., _infra_.) The
short sitting of Friday counts as half a day.
This does not apply to private bills, questions, and the other matters
that are taken up in the first hour, before the regular orders of the
day are reached.
[301:1] Mr. Balfour said this frankly in the debate on the rule in 1896.
(Hans. 4 Ser. XXXVII., 724-26.)
[301:2] Hans. 4 Ser. XCVIII., 1548.
CHAPTER XVI
PROCEDURE IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
_Sittings and Order of Business_
[Sidenote: Sittings of the House.]
After describing the processes of legislation, a word must be said about
the order of business for each day and for the session as a whole. On
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the House now meets at a
quarter before three, and sits until half-past eleven, when it is
automatically adjourned unless business specially exempted is under
consideration. But the sitting is divided by the mystic hour of a
quarter past eight into two parts which are reserved on certain days for
quite different kinds of business. On Friday the House sits from noon
till half-past five, and on Saturday it does not meet at all unless by
special vote on very rare occasions.[302:1]
[Sidenote: Interruption of Business.]
With the exception to be noted in a moment, all business upon which the
House may be engaged is interrupted at half-past five o'clock on Friday,
and eleven on other days; but unopposed business may still be taken up
until the hour arrives for adjournment. During that interval the orders
of the day are read, and each of them may in turn be debated and even
voted upon, unless a division is challenged, or some member
objects.[303:1] In short, work can be done after the time for
interruption only by universal consent, a single member having power to
prevent the consideration of any measure to which he is opposed. Yet a
certain amount of business is transacted at these times; and, in fact, a
private member's bill would stand little chance, even if no one had any
serious objection to it, unless it could pass through some of its stages
in this way.
[Sidenote: Exceptions Thereto.]
To the rule that no opposed business can be taken after eleven o'clock
there is an important exception. A minister may move at the beginning of
the afternoon sitting that any specified business shall not be
interrupted at that hour, and the question must be put without amendment
or debate. This is often done toward the close of the session, and
results in sittings that run far into the night. Bills originating in
Committee of Ways and Means, and proceedings taken in pursuance of a
statute[304:1] or standing order, are also exempted from the rules about
interruption, about taking up no opposed business after eleven o'clock,
and about adjournment at half-past eleven o'clock.[304:2] It must be
remembered also that closure may be moved after the hour for
interruption has struck.[304:3]
[Sidenote: Order of Business for the Day.]
The first sitting of each day is opened with prayer. The Speaker then
takes the chair, and certain formal or routine business that occupies
little time is taken up in the following order.
1. Private business, that is, bills relating to private or local
matters. Private business, which is unopposed, and therefore takes no
appreciable time, is taken up first. Opposed private business is not
taken up at all on Friday, and if not finished by three o'clock on other
days is postponed to a quarter past eight on such day as the Chairman of
Ways and Means may determine.[304:4]
2. Presentation of public petitions (if presented orally instead of
being dropped silently into a bag behind the Speaker's chair). As a rule
no debate is in order, and hence this process is also short,[304:5] and
must be finished by three o'clock.[304:6]
3. At that hour, on the afternoon sittings, the important business of
putting questions to ministers begins.[305:1] The character and
political effect of these questions will be examined in Chapter XVIII,
but from the point of view of parliamentary time it may be noted that
the practice has grown so much during the last thirty years as to
require some limitation. In 1901 the questions asked numbered 7180, and
consumed 119 hours, or the equivalent of fifteen parliamentary days of
eight hours each.[305:2] The new rules of 1902 sought to check the
tendency in two ways; by giving the option of requiring an oral or a
written answer, the question in the former case being marked in the
notice paper with an asterisk; and by fixing a strict limit to the time
consumed. Forty minutes are allowed for putting questions, the answers
to those not reached by a quarter before four, like the answers to
questions not starred, being printed with the votes of the day.[305:3]
4. If there is a vacant moment before three o'clock, or between the time
questions come to an end and a quarter before four o'clock, it may be
used by motions for unopposed returns, for leave of absence, or for
similar unopposed matters that would otherwise have to be taken up after
the interruption of business.[305:4]
5. Immediately after questions, a member rising in his place may make
the portentous motion "for the adjournment of the House for the purpose
of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance."[305:5]
This is usually, but not necessarily, made in consequence of a highly
unsatisfactory answer that has just been given to a question. It may
seem strange to move to adjourn before serious business has begun, but
as such a motion has not been carried for nearly a score of years that
feature is unimportant, and its real significance in giving a chance to
discuss at short notice some action of the government will be explained
in Chapter XVIII. Formerly the debate upon the motion took place
immediately; but now the member merely obtains--by the support of forty
members, or by vote of the House--leave to make his motion, while the
debate itself is postponed to a quarter past eight o'clock.
6. Then come what are called "matters taken at the commencement of
public business." These are the presentation of bills without an order
of the House or under the ten-minute rule, and motions by a minister
relating to the conduct of business to be decided without amendment or
debate.
7. Finally comes the regular business of the sitting, in the form of
notices of motions or orders of the day. The distinction between these
two classes of business is not easy to explain with precision;[306:1]
but for our purpose it is unimportant, except so far as one class has
precedence over the other. Now the government has authority to arrange
the order of its own business as it pleases;[306:2] and in relation to
private members, orders of the day practically mean bills, and notices
of motion mean resolutions and other matters that are not bills. The
application of the distinction comes, therefore, to this, that of the
sittings set apart for private members, Friday is reserved for their
bills, and Tuesdays and Wednesdays after a quarter past eight o'clock
for their other motions.[306:3]
[Sidenote: Order at Evening Sittings.]
At a quarter past eight o'clock the first business is a motion for
adjournment on an urgent matter of public business, in the occasional
instances where leave has been obtained at the afternoon sitting to make
it. Next follows any postponed private business that may have been
assigned to that evening; and then come the notices of motions and
orders of the day.
By the new arrangement with its definite time for certain business, the
work of the House is better distributed. There is no longer the same
danger that the discussion of a private bill or of a motion to adjourn,
or an interminable series of questions, will unexpectedly cut a great
piece out of the hours when the House is most crowded, and the leading
men are waiting to debate a great public measure. At the afternoon
sitting the regular business of the day is reached at a quarter before
four, or very little later, and it proceeds without interruption until a
quarter before eight. After that hour--unless there is an opposed
private bill, which does not often take long, or by chance a motion to
adjourn--the regular business, which may not be the same as at the
afternoon sitting, begins again, and goes on until eleven. With the
habits of slack attendance when nothing is expected, and the necessity
for a presence in force when a division that touches the Treasury Bench
may be taken, it is a matter of no small import to be able to forecast
the business of a sitting.
The severe pressure for time has thus brought about a minute allotment
of the hours at each sitting for definite kinds of business, and the
same cause has produced a similar, although less exact, distribution in
the work of the session as a whole.
[Sidenote: Order of Business for the Session.]
The regular session of Parliament opens about the beginning of February,
and the first business is the address in reply to the King's speech.
Formerly it was an elaborate affair, which referred to the clauses of
the speech in succession, but since 1890 it has taken the form of a
single resolution expressing simply the thanks of the Commons for his
Majesty's most gracious speech. Amendments are moved by the various
sections of the Opposition in the shape of additions thereto, pointing
out how the government has done things it ought not to have done, and
left undone things it ought to have done; and even members of the
majority, who are disgruntled because their pet hobbies have been left
unnoticed, follow the same course. The debates on the address take
practically the whole time of the House for two or three weeks.[308:1]
As soon as they are over, the Committee of Supply is set up, and sits
one or two days each week, the rest of the sittings being taken up with
government measures, and with business introduced by private members.
Hope springs eternal in the legislative breast, and every assembly
undertakes more work than it can accomplish thoroughly. In some
legislatures this results in a headlong rushing through of measures
almost without discussion at the end of the session. But while, under
closure by compartments and the supply rule, this may be true in England
of certain clauses of bills and of large parts of the appropriations, it
is not true of bills as a whole. Parliament is, primarily, a forum for
debate, rather than a machine for legislation, and bills that cannot be
discussed at some length are dropped. After the Whitsuntide recess every
year, the leader of the House announces that owing to lack of time the
government has found it necessary to abandon such and such measures, a
proceeding familiarly known as the slaughter of the innocents. But it is
not their own bills alone that the ministers are obliged to slay. In
order to get through their own remaining work they have long been in the
habit of taking by special order, after the Easter recess, a part of the
sittings reserved for private members, and of seizing all the rest soon
after Whitsuntide. The practice was regulated and made systematic by the
new rules of 1902; but this brings us to the relation of the cabinet and
of private members to the work of the House, which forms the subject of
the following chapter.
FOOTNOTES:
[302:1] Until 1888 the regular hour of meeting on Monday, Tuesday,
Thursday, and Friday was a quarter before four o'clock; but as there was
no provision for adjournment at any fixed hour, debate on a subject
might go on indefinitely; and, in fact, all-night sittings were common.
In 1879 a standing order had been adopted that no opposed business, not
specially exempted, should be taken up after half-past twelve; but this
did not put a stop to a business in hand at that hour. Owing to the
fatigue caused by late sittings (Temple, "Life in Parliament," 184-85),
a standing order was adopted in 1888 changing the hour of meeting on
those four days to three o'clock, and providing that at midnight the
business under consideration should, unless specially exempted, be
interrupted; that no other opposed business should thereafter be taken
up; and that the House should adjourn not later than one o'clock. The
hours of sitting on Wednesday were left as before at from noon to six
o'clock.
For some time it had been the habit, especially in the latter part of
the session, to break the day occasionally into two sittings, the
earlier one beginning at two o'clock, and being called a morning
sitting. After 1888 these two sittings were held from two until seven,
and from nine until twelve (S.O. of March 7, 1888), the days being
commonly Tuesdays and Fridays.
Now although the system of two sittings a day, with a considerable
interval for dinner, involved beginning at an hour in the afternoon
inconveniently early for men in the active work of a business or
profession, it had certain manifest advantages, and was made the
universal practice in 1902. At that time the standing orders were
extensively revised, and in particular the subject of the sittings, with
the order of business thereat, was remodelled. For the sake of giving
members a chance to pass what is known as the week-end in the country,
the short day was transferred from Wednesday to Friday, the House
meeting on that day at twelve, and adjourning automatically at six (S.O.
2); while each of the other four working days was divided into afternoon
and evening sittings, the first from two until half-past seven, and the
other from nine until one (S.O. 1). Finally in 1906 another change of
hours was made, without, however, any essential alteration in the method
of doing business. The inconvenience of early attendance at the House
was avoided by changing the hour of meeting on Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, and Thursday to quarter before three, while the hour for the
adjournment was changed to half-past eleven, and a part of the time then
lost was made up by abolishing the formal interval of an hour and a half
for dinner. But although there is now one continuous sitting on each of
these days, the order of business arranged for the two sittings has been
retained, the break coming at a quarter past eight. The hour of
adjournment on Friday was changed at the same time to half-past five.
[303:1] May, 209. Business which is merely formal, or which follows as
of course from action already taken by the House, may be transacted in
spite of objection. May, 210.
[304:1] Under this head is included action upon statutory orders, where
the act provides, as it usually does, that the order shall be laid
before Parliament, and shall not go into effect if either House adopts
an address with that object. Without this exception to the rule the
House would have no real opportunity to adopt such an address, unless
the government chose to give part of its time for the purpose. Ilbert,
"Manual," § 36 note.
[304:2] S.O. 1 (2), (3), (5), (7), (8). Ilbert, §§ 35-39. The Annual
Army Bill has always been treated as exempted business. _Ibid._, § 36
note.
[304:3] S.O. 1 (4). A division in progress is not interrupted. Ilbert, §
35 note.
[304:4] Such postponed private business must be distributed as equally
as may be between the days allotted to the government and to private
members. S.O. 8; Ilbert, § 50. The procedure on private bills will be
described in Chap. xx. _infra_.
[304:5] Ilbert, §§ 51-54, 47 n. S.Os. 76-80.
[304:6] Except in the rare cases where debate is allowed on the ground
that an urgent personal grievance is involved. Ilbert, § 53 (6).
[305:1] S.O. 9. Ilbert, §§ 55-60. It is not usual to ask on Friday
questions requiring an oral answer. Ilbert, § 56 note.
[305:2] Hans. 4 Ser. CI., 1353.
[305:3] Unless the minister was not present to answer, or the question
did not appear on the notice paper, and is of an urgent character. S.O.
9 (3).
[305:4] In practice a motion for a new writ of election is usually made
before questions, and the introduction of a new member follows them.
Ilbert, § 47 note.
[305:5] S.O. 10.
[306:1] Ilbert, § 41 note. Technically an order of the day is a matter
which is set down for a particular day by an order of the House; a
notice of motion is a motion set down for the day by notice given by a
member without any order of the House; but under the present rules an
order of the House is made in many cases without any actual vote, or
even the opportunity for a vote, the proceedings being in fact much the
same as in the case of a notice of motion. The distinction remains,
however, as a means of classifying different kinds of business.
[306:2] S.O. 5.
[306:3] S.O. 4.
[308:1] As Redlich remarks (_Recht und Technik_, 315-16), the speech
having a general political character, debate and amendment are not
limited by any rule of relevancy, but stray over every kind of political
grievance or aspiration and the whole foreign and domestic policy of the
government. He points out that until 1880 the debate rarely took more
than a couple of days, but since that time the number of sittings
devoted to it has run from six to sixteen.
CHAPTER XVII
THE CABINET'S CONTROL OF THE COMMONS
[Sidenote: A Body of Men can say only Yes or No.]
For the purpose of collective action every body of men is in the plight
of M. Noirtier de Villefort in "Monte Cristo," who was completely
paralysed except for one eye. Like him it has only a single faculty,
that of saying Yes or No. Individually the members may express the most
involved opinions, the most complex and divergent sentiments, but when
it comes to voting, the body can vote only Yes or No. Some one makes a
motion, some one else moves an amendment, perhaps other amendments are
superimposed, but on each amendment in turn, and finally on the main
question, the body simply votes for or against. Where a body acts by
plurality it can, of course, choose which of several propositions it
will adopt, which of several persons, for example, it will elect.[309:1]
But this depends upon the same general principle, that the body can act
collectively only on propositions laid before it by an individual, or a
group of men acting together as an individual. Ordinarily it can only
answer Yes or No to questions laid before it one at a time in that way.
[Sidenote: Framing the Question.]
Obviously, therefore, it is of vital importance to know who has power to
ask the question; and, in fact, one of the great arts in managing bodies
of men consists in so framing questions as to get the best possible
chance of a favourable reply. In small bodies that have limited
functions and an abundance of time, the members are free to propose any
questions they please; but in large assemblies, all of whose proceedings
are of necessity slower, this freedom is curtailed by lack of time,
especially if the range of activities is wide. Hence the legislatures of
all great states have been constrained to adopt some process for
restricting or sifting the proposals or bills of their members. The most
common device is that of referring the bills to committees, which can
practically eliminate those that have no serious chance of success, and
can amend others, putting them into a more acceptable form. In such
cases the committees enjoy, if not the exclusive privilege of proposing
questions to the legislature, at least the primary right of framing the
questions that are to be submitted, and this gives them a momentous
power. An organisation by committees is the most natural evolution of a
legislative body, if there is nothing to obstruct it. Now in Parliament
there has been something to obstruct it, and that is the system of a
responsible ministry.
[Sidenote: The Cabinet.]
The cabinet has been said to be a committee, and the most important
committee of the House; but it is really far more. Unlike an ordinary
committee, it does not have the bills of members referred to it. On the
contrary it has the sole right to initiate, as well as to frame, the
measures it submits to the House; and these comprise, in fact, almost
all the important bills that are enacted. By far the greater part of
legislation originates, therefore, exclusively with the ministers. The
system of a responsible ministry has obstructed the growth of
committees; because, in the case of government measures, the chief
function of such committees, that of sifting bills and putting them into
proper shape, is performed by the cabinet itself; and also because, as
will be shown hereafter, the authority of the cabinet would be weakened
if other bodies, not necessarily in accord with it, had power to modify
its proposals. In this connection it may be observed that in the domain
of private and local bills, where the responsibility of the cabinet
does not extend, there has developed a most elaborate and complete set
of committees, to which all such bills are referred.
[Sidenote: Subjects Treated in this Chapter.]
The relation of the cabinet to the House of Commons may be conveniently
treated under three heads: the initiative left to private members; the
direct control of the cabinet over legislation with its effects; and the
control of the House over the administration and the general policy of
the government.
[Sidenote: Private Members' Bills.]
It may appear strange that the existence of a responsible ministry
should obstruct the growth of committees on public bills brought in by
private members. Nevertheless it has done so; partly by reducing those
bills to a position of secondary importance; and partly because if the
committees were under the control of the government the private member
would be even more helpless than he is now, and if they were not they
might be at times inconvenient rivals to the ministry. As the House of
Commons is organised, therefore, the committees play a minor part. The
most important legislation of a public nature originates with the
ministers, and is entirely in their charge, save for an occasional
reference to a committee under exceptional circumstances; while private
members are free to bring their public bills before the House,
unfettered by any committee, provided they can find a chance to do so in
the extremely meagre allowance of time at their disposal. In short the
Commons have solved the question of time by giving most of it to the
government to use as it pleases, and leaving the private members to
scramble for the rest.
[Sidenote: Time Allotted to Private Members.]
Under the new rules of 1902 and 1906 government business has precedence,
from the opening of the session until Easter, at every sitting, except
after a quarter past eight o'clock on Tuesday and Wednesday and at the
sitting on Friday. Until Easter, therefore, these three periods in the
week are reserved for the private members. Between Easter and
Whitsuntide the government is given the whole of Tuesday for its own
use, and after Whitsuntide it has all the time except the third and
fourth Fridays next following.[312:1] As the private members have no
time reserved for them until the close of the debate on the address, the
arrangement gives them in a normal year about thirty parts of the
session out of a couple of hundred. It must be remembered also that the
part of a sitting after quarter past eight is shorter than that which
goes before; is never, on private members' nights, prolonged beyond the
hour of interruption; and is liable to be broken into by opposed private
bills, and motions to adjourn on a matter of urgent public
importance.[312:2] It is clear, therefore, that the share of time
reserved for private members is small. But although their lamentations
over confiscation of their sittings by the government have been
constant, the actual time at their disposal has not, in fact, been
seriously diminished of late years. An examination of the parliamentary
papers shows that in the ten years from 1878 to 1887 government business
actually had precedence on the average in eighty-three per cent. of the
sittings, and during the following decade in about eighty-four and a
half per cent.[312:3] This is very little less than the proportion that
now prevails. The recent rules have merely sanctioned by permanent
standing order a practice that had long been followed in an irregular
way by special resolutions adopted during the course of the session.
[Sidenote: Ballot for Days.]
When, as Hobbes remarked, there is not enough of any article to satisfy
everybody, and no one has authority to apportion it, the most obvious
means of distribution is the lot. This primitive method is still
employed for dividing among the private members the time reserved for
their use. Their sittings are devoted to two different objects. On
Tuesday and Wednesday evenings notices of motions have precedence, while
Friday is the day for bills. At the beginning of a session members who
want to introduce bills send in their names, and in the order in which
the lots are drawn they set down their bills for second reading on a
Friday, selecting, of course, the earliest unoccupied day. In this way
every Friday before Whitsuntide is taken, and although there will
probably not be time to deal with more than one bill in a day, less
successful competitors place their measures second or third on the
lists, hoping that they may be reached.
The first bill on the list usually comes to a vote on the second
reading, but when that point has been passed it is difficult to find an
opportunity for any of its subsequent steps. A reference to a standing
committee affords the best chance, because it avoids the committee stage
in the House. If a bill is not so referred, it is almost certainly
doomed, unless it can pass some of its stages, unopposed, after the hour
for the interruption of business; and, in fact, any bill is well-nigh
hopeless that does not take at least one step in this way.[313:1] On the
two Fridays remaining after Whitsuntide private members' bills are given
precedence in the order of their progress,[313:2] the most advanced
obtaining the right of way. The leader of the House may, however, star
any bill, that is, give to it a fraction of the government time, but
this is very rarely done, and never till near the close of a session.
[Sidenote: Insignificance of Private Members' Legislation.]
As there are only about a dozen Fridays before Whitsuntide, a private
member must be very fortunate in the ballot, or he must have a number of
friends interested in the same bill, to get it started with any prospect
of success; and even then there is scarcely a hope of carrying it
through if a single member opposes it persistently at every point. Ten
or fifteen such bills are enacted a year, and of these only a couple
provoke enough difference of opinion to lead to a division during their
course in the House.[314:1] But while many private members loudly bewail
their wrongs, they make no organised effort for mutual protection. These
men are, in fact, separate units without a basis for combination. They
have not even that spirit of the golden rule, which does much harm in
legislation. They show neither the good nature, nor the instinct for
log-rolling, which prompts men to vote for one another's bills, hoping
for like favours in return. Hence their labours produce little fruit,
either sweet or bitter. In short, the public legislation initiated by
private members is neither large in amount, nor important in character,
and it cannot be passed against serious opposition,--a condition that
tends to become more marked as time goes on.
[Sidenote: Private Members' Motions.]
The privilege on the part of private members of bringing forward motions
on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings is, like that of having bills
considered on Friday, determined by lot; with this difference, that a
notice of motion cannot be given more than four motion days ahead, and
hence the first ballot covers only two weeks, and is followed by fresh
balloting every week until Easter.[314:2] In order to improve the chance
of getting a hearing, a number of members interested in the same
question will often send in their names, with the understanding that any
one of them who is lucky enough to be drawn shall set down the motion.
This practice was introduced by the Irishmen; but it has now become
common among members of all kinds who take, or wish to appear to take,
an interest in a subject. It is called "syndicating," and has resulted
in making the motions not infrequently reflect the views of a
considerable section of the House.
[Sidenote: Their Nature and Effect.]
The motions on these nights take the form of resolutions, and are of
every kind. Some of them express aspirations of an abstract nature, such
as that the government ought to encourage cotton-growing in the British
colonies, or that the greater part of the cost of training teachers
ought to be borne by the national exchequer.[315:1] Others demand more
definite legislation about matters on which the parties are not prepared
to take sides. A motion, for example, was carried in 1904 that the
franchise for members of Parliament ought to be extended to women. But a
resolution adopted in that way, without opposition from the government,
is commonly regarded as a mere aspiration, and has hardly a perceptible
effect. Others again deal with the hobbies of individuals, and in that
case the members are apt to go home, so that after an hour or two of
desultory talk the House is counted out for lack of a quorum; the
frequency with which that occurs depending, of course, upon the amount
of general interest attaching to the motions that happen to appear on
the list.[315:2] Finally there are motions which attack the cabinet or
its policy, motions, for example, condemning preferential tariffs on
food, or the control by the central government of the police in Ireland.
Motions of that sort are, of course, strenuously resisted by the
Treasury Bench, and they will be discussed hereafter when we come to the
methods of criticising the action of the ministry.[315:3] Apart from
cases of this last class, the motions of private members have even less
practical importance than their bills. Occasionally a real popular
demand may find expression in that way, but it is uncommon, and the
chief value of the Tuesday and Wednesday evening sittings would seem to
lie in helping to keep alive the salutary fiction that members of
Parliament still possess a substantial power of independent action.
[Sidenote: Control of the Cabinet over Legislation.]
All the sittings not reserved for private members are at the disposal of
the government, and it can arrange the order of its business as it
thinks best.[316:1] The responsibility of the ministers for legislation
is a comparatively recent matter.[316:2] Before the Reform Act of 1832
their functions were chiefly executive; but the rapid demand for great
remedial measures, and later the complexity of legislation due to the
extended control and supervision by the administrative departments, and
not least the concentration of power in the cabinet by the growth of the
parliamentary system, brought about a change. By the middle of the
century that change was recognised, and at the present day the ministers
would treat the rejection of any of their important measures as
equivalent to a vote of want of confidence.[316:3]
Moreover, the government is responsible not only for introducing a bill,
but also for failing to do so. At a meeting in the autumn the cabinet
decides upon the measures it intends to bring forward, and announces
them in the King's speech at the opening of the session. Amendments to
the address in reply are moved expressing regret that His Majesty has
not referred to some measure that is desired, and if such an amendment
were carried it would almost certainly cause the downfall of the
ministry. This happened, indeed, in 1886, when the resignation of Lord
Salisbury's cabinet was brought about by the adoption of an amendment
regretting that the speech announced no measure for providing
agricultural labourers with land.
[Sidenote: Amendments to Government Bills.]
Following upon the responsibility for the introduction and passage of
all important measures has come an increasing control by the ministers
over the details of their measures. It was formerly maintained that the
House could exercise a great deal of freedom in amending bills, without
implying a loss of general confidence in the cabinet.[317:1] But of late
amendments carried against the opposition of the Treasury Bench have
been extremely rare.[317:2] In fact only four such cases have occurred
in the last ten years. This does not mean that the debates on the
details of bills are fruitless. On the contrary, it often happens that
the discussion exposes defects of which the government was not aware, or
reveals an unsuspected but widespread hostility to some provision; and
when this happens the minister in charge of the bill often declares that
he will accept an amendment, or undertakes to prepare a clause to meet
the objection which has been pointed out.[317:3] But it does mean that
the changes in their bills are made by the ministers themselves after
hearing the debate, and that an amendment, even of small consequence,
can seldom be carried without their consent. This is the natural outcome
of the principle that the cabinet is completely responsible for the
principal public measures, and hence must be able to control all their
provisions so long as it remains in office.
[Sidenote: Relation of the Cabinet to the Committees.]
From the same point of view the relation of the government to the
various committees of the House is a matter of great importance. If the
cabinet is to be responsible for the policy of the state, and must
resign when defeated, it is manifestly entitled to frame the policy on
which it stands. But if, as in some countries that have copied the
parliamentary form of government, and notably in France, the bills of
the cabinet are referred for consideration and amendment to committees
not under its control, then it may have to face the alternative of
opposing its own bill on account of the amendments made therein, or of
standing upon a measure of which it can no longer wholly approve. It may
be put in the awkward position of defending a policy that has been
forced upon it, instead of one of its own selection. Such a condition of
things has sapped the authority of the ministry, and weakened the
government in more than one nation of continental Europe.[318:1] This
danger has been avoided in England by the very limited use of committees
on public bills, and by the influence of the Treasury Bench over those
that exist.
[Sidenote: Controversial Bills not Referred to Committees.]
The most important government bills, and especially those of a highly
controversial nature, are not referred to committees at all. They are
debated only in the House itself; and in Committee of the Whole, which
is merely the House sitting with slightly different rules, and not a
committee in the sense in which the word is used in this chapter. To
select committees few public bills are referred, and those as a rule are
certainly not of a controversial character.[319:1] The only difficulty
arises in the case of the standing committees. When he first proposed
these in 1882, Mr. Gladstone said that they were not intended to
consider measures of a partisan character;[319:2] and it has been
generally recognised ever since that very contentious bills ought not to
be referred to them.[319:3] A long debate on the subject took place
recently, on the occasion when the bill to restrict alien immigration
was sent to the Standing Committee on Law in 1904.[319:4] All the
members who took part in the discussions, except Mr. Chamberlain,[319:5]
agreed on the general principle; but they did not agree upon any test of
contentiousness, and were sharply divided on the question whether the
Aliens Bill was contentious or not. Mr. Balfour himself took the ground
that the controversial character of a bill is a matter of degree, and
that this bill was near the border line. The obstacles in its path
proved in the end so serious that it had to be dropped for the session.
That a bill is non-contentious clearly does not mean that it is
unopposed, or even that the opposition has no connection with party.
Every one of the six government bills referred to standing committees in
1899, for example, had a party vote at some stage in its passage
through the House.[320:1] These committees are expected to deal, not
with questions of political principle, but with details that require
technical skill or careful consideration, in bills where the general
principle is either non-contentious, or may be regarded as settled by
the House itself. They were intended to be used for measures on which
the committee stage is not likely to raise any important questions of
policy. The original intention, however, has not been wholly carried
out. Highly contentious bills have not infrequently been "sent
upstairs,"[320:2] as the expression goes, although this has never been
done in the case of the most important government measures. Many people
feel that the departure is unfortunate, and hence there was no little
opposition in 1907 to raising the number of standing committees to four,
and providing that all bills should be referred to them unless the House
ordered otherwise. An amendment, to the report of the committee, that
the provision should not apply to bills containing general controversial
matter was rejected by a strict party vote,[320:3] and the change in
procedure was put through the House itself by the use of closure.[320:4]
If the standing committees were confined to non-contentious measures,
they could create no serious embarrassment for the ministry, even if
quite free from its control.
[Sidenote: Party Complexion of Committees.]
But in fact the committees are a good deal under the influence of the
government. In the first place the government party is always given a
majority of the members. Formerly it had on select committees a majority
of one only,[320:5] but now it has become a general rule that both
select and standing committees shall reflect as nearly as may be the
party complexion of the House itself. Thus in 1894, when the parties
were nearly evenly balanced in the House, the government majority on the
committees was usually very small, but after the Conservatives came into
power with a much larger majority, their share of members in the
committees was correspondingly great.[321:1] The standing committees,
and often the select committees also, are appointed by the Committee of
Selection, which contains usually six adherents of the party in power,
and five from the other side of the House. But they are members of great
experience. They know the principles they are expected to apply, and
with their discretion in the choice of individuals the ministers make no
attempt to interfere.[321:2]
[Sidenote: Influence of the Government in Committees.]
The mere possession of a majority upon a committee is not always enough,
unless the government can bring pressure to bear upon its followers. In
select committees on bills this is not a matter of much consequence,
because, as we have seen, they rarely have charge of important, or at
least of contentious, measures. In select committees of inquiry one
hears nothing of pressure--to the credit of statesmen be it said--and
although the report of an English committee or commission of inquiry is
often a variation on the theme that "no one did anything wrong, but they
had better not do it again," still there are reports that contain
severe criticism on the public administration.[322:1] In the standing
committees the influence of the government is palpable. In fact these
committees, when dealing with government bills, are miniatures of the
House in arrangement as well as in composition. There are the same rows
of benches facing each other; and the minister in charge of the bill
sits in the corner seat at the chairman's right hand, accepting, or
refusing to accept, amendments on behalf of the government.[322:2]
Absent members are fetched in the same way to take part in
divisions;[322:3] and when the Conservatives were in power, whips were
sometimes issued imploring them to be present on the morrow, because an
important vote was expected. The Liberals do not do this, and often have
trouble in getting their partisans to attend. Moreover, a difficulty
sometimes arises from the fact that the members who are most strongly
interested in a bill and hence least under the control of the
minister--the Labour men or the Irish Nationalists, for example, in the
case of bills affecting their constituents--attend far more regularly
than the rest. But although the influence of the government over a
standing committee is distinctly less than over the House itself,[322:4]
it is certainly very considerable.
[Sidenote: Few Party Votes in Committees.]
Nevertheless the voting in both select and standing committees runs
little on party lines, decidedly less than it does in the House itself.
Taking two recent years, 1894 and 1899, for which the writer has had
statistics prepared, it appears that in 1894 there were in the select
committees twenty-three party votes out of eighty-four divisions; and
in the Standing Committees on Law and Trade[323:1] there were only
seven divisions in all, of which only two were on party lines; whereas
in the House itself there were one hundred and eighty-four party votes
out of a total of two hundred and forty-six divisions. Moreover, the
party votes in committees were mainly confined to a very few subjects.
Thus seventeen of the twenty-three party votes in the select committees
were given in the committee on the work of the Charity Commission, and
four of the remainder were in that on Scotch Feus and Building
Leases.[323:2] For 1899 the comparison is even more striking. In the
select committees there was one party vote out of sixty-three divisions;
in the standing committees six out of fifty-three--and those six were
all on one bill[323:3]--while in the House there were two hundred and
forty-two party votes out of three hundred and fifty-seven
divisions.[323:4]
The reasons why the votes run on party lines less in the committees than
in the House itself are self-evident. First there is the fact that the
most contentious measures, those where party feeling runs highest, are
not referred to committees. Another reason, not less important, is that
a defeat of the government, even in a standing committee, cannot
directly imperil the life of the ministry, and hence the final means of
pressure is lacking. In fact an amendment is occasionally carried
against the government in a standing committee, and in that case the
minister either makes up his mind to accept the change or tries to get
it reversed in the House on report. But this very condition, which is
embarrassing for the minister, shows that there is a limit to the work
standing committees can be set to do, without imperilling the authority
of the cabinet.
[Sidenote: Suggestion of a Committee on the Estimates.]
A similar danger would attend the use of committees on the estimates.
The creation of such committees has often been suggested,[324:1] and for
a very good reason. The debates on the estimates in the House of Commons
have become an opportunity for criticising the conduct of the
administration, while the financial aspect of the matter, the question
whether the grants are excessive and ought to be reduced or not, has
largely fallen out of sight. It has not unnaturally been felt that this
function, which the House itself is disinclined to discharge, might be
effectively performed by a select or standing committee. But if the
committee were really to revise the estimates, it would, like the
committees on the budget in continental parliaments, encroach upon the
power of the government to frame its own budget. It would imperil the
exclusive initiative in money matters, which is the corner-stone both of
sound finance, and of the authority of a responsible ministry. That the
Committee on Accounts should scrutinise the disbursements with care, to
see that they correspond with the votes, is most salutary; and that
special committees should be appointed from time to time, to review the
expenditures, and suggest possible lines of saving, is also excellent.
These are in the nature of criticism of past actions, with suggestions
of a general character for the future, and they do not affect the
freedom of the cabinet to lay down its own policy and prepare its own
budget.
The last committee on national expenditure reported in 1903 in favour of
having a select committee examine each year one class or portion of the
estimates; but there was a sharp difference of opinion on the question
whether such a committee would or would not interfere with the
responsibility of ministers, and the recommendation was adopted only by
a vote of seven to five.[325:1] In view of the experience in other
countries, one cannot help feeling that the minority was right; that
while the proposed committee would be far less of a thorn in the side of
the Treasury Bench than one on the estimates as a whole, yet that if it
really exerted any authority, and ventured to report reductions, it
would stand to just that extent in a position of antagonism and rivalry
with the ministers.
[Sidenote: Legislative Capacity of Parliament has been Reached.]
One of Mr. Gladstone's objects in proposing the standing committees was
to increase the legislative capacity of the House, by enabling it to do
a part of its work by sections sitting at the same time.[325:2] Such a
process of making one worm into two by cutting it in halves is well
enough with an organism whose nervous system is not too highly
centralised; and in England it seems to have been carried about as far
as is consistent with a responsible ministry. The standing committees
have to some extent fulfilled this purpose, but it is extremely doubtful
whether they can wisely be charged with bills of a more contentious
nature than are sent to them now. In order to increase the legislative
output the number of standing committees was raised to four, on April
16, 1907, with a provision that bills should be regularly referred to
them unless the House directed the contrary. How far this change will
result in placing in their hands more controversial bills, and how far
it will increase the power of the House to pass laws, remains to be
seen. There can be no doubt, however, that the legislative capacity of
Parliament is limited; and the limit would appear to be well-nigh
reached, unless private members are to lose their remnant of time, or
debate is to be still further restricted, so that the members will no
longer be free, until closure is moved, to speak at such length as they
please, and to discuss every conceivable detail, great or small, often
several times over. But upon the preservation of these things the
position of the House of Commons largely depends.
To say that at present the cabinet legislates with the advice and
consent of Parliament would hardly be an exaggeration; and it is only
the right of private members to bring in a few motions and bills of
their own, and to criticise government measures, or propose amendments
to them, freely, that prevents legislation from being the work of a mere
automatic majority. It does not follow that the action of the cabinet is
arbitrary; that it springs from personal judgment divorced from all
dependence on popular or parliamentary opinion. The cabinet has its
finger always on the pulse of the House of Commons, and especially of
its own majority there; and it is ever on the watch for expressions of
public feeling outside. Its function is in large part to sum up and
formulate the desires of its supporters, but the majority must accept
its conclusions, and in carrying them out becomes well-nigh automatic.
FOOTNOTES:
[309:1] Curiously enough, such a procedure is unknown in the House of
Commons, and the term itself is unfamiliar. It means in the case of an
election, for example, that a candidate to be successful need only have
more votes than any one else, whereas election by majority means that he
must have more than half of the votes cast. The proposal for a second
ballot in elections to Parliament involves requiring a majority instead
of a plurality on the first ballot.
[312:1] S.O. 4. In his account of the evolution of procedure in the
House of Commons (_Recht und Technik des Englischen Parlamentarismus_,
_Buch I., Abs. 2_), Redlich traces the history of the practice of
reserving particular days for the government, which began in 1811.
[312:2] It is a mistake to lay too much stress upon the exact proportion
of time allotted to private members and to the government; because much
of the time of each is devoted to the same purpose. One of the uses to
which private members' evenings are put is criticism of the conduct of
the ministry, but this is also the principal object of the debates upon
the address, upon the estimates in Committee of Supply, upon motions to
adjourn and on other occasions.
[312:3] These figures are taken from the return made for ten years in
1888, and the subsequent annual returns, making due allowance for the
cases of two short sittings instead of a long one in a day. An exact
computation by hours would be difficult. The evening sittings are
shorter than the average sittings, but so were the old Wednesday
sittings reserved for private members.
[313:1] As Redlich observes (_Recht und Technik_, 206) the introduction
of the twelve-o'clock rule for the interruption of business brought in
the habit of talking out a bill before midnight, and blocking bills
after midnight, two of the great obstacles to legislation by private
members.
[313:2] S.O. 6.
[314:1] Although the time at the disposal of private members has not
changed much of late years, the number of these bills enacted, and
especially of those enacted against opposition, has diminished sensibly.
In the decade from 1878 to 1887 about twenty-three such bills were
passed a year, and on four or five of these divisions took place.
[314:2] S.O. 7. Ilbert, "Manual," §§ 45, 119.
[315:1] The following examples are all taken from the session of 1904.
[315:2] In 1903, for example, the House was counted out for want of a
quorum on seven out of the seventeen private members' nights; while in
1904 this happened only once, and then after the first motion had been
voted down.
[315:3] On March 22 and 28, 1905, the ministers, with their followers,
took no part in the debates or divisions on the motions of private
members condemning their attitude on the fiscal question, and they paid
no attention to the votes. This event, which was unprecedented, will be
discussed later.
[316:1] S.O. 5.
[316:2] _Cf._ Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," II., 368. Ilbert,
"Legislative Methods and Forms," 82, 216.
[316:3] The only cases where a government bill has been rejected by the
House of Commons for more than a score of years are those of the Home
Rule Bill in 1886, on which the cabinet dissolved Parliament, and an
insignificant bill on church buildings in the Isle of Man, which was
defeated in a thin House in 1897.
[317:1] _Cf._ Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," II., 370-72.
[317:2] The number of amendments to government bills (not including the
estimates) carried against the government whips acting as tellers in
each year since 1850, has been as follows:--
1851 9
1852 2
1853 6
1854 7
1855 5
1856 7
1857 4
1858 2
1859 1
1860 4
1861 6
1862 6
1863 4
1864 2
1865 4
1866 2
1867 8
1868 7
1869 2
1870 2
1871 4
1872 8
1873 4
1874 0
1875 0
1876 0
1877 0
1878 0
1879 1
1880 0
1881 0
1882 1
1883 3
1884 3
1885 4
1886 2
1887 1
1888 1
1889 0
1890 0
1891 1
1892 0
1893 1
1894 0
1895 0
1896 1
1897 0
1898 0
1899 0
1900 0
1901 1
1902 0
1903 0
1904 2
1905 1
1906 0
[317:3] The minister often says that he will consider whether he can
meet the views that have been expressed; and then on the report stage he
brings up a compromise clause. An interesting example of this occurred
on July 23, 1906, when the Opposition complained that sufficient time
had not been given for debating the educational council for Wales, the
provisions proposed having been profoundly changed since it had been
last before the House. The government replied that the changes had been
made to meet objections raised by the Opposition itself. Hans. 4 Ser.
CLXI., 741 _et seq._
[318:1] For France, see Dupriez, _Les Ministres_, II., 406-8, 410-13.
Lowell, "Governments and Parties," I., 111-17. For Italy, Dupriez, I.,
309, 312. Lowell, I., 207-10. For Belgium, where the evil is diminished
by greater party discipline, and by the fact that the changes proposed
by the committee must be moved as amendments to the government bill, see
Dupriez, I., 243-45. In France permanent standing committees have been
very extensively substituted during the last few years for temporary
ones appointed to consider particular bills; but while this may do good
in other ways, it cannot entirely remove the evil described in the text.
[319:1] In each of the years 1894 and 1899, for example,--years for
which I have analysed the divisions in Parliament,--only one government
bill, that was enacted, was referred to a select committee, and neither
of these bills had a division on party lines in the course of its
progress through the House.
[319:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXXV., 149.
[319:3] See, for example, Hans. 4 Ser. IV., 1461, XXII., 1151, XXIII.,
713-14, 1012, XXXIII., 851-54, CII., 345.
[319:4] Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXV., 1086 _et seq._ Another debate has since
occurred on March 20-21, 1907.
[319:5] Mr. Chamberlain's views seem to have undergone some
modification. _Cf._ Hans. 4 Ser. XXIII., 1012, and CXXXV., 1113-14.
[320:1] I define a party vote arbitrarily as one where more than nine
tenths of the members of the party in power, who take part in the
division, vote together on one side, and nine tenths of the Opposition
who take part vote together on the other side.
[320:2] Second Rep. of Com. on House of Commons (Procedure), May 25,
1906, Qs. 96, 113, 142, 381 (p. 41). The rooms of the standing
committees are on the upper floor.
[320:3] _Ibid._, p. viii.
[320:4] Hans. 4 Ser. CLXXII., 873-919.
[320:5] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXXV., 306-7.
[321:1] This does not, of course, apply to the ordinary committees on
private and local bills, and it cannot always be strictly applied to all
select committees. But in the case of standing committees the
apportionment is decidedly accurate. In fact one of the chief objections
to a standing committee for Scotland, composed mainly of Scotch members,
was that it would not reflect the proportion of parties in the House. In
the debate Mr. Balfour remarked that this "is not merely the traditional
practice, but a practice absolutely necessary if we are to maintain
Governmental responsibility in matters of legislation." He asked what
would be the position of the government with standing committees of
which they did not happen to possess the confidence. The committee would
send back a bill changed, and then the minister must either drop the
bill, or accept it as it is, or reverse the changes on the report stage.
Such a position would, as he said, be intolerable, and would make
legislation by a responsible ministry an absurdity. (Hans. 4 Ser. XXII.,
1132, 1135-36.) _Cf._ Second Rep. Com. on House of Commons (Procedure),
May 25, 1906, Q. 100.
[321:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCCXXXIX., 126. The chairmen of the standing
committees are intended, like the Speaker, to be strictly impartial.
They are selected by and from the Chairman's Panel, which contains three
members from each side of the House; and a member of the Opposition
often presides when a government bill is discussed.
[322:1] Notably in recent years that of 1903 on the War in South Africa,
Com. Papers, 1904, XL., 1 _et seq._; and that of 1904 on the Beck case,
Com. Papers, 1905, LXII., 465 _et seq._
[322:2] "The very structure and furniture . . . of the Chamber in which
the Grand Committee would sit, were designed to carry out the idea of
government by Party." Hans. 4 Ser. XXII., 1162.
[322:3] Hans. 4 Ser. XCII., 570.
[322:4] Second Rep. of Com. on House of Commons (Procedure), 1906, Qs.
100, 280, 341.
[323:1] In the anomalous standing committee for Scotch business the
condition of things was very different. It reported upon only one bill,
that on Local Government for Scotland, and on this there were no less
than sixty-three divisions, of which twenty-one were party votes.
[323:2] Both of the party votes in the standing committees of Law and
Trade in 1894 were on the Church Patronage Bill, which was not a
government bill.
[323:3] The Agriculture and Technical Education (Ireland) Bill.
[323:4] The method of making these computations is the same as that
described in the chapter on "The Strength of Party Ties," and the
divisions in the committees are taken from their reports in the blue
books for the year.
The figures may be presented in other ways which give much the same
result. If we take only the party in power, to see in what proportion of
divisions it cast a party vote--paying no attention to the votes of the
members of the Opposition--we find it as follows:--
1894: House 81%; Select Coms. 49%; Stand. Coms. Law & Trade 43%
1899: House 91%; Select Coms. 34%; Stand. Coms. Law & Trade 59%
1900: House Select Coms. 18%; Stand. Coms. Law & Trade 43%
The proportion of divisions where neither party cast a party vote were
as follows:--
1894: House 4.13%; Select Coms. 25%; Stand. Coms. Law & Trade 14%
1899: House 2.28%; Select Coms. 43%; Stand. Coms. Law & Trade 26%
1900: House Select Coms. 45%; Stand. Coms. Law & Trade 41%
The number of party votes in 1900 was in Select Coms. 4 out of 51, and
in Stand. Coms. 6 out of 74.
[324:1] Todd, "Parl. Govt. in England," I., 744-46. May, 564. Rep. of
Com. on Estimates Procedure, Com. Papers, 1888, XII., 27, p. iv. Report
Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1903, VII., 483.
[325:1] Rep. Com. on Nat. Exp., Com. Papers, 1903, VII., 483.
[325:2] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXXV., 145-46.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE COMMONS' CONTROL OF THE CABINET
[Sidenote: Control of the House over Administration.]
If the relations between the cabinet and the House of Commons in
legislative matters have changed, their relations in executive matters
have been modified also. If the cabinet to-day legislates with the
advice and consent of the House, it administers subject to its constant
supervision and criticism. In both cases the relation is fundamentally
the same. In both the English system seems to be approximating more and
more to a condition where the cabinet initiates everything, frames its
own policy, submits that policy to a searching criticism in the House,
and adopts such suggestions as it deems best; but where the House, after
all this has been done, must accept the acts and proposals of the
government as they stand, or pass a vote of censure, and take the
chances of a change of ministry or a dissolution.
[Sidenote: It Rarely directs Administrative Action.]
There is nothing to prevent the House of Commons from adopting an
address or resolution calling upon the government for specific
administrative action; and it has been occasionally, though not often,
done.[327:1] Under the present rules of procedure there are few
opportunities for a direct vote of this kind, the chief occasions when
it is in order being the evening sittings reserved for private members'
motions. On these and other occasions resolutions asking for executive
action are sometimes brought forward,[327:2] but they are rarely
carried against the opposition of the cabinet. In fact it does not seem
to have occurred at all in the last ten years, while in the preceding
ten years it occurred only four times; and it so happened that in the
last three of those cases, at least, the government did not carry out
the wishes of the House.[328:1] Such votes are not likely to be common
in the future, because the modern principle of responsibility requires
that the ministers should be free to act and be held to account for what
they do, rather than that they should be given explicit directions in
regard to their duties.
[Sidenote: It Criticises Freely the Conduct of the Government.]
If the House of Commons does not often pass votes asking for executive
action in the future, its members criticise the conduct of the
government in the past freely and constantly. The opportunities for
doing so are, indeed, manifold. There is first the address in answer to
the King's speech at the opening of the session; then the questions day
by day give a chance, if not for direct criticism, at least for calling
the ministers to account; then there are the motions to adjourn; the
private members' motions; the debates on going into the Committees of
Supply and Ways and Means; the discussions in the Committee of Supply
itself; the debates on the Consolidated Fund Resolutions, on the
Appropriation Bill, on the Budget, and on the motions to adjourn for the
holidays; and, finally, the formal motions of want of confidence. The
way in which these various occasions are used to bring the acts of the
ministers to the attention of Parliament needs explanation.
[Sidenote: Individual Criticism and Collective Censure.]
But first it is important to distinguish between individual criticism by
members, and collective censure by vote of the House. The former,
whether coming from the seats behind the Treasury Bench, or from the
opposite side of the floor, is in the nature of a caution to the
ministers, an expression of personal opinion that is likely to find more
or less of an echo outside of Parliament. It does not in itself imperil
the position of the government at the moment, although the errors of the
ministers pointed out in this way go into the great balance of account
on which the nation renders its verdict at the next general election.
But a collective censure by vote of the House may mean immediate
resignation. Now the system of a responsible ministry implies the
alternation in power of two parties holding different views upon the
questions of the day. If it does not imply this; if the fall of one
cabinet is followed by the appointment of another with a similar policy;
then public life will revolve about the personal ambitions and intrigues
of leading politicians,--a condition that has caused much of the
discredit now attached to the parliamentary system in some continental
states. But if a change of ministry involves the transfer of power to an
Opposition with quite a different programme, it is clear that the change
ought not to take place until the nation has declared, either at the
polls, or through its representatives in the House of Commons, that it
wishes that result. The ministers ought, therefore, to stand or fall
upon their general policy, upon their whole record, or upon some one
question that in permanent consequence outweighs everything else, not
upon a particular act of secondary importance. Moreover the judgment
ought to be given after mature deliberation, not in the heat of a
debate upon some political blunder brought suddenly to the notice of the
House. Exactly the reverse of this occurs under the French system of
interpellations. By that procedure a single act of the government can be
made the subject of a debate ending with motions condemning or
justifying the occurrence; and great ingenuity is sometimes displayed in
so framing the motions as to catch the votes of members, who, although
supporters of the cabinet, cannot approve of the act in question.[330:1]
How a resort to similar tactics in the House of Commons has been more
and more barred out, will be seen in the following pages, which describe
the different methods of bringing the conduct of the ministers before
the House.
[Sidenote: Address in Reply to the King's Speech.]
The first two or three weeks of an ordinary session are taken up with a
debate on the address in reply to the King's speech. The address
provides a field for a series of political battles, fought over the
amendments that are brought forward. There are a dozen or more of these
every year; many of them urging the need of legislation that is not
foreshadowed in the speech; others relating to purely administrative
matters arising in foreign or domestic affairs. Sometimes they deal with
large questions of public policy, like the extension of the frontier of
India, or the maintenance of the integrity of China. But this is by no
means always true; and amendments are moved, for example, drawing
attention to the grievances of the postal and telegraph clerks, or
complaining of the government for failure to prosecute the directors of
a blasted financial scheme or for the releasing or refusing to release
persons convicted of crimes connected with political agitation in
Ireland. In some of these cases particular acts are brought before the
bar of the House; and it is usually impossible to avoid a direct vote
upon them. But they are not recent events, or unexpectedly sprung upon
Parliament. They have almost always aroused a good deal of public
attention, and formed the subject of no little discussion. The
government has, therefore, plenty of time to prepare its defence, to
sound and marshal its followers; and it does not, in fact, suffer
defeats on administrative questions brought forward in this way. Twice
in more than twenty years the government tellers have found themselves
in a minority on an amendment to the address, but neither case involved
an executive act. The first, in 1886, was an amendment expressing regret
that the speech had announced no measure for the relief of agricultural
labourers. Under the peculiar state of parties Lord Salisbury's cabinet
took the defeat as a vote of want of confidence and resigned. The other
case occurred in 1894, when an amendment aimed at the power of the Lords
to reject bills passed by the Commons was carried against the government
on the motion of some of its own followers; but it was clearly not the
kind of vote that involves the downfall of a ministry.
While, therefore, the address is essentially a time for the discussion
of questions of general policy, it is, no doubt, an occasion when
particular acts may be brought up for judgment, and a direct vote forced
upon them, although not in the way that is most embarrassing for a
cabinet.
[Sidenote: Questions to Ministers.]
Isolated examples of questions addressed to ministers can be found far
back in the eighteenth century, but the habit did not become common
until about sixty years ago. At that period one hundred or more
questions were asked in the course of a session, and the first
regulations were made regarding the time and method of putting
them.[331:1] Thereafter the practice grew so fast that in the seventies
over one thousand were asked in a session, and by the end of the century
it had increased to about five thousand. In form questions are simply
requests for information. They must contain no argument, no statement of
fact not needed to make their purport clear, and they must be addressed
to that minister in the House in whose province the subject-matter of
the inquiry falls.[332:1] They cover almost every conceivable field; the
intentions of ministers in the conduct of the business of the House;
acts done by officials of all grades in every department of the public
service; and even events that might be expected to give rise to action
by the government. The process of answering questions gives to the
Treasury Bench an air of omniscience not wholly deserved, for notice of
the question to be asked is sent in a day or two in advance so as to
give time for the permanent subordinates to hunt up the matter, and
supply their chief with the facts required.
[Sidenote: Motives for Asking Them.]
Questions are asked from various motives; sometimes simply to obtain
information; sometimes to show to constituents the assiduity of their
member, or to exhibit his opinions; sometimes to draw public attention
to a grievance; sometimes to embarrass the government, or make a telling
point; and at times a question is asked by a supporter of the minister
in order to give him a chance to bring out a fact effectively. But
whatever the personal motive may be, the system provides a method of
dragging before the House any act or omission by the departments of
state, and of turning a searchlight upon every corner of the public
service. The privilege is easily abused, but it helps very much to keep
the administration of the country up to the mark, and it is a great
safeguard against negligent or arbitrary conduct, or the growth of that
bureaucratic arrogance which is quite unknown in England. The minister
is not, of course, obliged to answer, but unless he can plead an obvious
reason of public policy why he should not do so, as is often the case in
foreign affairs, a refusal would look like an attempt to conceal, and
would have a bad effect.
[Sidenote: Not followed by Debate or Vote.]
Now while questions furnish a most effective means of bringing
administrative errors to the notice of the House they afford no
opportunity for passing judgment upon them; and thereby they avoid the
dangers of the French custom of interpellations. A question in England
is not even followed by a debate. Often, indeed, the member says that
his inquiry has not been fully answered, or interjects a remark,
objection or further question; but this is never allowed to grow into a
discussion, and when the habit of asking supplementary questions becomes
too common the ministers refuse to answer them altogether, to the
temporary exasperation of the Opposition, or the Speaker himself checks
them, enforcing the rule against introducing matter of argument. If no
debate is in order, neither is a vote; and hence questions furnish a
means of drawing public attention to an act, but not for collective
censure of it by the House.
[Sidenote: Motions to Adjourn.]
[Sidenote: Their History.]
Although a question cannot give rise directly to a discussion or a vote,
yet a motion, followed both by a debate and a division, may result from
a question. This is the "motion to adjourn for the purpose of discussing
a definite matter of urgent public importance," which is commonly, but
by no means always, provoked by an answer to a question. It has had a
curious history. There is in the House of Commons no principle of
universal application requiring debate to be confined to the subject of
the motion before the House, and great latitude was formerly permitted
in the discussion of motions to adjourn.[333:1] Taking advantage of this
fact it became the habit to create an opportunity for debating some
matter that could not be brought forward in the ordinary course of
procedure, by moving the adjournment before the orders of the day had
been taken up; and the object being merely debate, the motion was almost
always withdrawn after it had served its purpose. In 1877 motions of
this kind began to be used, much against the inclination of the Speaker,
to bring on a debate where the answer to a question had been
unsatisfactory; and about the same time they ceased to be regularly
withdrawn.[334:1] A few years later, indeed, it became common to push
these motions to a division. Before 1881 this seems to have been done in
only two instances,[334:2] but in that year it was done seven times, and
the motions themselves rose to the unprecedented number of nineteen.
Members were beginning to regard the motion to adjourn as a privilege,
while the freedom with which it could be used opened a door for abuse.
The government, however, speedily restricted the practice by regulations
that dealt with different kinds of motions to adjourn in different ways.
The motion to adjourn for the Easter or Whitsuntide recess was left
untouched, and still gives rise, as we shall see, to a miscellaneous
discussion of many things. Upon a motion to adjourn, made, on the other
hand, while the House is engaged upon the business of the day, debate
was, by a standing order of 1882, confined strictly to the question of
adjournment;[334:3] and, finally, the motion to adjourn, made before the
orders of the day have been taken up, was hedged about by limitations
peculiar to itself.
[Sidenote: Motion to Adjourn to Discuss an Urgent Public Matter.]
Mr. Gladstone's Urgency Resolution of 1881 gave to the Speaker control
over the business of the House so long as the matter declared urgent was
under consideration; and in framing rules for the exercise of his power
the Speaker laid down a principle that was embodied in a standing order
in the autumn of 1882.[334:4] The order, which is still in force
to-day, provides that a motion to adjourn shall not be made before
taking up the business of the day, except by leave of the House, unless
forty members rise in their places to support it, or ten members rise,
and the House, on a division, decides that the motion shall be made. It
provides, also, that the motion can be made only "for the purpose of
discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance."[335:1] The
standing order of 1882 prevented waste of time by a frivolous or
eccentric use of the motion to adjourn, but did not prevent any
considerable body of opponents from using it to bring the ministers to
account. This may be seen from the fact that in the twenty years
following the adoption of the order the motion was made one hundred and
forty-six times, and in just one half of those cases it was pushed to a
division.
[Sidenote: Object of the Motion.]
Although the motion is almost invariably made by an opponent of the
ministry, the object is not always censure. Sometimes it is made in
order to obtain fuller information than can be given by an answer to a
question; sometimes in order to rivet attention on a subject; and, as we
have seen, it is often withdrawn or negatived without a division. Yet it
does furnish a method by which, without notice, a debate can be
precipitated and a vote taken upon a specific act or omission of the
government; and this is after all its chief importance. The motion
bears, therefore, a certain resemblance to the French interpellation,
but the difference in form is of the utmost consequence. There is in
England no chance to frame the motion, as in France, to express subtle
shades of meaning. It cannot be so drafted that conscientious members of
the dominant party may feel obliged to vote for it, although it implies
a condemnation of the government. The motion to adjourn does not,
indeed, express in terms any judgment upon the subject-matter of the
debate, and a supporter of the cabinet can, without inconsistency, state
his opinion that the ministers have blundered, and then vote against
the adjournment. The motion has, in fact, been carried only twice; once
on May 10, 1881, before the Standing Order of 1882, in a very thin
House, when the government did not oppose it;[336:1] and a second time
on July 5, 1887, after the debate over the arrest of Miss Cass. In
neither case did any minister resign.
[Sidenote: Its Danger.]
[Sidenote: Under the Rules of 1902 and 1906.]
Still the motion to adjourn is a source of danger to the cabinet. Cool
as English public men are, and strong as the bonds of party have become,
it would be rash to predict that the House of Commons will not be
carried away again as it was in the case of Miss Cass, and that the
cabinet would not regard a vote to adjourn as a censure implying lack of
confidence. The danger has been slightly reduced by the rules of 1902.
By a change in the standing orders adopted in that year, and slightly
modified in 1906, the motion can be made only when the putting of
questions is finished at three o'clock, and then it stands over for
debate until a quarter past eight of the same day. By this arrangement
the government escapes the risk of surprise. It has five hours, after
notice of the debate, in which to prepare its case, ascertain the
opinion of its followers, persuade the doubtful, and rally the faithful.
Then the debate comes on at an hour when the attendance is habitually
small, instead of a time when the House is always full.[336:2]
[Sidenote: Blocking Orders.]
Moreover a motion to adjourn for the purpose of discussing a matter of
urgent public importance can, in the case of any particular subject, be
prevented altogether, if necessary, by a very simple device. There is a
general principle of parliamentary law in England that no question on
which the House has rendered a decision shall be brought before it a
second time in the same session; and in the Commons--although not in the
Lords--the principle has been extended by rulings of the Speakers to
forbid the anticipation of questions of which notice has already been
given. Nor is it necessary that a definite time for taking the matter up
should have been fixed.[337:1] It is enough that the notice of a motion
should have been given, no matter how remote may be the chance that the
member who gave the notice will ever be able to bring his motion before
the House. By merely giving notice of a motion, which he has no
intention of calling up, any member can, therefore, prevent a subject
from being brought forward either by a motion to adjourn, or by a
subsequent private member's motion, or in the course of the debate on
adjournment for the Easter or Whitsuntide recess. A "blocking motion" of
this kind is thus an effectual barrier against a motion to adjourn which
might place the government in an awkward position.
Complaints of the use of blocking motions have been often made, and in
1904 there was no little discussion of the subject.[337:2] There were
said to be on the notice paper, without any day assigned for their
consideration, thirty-four notices of motion, relating among other
things to fiscal reform, Macedonia, the Congo State, Thibet, the
reorganisation of the War Office, Chinese labour in South Africa, public
health, military training, local and other taxation, and the system of
blocking motions itself.[337:3] It was asserted that motions of this
kind were set down by supporters of the Treasury Bench after
consultation with the government whip. Mr. Balfour did not deny the
charge, but said that he never inquired into consultations of that
kind.[338:1] He thought that "there ought to be no limitation of the
powers of the House to discuss anything upon a motion for adjournment
for the holidays"; but he was more cautious in giving an opinion about
motions to adjourn to discuss a matter of urgent public importance. The
government dislikes these motions, because they consume precious time,
and because they can be used on all occasions to raise awkward questions
on which the cabinet may be unwilling to show its hand or supply facts.
There is, however, another serious objection to them. The House ought to
be at liberty to criticise the ministry freely at all times, but that
the discussion should be followed by a vote, expressing, however
indirectly, a judgment on the matter, involves a possible danger to the
parliamentary form of government.
[Sidenote: Private Members' Motions.]
The most direct method by which the acts of the ministers can be brought
before Parliament, and a vote taken upon them, is that of private
members' motions. These may, and often do, contain an explicit
condemnation of some part of the policy or administrative conduct of the
government. But the effectiveness of such motions as a means of passing
judgment upon the Treasury Bench is not in reality great, and that for
several reasons. There are in all only about seventeen evenings reserved
for the purpose, and it is rare that more than one motion reaches a vote
in an evening. Nor are those few occasions all used to take the
government to task. The right to make a motion is determined by the
ballot, and the fortunate member is free to raise any question he
pleases. Being one of the rare chances for private initiative, he often
uses it to bring forward some favourite project of his own. Several of
these evenings are thus devoted every year to discussing aspirations
that lie outside the field of party politics, and do not affect the
position of the cabinet. The number of motions aimed at the government
is, therefore, not large, and unless many members are interested in
criticising the same thing, it is a mere chance what is brought forward
for discussion. Then all the private members' evenings come in the early
part of the year; and notices of the motions must be given four evenings
in advance. It follows that they can hardly deal with current questions
that arise after the session is well under way, and this is in itself a
very serious limitation upon their importance as a means of bringing the
ministers to account.
[Sidenote: Means of Avoiding Them.]
In case of necessity a hostile vote on a private member's motion can
usually be avoided. The member has but one evening, and the ministers
could no doubt prolong the debate until the moment of interruption, and
then defeat an attempt at closure. But this does not appear to be done,
and might be regarded as showing too much fear of the result. Sometimes,
also, a motion can be blocked, although that is not so easy as in the
case of a motion to adjourn, because the private member has as early an
opportunity as the blocker to give notice of his motion.
There are, however, other means of defence; and, in fact, the
possibility of escaping a disastrous vote on a private member's motion
has been recently illustrated in the case of the fiscal question in a
very striking way, for during the sessions of 1904 and 1905 such motions
were used persistently in a vain attempt to get a decisive expression of
opinion on that question. On May 18, 1904, a motion was made against any
protective tax on food, which the government met by an amendment that it
was not necessary to discuss the question. As there were a number of
Unionists who objected to a tax on food, but did not want to upset the
government, the amendment was carried. Early in the next session another
inconvenient motion of a similar kind was shelved by the previous
question; and, finally, Mr. Balfour decided that he could avoid the
consequences of a wager of battle by simply refusing to fight. On March
22 and 28, 1905, followed by most of his supporters, he absented himself
from the debates and divisions on private members' motions touching
this subject, although on the second occasion the motion condemned in
direct terms the policy of the government. He explained that he took
this course because the subject ought not to be discussed on party
lines, and could not be dealt with by the existing Parliament, which had
no mandate from the nation for the purpose. He added that if the House
was allowed on private members' nights to act without the ordinary
machinery of party management, the conclusions at which it might arrive
would be treated as expressions of opinion which do not govern
policy.[340:1] In other words, he claimed that the ministers might
decline to take part in the proceedings on private members' motions, and
disregard the votes passed. His attitude was severely criticised, and
may have damaged the ministry in the eyes of the public, but that he
should have been able to assume it shows the impotence of motions of
that kind.
[Sidenote: Rarely Carried Against the Ministers.]
As lately as twenty years ago motions made by private members were not
infrequently carried against the opposition of the government--on the
average nearly once a year. Like all other votes hostile to the
ministers, however, they have become more rare, and in fact the last
case of the kind occurred in 1893. But if private members' motions have
not of late proved effectual, as a means of bringing some special part
of the conduct of the government before the judgment of the House, and
obtaining a test vote upon it, this may not hereafter be true in every
case. They certainly furnish possible exception to the principle that in
its relations with the government the House of Commons passes judgment
only upon the measures which the ministers choose to bring forward, or
upon their policy and administrative record as a whole.
[Sidenote: Debate on Going into Supply.]
Amendments to the address, motions to adjourn and private members'
motions, are almost the only occasions at the present time when
criticism of the government's action can be followed by a vote upon the
act criticised. Formerly there was another opportunity as constant and
prolific as any of them. This came when the House resolved itself into
Committee of the Whole on Supply. Before taking up supply on any day a
motion had to be made that the Speaker do leave the chair; and in
accordance, it was said, with the ancient doctrine that redress of
grievances should be considered before supply, any subject not requiring
a substantive motion, or not a matter of detail properly discussed in
the committee itself, could be debated either on the principal motion,
or on an amendment framed for the purpose.[341:1] This gave frequent
opportunities, throughout the greater part of the session, not only for
finding fault with the conduct of the government, but also for taking
the sense of the House thereon by means of amendments to the motion that
the Speaker do leave the chair.
[Sidenote: How Limited in 1882.]
[Sidenote: In 1896 and 1902.]
The practice opened the door to a vexatious waste of time, and in 1882
it was limited by a standing order, which provided that on Monday or
Thursday the Speaker should leave the chair without question put (and
therefore without amendment or debate) unless on first going into supply
on the estimates for the Army, Navy, or civil service, or on a vote of
credit, an amendment should be moved, or question raised, relating to
the estimates proposed to be taken in supply.[341:2] Tuesdays and
Wednesdays were at that time private members' days, and whenever they
were seized by the government, and used for supply, it was the habit to
extend the order to them by special vote.[341:3] This left Friday as the
only day on which the motion that the Speaker do leave the chair was
open to amendment and debate.[341:4] Finally, in 1896, when a fixed
number of days were allotted to supply, the standing order was extended
to Friday also.
It was done at first by a sessional order; but this was renewed from
year to year, until it was made permanent by the rules of 1902.[342:1]
[Sidenote: Effect of the Present Practice.]
At present the Speaker leaves the chair without putting any question,
except on going into supply for the first time on the Army, Navy and
civil service estimates; and on these three occasions the rule that
discussion and amendment must relate to the estimates in that branch of
supply about to be taken up is very strictly applied.[342:2] Moreover,
only a single amendment to the motion that the Speaker do leave the
chair can be moved, because the amendment takes the form that certain
words in the motion be left out in order to substitute others, and the
question is put to the House whether the words proposed to be left out
shall stand. If, therefore, the amendment is negatived, the House has
decided that those words shall stand part of the question, and no other
amendment to omit them can afterward be proposed.[342:3] Debate,
however, may and usually does continue upon the main question. But the
House can hardly reject the motion that the Speaker do leave the chair;
and, in fact, such a vote, although perhaps a general reflection upon
the ministry, could not, after a miscellaneous debate upon many topics,
be regarded as expressing an opinion upon any particular subject.
It follows that (besides the extraordinary case of a vote of credit)
there are every year three occasions set apart for general discussion of
all matters germane to the three great branches of supply, on each of
which a single vote can be taken upon some special grievance or question
of policy. Formerly the amendment that obtained the right of way
depended largely upon the accident of catching the Speaker's eye,[342:4]
but now, like the motions on private members' nights, it is determined
by the blinder justice of the lot.[342:5] The amendments relate to all
manner of things, such as the system of enlistment for the Army, the
number of artillery horses, the insufficient manning of the fleet, the
desirability of an international agreement for a reduction in
ship-building, the refusal of the Post Office to grant telephone
licenses to municipalities, the inequitable fiscal treatment of
Scotland, and the defective state of primary education in Ireland.
The three general debates upon the motions to go into Committee of
Supply upon the estimates still afford an excellent chance for
criticising the government, but the limitations upon amendments, and the
conditions under which they are proposed, has reduced the opportunity
for a decisive condemnation of any part of its conduct almost to
nothing. Until a score of years ago the ministers were, indeed, beaten
nearly every session upon some amendment on going into supply, but since
1891 this has not happened once.
[Sidenote: Amendments on Going into Ways and Means.]
After the general rule forbidding debate and amendment on going into
Committee of Supply had been extended to Friday, it occurred to Mr.
Gibson Bowles, an enterprising mentor of the government, that a similar
use might be made of the motion to go into Committee of Ways and Means.
Accordingly in the regular session of 1900, and in the special session
in December of that year, he moved amendments to the motion, but the
practice grieved the Treasury Bench and was stopped by a change in the
standing orders made in 1901.[343:1]
[Sidenote: Debate in the Committee of Supply as a Means of Criticism.]
In proposing his new procedure for supply in 1896, Mr. Balfour spoke of
the belief that the object of debating the appropriations is to secure
economical administration, as an ancient superstition no longer at all
true. Members, he said, now move reductions in order to get from
ministers a promise of future increase; and the danger is that the
House will urge too much extravagance. He insisted that the real object
of the Committee of Supply is the chance it affords to private members
of criticising the executive and administrative action of the
government; that it is an open platform for members, where the
ministers, for the sake of getting their appropriations passed, are
bound to keep a quorum.[344:1] This is, indeed, manifest to any one
familiar with the debates upon the estimates. They are not to any great
extent discussions of financial questions, of what the nation can, or
cannot, afford to do. They are a long series of criticisms upon the
policy of the ministers, and the conduct of the departments under their
control. From this point of view Mr. Balfour suggested a method of
making the debates more valuable. He described the futility of the old
system of taking up the estimates in their numerical order, pointing out
how much time was wasted every year in discussing the earlier votes in
Class I.,--repairs of royal palaces, etc.,--while some of the largest
appropriations were always hurried through with little comment at the
fag end of the session. He promised in future to bring forward the
important votes in the earlier part of the year, and in fact to give
precedence to estimates that any group of members might wish to
discuss.[344:2]
Adding together the days regularly allotted to supply under the standing
order, the additional sittings used for the purpose, and those devoted
to supplementary estimates,[344:3] the better part of more than thirty
days are spent every year in Committee of Supply. This would appear to
give time enough for a thorough overhauling of many branches of the
administration; and under Mr. Balfour's practice, which will, no doubt,
be followed by future cabinets, the question what departments shall be
examined is determined by the critics themselves.
The debates in the Committee of Supply must be relevant to the estimates
under consideration, that is, they must be confined to the particular
vote then before the House, and the conduct of the government connected
therewith. The greater part of the time is therefore taken up with a
discussion of small details of administration. But there are certain
votes that give a chance to review the broader questions of policy. As
the grants made to the Army and Navy for one purpose can, with the
consent of the Treasury, be used for another, the debate on the great
votes for the pay of the men is allowed to range over the general policy
and management of the service concerned.[345:1] The items for the
salaries of the ministers give a similar, though less comprehensive,
chance to examine the policy pursued in their several departments; and
in order to raise a debate of that kind it is common to move to reduce
the salary of a minister by one hundred pounds. If an excessive
proportion of the time devoted to supply is consumed in the ventilation
of small grievances, that is due to the fact that the criticism is
conducted, in the main, by individual members of the House, and not by
an organised opposition; but at least it has the merit of keeping the
administration in all its details highly sensitive to public opinion.
[Sidenote: Amendments in Supply as an Expression of Opinion.]
The debates in supply afford an excellent opportunity for criticising
the acts of the government, but the divisions in supply are not an
effective means of expressing the judgment of the House upon those acts.
The items of appropriation are grouped into votes, each of which, as its
name implies, is passed as a single vote; and every vote contains so
many items that the House cannot reject it entirely.
Moreover, the only amendment in order is a motion to reduce the vote,
by omitting a particular item or otherwise. Now a reduction may be moved
either because the House really objects to the appropriation, or as a
means of expressing condemnation of some act of the government connected
with the item in question. Even in these days of extravagance the House
occasionally objects to an appropriation on the ground that it is
unnecessary or excessive, or because it disapproves of the purpose
altogether. In such cases the Chancellor of the Exchequer is apt to
withdraw the estimate or consent to the reduction. In fact, there have
been only two instances in the last twenty years where a reduction was
made for this reason without the consent of the government, and only one
where it was carried against their opposition.[346:1]
[Sidenote: Reductions used as a Protest.]
A reduction is often moved, on the other hand, to emphasise some
grievance, some act of the administration that is the subject of
complaint. But such a motion is not an effective means of testing the
opinion of the House upon the matter in debate. When, for example, a
reduction of a minister's salary is proposed in order to draw attention
to a shortcoming in his department, the supporters of the cabinet almost
invariably vote against the reduction without regard to their opinion
upon the shortcoming in question; and they are perfectly right in so
doing. They would be quite justified, and quite logical, in refusing to
vote the reduction in salary, while saying that the act complained of
had been a mistake and ought not to occur again. An amendment of that
kind is, therefore, seldom carried; and then usually by accident. It has
happened only four times in a score of years. On June 14, 1895, when
Lord Rosebery's cabinet was struggling for its life, with only a
majority of a dozen in the Commons, it was beaten on an amendment
reducing the appropriation for the Parliament buildings by five hundred
pounds to call attention to the quantity of rooms occupied by officials
of the House. The number of members who took part in the division was so
small--the vote being sixty-three to forty-three--that the result must
be regarded as a fluke, rather than as an expression of opinion by the
House. A week later the government was defeated again on an amendment to
reduce the salary of the Secretary of State for War by one hundred
pounds to draw attention to an alleged lack of supply of cordite. This
was done by a trick. Enough Conservatives to turn the scale were brought
into the House, by way of the terrace, without the knowledge of the
whips on either side. Under ordinary circumstances the ministers would
not have paid much attention to such a division, but their position in
this case was so precarious and so uncomfortable, that they took
advantage of the occurrence to resign. The third instance happened in
1904 when the grant for the Commissioners of National Education in
Ireland was reduced by one hundred pounds as a protest against a
circular they had issued which limited the teaching of the Irish
language in the schools. It was a "snap" vote, coming suddenly after a
very short debate. Had the ministers foreseen the division they could
easily have called in enough of their followers to change the
majority;[348:1] and, in fact, they seem to have disregarded the vote
altogether, save that they expended for Irish education one hundred
pounds less than they had intended. The last case was in 1905, when the
appropriation for the Irish Land Commission was reduced by one hundred
pounds as a protest against the administration of the Land Act of 1903.
This was serious, and the government considered its position for a
couple of days, but decided for the moment neither to resign nor
dissolve.[348:2]
Manifestly the debates in Committee of Supply offer a very wide field
for individual criticism, while they give little chance for collective
condemnation of the matters criticised. This is even more obvious in
certain other forms of procedure that are yet to be considered.
[Sidenote: Debates on the Finance Bill;]
The debates upon the resolutions embodying the proposals of the budget,
and upon the Finance Bill that carries them into effect, are governed by
the ordinary rules of debate upon bills, and are confined to the
questions immediately before the House.[348:3]
[Sidenote: on the Budget;]
But in introducing his budget the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes a
statement covering the income and expenditure of the current and coming
years, and incidentally reviewing the economic condition of the country
and the state of trade. The debate that ensues may wander as far as the
statement itself, regardless of the particular resolution on which it is
nominally based. This gives a chance to examine fully the financial
policy--but only the financial policy--of the government; without,
however, any corresponding means of expressing the judgment of the House
thereon.
[Sidenote: on the Consolidated Fund Bills.]
In his treatise on parliamentary practice, Sir Thomas Erskine May states
that debate and amendment on the stages of Consolidated Fund Bills "must
be relevant to the bill, and must be confined to the conduct or action
of those who receive or administer the grants specified in the
bill."[349:1] The first part of this statement is true of the committee
stage. Debate and amendment must then be strictly relevant; and as the
object of the bills is simply to authorise the issue out of the
Consolidated Fund of the sums required to meet the grants already voted,
and to provide that those grants must be used for the purposes for which
they are made, no criticism of administrative conduct is in
order.[349:2] The proceedings in committee are, therefore, brief. The
latter part of May's statement applies to the second and third readings,
but as the bills cover the grants that support practically every branch
of the government, except the India Office,[349:3] the acts of almost
any department can be discussed at those stages. The occasions are, as a
rule, freely used for the purpose. Sometimes the debate is of a
miscellaneous character, and runs off into small details, but more
commonly it turns upon a few large questions of domestic, colonial or
foreign policy that have aroused general interest.[349:4] Amendments
can, indeed, be moved, and they may range as far as the debate itself.
The procedure would appear, therefore, to resemble that of going into
Committee of Supply. But the House is aware that it must pass the bills,
and although a division on the reading is often taken, the negative
votes are usually confined to the Irish members, who are more anxious to
impede than to make use of the parliamentary system. In the rare cases
where amendments have been moved the object is simply to concentrate
discussion upon some particular question,[350:1] and they have seldom,
if ever, been carried.
[Sidenote: Debates on Adjournment for Easter and Whitsuntide.]
Perhaps the most striking case of an opportunity for criticising the
government, without any means of condemning its action, is furnished by
the motion to adjourn over Easter or Whitsuntide. According to the old
practice about adjournment, the rule of relevancy does not apply in
these cases, and hence the discussion may, and in fact does, wander
wherever the members please. It is of a heterogeneous nature, touching
upon many subjects. But as the Speakers have ruled that no amendment is
in order, except on the time of adjournment,[350:2] the motion which
provides the excuse for a debate is always adopted as it stands.
[Sidenote: Motion of Want of Confidence.]
The foregoing comprise all the ordinary means of criticising the conduct
of the government. The leader of the Opposition has one more. He can at
any time claim to move a vote of want of confidence, and within
reasonable limits the leader of the House will always assign a day for
the purpose. But this is quite a different matter from the criticism of
particular acts of which we have been speaking. Whatever the precise
form of the motion may be, the object is to turn the ministry out, and
every member goes into one or the other lobby, according to his desire
that the cabinet shall stand or fall. The judgment of the House is
passed not upon any one act or question of policy, but distinctly upon
the record of the ministry as a whole; and a defeat must be immediately
followed by resignation or dissolution.
[Sidenote: Freedom of Criticism.]
[Sidenote: Difficulty in Passing Judgment.]
From this survey of the various methods by which the ministers can be
called to account in the House of Commons, it is clear that the
opportunities to air grievances, to suggest reforms, and to criticise
the government for both large matters and small, for their general
policy and their least administrative acts, are many and constant. If
less numerous than formerly, they are in practice quite as useful. For
the object they serve, that of turning a searchlight upon the
government, and keeping the public informed of its conduct, they are
abundant. On the other hand, the opportunities to pass judgment upon
particular acts of the ministers have diminished very much, and there is
a marked tendency to make a definite expression of opinion on such
matters by vote of the House more and more difficult. Such a tendency is
entirely in accord with the true principle of parliamentary government.
There ought to be the fullest opportunity for criticism; but the cabinet
must be free not only to frame its own policy, but also to carry that
policy out, and it ought not to be shackled, or thrust out, so long as
its conduct of affairs is on the whole satisfactory to the nation.
[Sidenote: Illustrated by the Debates on Fiscal Policy.]
So far we have considered primarily the functions of the House in
relation to administrative matters, but, except for the bills brought in
by the government, what has been said applies equally to its control
over the general policy of the cabinet, for its means of criticising and
passing judgment are the same. How far the ministers are free to-day to
frame the programme on which they will take their stand, and how hard it
is to force an issue on a question that they do not choose to bring
forward, may be seen from the recent history of the debates on the
fiscal question. A considerable number of Unionists were strongly
opposed to a return to protective duties in any form, and especially to
a taxation of food. There were enough of them to turn the scale, so that
if a division could have been taken at any time on the fiscal question
alone, the House would in all probability have voted in favour of
maintaining the existing system. On the other hand, most of the
free-food Unionists, being heartily in accord with the cabinet on other
matters, desired to keep it in power so long as it adopted no fiscal
policy hostile to their principles; and therefore they were anxious not
to vote against the government if they could conscientiously abstain
from doing so. Under these circumstances the Liberals sought by every
means to force a direct vote upon the fiscal question, while Mr. Balfour
cautiously avoided any definite statement of policy himself, and strove
to prevent the House from expressing a distinct opinion on the subject.
He took the ground that until the cabinet announced a fiscal programme
the only form in which the attitude of the ministers on the question
could properly come before Parliament was that of a general motion of
want of confidence in them.
[Sidenote: In 1903.]
Mr. Chamberlain broached his plan of preferential tariffs in a speech at
Birmingham on May 15, 1903. By that time it was just too late in the
year to bring forward a private member's motion on the subject; so that
the first debate upon it took place on the motion to adjourn over
Whitsuntide,[352:1] when no amendment or vote expressing the opinion of
the House was in order. This was May 28. The next opportunity for
extensive discussion came on June 9 over the Finance Bill; but the
Speaker ruled, that as the government had made no proposals for a change
of fiscal policy, such changes could not be brought into the debate on
that bill.[352:2] The Opposition then resorted to a motion to adjourn.
But it was not easy to treat as an urgent matter the question of
adopting a policy, which the ministers declared the existing Parliament
incompetent to adopt, and the Opposition insisted ought never to be
adopted at all. The Liberals solved the difficulty by taking advantage
of a recent occurrence, and on June 17 moved to adjourn to discuss a
misunderstanding of the tariff speeches of Mr. Balfour and Mr.
Chamberlain by the premier of New South Wales. The Speaker, however,
ruled that a general debate of the fiscal question did not come within
the terms of the motion, although a motion of wider scope might have
been made. The adjournment was, of course, rejected, and by a vote of
252 to 132.[352:3] Both on this and on later occasions, Mr. Balfour,
while refusing to give any of the government's time for the discussion
of fiscal policy as such, expressed his entire readiness to assign a day
for a formal motion of lack of confidence;[353:1] but the Liberals did
not accept the offer. They said, and with truth, that a vote of censure
would not test the opinion of the House on the fiscal question; and they
knew that it would result in an overwhelming defeat for them. Finally,
on Aug. 11, the Speaker ruled that, as no official act of any minister
was involved, the question could not be debated on the second reading of
the Appropriation Bill.[353:2] And thus, although there were many
questions put on the subject, and some incidental discussion during the
debates on other matters, the session of 1903 came to an end without any
vote on fiscal policy.
[Sidenote: In 1904.]
When the House met again great changes had taken place in the ministry.
Both Mr. Chamberlain and his strongest opponents had resigned, and it
was certain that the cabinet would take no positive attitude on the
fiscal question during the life of the Parliament. Yet the Liberals had
several means of extracting a vote on the subject, which they had lacked
in the second half of the preceding session. They began at once with the
debate on the address, by moving that the removal of protective duties
has conduced to the welfare of the population, and that any return to
them would be injurious. The wording was not well adapted to drive a
wedge into the government majority, for the ministers repudiated the
charge that they contemplated protection. Only twenty-one Unionists
voted for the amendment, which was rejected by 327 to 276.[353:3] Then
came, on March 9, a private member's motion to the effect that the House
expresses its condemnation of the continual agitation in favour of a
protective tariff encouraged by the ministers. This also was not well
conceived, and was rejected by 289 to 243, nineteen Unionists voting
against the government. On May 18 another private member's motion came
on; which stated that the House, believing a protective tariff on food
burdensome to the people, welcomes the declaration that the government
is opposed to it. It was a more dangerous attack, which the ministers
met by moving an amendment that it was unnecessary to discuss the
question. They succeeded by about the same majority as on the other
occasions, for the amendment was carried by a vote of 306 to 251,
seventeen Unionists in the minority.[354:1]
At last the Liberals asked for a day to move a vote of censure, and Aug.
1 was set apart for the purpose. The motion expressed regret that
certain ministers had accepted official positions in the Liberal
Unionist Association, which had recently declared its adhesion to the
policy of preferential duties, involving the taxation of food. But the
form of the motion was unimportant, and the result illustrates the
nature of a vote of want of confidence, and the futility of using it to
test the opinion of the House on any particular question of policy. No
one voted against the ministers who was not prepared to turn them out,
and the motion was rejected by a vote of 288 to 210.[354:2] Only one
member classed as a Unionist voted for it, while of those who had gone
into the Opposition lobby on previous occasions one voted with the
government, and the rest absented themselves. Although the fiscal
question had been debated several times,[354:3] the Opposition had again
been baffled throughout the session in their efforts to get a vote upon
its merits.
[Sidenote: In 1905.]
The result in the following year was the same, but the tactics were
different. The first private member's motion on the subject was shelved
by the previous question, and the government dealt with the subsequent
ones by the novel device, already described, of staying away from the
division altogether. Mr. Balfour virtually took the ground that a vote
on which the government exerted no pressure could not be regarded as a
true expression of the opinion of the House, and might therefore be
ignored--an extension, although by no means an illogical extension, of
the accepted doctrines of the constitution.
[Sidenote: Parliament the Great Inquest of the Nation.]
The system of a responsible ministry can develop in a normal and healthy
way only in case the legislative body is divided into two parties, and
under those conditions it is the inevitable consequence of the system
that Parliament cannot support the cabinet on one question and oppose it
on another. The programme of the ministers must be accepted or rejected
as a whole, and hence the power of initiative, both legislative and
executive, must rest entirely with them. This is clearly the tendency in
Parliament at the present day.[355:1] The House of Commons is finding
more and more difficulty in passing any effective vote, except a vote of
censure. It tends to lose all powers except the power to criticise and
the power to sentence to death. Parliament has been called the great
inquest of the nation, and for that purpose its functions have of late
been rather enlarged than impaired. Nor are the inquisitors confined to
any one section of the House, for while that part is played chiefly by
the Opposition, the government often receives a caution from its own
supporters also. If the parliamentary system has made the cabinet of the
day autocratic, it is an autocracy exerted with the utmost publicity,
under a constant fire of criticism; and tempered by the force of public
opinion, the risk of a vote of want of confidence, and the prospects of
the next election.
FOOTNOTES:
[327:1] For a collection of instances from 1807 to 1874 see Todd, "Parl.
Govt. in England," I., 422-28, 449-50.
[327:2] In the year 1904, for example, there were three motions clearly
of this character. The first two (in favour of paying unskilled
government workmen the standard rate of wages, and against granting
permits for the vivisection of dogs) did not come to a vote; while the
third (calling upon the government to encourage cotton growing in
Africa) was agreed to without a division.
[328:1] It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between censure of past
action, and a direction for the future; but, if we exclude votes
indirectly implying censure, by a reduction of an appropriation, or an
adjournment of the House, the only instances since 1886 where a vote
relating in express terms to either of these things has been carried
against the opposition of the government, have been as follows: On June
12, 1888, a resolution was adopted that redundant officials ought to be
transferred to other departments, although a Royal Commission was
already considering the subject. On April 30, 1889, a vote was passed
condemning the Indian fiscal system for encouraging the opium trade; and
another vote to the same effect was carried, on going into the Committee
of Supply on April 10, 1891. A commission appointed by the government
reported in favour of the existing system which was thereupon
maintained. (Com. Papers, 1894, LX., 583; LXI.; LXII.; 1895, XLII., 31
_et seq._; _cf._ 1892, LVIII.; and 1893, LXVI.) Finally, on June 3,
1893, it was voted that the examinations for the Indian Civil Service
ought to be held in India as well as in England; but, after collecting
the opinions of Indian officials, which were almost wholly adverse to
the change, the government decided not to make it (Com. Papers, 1893,
LXIV., 869; 1894, LX., 1), and so informed the House, Hans. 4 Ser.
XXIV., 1537.
[330:1] Cf. Dupriez, _Les Ministres_, II., 440-45. Lowell, "Governments
and Parties," I., 117-26.
[331:1] May, 206, note 1, 236, note 1. Todd, II., 421-22.
[332:1] May, 237-38. Questions may also be addressed to the Speaker, or
to private members in regard to bills or motions in their charge, but
questions of this kind are few, and do not concern us here.
[333:1] May, 301.
[334:1] In the five years from 1873 to 1877 thirty-one such motions were
made, of which all but three were withdrawn. Those three were negatived
by an oral vote, and were not pushed to an actual division. In the next
five years, up to the adoption of the Standing Order of 1882, the
motions numbered sixty-four, and only eighteen of them were withdrawn,
while twelve (one in 1878, seven in 1881, and four in 1882) were pushed
to a division. For these and many other facts relating to these motions
to adjourn I am indebted to my students at Harvard, Messrs. O. M.
Dickerson and E. Takasugi.
[334:2] In 1871 and 1878.
[334:3] Now S.O. 22.
[334:4] The rules framed by the Speaker on Feb. 9, 1881, provided, in
regard to motions to adjourn, that no adjournment should be moved before
the business of the day was taken up, except by leave of the House; and
that debate on a motion to adjourn made after business had been taken
up, should be confined to the question of adjournment. Com. Papers,
1881, LXXIV., 1.
[335:1] Now S.O. 10. The changes made in 1902 did not affect these
provisions, but merely the time when the debate on the motion should
take place.
[336:1] The debate was over the arrest of Mr. Dillon, M.P. Mr.
Gladstone, not thinking it a proper way to bring the question before the
House, declined to resist the motion, which was carried without a
division. Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXI., 183-216.
[336:2] In the twenty years that the Standing Order of 1882 remained
unchanged, the number of motions to adjourn, before public business
began averaged seven a year. In 1903 there were only three of them, and
in 1904 seven; but in 1905, when Mr. Balfour's cabinet was manifestly
losing its hold upon the country, the number rose to nine. Incidentally
the change of rule has tended to shift the debates on those motions into
the time reserved for private members, for the debate must occur at the
evening sitting, and in the earlier part of the session two of the four
evening sittings belong to the private members.
[337:1] May, 264-65, 286.
[337:2] _E.g._ Hans. 4 Ser. CXXV., 379-80, 382-83, 386-87, 397-98, 415,
629-30, 1229-32; _Ibid._, CXXXVI., 836-40. _Cf._ remarks by Mr. Swift
MacNeill in 1906. _Ibid._, CLII., 1178-79.
[337:3] Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXV., 1229. Since this was written a report has
been made by a select committee on the subject; and appended thereto is
a memorandum by Sir Courtenay Ilbert on the history of the rule against
anticipation.
[338:1] _Ibid._ 1232. _Cf._ CXXXVI., 840.
[340:1] Hans. 4 Ser. CXLIII., 886-95.
[341:1] Anson, "Law and Custom of the Const." I., 270; May, 571-72.
Redlich (_Recht und Technik_, 116-17) points out that these amendments
began in 1811 at the very moment when special days were first reserved
for the government.
[341:2] Old S.O. 56.
[341:3] May, 573-74.
[341:4] Friday was especially reserved for this purpose by old S.O. 11,
_cf._ Old S.O. 51.
[342:1] S.O. 17.
[342:2] May, 573.
[342:3] May, 574; Ilbert, "Manual," § 231.
[342:4] May, 574.
[342:5] Ilbert, "Manual," § 45.
[343:1] The change consisted in leaving the Committee of Ways and Means
out of the exceptions, in S.O. 51, to the general rule that the House
goes into committee without question put.
[Sidenote: The Committee on Indian Accounts.]
Debate on the motion to go into committee on the East Indian Accounts is
still allowed, in order to provide an opportunity for general debate on
the questions that may arise on these accounts. (S.O. 51, _cf._ Ilbert,
"Manual," § 64.) An amendment can also be moved (_Ibid._, § 117), but in
practice this has no serious effect.
[344:1] Hans. 4 Ser. XXXVII., 724-26. With this may be contrasted the
Report of the Select Committee on Procedure in Supply in 1888 (Com.
Papers, 1888, XII., 27), which said that the debates on the estimates
were an effective means, both of criticising the administration and of
controlling expenditure. It expressed the opinion that although the
estimates were not often actually reduced, the discussion prevented
future extravagance. For the condition at the present day see the Report
of the Committee on National Expenditure, and the evidence thereto
annexed (Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15; 1903, VII., 483).
[344:2] Hans. 4 Ser. XXXVII., 727-30.
[344:3] Debate on supplementary and excess grants is limited to those
particular grants. May, 585-86.
[345:1] May, 584-85.
[346:1] Since the reduction of the vote for royal parks on March 11,
1886, the only two instances have been a reduction of the salaries of
the officers of the House of Lords, carried against the government in
1893 on the ground that they were excessive, and in 1895 a rejection of
the appropriation for a statue of Cromwell.
A list of all the reductions in the estimates from 1868 to 1887 may be
found in Appendix 5 to the Report of the Committee on Estimates
Procedure (Com. Papers, 1888, XII., 27). A list of those from 1887
through 1901 in Appendix 1, of the first report of the Committee on
National Expenditure (Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 15. _Cf._ Return of
Divisions in Supply, 1891-1901. Com. Papers, 1902, LXXXII., 139). There
were eighteen reductions in the twenty years covered by the earlier
report, eleven in the fourteen years next following. Of those eleven,
four were cases where estimates were withdrawn by the government (two of
them supplementary estimates, afterward voted as regular estimates for
the next year), three were reductions moved by the government because
the expenditure had become unnecessary, another was a reduction accepted
by the government, two more were the two cases mentioned in the text,
and the remaining one was moved to call attention to a grievance, _i.e._
the number of rooms in the Parliament buildings occupied by officers of
the House. This last case, together with the reduction of the salary of
the Secretary of State for War (which occurred in 1895, but is not
mentioned in the list), is described hereafter in the text.
[348:1] The vote was 141 to 130. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXI., 1141-50.)
[348:2] The vote was 199 to 196. (Hans. 4 Ser. CIL., 1486 _et seq._) Mr.
Balfour's cabinet resigned three months later when Parliament was not in
session.
[348:3] _Cf._ May, 588.
[349:1] May, 561. He speaks here only of the Appropriation Bill, but
what he says is equally true of all the Consolidated Fund Bills, of
which the Appropriation Bill is merely the last, completing the process
for the year.
[349:2] _Ibid._, 562.
[349:3] The India Office is maintained out of the revenues of India,
but, as already explained, an opportunity to criticise the
administration of that country is provided every year when the Indian
accounts are laid before Parliament.
[349:4] The debate must relate to the administrative conduct of those
who receive the grants (May, 561-62), and therefore the Speaker, in
1903, ruled out of order a discussion of the fiscal question on which
the cabinet had taken no action, and had refused to announce a policy.
(Hans. 4 Ser. CXXVII., 867-70.)
[350:1] This was true of the latest example, that of an amendment
relating to native labour in South Africa, moved on the second reading
of the Consolidated Fund (No. 1) Bill of 1903. It was withdrawn when it
had served the purpose. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXX., 72.)
[350:2] May, 581.
[352:1] Hans. 4 Ser. CXXIII., 142.
[352:2] _Ibid._, 327.
[352:3] _Ibid._, 1241, 1245, 1274.
[353:1] Hans. 4 Ser. CXXIII., 1250, 1323; CXXV., 571-74.
[353:2] _Ibid._ CXXVII., 867.
[353:3] Hans. 4 Ser. CXXIX., 623, 1446. There was on March 7 a motion to
adjourn to call attention to the failure of Mr. Balfour to explain the
resignations of ministers in the autumn. This involved the fiscal
question only indirectly, and was rejected 237 to 172.
[354:1] Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXV., 253 _et seq._
[354:2] _Ibid._, CXXXIX., 284 _et seq._
[354:3] It had also been discussed on the adjournment for Easter.
[355:1] Redlich ends his book on the procedure of the House of Commons
with the remark (p. 800), that the rules of a legislative body are the
political manometer, which measures the strain of forces in the
parliamentary machine, and thereby in the whole organism of the state.
CHAPTER XIX
THE FORM AND CONTENTS OF STATUTES
[Sidenote: Difficulty of Passing Laws.]
We have seen that the legislative capacity of the House of Commons has
nearly reached its limit. What is more, it is small, and markedly
smaller than in the past. In the decade beginning with 1868, ninety-four
government bills on the average became law each year, but of late the
number has not been half so large, and private members' bills have
fallen off in about the same proportion. The fact is that a growth in
the number of members who want to take part in debate, a more minute
criticism, and a more systematic opposition, have made the process of
passing a bill through the House increasingly difficult. This is
particularly true of measures that are long or complicated, for the
greater the length the more the pegs on which to hang amendments.[356:1]
Now the difficulty of passing laws has had an effect both on the form of
the statutes and on the content of legislation.
[Sidenote: Drafting of Bills.]
A public bill introduced by a private member may be drafted by him, or
by counsel he has employed for the purpose. There is no systematic
supervision over such bills,[356:2] no stage at which their drafting is
reviewed, and whether well or ill drawn, they are not likely to be much
improved in their passage through Parliament. Government bills, on the
other hand, which relate to England, and are not of a purely formal and
routine character,[356:3] are now all drafted by the Parliamentary
Counsel to the Treasury, or by his assistants under his
direction.[357:1] They are prepared under instructions from, and after
consultations with, the departments concerned, and are sometimes recast
several times before they are introduced into Parliament. They are then
assailed by a host of critics, both in and out of the Houses; some of
them trying to pick flaws in a measure which they want to destroy; while
others, who are not opposed to the general principle involved, discover
provisions that affect their interests, based, perhaps, on local custom
or privilege. The objections raised may not have been entirely foreseen,
or may prove of greater political importance than was supposed, and
hence amendments and new clauses are adopted during the debates in
committee. These changes are usually made with the consent of the
minister in charge of the bill, and the Parliamentary Counsel, as well
as the permanent head of the department concerned, is often present
under the gallery to give his advice; but still the amendments mar the
fair handicraft of the draftsman, and an effort has to be made to
improve the text either on the report stage or in the House of Lords.
[Sidenote: Defects of Form.]
Sir Courtenay Ilbert attributes the defects of form in the English
statutes of the present day chiefly to the battering that a bill must
almost necessarily encounter in passing through the House of Commons,
and to the fact that an Act of Parliament is essentially a creature of
compromise.[357:2] Yet there would seem to be other difficulties arising
from the conditions under which legislation is conducted.
The Parliamentary Counsel's office has certainly improved the statutes
very much by making them more concise, uniform and orderly; but their
form is far from perfect. Two objects must be aimed at in drafting an
act; one that it shall be intelligible to the persons who are compelled
to obey it; and the other that the courts which interpret it, or the
counsel who are called upon to advise upon it, shall be able to
ascertain its precise meaning with certainty. Now to a layman, and even
to a foreign lawyer, an English act is often difficult to understand,
and sometimes misleading. To penetrate its intent one must frequently be
familiar with all previous legislation on the subject. It is no doubt
true that "No statute is completely intelligible as an isolated
enactment. Every statute is a chapter, or a fragment of a chapter, of a
body of law."[358:1] Still it does not seem necessary that English acts
should be quite so obscure as they often are. Nor, judging from the
amount of litigation that sometimes occurs over their interpretation,
does this defect appear to be always counterbalanced by remarkable legal
certainty. The most celebrated case is that of the Education Act of
1902. After the provision for the payment of religious instruction in
the church schools out of local rates had provoked dogged resistance,
and the magistrates had enforced it against recalcitrant rate-payers for
a couple of years, the matter was brought before the higher courts by
the refusal of the County Council for the West Riding of Yorkshire to
make the payment; and the majority of the Court of Appeal was of opinion
that the statute did not oblige it to do so.[358:2] The House of Lords
reversed the decision;[358:3] but for Parliament to pass the Act in such
a form that the Court of Appeal could regard it as failing to effect
what everybody knew to be one of its main objects is surely an amazing
example of bad drafting. Nor was this the result of amendments in the
House of Commons, for the provision in question went through unchanged;
and although in this case the fault is said not to lie at the door of
the Parliamentary Counsel, it shows none the less the defects of the
system.
[Sidenote: The Defects Arise;]
It has already been remarked that the limited capacity of Parliament
for law-making affects both the form and the content of its acts; and
this is one of many elements in a complex problem. The lack of time for
comprehensive legislation, the political temperament of the nation, and
the exigencies of a responsible ministry have each a marked influence on
the form and the substance of the statutes; and, indeed, all these
factors act and react upon one another.
[Sidenote: from Difficulty of Legislating;]
The difficulty of passing long or complicated measures makes the
minister insist that his bill shall be as short as possible,[359:1] and
hence it must include no clauses not absolutely necessary for the object
he has in view. The draftsman, therefore, disturbs existing statutes as
little as he can, either in the way of revising or incorporating their
provisions. If he must embody earlier enactments in his draft, he does
so by referring to them, rather than by repeating them.[359:2] The
practice of legislation by reference, which is a source of no small
inconvenience in using the statutes, has been carried very far. In fact
there is a long series of "Clauses Acts" on various subjects, not
enacted with an independent legislative force of their own, but placed
on the statute book as standard provisions to be embodied in subsequent
acts by reference express or implied.[359:3] The desire to have the bill
short has also given a strong impulse to the practice of removing
details from the body of the act, and massing them in schedules at its
close.[359:4] This is an advantage to the minister who has charge of the
bill, because while it does not withdraw the matters in the schedules
from the control of the House, it does make them less conspicuous and
concentrates the attention of the members on the principal questions of
policy.
[Sidenote: from Political Temperament;]
A similar result, although one that concerns more directly the substance
than the form of the statutes, may be traced to a conservative
tradition in legislation. It is commonly said that in industrial matters
Englishmen do not appreciate the value of the scrap-heap, that they tend
to use old-fashioned machinery when it would be better to discard it
altogether. If they dislike to abandon a machine, they have a still
greater aversion to repealing an Act of Parliament. Every Briton happily
believes that it is better to readjust the institutions of a country
slowly, than to pull them down and build anew; and there being no line
between the institutions that are fundamental, and those that are not, a
fragment of the veneration for the British Constitution attaches to
every statute; and, indeed, to custom also. This helps to make the
legislator cautious, and his work tentative. Moreover, there is a great
respect for vested rights, and for that matter for vested habits, and
sometimes vested abuses. Sir Courtenay Ilbert tells us how much
solicitude is aroused by the probable effect of a bill on the peculiar
circumstances of the parish of Ockley-cum-Withypool, or the emoluments
of the beadle of Little Peddlington.[360:1] Too much attention seems to
be paid at times to such interests when they conflict with those of the
public; and this brings up the third factor in the problem, that of
cabinet responsibility, which has a marked influence on both the form
and the content of legislation.
[Sidenote: Reform-sponsibility of Ministers.]
If the parliamentary system, as it has developed in England, intrusts
the active conduct of legislation and administration to the ministry of
the day, and thereby concentrates enormous political power in the hands
of a few men, it does so among a highly individualistic people. The
ministers wield their great authority on two conditions. One is that
they must retain an absolute hold upon their own majority, and the other
is that their rule must be tempered by liberty of criticism. They must
explain everything they do, they must defend it against the attacks of
the whole House, and justify it to the satisfaction of almost all their
followers. The result is that they try to bring into their measures
nothing that might furnish a needless target for critics, or prove a
cause of offence to any of their supporters.
Restraint, in some form, is the price paid for power; and great strength
in one direction is apt to conceal weakness in another. An English
ministry with a good majority at its back appears omnipotent. It
announces its policy, forces through its bills against the protests of
the Opposition, and even against appeals from members on its own side
not to put pressure upon them. But the power it exerts is in large part
the resultant of other forces less openly displayed. If, on pain of
disloyalty, and for fear of handing the government over to the
adversary, the private adherent of the party in power must follow the
whips in critical divisions, the ministers, on their part, are sometimes
compelled by an insistent group of their supporters to adopt one
measure, or to mutilate or abandon another. They cannot disregard the
serious objections of any considerable section of their own followers,
and this has become more and more true with the evolution of the
parliamentary system. Half a century ago they might win as many votes
from the other side of the House as they lost on their own, but that is
rarely possible to-day. They must now carry with them on every question
substantially the whole of their party.[361:1] Their omnipotence is
therefore a very limited and cautious omnipotence, and this has shown
itself, especially under the late Conservative government, in the meagre
annual production of statutes.
[Sidenote: Revision and Codification of Statutes.]
If the legislation of a country is to consist, not in passing
comprehensive laws dealing with a whole subject, but in making
progressive changes by tinkering and patching the existing acts, it
would seem an obvious convenience to issue from time to time new
editions of those acts compiled in a more compact and intelligible form.
It would be a great advantage to have frequent revisions or
codification of the statutes on a subject, not involving a change of
substance, but merely a simplification of form. But such a process of
consolidation has not been common in England. A great deal of labour was
expended on this object by several commissions during the nineteenth
century; but the only positive results have been the production of two
editions of revised statutes--being simply the statutes at large
rearranged with the parts no longer in force omitted--and the passage of
a limited number of acts consolidating the statutes on certain
subjects.[362:1] Such acts are not easy to pass, because, as Sir
Courtenay Ilbert remarks, "It is difficult to disabuse the average
member of Parliament of the notion that the introduction of a
consolidation bill affords a suitable opportunity for proposing
amendments, to satisfy him that reënactment does not mean approval or
perpetuation of the existing law, or to convince him that attempts to
combine substantial amendment with consolidation almost inevitably spell
failure in both."[362:2] The process has neither been extended to so
many subjects, nor repeated at such short intervals, as might be wished.
[Sidenote: Temporary Laws.]
Another curious result of the difficulty of enacting laws may be seen in
the long list of temporary statutes, continued in force from time to
time, sometimes for many years. Some of these are acts of a transitory
nature, designed to cover an emergency, or to deal with an ephemeral
state of things. Laws of that kind expire with the conditions that
called them forth. But the English temporary acts often relate to
permanent matters. That a statute of an experimental character should be
enacted at the outset for a limited period is natural enough, but when
the period has come to an end, and the experiment has proved a success,
one would expect to see the law reënacted in an enduring form. In
England, however, there is passed every year an Expiring Laws
Continuance Act, giving another twelve-month's lease of life to a list
of acts appended in a schedule, many of which are already old. One or
two have already reached the age of threescore years and ten; and among
the list are still found the Ballot Act of 1872, with most of the
statutes of the last half century that regulate the conduct of
elections. The reason for the existence of perpetual temporary laws is
to be found, no doubt, in the fact that in this form they can be
continued almost without opposition, while an attempt to enact them as
permanent statutes would give rise to great debates with a host of
amendments, and consume a vast deal of the one thing whereof the
ministry has never enough--that is time.
[Sidenote: Delegation of Legislative Power.]
The limited capacity of Parliament to pass statutes is not felt as a
pressing evil, because the period of great remedial legislation is over.
The transition from the political and industrial conditions of the
eighteenth century has been accomplished, and the consequent change in
laws and institutions has been, in the main, effected. The demand for
radical legislation is, therefore, comparatively small, and for the time
at least the process of making law can afford to run slow. Yet it may be
doubted whether, with the great extension in the sphere of government,
Parliament could be suffered to move at its present pace were it not for
the growing practice of delegating legislative power. We hear much talk
about the need for a devolution of the power of Parliament on
subordinate representative bodies, but the tendency is not mainly in
that direction. The authority of this kind vested in the county councils
by recent statutes is small, too small to affect the question. The real
delegation has been in favour of the administrative departments of the
central government, and this involves a striking departure from
Anglo-Saxon traditions, with a distinct approach to the practice of
continental countries.[363:1]
[Sidenote: Statutory Orders.]
Formerly an English statute went into great detail, attempting to
provide expressly for every question that could possibly arise. Its
interpretation, or its applicability to a special case, could be
determined only by the courts, while its defects could be remedied, or
its omissions filled up, only by another statute. It contained in itself
the complete expression of the legislative will. But of late it has
become more and more common for Parliament to embody in a statute only
general provisions, and give to some public department a power to make
regulations for completing the details, and applying the act to
particular cases. These regulations--known as statutory orders--cover a
great variety of subjects, and govern not only the duties of officials,
and the administration of public affairs, both national and local, but
also the conduct of individuals in the management of their own concerns.
They prescribe, for example, how many persons can live on canal-boats,
the number of cubic feet of air in factories, the precautions that must
be taken for cleanliness in dairies, what per cent of water may be
contained in genuine butter, and under an authority of this kind a
general order was issued in 1900 for muzzling all the dogs in the
country.
[Sidenote: Control of Parliament over Provisional Orders.]
Parliament usually attempts to retain a control, or at least an
oversight, of the orders made by the public departments under the
authority delegated to them in this way. Sometimes the order is issued
under a power that is provisional only, and does not become operative
until confirmed by a statute. This is usually, though not
invariably,[364:1] true of rights granted to private companies or local
authorities to construct works of public utility, such as waterworks,
gas-works, tramways, and the like.[364:2] Provisional orders of that
kind do not involve any true delegation of legislative power, because
they derive their validity, not from the act of the department, but from
the statutes by which they are confirmed; and they are included among
the Acts of Parliament, and not the statutory orders of the year.
Practically, however, they are almost always confirmed without
amendment.
[Sidenote: Over Statutory Orders.]
Parliamentary control over statutory orders strictly so called, which
involve a real delegation of legislative power, is commonly maintained
by requiring them to be reported to the two Houses; and in order to give
an opportunity for preliminary criticism, the regulation, or a draft
thereof, must sometimes be laid on the table for a certain time before
it becomes operative.[365:1] Moreover, control by Parliament is often
expressly reserved by providing that if, within forty days, either House
presents an address to the Crown against a draft or order, then the
order shall not be made, or in case it has already gone into effect it
shall thenceforth be void.[365:2] An address under such a provision is
exempted from the rule about the interruption of business in the House
of Commons, and hence can be moved by a private member at the close of
the sitting on any evening, without taking his chance in drawing lots,
or appealing to the government for a part of its time.[365:3] As a
matter of fact, motions of this kind are uncommon, and are rarely, if
ever, successful; although the frequency with which the statutory orders
are revised by the departments would seem to show that the officials who
make them are highly sensitive to outside opinion.
Since 1893 the statutory orders of each year have been regularly
published like the Acts of Parliament;[365:4] and an idea of their
number may be derived from the fact that they always fill one, and often
two, large volumes, each much thicker than the present emaciated book of
the Public General Acts.[366:1] In spite of the potential control
retained by the Houses over statutory orders, the growing habit of
delegating authority to make them involves a substantial transfer of
power from Parliament to the executive branch of the government, a
transfer due in part to the increasing difficulty in legislation.
The existing relation between the cabinet and the House of Commons has
thus had a number of distinct, and at first sight contradictory,
effects. While placing the initiative for almost all important
legislation in the hands of the ministers, it has tended to reduce the
number and completeness of the laws they can carry through; and on the
other hand it has helped to invest them with a power of subordinate or
secondary legislation quite foreign to English traditions. This is true
of public matters, but in regard to private and local acts the relation
of the cabinet to Parliament, and hence the effects of that relation,
are wholly different.
FOOTNOTES:
[356:1] _Cf._ Ilbert, "Legislative Methods and Forms," 217.
[356:2] Ilbert, _Ibid._, 90-91. Private bills are, of course, drafted by
the counsel for the petitioners, and provisional order bills by the
department that grants the provisional order.
[356:3] Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," 86 note. The Scotch and Irish
bills, and almost all the most important Indian bills, are drawn by
draftsmen attached to the offices for those countries.
[357:1] Sir Courtenay Ilbert, himself Parliamentary Counsel at the time
he wrote his work on "Legislative Methods and Forms," has given therein
an excellent description of the history (67-69, 80-85) and the work
(85-97, 218-19, 227-31) of the office.
[357:2] "Leg. Methods and Forms," 229-31.
[358:1] "Leg. Methods and Forms," 254.
[358:2] Rex _vs._ West Riding of Yorkshire, (1906) 2 K.B., 676.
[358:3] Atty. Gen. _vs._ West Riding of Yorkshire, (1907) App. Cas., 29.
[359:1] Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," 217, 241.
[359:2] _Ibid._, 217-18. _Cf._ 254-66.
[359:3] This is particularly true in the case of local and private
bills, where the provisions of "Clauses Acts" must often be
incorporated, either by the terms of those acts, or in consequence of
the standing orders on private business. _Ibid._, 261.
[359:4] _Cf. Ibid._, 266-68.
[360:1] Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," 230.
[361:1] The extent to which this is done, and the amount it has
increased, is shown by statistics in the chapter on "The Strength of
Party Ties." The difficulty to-day comes, not from the opinions or
interests of individual members, but from groups of members acting on
public grounds, or at least, on grounds which affect a great part of
their constituents.
[362:1] Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," Chs. iv., vii.
[362:2] _Ibid._, 113.
[363:1] _Cf._ Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," Chap. iii., and pp.
220-21, 224.
[364:1] Authority, for example, to construct a light railway, which is
legally distinct, but physically indistinguishable, from a tramway, does
not require confirmation by Parliament, 59-60 Vic., c. 48, §9.
[364:2] A change in the boundaries of a county or borough requires in
the same way confirmation by Parliament; but an order altering an urban
or rural district or parish, requires only to be laid upon the table of
each House, 51-52 Vic., c. 41 (part 3).
[365:1] Drafts of orders that are not required to be laid before
Parliament before they come into operation, must, by 56-57 Vic., c. 66,
§ 1, be open to criticism, by any public body interested, for forty days
before they are finally settled and made. But this does not apply to
rules made by the Local Government Board, the Board of Trade and some
others (§ 1 (4)).
[365:2] _Cf._ Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," 41, _cf._ 310-14.
[365:3] Ilbert, "Manual," § 36.
[365:4] 56-57 Vic., c. 60, § 3.
[366:1] This last, however, does not contain the text, but only a list
of titles, of local and private acts, although many of them are legally
public general acts. On the other hand the published statutory orders
for the year do not include by any means all the orders of a temporary
nature.
CHAPTER XX
PRIVATE BILL LEGISLATION
If the direction of important legislation of a public character lies
almost altogether in the hands of the ministers, special laws affecting
private or local interests are not less completely outside of their
province.
[Sidenote: The Nature of Private Bills.]
Private Acts of Parliament are of immemorial antiquity, but they seem to
have first become numerous in connection with the building of turnpike
roads and the enclosure of commons in the second half of the eighteenth
century.[367:1] They were also the means used to authorise the
construction of canals, and later of railways; and, in fact, it was the
great number of railway bills, presented in 1844 and 1845 that gave rise
to the modern private bill procedure in the House of Commons.
Apart from railway bills they have been used of late years chiefly to
regulate local police and sanitary matters, or to grant powers to
private companies or municipal corporations for the supply of public
conveniences, such as water, gas, electric light, or tramways; for
private bill procedure applies not only to bills that affect private
persons or companies, but also to those that deal with the rights and
duties of organs of local government in any particular place.[367:2]
The line, however, between public and private bills is not altogether
logical. Measures, for example, touching matters of general interest
affecting the whole metropolis have been passed as public bills; and
this has been true to a smaller extent of other places; while bills
regulating affairs of less importance for those very areas have been
treated as private. In fact the same subject has at different times been
dealt with by public and private bills; the question which procedure
should be followed depending upon the uncertain standard of the degree
in which the public interest was involved.[368:1] With these exceptions
it may be said that every bill introduced for the benefit of any person,
company or locality, is, for the purposes of procedure, a private bill.
[Sidenote: Procedure on Private Bills.]
The standing orders that govern procedure upon private bills are much
more elaborate and comprehensive than those relating to public bills.
They fill in print five times as many pages; and although custom and
precedent play an important part, still the printed rules approach very
nearly to a code of private bill procedure.[368:2]
[Sidenote: Petition and Notice.]
Before a private bill is introduced, a petition therefor is drawn up,
and in order to give any one interested an opportunity to prepare his
objections, notice of the petition must be given, in October or
November, in _The Gazette_, in appropriate local newspapers, and in some
cases by posters upon the roadside. Personal notice must also be served
in December upon the owners of land directly affected, and if the
petition is for leave to build a tramway, the consent of the local
authority must be obtained.[369:1] Plans of the work proposed must also
be deposited for inspection both at Westminster and with some local
officer.[369:2] The petition, with the bill itself, must be filed on or
before Dec. 17 in the Private Bill Office of the House, and a copy must
be delivered to the Treasury, the Local Government Board, the Post
Office, and to any other department whose duties relate to the subject
involved.[369:3] The petitioner is also required to file estimates of
cost, and to deposit a sum equal to four or five per cent. of the
proposed expenditures as a guarantee fund for the benefit of persons who
may be injured by a commencement, and failure to complete, the
work.[369:4]
[Sidenote: Examiners of Petitions.]
The next step is to make sure that these preliminary regulations have
been obeyed. It is done by paid officers of the House called Examiners
of Petitions for Private Bills,[369:5] and since 1855 the two Houses
have appointed the same persons to that post, so that the process is
gone through only once.[369:6] The petitioner must prove before the
examiner that he has complied with the standing orders; and any person
affected has a right to be heard on the question, if he has filed a
memorial of his intention to appear. The examiner certifies that the
standing orders have been followed, or reports in what respect they have
been disregarded.[369:7]
[Sidenote: Legislative and Judicial Aspects of the Procedure.]
Private bill procedure has both a legislative and a judicial aspect. The
final aim being the passage of an act, a private bill goes through all
the stages of a public bill, and the records of its progress appear in
the journals of the House. But the procedure is also regarded as a
controversy between the promoters and opponents of the measure, and this
involves an additional process of a judicial character. For that purpose
the full records of the case are preserved in the Private Bill Office,
where they are open to public inspection. The preliminary steps already
described are intended chiefly to prepare the case for the judicial
trial, and to give opponents a chance to make ready their defence. They
correspond to the pleadings in the clerk's office of a court; and they
are conducted by a parliamentary agent who performs the duties of a
solicitor in a law suit.[370:1]
[Sidenote: Introduction of the Bill.]
The preliminaries over, the bill is ready to be introduced, and the
first thing is to arrange in which House it shall begin its career. This
is decided at a conference between the Chairmen of Committees of the two
Houses, or in practice by the gentlemen who act as their legal advisers,
the Counsel to Mr. Speaker and the Counsel to the Lord Chairman of
Committees.[370:2] All these proceedings take place before the usual
date for the meeting of Parliament, so that when it assembles the bills
can be brought in at once.[370:3]
If the examiner reports that the standing orders have been complied
with, the bill is presented forthwith by being laid upon the table of
the House. If not, his report is referred to the Committee on Standing
Orders, composed of eleven members chosen by the House itself at the
opening of the session.[371:1] This committee reports whether the
omission is of such a nature that under the circumstances it ought to be
excused or not; and the report is almost always adopted by the House. In
case the omission is excused the bill is presented by being laid upon
the table; and every bill is deemed when presented to have been read a
first time.[371:2]
[Sidenote: Second Reading.]
On the next stage, the second reading, a debate may take place upon the
general principle involved, and a bill is sometimes rejected at this
point, either because it is inconsistent with public policy, or because
opponents whose interests are involved have been able to persuade a
majority of the members to vote against it. Instructions to the
committee about the provisions to be inserted in the bill can also be
adopted at that time.
[Sidenote: Private Bill Committees.]
The committee stage of the bill, for the consideration of its provisions
in detail, is devolved upon a private bill committee. Here takes place
the judicial process, or trial of the controversy between conflicting
interests, which presents the peculiar feature of the English procedure.
Until near the middle of the nineteenth century the committees for
private bills were made up on the same principle as select committees on
other matters. They consisted in large part of supporters and opponents
of the measure. But in 1837 the Lords began to form their private bill
committee of a small number of wholly impartial members,--a practice
which was adopted by the Commons for railway bills in 1844, and for all
other private bills in 1855.[371:3] The system of committees in the two
Houses is now very much the same,[372:1] the order of proceeding in the
Commons being as follows: All opposed private bills, except those
relating to railways and canals, divorce, and police and sanitary
matters, are referred under the rules to the Committee of Selection,
which divides them into groups and refers each group to a separate
committee, consisting of a chairman and three members not locally or
otherwise interested, all of whom it appoints for the purpose.[372:2]
[Sidenote: Railway and Canal Bills.]
In order to secure greater uniformity in the private acts relating to
railways, a general committee on railway and canal bills was created in
1854.[372:3] It is appointed every year by the Committee of Selection,
and to it are referred all bills of that kind. But it does not take
charge of them itself. It merely divides them into groups, and then acts
as a chairman's panel; that is, it refers the bills to separate
committees, the chairman of which it selects from its own ranks, the
other three members being appointed by the Committee of
Selection.[372:4]
[Sidenote: Police and Sanitary Bills.]
With the same object of obtaining uniformity, all bills promoted by
local authorities for police and sanitary purposes were referred after
1881 to a single committee. In this case, however, the bills were not
too numerous to be considered by the committee itself, although to
relieve pressure it was, in 1892, enlarged to eleven members, and
authorised to bisect itself for the more rapid despatch of business.
Curiously enough the committee was discontinued for some years, but,
after loud complaints about exceptional powers granted by private acts,
it was revived by sessional order in 1903, and intrusted with all police
and sanitary bills which contain powers "in conflict with, deviation
from, or excess of, the general law."[373:1]
A committee on divorce bills is still provided for in the rules, but
since the power of granting divorces in England and Scotland has been
entirely transferred to the courts, bills of this kind have become rare.
While the various private bill committees are thus formed in slightly
different ways, their mode of dealing with the measures that come before
them is the same.
[Sidenote: _Locus Standi._]
The bills referred to these committees have been described as "opposed,"
but that implies an opponent, and means, not an objector in the House,
but an outside contestant on the basis of interest, for the chief object
of these committees is a judicial hearing of opposing parties. If there
is no opponent, so that the question is solely whether the privileges
sought are consistent with the public welfare, the bill is said to be
unopposed, and goes through quite a different procedure to be described
hereafter. Plainly, therefore, the question who may oppose a bill, and
on what grounds, is of vital importance. A person who enjoys the right
is said to have a _locus standi_; and the first question to be decided
is whether an opponent does or does not have it.
Now, any one who wishes to oppose a bill must, on or before Feb. 12,
file a petition in the Private Bill Office, stating the ground of his
objection,[373:2] and if the promoters contest his right to
appear,[373:3] the question of _locus standi_ is decided by the Court of
Referees, consisting of the Chairman of Ways and Means, the Deputy
Chairman, and not less than seven members of the House appointed by the
Speaker. The Counsel to Mr. Speaker assists the court, but sits now only
as an assessor.[373:4] The principal divergence in the procedure of the
two Houses arises at this point, for questions of _locus standi_ are
determined in the House of Lords by the committee that considers the
bill; and there is some difference of opinion about the relative merits
of the two systems.[374:1] In both Houses the decisions are governed
partly by express provisions in the standing orders,[374:2] and partly
by precedents that have hardened into rules.
[Sidenote: Grounds of _Locus Standi_.]
In order to have a _locus standi_, an opponent must, as a rule, show
that the bill may affect his property or business. He must prove a
personal interest distinct from that of the rest of the community.
Moreover, it is a general principle that, except on the ground of some
special injury to themselves, both individuals and public boards are
precluded from opposing before a private bill committee a public body on
which they are represented. If, for example, a borough proposes to
construct and work a tramway, an omnibus company has a right to be heard
in opposition, but a rate-payer who believes that the plan will be
financially disastrous has not.[374:3]
It is, of course, unnecessary to describe here all the kinds of private
interest that will furnish a _locus standi_.[374:4] But in general, it
may be said that the right is enjoyed by all persons whose land is to be
compulsorily taken; by the owners and occupiers of buildings along the
line of a proposed tramway; by traders affected by the tolls, fares, or
rates proposed;[374:5] by public authorities; and sometimes by
inhabitants acting on behalf of a county, town, or district, that is or
may be affected. Competition, also, is a ground for _locus standi_,
although the right to appear is usually confined to monopolies, to
organisations that represent the trade as a whole, or to individuals
whose business is important enough to represent that trade;[375:1]
moreover the privilege is extended by the standing orders to chambers of
agriculture, commerce or shipping.[375:2] While, therefore, the rules of
_locus standi_ are not perfectly logical, they are distinctly based upon
private interest, individual or collective, and not upon the general
welfare.
[Sidenote: Hearing before the Committee.]
The hearing of the parties before the committee follows the pattern of a
trial in a court of law, even to the standing of the counsel employed.
Up to this point the parties have been represented by parliamentary
agents, who, although not necessarily attorneys or solicitors, hold a
similar position, and must be registered in the Private Bill
Office.[375:3] The actual hearings, however, like trials in court, are
conducted by barristers. The fees, which are large, attract a high order
of talent, and in fact the practice before private bill committees has
become almost a distinct branch of the profession, the counsel who
pursue it being known as the parliamentary bar.[375:4] The proceedings
are strictly judicial in form, the barristers examining and
cross-examining the witnesses and making the arguments in the ordinary
way. Moreover, if either party has vexatiously subjected the other to
expense, the committee can award costs like a court of law, and this is
occasionally done.[375:5]
The first thing taken up is the preamble, the hearing upon this
involving the general merits of the bill, so that if the committee is
of opinion that promoters have failed to prove that part of their case,
it reports at once against the bill. Otherwise the clauses are taken up
in order, and the committee reports the bill with or without amendments.
[Sidenote: The Committee and Public Policy.]
Although the peculiar function of the committee consists in passing upon
the conflicting claims of the parties that appear before it, the
question whether the public welfare will be promoted by the enactment of
the bill must be considered also. This is, of course, one of the chief
things that the promoters must prove; but the committee seeks no
evidence on its own account, nor can it permit a private person who has
no _locus standi_ to address it on the subject. In the interest of
public policy, however, some safeguards have been devised. In the first
place the standing orders direct that in various classes of measures
certain provisions must be inserted. These relate to such matters as the
level of roads, grade crossings, the amount of mortgages, the time for
completing works, deposits to secure completion, minimum rates of fare,
the application of general railway acts, leaving open spaces for
recreation in enclosure bills, and the erection in London of new
workmen's dwellings to replace others that are torn down. In some cases
also the committee must report specially any unusual provisions
contained in the bill, notably in relation to the borrowing powers of
local authorities.
Moreover, on some questions the committee has the benefit of advice from
public officials. That private bills must be filed with one or more of
the public departments has already been pointed out. In a few cases the
departments are directed to submit to Parliament a report upon the
bill,[376:1] and they are always at liberty to do so. Under the rules
these communications are referred to the committees,[376:2] which are
required to notice in their reports the recommendations of the
departments, and state the reasons for dissent where they have not been
followed.[376:3] Occasionally, representatives of the departments
appear before the committees;[377:1] and, what is more important, a
general oversight of private bill legislation, with the right to make
suggestions, is maintained by the officers of the Houses.[377:2] This is
especially true of the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, and of the Chairman of
Committees and his counsel in the House of Lords; but the question how
effective their supervision is must be deferred until the results of the
system are discussed.
[Sidenote: Unopposed Bills.]
Unopposed bills, that is bills where no adverse petition has been filed,
or where the petitioner has not proved a _locus standi_, do not involve
a judicial trial between contestants, but only an examination with a
view to the public interest.[377:3] They are, therefore, referred to
quite a different committee. Until 1903 it consisted of the Chairman, or
Deputy Chairman, of the Committee of Ways and Means, and the Counsel to
Mr. Speaker, assisted usually, but not always, by one other member of
the House.[377:4] The Select Committee of 1902 on Private Business was
of opinion that a body with so much authority ought to be strengthened
by the addition of more members directly responsible to the
House,[377:5] and in partial fulfilment of its recommendations the
standing orders provided in the following year that the Committee on
Unopposed Bills should consist of the Chairman and Deputy Chairman of
Ways and Means, of two other members of the House, appointed by the
Committee of Selection, and of the Counsel to Mr. Speaker.[378:1]
The bills having already been read through by the Speaker's Counsel, and
in part by the Chairman of Ways and Means, the committee goes over them
rapidly with the promoters, discussing chiefly such points as have been
raised by the Speaker's Counsel, and by any reports from government
departments.[378:2] If any other question should come up involving a new
and important matter of public policy, the Chairman, who was already
overworked, would formerly have avoided the responsibility of deciding
it himself by reporting to the House, as he has power to do,[378:3] that
the bill ought to be treated as opposed;[378:4] and this although there
was no one to conduct the opposition.[378:5] One of the objects of
strengthening the committee was to put it in a position to decide all
such questions itself. As a matter of fact the committee often makes
amendments in a bill, but seldom reports that it ought not to pass.
[Sidenote: Report and Consideration.]
After a bill, whether opposed or not, has been reported, the House, if
dissatisfied, may recommit it either as a whole or with reference to
particular clauses, and with or without instructions. When this does not
happen, and it is unusual, the bill, if reported without amendment, and
not a railway or tramway bill, stands ready for its third reading. If,
on the other hand, it has been amended by the committee, or is a railway
or tramway bill, it is ordered to lie upon the table for consideration
on report.[378:6] At that stage amendments may be proposed, or a motion
may be made to recommit, but in order to insure that the standing orders
are complied with, both by the private bill committee and by the House
itself, the consideration cannot take place until the Chairman of Ways
and Means has informed the House that this is the case; nor can any
amendments be offered until the Committee on Standing Orders has
reported upon them, if the Chairman thinks it proper that they should do
so.[379:1]
The last stage is that of third reading where only verbal amendments are
in order.[379:2]
[Sidenote: Private Bills in the Lords.]
After passing through one House a private bill goes to the other, and
there is the usual process for reaching an agreement upon amendments. It
is needless to trace here the course of a private bill in the
Lords.[379:3] The procedure is essentially the same as in the Commons,
and the only differences of any consequence have already been mentioned
in the text or in the notes. A great deal of discussion has taken place
upon the wisdom of having two separate hearings before the private
committees of the two Houses.[379:4] It has been suggested that a second
hearing is needless, and that time and expense would be saved by having
a single trial before a joint committee. On the other hand it is urged
that where a bill is objectionable or defective the second hearing gives
a better chance to reject or improve it; and that as a matter of fact
the parties often accept the decision of the first committee, or
compromise their differences, only about one third of the bills opposed
in one house being opposed again in the other.[379:5]
[Sidenote: Special Procedure for Scotland.]
The inconvenience and expense of a trial before a committee in London
led to a strong demand for hearings in Scotland upon private bills
relating to that kingdom, and in 1899 a statute was enacted for that
purpose.[380:1] The Act and the general orders made in pursuance
thereof, provide that, instead of following the ordinary procedure,
promoters of Scotch private bills shall, in April or December, file a
petition with the Secretary for Scotland for a draft provisional order
deposited therewith. They must also comply with rules similar to those
in force for private bills about giving notice, and filing copies and
plans with the government departments. The draft order is submitted to
the Chairmen of Committees of the two Houses. If either of them is of
opinion that it affects interests outside of Scotland, or is of such a
character, or raises such a question of policy, that it ought not to be
dealt with in the new way, then it takes the regular course of an
English private bill. If not, the order follows the new Scotch
procedure. The two Chairmen assign an examiner to see that the general
orders about notice, and other matters, have been observed, the final
power of dispensation in case of non-compliance resting also in their
hands. After these preliminary steps have been taken, the petition is
ready to begin its active career.
[Sidenote: Scotch Private Bill committees.]
If the petition is not opposed, the Secretary for Scotland may, after
considering the reports of the public departments, make the provisional
order, as prayed for or with amendments. In short, he takes the place of
a committee on unopposed private bills. If, on the other hand, he thinks
an inquiry ought to be held, or if the petition is opposed, he sends it
to a commission selected on a curious plan designed to retain the work
as far as possible in parliamentary hands. The difficulty, on one side,
of getting members of Parliament to undertake such a service, and the
desire, on the other, to retain a close connection with the Houses,
resulted in a compromise between a parliamentary committee and a
permanent commission.[381:1] Each House provides a panel of its own
members, that of the Commons consisting of not more than fifteen members
appointed by the Committee of Selection.[381:2] There is also an extra
parliamentary panel of twenty men appointed for a term of five years by
the two Chairmen and the Secretary for Scotland. The commission upon
every petition consists of four persons taken from these panels, the
Chairmen of Committees selecting two from the panel of each House, if
possible; if not, they appoint as many of the four as they can from the
two House panels indiscriminately, the remainder in any case being taken
by the Secretary from the extra parliamentary panel.[381:3] The
commission so formed holds its sessions, of course, in Scotland,
proceeds like a committee upon an opposed private bill, and has power to
decide all questions of _locus standi_. It reports to the Secretary
whether the provisional order should be issued and in what form; and he
acts accordingly.[381:4]
[Sidenote: Confirmation by Parliament.]
The order of the Secretary, whether opposed or unopposed, is not final,
but provisional only, and requires confirmation by Parliament. He brings
in a bill to confirm it, and if the order was not opposed in Scotland,
or is not opposed in Parliament, it is treated as if it had already gone
through all the stages up to and including committee, and is ordered to
be considered as if reported from a committee of the House. But the
right of the parties to a hearing in Parliament as the final court of
appeal has been to some extent preserved, for a petition may be
presented against any order that has been opposed, or has been the
subject of a local inquiry, in Scotland, and in that case a motion may
be made to refer the bill to a joint committee, which hears the parties
as in the case of an ordinary private bill, but reports to both Houses.
The question of permitting an appeal to a parliamentary committee in
London was much discussed at the time, and the bill as finally passed
reserved the right, limiting it to a single hearing before a joint
committee, instead of two hearings before separate committees of each
House as in the case of an ordinary private bill. The promoter,
moreover, as well as the opponent, has a right to appeal to Parliament.
If his draft order is refused, he may, without going through the other
preliminary steps, file it in the form of a substitute bill in the
proper public office, and proceed with it like a private bill.[382:1]
The Scotch procedure has thus the effect of a compulsory arbitration in
Scotland, preceding a possible trial at Westminster. It appears,
however, that a Scotch confirmation bill is in fact seldom opposed in
London.
[Sidenote: Ireland and Wales.]
Two years after the Scotch statute was passed, similar acts were
proposed for Ireland and for Wales, but neither of them was passed. A
select committee on a Welsh bill of this kind reported in 1904 that the
Scotch procedure as it stood was not adapted to Wales, and that any
desire in England for a less costly procedure than now existed would
best be met by an extension of the system of provisional orders. The
committee remarked that while most of the witnesses examined thought the
Scotch Act had worked well on the whole, some of them believed there had
been no saving of expense in the case of large schemes. This was
attributed by the witnesses mainly to the cost of bringing counsel and
experts from London, and in fact, the evidence showed no little
difference of opinion about the advantages of the new procedure in
several respects.[382:2] In Ireland there is another obstacle to the
adoption of the Scotch Act; for while local hearings on private bills
would have especial value beyond St. George's Channel, the Nationalists
do not want any form of devolution that leaves the final management of
Irish affairs in the hands of the British Parliament.
[Sidenote: Provisional Orders.]
The vast amount of private legislation enacted in England every year is
due in large measure to the absence of general statutes upon subjects
that would seem to be ripe for them. Year after year private bills are
passed on the same subject, until a policy is established which might
well be crystallised into a general law, leaving the controversies that
arise in its application to be settled by a body of purely judicial
character; or, as in continental countries, a final power of dealing
with these matters might, subject to rules fixed by law, be vested in
the administrative departments. That many costly bills in Parliament
would be saved by passing appropriate statutes has been
suggested,[383:1] yet the process goes on slowly, and so far as it has
been carried it is for the most part incomplete. During the last fifty
years central administrative authority in local and other matters has
increased enormously, but in conferring powers upon public departments
Parliament has been reluctant to give up its own ultimate control over
particular cases. This is especially true of the compulsory sale of land
for public purposes; for property in land still retains a peculiar
sanctity in England.[383:2]
Parliament has, no doubt, in many cases, delegated to the administrative
organs of the state a final authority to grant special powers to local
bodies or private companies, or at least to sanction their use;[383:3]
but in other cases the grant must be laid before the Houses, and does
not go into effect if either of them passes a resolution of
disapproval.[383:4] Sometimes if opposed,[384:1] and more often whether
opposed or not, the orders conferring the powers must be submitted to
Parliament for a formal ratification. This is the origin of provisional
orders. They are issued by a government office under the authority of
statutes, but they are merely provisional until confirmed by Parliament.
Except the Treasury, the Admiralty, and the Indian and Colonial Offices,
which can hardly come into direct touch with local affairs, almost all
the important departments, and even the county councils, have been given
some powers of this kind; and they cover all manner of subjects that
would otherwise be dealt with by private bills.[384:2]
[Sidenote: Procedure upon Provisional Orders.]
Provisional orders are begun by an application to the department that
has power to issue them, and although the standing orders do not as a
rule apply to these applications,[384:3] yet, by the enabling acts, or
by the instructions issued by the departments themselves, similar
regulations about notices, deposit of plans, consent of local
authorities, and so forth, are enforced. The department usually holds,
by means of an inspector, an inquiry on the spot; and either in this or
in some other way objectors who are interested are given a chance to
present their case. Upon the report of the inspector, and such other
information as it obtains, the department decides whether it will make
the order or not.
The orders made are then arranged in groups according to their subjects,
and each group is scheduled to a confirming bill, which is introduced
into Parliament like a public bill by the minister at the head of the
department. But it is not treated as a public bill, still less as a
government bill.
The minister does not try to force it through; he does not put pressure
upon his followers by having the government whips act as tellers in a
division. The measure is treated as a group of private bills, except
that if an order is unopposed an officer of the department appears in
support of it before the committee. The bill is read a first time, sent
to the examiner, read a second time and referred to the Committee of
Selection or the Committee on Railway and Canal Bills. Then if no
petition has been filed against any of the orders in the bill it goes to
the Committee on Unopposed Private Bills; otherwise it goes, with all
the orders it contains, to an ordinary private bill committee which
gives a hearing in the usual form to the promoters and opponents of the
orders that are opposed.[385:1] Finally, the bill goes through the
regular stages in the House.[385:2] In fact the standing orders
direct[385:3] that provisional order bills, after being reported, shall
be subject to the same rules as private bills, except so far as the
payment of fees by the promoters is concerned.
[Sidenote: Advantages of Provisional Orders.]
The question of fees is a very important matter. It is one of the chief
reasons for resorting to a provisional order; because the fees charged
by the Houses to the promoters of private bills are heavy, and in the
case of unopposed bills they form a large part of the cost of obtaining
the act. An unopposed provisional order is, therefore, very much less
expensive than an unopposed private bill; and although, with the large
fees of counsel and expert witnesses, an opposed order may cost as much
or even more than an opposed bill, it has the benefit of the presumption
arising from the action of the department. Moreover, provisional orders,
even if contested before the department, are not commonly opposed in the
House. In the four years from 1898 to 1901 less than one tenth of the
provisional orders were opposed in Parliament, and only one of them
failed to pass.[386:1] It is, indeed, noteworthy that of the 2520
provisional orders issued by the Local Government Board from 1872 to
1902 only 23 were rejected by Parliament.[386:2]
[Sidenote: Defects of Private Bill Legislation.]
[Sidenote: Expense.]
The system of private bill legislation, like the rest of man's
handiwork, is not altogether without defects. One of these is the
costliness of the procedure. A local governing body that wants to do
some obvious and necessary public duty, such as to take land for the
purpose of a new street or schoolhouse, must go to the expense of
getting a provisional order; or if the object happens to be one not
covered by any statute for provisional orders, it must incur the greater
cost of promoting a private bill; and in either case the owner, if
determined to fight to the bitter end, can force the expense up to a
considerable sum. In the House of Commons there is a fee for almost
every step that is taken by the promoters of a private bill; the minimum
fees for the various stages in the House itself taken together are never
less than thirty-five pounds, and they increase according to the amount
involved, up to four times as much. There is, moreover, a fee of ten
pounds for each day that the committee sits, if the promoters appear by
counsel, and of five pounds if they do not. Fees on a smaller scale are
also charged to opponents. Altogether the annual receipts of the House
of Commons from private bill legislation average over forty thousand
pounds, while its expenses on that account are less than twelve
thousand.[386:3] In the House of Lords the fees are arranged somewhat
differently, but they are, on the whole, about as large;[386:4] so that
the parliamentary charges on the smallest unopposed private bill amount
to over one hundred and ninety pounds. Then there are the expenses of
parliamentary and local agents, of printing, advertising, and, in the
case of opposed bills, of counsel, witnesses, and experts. Sometimes,
all this makes a very large sum. Birmingham, for example, spent £44,750
in 1892 in promoting a single bill.[387:1]
The total amount spent by local authorities in the United Kingdom during
the seven years from 1892 to 1898 in promoting and opposing private
bills was £1,396,407, while private companies expended for the same
purpose £2,806,813. Adding the smaller sums spent on provisional orders,
and those paid out by harbour and dock boards, the grand total consumed
in private legislation was £4,496,834.[387:2] The cost of opposed bills
cannot be materially reduced by Parliament if the present system is to
be maintained; and while this is not true of unopposed bills, it has
been argued that high fees are an earnest of good faith and tend to
check private speculation in concessions.
[Sidenote: Neglect of the Public Interest.]
A second defect in the system is a lack of sufficient attention to the
interests of the public. As early as 1865 it struck observers that,
apart from certain partial safeguards, the public had no friend in this
class of legislation.[387:3]
The fact is that private bill committees are chiefly occupied by a
hearing between conflicting interests, in which a citizen whose only
motive for appearing is the general welfare has no _locus
standi_.[387:4] Moreover, they are shifting tribunals, whose decisions
are uncertain, and whose very nature renders a consistent policy
extremely difficult. In fact it is this uncertainty that often causes
promoters to try the chance of a private bill, rather than apply for a
provisional order on the same subject to a public department that is
trying to enforce a well-known policy at variance in some respects with
the powers the promoter is seeking to obtain.
The committees are sometimes willing to grant new and unusual powers,
without enough regard for the ultimate effect of the precedent they
create. This has been specially true in the case of borough councils,
and was a cause of no small complaint before the Committee on Municipal
Trading in 1900.
[Sidenote: Effect of the Standing Orders.]
There are, indeed, certain means of preserving uniformity of action that
are more or less effective. The first of these are the standing orders,
which lay down some rules for the guidance of the committees, and
prescribe a few provisions that must be inserted in certain classes of
bills. They do not, however, go very far.
[Sidenote: Clauses Acts and Model Bills.]
Then there are the clauses acts, of various kinds, which are practically
always incorporated--though not without additions or exceptions--in
private bills on the subjects with which they deal. There are, also, the
model bills, which have been carefully drawn up as standards for the
committees to follow, although they are by no means obliged to do so.
But all these things tend merely to maintain uniformity in legislation
of a well-recognised type, along familiar lines. They have little effect
in cases where a request is made for new and unusual powers. Cases of
that kind are not, indeed, wholly without supervision. If a bill deals
with local police or health, it goes before the Police and Sanitary
Committee created by the House of Commons for the very purpose of
preserving a consistent policy in such matters, and of no small use in
that way.[388:1] But this is true only for a very limited class of
measures.
[Sidenote: The Government Departments.]
The only general oversight comes from the government departments, and
the officers of Parliament. It has already been pointed out that all
private bills must be referred to one or more of the departments, and
that these are sometimes obliged, and always at liberty, to make reports
upon them. The reports go to the private bill committees, which are
required to notice the recommendations therein in their own reports to
the House. The suggestions cannot, therefore, be entirely ignored, but
the departments have no means of enforcing them. The Home Office is,
indeed, always represented before the Committee on Police and Sanitary
Bills,[389:1] but it is rarely asked to attend before others;[389:2]
and, in general, it may be said that for a department to communicate
with the committees save by its written reports is somewhat
exceptional.[389:3] On novel questions of policy, moreover, the
departments seem to follow rather than lead the private bill
committees.[389:4]
[Sidenote: Chairman of Ways and Means.]
The officers of the Houses of Parliament have a more effective
influence. Under the standing orders of the Commons all private bills
must be shown to the Chairman of Ways and Means, both before they are
considered by a committee and after any amendments have been
made.[389:5] When sitting in the Committee on Unopposed Bills, he
frequently requires the agent of the promoters to omit or insert
clauses,[389:6] and occasionally he draws the attention of the chairman
of a private bill committee to an extraordinary provision; but he does
not feel it his duty to try to secure a general uniformity in private
bills.[389:7] In fact, he is so busy that he can examine personally only
a small part of them.[389:8] The appointment of a Deputy Chairman has
been an assistance in this way.[389:9] But the work is mainly done by
the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, who reads all the bills; makes a careful
analysis of them, noting the reports from the government departments;
sees the agents about any amendments he has to suggest; and calls the
attention of the Chairman of Ways and Means to any matters that may
require it.[389:10] Sometimes he is consulted by the chairman of a
private bill committee;[390:1] while the paid referee, on account of his
large experience, had formerly some influence with the committees.[390:2]
[Sidenote: The Lord Chairman.]
But by far the most important officer of Parliament in this respect is
the Chairman of Committees in the House of Lords, the Lord Chairman, as
he is called. Being less busy with public affairs than the House
Chairman, he is able to devote much more time to private bill
legislation. He examines all the bills, even reading those introduced
into the House of Commons before the Speaker's Counsel sees them;[390:3]
and he is in constant communication with the Chairman of Ways and Means,
and with the government departments.[390:4] He does not, as a rule, act
directly upon the private bill committees,[390:5] but he confers with
the promoters of the bills or their agents, and explains to them what
changes he requires them to make. In such cases the promoters usually
comply with his wishes. In fact they are practically obliged to do so or
withdraw their bill, because the second and third readings of private
bills in the House of Lords are always moved by the Lord Chairman, who
would simply refuse to act if his advice were not accepted. Of course,
some other peer might make the motion and carry it, but this is said to
have happened only once within living memory.[390:6] The Lord Chairman
examines provisional orders less thoroughly, and if they contain
objectionable provisions he confers with the department that is
responsible for them rather than with the promoters.[390:7]
The greatest obstacles which the Lord Chairman meets with come from what
are known as "agreed clauses," that is, clauses agreed upon between
opponents and promoters of the bill. These in most cases are accepted
without much examination by the private bill committees. The Lord
Chairman tries to strike them out when he deems them against public
policy; but this is not always easy, because it may be an injustice to
one of the parties who has consented not to urge or oppose other
provisions on the faith of those clauses. Moreover, even if the clauses
are struck out of the bill, they may still be operative in fact, as the
persons interested often feel bound in honour to carry them out. The
matter has a very important bearing on the subject of municipal
trading,[391:1] that is, the supply of public utilities by companies and
public bodies, and it will be noticed hereafter in that connection. It
is curious that the protection of the public interest in private bill
legislation should depend very largely on the action of one man, and
that man not the holder of a representative office or responsible to the
public, but a member of an hereditary chamber who practically holds his
post as long as he pleases.
[Sidenote: Merits of the System.]
If the English system of private bill legislation has its defects, they
are far more than outweighed by its merits. The curse of most
representative bodies at the present day is the tendency of the members
to urge the interests of their localities or their constituents. It is
this more than anything else that has brought legislatures into
discredit, and has made them appear to be concerned with a tangled skein
of private interests rather than with the public welfare.[391:2] It is
this that makes possible the American boss, who draws his resources from
his profession of private bill broker. Now the very essence of the
English system lies in the fact that it tends to remove private and
local bills from the general field of political discussion, and thus
helps to rivet the attention of Parliament upon public matters. A
ministry stands or falls upon its general legislative and
administrative record, and not because it has offended one member by
opposing the demands of a powerful company, and another by ignoring the
desires of a borough council.
[Sidenote: It Depends on the Support of the Committees by the House.]
Such a condition would not be possible unless Parliament was willing to
leave private legislation in the main to small impartial committees, and
abide by their judgment. If this were not true--and it would not be true
in most other legislatures--the promoters and opponents of the bill
would attempt to forestall or reverse the decisions of the committees on
the floor of the House, and would try to enlist the support of the
members in their favour. That is, indeed, occasionally done, and has
called forth no small complaint. Perhaps the most notable instance of
late years was that of the bills for the organisation of companies to
supply electric power in Durham and South Wales. The bills were opposed
on the ground both of public policy and of local interest, and were
rejected by the House of Commons in 1899 under the powerful influence of
the Association of Municipal Corporations. Public feeling was, however,
aroused, and the bills were passed in 1901.
In the very nature of things Parliament must have power to overrule the
private bill committees, and sometimes does so, but the permanence of
the system depends upon the fact that it is not done often. The
question, therefore, whether there is a growing tendency to override the
committees is a very interesting one. Such meagre statistics as have
been collected would appear to show that there has been a slight
increase in the number of bills opposed on second and third reading, and
in the number of instructions to committees that have been moved,[392:1]
as well as in the amount of time spent in the House in debating these
matters.[392:2] It seems, also, to be the general opinion of men in
close touch with private bill practice, that the habit of overruling the
committees has gained ground of late years, but fortunately not to any
dangerous extent.[393:1]
FOOTNOTES:
[367:1] For the History of this subject see Clifford's "History of
Private Bill Legislation."
[367:2] The distinction between public and private bills, and public and
private acts is not the same. The former depends upon the nature of the
procedure in Parliament; while acts are classified as (1) Public General
Acts, (2) Local Acts, which have the same legal effect as public acts,
but apply only to a particular locality, and may relate to an organ of
local government or a company; (3) Private Acts--now few in
number--which are of a personal nature, and are not taken notice of by
courts unless specially pleaded. With some exceptions that will appear
sufficiently in the text, the acts in classes (2) and (3) do, and those
in class (1) do not, go through the procedure of private bills.
[368:1]
[Sidenote: Hybrid Bills.]
_Cf._ May, 634-43. Ilbert, "Leg. Methods and Forms," 29-32. Moreover, as
measures intended primarily to affect particular places, may, on account
of their far-reaching importance, be treated as public bills, so others
designed for public objects may interfere in a peculiar way with private
interests. Measures of either kind are sometimes, under the name of
"Hybrid Bills," put through a mixed procedure. They are introduced as
public bills, and then referred to a private bill committee, which is,
however, larger than an ordinary committee of that kind, the members
being appointed partly by the House and partly by the Committee of
Selection. A procedure of this sort is required in the case of bills of
the London County Council for raising loans (S.O.P.B. 194).
[368:2] To distinguish between the two classes of standing orders the
numbers of those relating to public business are printed in the
parliamentary papers in bold-faced type. But in the footnotes to this
book those relating to private business are referred to as S.O.P.B. The
references are to the standing orders as revised in 1903, because a
number of changes were made in that year in pursuance of the
recommendations of the Select Committee of 1902. The statements in this
chapter relate to the procedure in the House of Commons; for the
practice in the House of Lords is so nearly the same in almost all
essential points, that it is enough to indicate the more important
differences in the text or in the notes. A memorandum on the differences
in detail may be found in the Report of the Committee on Private
Business (Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, App. 15).
[369:1] The rules about notice are contained in S.O.P.B. 3-22. See also
May, 680-81.
[369:2] S.O.P.B. 23-31.
[369:3] _Ibid._, 32-34.
[369:4] _Ibid._, 35-37, 55-59. By the so-called Wharncliffe Order a
special meeting of the members of any company must be held to authorise
or ratify an application for a private bill. _Ibid._, 62-68.
[369:5] S.O.P.B. 69-78.
[369:6] May, 682; _cf._ Clifford, 788-95.
[369:7] S.O.P.B. 69-78, 230-32. May, 683-91.
[370:1] The legislative procedure in the House is regulated by Part IV.
(193-226) of the Standing Orders Relating to Private Business; the
conduct of the Private Bill Office by Part V. (227-49); the judicial
procedure before private bill committees, with the supervision thereof
by the officers of the House, and the prescription of provisions that
must, or must not, be inserted, by Part III. (69-162).
[370:2] Rep. of Sel. Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1888, XVI., 1,
Q. 340; Rep. of a similar Com., Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 193,
1957-5. Formerly many more private bills began in the Commons than in
the Lords, but now the numbers are not very far from the same. _Ibid._,
Q. 337, and App. 8.
[370:3] Until 1903 the division of bills between the two Houses was not
made until after Parliament met. _Ibid._, Qs. 166-68, 197. But the
committee of 1902 recommended a change which was made (_Ibid._, Report
Sect. 18 S.O.P.B. 79).
[371:1] S.O.P.B. 91-97. There is a committee with similar powers in the
House of Lords, composed of forty peers, besides the Chairman of
Committees who with any two other members forms a quorum. May, 796.
[371:2] S.O.P.B. 197. This is a change made in accordance with the
report of the Select Committee of 1902. Before that time a vote, though
a formal one, took place on the first reading.
[371:3] Clifford, I., 70-71, 256; II., 821-43. Rep. of Com. on Priv.
Bill Leg., Com. Papers, 1888, XVI., 1, p. xix.
[372:1] In the Lords the committees on opposed bills consist of five
members and the chairman has no casting vote. In the Commons he has both
an ordinary and a casting vote, S.O.P.B. 124. In the Lords there is no
Committee on Railway and Canal Bills.
[372:2] S.O.P.B. 98, 103, 105-6, 108, 110-13, 116-17, 208. Until a few
years ago there was a paid referee who could sit on the committee with
an advisory voice but no vote. May, 728. There were formerly two paid
referees, and later only one.
[372:3] Clifford, I., 117.
[372:4] S.O.P.B. 98-106, 115, 208.
[373:1] May, 767. Ilbert, "Manual," § 92, and p. 294. It is appointed by
the Committee of Selection.
[373:2] S.O.P.B. 127-28. If the bill is brought from the House of Lords,
or delayed in any other way, the petition must be filed within ten days
of the first reading.
[373:3] May, 733.
[373:4] S.O.P.B. 87-89. Until 1902 the Speaker's Counsel and the paid
referee were members, and the important members, of the court.
[374:1] Rep. Com. on Priv. Bill Leg., Com. Papers, 1888, XVI., 1, p.
iv., and see the evidence before the Committee on Private Business, Com.
Papers, 1902, VII., 321.
[374:2] S.O.P.B. 129-35. These precedents are collected in the reports
of cases in the Court of Referees, by Rickards and Saunders, and
Saunders and Austin.
[374:3] By the Borough Funds Act of 1872 the expense of promoting a
private bill cannot be incurred by a local authority unless sanctioned
by a meeting of the rate-payers. Glen, "Law of Public Health," 12 Ed.,
483, 967-68. But this does not apply to matters for which provisional
orders can be obtained. _Ibid._, 970; _cf._ Rep. of Com. on Priv.
Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 2242, 2290-92, 2329-31. By
the Borough Funds Act, 1903, no such sanction is required for opposing a
private bill.
[374:4] _Cf._ May, 734-52.
[374:5] But usually only in case they appear as a class. S.O.P.B. 133;
May, 735.
[375:1] Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 183,
Qs. 576, 582, 2377.
[375:2] If the Court of Referees thinks fit. S.O.P.B. 133a. This
provision is not restricted to cases of competition.
[375:3] May, 691-93.
[375:4] By custom, parliamentary counsel are never appointed to the
bench, and as they cannot enter Parliament without giving up their
practice, they are shut out from a political career.
[375:5] May, 781-82.
[376:1] _Cf._ S.O.P.B. 154, 155, 157a, 158b, 173, 194c.
[376:2] S.O.P.B. 212.
[376:3] _Ibid._, 150, 157, 157a, 173a, 194c, 194d.
[377:1] Rep. Com. on Municipal Trading, Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 1, Qs.
569, 985.
[377:2] _Cf._ S.O.P.B. 79-86.
[377:3] The total number of private bills that come before the House of
Commons runs from 150 to 250 a year, and of these about one half are
unopposed in that House. There are also about 50 unopposed provisional
orders.
[377:4] _Cf._ S.O.P.B. (1902) 109, 137. For bills originating in the
House the third man was the member indorsing the bill. But this member,
if interested, locally or otherwise, although taking part in other ways,
could not vote. S.O.P.B. (1902) 139, now S.O.P.B. 138. For bills coming
from the House of Lords he was Mr. Parker Smith, M.P. Rep. Com. on Priv.
Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 23, 68-69, 368; and see the
Return printed yearly in the Commons Papers of the persons who served on
the committee for each unopposed bill.
In the Lords the Committee on unopposed bills consists of the Chairman
of Committees and such lords as think fit to attend, but the work is
practically done by the Chairman and his counsel. May, 801. Rep. Com. on
Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 1961, 1984-85, 2096,
2099-2104.
[377:5] Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, pp. viii-ix.
[378:1] S.O.P.B. 109.
[378:2] Rep. Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, Qs.
25, 27, 72-73, 1393, 1405-8.
[378:3] S.O.P.B. 83, 209.
[378:4] Rep. Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, Qs.
75-76, 1410-12.
[378:5] _Ibid._, Q. 1391.
[378:6] S.O.P.B. 213.
[379:1] S.O.P.B. 81, 84, 85, 215-16, 218. Amendments made by the Lords
must also be laid before the Chairman of Ways and Means. _Ibid._, 86.
Before consideration bills must also be sent again to the government
departments where they have to be deposited before they are introduced.
_Ibid._, 84.
[379:2] S.O.P.B. 219. In the House of Lords there is no consideration or
report stage, and substantial amendments may be made on third reading.
Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321, App. 15.
[379:3] _Cf._ May, Ch. xxix.
[379:4] _Cf._ Reps. of the Sel. Coms. of 1888 and 1902, Com. Papers,
1888, XVI., 1; 1902, VII., 321.
[379:5] _Cf._ Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII.,
321, Apps. 8, 12.
[380:1] 62-63 Vic., c. 47. Section 15 of the act empowers the Lord
Chairman of Committees and the Chairman of Ways and Means, acting
jointly with the Secretary for Scotland, to make, subject to objection
by either House, general orders for regulating proceedings under the
Act. These orders, which are voluminous, may be found in Com. Papers,
1900, LXVII., 649. A few standing orders for Scotch bills are published
as Part VI. of the Standing Orders relating to Private Business.
[381:1] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Proc. (Scotland), Com. Papers, 1898,
XI., 625.
[381:2] S.O.P.B. 253.
[381:3] The parliamentary returns show that of the dozen persons
required each year to make three commissions on groups of petitions, it
has been necessary to take only a couple of names from the extra
parliamentary panel.
[381:4] By § 8 if the commission report that the order be issued, he may
amend their draft.
[382:1] S.O.P.B. 255-58.
[382:2] Com. Papers, 1904, VI., 409.
[383:1] _E.g._ Rep. of Com. on Police and Sanitary Bills, Com. Papers,
1898, XI., 555; Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII.,
321, p. vii.
[383:2] The cases where land can be taken compulsorily without
confirmation by Parliament, are few, and are in the main confined to
widening highways, enlarging public buildings, providing for national
defence, furnishing allotments to labourers, and acquiring land for
parish purposes. The most striking departure from the rule is in the Act
of 1896 for the construction of light railways. _Cf._ Ilbert, "Leg.
Methods and Forms," 320.
[383:3] This applies to many matters connected with local government. It
is true also of the construction of light railways. 59-60 Vic., c. 48, §
9.
[383:4] This is true, for example, of certificates granted by the Board
of Trade to railways, for raising capital, working agreements, and other
matters.
[384:1] To this class belong the orders for providing dwellings for the
working classes, granting charters to municipal boroughs, changing the
boundaries of divided parishes, constructing tramways in Ireland, etc.
[384:2] For a description of the various statutes giving authority to
issue provisional orders see Clifford, Ch. xviii., and May, Ch. xxvi.,
and for a more exhaustive list of those relating to the Local Government
Board see Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321,
App. 10.
[384:3] The only ones that apply are S.O.P.B. 38 and 39 about replacing
workmen's dwellings and the deposit of plans.
[385:1] S.O.P.B. 208a.
[385:2] In the House of Lords an unopposed bill, like a public bill, is
referred after second reading to a Committee of the Whole. An opposed
order goes to a private bill committee, and then, with the rest of the
bill to a Committee of the Whole.
[385:3] S.O.P.B. 151.
[386:1] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902, VII., 321,
App. 11.
[386:2] _Ibid._, p. 185.
[386:3] _Ibid._, App. 6.
[386:4] _Ibid._, App. 15, and see the tables appended to the standing
orders.
[387:1] Return of Expense of Private Bill Legislation, 1892-98, Com.
Papers, 1900, LXVII., 111, p. 7.
[387:2] _Ibid._, 187, p. 66. See also the returns for the preceding
seven years in Com. Papers, 1892, LXIII., 51.
[387:3] Clifford, II., 800.
[387:4] At the local inquiries held by the departments for the purpose
of issuing provisional orders, any resident of the district has, in some
cases, at least, a right to be heard. Macassey, "Private Bills and
Provisional Orders," 388, 418.
[388:1] Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, Com. Papers, 1900, VII., 183,
Qs. 421, 423.
[389:1] Rep. of the Com. on Municipal Trading, Com. Papers, 1900, VII.,
183, Q. 987; Rep. of the Com. on Priv. Business, Com. Papers, 1902,
VII., 321, Qs. 2368-69, 2403-4.
[389:2] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 2378,
2401-2.
[389:3] Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, 1900, VII., 183, Qs. 233-34.
[389:4] _Cf. Ibid._, Qs. 3, 103, 145, and 1063.
[389:5] S.O.P.B. 80.
[389:6] Rep. of Committee on Priv. Business, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 403-5.
[389:7] _Ibid._, Qs. 391-94.
[389:8] _Ibid._, Q. 2327.
[389:9] _Ibid_., Qs. 85-87.
[389:10] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Legislation, Com. Papers, 1888,
XVI., 1, Qs. 340-42.
[390:1] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Legislation, Com. Papers, 1888, XVI.,
I., Qs. 348. Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, 1900, VII., 183, Q. 545.
[390:2] Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading, 1900, VII., 183, Qs. 2372,
2393, and 2399.
[390:3] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, 1902, VII., 321, Q. 248.
[390:4] Rep. on Municipal Trading, 1900, VII., 183, Q. 3915.
[390:5] _Ibid._, Qs. 290-91 and 3923-24.
[390:6] _Ibid._, Qs. 284-85, 390, 3912, 3920, 3922; Rep. of Com. on
Priv. Business, 1902, VII., 321, Qs. 77-80, 214-15.
[390:7] Rep. on Municipal Trading, 1900, VII., 183, Qs. 454-55 and
3917-18.
[391:1] _Cf._ Rep. on Municipal Trading, 1900, VII., 183, Qs. 298,
341-44, 347, 3939-41.
[391:2] For a careful study from this point of view of a fairly good
legislative body, by one of its members well fitted to observe, see an
article by Francis C. Lowell, in the _Atlantic Monthly_, LXXIX., 366-77,
March, 1897.
[392:1] In the five years 1891-95 the number of bills opposed on second
reading averaged 17-3/5, while from 1897-1901 they averaged 32. Rep. of
Com. on Priv. Business, 1902, VII., 321, Q. 218.
[392:2] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Business, 1902, VII., 321, App. 2. But
these periods are too short to warrant any accurate conclusion. In not
more than eight or nine per cent. of the cases does the opposition seem
to have succeeded. _Ibid._, Q. 219-20.
[393:1] _Cf._ Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Leg., Com. Papers, 1888, XVI.,
1, Qs. 346-47, 487-88, 553, 1244. Rep. of Com. on Municipal Trading,
1900, VII., 183, Qs. 519, 523-26, 529. Com. on Priv. Business, 1902,
VII., 321, Qs. 42-43. In conversation the writer found the opinion that
the habit was increasing substantially universal.
When the Speaker's Counsel hears that opposition in the House is likely
to be made, he sometimes tries to prevent it by arranging for a
conference between the promoters and opponents in the presence of the
Chairman of Ways and Means. Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Legislation,
1888, XVI., 1, Q. 346.
CHAPTER XXI
THE HOUSE OF LORDS
Tracing its origin to the ancient council of the magnates of the realm,
the House of Lords has, in the fulness of time, undergone several
changes of character.[394:1] From a meeting of the Great Council of the
King, it became an assembly of his principal vassals, the chief
landholders of the Kingdom, ecclesiastical and lay; and finally it was
gradually transformed into a chamber of hereditary peers, enjoying their
honours by virtue of a grant from the Crown. Each phase has left a trace
upon its organisation or functions, or upon the privileges of its
members.
[Sidenote: Composition of the House.]
Before the Reformation the ecclesiastics in the House of Lords,[394:2]
including the abbots and priors, usually outnumbered the laymen; but
upon the dissolution of the monasteries, and the disappearance therewith
of the abbots and priors, the proportions were reversed, and the
hereditary element became predominant. At present the House contains
several kinds of members, for it must be remembered that every peer has
not a right to sit, and all members of the House are not in every
respect peers.
[Sidenote: The Hereditary Peers.]
First there are the peers with hereditary seats. They are the peers of
England, created before the union with Scotland in 1707; the peers of
Great Britain created between that time and the union with Ireland in
1801; and the peers of the United Kingdom created thereafter. They rank
as dukes, marquises, earls, viscounts, and barons, whose precedence,
with that of their wives and children, furnishes abundant interest to
those who care for such things. The Crown, that is, the ministry of the
day, has unlimited power to create hereditary peerages with any rules of
descent known to the law in the case of estates in land,[395:1] and
since the accession of George III. the power has been freely used. All
but seventy-four out of nearly six hundred seats belong to this class,
which is now the only channel for an increase in the membership of the
House.
[Sidenote: The Representative Peers of Scotland.]
When the union with Scotland was made in 1707, the Scotch peers were
more numerous in proportion to population than the English; and
therefore, instead of admitting them all to the House of Lords, it was
provided that they should elect sixteen representatives of their order
for the duration of each Parliament. No provision was made for the
creation of new Scotch peers, so that with the dying out of peerages,
and the giving of hereditary seats to Scotch noblemen by creating them
peers of the United Kingdom,[395:2] the number of Scotch peers who have
no seats in their own right has fallen from one hundred and sixty-five
to thirty-three. Within another generation they may not be more than
enough to furnish the sixteen representatives.
[Sidenote: Of Ireland.]
The same problem arose upon the union with Ireland a hundred years
later; but the Scotch precedent was not followed in all respects; for
the act provided that the Irish peers should elect twenty-eight of their
number representatives for life, and an arrangement was also made for
perpetuating the nobility of Ireland within certain limits. Not more
than one new Irish peerage was to be created for every three that became
extinct, until the number--exclusive of those having hereditary seats in
the House of Lords under other titles--had fallen to one hundred, a
limit above which it can never be raised.[396:1] There is another
important difference between the Scotch and Irish peers. The former are
wholly excluded from the House of Commons, but the latter can sit for
any constituency in Great Britain, though not in Ireland. Under this
provision Irish peers have, in fact, often sat in the Commons, the most
famous case being that of Lord Palmerston. The Irish peerage thus
affords an opportunity to ennoble a statesman, without putting an end to
his political career in the popular chamber.
[Sidenote: The Bishops.]
The dissolution of the monasteries, by removing the abbots and priors
from the House of Lords, left the bishops the only spiritual peers; and
as such they have held their seats to the present day. By the time the
union with Scotland was made, the established church of that kingdom was
Presbyterian in form, and no Scotch ecclesiastics were added to the
House of Lords. But the Irish established church was Episcopal and
Protestant, and hence at the union with Ireland in 1801 four places were
given to her bishops, who filled them by rotation sitting for a session
apiece. With the disestablishment of the Irish Church in 1869 its
representatives vanished from Parliament, leaving the English prelates
as the only spiritual peers in the House of Lords.[396:2] Meanwhile the
greater attention paid to the needs of the Church has brought about the
creation of new bishoprics in England; but in order not to increase the
number of spiritual peers, it has been provided that while the
Archbishops of Canterbury and York, with the Bishops of London, Durham,
and Winchester, shall always have seats in the House of Lords, of the
rest only the twenty-one shall sit who are seniors in the order of
appointment.[396:3] The spiritual peers are members of the House solely
by virtue of their office, and so long as they retain it. Except, in
fact, for the five great sees they are members only by virtue of
seniority in office. At times the Nonconformists have tried to exclude
them altogether; but with the growth in the number of lay peers their
relative importance has diminished, and it is not probable that they
will be removed, unless as part of a larger movement for the reform of
the House of Lords, or the disestablishment of the Church.
[Sidenote: Life Peers.]
[Sidenote: The Case of Baron Wensleydale.]
Since the House of Lords is not only a legislative chamber, but also the
highest court of appeal for the British Isles, it is well that it should
contain at all times the legal talent required for the purpose. An
obvious method of accomplishing the result, without permanently
enlarging the House, or hampering the career of heirs who may not have
the wealth to support the dignity, is by giving seats for life to
eminent judges. With this object Sir James Parke, a distinguished baron
of the Court of Exchequer, received in 1856 a patent as Baron
Wensleydale for life. Much learning has been expended upon the question
whether the Crown has ever exercised the power to create a life peer
with a seat in the House of Lords,[397:1] and whether, if it ever
existed, the power has become obsolete; but the Wensleydale case was
settled by a vote of the House that the Letters Patent did not enable
the grantee to sit and vote in Parliament. Sir James Parke was thereupon
created Baron Wensleydale with an hereditary title, and the appointment
of Law Lords as life peers was postponed a score of years.
[Sidenote: The Lords of Appeal.]
At last the need for increasing the legal members of the House became so
clear that in 1876 an act was passed to authorise the appointment of
two, and ultimately of four, Lords of Appeal in Ordinary for
life.[397:2] They hold the position, and enjoy a salary of six thousand
pounds, on the same tenure as other judges; and since 1887 they have
also had a right to sit in the House as long as they live, irrespective
of their tenure of the office. The motive for their creation was simply
to strengthen the House of Lords as a court of appeal. Proposals for
life peerages on a more extended scale have also been made in connection
with plans to reform the House of Lords as a branch of Parliament. So
far these have come to nothing; and, as we shall see hereafter, it is by
no means clear that they would attain the end in view, or that, if they
did, they would be wise.
[Sidenote: The House Determines the Qualification of its Members.]
The authority of the House of Lords to determine the validity of new
patents has already been referred to in connection with the Wensleydale
case. It is also empowered by statute to pass upon the election of
Scotch and Irish representative peers. Disputed claims to the succession
of hereditary peerages, on the other hand, may be settled by the Crown
on its own authority, but it is the habit at the present day to refer
these likewise for decision to the Lords.[398:1]
[Sidenote: Disqualifications.]
Infants, aliens, bankrupts, and persons under sentence for grave
offences, are incapable of sitting in the House of Lords;[398:2] and
instances occurred in the seventeenth century of special sentence of
exclusion by the House itself. But more important from a political point
of view than the disqualifications for the upper chamber is the fact
that a peer cannot escape from the peerage. This is sometimes a
misfortune when a man, who has made his mark in the House of Commons,
has an obscure greatness thrust upon him by the untimely death of his
father. In such a case he loses at once and forever his seat in the
House where the active warfare of politics goes on, and this although he
may be a Scotch peer, who has no seat in the House of Lords. The
question was debated at some length in 1895, when Lord Selborne tried to
retain his seat in the Commons by omitting to apply for a writ of
summons as a peer; but the Commons decided that he could not do
so.[398:3]
[Sidenote: Personal Privileges of the Peers.]
Besides the liberty of speech and freedom from arrest which they
possess in common with the members of the other House, the peers, partly
in memory of their position as councillors of the Crown, partly as an
aftermath of feudal conditions, retain certain personal privileges, of
small political importance, but sometimes of interest to the person
concerned. One of these is the right of access to the sovereign for the
purpose of an audience on public affairs. Another is the right to be
tried by their peers in all cases of treason or felony.[399:1] If
Parliament is in session, the trial is conducted by the whole House of
Lords, presided over by the Lord High Steward appointed by the Crown. If
not it takes place in the court of the Lord High Steward, to which,
however, all the peers are summoned.[399:2] The privilege extends to the
Scotch and Irish peers, whether chosen to sit in the House of Lords or
not; to the life peers; to peeresses in their own right; and to the
wives and widows of peers, unless they have "disparaged" themselves by a
second marriage with a commoner; but it does not extend to the bishops,
or to Irish peers while members of the House of Commons.[399:3]
[Sidenote: Functions of the House.]
The House of Lords is both a coördinate branch of Parliament and a court
of law. Its duties as a court of appeal will be described in another
chapter with the rest of the national judicial system, and its original
jurisdiction, in the trial of peers and of impeachments brought by the
House of Commons, is no longer of much consequence. The evolution of the
political responsibility of ministers has made impeachment a clumsy and
useless device for getting rid of an official, while the greater
efficiency of the criminal law has made it needless for punishing an
offender; and in fact the last case where it was used was that of Lord
Melville, one hundred years ago. It may be noted, however, in this
connection that the House still retains the right to require the
attendance of the judges, not only when acting in a judicial capacity,
but on all occasions when it may need their advice.
[Sidenote: Money Bills.]
Since the House is a coördinate branch of the legislature, every act of
Parliament requires its assent, and although in practice it is far less
powerful than the House of Commons, the only subject on which the
limitations of its authority can be stated with precision is that of
finance. As far back as 1671 the Commons resolved "That, in all aids
given to the King, by the Commons, the Rate or Tax ought not to be
altered by the Lords";[400:1] and in 1678 they adopted another
resolution that all bills granting supplies "ought to begin with the
Commons. And that it is the undoubted and sole right of the Commons, to
direct, limit, and appoint, in such Bills, the Ends, Purposes,
Considerations, Conditions, Limitations, and Qualifications of such
Grants; which ought not to be changed, or altered by the House of
Lords."[400:2] The Commons have clung to this principle ever since,
enforcing it by a refusal to consider bills in which the Lords have
inserted or amended financial provisions; and although the Lords have
never expressly admitted the claim, they have in fact submitted to
it.[400:3]
[Sidenote: Paper Duties Bill in 1860.]
The upper House can, of course, reject a money bill altogether, but the
history of the last case where they did so shows the futility of such a
power by itself. In 1860 the ministry brought in a bill to repeal the
duties on paper, which hindered the development of a cheap newspaper
press, and the Lords rejected it in spite of the fact that the budget
already passed imposed additional taxation to make up for the loss of
revenue from paper. The next year the repeal of the paper duties was
simply included in the annual tax bill, and forced through in that way.
It is now the regular practice to include all the taxation in one bill,
and as the peers never venture to reject as a whole either this, or any
of the great measures granting supplies, it is truly said that the
House of Lords cannot initiate or amend, and practically cannot reject,
any money bill. The principle applies not only to the national receipts
and expenditures, but also to local rates,[401:1] but it does not apply
to revenues of the Crown or the Church, nor at the present day to
penalties or fees not payable into the Exchequer.[401:2]
[Sidenote: Tacking.]
It might be supposed that the Commons could carry any piece of
legislation by tacking it to a money bill. This was formerly done; but
the Lords have long had a standing order forbidding such a practice, and
no attempt has been made of late years to revive it.[401:3] Moreover the
rule about money bills is not strictly enforced where the financial
provision is merely incidental to general legislation. The Lords are
free to omit such a clause altogether,[401:4] or if it is so interwoven
with the rest of the measure that it cannot be treated separately, the
Commons have often waived their rights and taken into consideration
amendments made by the Lords.[401:5] For the sake of convenience they
have gone farther still, for they suffer expedients to be used, that
really evade, while recognising, their privilege. Bills are sometimes
introduced in the House of Lords with financial provisions which are
struck out on third reading. In the Commons these provisions are printed
as ghosts, underlined or in brackets, to indicate that they are not at
the moment a part of the bill, but that a motion will be made in
committee to reinsert them.[401:6] What is more, the Commons have
adopted a standing order that it will not insist on its privileges in
the case of private, or provisional order, bills which impose tolls, or
authorise rates by local authorities for local purposes.[401:7]
The rule about money bills applies only to measures actually before
Parliament. It does not prevent the House of Lords from expressing an
opinion upon financial matters either in debate or by resolution, or
from inquiring into them by means of select committees.[402:1] In 1903,
indeed, was seen the curious spectacle of the House of Lords debating
freely Mr. Chamberlain's fiscal policy, while the Opposition in the
Commons was striving almost in vain for an opportunity to do so.
[Sidenote: Officers of the House of Lords.]
Except when a peer is being tried the Lord Chancellor presides over the
House. In practice he is always made a peer, but this is not a legal
necessity, and, in fact, the woolsack, on which he sits, is commonly
said not to be within the House itself. Perhaps for this very reason he
has not the authority of the Speaker of the Commons in ruling upon
points of order. He does not even decide which peer shall speak, but if
more than one rise at once, and refuse to give way, the question who
shall have the floor is decided by the House itself, if necessary by
division.[402:2] Order in debate, also, is enforced not by him but by
the Lords themselves. Moreover, he has no casting vote, and it is
characteristic of his position that the peers do not address him, but
speak to "My Lords." In short, his functions are limited to formal
proceedings, and even in these he can be overruled by the House.[402:3]
If a peer he can, of course, as such, take part in debate; but otherwise
not. During his absence one of the deputy speakers, appointed by the
Crown, takes his place, or if none of these be present the House
appoints a speaker _pro tempore_.[402:4]
The other principal officers of the House are the Lord Chairman of
Committees, chosen by the House itself, who presides in Committee of the
Whole, and who, as we have seen, has great influence over private bill
legislation; the Clerk of the Parliaments, who acts as Clerk of the
House; the Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, who acts as messenger of
the House on great and formal occasions; and the Sergeant-at-Arms; all
these last three being appointed by the Crown.
[Sidenote: Quorum.]
The quorum of the House is fixed at the absurdly small number of three,
but this is to some extent delusive, for the presence of thirty Lords is
necessary for an effectual division upon any stage of a bill. Formerly
the House occasionally imposed fines upon its absent members, a practice
that has fallen into disuse. The privilege of voting by proxy has also
disappeared. It was abolished by standing order in 1868.[403:1]
[Sidenote: Procedure.]
The procedure upon bills is in general similar to that in the House of
Commons. There are two readings, and then a Committee of the Whole,
followed by a third reading; and there is the familiar rule that no
member can speak more than once to the same question, except in
Committee of the Whole. The chief difference from the Commons consists
in the rule adopted in recent years for referring bills after the
committee stage, and before report, to a standing committee appointed by
the Committee of Selection.[403:2] This gives an opportunity to revise
the drafting of a bill that has been battered out of shape in its
passage through Parliament. As a matter of practice, however, the
reference to a standing committee is usually omitted, for the Lords are
quite in the habit of shortening the process of legislation by special
vote of the House. The committee stage is often left out altogether; and
in money bills this always is done. On the appropriation bills, indeed,
there is rarely any debate, and all the stages are not infrequently
taken on one day.
[Sidenote: The Peers have Abundance of Time.]
The Lords have no constituents to impress, and hence there are not so
many members as in the Commons who want to take part in debate.
Moreover, they are not obliged to devote a large part of their time to
supply and to the budget; and as their chamber is not the place where
the great political battles are fought, the Opposition does not oppose
at every possible step. They can, therefore, get through their work at
leisure. They make use, indeed, of select and sessional committees in
much the same way as the Commons; but, having time enough to consider
every bill in Committee of the Whole, they do not need time-saving
machinery like the Standing Committees on Law and Trade. For the same
reason, and because there is no disposition to wilful obstruction, they
do not require and do not have a closure to cut off debate. Their
sittings also are short. On Wednesday and Saturday they seldom meet at
all, while on other days their usual hour of meeting is half-past four,
and they rarely sit after dinner-time.
[Sidenote: Their Action is Little Fettered by Rules.]
On the other hand, the very fact that the fate of ministers does not
hang upon their votes renders possible a much larger freedom of action
than in the Commons. There is not the same need of precaution against
hasty, ill-considered motions, or against votes that might embarrass the
government without implying a real lack of confidence. Hence there is no
restriction upon the motions that can be brought forward, save that
notice must be given beforehand;[404:1] and any question to a minister
may be followed by a general debate, provided again that notice of the
question has been given in the orders of the day.[404:2]
FOOTNOTES:
[394:1] The best history of the House is Pike's "Constitutional History
of the House of Lords."
[394:2] The question whether they sat by virtue of their tenure of land,
or of their offices in the Church, has been a subject of some
discussion. _Cf._ Pike, 151 _et seq._ Anson, I., 220-22.
[395:1] And possibly with others. _Cf._ Anson, I., 197-200.
[395:2] At one time the House of Lords held that a Scotch peer could not
be given an hereditary seat as a peer of Great Britain; but this
decision was afterwards reversed. Pike, 361-62. A peer so created can
still vote for representatives as a Scotch peer. _Ibid._, 362-63. And
there has been some doubt whether, if a representative peer, he vacates
his seat at once. _Ibid._, 362, May, 13.
[396:1] The number is now less than one hundred.
[396:2] The Bishop of Sodor and Man has a seat, but no vote.
[396:3] There are now ten English bishops who do not sit in the House of
Lords.
[397:1] _Cf._ Pike, 369-76. Stubbs, "Const. Hist.," 5 Ed., III., 454.
[397:2] Before appointment they must have held high judicial office for
two years, or have practised at the English, Scotch, or Irish bar for
fifteen years.
[398:1] Pike, 285-87; Anson, I., 227-28. These cases are referred to the
Committee of Privileges.
[398:2] The Act of 1870 abolished corruption of blood, so that a
sentence no longer cuts off the heirs.
[398:3] Hans. 4 Ser. XXXIII., 1058 _et seq._, 1174 _et seq._, and 1728
_et seq._ _Cf._ Rep. of Com. on Vacating of Seats, Com. Papers, 1895,
X., 561.
[399:1] For misdemeanors, peers, like other persons, are tried by an
ordinary jury.
[399:2] Upon conviction a peer is now liable to the same punishment as
other offenders.
[399:3] For the history of the subject in general see Pike, Chs. x.,
xi., and for that of the bishops, _Ibid._, 151-68, 179-94, 219-23.
[400:1] 9 Com. Journals, 235.
[400:2] 9 _Ibid._, 509.
[400:3] _Cf._ May, "Const. Hist.," I., Ch. viii., 444.
[401:1] May, "Parl. Prac.," 542.
[401:2] _Ibid._, 547, 549-50.
[401:3] _Ibid._, 552-53.
[401:4] _Ibid._, 551-52.
[401:5] _Cf. Ibid._, 544-46.
[401:6] For the same purpose the Lords sometimes insert a clause, in a
bill or amendment, that a financial provision really essential to their
plan shall not be operative, and then the Commons strike the clause out.
May, 547-49.
[401:7] S.O.P.B. 226. Sometimes, also, at the request of the member in
charge of a bill, the Commons consent to waive a privilege on which they
might have insisted.
[402:1] May, 541.
[402:2] _Ibid._, 296-97.
[402:3] _Ibid._, 186, 307.
[402:4] A Lord Keeper of the Great Seal has the same rights to preside
as the Lord Chancellor, and if the Seal be in commission the Crown
appoints a Lord Speaker. May, 184-86.
[403:1] Two days' notice must be given of a motion to suspend this
order. May, 350-51.
[403:2] May, 376, 377.
[404:1] May, 204, 205.
[404:2] _Ibid._, 206.
CHAPTER XXII
THE CABINET AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS
[Sidenote: Effect of The Reform Act of 1832.]
By sweeping away rotten boroughs, and giving representatives to new
centres of industry, the Reform Act of 1832 made a great change in the
position of the House of Lords; not by lessening its power--for since
the Great Rebellion the Lords as a branch of the legislature has never
had much power--but by the change in the composition of the House of
Commons which opened a door to conflicts between the two bodies. In the
old unreformed days the Lords and Commons were in general accord,
because both were controlled by a territorial aristocracy whose chief
members were peers. That element remained, no doubt, strong in the
Commons after the Act of 1832, but it was no longer overmastering, and
it had to use its authority in a more popular spirit, so that the two
Houses ceased to be controlled by the same force. By bringing about this
result the Reform Act drew attention to the fact that an hereditary
body, however great the personal influence of its members, could not in
nineteenth century England be the equal in corporate authority of a
representative chamber. It became apparent that the House of Lords might
on important issues differ in opinion from the House of Commons, and
that in such cases an enduring desire of the nation, as expressed in the
representative chamber, must prevail.
[Sidenote: Power of the Lords Thereafter.]
This did not mean that the House of Lords must submit to everything that
the Commons chose to ordain; that it was to become a mere fifth wheel of
the coach; on the contrary, in matters not of great importance, or on
which the Commons were not thoroughly in earnest, it exercised its own
judgment, sometimes in cases that caused no little friction between the
Houses. In 1860, for example, it rejected the bill to repeal the duties
on paper; in 1871 it refused to concur in the abolition of the purchase
of commissions in the Army; and in 1880 it rejected the bill to
compensate evicted Irish tenants. In all these cases the policy of the
House of Commons was ultimately carried out; and the peers recognised
fully that their action on great measures was tentative; that they must
not go too far; and that if public opinion was persistent they must in
the end give way. As Mr. Sidney Low well says: "The House of Lords, ever
since the struggle over the great Reform Bill, has been haunted by a
suspicion that it exists on sufferance."[406:1]
[Sidenote: The House of Lords is Conservative.]
From the fact that it represents, in the main, the interests of
property, and especially of landed property, the House of Lords tends
naturally to be conservative, in the sense that it is adverse to popular
demands which appear dangerous to interests of that kind, or indeed to
the established order of things; but more than this, the peerage as a
mass tends from its social position in the nation to gravitate toward
the political party that clings to the nobility and the Church as
pillars of the state. During the half century that followed the first
Reform Act, the Liberals were in power much the greater part of the
time, and they created by far the larger number of peers;[406:2] yet the
House of Lords remained firmly Conservative throughout; for even Liberal
peers--and still more their descendants--are drawn by a steady current
to the other side; a current that was accelerated, but not caused, by
the Home Rule Bill.
The House is, in fact, overwhelmingly Conservative. Of the hereditary
peers more than four fifths belong to the Unionist party; and the
disproportion is increased by the representatives from Scotland and
Ireland. In the case of Ireland this is the inevitable result of the
method of choosing, because elections occur only one at a time on the
death of a representative peer, and his successor is always taken from
the dominant--that is, the Unionist--party. In Scotland, there being no
provision for minority representation, the same result takes place, the
majority electing all the sixteen peers for the Parliament from its own
side; and thus the representative peers from both kingdoms, forty-four
in number, are Unionists to a man.
[Sidenote: Meaning of the Term "Conservative."]
It is commonly said that the House of Lords is a conservative body which
acts as a drag on hasty legislation, and holds back until the nation
shows clearly that it has made up its mind. This is undoubtedly true,
and if it were the whole truth the limited authority retained by the
House would provoke no strong resentment in any quarter; but it is only
a part of the truth. The word "conservative" has two distinct meanings
in England, according as it is spelled with a small or a capital C. The
first signifies an aversion to change; the second, one of the two great
political parties in the state. Now, for more than a generation after
the Reform Act of 1832 these two meanings of the word were not very far
apart. The Conservative party was to such an extent the party of
resistance to change as to make plausible, if not accurate, Macaulay's
comparison of the two parties that divided the nation to the fore and
hind legs of a stag, the Liberals being always in advance, and the
Conservatives following their footsteps at a distance. The simile
expressed one aspect of a not uncommon feeling, that the direction of
the national policy rested normally with the Liberals, but that when
they went too fast the Conservatives would come to power for a short
time, while the country adjusted itself to its new conditions. That
under these circumstances the House of Lords should act with the
Conservative party, and should help them to play the part of a brake
from time to time, not in order to stop, but only to slow down, the
coach on a hill, was natural, and not open to serious objection. But
Disraeli's constant preaching against a merely negative policy, coupled
with the need of seeking for working-class support after the extension
of the franchise by the Reform Act of 1867, led to the abandonment by
the Tories of the attitude of resistance to change. Even if it be true
that the new Tory democracy is, on the whole, less progressive than the
Liberal party, it is certainly not opposed to all progress. In more than
one direction, indeed, it is distinctly more favourable to change. If
the stag has not become double-headed, he has, at least, learned to walk
with either end in front; and this change in the Tory party has had a
marked effect upon the position of the House of Lords.
[Sidenote: The House has Become a Tool of the Conservative Party.]
Although the Conservatives have outgrown their negative attitude of
resistance to change, and have become an aggressive party with a
positive policy, they have retained and even strengthened their control
of the House of Lords. The House has not, of course, lost all volition
so completely as merely to register the commands of the Unionist
leaders. To some extent it has its own opinions, which are now more
conservative than theirs; and even when they are in power it amends the
lesser details of their bills with a good deal of freedom, sometimes
making its own views prevail. In 1899, for example, it struck out of the
London Local Government Bill the provision allowing women to vote for
the borough councils, a change that the Commons accepted with
reluctance; and in 1902 it succeeded in making amendments to the
Elementary Education Bill, which threw upon the rates the burden of
current repairs in the Church schools, and preserved some control by the
bishops over religious instruction therein.
But while the House of Lords has a will of its own in smaller questions,
on the great party struggles that rend the country it throws its weight
wholly on the side of the Tories, and plays into their hands. Thus, from
1892 to 1895, and again in 1906,--the only two occasions on which the
Liberals have been in office for a score of years,--the House of Lords
used its power boldly to hobble the government. That it did so to help
the Unionist party, and not simply from conservative objection to
change, is curiously brought out by its treatment of the principal
measures of 1906. Besides the Education Bill, where the conflict of
opinion lay very deep, two other government measures that aroused some
feeling came to it from the Commons. One of them, the Trades Dispute
Bill, which provided that a trade union should not be liable to suit for
any action it might take during a strike, was certainly a radical
measure, and one to which a chamber of conservative temperament might
well object; but the Lords passed it without amendment. The other, the
Plural Voting Bill, designed to prevent a man from voting in more than
one place, involved no very profound question of principle, and made no
very far-reaching change in English institutions, but was a bone of
contention between the parties because it affected the chances of
election in close districts. This bill the House of Lords summarily
rejected.
The fact is that since the Reform Act of 1832 government by party has
become highly developed; and although the differences between the
principles of the two parties may be less fundamental than they were
formerly, the voting in Parliament runs very much more strictly on party
lines.[409:1] Politics have become more completely a battle between
parties, in which it is more difficult than ever to avoid taking sides,
while the combatants try to make use of every weapon within their reach.
Now the very accentuation of party has made it easier for the peers to
resist a Liberal ministry, because in doing so they are evidently
opposing, not the people as a whole, but only a part of the people, and
a part that is a majority by a very small fraction. In this way it has
happened that the House of Lords, without ceasing to have an opinion of
its own on other matters, has become for party purposes an instrument in
the hands of the Tory leaders, who use it as a bishop or knight of their
own colour on the chess-board of party politics.
[Sidenote: Position of the House in Forcing a Referendum.]
A cabinet never thinks of resigning on account of the hostility of the
Lords; nor is its position directly affected by their action.
Indirectly, however, it may be very seriously impaired, if the peers,
claiming that the government is not really in accord with the
electorate, reject important measures, and thereby challenge a
dissolution of Parliament. By doing so they may reduce a ministry, that
is not in a condition to dissolve, to a state of political impotence,
both in fact and in the eyes of the nation. This was true of the Liberal
administration in 1893-94, when the peers rejected the Home Rule Bill,
and made amendments that struck at the root of the Parish Councils and
Employers' Liability Bills, changing the latter in a manner so vital
that the government finally withdrew the measure altogether. The
Liberals protested that the House of Lords thwarted the will of the
people, and ought to be ended or mended. The alliteration helped to make
the phrase a catchword, but the cry excited popular enthusiasm so little
that at the dissolution in 1895 the country upheld the same party as the
House of Lords, and returned a large Unionist majority to Parliament.
For the Lords to appeal to the people at a moment when the people were
of their party was naturally not an unpopular thing to do, and for some
time after the fall of Lord Rosebery's government they rather gained
than lost ground in the esteem of the public. The Conservatives, indeed,
declared that the House had renewed its youth, and had become once more
an important organ of the state by asserting its right to appealing from
the cabinet and the majority in the Commons to the nation itself. The
Lords were said to have attained the function of demanding a sort of
referendum on measures of exceptional gravity; but useful as such a
function might be, if in the nature of things a possible one, the
existing House of Lords cannot really exercise it, because their object
in doing so is essentially partisan. In attempting to appeal to the
electorate, they act at the behest of one party alone. Thus in 1893 the
Lords were quite ready to force the issue whether the cabinet retained
the confidence of the country; but in 1905 when a series of adverse
by-elections made it exceedingly doubtful whether the Conservative
government had not lost its popularity, nothing was further from their
intention than to cause a dissolution.
Now, a power to provoke a referendum or appeal to the people, which is
always used in favour of one party and against the other, however
popular it may be at a given moment, and however much it may be
permanently satisfactory to the party that it helps, cannot fail in the
long run to be exceedingly annoying to its rival; nor is it likely to
commend itself to the great mass of thinking men as a just and
statesmanlike institution. The House of Lords is a permanent handicap in
favour of the Tories, which is believed to have helped them even in
elections for the House of Commons. The workingmen have been told that
although the Conservatives promise them less, they are better able to
fulfil their promises than the Liberals who cannot control the House of
Lords. These things must be borne in mind in discussing a possible
reform of the upper House; but before coming to that question it will be
well to look at the Lords under some other aspects--at their
non-partisan activity, their treatment of private members' bills, and of
private bill legislation, and at the personal influence of the leading
peers.
[Sidenote: Non-political Legislation.]
So far we have considered only government bills, backed by the authority
of a responsible ministry, which the upper House must treat with
circumspection. The Lords do not feel the same restraint in regard to
private members' bills sent to them from the Commons. These lie beyond
the immediate range of party conflicts, and although they may
occasionally deal with important subjects, neither the cabinet nor the
parties take sides officially upon them. The Lords can, therefore, amend
or reject them without fear; but it has become so difficult for a
private member to get through the Commons any bill to which there is
serious opposition, that this function of the upper House is not of
great use. Still less vital is its power to initiate measures. In order
the better to employ the time of the Commons the government introduces
some of its secondary bills first in the Lords;[412:1] but measures
proposed by individual peers have little chance of success. It is hard
enough for a private member of the Commons to put his bill through its
stages in that House, with all the sittings reserved for the purpose in
the earlier part of the session; and it is even harder to pass a bill
brought from the Lords at a later date. The result is that of the few
private members' bills enacted each session only about one sixth
originate with the peers.
[Sidenote: Private Bill Legislation.]
The relation of the House of Lords to private bill legislation is very
different, for bills of that kind are in a region quite outside of
politics. In their case, as already observed, the action of the Lords
is, if anything, even more important than that of the Commons; and, in
fact, the private bill committees of the upper House inspire in general
a greater confidence, because the members are men of more
experience.[412:2] While, therefore, the House of Lords occupies a
subordinate place in regard to public measures of all kinds, and a
position of marked inferiority in the case of government bills, in
private and local legislation, which in England is of great importance,
its activity is constant and highly useful.
[Sidenote: Personal Influence of the Peers.]
The personal influence of the Lords is far greater than their collective
authority. With the waning of the landed gentry the respect for the old
territorial aristocracy has been replaced by a veneration for titles,
and this has inured to the benefit of the peerage. One sees it even in
business affairs, although the Lords as a class are little qualified by
experience for dealing with matters of that kind, the nobility having
until recently been debarred by tradition from commercial life. One of
the devices of that arch promoter Hooley for inducing the public to
embark in his schemes was to include a number of peers in his list of
directors--guinea-pig directors, as they were called, because their most
visible function was to pocket a guinea for attendance at each meeting.
The Hooley revelations some years ago checked this practice; but the
fact that it should have existed shows the confidence that titles were
believed to inspire among a large class of investors.
The glamour of rank appears to be if anything more dazzling as one
descends in the social scale; and a scion of a noble family, even when
he has no landed interest at his back, is usually a strong Parliamentary
candidate in a working-class constituency. The extension of the
franchise has thus rather increased than diminished the influence of the
nobility. The House of Commons, no doubt, makes a show of insisting that
the peers shall take no part in general elections; but they are,
nevertheless, active in politics and even in great electioneering
organisations, particularly in those that stand, like the Primrose
League, a little outside of the regular party machinery. When a general
election is not in progress the leaders of the House of Lords speak
constantly in public; and at the present day speeches from the platform
are reported in the daily press quite as fully, and read at least as
widely, as those delivered in the House of Commons. A foreigner is
impressed by the popular confidence in those peers who have attained a
position in the forefront of politics. There seems to be a feeling that
they are raised above the scrimmage of public life; that in rank,
wealth, and reputation they possess already the goal of ambition, and
are beyond the reach of the temptations that beset the ordinary man.
[Sidenote: Reform of the House of Lords.]
[Sidenote: Objects of Reform.]
The adoption by the Lords, in the autumn of 1906, of amendments to the
Education Bill, so contrary to its spirit that they were rejected in the
Commons by an overwhelming majority without any attempt at compromise,
has brought the question of a reform of the upper House again
prominently before the country. No one would now think of creating the
House of Lords as it stands; but, as Mr. (now Lord) Courtney remarks,
"The public judgment may long tolerate a machine which works without
unnecessary friction, although it would not construct it in the same
fashion if it had to be for the first time devised."[414:1] This is
particularly true if it is difficult to propose something that would
work better; and therefore in discussing the reform of the House of
Lords it is important to have clearly in mind the objects to be
attained. Now, there are four possible objects of a reform: to make the
House less powerful; to make it more powerful; to change the nature of
its power; or to bring it into greater harmony with the popular elements
in the state; and it may be interesting to examine these objects in
turn.
[Sidenote: To Reduce the Power of the House.]
The National Liberal Federation has repeatedly passed resolutions in
favour of restricting what is called the veto of the House of Lords.
This is most natural, for besides the objection in principle to
hereditary legislators, there is the galling fact that the House is
always hostile to the Liberal party. No one would suggest that so long
as a second chamber is suffered to exist it should be wholly deprived of
the right to reject or amend bills sent to it from the Commons. It is
proposed, however, that the veto shall not be repeated after a certain
interval, and the vital question is what that interval shall be. A
provision that the Lords should not reject a bill passed by the Commons
in two successive Parliaments, would probably be a mere legal
ratification of their present constitutional position; for although,
after a fresh general election has proved that the cabinet retains the
confidence of the nation, the Lords may refuse a second time to enact
one of its measures, they have never done so, and are not very likely to
venture so far. A provision, on the other hand, that the Lords should
not reject or amend a bill passed by the Commons in two successive
sessions of the same Parliament would mean that except in the last
session of an expiring Parliament, they could reject or amend seriously
no government bill, whether convinced that the nation approved of it or
not.[415:1] This would be almost equivalent to an entire abolition of
the second chamber so far as government measures are concerned, because
the shred of authority left would amount to little more than that of
requiring the ministers to reconsider their position, which they could
hardly do without stultifying themselves. The President of the French
Republic has a similar right in relation to the chambers, but it is
never exercised. A change of this kind could certainly be made, but
whether it would be wise or not is another question.
Moreover, if a rule that the Lords should not reject or amend a
government bill passed by the Commons in two successive sessions did not
virtually destroy the power of the House of Lords altogether, it would
not accomplish the object of the Liberals. It would not put them upon a
footing of equality with the Conservatives, for it would mean that it
would take them two sessions to pass any legislation of a far-reaching
character, while the Conservatives could do it in one.
We are not concerned now with the question of reducing the power of the
hereditary members of the House, by introducing other members in their
stead; but of reducing the power of the House as a whole. Those persons
who are seriously interested in reforming the composition of the body
are usually more anxious to increase than to diminish its authority, and
it would be somewhat strange to make the House of Lords more
representative or more popular, while at the same time taking away the
last remnants of its power in political questions.
[Sidenote: To Increase its Power.]
In considering suggestions to reform the House of Lords for the sake of
increasing its efficiency we are met by the question whether with a
parliamentary system, that is with government by party, as highly
developed as it is in England, a more powerful upper House is possible.
Fifty years ago second chambers were defended on the ground that they
acted as a drag on radical legislation. But, as we have seen, the House
of Lords does not really perform that function. It does not try to check
legislation by one of the parties, and only under peculiar circumstances
can it seriously restrain the other. Nor could any upper House render
that service effectively in England to-day. The fact is that although
historically the position of the House of Lords may have been the
consequence of its hereditary, non-representative character, it is now
doomed to its present condition by the inexorable logic of a political
system. Its limitations in dealing with government bills are imposed by
the principle of a ministry responsible to the popular chamber, and
working through highly developed parties; its inability to exert a
substantial influence upon other public legislation is the result, not
of its own inherent weakness, but of the condition of the House of
Commons; while in private bill legislation, which lies outside the
domain of politics, it shares in full measure the authority of a
coördinate branch of Parliament.
[Sidenote: To Change the Nature of its Power.]
The same reasoning would apply to any proposal to alter in character the
powers exercised by the Lords. The channels of possible activity of any
second chamber are fixed in England by the system itself, and they are
not far from the ones in which the House of Lords now moves. The House
could, no doubt, be shorn of the remnant of political authority that it
still wields, and it could be deprived of its right to take part in
private bill legislation; but it would seem that, except by merely
reducing their extent, the nature of its powers cannot be very
materially changed.
[Sidenote: To Bring it into Harmony with the Nation.]
[Sidenote: Creation of Peers.]
During the generation following the Reform Act of 1832, men spoke of the
possibility of making new peers as a sufficient safeguard against
obstinacy on the part of the upper House. It was felt that a ministry
with the nation at its back could, if necessary, force the Lords to
yield by advising the Crown to create peers enough to turn the scale.
Lord Grey's government proposed to do this as a last resort to pass the
Reform Bill of 1832, and obtained the consent of William IV.; but the
threat was enough, and the Lords gave way. Such a drastic means of
coercion is probably useless to-day; and would be only a temporary
remedy. It is really not with the Commons that the House of Lords now
comes into serious conflict, but with the cabinet which represents, or
claims to represent, the nation, or to be more accurate the major part
of the nation; and no creation of peers would be made to force a bill
through the House of Lords unless the party in power had a mandate from
the people to pass it. This is the real meaning of the saying that the
House of Lords can force a referendum, or appeal to the nation, on a
measure to which they object. A creation of peers to swamp the upper
House would, therefore, not be tried until a general election had proved
the persistent will of the electorate upon the measure in question, and
then the Lords would in any case submit. Differences of opinion may, of
course, arise on the question whether there is sufficient evidence of
the popular will or not. In 1893, for example, the Liberals contended
that the preceding general election had been carried on the issue of
Home Rule, while the Conservatives insisted that it had really turned on
other matters; and the same thing happened in the case of the Education
Bill of 1906. Such a discussion may be conducted with heat, but
especially with the enormous number of peers now required to turn a
majority in their House, there is little danger of precipitate action.
It is one of many cases where the conventions of the Constitution may
appear to be strained, but where one may be sure they will not be
broken.[417:1]
Moreover, if the creation of peers were within the region of practical
politics to-day, it would be only a temporary remedy for existing
grievances. Contrary to the prevalent opinion, Lord John Russell thought
that in 1832 the authority of the House of Lords suffered, on the whole,
more from the abstention of its members under threat, than it would have
from an actual creation of peers that might have brought it into harmony
with the people. He remarks that the Tory majority of eighty, hostile to
Lord Grey's government, was held back by Wellington, but employed by
Lyndhurst to kill unpretending but useful measures.[418:1] Subsequent
events have shown the impossibility of maintaining harmony between the
Houses by a single creation of peers, for had a batch of Lord Grey's
supporters been given seats in the Lords in 1832, the House would have
been heavily Conservative again within a generation.
The difficulty to-day is not so much that the peers are permanently out
of accord with the nation, as that they are bound to one of the two
parties into which the country is divided. A mere reduction in the size
of the Tory majority would do little or no good; nor would the
difficulty be solved if the majority were transferred to the other
party, or even if it shifted at different periods. In a country governed
by party as strictly as England is to-day, the majority in the upper
House must at any one time belong to one side or the other. If the
majority shifted, there would not be permanent irritation in the same
quarter; but first one side, and then the other, would complain that the
Lords thwarted the popular will. While, therefore, the occasional
creation of a large number of peers, either hereditary or for life,
might, at a sacrifice of the self-respect of the House of Lords, produce
for the moment a greater similarity of views between the two branches of
Parliament, a constant political harmony could be attained only by such
additions to the upper House by each new set of ministers as would make
it a mere tool in their hands. In short, an upper House in a true
parliamentary system cannot be brought into constant accord with the
dominant party of the day without destroying its independence
altogether; and to make the House of Lords a mere tool in the hands of
every cabinet would be well-nigh impossible and politically absurd.
[Sidenote: Reform in the Composition of the House.]
What is true of the creation of peers is true also of any other method
of changing the membership of the House. Suggestions for reforming its
composition have been based mainly upon the desire to reduce the
hereditary element, and supply its place by representative men selected
in other ways. The House contains, of course, many drones, who have
inherited the right, without the desire, for public work. Either they do
not attend at all, or they come only to swell a foregone majority upon
some measure that has attracted popular interest. They give no time or
thought to the work of the House, and their votes, on the rare occasions
when they are cast, are peculiarly exasperating to their opponents. As
the regular attendants at the sittings are few, it has been suggested
that the English, like the Scotch and Irish, nobility should choose
representatives of their own order, and that the rest should have no
right to vote. Just as the Scotch and Irish representative peers are
solidly Unionist, so a change of this kind would merely result in
increasing the Conservative majority of the House, unless some principle
of minority representation were adopted, in which case the majority,
though numerically smaller, would be equally constant and more subject
to party dictation.
On the other hand, it has been proposed to make the House more broadly
representative of the nation by a more or less extended creation of life
peers, nominated, in part, perhaps, by sundry public bodies in the
United Kingdom. It may be doubted, however, whether life peers are
needed to increase the eminence or, in one sense, the representative
character of the House. The peerage has been opened freely to men
distinguished in various fields; and while many men without wealth have
doubtless been precluded from an honour that would burden their
descendants, many others have come in. The number of hereditary members
of the House has increased nearly, although not quite, in proportion to
population; and only about one fourth of the present members sit by
virtue of titles dating before 1800. A large share of the creations have
been made for political service; but others have been conferred in
consequence of wealth amassed in commercial and industrial pursuits; the
most distinguished lawyers and soldiers have always been rewarded by a
peerage; and so in more recent times have a few men of eminence in
science and literature. A body that contains, or has recently contained,
such men as Tennyson, Acton, Kelvin, Lister, Rayleigh, and many more,
can bear comparison in personal distinction with any legislative chamber
the world has ever known. Therefore one may fairly doubt whether the
defect to be remedied by a creation of life peers is either a lack of
brains in the House, or a failure of its members to represent the deeper
currents of national life.
[Sidenote: Reform Unlikely to Add Much Strength.]
But the personal distinction of members, in fields outside of public
affairs, has very little connection with the political power of a body;
and the House of Lords itself furnishes one of the most striking proofs
of that fact. The men whose names have been mentioned have taken no part
in the work of the House, and such people rarely do. Moreover, if they
take part they rarely do it well. Occasionally such a man may have a
chance to say something on the subject of his own profession that
carries weight. The speech of Lord Roberts in July, 1905, for example,
about the inefficiency of the British Army, was considered a very
impressive utterance, but, except for the rule of office that sealed his
mouth in any other place, he might have delivered it with just as much
effect elsewhere. Men who would be created life peers on account of
their distinction in other lines would either take no interest in
politics, or would take it so late in life that they would rarely carry
weight with the public. Such influence and repute as the House of Lords
now possesses is derived not from the personal fame of the members but
from the social lustre of the peerage, and no creation of life peers
would be likely to add anything to that. The authority of a public body
depends not upon the eminence but upon the political following of its
members; and it is self-evident that no leading English statesman in the
full tide of his vigour and popularity would willingly exchange a seat
in the House of Commons for an appointment for life in any second
chamber, so that a House of Lords constructed on these principles would
become in large part an asylum for decrepit politicians.
Another suggestion of a similar kind is that the House should be
remodelled upon the lines of the Privy Council, but the Privy Council
to-day as a working body is nothing but the ministry, the other members
attending only on ceremonial occasions. It is a mere instrument of
government in the hands of the cabinet; nor, so far as English politics
are concerned, can it very well be anything else. The proposal that
colonial members should sit in the House of Lords is interesting from
other points of view, but clearly it could not be applied in the case of
domestic legislation. That the will of the House of Commons on English
questions should be thwarted by representatives from other parts of the
empire would be far more unfortunate than to have it thwarted by
hereditary English nobles.
[Sidenote: Other Probable Results.]
But if a change in the composition of the House of Lords would be very
unlikely to raise its political position as a whole, it might well
reduce the personal influence of individual peers. If the House came to
be regarded as mainly a collection of persons holding seats for life,
the social position of its members might be very different from that of
an hereditary nobility. A radical reform in the composition of the House
might also very well produce a change of another kind. Perhaps the most
important function of the House of Lords at the present day, and
probably the chief privilege of its members, comes from the fact that it
is largely a reservoir of ministers of state. By the present traditions
ministers must be all taken from one House or the other; and a large
proportion of them are always taken from the peers. This gives a
nobleman, who is sincerely interested in public life, even if of
somewhat slender ability, a fair prospect of obtaining a position of
honour and usefulness. Now, if a number of life peers were to be
created, it would clearly be possible to confer a title upon a man for
the purpose of making him a minister. If this were done commonly, it
might affect not only the position of the existing peers, but also that
of the House of Commons. For a man not born to a coronet would be able
to achieve a high office of state without an apprenticeship in the
popular chamber. Thus a channel might be opened for a direct connection
between the cabinet and the political forces of the nation without the
mediation of the House of Commons. The change might be a first step in
lessening the authority of Parliament, because cabinets, as will be
explained in the following chapter, being really made or destroyed by
the popular voice uttered in general elections, much of the power of the
House of Commons is based upon the fact that it is the sole recruiting
ground for all ministers not hereditary peers.
Unsatisfactory, therefore, as the present position of the House of Lords
is to many people in England, the difficulties that surround the
question of reform are very great; and a half-unconscious perception of
these explains in large part the fact that although proposals to reform
the House have been made of late years by leading men of every shade of
political opinion, none of them has borne fruit, or even taken the shape
of a definite plan commanding any considerable amount of support. To
reform the House of Lords, or to create some other satisfactory second
chamber may not be an impossible task, but it is one that will require
constructive statesmanship in a high degree; and to obtain the best
chance of success it ought to be undertaken at the most unlikely time, a
time when the question provokes no passionate interest.
FOOTNOTES:
[406:1] "The Governance of England," 218.
[406:2] In 1830 the House of Lords contained 326 hereditary members.
From that time until the fall of Mr. Gladstone's cabinet, in 1885, the
Liberals made 198 additions to these members; and during the same period
the Conservatives made 70. Since 1885 the Conservatives have been in
power by far the greater part of the time, and their creations of peers
have been correspondingly more numerous.
[409:1] See the chapter on "The Strength of Party Ties," _infra_.
[412:1] When the Liberals are in power this is not much use for bills
which the Lords are likely to amend seriously, because the amendments
would have to be reversed in the Commons at a cost of much time.
[412:2] Rep. of Com. on Priv. Bill Legislation, Com. Papers, 1888, XVI.,
1.
[414:1] "The Working Constitution," 120.
[415:1] Probably the advocates of this policy would not want to apply it
in the case of private bill legislation.
[417:1] The power to create peers enough to swamp the House has a
potential value. It could be used once for all to abolish or transform
the body, and this fact has, no doubt, its effect on the general
attitude of the members, but that does not affect the argument that as a
means of maintaining harmony between the Houses the power is useless.
[418:1] "Recollections and Suggestions," 110-11.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE CABINET AND THE COUNTRY
[Sidenote: Transfer of Power from Parliament to the People.]
[Sidenote: Its Causes; (1) the Growth of Power of the Cabinet.]
If the predominance of the House of Commons has been lessened by a
delegation of authority to the cabinet, it has been weakened also by the
transfer of power directly to the electorate. The two tendencies are
not, indeed, unconnected. The transfer of power to the electorate is due
in part to the growing influence of the ministers, to the recognition
that policy is mainly directed, not by Parliament, but by them. The
cabinet now rules the nation by and with the advice and consent of
Parliament; and for that very reason the nation wishes to decide what
cabinet it shall be that rules. No doubt the ministry depends for its
existence upon the good pleasure of the House of Commons; but it really
gets its commission from the country as the result of a general
election. Even if its life should be cut short by the Commons, the new
cabinet would not now rest for support upon that Parliament; but would
at once dissolve and seek a fresh majority from the electors. This was
by no means true forty years ago. The Parliament elected in 1852, which
sat a little more than four years, supported during the first half of
that time a coalition ministry of Liberals and Peelites, and during the
second half a ministry of Liberals alone. The following Parliament
affords an even better illustration. It met in 1857 with a large
majority for the Liberal cabinet of Lord Palmerston; but in less than a
year he was defeated and resigned, to be succeeded by the Conservatives
under Lord Derby, who carried on the government for another year before
dissolving. The case of the next Conservative administration is more
striking still. Coming into office in 1866, in face of a hostile
majority, strongly Liberal, but hopelessly divided upon questions of
reform, it remained in power more than two years, and brought to pass a
drastic extension of the franchise before it dissolved Parliament.
Nothing of the kind has occurred since that time. Every subsequent
change of ministry has either been the immediate consequence of a
general election, or if not, the new cabinet has kept the old Parliament
together only so long as was absolutely necessary to dispose of current
business, and has then appealed to the people. Practically, therefore, a
change of ministry to-day is either the result of, or is at once
ratified by, a general election.
[Sidenote: (2) The Increase of the Electorate.]
The decline in the power of the House is partly due also to the
extension of the franchise, and the consequent growth in size of the
electorate, which has become so large that the voters cannot be reached
by private or personal contact, but only by publicity. A cynic might
well say that if oligarchy fosters intrigue, democracy is based upon
advertisement, for in order to control the electorate it is no longer
enough, as it was a hundred years ago, to be backed by a few influential
patrons or to enlist the support of the members of Parliament. The
immense mass of the voters must be addressed, and hence public questions
must be discussed not only in Parliament, but in the ears of the people
at large.
[Sidenote: (3) The Control by Public Opinion.]
A third reason why power tends to pass away from the House is the
greater control exerted in political affairs by public opinion, in
consequence of the rapid means of disseminating knowledge and of forming
and expressing a judgment. Whatever may be the importance of the
editorial columns of the daily press in creating, or giving voice to,
the general sentiment--and there is reason to suppose that editorials
are of less consequence in both respects than they were formerly--it is
certainly clear that the multiplication of cheap newspapers has made it
possible for vastly larger numbers of men to become rapidly acquainted
with current events; while the post and telegraph, and the habit of
organisation, have made it much more easy for them to express their
views. A debate, a vote, or a scene, that occurs in Parliament late at
night is brought home to the whole country at breakfast the next
morning, and prominent constituents, clubs, committees and the like, can
praise or censure, encourage or admonish, their member for his vote
before the next sitting of the House. Rousseau's charge that the English
were free only at the moment of electing a Parliament, and then were in
bondage during the whole of its term, was by no means really true when
he wrote it, and is far less true to-day. It is for this reason that
there has ceased to be any clamour for annual Parliaments, almost the
only one of the famous six points in the People's Charter that has not
been substantially achieved.[425:1] Parliaments have not grown shorter.
On the contrary, in the twenty years from 1832 to 1852, when the cry of
the Chartists was heard, the average duration of Parliaments was four
years, and since the extension of the suffrage in 1868 they have
averaged four years and three-quarters.
[Sidenote: Its Manifestations.]
The passing of political power from the House of Commons to the people
is shown by many unmistakable signs, and by none more clearly than by
the frequent reference in Parliament itself to the opinions of the "man
in the street." He is said to fear this, or be shocked by that, or
expect the other; and the House is supposed to pay some regard to his
views, not because he is peculiarly gifted with knowledge, experience,
or wisdom, in greater measure than the members themselves. Far from it.
He is cited as a specimen of average humanity; the person to whom
Carlyle referred when he spoke of modern Parliaments with twenty-seven
millions, mostly fools, listening to them.[425:2] The members of the
House are supposed to heed him because they are his representatives; for
he is taken as a type of the voter of fair intelligence. In fact he is
the personification of what is believed to be outside opinion.
[Sidenote: The Doctrine of Mandate.]
Another sign of the times is found in the doctrine, now sanctioned by
the highest authority, that Parliament cannot legislate on a new
question of vital importance without a mandate from the nation. The
theory that the individual representative is a mere delegate of his
constituents, so that he is bound to resign and submit to reëlection if
he changes his views, has long been a subject of discussion; but the
idea that Parliament as a whole exercises a delegated authority in the
sense that it is morally restrained from dealing with questions that
have not been laid before the people at the preceding general election
would formerly have been regarded as a dangerous political heresy. Yet
during the recent agitation in regard to fiscal policy, Mr. Balfour,
while repudiating the suggestion that the existing Parliament, having
been elected on the single issue of the South African War, ought to be
dissolved when peace was made,[426:1] refused to grant time for a debate
on free food, on the ground that it would be constitutionally improper
for Parliament to act on the question until it had been submitted to the
people at a general election,[426:2] and that it would be unwise for the
House to discuss a subject on which it could not act.[426:3]
Based upon a similar principle is the claim reiterated by the Opposition
during the latter part of Mr. Balfour's administration, that, although
supported by a majority in the House of Commons, he ought to resign,
because a long series of by-elections had shown that he had lost the
confidence of the country. His retention of office under those
conditions was said to be contrary to the spirit of the
Constitution;[426:4] and Mr. Balfour's resignation late in 1905, when
Parliament was not in session, involved an acknowledgment, if not of the
necessity, at least of the propriety, of withdrawing from office in
such a case. Former cabinets have sometimes broken up on account of
dissensions among their members, or the impossibility of maintaining an
efficient government; but there has been no previous instance of a
cabinet, supported by a majority in Parliament, which has resigned
apparently in consequence of a change of popular sentiment.
[Sidenote: Waning Interest in Reports of Debates.]
But perhaps the most ominous sign that power is passing away from the
House is the slowly waning interest in parliamentary debates. In the
eighteenth century the House strove to prevent the publication of its
discussions. Now the debates are printed under a contract with the
government, which provides that no speech shall be reported at less than
one third of its actual length;[427:1] and most of the members like to
appear in the newspapers as prominently as they can. But, if the desire
of the members to be reported is still increasing, the eagerness of the
public to read what they say is less keen. Men who are thoroughly
familiar with the reporters' gallery tell us that the demand for long
reports of speeches in Parliament has declined, and that editors find it
for their interest to cut them down, often substituting for the remarks
of the members themselves descriptive sketches of what took
place.[427:2] One cause of this is, no doubt, the length of the debates,
and the number of minor speakers taking part, which tends naturally to
dull the popular craving to read them. Then there is the fact that
Parliament is no longer the only place where the party leaders make
notable speeches. In short, the predominance of the House of Commons as
the great forum for the discussion of public questions has been
undermined by the rise and growth of the platform.
[Sidenote: History of the Platform.]
After a long slumber the habit of speaking at public meetings revived
about the middle of the eighteenth century;[428:1] and a little later it
was taken up, in connection with the early political associations, as a
systematic means of agitation in the hope of bringing pressure to bear
upon Parliament. At an early time leaders of the party in opposition
were present; but after the outbreak of the French Revolution public
meetings came to be used mainly by the working classes, and were
regarded as seditious. Men who took part in them were prosecuted, and
acts were passed to suppress them. These were so effective that by the
opening of the next century political meetings had ceased to be held;
except at elections, when some of the candidates for Parliament made
speeches to their constituents. The repressive statutes were, however,
temporary, and, although they were reënacted more than once, the
meetings revived during the intervals of freedom. The last of these
special statutes, one of the famous Six Acts of 1819, expired in 1825,
and from that time the platform entered upon a fresh career, marked by
three new features: the participation of all classes; the organised
effort to bring about a definite political change by a legitimate
creation of public opinion; and the growing use of public speaking by
parliamentary leaders as a regular engine of party warfare. Moreover,
the influence of the platform was much enlarged by the practice, which
began shortly before that time, of reporting the meetings and speeches
at considerable length in the provincial press.
[Sidenote: The Platform and Popular Movements for Reform.]
The first movement at this period in which the platform played a leading
part was conducted by the Catholic Association in Ireland, and ended in
the removal of Catholic disabilities by the Act of 1829. But far more
important examples of the use of public meetings are to be found in
England. Throughout the agitation that accompanied the passage of the
Reform Act of 1832, public meetings were innumerable, and the platform
was raised to a dignity and influence much greater than ever before. In
fact its position as a recognised power in English public life began at
that time. Its rapid advance in good repute was much helped by the fact
that during the struggle for reform it was used mainly to strengthen the
hands of the ministry; but this was not yet its characteristic function.
For the next score of years it was chiefly employed in attempts to force
upon the attention of Parliament, by popular agitation, measures which
did not otherwise receive serious consideration. Two efforts of the kind
are especially noteworthy. One of them, that of the Anti-Corn-Law
League, by the completeness of its organisation, by the cohesion and
eloquence of its leaders, by confining its attention to one point, and
by good fortune, succeeded in accomplishing its object. The other, that
of the Chartists, lacking these advantages, failed; and although most of
the demands of the Chartists were afterward obtained, that was the
result not of their endeavours, but of other causes.
[Sidenote: The Platform and the Ministers.]
Meanwhile the platform was used more and more freely by the
parliamentary leaders, but this came gradually. Pitt spoke only in the
House of Commons; and in fact until a few years before the Reform Bill
almost no minister, except Canning, made political speeches outside, and
his were addressed mainly to his own constituents. In 1823, however, he
delivered a speech at Plymouth, in which for the first time a statement
about foreign policy was made by a minister in public, and five years
later the change in the government's policy about Catholic disabilities
was announced at a banquet. With the reform movement the ministers began
to take the public a little more into their confidence. At the general
election of 1831, Lord John Russell made the first public speech
intended as an election cry,[429:1] and aroused an echo at meetings
throughout the land. In the same year Lord Grey talked about the bill at
the Lord Mayor's dinner, a festivity that became in after years a
regular occasion for announcements of government policy. From that time
the use of the platform grew rapidly in favour with the cabinet. In 1834
Lord Brougham made the unfortunate series of harangues in Scotland that
wrecked his political career. A little later Lord Melbourne explained
his own dismissal in a public speech; and Peel, on taking office,
declared his policy in an address to his constituents. So important a
matter, indeed, did the platform become in public life, that Lord
Melbourne, referring to the performances of Brougham and O'Connell,
spoke of the vacation as a trying time.[430:1] Thereafter the platform
was constantly used both by ministers and leaders of the Opposition to
bring public opinion to their side.
As usual in English politics, practice outran theory; for so late as
1886 Mr. Gladstone, in answer to a remonstrance from the Queen, felt it
necessary to excuse himself for making speeches outside of his
constituency, on the ground that in doing so he was merely following the
example of the Conservatives.[430:2] Yet in 1879 he had set the nation
ablaze by his Midlothian campaign; and although his orations there were
delivered as a candidate for the seat, they were, and must have been
intended to be, published by the newspapers all over the country.[430:3]
It was, in fact, at this very time that Lord Hartington spoke of the far
greater interest taken in public speeches than in debates in
Parliament.[430:4] Not that the platform became at once of especial
value to the party leaders. On the contrary, it was at first used much
more frequently by the Anti-Corn-Law League, the Chartists and others.
But since the introduction of something very near manhood suffrage,
which began in 1868, great popular movements, unconnected with party
politics, have become well-nigh impossible. In a real democracy there is
little use in trying to overawe the government by a display of physical
force, and hence an agitation has for its natural object the winning of
votes. But the House of Commons has now been brought so fully into
accord with the masses of the people that any strong popular sentiment
is certain to find immediate expression there. Once in the House it is
on the edge of a whirlpool, for even if it originates quite outside of
the existing parties, and gives rise, at first, to a new political
group, it can hardly fail, as it gathers headway, to be drawn into the
current of one of the two great parties, and find a place in their
programme. Now in any question connected with party politics the highest
interest attaches to the speeches of the party leaders, both because
they are the standard bearers in the fight, and because they are the men
who have power, or at the next turn of the wheel will have power, to
give effect to their opinions.
[Sidenote: Public Speaking now Universal.]
The platform has thus had a perfectly natural evolution. So long as
elections to the House of Commons were controlled by a small number of
persons, public speaking could be effective only occasionally, when
popular feeling could be deeply stirred over some grievance; and it was
employed chiefly by outsiders in an effort to force the hands of
Parliament. This was in part true even after 1832. But when the suffrage
was more widely extended in 1868, so that elections depended upon the
good-will of the masses, it became necessary for any one with political
aspirations to reach the public at large, and the most obvious means of
so doing was from the platform. Speeches by candidates at elections
became universal, and in order not to let the flame of loyalty burn low,
it has been increasingly common to fan it at other times, by the talking
of members to their constituents, and still more by addresses to the
whole community on the part of leaders of national reputation. Public
speaking has, therefore, become constant, without regard to the
existence of any issue of unusual prominence. James Russell Lowell long
ago made a remark to the effect that democracy is government by
declamation, and certainly household suffrage has loosened the tongues
of public men. An observer at the present day is struck by the fluency
of Englishmen upon their feet, and by the free use of humour as a means
of emphasis, instead of the sonorous phrases formerly styled oratory.
[Sidenote: The Platform has Increased the Influence of Party Leaders.]
It has now become a settled custom for the cabinet ministers and the
leaders of the parliamentary Opposition to make a business of speaking
during the late autumn and the spring recess; and the habit tends to
magnify their power, for they are the only persons who have fully the
ear of the public. Except for a few important utterances, the debates in
Parliament are not very widely read; editorials in the press are read
solely by members of one political faith; the remarks of private members
to their constituents are published only in the local papers; but public
speeches by the chief ministers, and to a less extent those by the
principal leaders of the Opposition, are printed at great length by the
newspapers of both parties, and are read everywhere.[432:1]
Moreover, the platform gives a greater freedom than the floor of the
House. The ministers do not want to bring before Parliament a policy
they are not immediately prepared to push through, nor would it be easy
to find time amid the business of a session to do so. It is not
altogether an accident, it is rather a sign of the times, that Mr.
Chamberlain broached his plan of preferential tariffs, not in
Parliament, but at a public meeting in Birmingham. It was, indeed, a
strange thing to see an ardent discussion on a most important question
conducted in public meetings and in the press, while the ministers were
striving to prevent debate upon it in the House of Commons. It was a
mark of the limitation which the course of events has placed upon
Parliament. The platform has brought the ministers face to face with the
people, and this has increased the political importance of both. Not
only is the electorate the ultimate arbiter in political matters, but
the platform has in some degree supplanted the House as the forum where
public questions are discussed.
[Sidenote: Its Benefits.]
Frequent public addresses by the men in whom the whole responsibility
for the conduct of national affairs is concentrated, and by those who
will be responsible when the next change of ministry occurs, cannot fail
to educate the voters, and quicken their interest in all the political
issues of the day. Moreover, the process is not confined to the
intermittent periods of election, but goes on all the time; and although
the practice, brought into vogue by the Anti-Corn-Law League, of joint
debates at public meetings has not taken permanent root in England, the
same result is reached in another way, because the party leaders answer
one another's speeches from different platforms, and if the listeners
are not identical, the public reads both arguments. Sir Henry Maine
spoke of the tendency to look upon politics as a "deeply interesting
game, a never-ending cricket-match between Blue and Yellow";[433:1] and
the fact that this aspect of the matter is more marked in England than
anywhere else makes English politics the most interesting, and the most
easy to follow, in the world. The rulers of the country, and those who
both have been and will be her rulers, fight at close range across a
table for six months of the year, and during the rest of the time they
carry on the ceaseless war by public speaking. As in the Athenian
democracy, the citizens witness a constant struggle among rival
statesmen for supremacy, but in England they are merely spectators until
a general election summons them to give their verdict. One can hardly
conceive of a system better calculated to stimulate interest in politics
without instability in the government.
[Sidenote: Its Perils.]
But if the platform educates the voter, it has its dangers also.
Bismarck is reported to have said that the qualities of the orator are
not only unlike, but incompatible with, those of the statesman; and
certainly the continual need of taking the public into one's confidence
is hard to reconcile with the execution of far-reaching plans for the
national welfare, for until the results are in sight, these cannot be
made intelligible to the mass of the people. The English statesman is
called upon at all times to show his hand, at the risk of seeming
disingenuous or secretive if he does not do so. His whole policy is
analysed and criticised; the seeds he plants are dug up prematurely to
see if they are sprouting. Hence he is under a strong temptation to take
a stand that will win immediately popular approval. In short, he lives
in a glass house, which is likely to mean a very respectable but rather
superficial life.
Moreover, in the custom of speaking from the platform there lurks a
danger to the system of cabinet government; for that system is based
upon the principle that the initiative in public policy rests with the
ministers, and the main issue decided at a general election is whether
the cabinet shall remain in power. Now ministers have not always been in
the habit of arranging what shall be said upon the platform with the
same care as what measures shall be brought before Parliament. But in
view of the present importance of the platform it is obvious that if the
cabinet system is to continue, the ministers must present a unanimous
front to the public as well as to Parliament; and this consideration
leads to a study of the function of party in the English political
system.
FOOTNOTES:
[425:1] The six points were: universal suffrage, annual Parliaments,
equal electoral districts, abolition of property qualification, vote by
ballot, and payment of members. Of all these demands annual Parliaments
and payment of members alone have not been substantially attained.
[425:2] "Latter Day Pamphlets: The Stump Orator," No. 5.
[426:1] _E.g._ Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXII., 1013-15; CXLI., 162.
[426:2] _Ibid._, CXXXI., 679; CXLVI., 987-89.
[426:3] _Ibid._, CXLI., 163; CXLV., 622, 627; CXLVI., 496.
[426:4] _Ibid._, CXXXII., 1005, 1019; CXLI., 122-23, 180-82.
[427:1] Cabinet ministers and the leaders of the Opposition are reported
in full in the Parliamentary Debates, and other members usually at about
two-thirds length. Macdonagh's "Book of Parliament" contains an
interesting chapter on "The Reporters' Gallery."
[427:2] Macdonagh, 315. And see an article by Alfred Kinnear, and an
answer by A. P. Nicholson in the _Contemporary Review_ for March and
April, 1905, LXXXVII., 369, 577.
[428:1] The best work on this subject is Jephson's "The Platform: Its
Rise and Progress."
[429:1] Jephson, II., 65.
[430:1] Walpole, "Life of Lord John Russell," I., 248.
[430:2] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," III., 344.
[430:3] Mr. Lecky expressed a common opinion in the introduction to the
second edition of his "Democracy and Liberty" (p. liii.), where he spoke
of Mr. Gladstone as "the first English minister who was accustomed, on a
large scale, to bring his policy in great meetings directly before the
people," adding that he "completely discarded the old tradition that a
leading minister or ex-minister should confine himself almost
exclusively to Parliamentary utterances and should only on rare
occasions address the public outside." Mr. Gladstone's power was,
indeed, due quite as much to the effect of his public speeches as to his
influence over the House of Commons.
[430:4] Quoted by Jephson, II., 391.
[432:1] Mr. Kinnear in the _Contemporary Review_ for March, 1905, says
that the demand by newspapers for public speeches by leading statesmen
has declined. They would probably have more readers, though less
hearers, if they were neither so long nor so frequent.
[433:1] "Popular Government," 149.
PART II.--THE PARTY SYSTEM
CHAPTER XXIV
PARTY AND THE PARLIAMENTARY SYSTEM
[Sidenote: Lack of a Psychology of Political Parties.]
The last generation has made great strides in the study of psychology.
The workings of the individual mind, and its reaction to every stimulus
or impression, especially under morbid conditions, have been examined
with far more care than ever before. Social psychology has also come
into view, and attempts have been made to explain the psychology of
national traits, and of abnormal or unhealthy popular movements, notably
mobs. But the normal forces that govern the ordinary conduct of men in
their public relations have scarcely received any scientific treatment
at all. In short, we are almost wholly lacking in a psychology of
political parties, the few scattered remarks in Maine's "Popular
Government" being, perhaps, still the nearest approach to such a thing
that we possess.[435:1]
[Sidenote: Although Parties are Universal.]
The absence of treatises on the subject is all the more remarkable
because the phenomena to be studied are almost universal in modern
governments that contain a popular element. Experience has, indeed,
shown that democracy in a great country, where the number of voters is
necessarily large, involves the permanent existence of political
parties; and it would not be hard to demonstrate that this must in the
nature of things be the case. That parties exist, and are likely to
continue to do so, has provoked general attention. By all statesmen they
are recognised as a factor to be reckoned with in public life; and,
indeed, efforts have been made in various places to deal with them by
law. In the United States, for example, the local caucuses, or
conventions of the parties, and their methods of nominating candidates,
have of late years been regulated by statute; while in Switzerland and
Belgium, elaborate schemes of proportional representation have been put
into operation to insure a fair share of seats to the groups in the
minority.
[Sidenote: Modern View of Parties.]
But if political parties have become well-nigh universal at the present
time, they are comparatively new in their modern form. No one in the
eighteenth century foresaw party government as it exists to-day,
enfolding the whole surface of public life in its constant ebb and flow.
An occasional man like Burke could speak of party without
condemnation;[436:1] but with most writers on political philosophy
parties were commonly called factions, and were assumed to be subversive
of good order and the public welfare. Men looked at the history with
which they were familiar; the struggles for supremacy at Athens and at
Rome; the Guelphs and Ghibelines exiling one another in the Italian
republics; the riots in the Netherlands; the civil war and the political
strife of the seventeenth century in England. It was not unnatural that
with such examples before their eyes they should have regarded parties
as fatal to the prosperity of the state. To them the idea of a party
opposed to the government was associated with a band of selfish
intriguers, or a movement that endangered the public peace and the
security of political institutions.
Foreign observers, indeed, point out that for nearly three hundred years
political parties have existed in England, as they have not in
continental countries; and that the procedure of the House of Commons
has consistently protected the Opposition in its attacks upon the
government.[437:1] This is true, and there is no doubt that even in the
seventeenth century party struggles were carried on both in Parliament
and by pamphlets and public speeches, with a freedom unknown in most
other nations; but still they were a very different thing from what they
are now. They were never far removed from violence. When the Opposition
of those days did not actually lead to bloodshed, it was perilously near
to plots and insurrection; and the fallen minister, who was driven from
power by popular feeling or the hostility of Parliament, passed under
the shadow at least of the scaffold. Danby was impeached, and
Shaftesbury, his rival, died a refugee in Holland. With the accession of
the House of Hanover, and the vanishing of the old issues, political
violence subsided. The parties degenerated into personal factions among
the ruling class; and true parties were evolved slowly by the new
problems of a later generation.
[Sidenote: "His Majesty's Opposition."]
The expression, "His Majesty's Opposition," said to have been coined by
John Cam Hobhouse before the Reform Bill,[437:2] would not have been
understood at an earlier period; and it embodies the greatest
contribution of the nineteenth century to the art of government--that of
a party out of power which is recognised as perfectly loyal to the
institutions of the state, and ready at any moment to come into office
without a shock to the political traditions of the nation. In countries
where popular control of public affairs has endured long enough to be
firmly established, an Opposition is not regarded as in its nature
unpatriotic. On the contrary, the party in power has no desire to see
the Opposition disappear. It wants to remain in power itself, and for
that reason it wants to keep a majority of the people on its side; but
it knows well that if the Opposition were to become so enfeebled as to
be no longer formidable, rifts would soon appear in its own ranks. In
the newer democracies, such as France and Italy, there are large bodies
of men whose aims are revolutionary, whose object is to change the
existing form of government, although not necessarily by violent means.
These men are termed "irreconcilables," and so long as they maintain
that attitude, quiet political life with a peaceful alternation of
parties in power is an impossibility.
[Sidenote: Conditions of Good Party Government.]
The recognition of the Opposition as a legitimate body, entitled to
attain to power by persuasion, is a primary condition of the success of
the party system, and therefore of popular government on a large scale.
Other conditions of success follow from this.
[Sidenote: Opposition must not be Revolutionary.]
If the Opposition is not to be regarded as revolutionary, its objects
must not be of that character, either in the eyes of its own adherents,
or in those of other people. As Professor Dicey has put it, parties must
be divided upon real differences, which are important, but not
fundamental. There is, of course, no self-evident line to mark off those
things that are revolutionary or fundamental; and herein lies an
incidental advantage of a written constitution restricting the
competence of the legislature, for it draws just such a line, and goes
far to confine the immediate energies of the parties to questions that
are admitted not to be revolutionary.[438:1] In the absence of a
constitution of that kind, party activity must be limited to a
conventional field, which is regarded by the public opinion of the day
as fairly within the range of practical politics. Clearly the issues
must not involve vital matters, such as life or confiscation. When,
during the progress of the French Revolution, an orator argued in favour
of the responsibility of the ministers, and added "By responsibility we
mean death," he advocated a principle inconsistent with the peaceful
alternation of parties in power.
[Sidenote: Lines of Cleavage must not be Social.]
For the same reason there is grave danger when the lines of cleavage of
the parties coincide with those between the different social classes in
the community, because one side is likely to believe that the other is
shaking the foundations of society, and passions are kindled like those
that blaze in civil war. This is true whenever the parties are separated
by any of the deeper feelings that divide mankind sharply into groups;
and especially when two or three such feelings follow the same channel.
The chief difficulty with Irish Nationalism, as a factor in English
politics, lies in the fact that to a great extent the line of cleavage
is at once racial, religious, social, and economic.
[Sidenote: Issues must be Based on Public Matters.]
In order that the warfare of parties may be not only safe, but healthy,
it must be based upon a real difference of opinion about the needs of
the community as a whole. In so far as it is waged, not for public
objects, but for the private gain, whether of individuals, or of
classes, or of collective interests, rich or poor, to that extent
politics will degenerate into a scramble of self-seekers.
[Sidenote: Relation of Parties to Political Institutions.]
Before inquiring how far these conditions have been fulfilled in England
we must consider the form that party has assumed there, and the
institutions to which it has given birth. England is, in fact, the only
large country in which the political institutions and the party system
are thoroughly in harmony.
[Sidenote: In America.]
The framers of the Constitution of the United States did not foresee the
rôle that party was to play in popular government,[439:1] and they made
no provision for it in their plan; yet they established a system in
which parties were a necessity. It was from the first inevitable, and
soon became clear, that the real selection of the President would not be
left to the judgment of the electoral college--a result made the more
certain, first, by providing that the members should assemble by States,
and hence should not meet together as a whole for deliberation; and
second, by excluding from the college all congressmen and holders of
federal offices, that is, all the leading men in national public
life.[440:1] If the electoral college was not really to select the
President, it must become a mere machine for registering the results of
a popular vote throughout the nation, and the candidates for the
presidency must be designated beforehand in some way.
In a small district where the voters are few, and an interchange of
opinions naturally takes place by informal conference, public officers
may be elected by popular vote without the existence of any machinery
for nomination; but in a large constituency, where the voters are not
personally acquainted with each other, men who have the same objects in
view must get together, agree upon a candidate, and recommend him to the
public. Otherwise votes will be thrown away by scattering them, and it
will be mere chance whether the result corresponds with the real wishes
of the voters or not. In short, there must be some process for
nominating candidates; that is, some party organisation; and the larger
the electorate the more imperative the need of it. Now the electorate
that practically chooses the President of the United States is by far
the largest single constituency that has ever existed in the world. It
is, in fact, noteworthy that democracy throughout Europe adheres to the
custom of dividing the country for political purposes into comparatively
small electorates; while in the United States it is the habit to make
whole communities single constituencies for the choice of their chief
magistrates--state governors or national president--a condition of
things that involves elaborate party machinery for nomination, and
hence the creation of huge party organisations on a popular basis.
The form of government in the United States has thus made parties
inevitable; and yet they were furnished with no opportunity for the
exercise of their functions by the regular organs of the state. There
were no means provided whereby a party could formulate and carry through
its policy, select its candidates for high office, or insure that they
should be treated as the real leaders of the party and able to control
its action.[441:1] The machinery of party, therefore, from the national
convention to the legislative caucus, has perforce been created outside
the framework of the government, and cannot be nicely adjusted thereto.
[Sidenote: In Continental Europe.]
The European countries, on the other hand, that have adopted the English
parliamentary system, have usually copied those features, like the
responsibility of the ministers, which were most readily perceived,
without acquiring at the same time the substructure on which the system
rests, the procedure which prevents friction, or the national traditions
which supply the motive power. The result has been that a form of
government well fitted to the great English parties has proved very
imperfectly suited to the numerous political groups that exist in most
of the continental legislatures.[441:2] In France the conditions have
indeed changed much in the last few years, the procedure has been
gradually better adapted to the parliamentary system, and the
ministries have gained in stability; but as yet the difficulties are by
no means overcome. In some of the smaller countries, such as Belgium and
Switzerland, the organs of government and the system of parties are less
inconsistent; in Belgium because she followed British precedents more
faithfully; in Switzerland because she was enabled by her small size,
coupled with a federal structure, to create a novel polity of her own,
in which parties are given no constitutional sphere of action, and play
an unusually subordinate part. In none of these countries, however, is
the form of government so fully consonant with the party system as it is
in Great Britain.
[Sidenote: English Parliamentary System Grew out of Parties.]
In England the party system is no more in accord with the strictly legal
institutions, with King, Lords and Commons, than it is elsewhere; but it
is in absolute harmony with those conventions, which, although quite
unknown to the law, make up the actual working constitution of the
state. It is in harmony with them because they were created by the
warfare of parties, were evolved out of party life. Government by a
responsible ministry was not the inevitable consequence of the long
struggle between the House of Commons and the Crown. Some other means
might very well have been devised for taking the executive power out of
the personal control of the King. It was rather the result of the
condition of the House itself; for it is inconceivable that this form of
government should have appeared if Parliament had not been divided into
Whigs and Tories. In fact the whole plan would be senseless if parties
did not exist. The reason for the resignation of a ministry upon the
rejection of a measure it has proposed is that the defeat indicates a
general loss of confidence in the policy of the party in power, and the
preference for another body of leaders with a different policy. If this
were not so, the Swiss practice of remaining in office, but yielding on
the point at issue, would be far more sensible. The parliamentary system
is thus a rational expression of the division of the ruling chamber into
two parties.
[Sidenote: It has Made Parties Stronger.]
Neither the parliamentary system nor the party system, neither the
responsibility of ministers to the House of Commons nor the permanent
division into two parties, grew up in a day. Throughout the eighteenth
century the principle of cabinet responsibility was but dimly
recognised; while parties at times disintegrated, and the wheels of
government were kept going by means of corruption, which has served in
all ages as a lubricant for ill-adjusted political machinery. But little
by little, with halting steps, the rivalry of parties built up the
responsibility of ministers, and this in turn helped to perpetuate the
party divisions; for the parliamentary system, like every rational form
of government, reacts upon and strengthens the conditions of its own
existence. It is based upon party, and by the law of its nature tends to
accentuate party. Ministers perceived that their security depended upon
standing together, presenting a united front, and prevailing upon their
friends to do the same. The leaders of the Opposition learned also that
their chance of attaining to power was improved by pursuing a similar
course. In this way two parties are arrayed against one another
continually, while every member of Parliament finds himself powerfully
drawn to enlist under one banner or the other, and follow it on all
occasions. He cannot consider measures simply on their merits, but must
take into account the ultimate effect of his vote. As soon as men
recognise that the defeat of a government bill means a change of
ministry, the pressure is great to sacrifice personal opinions on that
bill to the greater principles for which the party stands; and the more
fully the system develops, the clearer becomes the incompatibility
between voting as the member of Parliament pleases on particular
measures, and maintaining in power the party he approves. In short, the
action of the House of Commons has tended to become more and more party
action, with the ministers, as we have already seen, gradually drawing
the initiative in legislation, and the control over procedure, more and
more into their own hands.
[Sidenote: It is Government by Party.]
The English government is builded as a city that is in unity with
itself, and party is an integral part of the fabric. Party works,
therefore, inside, instead of outside, the regular political
institutions. In fact, so far as Parliament is concerned, the machinery
of party and of government are not merely in accord; they are one and
the same thing. The party cabal has become the Treasury Bench. The
ministers are the party chiefs, selected not artificially but by natural
prominence, and the majority in the House of Commons, which legislates,
appropriates money, supervises and controls the administration, and
sustains or discards ministers, is the party itself acting under the
guidance of those chiefs. The parliamentary system, as it has grown up
spontaneously in England, is in its origin and nature government by
party, sanctioned and refined by custom. In that respect it differs, not
only from national political systems elsewhere, but also from British
local government. This last is not an outgrowth of party, but, like most
of the existing popular institutions in other countries, was designed,
not evolved. In it, as we shall see hereafter, party has no organic
connection with the ruling bodies, and has not the same controlling
authority as in national affairs.
[Sidenote: It can Thrive only with Two Parties.]
If the existence of a responsible ministry normally involves government
by party, it also requires as a condition of success that there shall be
only two parties. The ills that have flowed from the subdivision of the
French, the Italian and other parliaments, into a number of groups are
now an oft-told tale. The consequences there are very different from
those that occur where the executive is not responsible to the
legislature. In this last case the presence of several groups may result
in the election of a president, a council or an assembly, representing a
minority of the voters, and if so the popular will may not be truly
expressed. Yet the government will go on unshaken until the next
periodic election. But with similar conditions under the parliamentary
system the administration itself will be weak, its position unstable,
its tenure of office dependent upon the pleasure of a group that may be
ready to sacrifice everything else for a single object. Parnell was
quite right in his reckoning that if he could keep the Home Rulers
together until they held the balance of power in the House, one or other
of the great parties must make terms with them, or parliamentary
government would be unworkable.
[Sidenote: Opposition not Entirely Genuine.]
In the English system the initiative in most matters of importance has
come into the hands of the cabinet ministers, as the representatives and
leaders of the predominant party. It is their business to propose, and
it is the business of the Opposition to oppose. But the attitude of the
latter is not quite spontaneous. On rare occasions it congratulates the
government upon some action, which it supports heartily. More commonly
it seeks to criticise everything, to find all imaginable faults.
Impotent to legislate, it tries to prevent the majority from doing so;
not content with expressing its views and registering a protest, it
raises the same objections at every stage in the passage of a bill; and
sometimes strives to delay and even to destroy measures which it would
itself enact if in power. Its immediate object is, in fact, to discredit
the cabinet. Now this sounds mischievous, and would be so were
Parliament the ultimate political authority. But the parties are really
in the position of barristers arguing a case before a jury, that jury
being the national electorate; and experience has shown, contrary to the
prepossessions of non-professional legal reformers in all ages, that the
best method of attaining justice is to have a strong advocate argue on
each side before an impartial umpire. Unfortunately the jurymen in this
case are not impartial, and the arguments are largely addressed to their
interests, but that is a difficulty inseparable from democracy, or,
indeed, from any form of government.
[Sidenote: Waste of Capacity.]
Another result of party government that is constantly decried is the
waste of capacity it involves. Why, it is asked, should an excellent
administrator leave his post, because some measure quite unconnected
with his department--a measure, it may be, that he has himself opposed
in the cabinet--is rejected by the House of Commons? Such a system
interferes with that continuity of policy which is often essential to
success both in foreign and internal affairs, and this is, no doubt, an
evil; but owing to the presence of a highly trained body of permanent
officials, who carry on the traditions and largely control the policy of
the departments, it is not so important in England as one might suppose.
The system also debars one half of the talent in public life from the
service of the state; but this misfortune is one that, for one reason or
another, has existed to some extent in all countries at all times. The
idea of a state where all the ablest men in the land join, without
regard to political opinions, to devote the best of their talents to the
public service, is enchanting, but it has never been permanently
realised anywhere.
[Sidenote: Issues not Decided solely on their Merits.]
Another criticism levelled at party government in England arises from
the impossibility of supporting the party in power on one issue and
opposing it on another. A voter at the last election who objected
strongly to any change in fiscal policy, and equally strongly to any
concessions on the subject of Home Rule, found himself on the horns of a
dilemma. He was compelled to make up his mind which issue he thought
most important, and trust to Providence about the other. In a party
government, where the cabinet must resign if any of its vital measures
are rejected, those measures cannot be considered by individuals on
their merits. The policy of one party or the other must be supported as
a whole. This is certainly a limitation on personal freedom of action,
and it acts as a restraint just to the extent that the government is
conducted strictly on party lines. The party system certainly involves
compromise of opinion; but then there is some compromise required for
the enactment of every public measure, whether parties exist or not, for
it never happens that the legislators who vote for any bill are all
perfectly satisfied with every one of its clauses.
Government by party is not an ideal regimen. Like everything else it
contains both good and evil. A political organisation, indeed, that
avoided all strife and all waste would certainly be impossible, and
would probably, by relaxing effort and sapping the springs of human
nature, prove undesirable. As yet it is too early to strike a final
balance between the merits and the defects of the party system in
England, and it would be hopeless to attempt it here. Both good and evil
will appear more fully as we proceed.
FOOTNOTES:
[435:1] Rohmer's _Lehre von den politischen Parteien_, which attempts to
explain the division into parties by natural differences of temperament
corresponding to the four periods of man's life, is highly suggestive,
but is rather philosophic than psychological; and like most
philosophical treatises on political subjects it is based upon the
writer's own time and place rather than upon a study of human nature
under different conditions.
[436:1] In his oft-quoted, but very brief, remarks in the "Observations
on 'The Present State of the Nation,'" and "Thoughts on the Cause of the
Present Discontents." But twenty-five years later in a letter to Richard
Burke he falls into the current talk about the evils of domination by a
faction.
[437:1] _E.g._ Redlich, _Recht und Technik_, 74-79.
[437:2] _Cf._ Review of his unpublished "Recollections of a Long Life,"
in the _Edinburgh Review_, April, 1871, p. 301.
[438:1] Neither in France nor in Italy does the constitution really
perform that service; because in each case it does little more than fix
the framework of the government, without placing an effective restraint
upon legislative action; and because the constitution itself is not felt
to be morally binding by the irreconcilables.
[439:1] For the views of these men on the relation of parties or
"factions" to public life see "The Federalist," No. 10, written by
Madison.
[440:1] Professor Max Farrand has pointed out to me that the question of
having the electors for the whole country meet in one place was
discussed in the Constitutional Convention, and was rejected in favour
of the present plan, because under the latter, "As the Electors would
vote at the same time throughout the U.S. and at so great a distance
from each other, the great evil of cabal was avoided." G. Hunt's
"Writings of Madison," IV., 365-66. Cabal had a vague and spectral
meaning, but covered anything in the nature of party. The exclusion from
the electoral college of members of Congress and federal office-holders
was defended on the same ground. _Cf._ "The Federalist," No. 68.
[441:1] In his "Rise and Growth of American Politics," a book full of
penetrating suggestions, Mr. Henry Jones Ford has argued that party
exists in America in order to bring about an accord among public bodies
that were made independent by the Constitution; to force into harmonious
action the various representatives of the people. Professor Goodnow
develops the same idea from a different standpoint in his "Politics and
Administration." But, especially in view of the comparatively small
accord among public bodies, or harmonious action of the public
representatives, and the enormous influence of parties in elections, it
seems to the writer more correct to say that parties in America exist
mainly for the selection of candidates.
[441:2] This subject is treated in Dupriez's admirable work _Les
Ministres_, in Bodley's "France," and in the writer's "Governments and
Parties in Continental Europe."
CHAPTER XXV
PARTY ORGANISATION IN PARLIAMENT
[Sidenote: The Need of Whips.]
In every legislative body a vote is supposed to express the sense of the
House, and there is a universal fiction that all the members are
constantly present; but this is often far from being the fact; and it
always behooves any one interested in a particular matter to expend no
small amount of labour in making sure that those persons who agree with
him are on hand when the decisive moment comes. All this applies with
peculiar force to the House of Commons; for not only the fate of the
particular measure under consideration, but the very life of the
ministry itself, may depend upon a single division; and it is the more
true because the average attendance, while a debate is going on, is
unusually small. When the division bell rings, two minutes are, indeed,
given for the members to rush in from the lobbies, the library, the
smoking and dining rooms, and the terrace, yet the government cannot
trust to luck for the presence of enough of its followers in the
precincts of the House to make up a majority. There must be someone
whose duty it is to see that they are within call.
[Sidenote: Who They Are.]
The duty of keeping the members of a party on hand is performed by the
whips, whose name is abbreviated from the men who act as whippers-in at
a fox-hunt. They are all members of the House, and those on the
government side receive salaries from the public purse on the theory
that it is their business to "keep a house" during supply; that is, to
insure the presence of a quorum, so that the appropriations may be
voted. The chief government whip holds the office of Parliamentary
Secretary to the Treasury, with a salary of £2000. Formerly he was often
called simply the Secretary of the Treasury--an expression occasionally
confusing to the readers of books written a generation ago. He is
sometimes called, also, Patronage Secretary of the Treasury; and in old
times no small part of his functions consisted in distributing
patronage, in the days when it was freely employed to secure the support
of members of Parliament. In fact he is still a channel for the
disposition of such minor patronage as remains in the gift of the Prime
Minister, including the creation of lesser titles. He is assisted by
three other members, who hold the office of Junior Lords of the
Treasury, with the salary of £1000 apiece.[449:1] As has already been
explained, the Treasury Board never meets, so that the duties of the
Junior Lords are to-day almost entirely confined to acting as whips;
and, to enable them to do that more effectively, one of them is always a
Scotch member. The position of whip is one of great importance, but it
entails some sacrifices, for by custom the whips take no part in debate,
and although their work is felt throughout the House, it is little seen
by the public. The chief whip, however, is often given afterwards a
position in the ministry, or otherwise rewarded.
The Opposition also has its whips, usually three in number, whose
position is important; though not so important as that of the government
whips, because while a failure to have the full strength of the party
present may be unfortunate, it cannot, as in the case of the government,
be disastrous. Naturally the Opposition whips have no salaries, but they
are sustained by the hope that their turn will come.
[Sidenote: Duties of the Whips.]
The government whips act as the aides-de-camp, and intelligence
department, of the leader of the House. In the former capacity they
arrange for him with the whips on the other side those matters in which
it is a convenience to have an understanding. The membership of select
committees, for example, is generally settled between the chief whips
on the two sides of the House; and the time when the test vote on some
great measure will take place is usually arranged beforehand in the same
way.
[Sidenote: They bring in the Members.]
When an important division is likely to occur, each side musters its
whole force for a great trial of strength; and not only the majority,
but the size of the majority, is a matter of importance to the
ministers, for it shows how completely they can depend upon the support
of their followers. But it is not on vital questions alone that the
government must avoid being beaten, because a defeat, even though not
such a one as would cause resignation, nevertheless weakens to some
extent the credit of the cabinet. It gives the public the impression
that the ministers are losing popularity; either that their followers
are becoming rebellious and voting against them, or, at least, that they
are so far indifferent or disaffected as to stay away. Nothing succeeds
like success; and it is a maxim in politics as well as in war that one
must maintain a reputation for being invincible. Any defeat of the
government always causes cheers of triumph among the Opposition; and
especially of late years, when defeats have become more rare, it is a
thing that requires explanation.
The whips must, therefore, always keep a majority within sound of the
division bell whenever any business that may affect the government is
under consideration. For this purpose they are in the habit of sending
out almost every day to all their supporters lithographed notices
stating that a vote on such and such a matter is likely to come on, and
requesting the attendance of the member. These notices are underscored,
in accordance with the importance of attendance, from a single line,
meaning that the whip desires the member's attendance, to four lines, or
a couple of very thick lines, which mean "come on pain of being thought
a deserter." In fact the receipt of messages of this kind is the test of
party membership. In 1844 a correspondence on the subject took place
between Peel and Disraeli shortly before the final breach occurred.
Disraeli, who had been criticising the policy of the government in
Ireland and Servia, was not sent the usual whips, and protested on the
ground that he had not ceased to be a member of the party.[451:1]
All this is not so important in the case of the Opposition; for, the
consequences of being caught napping are not so serious. It is enough
for them to summon their full force from time to time, when a good
chance for a large vote occurs. The proceedings of their whips,
therefore, though generally the same, are somewhat less systematic.
[Sidenote: They must Know that the Members are Present.]
[Sidenote: Snap Votes.]
The whips act also as an intelligence department for the government
leader. It is their business not only to summon the members of the party
to the House, but to know that they are there. By the door leading to
the coat room, through which the members ordinarily enter the House from
Palace Yard, there are seats; and here may always be seen one of the
government whips, and often one from the Opposition. Each of them takes
note of every member who goes in and out, sometimes remonstrating with
him if he is leaving without sufficient reason. By this means the whip
is expected to be able, at any moment, to tell just how large a majority
the government has within the precincts of the House; and on the most
important divisions the whip sees that every member of the party, who is
well, is either present or paired. Of course, the same thoroughness
cannot be attained on smaller questions; and although the government
whip tries to have constantly on hand more members of his own party than
of the Opposition, it is not always possible to do so. He may have
expected a vote to take place at a given hour, and sent out a notice to
every one to be present at that time, and the debate may suddenly show
signs of coming to an end earlier. In that case it is usually possible
to get some member of the government to talk against time while the
needed members are fetched in. At times even this resource fails, and
the government is occasionally defeated on what is known as "a snap
vote."
[Sidenote: That of 1895.]
Humorous anecdotes are told of frantic attempts to bring in the members,
and of practical jokes in trying to prevent it;[452:1] but the only one
of these cases that led to serious results occurred in 1895. The Liberal
government had been desperately clinging for life to a small majority of
about a dozen, when there came on for debate a motion to reduce the
salary of the Secretary of State for War, made in order to draw
attention to an alleged lack of cordite. The whips sitting by the
regular entrance of the House had in their tally the usual majority for
the government; but a score of Tories had gone from the Palace Yard
directly to the terrace, without passing through the ordinary coat-room
entrance. When the division bell rang they came straight from the
terrace to the House, and to the surprise no less of the tellers than of
every one else, the government was defeated by a few votes. This was
clearly a "snap" division, which would not ordinarily have been treated
as showing a lack of confidence in the ministry. But the time comes when
a tired man in the sea would rather drown than cling longer; and that
was the position of Lord Rosebery's government.
[Sidenote: Whips must Know the Temper of the Party.]
The whips keep in constant touch with the members of their party. It is
their business to detect the least sign of disaffection or discontent;
to know the disposition of every member of the party on every measure of
importance to the ministry, reporting it constantly to their chief. A
member of the party, indeed, who feels that he cannot vote for a
government measure, or that he must vote for an amendment to it, is
expected to notify the whip. If there are few men in that position, so
that the majority of the government is ample, and the result is not in
danger, the whip will make no objection. A novice in the strangers'
gallery, who hears three or four men on the government side attack one
of its measures vigorously, sometimes thinks that there is a serious
risk of defeat; but if he watched the countenance of the chief whip on
the extreme end of the Treasury Bench, he would see no sign of anxiety,
and when the division takes place the majority of the government is
about the normal size. The fact is that the whip has known all along
just how many men behind him would vote against the government, just how
many would stay away, and that it really made no difference.
[Sidenote: Methods of Pressure on Members.]
[Sidenote: Fear of Dissolution.]
If, on the other hand, the majority of the government is narrow, or the
number of refractory members is considerable, the whip will try to
reason with them; and in a crisis, where a hostile vote will be followed
by a dissolution, or by a resignation of the ministry which involves, of
course, a dissolution, his reasoning is likely to be effective; for no
member wants to face unnecessarily the expense of a general election, or
the risk of losing his seat. The strength of motives of this kind
naturally depends very much upon his tenure of the seat. If, as
sometimes happens, he is the only member of the party who has a good
chance of carrying the seat, or if his local or personal influence there
is so strong that he is certain to carry it, he will hold a position of
more than usual independence. But this is rarely the case.
[Sidenote: Action of Constituents.]
Nor is the fear of dissolution the only means by which pressure can be
brought to bear upon a member who strays too far from the party fold.
His constituents, or the local party association--which for this purpose
is much the same thing--can be relied upon to do something. Any direct
attempt by the whips to bring pressure upon a member through his
constituents would be likely to irritate, and do more harm than good.
But it is easy enough, in various ways, to let the constituents know
that the member is not thoroughly supporting his party; and unless his
vote against the government is cast in the interest of the constituents
themselves, they are not likely to have much sympathy with his
independence.
[Sidenote: Social Influence.]
Another means of pressure is found in social influence, which counts for
much in English public life; and for that reason it is considered
important to have as chief whip a man of high social standing as well as
of pleasant manners and general popularity. The power of social
influence has always been great in England, more particularly among the
Conservatives. In 1853, Disraeli, who was trying hard to build up the
Tory party, and had at the time little else to build it with, urged the
importance of Lord Derby's asking all his followers in Parliament to
dinner in the course of the session.[454:1] Nor does the use of
influence of this kind appear to have declined. It has been said of late
years that if a Unionist did not vote with his party, he was not invited
to the functions at the Foreign Office; and the weakness of the Liberals
for nearly a score of years after the split over Home Rule was due in no
small part to the fact that they had very little social influence at
their command. A sudden political conversion some years ago was
attributed to disappointment of the member at the small number of
invitations received through Liberal connections; and the change of
faith no doubt met its reward, for it was followed in time by
knighthood.
[Sidenote: Payment of Election Expenses.]
Finally the whips have, upon a certain number of members, a claim
arising from gratitude. Elections are expensive for the candidate, and
it is not always easy to find a man who is ready to incur the needful
cost and trouble, especially when the chance of success is not large.
Under these conditions the central office of the party, which is under
the control of the leaders and the whip, will often contribute toward a
candidate's expenses. It is done most frequently in well-nigh hopeless
constituencies, and therefore the proportion of men who have received
such aid is much greater among defeated than among elected candidates;
although the cases are by no means confined to the former class. How
often aid is given, and in what cases it is given, is never known, for
the whip naturally keeps his own counsel about the matter; but the
number of members on each side of the House, a part of whose election
expenses have been paid from the party treasury, is not inconsiderable.
Upon these men the whips have, of course, a strong claim which can be
used to secure their attendance and votes when needed.
If all the means of pressure which the whips can bring to bear are
unavailing, and the supporters of the government who propose to vote
against it are enough to turn the scale, or if the whips report that the
dissatisfaction is widespread, the cabinet will, if possible, modify its
position. This is said to have been the real cause of the apparent
surrender of the Liberal ministry to the demands of the Labour Party
upon the bill to regulate the liability of trade unions in 1906. The
whips found that many of their own followers had pledged themselves so
deeply that they could not support the government bill as it stood.
[Sidenote: The Whips as Tellers.]
When the government is interested in the result of a vote, it informs
the Speaker that it would like its whips appointed tellers in the
division, a suggestion with which he always complies. This is the sign
that the ministers are calling for the support of all their followers,
and that the division is to be upon party lines. Often in the course of
a debate upon some amendment to a government bill, one hears a member,
rising behind the Treasury Bench, appeal to the leader of the House not
to put pressure upon his supporters on that question. He means that the
government whips shall not be made the tellers, in which case each
member is free to vote as he thinks best without a breach of party
loyalty, and the result, whatever it may be, is not regarded as a defeat
for the cabinet. Occasionally this is done, but not often; because on
the question so treated the government, in abandoning its leadership, is
exposed to a charge of weakness; and also because it is unsafe to do it
unless the ministers are quite indifferent about the result, for the
effect of the pressure on the votes of many members is very great.
[Sidenote: No Other Party Machinery in Parliament.]
The whips may be said to constitute the only regular party organisation
in the House of Commons, unless we include under that description the
two front benches. The very fact, indeed, that the ministry and the
leaders of the Opposition furnish in themselves the real party machinery
of the House, avoids the need of any other. The ministers prepare and
carry out the programme of the party in power, while a small coterie of
leaders on the other side devise the plans for opposing them. The front
bench thus does the work of a party committee or council, and in neither
of the great parties is there anything resembling a general caucus for
the discussion and determination of party policy. Sometimes a great
meeting of the adherents of the party in Parliament is called at one of
the political clubs or elsewhere, when the leaders address their
followers. But it is held to exhort, not to consult; and, in fact,
surprise is sometimes expressed by private members that the chiefs take
them so little into their confidence.[456:1]
The organisation of the two great parties in Parliament has almost a
military character, with the cabinet as the general staff, and the
leader of the House as the commander in the field. This is naturally far
less true of lesser groups, which have not the tradition of cabinet
leadership to keep them in line. In their case a real caucus of the
party, to consider the position it shall assume in a crisis, is not
unknown. Two particularly celebrated meetings of that kind took place
within a few years of each other: one held by the Liberal Unionists
before the vote on the Home Rule Bill in 1886; the other the meeting of
the Irish Nationalists which deposed Parnell from the leadership of the
party in 1890.
A caucus of one of the two great parties has occasionally been held to
select a leader in the House, in those rare cases where it has found
itself in Opposition without a chief. This happened, for example, in
1899, when the post of leader having been left vacant by the retirement
of Sir William Harcourt therefrom in the preceding December, the Liberal
members of the House met on the day before the opening of the session,
and chose Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman to succeed him. Sir Henry
thenceforward led the party in the Commons, and became, in due course,
Prime Minister, when the Liberals came to power in 1905. Except,
however, for an accident of that sort, neither of the two great parties
has any machinery for choosing its chiefs, or deciding upon its course
of action. The leaders, and when the party comes to power the ministers,
are, no doubt, indirectly selected by the party itself, for they are the
men who have shown themselves able to win its confidence, and command
its support. But the choice is not made by any formal vote; nor is it
always precisely such as would result from a vote. The Prime Minister,
if not himself in the Commons, appoints the leader of the House and his
principal lieutenants, being guided in the choice by his own estimate of
their hold upon the party, and by the advice of the other chiefs. When
appointed, the leader leads, and the party follows.
FOOTNOTES:
[449:1] Formerly the Parliamentary Groom in Waiting acted also as a
whip; but the office was abolished in 1892.
[451:1] Parker, "Sir Robert Peel," III., 144-47.
[452:1] Macdonagh, "Book of Parliament," 372-78.
[454:1] Malmesbury, "Memoirs of an Ex-Minister," I., 382.
[456:1] See, for example, Sir Richard Temple, "Life in Parliament," and
especially pp. 39-40.
CHAPTER XXVI
NON-PARTY ORGANISATIONS OUTSIDE OF PARLIAMENT
[Sidenote: Different Kinds of Political Organisations.]
The political organisations outside the walls of Parliament may, for
convenience, be classified under four heads; although the groups so set
apart are not always perfectly distinct, and a particular organisation
is sometimes on the border line between two different groups. These four
heads are:--
1. Non-party organisations, whose object is to carry into effect some
one project or line of policy, but not to obtain control of the general
government, or to act as an independent political group in the House of
Commons.
2. Local party organisations, each confined to one locality, whose
primary object is to nominate party candidates and carry the elections
in that place, although they may incidentally bring their influence to
bear on the national policy of the party.
3. National party organisations, whose object is to propagate the
principles of the party, to aid in carrying the elections throughout the
country, and also to formulate and control to a greater or less extent
the national party policy. Of the organisations formed for such a
purpose, the most famous was early dubbed by its foes the "Caucus," and
under that title the career of these bodies on the Liberal and the
Conservative side will be described in Chapters XXIX. and XXX., the
Labour Party being treated in a later chapter by itself.
4. Ancillary party organisations. These are handmaids to the party,
which make no pretence of trying to direct its policy, but confine
themselves to the work of extending its popularity, promoting its
interests, and preparing the way for its success at the polls. They will
be discussed hereafter, but a few words must be said here about the most
important of them all, because without a knowledge of its character, the
history of the caucus, with which it has come into contact, can hardly
be understood. It is the central association, or central office, of the
party, composed of paid officials and agents, with or without the help
of a group of wealthy and influential men. It raises and disburses the
campaign funds of the party, and takes charge of general electioneering
interests; but it always acts in close concert with the party leaders
and the whips, and is, in fact, under their immediate direction and
control. The central office is thus a branch of the whip's office, which
attends to the work outside of Parliament, and it is really managed by a
principal agent or secretary directly responsible to the parliamentary
chiefs.
[Sidenote: They are Distinct from the Organs of State.]
Unlike the instruments of party inside of Parliament, all of these four
classes of exterior political organisation are wholly unconnected with
the constitutional organs of government; save that the central office is
directed by the whip. Outside of Parliament, as in the United States,
the organisation of parties is artificial or voluntary, that is, the
mechanism stands quite apart from that of the state, and its effect
thereon is from without, not from within. From this fact have flowed
important consequences that will be noted hereafter.
[Sidenote: The Non-Party Organisations.]
Among the different kinds of political organisation those here called
non-partisan are by far the oldest. Yet the term itself may be
misleading. It does not mean that they have confined their efforts to
cultivating an abstract public opinion in favour of their dogmas, for
they have often sought to elect to Parliament men who would advocate
them there. Nor does it mean that they have had no connection with the
existing parties, for sometimes one of the parties has countenanced and
supported their views, and in that case they have thrown their influence
in favour of the candidates of that party. The term is used simply to
denote a body whose primary object is not to achieve victory for a
regular political party. Curiously enough, such a group of persons often
comes nearer than the great parties of the present day to Burke's
definition of party as "a body of men united for promoting by their
joint endeavours the national interest upon some particular principle in
which they are all agreed." For each of the leading parties includes men
who are not wholly at one in their principles. Party aims are
complicated and confused, and are attained only by a series of
compromises, in which the ultimate principle is sometimes obscured by
the means employed to reach it. A party in modern parliamentary
government would be more accurately defined as a body of men united by
the intent of sustaining a common ministry.
[Sidenote: Their Early History.]
Various organisations of the kind termed here "non-partisan" arose
during the latter part of the eighteenth century. The first of these of
any great importance appears to have been the Society for Supporting the
Bill of Rights, founded in 1769 to assist Wilkes in his controversy with
the House of Commons, and in general to maintain the public liberties
and demand an extension of the popular element in the constitution.
Finding that the society was used to promote the personal ambition of
Wilkes, some of the leading members withdrew, and founded the
Constitutional Society with the same objects. Ten years later county
associations were formed, and conventions composed of delegates
therefrom met in London in 1780 and 1781 to petition for the redress of
public grievances. Other societies were established about the same time,
and they were not always of a radical character. The Protestant
Association, for example, was formed under the lead of Lord George
Gordon to maintain the disabilities of the Roman Catholics, and brought
about the riots of June, 1780, which are still called by his name.
The political societies of those days were short-lived, and most of them
died soon; but the outbreak of the French Revolution sowed the seed for
a fresh crop. In 1791 the working classes of the metropolis organised
the London Corresponding Society, and the next year men of less extreme
views founded the Society of the Friends of the People to promote
moderate reform. Whether radical or moderate, however, associations of
that kind could not live in those troublous times. The repulsion and
alarm provoked by the course of events in France were too strong to be
resisted, and a number of repressive statutes were passed to break them
up. First came an Act of 1794 to suspend the writ of habeas corpus, then
in the following session another to prevent seditious meetings, and,
finally, a statute of 1799, which suppressed the London Corresponding
Society by name, and any others that were organised with branches. These
acts and a series of prosecutions drove out of existence all the
societies aiming at political reform; and during a few years, while the
struggle with France was at its height, the course of domestic politics
was unvexed by such movements. But the distress that followed the wars
of Napoleon caused another resort to associations, which was again met
by hostile legislation.
[Sidenote: The Catholic Association, and Movements for Reform.]
The repressive statutes were, however, temporary, and when the last of
them expired in 1825, the way for popular organisations was again free.
The Catholic Association had already been formed in Ireland to procure
the removal of religious disabilities, and just as it disbanded, with
its object won, in 1829, the shadow of the coming Reform Act brought
forth a number of new political societies in England. In that very year
Thomas Atwood founded at Birmingham the Political Union for the
Protection of Public Rights, with the object of promoting parliamentary
reform; and after the introduction of the Reform Bill similar unions,
formed to support it, sprang up all over the country. An attempt was
even made to affiliate them together in a great national organisation;
but the government declared the plan illegal, and it was abandoned.
Among the most interesting of the societies of this kind were those
organised in London. Here, in 1831, the National Union of the Working
Classes was founded by artisans, disciples of Robert Owen, commonly
known as the "Rotundanists," from the name of the hall where their
meetings were held. But Francis Place, the tailor, a notable figure in
the agitations of the day, had no sympathy with the socialistic ideas of
these men, and dreaded the effect of their society upon the fate of the
Reform Bill. He had a much keener insight into the real situation, and
started as a counterstroke the National Political Union, with the sole
object of supplying in London the popular impulse needed, in his
opinion, to push the measure through.[462:1] The Bill was no sooner
passed than the many associations, which had been founded upon a union
of the middle and lower classes to effect a particular reform, began to
die out.
[Sidenote: The Anti-Slavery Societies.]
Meanwhile two successive organisations of a non-partisan, and, indeed,
of a non-political, character, had been carrying a purely humanitarian
movement to a triumphant end. The Committee for the Abolition of the
Slave Trade was formed in 1787, and strove, by the collection of
evidence, by petitions, pamphlets and corresponding local committees, to
enlighten public opinion and persuade Parliament. After working for a
score of years, supported by the tireless efforts of Wilberforce in the
House of Commons, it prevailed at last upon Parliament to suppress the
slave-trade by the Acts of 1806 and 1807. Sixteen years thereafter the
Anti-Slavery Society was formed to urge the entire abolition of slavery
throughout the British dominions, and this it brought about in 1833, the
strength of its advocates in the Commons, backed by popular agitation
outside, being great enough to compel Lord Grey's government to bring in
a bill for the purpose.[462:2]
[Sidenote: Non-Party Organisations after 1832.]
[Sidenote: The Chartists.]
Since 1832 the non-party organisations have been, on the whole, more
permanent, and more widely extended than before; and, with some marked
exceptions like that of the Chartists, they have tended to rely less
upon a display of physical force, and more upon appeals to the
electorate--a change following naturally enough upon the enlargement of
the franchise. Chartism developed out of a large number of separate
local organisations of workingmen, who realised that they had gained no
political power from the Reform Act, and demanded a reform of Parliament
in a really democratic spirit. The movement took its name from the
People's Charter, with its six points, published in 1838 by the London
Working Men's Association. To this the various local bodies adhered,
sending the next year delegates to a great People's Parliament in
London. But the violence of the language used by the Chartists opened a
door for prosecution; the leaders became frightened, and for the moment
the agitation lost its force. In 1840 it was reorganised, and was
supported by several hundred affiliated bodies. From first to last,
however, it was weakened by dissensions among the leaders, relating both
to the methods of operation and to subordinate issues. The movement
culminated in 1848, in the mass meeting on Kennington Common, which was
to form in procession, and present a mammoth petition to Parliament. The
plan had caused grave anxiety; troops were brought up, thousands of
special constables were sworn in; but at the last minute Feargus
O'Connor, the leader of the Chartists, lost his nerve, and gave up the
procession. The great demonstration was a fiasco, and soon after the
whole movement collapsed.
[Sidenote: The Anti-Corn-Law League.]
One of the many reasons for the failure of Chartism was the existence at
the same time of the most successful non-partisan organisation that
England has ever known, the Anti-Corn-Law League. This, like the
Anti-Slavery Association of an earlier day, was formed to advocate a
single specific reform, and to its steadfast fidelity to that principle
its success was largely due. It excluded rigidly all questions of party
politics, and in fact its most prominent leader, Cobden, always retained
a profound distrust of both parties. The reform embodied, however, in
the eyes of its votaries, both an economic and a moral principle, so
that they were able to appeal at the same time to the pocket and the
conscience of the nation--a combination that goaded Carlyle into his
reference to Cobden as an inspired bagman preaching a calico millennium.
As the League appealed to more than one motive, so it used freely more
than one means of making the appeal. After a number of local
associations had been formed, a meeting of delegates from these, held in
1839, founded the League, which proceeded to organise branches all over
the country, sent forth speakers and lecturers, worked the press,
collected information, issued pamphlets by the ton, petitioned
Parliament, and strove to elect candidates who would support its views.
All this was done upon a huge scale with indefatigable energy. The
movement derived its force from the middle-class manufacturers, but they
strained every nerve to indoctrinate the working classes in the cities,
and later the rural population, until at last public opinion was so far
won that the crisis caused by the failure of the Irish potato crop
brought about the repeal of the Corn Laws in 1846. The League had done
its work and dissolved.
[Sidenote: Other Non-Partisan Associations.]
There have been, and still are, a large number of other associations of
a non-partisan character, which bestir themselves about some political
question. Often they exist in pairs to advocate opposing views, like the
Marriage Law Reform Association, and the Marriage Law Defence Union, the
Imperial Vaccination League, and the National Anti-Vaccination League.
These associations are of many different kinds. Some of them are
organised for other objects, concerning themselves with legislation only
incidentally, and taking no part at elections, like the Association of
Chambers of Commerce, and the Association of Municipal Corporations.
Some exist primarily for other purposes, but are very active in
politics, like certain of the trade unions;[464:1] others are formed
solely for the diffusion of political doctrines, but generally abstain
from direct electoral work, like the Fabian Society, with its socialist
ideals; and, finally, there are organisations which, although not
primarily partisan, in fact exert themselves vigorously to help the
candidates of one of the great parties. To the last class belongs the
Liberation Society, formerly very active in urging the disestablishment
of the Church, and throwing its influence in favour of the Liberals; and
also its opponent, the Committee for Church Defence, equally strong on
the side of the Conservatives. More active than either of them at the
present day is the Free Church Federation, which has been brought into
the political arena by its repugnance to the Education Act of 1902. In
the same category must be placed the National Trade Defence Association,
an organisation formed by the liquor dealers to resist temperance
legislation, and perhaps Mr. Chamberlain's recent Tariff Reform League,
both of which support the Tories. It so happens that the societies that
oppose the last two bodies are not so consistently devoted to the
Liberals. Then there are societies of another type formed for a
transitory purpose in foreign affairs: such as the Eastern Question
Association of 1876, which opposed Disraeli's Turkish policy, and the
present Balkan Committee working for freedom in Macedonia.
All associations that attempt to influence elections are in the habit of
catechising the candidates and publishing their answers, sometimes
producing a decided effect upon the vote. Now it may be suggested that
societies which take an active part in elections, and always throw their
influence on the same side, ought not to be classed as non-partisan, but
rather as adjuncts to the great parties; and yet they differ from the
true ancillary organisations because their primary object as societies
(whatever the personal aim of individual members may be) is not to place
the party in power, but to carry through a particular policy with which
that party happens to be more nearly in sympathy than its rival.
FOOTNOTES:
[462:1] Graham Wallas, in his "Life of Francis Place," gives a graphic
description of the movements in London.
[462:2] For these movements see Clarkson's "History of the Slave Trade,"
"The Life of Wilberforce," by his sons, and "The Memoirs of Sir T.
Fowell Buxton."
[464:1] This does not refer to the political labour organisations that
have grown out of the trade unions, but must now be classed as regular
parties. For the earlier political activity of the trade unions, as
such, see Sidney and Beatrice Webb, "Industrial Democracy," I., 247 _et
seq._
CHAPTER XXVII
LOCAL PARTY ORGANISATIONS
Contrasted with those bodies which are non-partisan, but extend over the
whole country, or at least over an indefinite area, stand the local
party organisations. Before the Reform Act of 1832 local organisations
such as exist to-day for the election of parliamentary candidates were
almost unknown. They would, indeed, have been of little use in most of
the old electorates. Not to speak of the rotten boroughs, which were
sold for cash, a large number of the smaller constituencies were pocket
boroughs, in the hands of patrons who would not have suffered any one
else to influence the voters. In 1807, when Lord Palmerston was elected
to Parliament for Newtown in the Isle of Wight, Sir Leonard Holmes, who
controlled the seat, made a stipulation that he should "never, even for
an election, set foot in the place. So jealous was the patron lest any
attempt should be made to get a new interest in the borough."[466:1]
Even in the counties the voters were so much under the personal lead of
the landowners that party machinery would have been superfluous. A few
of the large boroughs had, indeed, an extended franchise and a wide
electorate. Most notable among them was Westminster, and here a real
political organisation for the election of members to Parliament existed
for some years before the great reform. It was, however, conducted in
the interest neither of the Whigs, nor of the Tories, but of Radical
Reformers, who were truly independent of both parties.[466:2]
[Sidenote: Their Origin.]
With the extension of the franchise a change began in the political
status of the voters. In many constituencies it was no longer enough to
secure the support of a few influential persons; and the winning of a
seat by either party depended upon getting as many of its adherents as
possible upon the voting lists. The watchword of the new era was given
by Sir Robert Peel in his celebrated advice to the electors of Tamworth
in 1841, "Register, register, register!" It was the more important for
the parties to take the matter in hand, because disputes about the
complex electoral qualifications, instead of being settled on the
initiative of the state, were left to be fought out before the revising
barrister by the voters themselves, who were apt to be very negligent
unless some one made a systematic effort to set them in motion. It was
not less necessary for the parties to keep the matter constantly in
hand, because, the duration of Parliament being uncertain, it could not
be put off until shortly before the election. The lists must be kept
always full in view of a possible dissolution. Often the work was done
on behalf of the sitting member or the prospective candidate by his
agent on the spot, without any formal organisation. But this was not
always true, and, in fact, the Reform Bill was no sooner enacted than
local registration societies began to be formed, which for some years
increased rapidly in number among both Liberals and Conservatives.[467:1]
[Sidenote: Their Early Objects.]
The primary object of the registration societies was to get the names of
their partisans on to the lists, and keep those of their opponents off;
and they are said to have done it with more zeal than fairness, often
with unjust results, for any claim or objection, though really
ill-founded, was likely to be allowed by the revising barrister if
unopposed.[468:1] From registration a natural step led to canvassing at
election time; that is, seeking the voters in their own homes;
persuading the doubtful; when possible, converting the unbelieving; and,
above all, making sure that the faithful came to the polls. This had
always been done by the candidates in popular constituencies; and now
the registration societies furnished a nucleus for the purpose, with a
mass of information about the persons to be canvassed, already acquired
in making up the voting lists. The nomination of candidates did not
necessarily form any part of their functions. The old theory prevailed,
of which traces may be found all through English life, that the
candidate offered himself for election, or was recommended by some
influential friend. The idea that he ought to be designated by the
voters of his party had not arisen; nor did the local societies, which
were merely self-constituted bodies, claim any right to speak for those
voters. No doubt they often selected and recommended candidates; but
they did so as a group of individuals whose opinions carried weight, not
as a council representing the party.
The time was coming, however, when another extension of the franchise,
and the growth of democratic ideas, would bring a demand for the
organisation of the societies on a representative basis. The change
began almost immediately after the passage of the Reform Act of 1867;
and the occasion--it cannot properly be called the cause--of the
movement is curious. When discussion in England was busy with Hare's
plan for proportional representation, which John Stuart Mill hailed as
the salvation of society, serious voices were heard to object to the
scheme on the ground that it would lead to the growth of party
organisations, and would place the voter in the grip of a political
machine.[469:1] It is, therefore, interesting to note that the first
outcry in England against actual party machinery was directed at an
organisation which sprang from the minute grain of minority
representation in the Act of 1867.
[Sidenote: The Birmingham Caucus.]
[Sidenote: Its Object.]
By the Reform Act of 1867 the great towns of Liverpool, Manchester,
Birmingham and Leeds were given three members of Parliament apiece; but
in order to provide some representation for the minority, the Lords
inserted, and the Commons accepted, a clause that no elector in those
towns should vote for more than two candidates.[469:2] Much foresight
was not required to perceive that if one of those towns elected two
Liberals and a Conservative, two of her members would neutralise each
other on a party division, and her weight would be only one vote; while
a much smaller town that chose two members of the same party in the
ordinary way would count for two in a division. Such a result seemed to
the Radicals of Birmingham a violation of the democratic principle, and
they were determined to prevent it if possible. They had on their side
more than three fifths of the voters, or more than half as many again as
their opponents, and this was enough to carry all three seats if their
votes were evenly distributed between three candidates. But to give to
three candidates the same number of votes when each elector could vote
for only two of them was not an easy thing to do, and failure might
mean the loss of two seats. Very careful planning was required for
success, very strict discipline among the voters, and hence a keen
interest in the result among the mass of the people and perfect
confidence in the party managers.
[Sidenote: Its Formation.]
To provide the machinery needed, Mr. William Harris, the Secretary of
the Birmingham Liberal Association, a self-constituted election
committee of the familiar type, proposed to transform that body into a
representative party organisation; which was forthwith done in October,
1867. The new rules provided that every Liberal subscribing a shilling
should be a member of the association, and that an annual meeting of the
members should choose the officers and twenty members to serve upon an
executive committee. This committee, which had charge of the general
business of the association, was to consist of the four officers and
twenty members already mentioned, of twenty more to be chosen by the
Midland branch of the National Reform League when formed, and of three
members chosen by a ward committee to be elected by the members of the
association in each ward. According to a common English custom the
committee had power to add to its members four more persons chosen, or,
as the expression goes, coöpted, by itself. There was also a larger
body, consisting of the whole executive committee and of not more than
twenty-four members elected by each of the ward committees. It was
officially called the general committee, but was commonly known from the
approximate number of its members as "The Four Hundred." It was to have
control of the policy of the association, and to nominate the three
Liberal candidates for Parliament in the borough.[470:1]
The number of Liberal voters in each of the several wards was then
carefully ascertained; and those in one ward were directed to vote for A
and B; those of another for A and C; those of a third for B and C; and
so on, in such a way that the total votes cast for each of the three
candidates should be as nearly as possible the same. Protests were, of
course, made against voting by dictation. It offended the sense of
personal independence; but the great mass of Liberals voted as they were
told, and all three of the candidates were elected.
[Sidenote: Its Early Victories.]
The association had accomplished a great feat. Three Liberals had been
sent to Parliament from Birmingham in spite of the minority
representation clause. But a chance for another victory of the same kind
did not come again until the dissolution six years later; and at first
the managers were less fortunate in the elections to the school board.
The Education Act of 1870 provided for cumulative voting at the election
of these bodies; that is, the elector might cast all the votes to which
he was entitled for one candidate, or distribute them in any way he
pleased. The system made it possible for very small minorities to elect
one or more candidates, and the Liberal Association, in trying to elude
its effects, as they had done in the case of the parliamentary election,
attempted too much and carried only a minority of the board. For a time
the organisation languished; but it was soon recalled to a more vigorous
life than ever.
[Sidenote: Its Revival in 1873.]
In 1873 the association was revived for the purpose of getting control
of the municipal government of the town, and introducing a more
progressive policy in its administration. Two names are especially
associated with the new departure, that of Mr. Schnadhorst, the
secretary of the association, who had a genius for organising, and that
of Mr. Chamberlain, who was the leading spirit of the movement, and
became the mayor of the borough in the following autumn. These men
proceeded to reconstruct the association on a slightly different, and
apparently even more democratic, plan. Taking the wards as the sole
basis of the fabric, an annual meeting was held in each ward, at which
any Liberals residing there might take part. They were entitled to do
so whether voters or not, and without regard to any subscription,
provided they signified their adherence to the objects and organisation
of the association, a statement which was understood to imply a
willingness to accept the decisions of the majority. The meeting elected
a committee, a chairman and a secretary for the ward; three persons to
serve with those two officers upon the executive committee of the
central association; and a number of persons, fixed in 1877 at thirty,
to serve on the general committee. The central executive committee
contained, in addition to the five members so elected in each ward, the
four officers of the association, and thirty members coöpted by itself.
It chose seven of its own members, who with the four officers formed a
management sub-committee of eleven. The general committee of the
association was composed, as before, of the whole executive committee,
together with the thirty representatives from each ward; and, as there
were sixteen wards, it numbered by 1877 five hundred and ninety-four
members; and was known as the "Six Hundred" of Birmingham. It had power
to determine the policy of the association, and to nominate the
candidates for Parliament and the school board. The members of the town
council, on the other hand, being elected by wards, were nominated by
the ward committees; but the whole association was bound to support
them.
[Sidenote: Its Efficiency.]
Such was the new organisation of the Liberal Association.[472:1] Its
efficiency as an engine for controlling elections is proved by the fact
that during the four years from 1873 to 1876, inclusive, it carried all
three seats in Parliament in spite of the provision for minority
representation, a majority of the school board at each election in spite
of the provision for cumulative voting, and all but two of the
sixty-eight members elected to the town council during that
period.[472:2] The association was, indeed, well constructed for the
purpose.
As in the case of every political organisation based upon primary
meetings, an attempt to wrest the control from those who held it was a
difficult undertaking. To be successful more than half the wards must be
captured at one time, and that in the face of vigilant men, who knew all
the ropes, who had the management sub-committee in their hands, and who
by means of coöptation could convert a narrow majority into a larger
one, and thus perpetuate their own power. On the other hand, a revolt
against the nominations actually made was well-nigh precluded by the
agreement virtually entered into on joining the association, to abide by
the decision of the majority. It has been said that for a dozen years
the men who conducted the organisation sent travelling companions to one
ward meeting after another to insure the election of their supporters to
the various committees.[473:1] Whether this be true or not, it is
certain that the power of the managers was never overturned. Their rule
has, indeed, been prolonged over such a period that it must be
attributed both to the excellence of the mechanism and to their own
popularity. Throughout the many vicissitudes of his long career, from
his early years of advanced radicalism, through his breach with Mr.
Gladstone over the Home Rule Bill, his subsequent junction with the
Conservatives, and finally his advocacy of a wholly new policy about
preferential tariffs, Mr. Chamberlain has never failed to carry every
one of the parliamentary seats in Birmingham for his own adherents. Such
a result shows a power which nothing but a strong personal hold upon the
people, and a hold coupled with a highly efficient organisation, could
have secured.
[Sidenote: Criticisms of the System.]
The system adopted by the Liberals in Birmingham was copied in other
places, and soon became the subject of vehement discussion, the
arguments for and against it being the same that are commonly used in
the case of every party organisation. Its adversaries declared that it
threw absolute power into the hands of men with time to devote to
working the machinery; that it set up a tyranny which crushed out
individuality, extinguished free discussion of opinions, destroyed
independence in public life, caused a loss of variety and fertility in
Liberalism, and brought party politics into municipal affairs where they
ought not to be.
[Sidenote: Its Defence.]
To these criticisms the advocates of the system replied that the
association was conducted by the men with the most public spirit,
because they were willing to devote time and thought to the work; that
it could not create a tyranny, because the ward meetings were open to
all Liberals, who could at any time overthrow the management if they
chose; that, in regard to independence, every Liberal had a right to
speak freely at the ward meetings, to persuade his fellows to adopt his
views if he could, and that this is the only right he ought to enjoy,
because "a minority has no right to thwart a majority in determining the
course of Liberal policy." They insisted that the association was simply
"a method by which those who believe in human progress . . . can take
counsel together; come to an agreement as to their nearest duty; and
give their decisions practical effect in the legislation of their town
and country." They claimed that such men "are bound to select
representatives who will support the definite measures they believe to
be immediately necessary for the peace and prosperity of the
land."[474:1] In short the Radicals of Birmingham looked upon themselves
as reformers with a mission to fulfil, and felt the impatience--perhaps
one may say intolerance--which men in that position always feel for the
hesitating, the wavering, and the independent members of their own
party. To the Radicals the association appeared as an effective
instrument for putting their ideals into practice, and seemed wholly
good; while others, who had not the same faith in the end to be
attained, felt keenly the evils which the organisation actually
involved, and still more the abuses to which it might give rise in the
future.
[Sidenote: The Caucus and Town Politics.]
In regard to the charge of bringing politics into municipal affairs the
Radicals boldly justified their course, insisting that they stood for a
definite progressive policy in local, as well as in national,
affairs.[475:1] Under the lead of Mr. Chamberlain, who was elected mayor
of Birmingham in the autumn of 1873--the same year in which the
association was revived--the town council entered upon a period of great
activity. It improved the ordinary public services, such as paving and
sanitation; reorganised the health department; and inaugurated an
efficient system of sewerage with a large filtration farm, which was, at
least, a great improvement on what had gone before. It undertook also a
number of public works of a class now called "municipal trading." The
first of these was the supply of gas, both for lighting the streets and
for private use. There were at the time two gas companies in Birmingham,
and Mr. Chamberlain persuaded the council that the town could make a
profit by buying their property, and conducting the business itself. A
bargain was struck with the companies, and the purchase was made. It was
no sooner done than a proposal was made to apply the same principle to
water, which was also in the hands of a private company. In this case,
however, the object was not profit, but an improvement of the supply
with a view to better health, for a large part of the population still
depended upon wells, many of them, of course, in a dangerous condition.
Again a bargain was made with the company, and the water passed in turn
under public control.
Finally an ambitious plan was adopted for improving the appearance of
the town. Parliament has enacted a long series of statutes intended to
secure better houses for the working classes. One of them, the Artisans
and Labourers Dwellings Improvement Act of 1875,[475:2] empowered any
town, if authorised by a provisional order of the Local Government
Board confirmed by Parliament, to expropriate at its fair market value
an unhealthy area, that is, a district where the crowding together or
bad condition of the houses, and the want of light and air, were such as
to be dangerous to health. The town was to prepare a scheme for laying
out new streets and otherwise improving the area, and was authorised to
sell or let any part of the land on condition that the purchasers should
carry the scheme into effect. Now Birmingham, like many of the English
manufacturing places, had grown up in a squalid way, a network of narrow
streets, devoid of space or dignity; and in the centre was a great slum
with a high death-rate. This last, a region of more than ninety acres in
extent, was taken under the Act; a broad thoroughfare, named, in
recognition of its public origin, "Corporation Street," was laid out,
and the land bordering upon it let on long ground leases for commercial
buildings. The original intention had been to erect new houses for the
people whose dwellings had been destroyed; but this part of the plan was
in the main abandoned, on the ground that houses enough were provided by
private enterprise.
The management by a town of its gas and water supply, the purchase and
lease of large tracts of land, are steps in the direction of what is
known to-day as municipal socialism; and they provoked a difference of
opinion that still exists, both upon the wisdom of the policy in
general, and upon the extent to which it can be profitably carried. The
problem will be discussed hereafter, but we must note here that the
Radicals of Birmingham believed it to be a political issue, which
justified the use of party organisation as much as the issues that arose
in Parliament. They felt in the same way about the administration of the
new school law. In their eyes all these things formed part of a great
Radical policy of which they were the protagonists.
[Sidenote: The Spread of Associations on the Birmingham Model.]
The Birmingham Radicals had faith, not only in their political aims, but
also in the means they had devised for carrying them out. They did no
little missionary work in other towns, urging the Liberals to introduce
local representative associations on a democratic basis after the
Birmingham pattern. In spite of opposition the idea was received with
such favour that by the end of 1878 about one hundred bodies of this
kind existed in different places.[477:1] The movement was reënforced by
the foundation, in 1877, of the National Liberal Federation, whose
history will form the subject of a later chapter. This body admitted to
membership only associations of a democratic character, and its
influence was strongly felt. The Birmingham leaders, who controlled the
Federation, naturally desired to increase its power by extending the
number of affiliated bodies as much as possible; while the local
associations found an advantage in joining it as soon as it became a
factor in Liberal politics. Moreover, after the split in the party over
the Home Rule Bill, in 1886, when the Federation took the side of Mr.
Gladstone's followers against Mr. Chamberlain, the former became
interested in making the organisation as widely representative and
popular as possible. These various motives gave successive impulses,
with the result that by 1886 the Federation comprised two hundred and
fifty-five local associations, and by 1888 seven hundred and
sixteen.[477:2] The rules of the Federation, under the title of the
"Objects" for which it exists, still open with the words "To assist in
the organisation throughout the country of Liberal Associations based on
popular representation," and the rules are preceded by a statement which
says, _All associations, thus constituted, are eligible for
affiliation_. Although the statement goes on to declare that "No
interference with the local independence of the Federated Associations
is involved. Each association arranges the details of its own
organisation, and administers its own affairs." Still it has always been
assumed that the local bodies were to be popular in character. In fact
the old self-appointed committees were hardly compatible with the
democratic spirit brought in by the Reform Act of 1867, and in the
boroughs they soon gave way to representative bodies with a popular
organisation.
The process was much less rapid in the country constituencies,[478:1]
for not until 1884 was the franchise in these enlarged as it had been in
the boroughs in 1867, and when that had been done the traditional
authority of the squire and the parson presented an obstacle that
yielded slowly. Even now Conservative candidates are returned unopposed
more frequently in the counties than in the boroughs, especially in the
rural counties of the south. Often it was found impossible to establish
a Liberal association in each parish, and a local correspondent was, and
in some cases still is, a necessary substitute. But the growth of
democratic ideas, the practice of popular election, the change in
economic conditions caused by the decay of agricultural prosperity and
the desire to live in cities, with the consequent scarcity of rural
labour, have, by reducing the patriarchal influence of the landlord over
his people, paved the way for representative political organisations. At
the present day associations democratic in form exist in almost every
parliamentary constituency, whether borough or county, where the number
of Liberal voters is not so small, or the chance of success at elections
is not so desperate, that the district is what is sometimes officially
called derelict.
[Sidenote: Existing Organisation of Local Liberal Associations.]
The constitutions of the local Liberal associations are not precisely
uniform, nor, apart from the general principle that they ought to be
based upon popular representation, is any pressure exerted to make them
alike. The Liberals in each place are at liberty to organise themselves
as they please; and in this connection it may be observed that all
political societies are treated as purely voluntary, that is, the state
makes no attempt to regulate them by law. The provisions in regard to
primaries and the nomination of candidates by party conventions, which
have become universal in the United States, are entirely foreign to
English ideas, and would be regarded with astonishment and aversion.
[Sidenote: The Draft Rules.]
[Sidenote: Rural Districts.]
But while the Federation does not strive to enforce uniform regulations,
it issues a pamphlet of "Notes and Hints for the Guidance of Liberals,"
covering organisations both in rural villages and in towns, and
containing drafts of rules, which may be taken as typical. The pamphlet
suggests that in rural districts there should be normally, in each
parish or polling district, a self-appointed committee with power to add
to its own members. The term "committee" is used because the members,
being few, can do most of the work directly, instead of delegating it to
a smaller body. In reality the committee is the whole association for
the parish, and although the draft rules do not expressly so provide,
the intention is clear that it shall include all known Liberals there,
whether voters or not. It must meet at least six times in the year; and
elects a chairman, treasurer, honorary secretary, and any sub-committees
that may be needed. It appoints, also, in proportion to population,
delegates to the Liberal association for the parliamentary division,
which selects the candidate of the party for the House of Commons.
[Sidenote: Small Towns.]
For small towns without wards the model organisation is similar, except
that the primary body is called an association, and meets only once a
year, unless convened at other times on the request of twelve members;
current business being transacted by an executive committee composed of
the officers, and of a certain number of other members chosen at the
annual meeting. Above the associations for the parish or polling
district, and the small town, comes an association for the parliamentary
division of the county in which they are situated. This is often, though
not always, purely a representative body, without any mass meeting of
members. It has a council, composed mainly of delegates chosen from the
parishes, towns, or other primary districts, roughly in proportion to
population; and an executive committee, sometimes elected entirely by
the council, sometimes containing delegates from the districts. Finally
it has its officers who are members of both these bodies.
[Sidenote: Large Towns.]
For large towns, that are divided into wards, the draft rules follow
more closely the Birmingham plan. They provide in each ward for a
committee or association designed to include every man who is disposed
to help the Liberal cause. This body elects its officers, the other
members of its executive committee, and delegates to the general
committee for the town according to population. The association for the
whole town meets annually to choose its officers, some members of the
general committee, and, in case the town is not a parliamentary borough,
delegates to the association for the division of the county. The
association for the town is managed, as is usually the case in all
organisations of this kind, by three distinct authorities. First, the
officers, who attend to current administration. Second, the executive
committee, which consists of these officers, of the three officers of
each ward, and of members chosen by the general committee. Third, the
general committee itself, which determines the policy to be pursued, and
is composed of members elected in part by the ward committees and in
part by the annual meeting of the whole association for the town. In
parliamentary boroughs the general committee--often known as the
Council, and sometimes as the Liberal Two Hundred, or whatever the
nearest hundred may be--nominates the party candidate for the House of
Commons, on the recommendation of the executive committee, and subject
to final adoption at a meeting of the association. But in fact the
executive committee, in all Liberal associations for parliamentary
constituencies, either selects the candidate, and asks for a formal
approval by the council, or lays before that body two or three names to
choose from. In any case the meeting of the whole association is merely
a grand ratification gathering held for applause, not for consultation.
The effect is like that of the ancient proclamation, "this is your king
an' it please you."
[Sidenote: Variations in Different Places.]
The draft rules prepared by the Federation are merely typical, and
although in their general outlines they give a very fair idea of the
organisation of local associations throughout the country, there are
endless variations in detail and in nomenclature. If, indeed, the
constitutions of a number of these bodies are examined at random, no two
of them will probably be found exactly alike. It may be observed that
the draft rules make no provision for coöptation, an arrangement that
appears nevertheless in the rules of many local associations. Nor do
they require the payment of any subscription as a condition for
membership; but this again is not infrequently done, the sum required
running from a nominal amount up as high as five shillings. Sometimes
the payment is a condition for any participation in the organisation;
sometimes it is not needed for voting in the ward or district meetings,
but confers a right to vote in the general meetings of the association,
or to be elected to the committees by coöptation. Occasionally Liberal
members of the town council and school board have _ex officio_ seats on
the council of the association; or local Liberal clubs, although not
strictly democratic, are given a representation upon it. But owing to
the fact, which will be explained hereafter, that the competition for
nomination to Parliament is not very keen, and hence there is rarely a
close canvass of the members of the committees, all these differences in
detail are of little practical importance. The essential point is that
in almost every English parliamentary constituency, whether county or
borough, where the chance of carrying the election is fair, there is
to-day an association of a representative and nominally, at least, of a
democratic character. It contains habitually the three organs, of
officers, executive committee, and council; while in the great towns
that have several seats there is a still larger organisation comprising
all the parliamentary divisions.
[Sidenote: The Paid Agents.]
It is an old custom for parliamentary candidates to employ paid agents,
usually solicitors by profession, to take charge of the election, and
with the growth of popular organisations the business has assumed in
most places a more systematic form. The association for each
parliamentary division, and sometimes for a smaller district, has a paid
as well as an honorary secretary. His duties are many, for he is the
maid-of-all-work of the organisation, and is known by the comprehensive
title of Liberal Agent for that division. He acts as clerk for the
association, organises committees for wards or polling districts,
supervises subordinate agents, arranges public meetings, gives advice
and assistance wherever needed, canvasses the voters, attends to their
registration, and conducts the hearings before the Revising Barrister.
He is also usually appointed by the candidate his statutory election
agent; and, if so, he takes general charge of the whole campaign, having
under him a band of clerks, sub-agents, and messengers, and a small army
of volunteer canvassers. He is an important factor in politics; for upon
his skill as an organiser, and his tact and good sense in conducting the
fight, the result of the election may often depend.
These agents have been said to be the only professional politicians in
England; and in one sense that is true, for they are the only class of
men who make a living out of party politics; but the expression is
inappropriate, because they are not politicians at all in the sense in
which the term is used in other countries. They have nothing to do with
the direction of politics; they merely help to elect a candidate in
whose selection they have no voice; and although their advice may have
weight, their duty is solely to carry out the instructions of others.
Like all other permanent officials in England, their actual influence
depends upon circumstances. If a chairman is capable and active, the
power of the agent will not be so great as in the more common case where
the chairman leans very much upon him. The agents, in short, are more
nearly akin to the permanent official than to the politician. In fact
they have no political aspirations for themselves, for they are not of
the class from which members of Parliament are taken.
Their salaries, which vary much, run all the way from forty pounds to
four hundred pounds, with about one hundred and fifty pounds as the
average, the scale of pay having risen somewhat of late years. They must
be thoroughly familiar with the law of registration and election, and
are commonly recruited from solicitors with a small practice, or from
accountants; although many of them--perhaps nearly one half--finding
that their work as agents fills their whole time, have given up all
other business. The occupation tends, indeed, to become a profession by
itself; one to which a man devotes his life after he has once entered
it. The Liberal agents have a national association of their own,
containing some two hundred and fifty members, and a few years ago, in
order to maintain a higher standard, a smaller society was formed, which
issues certificates of qualification. The association meets every year
at the time of the meeting of the National Liberal Federation, and such
of the agents attend as can afford to go, or can get their employers to
pay their expenses. They meet usually about one hundred and fifty
strong, and are given a breakfast at which they are addressed by the
chief whip, and by the leader of the party in Parliament or some other
prominent member; for their importance is now thoroughly appreciated.
Thus there has arisen in English political life a class of men whose
counterpart exists in no other country. They occupy in the party a
position not unlike that of the non-commissioned officers in the army.
Their work is essential to success, but they have no hope of promotion
beyond their own grade. Their position is perfectly well understood, and
they tend to surround it with professional safeguards and supports.
[Sidenote: Liberal Agents in Scotland.]
In Scotland political associations with paid agents have developed more
slowly than in England; partly because a great deal of the work
connected with registration, which falls upon the party agents in
England, is done by the public authorities north of the Tweed; and
partly because it was the old Scotch habit to have election business,
like everything else, conducted for the candidate by his regular
attorney. The result is that although there are many Liberal
associations in Scotland, and the agents have tended to become a class
so far as to form a society among themselves, they have as a rule much
less work to do than in England, and are still usually paid almost
entirely out of the candidate's own pocket. Hence, when he is defeated,
and gives up the fight, the constituency is apt to lose its agent
altogether, and become derelict.
[Sidenote: Conservative Local Organisations.]
Contrary to the prevailing opinion, the Conservatives have, in the
matter of party organisation, been more than once the first in the
field; and although their machinery has neither been so democratic nor
attracted so much attention as that of the Liberals, it has been on the
whole more effective. The Reform Act of 1832 was no sooner passed than
they began energetically to form registration societies; and the
extension of the borough franchise in 1867 brought a renewed activity.
They tried at once to enlist the interest, and win the support, of the
workingmen who had been made voters in large numbers. At the general
election of the following year they worked in vain, but in a short time
they succeeded so well, that at the next election, in 1874, they
obtained a majority in the House of Commons for the first time since
1841. Their victory was, indeed, commonly attributed to their superior
organisation, a fact which gave a powerful incentive to the adoption by
their rivals of Mr. Chamberlain's plan for a National Liberal
Federation.
[Sidenote: Their Growth after 1867.]
Conservative associations of a modern type had, indeed, been formed in
some places long before 1867,[484:1] but the Act of that year gave a new
and vigorous impulse. It had hardly been enacted when local
associations, largely composed of workingmen, sprang up, especially in
the manufacturing districts of the north. Some of them were very large,
the one at Bradford, for example, had, by 1872, twenty-five hundred
members, and was believed to have caused the change in the politics of
the place.[485:1] The associations increased rapidly in number. In 1871
there were two hundred and eighty-nine of them; in 1872, three hundred
and forty-eight; in 1873, four hundred and seven; in 1874, four hundred
and forty-seven; in 1875, four hundred and seventy-two, besides two
hundred and twenty-eight branch associations; and in 1876 the number of
Conservative associations of every kind in England and Wales was nearly
eight hundred.[485:2] A considerable part of them were composed almost
entirely of the artisan class. Many societies had, indeed, been
organised under the name of Conservative Working Men's Associations, and
these had set up a separate national union among themselves.
[Sidenote: They Become Representative.]
The associations formed at this time seem to have been voluntary bodies
without a representative character, and in fact some of them were turned
into clubs, in order to make them more attractive, or, according to the
expression then used, to enable the members to obtain recreation as well
as knowledge. But if the new Conservative associations were unlike the
Birmingham Caucus, the size of their membership made them also very
unlike the old registration societies. The object was not now merely to
see that the faithful were properly registered, but to recruit
supporters, stimulate enthusiasm, and discipline a fighting force among
the masses of the people. The Conservatives are more easily led by
authority than the Liberals, but the time was at hand when even among
them more democratic forms were needed. After Mr. Gladstone's victory at
the elections of 1880 a cry was again heard that the result was due to
better organisation; in this case to the Birmingham Caucus, and
curiously enough to the paid agents which it employed.[486:1] The
movement among the Conservatives towards more popular forms of party
machinery began with the associations in the large towns, which felt
keenly the competition of the Liberal hundreds with their closely knit
fabric of representative committees based on open meetings in the wards.
In these places the Conservatives copied the organisation of their
rivals, and thence the fashion spread gradually over the country,
receiving an additional impetus in 1887, when the National Union of
Conservative Associations was itself remodelled upon a wider basis, with
a series of representative councils.
[Sidenote: Existing Conservative Local Organisations.]
Like the National Liberal Federation, the Conservative central office
has issued draft rules to serve as models for local associations, and
they may be regarded as typical. In the case of a borough the ward
polling district, or such other subdivision as shall be found
convenient, is suggested as the primary unit. In each of these there is
to be a branch association, composed of all the Conservatives in the
district who subscribe not less than one shilling to its funds. The
branch association, at a mass meeting of its members, is to elect a
president, a chairman, an honorary secretary and a treasurer, a
committee to manage its affairs, and representatives to the central
committee for the borough, in the proportion of one for every two
hundred voters upon the parliamentary register. The central association
for the whole borough is to consist of the members of the various
branches. It is to hold general meetings for the choice of its
officers; but it is to be managed by a central committee composed of the
officers and representatives of the branch associations, together with
the officers of any Conservative clubs in the borough, and
representatives of the local Habitations of the Primrose League. This
committee, being large, is authorised to delegate any of its powers to
an executive committee, and other sub-committees, subject to
ratification of their acts. In order to stimulate the necessary
subscriptions, the rules provide, in accordance with a common
Conservative practice, that all members who contribute not less than one
guinea a year shall be styled Vice-President; but in this case they are
given no power, and the title is their sole reward. The model rules for
the parliamentary division of a county are framed upon the same lines,
except that, when possible, associations are to be organised in each
parish. This involves an additional wheel in the machinery, the
parochial meetings electing the committee for the polling district; and
the district meeting, which consists of all the members of the parish
associations, electing the central committee for the parliamentary
division.
[Sidenote: A Complex Type--Bradford.]
As in the case of the Liberal party, the model rules issued by the
central office are merely typical, and although the general principles
of organisation in the different local bodies are the same, there are
great variations in detail. The Conservative Association of Bradford may
be taken as a good example of the more complex forms. Here the
geographical elements are the polling district, the ward, the three
parliamentary divisions, and the borough as a whole; the committees in
each of these being constructed by a combination of direct election, and
of representation both of the smaller units and of clubs. Thus the
polling district has a committee, composed of all the members of the
party therein, which elects, besides its own officers, ten
representatives to the ward association--of whom three are designated to
serve on the ward executive--five representatives to the council for the
parliamentary division, and two to the general council for the borough.
The ward association consists of the officers and representatives of the
polling districts; of representatives of any constitutional associations
within the ward; and of subscribers to the amount of five shillings a
year. It has an executive committee composed of the officers for the
ward, and of the officers and representatives of the polling districts.
The chief business of the ward association is registration, and the
nomination and election of candidates for the city council, the
municipal contests in Bradford being conducted on party lines. The
divisional association consists of all persons who subscribe a shilling,
or are enrolled as members of a polling district committee. Its business
is conducted by a council containing the officers and five other members
chosen at the annual mass meeting, the officers of ward and polling
district associations, and representatives both from those associations,
and from Conservative clubs. It acts, however, largely by means of
sub-committees.
Finally the general association for the borough, with a similar
qualification for membership, has, besides the ordinary officers, a long
list of vice-chairmen, which includes all persons subscribing two pounds
a year to its funds. The general council is composed of all these
officers, of representatives from the divisions, polling districts and
clubs, and in addition, of all men who pay one guinea a year--another
instance of giving special privileges to the larger subscribers. The
executive for the borough, styled the Finance and General Purposes
Committee, consists of thirty members elected by the council; of
representatives of the two leading clubs; of officers of the divisional
associations; and of all the officers of the central association,
including the vice-chairmen. Now, in 1900, the vice-chairmen formed a
majority of the committee, and many of them must have acquired the
position by reason of subscriptions to the funds. This is important not
only because the management of the association as a whole is really in
the hands of the General Purposes Committee, but especially because the
rules require the divisional councils to invite that committee to be
present for consultation at the meetings held for the selection of
parliamentary candidates. The privilege so conferred is, however, merely
potential, for it is almost universally the case in Conservative
associations that the nomination of candidates for the House of Commons
is arranged by the executive body or by a sub-committee thereof, and is
simply accepted by the council.
[Sidenote: Extent of Conservative Associations.]
[Sidenote: The Paid Agents.]
Conservative associations of a popular character, with subordinate
branches more or less fully developed, now exist in almost every
parliamentary constituency in England and Wales, and in all but a few of
those in Scotland, the central office of the party being engaged in a
ceaseless effort to perfect the organisation wherever it remains
incomplete. Unless in a very feeble state, the associations have their
professional secretaries or agents, who are paid, on the average, a
little higher salaries than their Liberal rivals, and are, therefore, it
is claimed, on the whole, a better grade of men. The Conservative, like
the Liberal, agents have societies of their own; a mutual benevolent
society, and a national association with subordinate branches which
admits members only on examination.
[Sidenote: Similarity of Liberal and Conservative Associations.]
At the present day local party organisation has been brought to a high
state of efficiency in England, each party having covered almost the
whole of Great Britain with a tessellated pavement of associations.
These are especially complete in the boroughs, for on both sides the
machinery in the rural parts of counties is less fully developed. The
Conservatives have done their work a little more thoroughly than the
Liberals, because with more rich men in their ranks they have larger
resources in money, and can maintain paid agents in more constituencies
where the chance of success is small. In general character the local
associations of the two parties do not differ greatly, the most obvious
contrasts being the common use of coöptation by the Liberals, and the
special privileges accorded to the larger subscribers among the
Conservatives. But neither of these things is universal, and in their
essential features the local organisations of both parties are framed
upon the same general principles. Both of them are democratic in form,
admitting all adherents of the party, or all who pay a small
subscription. Both are in form representative, the affairs of the
associations being managed by a series of councils and committees,
composed mainly of delegates whose authority is based ultimately upon
mass meetings of all the members.
FOOTNOTES:
[466:1] Bulwer, "Life of Palmerston," I., 23-24.
[466:2] _Cf._ Wallas, "Life of Francis Place," Chs. ii., v.
[467:1] By 1837 Conservative registration societies had become common
throughout the country. (Publications of the National Union of
Conservative Associations, 1868, No. 4.)
By far the best, and in fact the only comprehensive, work on the party
organisations in Great Britain is Ostrogorski's "Democracy and the
Organisation of Political Parties," Vol. I. His description is very
complete, but, while accurate, is likely to mislead a superficial
reader, who might easily get an impression that the extreme cases were
typical, although the writer takes pains not to say so. Mr. Bryce's
caution in the preface should, therefore, be borne in mind. Mr.
Ostrogorski appears to look on democracy, and on party machinery in
particular, from the outside, as something artificial and weird, rather
than the natural result of human conduct under the existing conditions.
He does not seem to put himself quite in the shoes of Mr. Chamberlain,
Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Schnadhorst, Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Salisbury,
Captain Middleton, or other men who have come into contact with the
party organisations, and ask what he himself would, or might, have done
in the same position. Hence his analysis has a slight air of unreality,
and does not wholly approve itself as a study of ordinary political
motives. But apart from this criticism, the work is admirably done, and
is an invaluable contribution to political science.
[468:1] Ostrogorski, I., 156-58.
[469:1] Trevelyan, "A Few Remarks on Mr. Hare's Scheme of
Representation." _Macmillan_, April, 1862; Bagehot, "English
Constitution," 1 Ed., 188-94; and see Hans. 3 Ser. CLXXXIX., 458. See
also Leslie Stephen, "The Value of Political Machinery," _Fortnightly_,
December, 1875.
[469:2] The provision was applied also to the county constituencies
returning three members, which some of them did under the Reform Act of
1832. In the city of London, which had four seats, an elector was to
vote for only three candidates. 30-31 Vic., c. 102, §§ 9, 10, 18.
[470:1] Ostrogorski, "The Introduction of the Caucus into England,"
_Political Science Quarterly_, June, 1893, p. 287. Langford, "Modern
Birmingham," II., 362-63.
[472:1] H. W. Crosskey, "The Liberal Association--the 600--of
Birmingham." _Macmillan_, February, 1877.
[472:2] H. W. Crosskey, _ut supra_.
[473:1] Ostrogorski, I., 166-67.
[474:1] H. W. Crosskey, "The Birmingham Liberal Association and its
Assailants." _Macmillan_, December, 1878.
[475:1] _Cf._ Chamberlain, "The Caucus." _Fortnightly_, November, 1878;
and the two articles by H. W. Crosskey already cited.
[475:2] 38-39 Vic., c. 36.
[477:1] H. W. Crosskey. _Macmillan_, December, 1878.
[477:2] Proc. Ann. Meeting, 1888, p. 14.
[478:1] _Cf._ Ostrogorski, "Democracy," I., Part III., Ch. i., Ser.
viii.
[484:1] In Liverpool, for example, a Conservative association originally
formed in 1832, was replaced in 1848 by a new Constitutional Association
upon a broader foundation. Among the objects the latter aimed "To
promote by all legal means the Election of Members of Parliament for the
Borough who subscribe to, and uphold the principles of the Association.
. . . To promote by all legal means the Election of such Candidates for
the Town Council as are Members of this Association." It contained at
the outset a couple of hundred members; and it had in part a
representative character with the wards as a basis, for its affairs were
managed by a general committee, composed of thirty members chosen by the
association, together with the chairman and secretary of each ward
committee _ex officio_. (Fiftieth Rep. Liverpool Const. Assoc., 1898.)
[485:1] Speech of Mr. Taylor, in the Report of the Conference of the
National Union in 1872.
[485:2] Reports of Council at Conferences of the National Union in 1875
and 1876.
[486:1] In his remarks at the Conference in 1880, the Chairman of the
Council of the National Union of Conservative Associations said: "It was
not at all satisfactory to find that in a number of constituencies
gentlemen who practically knew nothing of election matters undertook the
management merely as a professional duty in their capacity as lawyers. .
. . The Birmingham Radicals had made a point for many years of training
a number of men to election work, and of giving them experience by
employing them in municipal contests, and he recommended their example
to the attention of the meeting." Report of the Conference of 1880.
CHAPTER XXVIII
ACTION OF LOCAL ORGANISATIONS
[Sidenote: All Popular Party Organisations are Largely Shams.]
Although the local associations purport to be democratic and
representative, it would be an error to take their rules too seriously.
Every voluntary political organisation contains an element of sham. Part
of its stock in trade is the pretence that it is more powerful, and more
widely representative, than it really is. Much of its success depends
upon the old Chinese military policy of scaring the enemy by an imposing
appearance before the fight begins. In ordinary times of public
inattention the _vox populi_ may be manufactured by a small number of
persons, for the mass of the people are rarely interested until an issue
has been presented to them, and the framing of that issue, which may be
by far the most important step in the whole process, is often done at a
meeting of half a dozen men. All the members of the party may have a
right to attend that meeting, but they will not do so, or if they do the
private conference will take place earlier, and the meeting will simply
decide upon the acceptance of plans prepared beforehand. This is a law
of human nature resulting from the fact that a large assembly can only
say Yes or No. It does not mean that the desires of the public are
perverted, for as a rule it has none that are strong or definite. It
means that the number of people who care enough to take an active part
in the formative stage is small, and in the long run they get control of
the wires whether as an elected or a self-constituted committee. The
sham consists in making it appear that the plan proposed expresses the
preconceived wish of a large body of people.
[Sidenote: Local Associations Controlled by a Few Men.]
In England the element of sham in the party organisations is as great as
it is elsewhere. Although the council of a local association is a
numerous body, and gives the appearance of a highly popular institution,
the association, as a whole, usually contains among its enrolled members
not more than one tenth, or at most one fifth of the voters belonging to
the party; and the meetings for the election of delegates to the various
councils and committees are thinly attended.[492:1] The organisation is,
in fact, managed, as a rule, by a few men influenced to a greater or
less extent by the paid agent. They are often, especially among the
Liberals, tradesmen or even workingmen, who take an active interest in
politics, without cherishing any parliamentary aspirations for
themselves, or any political ambition unless it be for municipal office;
but they like, especially if Conservatives, to take for their chairman a
man of higher social position. Moreover, there seems to be little
rivalry for the positions that give a control of the body. On the
contrary, one is much more impressed in ordinary times by the efforts of
an organising secretary, spurred on from above, to interest people in
forming associations in unpromising districts, than by struggles for
power in the most active associations. In England the stage at which
public interest awakes is the election, the process of selecting the
candidates arousing little attention. While, therefore, the franchise is
wide, and the number of people who vote is very great, the nomination is
really made by a body of men no larger than the voters in an ordinary
borough before 1832.
[Sidenote: Possibility of their Capture.]
[Sidenote: For Personal Motives.]
One might suppose that under such conditions it would be easy for a
small knot of adroit and persistent men, or even for a single
resourceful manipulator, to capture a local association; but in normal
times there is little incentive to do so. To explain fully why this is
the case would anticipate much that remains to be said about the social
and political traditions of England. Yet some of the reasons can readily
be suggested. The expense of maintaining the organisation and a seat in
Parliament is large, and the funds must be provided by somebody. If they
are subscribed from public spirit by local men who do not want the seat
themselves, those persons will naturally control the association. If
they are defrayed by the candidate, or member of Parliament, then under
ordinary circumstances he will control so far as his own seat is
concerned; and by nursing and courting the constituency, or by his
political reputation, he will probably have built up a popularity among
the voters which the association cannot defy. The expense limits,
therefore, the class of persons who might want to capture the
association in order to control the nomination to the House of Commons;
nor among those who could afford the cost is there much object in so
doing. If, as in some other countries, nominations were confined by law
or by custom to residents of the constituency, the rivalry between two
or three aspirants for the honour might become intense; but in England
the local man has little advantage over a stranger, and if the party
association in his own place is unwilling to accept him, the expenditure
of labour, time and money required to capture it would probably be much
greater than would procure him a nomination elsewhere. Apart from the
personal privilege of sitting in the House there are no strong selfish
motives for getting control of a local organisation. The member of
Parliament has no patronage to distribute among the men to whom he owes
his seat; and although the association may lead to the town council, or
even the honourable post of a justice of the peace, these are not in
themselves objects of keen emulation, nor are they stepping-stones to
higher things beyond.
[Sidenote: For Political Objects.]
Moreover, there is no object under ordinary circumstances in capturing a
local association with a view to promoting a political policy; for the
policy of the party is directed by the parliamentary leaders, in the
cabinet or on the front Opposition Bench, and the local party voter has,
as a rule, little sympathy for the member who weakens the party by
thwarting them. There are, however, cases of deep political cleavage in
the party ranks before the leaders have agreed upon a policy, when there
may be the strongest incentive to capture the local organisations in
order to turn the scale. The breach among the Liberals over the first
Home Rule Bill was an example of that kind, and had Mr. Gladstone given
a longer premonition of his plans there would, no doubt, have been a
struggle for the control of the local Liberal associations all over the
country. The recent agitation for fiscal reform furnished another
instance of the same kind, and a very striking one; because the
Conservative leader not only took no positive stand on the question, but
intimated that the party could adopt no definite policy on the subject
until the next election. Under these conditions the attitude of the
local Conservative organisations became of the utmost importance, and it
is said that a systematic effort was made by the members of the Tariff
Reform League to capture them in the interest of the reform. Certainly
many of them showed that they held very definite opinions on the point,
sometimes absolutely opposed to those of their sitting member.
[Sidenote: Relation of an M.P. to his Association.]
Connected with this question is another: that of the relation of a
member of Parliament to the association of his constituency. In the
early days of the Birmingham Caucus, shortly after it had begun to
spread over England, a case of friction between a sitting member and the
local association occurred, which caused much controversy and no little
alarm. The caucus was the bugbear of the day, and men feared that it was
about to turn the representative into a mere instrument to register the
decisions of a party machine--an anxiety heightened by the fact that the
new associations were in the hands of the Radical wing of the party.
[Sidenote: The Case of Mr. Forster.]
Mr. W. E. Forster, in carrying through Parliament the Education Act of
1870, had offended the more extreme Radicals, because the act did not
provide that education supported by public rates should be compulsory
and free, and because, in their eyes, it treated the Church schools with
too much favour. Although opposed by the Radicals, he was reëlected for
Bradford in 1874 by the help of Conservative votes; but in 1878 he came
into collision with the Liberal association which had just been formed
there. One of its rules provided that any one proposed for nomination to
Parliament must give an assurance to the general committee that he would
abide by their decision in regard to the selection of the candidate. To
that condition Mr. Forster refused to submit, denying the right of any
association to come between him and his constituents. The association
insisted upon its rule, and the controversy in Bradford provoked a
discussion in the public press of the country. In the end the matter was
compromised by changing the rule so as to read that such an assurance
"may be required" instead of "shall be required," and Mr. Forster
allowed his name to be submitted to the general committee. He had won
his point, for he had been nominated without giving the assurance; but
his troubles with the association were not at an end. In 1882 he
resigned from Mr. Gladstone's ministry because he disapproved of the
so-called Kilmainham treaty, and before long the quarrel broke out
again, continuing until his death in 1886.[495:1] The particular
provision which gave occasion to the dispute in 1878 has not proved a
permanent source of difficulty, for the local associations have not been
in the habit of demanding a pledge of that kind, and on the other hand
the ordinary rules of fair play require that a man who allows his name
to be proposed for nomination shall abide by the decision of the body to
which he submits it, unless he feels that he has been unjustly treated,
or unless some important question of policy is involved.
[Sidenote: Local Pressure on Members Neither New nor Systematic.]
A much more important matter is the control exerted by the local party
association over its representative in the House of Commons, whether by
urging him to take a particular line of action, by refusing a
renomination, or even by the more drastic measure of requesting his
resignation in case he fails to comply with its opinion. Mr. Ostrogorski
lays great stress upon the quarrel in 1885 between the Liberal
association in Newcastle and Mr. Joseph Cowen, who had taken a highly
independent attitude in Parliament, and had not given a consistent
support to the Liberal cabinet.[496:1] No one would assert that an
association, any more than an individual voter, is bound to support a
candidate of whose views and conduct in public affairs it seriously
disapproves, because he is an estimable person. Yet this was very nearly
the relation of Mr. Cowen to the local association. Voters and
organisations must consider the opinions as well as the personality of
the candidate, and this they may well do without reducing him to a mere
mouthpiece of their wishes.
But in order to determine the real import of an attempt to fetter the
independence of a member of Parliament, one must consider how far it
introduced a new practice into English politics, and for what purposes
the claim of the association to call the member to account has been
used. The question whether a member of Parliament is the agent of his
constituents, morally bound to carry out their wishes, or whether he is
to act solely according to his own opinion of the interest of the whole
kingdom, is as old as Burke's famous discussion with the electors of
Bristol. The latter view always has been, and still is, the prevailing
one in theory; but the charge that the representatives have become mere
delegates has been constantly cropping up. In 1849, for example, very
nearly at the high-water mark of independence in Parliament, and long
before the party machine had been thought of, there were complaints
about the thraldom of members to their constituents.[496:2] A member
must always have been more or less in bondage in the proprietary
boroughs, and this continued in some places after the first Reform Act.
As late as 1857 Sir Stafford Northcote gave up his seat for Dudley
because he found that he practically represented Lord Ward.[496:3] The
exercise of control over their member by influential constituents is,
therefore, not a new thing, and the advent of the modern party
associations has not, as men feared, developed it into a system. No
doubt the Liberal caucus in the days of its youth tried to bring an
organised pressure to bear upon the members,[497:1] but this has
diminished rather than increased of late years.
[Sidenote: The Question When a Member Ought to Resign.]
The question under what circumstances a member ought to resign his seat
is one which always has been, and always will be, perplexing. The
doctrine that he must resign simply because the local party association
asks him to do so can be confidently asserted to have made little or no
headway in either of the two great parties. But that a member who has
pledged himself expressly or tacitly to the support of a certain policy,
and then changes his mind, may, in some cases, be bound in honour to go
back to his constituents, would hardly be denied. Whether such an
obligation has arisen or not must depend upon the circumstances, and
upon the definiteness and importance of the pledge or understanding.
When Peel decided to bring in the bill for Catholic Emancipation, to
which he had previously been openly opposed, he felt constrained to
resign his seat for Oxford, and was defeated for reëlection to his great
grief;[497:2] but he did not feel under a similar duty when converted to
the repeal of the Corn Laws, and was reproached on that account by
Disraeli.[497:3]
A candidate who seeks election as a member of a party, or as a supporter
of a cabinet, may well be considered to have given a general pledge to
remain in the party or to support that cabinet, so that if he ceases
entirely to do so he may be bound to resign. This is the form in which
the question has arisen of late between members and local associations,
but both obligation and actual practice are as unsettled to-day as
similar questions have been in the past. When the South African War
broke out a few members on the government side of the House felt unable
to support the cabinet on that question. One of them, Sir Edward Clarke,
who sat for Plymouth, was requested by the Conservative association of
the borough to resign, and did so,[498:1] provoking comment favourable
and otherwise. The same action was proposed in the case of Mr. (now
Lord) Courtney; but he took the ground that as a Liberal Unionist he had
professed to support the cabinet only on the issue of Home Rule, and had
caused his independence upon other matters to be clearly understood. The
motion to request his resignation was defeated in the Liberal Unionist
association of his constituency,[498:2] but he was not renominated at
the next general election. In the same Parliament Mr. (now Sir) George
Doughty, who, for other reasons, crossed the floor from the Liberal to
the government side, resigned his seat at Great Grimsby, and was
reëlected by an increased majority. While in the following Parliament
Sir Michael Foster and Mr. Winston Churchill crossed in the opposite
direction, without feeling bound to resign. The former, representing a
university, had, indeed, stated at the election that he was by no means
a strict party man, and retained his seat after a good deal of
reflection.[498:3] Other cases of a radical change of policy could be
cited, but these are enough to show that local party organisations have
not fastened on their members chains that can be used with certainty to
withdraw them from their seats even in so strong a case as an open
breach with their party.
[Sidenote: Refusal to Renominate.]
The refusal of support for reëlection, by men of decisive influence in a
constituency, on the ground that they cannot approve the course pursued
by their representative, is a thing that must always happen; although it
did not take the form of withholding a nomination by a party association
until bodies of that kind came into being. A refusal made by powerful
individuals was not less effective because they were not styled a
representative committee. But such refusals, by whomsoever made, have
always been rare. Nothing, indeed, impresses a foreign observer of
British politics more than the universal recognition of the claim of a
sitting member to renomination. So far as his own party is concerned his
tenure of office is good behaviour, and at the present day the local
association very seldom fails to renominate him, save in two cases; one
where his course of action has been nearly tantamount to a change of
party, a going over to the enemy; the other where the party itself is
deeply cleft over a vital question on which the leaders have given an
uncertain sound. This last was true in the general election of 1906,
when several of the local party organisations were sharply divided upon
the issue of fiscal policy.
[Sidenote: Influence of Local Associations Used for Party Cohesion.]
The fear that the local associations, by dictating to their member a
given course of action, by requesting his resignation, or by refusing
him renomination, would degrade him to the position of the delegate of a
local party machine has certainly not been realised; and it is not less
instructive to observe the purposes for which such influence as they
possess has actually been used. A stranger might have expected that it
would be employed to promote local interests. But that has not been the
case. No doubt members of Parliament, like all other popular
representatives, are affected by the special interests of their
constituents. On matters that touch these they must consider the welfare
of their own locality. A measure like the Agricultural Rates Act of
1896, for example, which by relieving agricultural land from a part of
its burden of rates, and making up the loss to the local authority from
the National Treasury, changed the incidence of taxation between town
and country, is sure, for local reasons, to detach some members from
their regular party allegiance. But with the absence of national grants
for local improvements, and with the judicial procedure for private bill
legislation, the occasions, outside of the dockyard towns, where
distinctly local interests come into play are not numerous. Moreover, in
those cases the member is affected by the impression his action is
likely to have upon the bulk of his constituents, or by the solicitation
of a body that represents special interests, rather than by pressure
from his local party association. Nor does the latter, at the present
day, commonly try to enforce upon him the particular views held by its
managers upon matters of public policy. On the contrary such action as
it takes is, and has been from the beginning, almost wholly confined to
urging him to support the leaders of the party.[500:1]
[Sidenote: Reasons for This.]
That the local associations act, not on behalf of local interests or
opinions, but for the cohesion of the party as a whole, is the result of
many causes, and not least among them of the fact that the member is
commonly not a resident of the place for which he stands. This makes it
easy for him to look upon himself as a representative of the nation at
large, rather than a delegate of a borough. It saves him also from
parochial sympathies and prejudices; and above all it relieves him from
the necessity, he would otherwise be under, of serving an apprenticeship
in the local association, and coming into Parliament a product of the
machine. Another cause is the strength of national party ties, and the
greater strictness of party discipline, of which more will be said
hereafter. The local associations have fallen in with this tendency, and
any substantial control they have acquired over their members has been
exerted to make them follow, not local wishes, but the party leaders.
Bagehot has remarked somewhere that the House of Commons has been saved
from becoming a collection of delegates from local constituencies by the
spirit of deference; but at the present day it is due in even larger
measure to the spirit of party. That spirit has prevented the
predominance of local interests which is the curse of many legislative
bodies.
FOOTNOTES:
[492:1] Ostrogorski, I., 332-33.
[495:1] Ostrogorski, I., 194-203, 228-30. T. W. Reid, "Life of William
Edward Forster," I., 517-20; II., 44-55, 206-14, 219-20, 501, 511,
535-36.
[496:1] I., 230-40.
[496:2] _Cf._ Jephson, "The Platform," II., 324-27.
[496:3] Lang, "Life of Sir Stafford Northcote," I., 141-50.
[497:1] _Cf._ Ostrogorski, I., 208-16, and see Ch. xxix., _infra._
[497:2] Parker, "Life of Sir Robert Peel," II., 88, 101-2.
[497:3] "To the opinions which I have expressed in this House in favour
of protection, I adhere. They sent me to this House, and if I had
relinquished them, I should have relinquished my seat also." Hans. 3
Ser. LXXXIII., 112.
[498:1] _The Times_, Feb. 10, 1900.
[498:2] _Ibid._, Feb. 23 and 26, March 9 and 15, 1900.
[498:3] _Ibid._, Nov. 29, 1902, Jan. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 1903.
[500:1] Occasionally some local interest is touched by an administrative
act or order, and the member for the place exerts himself to get the
grievance redressed; but except, perhaps, for asking a question in the
House this hardly affects his attitude in Parliament, and the fact that
he belongs to one party or the other has little or no weight with the
administrative departments.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS
_The Liberals_
[Sidenote: The Conference at Birmingham in May, 1877.]
Not content with creating local associations of Liberals on a democratic
basis, the Radicals at Birmingham conceived the idea of uniting them
together in a great national federation which should represent the whole
party throughout the kingdom. The Tories had formed, some years earlier,
the National Union of Conservative Associations, and their great victory
of 1874, attributed largely to better organisation, had made the time
ripe for a more vigorous combination on the Liberal side. Moreover, the
new associations framed on the Birmingham pattern had already shown the
possibility of concerted action on national questions; for they had held
simultaneously a large number of indignation meetings to denounce the
Bulgarian atrocities. In May, 1877, therefore, they were invited to send
delegates to a conference at Birmingham to form a national party
organisation. The call for the meeting contained a clear statement of
its purpose. "The essential feature of the proposed Federation," it
declared, "is the principle which must henceforth govern the action of
Liberals as a political party--namely, the direct participation of all
members of the party in the direction, and in the selection of those
particular measures of reform and of progress to which priority shall be
given. This object can be secured only by the organisation of the party
upon a representative basis."[501:1]
[Sidenote: Proceedings Thereat.]
The conference was attended by delegates from ninety-five local
associations, and Mr. Chamberlain, who had entered Parliament the year
before, was called to the chair. In his opening speech he propounded
with even greater distinctness the object of the plan. "We hope," he
said, "that the time is not distant when we may see a meeting of what
will be a really Liberal Parliament, outside the Imperial Legislature,
and, unlike it, elected by universal suffrage, and with some regard for
a fair distribution of political power." After speaking of the need of
trusting to the popular initiative in framing the immediate policy of
the party, he continued: "Our association will be founded on the belief
that the Liberals in the country are more united than their leaders, and
that they have attained a pretty clear conception of what are the
changes in our Constitution which they believe will be beneficial to the
country; that we may obtain their adoption by a little gentle pressure
which concerted action may enable us to bring to bear, and that in this
way we may exert a great influence on the future policy of the Liberal
party." In the ensuing debates the same point of view was emphasised by
Mr. William Harris, the founder of the Liberal "Four Hundred" in
Birmingham, who declared that "The enfranchisement of the great mass of
the people in towns had given the power of controlling representation
into the hands of the people, but the direction of the policy of the
party, the inauguration of measures to be submitted to Parliament, and
the determination of questions on which the people should be asked to
agitate, had been confined to the people who had managed the Liberal
party; and it was, no doubt, the dissatisfaction of the Liberals with
this state of things which led to the inaction of the Liberal party at
the last election. . . . To find a remedy for this state of things was
the object they invited the representatives present to consider that
morning. . . . Why should they not at once and for all form a federation
which, by collecting together the opinions of the majority of the people
in all the great centres of political activity, should be able to speak
on whatever questions arose with the full authority of the national
voice."
The chief business of the conference was the adoption--without
amendment--of the constitution which had been prepared beforehand. Mr.
Chamberlain was then elected president of the Federation with great
enthusiasm. A number of vice-presidents were taken from other towns; but
the treasurer and honorary secretary were also citizens of Birmingham,
while Mr. Schnadhorst, the great organiser, whose hand had been at work
throughout the movement, became at once the active secretary. In short,
all the offices of any real importance were retained in the town that
had given birth to the Federation and was to control its movements for
some years to come.
[Sidenote: Mr. Gladstone's Benediction.]
[Sidenote: Aim of the Federation.]
The makers of the Federation had taken pains to secure for their plan
the sanction of Mr. Gladstone, whose name, in spite of his resignation
of the Liberal leadership, carried more weight than that of any one else
in the party. He was present in Birmingham on the day of the conference,
and in the evening addressed a public meeting. After stating that, in
point of organisation, the Conservatives had for years been ahead, and
would remain ahead so long as the Liberals adhered like them to a method
of arbitrary selection of the representatives of party, founded mainly
upon the power of the purse, he declared that it was, in his opinion, to
the honour of Birmingham that she had "held up the banner of a wider and
of a holier principle"; and he rejoiced that the large attendance of
representatives of constituencies showed a disposition to adopt this
admirable principle. Thus he gave the new organisation his blessing and
bade it God-speed.[503:1] The public meeting ended with a resolution
moved by Mr. Chamberlain, and adopted unanimously, which put into formal
terms the aim of the movement, already so clearly set forth in debate.
It said that, as the opinion of the people should have a full and direct
expression in framing and supporting the policy of the Liberal party,
this meeting heartily approves of the proposal of a Federation of
Liberal Associations. In short, it was made perfectly evident at every
step in the genesis of the Federation, in the call for a conference, in
the speeches made thereat, and in the final resolution which closed the
proceedings, that the new organisation was intended to take an
important, and perhaps the leading, hand in directing the policy of the
party. It was expected to be, as Mr. Chamberlain expressed it, a Liberal
parliament outside the imperial legislature; not, indeed, doing the work
of that body, but arranging what work it should do, or rather what work
the Liberal members should bring before it, and what attitude they
should assume. By this process the initiative on all the greater issues,
so far as the Liberal party was concerned, would be largely transferred
from the Treasury Bench to the Federation. This was, indeed, expressly
stated by some of the speakers as their principal desire, and with such
an avowed object it is not surprising that the new machine for the
manufacture of Liberal policy should have been popularly called the
Caucus.
[Sidenote: Its Constitution.]
[Sidenote: The Council.]
The constitution adopted at the conference provided for a great
representative assembly of the Federation, called the Council, composed
entirely of delegates from the local associations, roughly in proportion
to the population of their towns or districts. If the population was
under fifty thousand the association was entitled to five
representatives; if between fifty and one hundred thousand to ten; and
if larger still to twenty representatives. The Council was to hold an
annual meeting at which the president, vice-president, treasurer, and
honorary secretary, were to be elected. Special meetings could also be
called by the officers. Each annual meeting was to decide upon the place
at which the next should be held, and in order to awake enthusiasm for
the party all over the country it has been the habit, from that day to
this, to hold the annual meeting at one after another of the chief
provincial towns.
[Sidenote: The General Committee.]
The constitution set up one other body, partly but not wholly
representative in character. It was called the General Committee, and
consisted of the officers of the Federation; of delegates from the
associations, two in number if the town or district had less than fifty
thousand people, three if it had between fifty and one hundred, five if
it had over one hundred thousand; and finally of not more than
twenty-five additional members chosen by the Committee itself. The
principal functions of the Committee were: to aid in the formation of
local associations based on popular representation (no others being
admitted to membership in the Federation); and to submit to the
associations political questions upon which united action might be
considered desirable. Unlike the Council, which was to visit different
places, the General Committee was to meet in Birmingham until it decided
otherwise. It was empowered to elect its own chairman, and it chose Mr.
William Harris of that town, the father of the first representative
association established there in 1868.
[Sidenote: The Federation Begins Actively.]
The Federation does not seem at first to have been universally
attractive, even to the local associations formed after the Birmingham
pattern, for it was joined at the outset by only about half as many of
them as had sent delegates to the conference. But by January, 1879, when
the first meeting of the Council was held at Leeds, the number had risen
to one hundred and one. In its report at that meeting the General
Committee showed that it had been very active. It had held no less than
five sessions, and on the subject of the Eastern question it had stirred
up many public meetings, and had organised a great deputation of local
delegates to the Liberal leaders in the two Houses of Parliament. The
Committee believed that its labours had not been fruitless, for the
report said: "In regulating the action of the Liberal party, both in
and out of Parliament, in bringing about closer union between leaders
and followers . . . the efforts of the Federation resulted in a great
and important measure of success. . . . But for the Liberal action,
largely stimulated and guided by the Federated Liberal Associations, we
should unquestionably have been at war with Russia." Mr. Chamberlain in
his presidential address at the meeting of the Council at Leeds,
speaking of any possible attempt to avoid a programme of domestic
policy, when the Liberals again came to power, remarked: "I think we
shall be justified in saying to Lord Hartington[506:1] that concession
is a virtue that gains by being reciprocal." At this time the Radicals
and the Whigs, or Liberals of the older type, still formed mutually
distrustful wings of the party, and the Federation was the organ of the
former.
In its regular session the Council passed no vote on public policy; but,
at the public meeting in the evening, resolutions were adopted against
the foreign policy of the Conservative government, and in favour of
peace, retrenchment, and reform. At the meeting at Darlington in the
following year a similar course was followed. Clearly the Federation was
taking very seriously its mission as a spur to the Liberal steed; but
equally clearly it was not as yet seeking to act as a parliament outside
of the imperial legislature, and the centre of gravity was at this time
not in the Council, but in the General Committee.
[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain Enters the Cabinet.]
Before the third meeting of the Council took place in January, 1881, an
event had occurred that changed essentially the attitude of the
Federation. The general election of 1880 had placed the Liberals in
office with Mr. Gladstone at their head, and Mr. Chamberlain had been
given a seat in the cabinet. It is commonly stated that his connection
with the Federation was not the cause of his selection, and this is no
doubt perfectly true in the sense that it was not the direct reason for
offering him the seat. It is, indeed, well known that the choice lay
between him and Sir Charles Dilke.[507:1] But as Mr. Chamberlain had sat
less than four years in Parliament, and had never been in the ministry,
it can hardly be denied that his position at the head of the new Liberal
organisation, which had attracted so much attention throughout the
country, was one of the factors in the political prominence that brought
him within reach of the cabinet. His new office necessarily brought a
change in his relation to the Federation. It was obviously unfitting for
him to remain the chief officer of a body that might be used to bring
pressure to bear upon Parliament and even upon his colleagues. He
therefore resigned the post of president, and was succeeded by his
friend and fellow-citizen Mr. Jesse Collings;[507:2] but he continued
until the Liberal split in 1886 to make the principal speech at the
evening public meeting held in connection with the annual session of the
Council.
[Sidenote: The Federation Begins to Act as an Outside Parliament.]
The Federation lost none of its momentum from the change of ministry. On
the contrary its activity increased, and in fact it began at this time
to try its hand at framing a programme for the party in a rudimentary
way. At its meeting in Birmingham in January, 1881, the Council passed,
among other resolutions, one that urged upon the government the need of
dealing at the earliest possible moment with various reforms, such as
the amendment of the land laws, the extension of the franchise in rural
districts, the redistribution of seats, and the creation of
representative institutions in the counties. Similar resolutions were
passed at the next annual meeting, which took place at Liverpool in
October of the same year.
[Sidenote: It Puts Pressure upon Members of Parliament.]
Meanwhile the activity of the General Committee about current political
questions continued; especially in the form of inciting local
associations to constrain their representatives to vote with the
cabinet. The annual report to the meeting of the Council at Liverpool
said that some Liberals had been disposed to propose or support
amendments which struck at the vital principle of the Irish Land Bill,
while others abstained from voting. The Committee had thereupon decided
that its "duty could be most properly and efficiently discharged by
inviting the Liberal constituencies to bring legitimate pressure to bear
upon those of their representatives, who, in a great national crisis,
had failed to support the government." A circular was, therefore, issued
to the federated associations which excited much complaint amongst the
members of Parliament, but produced the desired effect.[508:1] When the
bill was threatened with amendments of the House of Lords a meeting of
delegates was called to attack the peers. This, in the opinion of the
Committee, also had an effect, and helped to pass the bill.[508:2]
The systematic obstruction by Mr. Parnell and his followers in the
Commons, and Mr. Gladstone's plan in 1882 for a new procedure which
would enable the House to cut off debate, gave a fresh occasion for
bringing the pressure of the federated associations to bear. A circular
was sent out, and at once a large majority of them passed resolutions in
support of the government's plan.[508:3] The General Committee held
meetings also in connection with the Irish Coercion Act of that year,
and sustained the cabinet heartily, while at the same time suggesting
amendments. Some of these were adopted, and as the Committee
complacently remarked, "The Federation may thus claim the credit of
having on the one hand strengthened and guided public opinion in support
of measures deemed necessary for the maintenance of order; and on the
other of having sought to mitigate the severity of the proposed
enactments."[509:1]
[Sidenote: It calls a General Conference of the Party.]
In 1883 the Federation took up energetically the extension of the
franchise in the counties. It called a great conference of delegates at
Leeds; acting on this occasion in coöperation with the National Reform
Union of Manchester and the London and Counties Liberal Union, two rival
organisations, which were, however, more local and less aggressive, and
waned slowly before the greater vigour of the Federation.[509:2] The
delegates met two thousand strong, representing more than five hundred
associations, and adopted resolutions declaring that it was the duty of
the government at the next session of Parliament to introduce bills to
extend the county franchise and redistribute seats. Another conference
in Scotland passed similar votes. "Taken together," the General
Committee say in their annual report, "they represent the great bulk of
the Liberal party throughout Great Britain . . . and . . . it is not too
much to expect that such an expression of opinion will exercise decisive
weight with the Members of the Government in the arrangement of their
measures."
[Sidenote: Its Claims at This Time.]
These examples show the attitude and the activity of the Federation
during the first Liberal ministry that held office after its formation.
It claimed to represent, or perhaps one ought to say it claimed that it
would when fully developed represent and that it could immediately
evoke, the opinion of the whole Liberal party in the country. It was,
therefore, convinced that it ought to exert a great influence upon the
cabinet in the framing of measures; and it believed that it did so.
There is no need of reviewing further the history of the Federation
during this period, for its position remained unchanged until Mr.
Gladstone brought in his Home Rule Bill in 1886. But on two points the
action of the Council is noteworthy in connection with its subsequent
career. The resolutions passed at the annual meetings began to cover a
wider field. This was especially true after the downfall of the Liberal
government, in 1885, when they assumed the proportions of a full
programme of internal reforms.[510:1] Then again amendments to the
resolutions offered were moved from the floor. In 1883, for example, an
amendment in favour of woman suffrage was carried; and in 1885 another
demanding local option in regulating the sale of liquor.
[Sidenote: The Struggle over Home Rule.]
Mr. Gladstone's ministry having resigned in consequence of a defeat on
the budget, the Conservatives came to power in June, 1885, and the
general election at the end of the year, with the political upheavals to
which it gave rise, proved a turning-point in the history of the Caucus.
The election left both parties without a working majority; for the
Conservatives and Home Rulers together almost exactly balanced the
Liberals. In January the Conservatives were beaten on the address with
the help of Irish votes, and Mr. Gladstone, returning to office,
prepared a bill for a separate Parliament in Ireland. Some members of
the moderate wing of the party had already left him during the debate on
the address; and in March, while the Home Rule Bill and its complement,
the Irish Land Bill, were under discussion in the cabinet, several of
the ministers, including Mr. Chamberlain, resigned, one of their chief
stumbling blocks being the exclusion of Irish representatives from the
House of Commons. A struggle began at once for the control of the
National Liberal Federation. On one side stood Mr. Gladstone with his
cabinet, the official leaders of the party; on the other Mr.
Chamberlain, hitherto the hero and idol of the Caucus, which he had
nurtured and made great, which had treated him as its special
representative in the cabinet, and had passed each year a vote to
welcome him when he came to make his speech. He had declared in
Parliament not long before that he was not the Caucus,[511:1] but it
certainly expressed his views, and he fought its battles. During the
late election he had made the country ring with appeals for the reforms
advocated in its programme, especially the demand for labourers'
allotments, embodied in the cry for "three acres and a cow." The Caucus
was the weapon of the Radical wing of the party, while he was the
greatest Radical champion, and although Kitson, the president of the
Federation, was against him, the majority of the officers were on his
side, among them William Harris, the founder of popular party
organisation in Birmingham and still the chairman of the General
Committee.
[Sidenote: Mr. Chamberlain is Defeated in the Council;]
On April 6, two days before Mr. Gladstone brought in the Home Rule Bill,
the officers sent a circular to the federated associations asking them
to consider the proposals of the government, as soon as they were made
known, with a view to an expression of opinion by the Liberal party. A
special meeting of the Council was then summoned to meet in London on
May 15. There Mr. Harris moved a resolution drawn up by the officers,
and expressing Mr. Chamberlain's ideas. It approved of giving the people
of Ireland a large control over their own affairs by means of a
legislative assembly; but, while declaring the confidence of the Council
in Mr. Gladstone, requested him to amend his bill by retaining the Irish
representatives at Westminster. The resolution was met by an amendment
moved by the followers of the Prime Minister, commending the Home Rule
Bill, thanking him for it, and assuring him of support in the present
crisis. After a long and eager discussion the amendment was carried by
an overwhelming majority.
[Sidenote: and Withdraws from the Federation.]
The result, so far as the Federation was concerned, was decisive. Six
members of the General Committee, including Mr. Harris,[511:2] thereupon
resigned; and several influential public men, among them Mr.
Chamberlain, withdrew from the organisation. But the mass of the people
think on broad lines, delight in strong contrasts easily understood, and
have little sympathy with a half-way group that stands between the two
opposing parties in the state. Hence like the Peelites in 1846, and the
Free Trade Conservatives in 1905, the Liberal Unionists in 1886 were a
body in which the members of Parliament were many and their following in
the country comparatively few. The personal secessions from the
Federation were not numerous, and not a single local association left
the fold.[512:1] But the break soon became incurable. The opponents of
the Home Rule Bill ceased to be regarded by their former companions in
arms as members of the party, and were constrained to leave the Liberal
associations;[512:2] while Mr. Chamberlain in conjunction not only with
his Radical friends, but with all the Liberals who could not follow Mr.
Gladstone's Irish policy, including even Lord Hartington and the Whigs,
founded a new organisation upon the old model, called the Liberal
Unionist Association.
[Sidenote: New Position of the Federation.]
The National Liberal Federation did not save Mr. Gladstone and his
adherents from defeat at the general election of 1886; but they had
obtained control of the organisation, and must find out what to do with
it. If a power, it had also been a source of anxiety, and under the
wrong management it might again be used to put pressure on the members
of Parliament, and even on the leaders themselves. It was useful and
must be cajoled; but it was also dangerous and must be kept in check.
Like a colt, it must be treated kindly, but must be broken to harness,
and above all the reins must not be allowed to get into strange hands
lest it learn bad tricks.
[Sidenote: Removal to London.]
Obviously the offices of the Federation could remain no longer at
Birmingham, because in spite of the loss of his organisation Mr.
Chamberlain still controlled the city so completely that his candidates
carried every seat there at the election of 1886. The offices were,
therefore, moved to London, where they were established in the same
building with the Liberal Central Association--the body that acts in
conjunction with the party whips--and what is more, M. Schnadhorst, the
paid secretary of the Federation, who had taken Mr. Gladstone's side at
the time of the split, was also appointed honorary secretary of the
Association. This arrangement, which lasted until he retired in 1894,
and has continued ever since under his successor Mr. Hudson, was not
mentioned at the time in the printed reports of the General Committee,
but its effects in bringing the leaders of the party into close touch
with the management of the Federation can readily be imagined. Another
link of the same kind was soon made. The General Committee had always
been in the habit of distributing political literature, and in 1887 a
publication department was created under the direction of a joint
committee consisting of two representatives of the Central Association,
and two of the Federation.[513:1] All these changes brought the
Federation nearer to the party chiefs, and gave it also a more national
stamp.
[Sidenote: The Federation Broadened.]
At the same time the constitution was slightly modified. The principal
changes adopted in 1887 were: making the representation on the Council
more nearly proportional to population; giving to each association for a
whole constituency three votes in the General Committee, and to all
others one vote apiece without regard to size; and lastly providing for
district federations, especially for Wales, the Home Counties and
London, which should be represented as separate organisations upon the
governing bodies. The object of these changes appears to have been to
make the Federation attractive to all Liberals throughout the country,
for it had hitherto been regarded as preëminently an instrument of the
Radical wing of the party, and many local associations had held aloof.
The managers now tried to induce them to join in order to make the
Federation as fully representative of the whole party as possible. In
this they were successful in a high degree, as may be seen from the fact
that the federated associations, which numbered in 1886, before the
split over Home Rule, only two hundred and fifty-five, rose in two years
to seven hundred and sixteen.[514:1] In carrying out this object there
was no need of opening the door to local associations not framed upon a
popular and representative basis, because societies of that kind had
already been entirely superseded.[514:2]
[Sidenote: Relation to the Party Leaders.]
When the Federation, breaking away from Mr. Chamberlain, chose the side
of Mr. Gladstone, the leaders of the party took it at once under their
patronage, and began to show a keen interest in its proceedings. Not
only did Mr. Gladstone address almost every year a great public meeting
held in the evening during the session of the Council, as Mr.
Chamberlain had been in the habit of doing before 1886; but other
leaders of the party attended the meetings of the Council itself, and
former cabinet ministers made speeches there in moving, seconding or
supporting the resolutions. This practice magnified the apparent
importance of the Federation, and lasted until the Liberals came into
office again in 1892.
[Sidenote: Resolution of the Council]
[Sidenote: The Nottingham Programme.]
Meanwhile the Council, meeting as before in one after another of the
great provincial towns, continued to adopt a series of resolutions
setting forth the policy of the Liberal party. The embarrassment that
might come from this in the future was not fully perceived at the time,
and there was at first no attempt to discourage it. In fact a statement
of the objects of the Federation published with the new rules in 1887
repeated the words originally written ten years earlier: "the essential
feature of the Federation is the participation of all members of the
party in the formation and direction of its policy, and in the selection
of those particular measures of reform and progress to which priority
shall be given."[514:3] The resolutions became, in fact, more and more
comprehensive, because the Council was naturally in the habit each year
of reaffirming its previous votes about internal reforms, and adding new
ones, the older expressions of opinion being after a while condensed
into what was known as the "omnibus resolution." At the meeting held at
Nottingham in 1887 a series of resolutions were adopted condemning
coercion, urging Home Rule, the principle of one man one vote,
registration reform, disestablishment of the Church in Wales, and the
need of reform in the land laws, in labourers' allotments, county
government, local option, London municipal government, and free
education. The resolutions were talked about as a programme for the
party, and the managers began to see that a danger was involved, but
apparently as yet only the danger of splitting the party. The General
Committee, therefore, in its next annual report, after speaking of the
influence exerted by the Federation, remarked: "A force so great and so
overwhelming requires to be directed with the utmost care and judgment,
and your Committee asks for the support of the Federated Associations in
applying it only to questions of a practical character, with regard to
which there is a general consensus of opinion in the party. . . . Much
has been said and written of the Nottingham programme. Neither the
resolutions submitted at Nottingham, nor the resolutions which are
submitted at the present meetings of the Council, are intended to
constitute a political programme. The resolutions which were submitted
last year, and those which will be submitted this year, refer to
subjects upon which there is a general consensus of opinion in the
Liberal ranks. Every question added which is not thus approved tends to
divide and to weaken the party."[515:1]
[Sidenote: Amendments Ruled Out of Order.]
The principle that resolutions on which there was not a general
consensus of opinion ought not to be adopted by the Council was given a
very definite application at that meeting. A motion stood upon the
agenda in favour of one man one vote, and the payment out of the public
rates of returning officers' expenses. The president, Sir James Kitson,
stated that a delegate wished to add the question of the payment of
members, but he must rule that it should be sent up by one of the
federated associations with a request for inclusion in next year's
programme. As the agenda was prepared by the General Committee, the
action of the president was in effect a ruling that a question not
placed by that committee upon the paper could not be proposed from the
floor. A little later in the meeting he took the same position when a
member wanted to bring forward the grievances of the Scotch
crofters.[516:1]
The ruling was a complete innovation, for amendments of a similar
character had not only been adopted by the Council in former years, in
1883 and 1885, for example; but in the great struggle for the control of
the Federation in 1886, the defeat of Mr. Chamberlain had been brought
about by an amendment in favour of the Home Rule Bill, which was carried
in the Council by a large majority. The conditions, however, had
changed. A freedom of making motions that was harmless when the
Federation contained only one extreme wing of the Liberals, became a
very different thing when it comprised all the elements in their ranks,
and the ruling was now essential if motions were not to be made that
might divide or weaken the party. It was repeated the next year when a
delegate sought to add to the omnibus resolution a rider on the question
of the eight-hour day;[516:2] and it was confirmed by the new president,
Dr. Spence Watson, in 1891.[516:3] In fact, Dr. Watson in his opening
address at the meeting explained that in his opinion the exclusion of
any alteration or amendment of the resolutions submitted to the Council
arose from the very nature of the case;[516:4] and thereafter the rule
was firmly established in the proceedings of the body.
Three matters, however, deserve a brief notice in this connection.
First, the rule has never been applied to the General Committee. At its
meetings amendments may be freely moved and carried; but then the
General Committee has power merely to discuss public questions, not to
express definitely the opinion of the party.[517:1] Second, the rule in
the Council would seem to apply only to amendments that may provoke a
difference of opinion. At the meeting of 1889, for example, immediately
after the eight-hour day amendment had been ruled out of order, another
declaring "that Welsh disestablishment and disendowment should be dealt
with as soon as Irish Home Rule is attained," was adopted, without
objection from the president, with the unanimous approval of the
meeting.[517:2] Third, the rule in the Council applies only to
resolutions affecting the Liberal programme. It has not been applied to
such a matter as a revision of the rules of the Federation, and in 1896
and 1897 several motions to amend proposals relating to the rules were
made, and one of them, which occasioned a count of votes, was carried by
a narrow majority.[517:3]
[Sidenote: Resolutions and Speakers Cut and Dried.]
With no questions submitted, save those on which there was believed to
be a general consensus of opinion in the Liberal ranks, and no
amendments allowed, serious dissent about the adoption of the
resolutions never occurred. Nor was there much real discussion. In
accordance with a common English custom an agenda paper was distributed
before the meeting, which contained not only a list of the resolutions
to be brought forward, but also the names of the proposer, the seconder,
and sometimes a third or fourth man who would support each of them. Now
these persons were expected to make speeches long enough to fill
together nearly the whole of the sitting; and hence the other delegates,
although at liberty to take part, did not often feel inclined to make,
upon an unopposed resolution, remarks that in the presence of one or two
thousand people must be in the nature of an harangue. As a rule,
therefore, the proceedings followed closely the agenda; a resolution was
proposed, seconded, and supported as had been arranged, and was then
carried unanimously.
Under such conditions the duty of preparing the resolutions for the
Council, by drawing up the agenda, was of prime importance. If the
Federation was no longer used, as in the days when it was guided from
Birmingham, to press forward a policy upon which all Liberals were not
agreed, it might now be supposed to speak with a more authoritative
voice on behalf of the whole party; and while its votes were passed by
common consent, the right to select the questions which should be
presented for general acceptance conferred no small power. Nominally
this function was intrusted to the General Committee, but that body,
which was far too large for such a task, had been in the habit of
delegating the preliminary work to a few of its own members under the
title of the General Purposes Committee,[518:1] and in 1890 amendments
to the rules of the Federation were proposed chiefly in order to confer
the power definitely upon the smaller body. They provided that the
General Purposes Committee should consist of the officers of the
Federation, and of not more than twenty other members elected by the
General Committee; that it should prepare the business for meetings of
the Council, and generally carry on the affairs of the Federation.
Although the change involved a concentration of power it was adopted at
the time without opposition,[518:2] but was the cause of heart-burning
at a later date.
[Sidenote: The Process of Preparing Resolutions.]
In his opening speech the next year the President explained the
functions of the Council. "From the earliest time," he said, "it has
been the practice and the rule of these meetings to make certain
declarations. Some of us think those declarations are a little too
numerous already. Some of us are afraid that the declarations partake
somewhat of the character of a programme. Some of us look back to the
good old time when we took up one burning question and fought it, and
fought it until we carried it into law. In the first place this is a
business meeting for the purpose of receiving the report. In the second
place it has come to be a meeting for making certain declarations. It is
not--and I wish to be particularly clear upon this point--for the
discussion of subjects. But you will say 'The National Liberal
Federation not to discuss subjects!' Certainly it can, and certainly it
does. It does not discuss them at the annual meeting. It does discuss
them at the General Committee meetings, and at the conferences held from
time to time.[519:1] Great dissatisfaction is found with the fact that
there are rules affecting the Federation. No federation, no society of
any kind, could ever exist without rules. There must be absolute rules
of procedure, and one of the rules of the proceedings of these meetings
has been that beforehand the General Purposes Committee sends out to
every association which is federated--between 800 and 900--to ascertain
what the wishes of that association may be. From the replies it
receives, from prior resolutions, from the business which has been
transacted at the General Committee meetings of the Federation and at
the conferences, the General Purposes Committee prepares the resolutions
which are submitted, and those resolutions are either accepted or
rejected. They are not altered or amended. That arises from the very
nature of the case. . . . It is absolutely impossible to discuss
questions in which great numbers of men take a great interest and hold
different views in a gathering of this character. The first discussion
must take place in the individual associations. The individual
associations must send up their delegates to our General Committee
meetings and conferences, and the matter must be threshed out there, and
there must be clear evidence as to the question having received general
acceptance before it comes to a meeting of this kind." Then, after
referring to the question of an eight-hour day, about which the
associations showed a wide difference of opinion, he added: "Do you
think we wish to stifle discussion? Why, discussion is the very
life-blood of Liberalism. We long for discussion of all questions. We
wish to have further discussion of this question, a discussion searching
out to the very bottom of the matter. We don't want a hap-hazard
discussion in a great meeting where it is absolutely impossible that men
can give their real opinions, can argue the question out, and go down to
the roots of the matter."[520:1]
[Sidenote: Contrast with the Original Plan.]
It would be difficult to express more forcibly the change that had come
over the Federation, in the functions, and still more in the aims, of
the Council meetings. According to the original plan the Federation was
to be a true Liberal parliament outside the imperial legislature; and it
was a far cry from that conception to a body voting, without amendment
or real debate, ratifications of measures prearranged by a small
committee, and found by previous inquiry to express the universal
sentiment of the party. If the Federation, with its General Purposes
Committee, its General Committee and its Council, still remained a
shadow of a Liberal parliament, it was one somewhat after the model of
Napoleon's legislature with its Council of State, its Tribunate, and its
Legislative Assembly, where one body prepared the laws, another debated,
and a third voted them.[520:2]
[Sidenote: The Newcastle Programme.]
As the General Purposes Committee placed upon the agenda for the Council
only resolutions on which the party was believed to be united, it is not
strange that they were invariably carried, and almost always with
substantial unanimity. The surprising thing is the number of questions
on which the whole body of Liberals appeared to agree; but it must be
remembered that the party was in Opposition, so that neither the
leaders, nor any one else, could make any effort at present to put into
effect the resolutions that had been voted. They expressed merely
aspirations, and the impulse of every one was to assent to any proposal
for a reform to which he had no fixed objection. This was the more true
because all assemblies of that kind are attended most largely by the
ardent or advanced members of the organisation, the more moderate
elements caring far less to be present. The resolutions, therefore,
increased until they reached high-water mark at the very meeting of
1891,[521:1] where Dr. Spence Watson in his opening address said he
thought them too numerous already. From the town where the Council met
that year the resolutions became known as the "Newcastle Programme." At
the evening meeting Mr. Gladstone took up, one after another, most of
the subjects included therein, and dwelt upon the importance of each of
them; but before doing so he remarked that when the Liberals came to
power they would want the additional virtue of patience, because with
the surfeit of work to be done it would be difficult to choose proper
subjects of immediate attention.[521:2]
The virtue of patience was needed very soon. The Council had met at
Newcastle in October, 1891. Owing to a change in the date of meeting, it
was not called together again until January, 1893; and in the meanwhile
a Liberal ministry had come into office. The Council took up no new
questions, and passed a single modest resolution relating to the party
policy, saying "That this Council confirms the series of Resolutions
known as 'the Newcastle Programme,' and confidently expects that Mr.
Gladstone's government will promptly introduce into the House of Commons
Bills embodying Reforms which have been declared again and again by
this Council to be essential to the welfare of the people of the United
Kingdom."[522:1] As the reforms contained in the Newcastle Programme
could hardly have been embodied in statutes in less than ten years by a
cabinet with a large and homogeneous majority, the demand that bills
upon all those subjects should be promptly introduced by a ministry with
a very narrow majority, and depending for its life upon the support of
Irish votes, showed the need of patience rather than its presence. In
fact most of the speakers at the meeting emphasised the reforms in which
they were especially interested, and the rest urged the importance of
the whole array.
[Sidenote: Its Effects.]
The wealth of the programme speedily caused embarrassment to the leaders
of the party. Home Rule, as every one admitted, was entitled to the
first place; but after that had been put on the shelf by the House of
Lords difficulties arose, for the Liberals in the House of Commons were
not all of one mind. Some of them were more interested in one reform,
some in another, and each had an equal right to feel that his subject
had been accepted as an essential part of the Liberal policy deserving
immediate attention. People said that the traditional division into
parties was passing away, that the parties were falling apart into
groups, like those in continental legislatures. The assertion was
frequently repeated, although it was disproved by the constancy with
which the ministers were supported by their followers in a House of
Commons where the defection of a dozen members at any moment would have
turned the scale. Month after month the whips came regularly to the
table with their slight margin of Liberal votes. In fact the government
defeats on minor matters were less frequent than in Mr. Gladstone's
previous administration; and no defeat on a question of political
importance occurred until June, 1895, when it was accomplished by the
trick of bringing Conservatives secretly into the House through the
terrace. After that defeat the ministers resigned, not because their
followers had ceased to vote with them, but because they were weary of
a hopeless struggle. Nevertheless the Newcastle Programme with its
magnificent promises had been a source of weakness to them. It
restrained their freedom of action, and forced their hands. In short, it
hampered their initiative in party policy, and it caused disappointment
among their followers.
[Sidenote: Lord Rosebery's Criticism.]
Lord Rosebery, who had succeeded Mr. Gladstone as Prime Minister in
1894, felt the bad effects of the Newcastle Programme. At the public
meeting, held when the Council met in January, 1895, he spoke of the
function of the Federation in threshing out the issues lying before the
party, and that of the cabinet in winnowing them, selecting from a vast
field the bills to be brought forward in the session. "Now, this
programme," he went on, "as it stands now, without any addition, would
require many energetic years in which a strong Government, supported by
a united and powerful Liberal Party, would have to do their best to
carry into effect (_sic_). But what is sometimes forgotten is this--that
we cannot pass all the measures of this programme simultaneously. . . .
Whilst this process of winnowing is going on, all Cabinet Ministers are
subject to a bombardment of correspondence . . . by appeals, some of
them menacing, some of them coaxing and cajoling, but all of them
extremely earnest, and praying that the particular hobby of the writer
shall be made the first Government Bill. . . . Any delay in pushing
forward each measure that has been recorded in what is called the
Newcastle programme implies, we are told, the alienation of all the
earnest and thoughtful members of the Liberal Party--in fact, the
backbone of the Liberal Party. And I have come to the conclusion that
the Liberal Party is extremely rich in backbones."[523:1]
At the public meeting in the following year, after the fall of his
government, he spoke even more plainly. He said there had been complaint
that officialdom had crept into the National Liberal Federation. His own
experience was that it played a very subordinate part there, and if he
had a secret hope on the subject, it was that officialdom might have a
little more to do with the organisation. "I remember two occasions on
which the National Liberal Federation took the bit between its teeth
and, certainly uninspired by officialdom, took very remarkable action.
The first occasion was when it made at Newcastle a programme, a very
celebrated expression of faith which, I confess, was in my opinion too
long for practical purposes."[524:1] Later in alluding to the fall of
his ministry he asked: "Why did it fall? It fell because, with a
chivalrous sense of honour too rare in politics, and with inadequate
means, it determined to fulfil all the pledges that it had given in
Opposition. It had, I think, given too many pledges--partly owing to
you, Dr. Spence Watson. It had, I think, assumed too many
responsibilities, it had taken a burden too heavy for its back, or the
back of any Government or any Parliament, to bear."[524:2]
[Sidenote: The Programme Cut Down after 1894.]
The lesson of the Newcastle Programme had not been in vain. Already in
1895 the "omnibus resolution," which, by way of comprehensive reform,
threatened the interests of the landlord, the manufacturer, the mine
owner, the Church, and the House of Lords, had been omitted, although
most of the matters covered by it were made the subject of special
votes. The next year the programme was left out altogether. Apart from
resolutions criticising the Conservative government for its foreign
policy in Armenia and Egypt, and stating on what terms an education bill
ought to be based, the only vote dealing with the policy of the Liberal
party declared simply, "That this Council reaffirms its adherence to the
principles for which the Federation has always contended," a confession
of faith not likely to cause acute discomfort to a future cabinet. As
the years went by the pressure for specific reforms was too strong to be
resisted, and resolutions dealing with them were adopted; but they have
never again reached anything resembling the range, the well-nigh
revolutionary proportions, or the suicidal capacity, of the Newcastle
Programme.
[Sidenote: Complaints that the Whips Control the Federation.]
A political, like a military, defeat is apt to cause mutual
recriminations. If Lord Rosebery lamented that the leaders in Parliament
had been overburdened by the programme of the Federation, there were
Radicals aggrieved by the control which, in their opinion, the leaders,
acting through the whips and the Liberal Central Association, had
acquired over the Federation. The complaints were so loud, and so much
discussed in the press, that Dr. Spence Watson felt constrained to deal
with them in his presidential address. The charge was that by having the
same quarters, and the same secretary (Mr. Hudson) the Federation had
been fused with and merged into the Central Association. This, he
insisted, was absolutely incorrect, the two organisations having duties
which lay quite apart one from the other; and he defended the existing
connection between them as a good business arrangement, which had
resulted in much better work.[525:1] The charge in another form was that
the General Purposes Committee, in preparing the resolutions for the
Council, was swayed by the whips by means of Mr. Hudson. Of this he
said: "We are told that the resolutions are not genuine; that they are
forced upon us by the Whips through the secretary, Mr. Hudson. No man
admires the work of Mr. Hudson more than I do, because no man sees more
of his work. I think Mr. Hudson, if he were so disposed, which I imagine
is very far from his disposition, would find it very difficult to impose
the will of the Whips upon us. We are not exactly the men to be dealt
with in that way. Now, gentlemen, I wish to put this quite plainly.
There is not a grain of truth in it. I have written down these words
because I wish to be precise. I assert that not a single resolution has
ever, at all events since 1886, been suggested, hinted at, drawn,
altered, or manipulated by any Whip or leader whatsoever."[525:2]
[Sidenote: Power Concentrated in an Executive Committee in 1896.]
Although the statement was no doubt true, and would perhaps continue to
be true, the efficiency of the party might well depend upon having the
resolutions of the Council prepared by a small body of men of proved
discretion, who would insert nothing embarrassing to the leaders. In
view of the experience with the Newcastle Programme it might be wise to
take even greater care in the selection of men who could understand the
situation of the front bench, and to increase their powers. At a meeting
of the General Committee, at Leeds, in December, 1895, a vote was passed
instructing the General Purposes Committee "to consider whether the
machinery of the Federation can be made more representative and
democratic." Democracy is a principle in whose name strange things are
done; and in accordance with this vote a plan was reported for a
revision of the rules, in which the principal changes proposed would
strengthen the hands of the General Purposes Committee, renamed the
Executive Committee. That body was directed to invite expressions of
opinion from the federated associations about the subjects to be brought
before the Council; was confirmed in its power to frame the resolutions
to be submitted;[526:1] and was given authority to decide any questions
of procedure that might arise during the sessions of the Council.[526:2]
In order, as the General Committee said in their report, to "afford an
opportunity for the ventilation of views upon subjects not dealt with in
the resolutions," it was provided that upon the motion to adopt the
annual report "the Council shall be open for the free discussion of any
matter affecting the policy and principles of the Liberal party." A mere
chance to talk supplies a useful safety valve, without doing harm; and
in this case the talk could not be followed by an expression of opinion
on the part of the Council, for no vote would be in order save to
accept, or reject, or refer back, the annual report.[526:3] The
discussion would be like that in the House of Commons on the motion to
adjourn over Easter.
Hitherto the action of the General Committee had been entirely free, but
the revised rules intrusted the Executive Committee with the duty of
preparing the business for that body as well as for the Council; not,
indeed, in the same absolute way, for any federated association could
propose an amendment or further resolution, provided they gave notice
thereof to the secretary five days, at least, before the meeting.
Moreover the Executive Committee was given power to nominate its own
members. Every association had also a right to make nominations, but
these were not, like those of the Executive Committee, circulated among
the local associations before the meeting.[527:1]
[Sidenote: Members of Parliament Excluded Therefrom.]
Finally, members of Parliament were declared ineligible to the Executive
Committee. To a question why they were excluded, the chairman of the
General Committee "replied that it had always been considered desirable
that when a man became a Member of Parliament he should retire from the
Executive, and that they should be free from all thought of outside
influence."[527:2] The answer does not make it perfectly clear whether
the object of the provision was to free the members of Parliament from
the influence of the Committee, or the Committee from the influence of
the members. Both results were in fact attained. The members of the
House were left to the sole tutelage of the whips, so far as the
Federation was concerned, for since 1886 it had ceased altogether from
the practice of stirring up local associations to bring pressure to
bear upon their representatives;[528:1] and, on the other hand, the new
rule removed any opportunity for a member of Parliament to use, or
appear to use, the Committee for his own political advancement.[528:2]
Lord Randolph Churchill's doings in the National Union of Conservative
Associations--to be related in the next chapter--was still fresh in
men's minds. It is, indeed, a striking fact that from the time when the
Liberals came to power in 1892 the leaders ceased for some years to
attend even the sittings of the Council, which were left wholly to the
lesser lights.[528:3] One of the chiefs spoke at a public evening
meeting; but they all stayed away from the Council itself where business
was transacted, thus depriving it of the weight that came from having
its words sanctioned by the presence of the real leaders of the party.
[Sidenote: Opposition to the Changes.]
During the debate on the new rules in the Council,[528:4] a number of
amendments were moved, which aimed at preventing the concentration of
power in the hands of the General and Executive Committees. Of this
nature were motions that the Executive Committee should be chosen by the
Council; that amendments to the agenda and further resolutions might be
proposed at Council meetings; that the agenda should be prepared by the
General, instead of the Executive, Committee; and that the Executive
Committee should not have power to nominate its own members. As these
amendments struck at the very root of the revision, none of them were
carried, and in fact the new rules were adopted without substantial
alteration.
[Sidenote: Renewed Discussion in 1897 and 1898.]
At the meeting in the following year, 1897, the same questions were
raised again. Changes in the rules were proposed, similar in character
to the amendments rejected in 1896, and brought forward with the same
object. They were urged on the ground that the control ought to be taken
from the hands of the few and placed in the hands of the many, that at
present "the whole thing was wire-pulled from the top," that the Liberal
party had got out of touch with the Labour party, and that the
associations had not so much opportunity as they ought to have to bring
matters before the Council. In the end the proposals were shelved by
being referred to the Executive Committee.[529:1] The next report of the
General Committee treated the matter with great frankness: "The Annual
Council Meeting," we read, "must either be (_a_) an open conference for
the debate of multitudinous questions about which the party has come to
no agreement, or (_b_) an Assembly of a declaratory character to
emphasise matters upon which the party are agreed. The former function
is impossible, if merely because the Council may consist of more than a
thousand persons sitting for less than a dozen hours. . . . It is
inevitable (and there is no reason why it should not be frankly
recognised) that the business of the Council Meeting should be more or
less 'cut and dried' beforehand. . . . These resolutions are intended to
inform the party leaders of the subjects in dealing with which they may
rely upon the support of the party as a whole. The Federation does not
interfere with the time or order in which questions should be taken up.
That is the province of the leaders of the party."[529:2]
The report went on to discuss the occult question: Who was responsible
for the Newcastle Programme? "The Federation," it said, "had steadily
refused to formulate a political programme. . . . How then did the
Newcastle Programme come into existence? No Newcastle Programme was ever
framed by the Federation or by any one connected with it." The Council
merely passed a number of resolutions urging reforms, all of which had
been demanded at previous meetings. "But the resolutions of this
particular meeting received a special significance from the fact that
. . . to the surprise of every one, our great leader, Mr. Gladstone
. . . took up _seriatim_ the resolutions which had been passed at the
Council Meetings and gave them the weight of his direct approval. The
newspapers at once spoke of the Newcastle Programme."[530:1] Poor Mr.
Gladstone! It seems that by taking the action of the Federation too
seriously, he became quite unconsciously[530:2] the unfortunate author
of the Newcastle Programme.
A few members protested vehemently in favour of the changes they had
proposed in the rules, but the report of the General Committee was
adopted with only two dissentients; and thus the opposition to the
concentration of power in the hands of a small executive body was laid
to rest. But it must be observed that if the direction of the Federation
is in the hands of a few men, their power is exerted, not to incite, but
to restrain the Council, not to use it to carry through a policy of
their own, but to prevent it from doing something indiscreet.
[Sidenote: Discussion in the Press.]
The ill-starred Newcastle Programme, and the concentration of authority
within the Liberal organisation to which it gave rise, provoked
discussion in the press as well as in the Federation itself, with the
contending views painted in higher colours. One can find articles
written to prove that the political machine had taken the place of
public opinion;[530:3] or that the Federation acted at the instigation
of the whips, was as much subject to the Liberal Government as the Board
of Trade, and was used by the leaders to register opinions upon
questions on which the party itself was divided;[531:1] or finally that
the Federation had become an anti-democratic juggernaut, which elevated
the aristocratic elements in the party and killed enthusiasm.[531:2]
Opinions of this kind are exaggerated, springing from dread of the
organisation, or disappointment at the results achieved.
Another writer tells us more calmly that the evolution of Liberal policy
goes through three stages: first, a free discussion in the General
Committee, which shows the trend if not the balance of opinion, but
which does not add articles to the party programme, because the
Federation does not act by majorities, and all the associations may not
have sent delegates to the committee; second, the adoption by the
Council, without amendment or real debate, of resolutions which have
been found to command the assent of practically the whole party; and
third, the unfettered selection by the Liberal cabinet from among those
resolutions, of the measures they think it best to bring before
Parliament.[531:3] The writer states correctly the theory of the matter;
and sees clearly that although the General Committee is allowed to
discuss very freely and to act by majority, its decisions are not
considered authoritative, while the Council which speaks in the name of
the party is not permitted to deal at all with questions that might
arouse a serious difference of opinion.
[Sidenote: The General Committee and Council at Work.]
[Sidenote: Example in the Boer War.]
The actual working of the National Liberal Federation is well
illustrated by its action in regard to the Boer War, a matter on which
the Liberals were divided. At a meeting of the General Committee in
December, 1899, a resolution was proposed, saying that there was much to
deplore in the conduct of negotiations with President Kruger, and that
in making peace due regard must be paid to the wishes of all sections of
the South African population; but avoiding carefully any statement
whether the war was inevitable or not. A second clause simply praised
the soldiers and expressed sympathy with the sufferers. A motion was
made to add somewhat incongruously in the clause a recital that "a wise
statesmanship could and should have avoided" the war, and it was carried
by 114 votes to 94.[532:1] But this was treated merely as the opinion of
the persons present, not as binding the party; and when the agenda was
prepared for the meeting of the Council in the following March, the
Executive Committee, wishing to avoid points of difference, omitted the
words that had been inserted. The principal resolution relating to the
war was introduced in the Council by a speech in which the mover
virtually threw the blame for the war upon the Boers. This raised a
storm of dissent, and speakers took the other side with no mild
language. But an amendment could not be moved, and after the most
contradictory opinions had been uttered the resolution was adopted
unanimously.[532:2] The members of the General Committee, therefore,
expressed their views individually and collectively, but ineffectually,
while in the larger assembly the members could personally declare their
opinions, but the Council as a whole could not. It could only pass a
resolution carefully drawn so as to conceal the differences of opinion
that existed.
[Sidenote: Selection of the Party Leader.]
At one time the Federation was tempted to lay its hand on a matter even
more delicate than the formulation of party policy, and that is the
selection of the party leader. On Dec. 13, 1898, Sir William Harcourt's
resignation of the Liberal leadership in the House of Commons was made
public, and it so happened that the General Committee met three days
later. There a motion was made requesting him to reconsider his
position, and another "That, in the opinion of this meeting, the
question of the leadership of the Liberal party should be taken into
immediate consideration, and calls upon the leaders to close up their
ranks." In deference, however, to a strong feeling that the motions did
not come within the functions of the Federation they were
withdrawn;[533:1] and before the Council met the Liberals in the House
of Commons had chosen Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman as their leader. The
decision in the Committee was wise, for the success of parliamentary
government depends upon the fact that the leaders in the Commons possess
the influence required to command the support of their followers, and
this can be secured only by having them selected, formally or
informally, by the members of the party in Parliament. A man chosen by a
popular body outside might well be quite unable to lead the House.
[Sidenote: The Federation is Muzzled.]
The National Liberal Federation has now had a history of thirty years,
and it has proved very different from what it was originally intended to
be. As an organisation it is highly useful to the party in many ways. It
does valuable work in promoting local organisation, in distributing
party literature, in collecting information, and in keeping the Liberal
workers throughout the country alert. Even the Council does good service
in arousing enthusiasm, and preserving an appearance of participation by
the rank and file in the management of party affairs. But as a Liberal
parliament outside of the imperial legislature, which directs the policy
of the party, the Federation is a sham. The General Committee can debate
and act freely, but the lack of a sufficiently representative character,
and the almost invariable absence of all the leading Liberals,[533:2]
deprives its deliberations of any real might; while the Council is
effectively muzzled. Its resolutions are carefully prepared so as to
express no opinions on which every one does not agree, and hence they
declare nothing that every one did not know already. Nevertheless it
involves some dangers. Popular excitement on some question might force
the Executive Committee to bring in unwise resolutions; the Council
itself might become roused, and by a change in the rules tear off the
muzzle; and it is not inconceivable that a man with popular talents and
a demagogic temperament might capture the organisation, and use it to
combat the leaders and thrust himself into power.
To a person unfamiliar with the hopes and fears inspired by the Caucus a
generation ago, a discussion of this length about a body that wields
very little real power may seem like a long chapter on the snakes in
Iceland; but there are a couple of good reasons for treating the subject
thoroughly. The very fact that the Caucus was regarded as the coming
form of democracy, destined to undermine the older political
institutions of the nation, makes its subsequent history important, for
it shows that among a highly practical people democratic theories about
direct expression of the popular will yield to the exigencies of actual
public life. The story of the Caucus illustrates also the central
conception of this book, that in the English parliamentary system
leadership must be in the hands of the parliamentary leaders. We have
seen this principle at work in the House of Commons, and a popular
organisation, in attempting to direct party policy, strove against it in
vain. That the result is not an accident may be seen from the experience
of the Conservative party, where a similar movement, not less dramatic
at times, has travelled through different paths to the same end.
FOOTNOTES:
[501:1] These and the following statements are taken from the official
"Proceedings attending the formation of the National Federation of
Liberal Associations with Report of Conference held in Birmingham on
Thursday, May 31, 1877." Since this chapter was written, "The National
Liberal Federation, from its Commencement to the General Election of
1906," has been published by Dr. Robert Spence Watson, for many years
its president. But although a valuable history of the organisation, and
a vigorous statement of the opinions held by its leaders, the book adds
little to the information that may be gathered from other sources, for
the author does not take us behind the scenes.
[503:1] M. Ostrogorski points out very clearly how important it was for
the standing of the Federation to have the real Liberal leader for its
sponsor, and how this was possible, because he was not the nominal
leader. I., 181.
[506:1] Then the Liberal leader in the House of Commons. The statements
of what took place at these meetings are taken from the annual reports
published by the Federation.
[507:1] Morley, "Life of Gladstone," II., 630. Jeyes, "Mr. Chamberlain,"
85-86.
[507:2] Mr. Collings remained president only one year, and his
successors were from other towns.
[508:1] Rep. of 1881, _cf._ Ostrogorski, I., 209-11.
[508:2] Political education had always been one of the functions of the
Federation, and it was in the habit of distributing party literature. In
1881 it sent out copies of two speeches by Mr. Chamberlain. These were,
in fact, the only speeches it circulated that year.
[508:3] Rep. of meeting of General Committee, March 6, 1882; Ann. Rep.
to Council, December, 1882, _cf._ Ostrogorski, I., 213-15.
[509:1] Ann. Rep. to Council, December, 1882.
[509:2] _Cf._ Ostrogorski, I., 218-25.
[510:1] The resolutions adopted by the Council in October, 1885, related
to primogeniture and entail, tenure and compensation of tenants,
registration of land titles, enfranchisement of leaseholders, compulsory
purchase of land for labourers, public elementary schools, election of
rural governing bodies, and disestablishment of the Church.
[511:1] Hans. 3 Ser. CCXCIII., 573 (Oct. 30, 1884).
[511:2] Mr. Harris came back a few years later and served on the
executive body.
[512:1] Rep. of the Gen. Com. in 1886.
[512:2] _Cf._ Ostrogorski, I., 293, 307-9.
[513:1] Rep. of 1887, pp. 28, 29, 40.
[514:1] Rep. of 1888, p. 14.
[514:2] _Ibid._, p. 12.
[514:3] _Ibid._, 1887, p. 39.
[515:1] Rep. of 1888, pp. 13, 14.
[516:1] Rep. of 1888, pp. 109, 112.
[516:2] _Ibid._, 1889, pp. 128-29.
[516:3] _Ibid._, 1891, pp. 87, 96.
[516:4] _Ibid._, p. 42. On other occasions he repeated the statement,
adding that the practice saved the Council the risk from which the Union
of Conservative Associations had suffered, of having alterations made
suddenly under the magic strains of eloquence. Rep. of 1895, p. 58;
1896, p. 57.
[517:1] As late as 1894 the General Committee declared that the
Registration Bill of the Liberal government was not satisfactory and
urged its amendment. Rep. of 1894.
[517:2] Rep. of 1889, p. 129.
[517:3] _Ibid._, 1896, pp. 73-78; Rep. of 1897, pp. 77-80.
[518:1] Rep. of 1890, p. 29.
[518:2] _Ibid._, pp. 6-8, 58.
[519:1] These were special conferences of delegates from the
associations of the whole, or of some part, of the country. They were
not infrequently held.
[520:1] Rep. for 1891, pp. 42-44.
[520:2] "Now whilst the Council of the Federation declares what the
party as a whole desires, the General Committee attempts by preliminary
discussion to arrive at what the desires are. As the General Committee
examines but does not declare, the freest and fullest discussion takes
place at its meetings." Rep. of 1898, p. 42.
[521:1] Rep. of 1891, pp. 6-8.
[521:2] _Ibid._, p. 101.
[522:1] Rep. of 1892, p. 6.
[523:1] Rep. of 1895, pp. 111-13.
[524:1] The other occasion was when it held a conference on the subject
of the House of Lords.
[524:2] Rep. of 1896, pp. 109, 119
[525:1] Rep. of 1896, pp. 58-60.
[525:2] _Ibid._, p. 58.
[526:1] The agenda was to be sent to the associations in advance of the
meeting.
[526:2] In 1902 the Committee itself proposed at the Council meeting,
and carried a substitute for its own resolution. Rep. of 1902, p. 70.
[526:3] It was so ruled. Rep. of 1898, p. 60.
[527:1] The text of this provision was: "One month, at least, prior to
the meeting of the General Committee at which the Executive Committee is
to be elected, a list of those Members of the existing Executive
Committee who offer themselves for reëlection, together with the names
of any others nominated by the Executive Committee, shall be sent to
each of the Federated Associations. Federated Associations desiring to
nominate other Candidates for the Executive Committee shall send in
formal nominations to the Secretary of the Federation at least fourteen
days before the meeting. In the event of nominations exceeding the
number to be elected, a ballot will be taken at the meeting of the
General Committee."
[527:2] Rep. of 1896, p. 77.
[528:1] This appears from the annual reports of the General Committee,
which did, however, continue for some years to send circulars to local
associations urging them to pass resolutions of a general character.
[528:2] At the same time all the Liberal members of Parliament were made
_ex officio_ members of the Council, where their presence was expected
to exert a restraining influence upon the extreme and impracticable
elements in the party.
[528:3] After the party had been out of power many years this rule was
not rigidly observed. In 1903, for example, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman
spoke in support of one of the resolutions. Rep. of 1903, p. 75.
[528:4] Rep. of 1896, pp. 71-78.
[529:1] Rep. of 1897, pp. 75-80. One of the arguments in favour of the
election of the Executive Committee by the General Committee was that
the latter was more fairly representative than the Council, because the
delegates to the Council from the part of the country where the meeting
was held attended in greater numbers than from more distant places.
[529:2] _Ibid._, 1898, pp. 39, 41.
[530:1] Rep. of 1898, pp. 40-41.
[530:2] _Ibid._, pp. 54-55.
[530:3] "The Ministry of the Masses," _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1894.
[531:1] "The Reorganisation of Liberalism," James Annand, _New Review_,
November, 1895.
[531:2] "The Future of Liberalism," _Fortnightly Review_, January, 1898.
[531:3] "The National Liberal Federation," _Contemporary Review_,
February, 1898.
[532:1] Rep. of 1900, p. 15.
[532:2] _Ibid._, pp. 63-70.
[533:1] Rep. of 1899, pp. 21, 24.
[533:2] The exceptions are rare. In 1903, however, Mr. Bryce moved a
resolution on education. Rep. of 1903, p. 20.
CHAPTER XXX
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE CAUCUS
_The Conservatives_
[Sidenote: Formation of the National Union of Conservative
Associations.]
Ten years before the National Liberal Federation was founded, a Tory
organisation, called the National Union of Conservative and
Constitutional Associations, had been started upon similar lines. After
some preliminary meetings it was definitely formed at a conference in
November, 1867, where delegates from fifty-four towns and the University
of London were present.[535:1] Here a constitution was adopted, which,
with the amendments made in the first few years, contained the following
provisions. Any Conservative or Constitutional association might be
admitted to the Union on payment of one guinea a year, and would then be
entitled to send two delegates to the Conference. This last body was the
great representative assembly of the Union. Like the Council of the
National Liberal Federation it was to meet in a different place each
year,[535:2] and was composed of the two delegates from each subscribing
association, of the officers of the Union, and of such honorary members
as were also members of the Council. The Council was the executive body
of the Union, and consisted of the president, treasurer, and trustees;
of twenty-four members elected by the Conference; of not more than
twenty nominated by the principal provincial associations; and of such
members of the Consultative Committee as were willing to act, the last
being a body formed out of vice-presidents and honorary members to which
difficult questions could be referred.
In order to attract money, it was provided that any one subscribing a
guinea a year should be an honorary member of the Union, that the
subscribers of five guineas a year should be vice-presidents with seats
_ex officio_ in the Conference, and that any one subscribing twenty
guineas should be a vice-president for life. In order to attract titles
provision was made for the election of a patron and ten vice-patrons of
the Union. These methods of procuring the countenance of rank and wealth
were not tried in vain. In 1869 Lord Derby became the patron of the
Union, and on his death he was succeeded by the Duke of Richmond. In the
report of the Council in 1872 we read, "the total number of
vice-presidents is now 365, among whom are 66 noblemen, and 143 past and
present members of the House of Commons." The honorary members at the
same time numbered 219.
[Sidenote: Objects of the Union.]
[Sidenote: It did not Try to Guide Party Policy.]
Although the National Union was much older than the National Liberal
Federation, it attracted far less notice. During its earlier years,
indeed, the Conferences were very small affairs. At the second
Conference, for example, in 1868, there were present only three officers
and four delegates, and in the two following years respectively only
thirty-six and thirty-five persons all told. The chief reason, however,
why the Union made so much less stir than the Federation, lies in the
nature of the work it undertook to do. The Federation was a weapon of
militant radicalism, designed to carry into effect an aggressive public
policy, and was considered a serious menace to old institutions; but the
Union was intended merely as an instrument for helping the Conservative
party to win victories at the elections. Its object was to strengthen
the hands of local associations; while its work consisted chiefly in
helping to form such associations, and in giving information.[537:1]
For this purpose, it kept a register of all Conservative associations,
so that it could act as their London agency; it offered suggestions, was
ready to give advice, printed and distributed pamphlets, and arranged
for speeches and lectures.[537:2] The Union made no claim to direct the
policy of the party. At the meeting in 1867, when the Constitution was
adopted, one speaker said that "unless the Union was managed by the
leaders of the Conservative party it would have no force and no effect
whatever," and this was given as a reason for making the honorary
members eligible to the Council.[537:3] The matter was put in a nutshell
some years later by Mr. Cecil Raikes, one of the founders, when he said
that "the Union had been organised rather as what he might call a
handmaid to the party, than to usurp the functions of party
leadership."[537:4] In fact, for the first nine years the Conference
passed no resolutions of a political character at all, and those which
it adopted during the decade that followed expressed little more than
confidence in the leaders of the party.
[Sidenote: Its Relation to the Party Leaders.]
Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Gorst, who had presided at the first
Conference in 1867, was appointed in 1870 principal agent of the
party--that is, the head, under the whips, of the Conservative Central
Office--and in order to connect the new representative organisation with
the old centralised one he was made the next year honorary secretary of
the Union.[537:5] The policy was soon carried farther. In their report
for 1872 the Council said: "Since the last conference, an arrangement
has been made by which the work of the Union has been more closely
incorporated with that of the party generally, and its offices have been
removed to the headquarters of the party in Parliament Street. This
arrangement has been productive of the most satisfactory results, not
only by having brought the Union into more direct contact with the
leaders of the party, and thereby enhancing the value of its operations,
but also by greatly reducing its working expenses." At an early stage of
its existence, therefore, the Union took for its honorary secretary an
officer responsible through the whips to the leaders of the party in
Parliament, and this was openly proclaimed an advantage. No secret was
made of the fact that the Union was expected to follow, not to lead; for
at the banquet held in connection with the Conference that same year the
Earl of Shrewsbury, in proposing a toast to the Army, said, "The duty of
a soldier is obedience, and discipline is the great characteristic of
the army and navy, and I may also say that in a like manner it is
characteristic of the Conservative Union."
[Sidenote: The Conference of 1872.]
The Conference held in 1872 seems to have been the first that attracted
much public attention, and it was notable for two things. Mr. Disraeli
had insisted that the working classes were by nature conservative, and
that the extension of the franchise would bring an accession of strength
to his party. His opponents, assuming that Liberalism was a corollary of
democracy, had laughed at the idea; and although his followers had
expended much energy in organising Conservative workingmen's
associations, the results of the election of 1868 appeared to have
disproved his theory. But the meeting in 1872 showed that among the
artisans Tories were by no means rare. In connection with the
Conference, which was held in London, a great banquet was given at the
Crystal Palace, and this caused Mr. Cecil Raikes, the chairman of the
Council, to remark: "a few years ago" everybody said "that if a
Conservative workingman could be found he ought to be put in a glass
case. We have found for him the largest glass case in England to-night."
The banquet was also notable for a speech by Mr. Disraeli, which was
ridiculed at the time on account of the characteristically grandiloquent
phrase, "You have nothing to trust to but your own energy and the
sublime instinct of an ancient people."[539:1] Nevertheless it was a
remarkable speech, for it laid down the main principles of Tory policy
for the next thirty years and more, a feat that is probably without
parallel in modern history.[539:2]
[Sidenote: Complaints that the Union was not Representative.]
Although the Conservative party carried the country at the general
election of 1874, and Mr. Disraeli, for the first time, came into power
with a majority at his back, popular interest in the Union grew slowly.
As late as 1878 not more than two hundred and sixty-six out of the nine
hundred and fifty Conservative associations were affiliated to the
Union, and delegates from only forty-seven of them attended the
Conference.[539:3] Yet complaints were already heard that foreshadowed
the strife to come in the future. In 1876 Mr. Gorst, the honorary
secretary, but no longer the principal agent of the party, proposed to
reorganise the Council by making it more representative in
character.[539:4] His suggestion was opposed by Mr. Raikes, and was
voted down. The next year, however, he returned to the subject, moving
first to abolish the Consultative Committee altogether, and then that
its members should not sit on the Council. He withdrew these motions on
the understanding that the Council would consider the matter; and
although other persons also urged that the Council should be
strengthened by becoming a more representative body, the only action
taken at this meeting was to provide that the Council itself should not
propose for reëlection more than two thirds of its retiring members.
[Sidenote: Changes in its Rules.]
Mr. Gorst resigned his position as honorary secretary in November, and
in spite of continued criticism of the Council on the ground that it was
to a great extent self-elected,[540:1] nothing was done to change its
composition until after the Liberals had won the general election of
1880. Under the pressure of the defeat the Conference of that year
adopted a new set of rules drawn up by the Council itself. They provided
that the associations should be represented at the Conference in
proportion to their size; that the members of the Consultative Committee
should no longer sit on the Council; and that instead of the twenty
members of the Council nominated by the principal associations, who were
said to attend little, the Council itself should add twelve persons to
its number. This plan of coöptation was destined to open the door for a
most audacious attempt to capture the organisation.
[Sidenote: The Fourth Party.]
The chance for a new man to distinguish himself in Parliament comes in
Opposition. As Mr. Winston Churchill remarks in the life of his father:
"There is small scope for a supporter of a Government. The Whips do not
want speeches, but votes. The Ministers regard an oration in their
praise or defence as only one degree less tiresome than an
attack."[540:2] But in the Opposition free lances are applauded if they
assault the Treasury Bench from any quarter. Moreover, although the game
of politics in England is played under a conventional code of rules
which are scrupulously observed, a skilful player can achieve a rapid
prominence by violating the rules boldly, if he has great ability, high
social rank, or wins the ear of the people. These truths were turned to
advantage in the Parliament which sat from 1880 to 1885 by Lord Randolph
Churchill and his small band of friends, who, in contradistinction to
the Liberals, Conservatives, and Irish Home Rulers, came to be known as
the Fourth Party. The general election of 1880 had brought Mr. Gladstone
back to power, and in the course of this administration he was obliged
to face unexpectedly many delicate and difficult questions. The
Conservative Opposition was led by Sir Stafford Northcote, a man of
decorous rather than combative temperament, who had been Mr. Gladstone's
private secretary in early life, and was not inclined to carry
parliamentary contests to extremes. The conditions were favourable to a
small body of members, something between knights errant and banditti,
who fought as guerillas under the Conservative banner, but attacked on
occasion their own leaders with magnanimous impartiality.
[Sidenote: Its Origin and Policy.]
The Fourth Party began in one of those accidents that happen in
irregular warfare.[541:1] The Bradlaugh case, involving the thorny
question whether a professed atheist could qualify in the House of
Commons by affirmation or oath, vexed the whole life of the Parliament,
and brought together in the opening days Sir Henry Wolff, Mr. John
Gorst, Lord Randolph Churchill, and Mr. Arthur Balfour. This case, in
which they played successfully upon the feelings of the House, made them
at once conspicuous, and taught them the value of concerted action. With
a short interruption, caused by a difference of opinion about the Irish
Coercion Bill of 1881, the friends acted in harmony for four years. They
had no formal programme, and no one of them was recognised as the chief,
but it was understood that they should defend one another when attacked,
and they were in the habit of dining together to arrange a common plan
of action. They took a vigorous part in all debates, criticised the
government unsparingly, and under the pretence of assisting to perfect
its measures, spun out the discussions and obstructed progress. They
showed great skill in baiting Mr. Gladstone, and when delay was their
object, in drawing him by turns into long explanations in response to
plausible questions about the clauses of his bills. Their
aggressiveness, and their profession of popular principles under the
name of Tory democracy, spread their reputation in the country, and gave
them an importance out of proportion to their number or their direct
influence in the House of Commons.
[Sidenote: Its Attacks on the Tory Leaders.]
Throughout its career the Fourth Party assumed to be independent of the
regular Conservative leaders in the House. At times it went much
farther, accusing them of indecision and an inability to lead, which
disorganised the party. Lord Beaconsfield's death in 1881 left the
Conservatives with no single recognised leader; for Lord Salisbury was
chosen by the Tory peers leader of the House of Lords; and Sir Stafford
Northcote remained, as he had been in Lord Beaconsfield's last years,
the leader in the House of Commons, neither of them being regarded as
superior in authority to the other. The members of the Fourth Party
asserted that this dual leadership, by causing uncertainty in the
counsels of the party, was disastrous; and they soon settled upon Sir
Stafford Northcote as the object of their censure. The attack upon him
culminated in April, 1883, when his selection to unveil the statue of
Lord Beaconsfield seemed to indicate that he was to be the future
premier whenever the Conservatives might come to power. On that occasion
Lord Randolph Churchill published a couple of letters in _The Times_ in
which he spoke of Sir Stafford in strong terms, and declared that Lord
Salisbury was the only man capable of taking the lead. These he followed
up by an article in the _Fortnightly Review_ for May, entitled "Elijah's
Mantle," describing the decay of the Conservative party, setting forth
his ideas of Tory democracy as a means of regeneration, designating Lord
Salisbury as the proper heir to Lord Beaconsfield's mantle, but
revealing at the same time his confidence in his own fitness for
command. His quarrel with his chief in the House of Commons did not
impair his popularity in the country; while his speeches, with their
invective against prominent Liberals, and their appeals for the support
of the masses, caught the fancy of the Tory crowds. Hitherto he had
decried Sir Stafford Northcote and praised Lord Salisbury, but he now
embarked upon an adventure that brought him into sharp conflict with the
latter. Mr. Balfour, being Lord Salisbury's nephew, could not follow in
the new path, and before long opposed his former comrade, while the
other two members of the Fourth Party continued to support him.
[Sidenote: Lord Randolph Churchill's Plan to Capture the Union.]
In the summer of 1883 Lord Randolph Churchill conceived the bold plan of
getting control of the National Union of Conservative Associations, and
making it, under his guidance, a great political force in the party.
Complaints had already been made, as we have seen, that the Council,
instead of being truly representative, was in the hands of a small
self-elected group of men. In fact the Council had been managed in
concert with the leaders of the party in Parliament; while the real
direction of electoral matters was vested in the "Central Committee," a
body quite distinct from the Union, created at the instance of Lord
Beaconsfield after the defeat of 1880 to devise means of improving the
party organisation. The Committee had become permanent, and, working
under the whips, had exclusive charge of the ample sums subscribed for
campaign expenses. In order to achieve any large measure of independent
power the National Union must have pecuniary resources, and hence, as a
part of his plan, Lord Randolph Churchill determined to obtain for it a
share of the funds in the possession of the Central Committee.
[Sidenote: The Conference at Birmingham in 1883.]
The three friends were already members of the Council. Sir Henry Wolff
had been there from the beginning. Mr. Gorst, who had taken an active
part in its work in the past, had recently been given a seat again as
vice-chairman; and Lord Randolph Churchill had been elected a coöpted
member in 1882 by the casting vote of the chairman, Lord Percy. The
first scene in the drama was arranged for the Conference held at
Birmingham on Oct. 2, 1883. There, when the usual motion was made to
adopt the annual report, a Mr. Hudson moved a rider directing "the
Council for the ensuing year to take such steps as may be requisite for
securing to the National Union its legitimate influence in the party
organisation." He said that the Conservative workingmen should not be
led by the nose, and that the Union ought to have the management of its
own policy.
[Sidenote: Lord Randolph Churchill's Speech.]
Lord Randolph Churchill supported the rider in a characteristic speech,
in which he described how the Central Committee had drawn into their own
hands all the powers and available resources of the party. "From that
day to this," he went on, "in spite of constant efforts on the part of
many members of your Council, in spite of a friction which has been
going on ever since, your Council has been kept in a state of tutelage,
you have been called upon year by year to elect a Council, which does
not advise, and an Executive which does not administer. . . . I should
like to see the control of the party organisation taken out of the hands
of a self-elected body, and placed in the hands of an elected
body."[544:1] He intimated that the Central Committee had used money at
the last election for corrupt purposes, and declared that such practices
would not cease until the party funds were managed openly. Finally, he
said that the Conservative party would never gain power until it gained
the confidence of the working classes, who must, therefore, be invited
to take a share, and a real share, in the party government. Several men
spoke on the other side, among them Lord Percy, who repudiated the
charge that the Central Committee had spent money corruptly. He said
that he and others had been members both of that Committee and of the
Council, and that there was a constant interchange of ideas between the
two bodies. He was willing, however, to accept the rider upon the
understanding that the Conference was not committed to any of the modes
of carrying it out that had been suggested. The rider was then adopted
unanimously.[545:1]
[Sidenote: He becomes Chairman of the Council.]
Lord Randolph Churchill was elected to the Council, and so were many of
his opponents. The parties were, in fact, nearly evenly balanced, but he
and his friends had the great advantage of a definite, well-arranged
plan. Twelve coöpted members were to be chosen, and by presenting the
names of prominent men from the large towns, to whom his opponents found
it hard to object, Lord Randolph secured a small but decisive majority
on the Council. At the first meeting in December he procured the
appointment of a committee to consider the best means of carrying into
effect the rider passed at the Conference. The committee was composed
mainly of his friends, and at once elected him its chairman, although
according to the custom that had been followed hitherto the chairman of
the Council, Lord Percy, should have presided in all the committees.
Early in January, 1884, the committee had an interview with Lord
Salisbury, and brought to his notice the uneasiness that prevailed about
the party organisation, and the desire of the Union to obtain its
legitimate share of influence in the management. Lord Salisbury took the
matter under consideration. Meanwhile, on February 1, when the committee
reported progress to the Council, Lord Percy protested against his
exclusion from the chair, and motions were made to the effect that he
ought to preside at meetings of committees; but they were rejected by
close votes. Thereupon he resigned his position as chairman of the
Council, and as he refused to withdraw his resignation, Lord Randolph
Churchill was, on Feb. 15, chosen to succeed him by seventeen votes to
fifteen for Mr. Chaplin. Lord Salisbury, however, ignoring the change of
chairman, still communicated with the Council through Lord Percy, which
exasperated Lord Randolph's partisans.
[Sidenote: Lord Salisbury's Letter of Feb. 29, 1884.]
On Feb. 29, Lord Salisbury, in a letter to Lord Randolph Churchill,
replied, on behalf of himself and Sir Stafford Northcote, to the
suggestions that had been made to him in January. He began by observing
that no proposals had been put forward by the Union, beyond the
representation that the Council had not opportunity of concurring
largely enough in the practical organisation of the party. "It appears
to us," he continued, "that that organisation is, and must remain in all
its essential features, local. But there is still much work which a
central body, like the Council of the National Union, can perform with
great advantage to the party. It is the representative of many
Associations on whom, in their respective constituencies, the work of
the party greatly depends. It can superintend and stimulate their
exertions; furnish them with advice, and in some measure, with funds;
provide them with lecturers; aid them in the improvement and development
of the local press; and help them in perfecting the machinery by which
the registration is conducted, and the arrangements for providing
volunteer agency at Election times. It will have special opportunity of
pressing upon the local associations which it represents, the paramount
duty of selecting, in time, the candidates who are to come forward at
the dissolution. This field of work seems to us large--as large as the
nature of the case permits." But he added that any proposal which the
Council might desire to submit would receive their attentive
consideration.
[Sidenote: It is Misconstrued by Lord Randolph.]
The letter was, no doubt, intended to enumerate in substance the very
functions that the Council had hitherto performed; but the committee
affected to receive it with joy as a complete acceptance of their plan.
They prepared a report to the Council, stating that the duties which,
according to Lord Salisbury's letter, ought to devolve upon the Council,
were such as, with the exception of lecturers, they had not hitherto
been permitted to undertake. "The Council," they went on, "will, no
doubt, perceive that for the proper discharge of these duties, now
imposed upon them by the leaders of the party, the provision of
considerable funds becomes a matter of first-class necessity." They
ought, therefore, to claim a definite sum out of the funds in the hands
of the Central Committee, from which they had as yet received only
irregular and uncertain contributions. The report recommended that a
small executive committee be appointed with directions to carry out Lord
Salisbury's scheme, to incur liability for urgent expenditure, to enter
into communication with all the local associations in order to learn
about their candidates, elections, funds, and agents, and to invite from
those associations the "fullest and freest communication of all
information bearing upon political and parliamentary questions as viewed
in the localities." All questions involving large and general principles
of party policy were to be reserved for the determination of the
Council, but the chairman and vice-chairman were to be authorised to
perform all ordinary executive acts between meetings. It is needless to
point out the imitation of the National Liberal Federation as it worked
at that time, or the great power that these changes would throw into the
hands of Lord Randolph Churchill.
[Sidenote: Further Correspondence.]
Lord Salisbury was informed of the report, and hastened to remove any
misapprehension. In a letter to Lord Randolph, on March 6, he said he
had not contemplated that the Union should in any way take the place of
the Central Committee, and he hoped there was no chance of their paths
crossing. Lord Randolph replied that he feared that hope might be
disappointed. "In a struggle between a popular body and a close
corporation, the latter, I am happy to say, in these days goes to the
wall."[547:1] A correspondence took place also between Lord Salisbury
and Lord Percy, in the course of which the former wrote: "the Central
Committee represents the leaders, by whom it is appointed. So far as
those duties are concerned which attach, and always have attached, to
the leaders of the party, and depend on their sanction, these can only
be delegated to gentlemen whom we appoint." He said that in his opinion
no change in this respect would be desirable, and that he could not
think the adoption of the report would be expedient. Lord Percy laid the
letter before the Council, and moved that the report should not be
accepted, but his motion was rejected by a vote of nineteen to fourteen;
the report was then adopted, and the committee was instructed to confer
with the leaders of the party as to the best way of carrying out the
plans foreshadowed in their letters.
[Sidenote: Lord Salisbury's Letter of April 1, 1884.]
The temper of the leaders may be imagined, and may well excuse a step,
which was, nevertheless, a mistake, because it offended members of the
Council of local importance,[548:1] who had probably intended no
disrespect to Lord Salisbury. Three days after the adoption of the
report a curt letter came from Mr. Bartley, the principal agent of the
party, giving the National Union notice to quit the offices occupied
jointly with the Central Committee. Lord Randolph Churchill displayed no
open resentment at this; but treating the objections of the leaders as
if they applied only to the details of the report, he proposed to modify
it in part, especially by a change which showed that the general
questions of policy reserved for the Council were to relate not to
public affairs, but merely to party organisation. He held also a
conference with Lord Salisbury, which was again an occasion for
misunderstanding; for on April 1 that nobleman wrote that as he and Sir
Stafford Northcote had already expressed their disapproval of the
report, they could not consider it further in the absence of
explanation, but that some passages had been explained at the
conference, and it had been made clear that the National Union did not
intend to trench on the province of the Central Committee, or take any
course on political questions not acceptable to the leaders of the
party. It was very satisfactory, the letter said, to find the Council
agreeing that matters hitherto disposed of by the leaders and the whips
must remain in their hands, including the expenditure of the funds
standing in the name of the Central Committee. Lord Salisbury then went
on to describe the proper functions of the Council in language evidently
intended to cover the same ground as his letter of Feb. 29.[549:1] He
added that to insure complete unity of action it was desirable to have
the whips sit _ex officio_ on the Council, and be present at the
meetings of all committees; and he ended by saying that under the
circumstances a separation of establishments would not be necessary.
[Sidenote: Lord Randolph's Caustic Reply.]
Lord Randolph called at once a meeting of the committee on organisation,
and although only three members besides himself were present, he sent to
Lord Salisbury, in the name of the committee, a letter unique in English
political annals. The document is long, but the following extracts may
serve to show its meaning and portray its tone: "It is quite clear to
us," it said, "that . . . we have hopelessly failed to convey to your
mind anything like an appreciation, either of the significance of the
movement which the National Union commenced at Birmingham in October
last, or of the unfortunate effect which a neglect or a repression
of that movement by the leaders of the party would have upon the
Conservative cause. The resolution of the Conference at Birmingham . . .
signified that the old methods of party organisation, namely, the
control of parliamentary elections, by the leader, the whip, the paid
agent drawing their resources from secret funds, which were suitable to
the manipulation of the ten pound householder were utterly obsolete and
would not secure the confidence of the masses of the people who were
enfranchised by Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill. . . . The delegates at the
Conference were evidently of opinion that . . . the organisation of the
party would have to become an imitation . . . of the Birmingham Caucus.
The Caucus may be, perhaps, a name of evil sound and omen in the ears of
aristocratic and privileged classes, but it is undeniably the only form
of political organisation which can collect, guide, and control for
common objects, large masses of electors. . . . It appeared at first,
from a letter which we had the honour of receiving from you on the 29th
February, that your Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote entered fully
and sympathetically into the wishes of the Council.[550:1] . . . The
Council, however, committed the serious error of imagining that your
Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote were in earnest, in wishing them to
become a real source of usefulness to the party. . . . The Council have
been rudely undeceived . . . the precise language of your former letter
of the 29th February is totally abandoned, and refuge taken in vague,
foggy, and utterly intangible suggestions. Finally, in order that the
Council of the National Union may be completely and for ever reduced to
its ancient condition of dependence upon, and servility to certain
irresponsible persons who find favour in your eyes, you demand that the
whips of the party, . . . should sit _ex officio_ on the Council. . . .
It may be that the powerful and secret influences which have hitherto
been unsuccessfully at work on the Council with the knowledge and
consent of your Lordship and Sir Stafford Northcote, may at last be
effectual in reducing the National Union to its former make-believe and
impotent condition; in that case we shall know what steps to take to
clear ourselves of all responsibility for the failure of an attempt to
avert the misfortunes and reverses which will, we are certain, under the
present effete system of wire-pulling and secret organisation, overtake
and attend the Conservative party at a general election."
A copy of the letter was read to the Council the next day, when a motion
was made regretting its disrespectful and improper tone, and declining
to accept any responsibility for it. This was defeated by a vote of
nineteen to thirteen, and then an executive committee was appointed to
carry out the recommendations in the report.
[Sidenote: Negotiations Reopened,]
It might be supposed that after receiving a letter of that kind Lord
Salisbury would have had no more to do with Lord Randolph Churchill
forever, and would have refused to hold further communication with the
Council; but politics makes strange bedfellows, especially in a
parliamentary form of government. Lord Salisbury could not afford to
alienate a body which represented a considerable fraction of the
Conservatives in the country; while it would have been folly for Lord
Randolph to burn the bridges behind him. Negotiations were, therefore,
opened through a third person, very nearly on the lines of Lord
Salisbury's letter of April 1, except that three thousand pounds a year
were to be paid to the National Union; and an understanding was nearly
reached, when an event took place which broke it off for a time.
[Sidenote: and Interrupted.]
Mr. J. M. Maclean, one of Lord Randolph's supporters in the Council,
whose object had been simply to supplant Sir Stafford Northcote, became
alarmed lest the movement might result in supplanting Lord Salisbury
also, or might cause a real breach in the party. Not being aware of the
pending negotiations, he moved at a meeting of the Council on May 2 the
appointment of a committee to confer with the Central Committee in order
to secure harmony and united action.[552:1] Although letters were read
showing that steps already taken would probably lead to an
understanding, and although Lord Randolph told Mr. Maclean that he
should regard the motion as one of want of confidence, the latter
persisted, and, as several of Lord Randolph's friends were absent,
carried his proposal by a vote of seventeen to thirteen. Lord Randolph
then resigned as chairman of the Council; but his popularity in the
country was great, and there was a widespread feeling of regret at a
quarrel among influential members of the party. A conference of chairmen
of the Conservative associations in eight of the chief provincial towns
acted as peacemaker. It drew up a memorandum regretting the lack of
harmony, suggested an arrangement very similar to that almost reached in
the negotiations recently broken off, and submitted that if these
suggestions were accepted Lord Randolph should withdraw his resignation.
[Sidenote: A Truce Effected.]
The memorandum was laid before the Council at a meeting on May 16, and
Lord Randolph was unanimously reëlected chairman. At the same meeting,
the committee, composed mainly of Lord Randolph's opponents, which had
been appointed to confer with the Central Committee, reported that they
had effected an agreement. Again the terms were almost precisely the
ones indicated by Lord Salisbury in his letter of April 1, save for the
payment of three thousand pounds a year to the Union.[552:2] Coming from
this source it is not surprising that they were unsatisfactory to Lord
Randolph's friends, and they were referred back for further
consideration to the committee reënforced by new members. A month
elapsed, and at a meeting on June 13 the committee reported that they
had suggested some changes, which the leaders would not accept.[553:1]
The matter was again recommitted, but finally on June 27, the committee
reported that they had made an agreement on the lines of the earlier
plan, and this was adopted as it stood.
Except for a moderate annual subsidy, Lord Randolph Churchill had really
obtained nothing for the National Union.[553:2] Personally he had become
the leading figure of what purported to be the great representative
organisation of the party, for the chairman of the Council was the most
important officer in the Union; but the position of the organisation
itself remained substantially unchanged. The agreement that had been
reached was, however, merely a truce, and both sides canvassed eagerly
the delegates to the approaching Conference, each hoping for a decisive
victory that would give undisputed control of the Council.
[Sidenote: The Conference at Sheffield.]
The Conference of the National Union for 1884 met at Sheffield on July
23. It was unusually well attended, with some four hundred and fifty
delegates in the hall, representing two hundred and thirty-four
associations. In his speech on presenting the report of the Council Lord
Randolph described the dissensions that had occurred, and begged the
delegates to elect members who would support one side or the other. His
object, he said, had been to establish a bona fide popular organisation,
bringing its influence to bear right up to the centre of affairs, so
that the Tory party might be a self-governing party; but as yet this had
been successfully thwarted by those who possessed influence. The speech
was followed by a fierce debate, ending, of course, in the adoption of
the report. The real interest of the meeting centred in the ballot for
the Council, and before that began a change was made in the method of
election. Instead of choosing twenty-four members, and allowing them to
add twelve more to their number, a resolution was adopted, whereby all
thirty-six were elected directly by the Conference, thus making the
ballot there conclusive upon the complexion of the Council. Judging from
the action of the Conference on certain minor questions of organisation,
and from the size of Lord Randolph's personal vote for the Council, he
had the sympathy of a majority of the delegates; but they did not, as he
had hoped, divide on a sharp line for one side or the other. Lord
Randolph himself received 346 votes, while the next highest on the list,
although his supporter, received only 298. When, however, the result was
announced, his friends formed only a small majority on the Council.
[Sidenote: Lord Randolph Makes his Peace and Abandons the Union.]
Lord Randolph Churchill had won a victory; but a victory that was little
better than a drawn battle. His own reëlection as chairman was assured,
and for the moment he controlled the Council, but his control would be
neither undisputed nor certain to endure. He could use the Union in a
way that would be highly uncomfortable for Lord Salisbury, but he had
not captured it so completely that he could do with it as he pleased.
Again it was for the interest of both sides to make peace, and the
negotiations were completed in a few days. The Central Committee was in
form abolished; the Primrose League, recently founded by the Fourth
Party, was recognised by the leaders; Lord Randolph withdrew from the
chairmanship of the Council; and mutual confidence and harmony of action
were restored. These appear to have been the nominal conditions.[555:1]
Whether the real terms were ever definitely stated, or were merely left
in the shape of a tacit understanding, it is at present impossible to
say. The practical upshot was that the Fourth Party was broken up; Lord
Randolph abandoned the National Union to its fate, acted in concert with
the parliamentary leaders, and was given a seat in the cabinet when the
Conservatives next came to power. The reconciliation was sealed by a
dinner given by Lord Salisbury to the Council of the Union.
[Sidenote: His Later Career.]
The subsequent career of Lord Randolph Churchill may be told in a few
words. In the reorganisation of the Union he took no part, and, indeed,
he ceased before long to attend the meetings of the Council altogether.
But when Lord Salisbury formed a ministry in June, 1885, he was offered
the post of Secretary of State for India, with a seat in the cabinet. He
made it a condition of acceptance that Sir Stafford Northcote should
cease to lead in the House of Commons. Lord Salisbury, who had been
hitherto loyal to Sir Stafford, hesitated, but at last the old statesman
was transferred to the oblivion of the House of Lords, and Sir Michael
Hicks-Beach took his place as leader of the Commons. Lord Randolph's
success had been extraordinary, but he was destined to reach even
greater eminence in the near future. The Home Rule Bill, in the session
of 1886, gave him a chance to increase his reputation as a debater, and
when the general elections following the rejection of that bill brought
a new Conservative government into office, he was given the position of
Chancellor of the Exchequer with the leadership of the House of Commons.
His popularity in the country was greater than ever; his appearance on
the platform at a Conference of the National Union, on Oct. 26, 1886,
"was the signal for a tremendous outburst of long-sustained
cheering,"[555:2] and addresses were presented to him from several
hundred associations. But he overestimated his personal power, and is
commonly supposed to have thought that one more quarrel would leave him
master of the party. His battle-ground was unfortunately chosen, for he
took his stand in the cabinet for a reduction of the army and navy
estimates, at a time when the national desire for economy was on the
wane. His colleagues did not agree with him, and on Dec. 20 he tendered
his resignation to the Prime Minister. He was apparently confident of
coming out victorious; but Mr. Goshen, a Liberal Unionist, took his
place, and the government went on without him.[556:1] He failed to
realise that a conflict in 1884 with the leaders of the Conservative
party in the Houses of Parliament, two men neither of whom had yet
proved his capacity to be at the head of the cabinet or won the full
confidence of the country, was a very different thing from a quarrel in
1886 with the government of the nation, at a time when it stood in the
eyes of the majority of the people as the bulwark against disunion. His
miscalculation was fatal, and during the few years of his life that were
left he never regained a position of political importance.
[Sidenote: Reconstruction of the National Union.]
Meanwhile the National Union underwent a transformation. The leaders of
the party were determined that it should not be captured again, or used
to force their hand. But any changes must be made without losing the
semblance of a democratic organisation; and, in fact, it was believed
that if the Union were in reality broadly popular it would be more
inclined to follow the leaders of the party, and less easily captured,
than if it represented only a fraction of the local associations. In
this respect the position bore some resemblance to that of the National
Liberal Federation after the Home Rule struggle a year later. The time
was propitious for reconstructing the Union, because the redistribution
act of 1885 had marked off the constituencies on new lines, and thus
involved the formation of many of the local associations afresh. It is
interesting to note that the changes provoked no struggle between those
elements in the Union which had recently been in conflict; and, indeed,
the dissensions ceased with the withdrawal of Lord Randolph Churchill.
[Sidenote: The First Changes; 1885.]
The first alterations, made in 1885, were designed merely to give the
Union a broader basis, and the Council a more representative character.
The most important provision was that every Conservative association
should be affiliated without the need of any formal action. The Union
thus came to be a really national party organisation in a way that it
had never been before, the report for 1887 stating that the affiliated
associations numbered 1100. The changes of 1885 did not affect seriously
the structure of the Union, or its relation to the whip's office, but
these questions were taken up at once by three men. One of them was Sir
Albert Rollit, who drafted and carried through a new set of rules.
Another was Captain Middleton, who devised the scheme on which those
rules were based. He was appointed principal agent of the party in 1885,
and in 1886 was made honorary secretary of the Union. He continued to
hold both positions until 1903, and so far as the success of the
Conservatives at the polls during the period of their ascendency was the
result of political organisation, it was due to him more than to any one
else. The third was Mr. Southall, who became in 1886, and has ever since
remained, the secretary of the Union. His constant coöperation with
Captain Middleton removed the severe friction that had existed between
the Union and the whip's office, and enabled them to work in perfect
harmony.
[Sidenote: The New Organisation.]
The new rules were adopted at a special conference held in May, 1886, at
which more than six hundred delegates were present. Slightly modified so
far as the National Union itself is concerned in 1887, and as regards
the divisional unions in 1888, 1889, and 1890, they remained in force
until 1906; and hence they governed the organisation of the Conservative
party during the period of greatest and longest prosperity that it has
known since the Reform Act of 1832. They recite that the objects of the
Union are: to form a centre of united action, communication, and
coöperation, among associations; to promote the organisation of
associations; to spread Conservative principles; and to enable
associations to give expression to Conservative feeling by petitions and
resolutions. They provide that the chief association of each
constituency in England and Wales shall be a member of the Union without
payment, while any other association or club with fifty members may be
admitted on paying one guinea a year;[558:1] and that any person may be
admitted as an honorary member or vice-president on payment of a sum
appropriate to those dignities.[558:2] The Conference was made to
consist of the officers and honorary members, and of delegates from
subscribing associations, from the ten new divisional unions, and from
the chief organisations of Scotland and Ireland.[558:3] The Council was
composed of the president and trustees; of one of the whips, and the
principal agent of the party; of twenty-one members elected by the
Conference; and of the chairman and three representatives elected by
each of the divisional unions.
[Sidenote: The Ten Divisional Unions.]
Within the National Union, which included only England and Wales, there
were created ten new territorial divisions; and a provincial or
divisional union consisted of all the members of the National Union,
whether associations or individuals, within that division. It had its
annual meeting corresponding to the Conference, and its council.[559:1]
In fact, it was intended to be a miniature of the National Union itself,
with similar structure and functions.
The mechanism of the National Union, and its subordinate branches, looks
formidable; but it has not proved in practice so complex as it appears.
The principal change was the creation of the provincial or divisional
unions, which were interposed between the local associations and the
central Conference and Council. The object in creating them was said to
be the development of local effort as essential to the success of the
party. Representation, it was pointed out, thus passed by graduated
steps from the individual elector, through the branch or district
associations and clubs, and through the central associations in each
constituency to the provincial councils, to be summed up in the
Conference and Council of the whole Union.[559:2] Perhaps the words
"strained" or "filtered" would, better than "passed," have signified the
real intention, for the divisional unions were designed as a safeguard
against popular caprice and personal ambition. They were expected to act
like water-tight compartments, as it was believed that all ten divisions
would not go mad at once, and that any man would find it very hard to
capture enough of them, one at a time, to control the Union. They did
not, however, develop any vigorous life of their own, and have not had
corporate solidity enough to maintain separate deliberative bodies. The
annual meetings have been little more than an occasion for an address by
the president. In short, the divisions did not turn out to be of much
consequence as a basis for representative party gatherings.
[Sidenote: Concentration of Power.]
Although the divisions did not prove important from a deliberative point
of view, they have had a very distinct value for administrative
purposes, and have been distinctly convenient as districts for the
spread of Conservative doctrines. Moreover, they have furnished a means
for controlling the party from headquarters, and a channel through which
it could be kept in touch with the whip's office. This was darkly hinted
at when, on behalf of the committee that framed the new rules, a hope
was expressed that "In your local associations, in the provincial
unions, and in the National Union, and with the help also of the
principal whip and the principal agent of the party, you will have a
chain of assistance, experience and authority, which will bind together
our party." One of the whips and the principal agent of the party were,
indeed, given seats _ex officio_ not only upon the Council of the
National Union itself, but both upon the Council and the Executive
Committee of each of its divisions. This was, of course, part of the
"chain of assistance, experience and authority which will bind together
our party."
Another provision in the rules relating to the divisional unions has
also proved important in this respect. It is one that contemplated the
employment as divisional secretary of a sub-agent of the central office
without cost. By doing this the division saved both salary and rent;
while the principal agent, who represented the leaders and the whips,
had in the secretary an agent selected and paid by him. The relation was
the more useful because the habit of changing every year the president
of the divisional union, and the chairman of its council, prevented any
one from acquiring a large influence, except the secretary, who was
permanent. The arrangement was made in most of the divisions. Even where
it was not, the secretary acted as though he were a subordinate of
Captain Middleton, and being in constant communication with the local
agents, he could give information about political matters throughout his
division, thus keeping the principal agent in touch with the whole
organisation of the party. Personally popular and tactful, Captain
Middleton was enabled by his relation to the divisional agents, by
close coöperation with the National Union, with the Conservative clubs,
and with other ancillary bodies, to draw all the threads of the
Conservative organisation into his office without provoking jealousy, or
appearing to exert more power than naturally belonged to his office. The
result was that while he held the place of principal agent the
Conservative organisation was a highly efficient administrative machine,
working in perfect harmony with the leaders.
[Sidenote: Resolutions on Political Questions]
Any popular party organisation in England involves two dangers, one
personal and the other political; one that a man may use it for selfish
purposes; the other that it may force upon the leaders a policy which
they were not prepared to adopt. We have seen how this second peril
actually confronted the Liberal Ministry in the form of the Newcastle
Programme, and how it was met by muzzling the Council of the National
Liberal Federation. In the National Union the difficulty has been solved
in a very different way. Until 1885 the Conference passed no resolutions
on general policy, save in the form of expressing confidence in the
leaders, or congratulating them on their exploits; but in that year,
when an effort was made to give to the Union the appearance of a free
popular organisation, confessions of faith on current politics began.
Resolutions of this kind soon became numerous and included demands to
which the Conservative leaders could not assent, such as woman suffrage,
and fair trade, that is, protection in a modified form.[561:1]
[Sidenote: are Free;]
But, except for occasional cases where a delegate was persuaded to
withdraw his motion, or where it was shelved by the previous question on
the ground that a vote on the subject would be impolitic, no attempt has
been made by the managers to fetter the free expression of opinion. The
Conservative leaders, however, made it clear almost at once that they
did not take the action of the Conference very seriously. In 1887 it
adopted resolutions in favour of fair trade, woman suffrage, and
reforms in the tenure and sale of Church livings; but although Lord
Salisbury, then Prime Minister, in a public speech immediately afterward
said, "More and more in this day political leading and the making of
political opinion must be a matter of local effort," and although he
referred to agricultural distress, and the forthcoming budget, he made
no allusion to fair trade, or for that matter to woman suffrage or
Church livings.[562:1] There was, at first, no doubt, some dread of the
effect the resolutions might have on the public, and on several
occasions the chairman called attention to the fact that among the
delegates were men connected with the press, warning them not to report
the proceedings.[562:2] At one time, in fact, an unofficial proposal was
made to forbid the passing of resolutions altogether. In 1889 a delegate
moved that although general questions of policy might be discussed, no
vote should in future be taken upon them. The fair trade resolution of
1887, which had provoked criticism, was referred to, and several
gentlemen said they wished to prevent a repetition of that incident. The
matter was referred to the Council, which reported in the following year
that they had considered both this suggestion and another that no
resolution should be placed upon the agenda without the consent of the
Council; but that they had decided to recommend no change in the rules,
except an increase in the number of days prior to the Conference that
notice of a motion must be sent in. They went even further, and advised
that reporters for the press should be admitted to the meetings, which
was done forthwith.
[Sidenote: but are Ignored.]
The proceedings at the Conference of the National Union are thus quite
free. Any delegate or other member has a right, on giving the prescribed
notice, to prepare a resolution on any subject, and amendments can be
moved upon the spot. The result has been a large number of declarations
of opinion on public questions, not always consistent or unopposed. A
resolution in favour of woman suffrage was adopted in 1887, 1891, and
1894, and then defeated in 1897 by a substantial majority. The action of
the Conference is not fettered; it is ignored. Some great nobleman
presides, and one of the party leaders usually addresses a public
meeting in the evening; but statesmen of the first rank take no part in
the regular proceedings, which have, therefore, no political weight.
[Sidenote: The Fiscal Question.]
A proof of the small importance attached to the votes is furnished by
the history of the movement for fair trade or preferential tariffs.
Resolutions in favour of such a policy were passed over and over again,
but they did not bring the question even within the range of active
political issues until Mr. Chamberlain made his speech on the subject to
his constituents at Birmingham in the spring of 1903. The meeting of the
Conference at Sheffield in the following October then awoke a real
interest; and yet the proceedings at that very meeting show how the
National Union shrank from a decided stand at a critical moment. The
situation was extraordinary. Mr. Chamberlain had taken his stand for a
preferential tariff in favour of the colonies, including a duty on
grain, and had recently resigned from the cabinet to advocate his views
more freely before the country; while other ministers had resigned
because they could not abandon the principle of free trade. Mr. Balfour
had expressed no definite opinion, and was expected to make a statement
on the subject at a public meeting after the close of the first day's
session of the Union. Under these circumstances a resolution was placed
upon the agenda which stated the need for reconsidering the fiscal
system, thanked the Prime Minister for instituting an inquiry on the
subject, and welcomed the policy of retaliatory tariffs he had
foreshadowed. To this Mr. Chaplin moved a rider favouring explicitly Mr.
Chamberlain's views; while Sir John Gorst stood ready to move another
against any protective duty on food. During the afternoon the fiscal
question was hotly debated, and, judging by the way the free trade
speakers were interrupted, a large majority of those present must have
agreed with Mr. Chamberlain's opinions; but in order not to pass a vote
before hearing the Prime Minister, the debate was adjourned until the
following day.
In the evening Mr. Balfour declared himself in favour of a retaliatory
tariff as a means of commercial bargaining with other nations, but said
that a tax on food was not within the limits of practical politics. When
the debate was resumed the next morning, Mr. Chaplin withdrew his rider,
on the ground that it might look like a resolution hostile to the Prime
Minister; and Sir John Gorst said that Mr. Balfour's statement was so
far satisfactory that he should make no motion. Thus the sharp
differences of opinion that seethed in the Conference were calmed on the
surface, and the original resolution was adopted unanimously, only a
couple of staunch free traders abstaining from the vote. If ever an
English political organisation had a chance to determine the policy of
the party it was on this occasion, and a decisive majority was
undoubtedly on Mr. Chaplin's side. Yet this Conference which had often
voted for fair trade when the ministers would have none of it, shrank
from saying what it thought when the ministers were undecided. A
stronger proof could hardly be found that the National Union is
powerless to direct the policy of the party.
[Sidenote: The Organisation Breaks Down after 1903.]
Although the popular character of the National Union was unreal, as
regards both administrative machinery and the formulation of political
opinion, the system worked well so long as the Conservatives were in the
ascendent, and Captain Middleton remained in control. But he had
concentrated the whole management so completely in his own hands that
the machinery could not run smoothly of itself after he retired in 1903.
His successor, instead of consulting the officers of the Union,
proceeded as if the Central Office was all-powerful, and thus lost touch
with the Union and the local associations. Moreover, the sub-agents in
some of the divisions were not wisely chosen, and caused friction rather
than harmony in the party. Complaints became loud, and found expression
at the meeting of the Conference at Newcastle in November, 1905, where
a resolution was adopted "that in the opinion of this Conference the
management of the Central Conservative Association in London is
defective, and needs revising; and for this purpose a popularly elected
committee should be appointed to coöperate with the Conservative Whips."
The principal agent thereupon resigned; and the resolution of the
Conference, followed by the disastrous defeat at the general election in
the January following, led to another reorganisation of the party in
1906.
When a ministry that has been in power is beaten at the polls, much of
the blame is always laid at the door of the party organisation, and a
cry is raised for its reform upon a more democratic basis. The movement
on this occasion is interesting enough to merit a little study, because
it furnishes the latest illustration of the way a demand for popular
control within the party is constantly cropping up in England, and of
the obstacles that it meets. As in earlier cases, the party machinery
was not so largely responsible as some people asserted. Still it had
fallen out of repair. Besides the dislocation at headquarters, the local
associations had been neglected in many places; many Tory members of
Parliament having come to feel that the country was normally
Conservative, and that their own seats were safe, had done little or
nothing to keep the local organisations in working order; while for a
time some associations had not dared to meet, knowing that any
discussion would bring to light sharp differences of opinion on the
question of fiscal policy.
[Sidenote: Changes of 1906.]
The election of January, 1906, was no sooner over than the whips and the
officers of the National Union set to work to overhaul the party
machinery. In the first place they created an advisory committee of
seven persons, charged, indeed, with no executive powers, but with the
duty of advising the whip, and thus keeping the leaders in touch with
the currents of opinion in the party. The committee consisted of the
chief whip, three persons selected by him, and three chosen by the
National Union.[566:1] In the second place they transferred a number of
functions from the Central Office to the Union, together with a staff of
clerks to carry them out, and a grant of money from the funds to defray
the expense; the most important function so transferred being the entire
supervision of local organisations, the supply of speakers over the
country, and the publication of party literature, the last two of these
having been hitherto only to a very small extent in the hands of the
Union. They worked out also a plan for changes in the organisation of
the National Union itself, which were discussed and adopted at a special
conference in London.
[Sidenote: The Conference in July.]
The Conference met on July 27; and after a unanimous vote in favour of
the fiscal policy of the party leaders had been passed, an attack was
made upon the Central Office in the form of a motion that it ought to be
brought under more effective popular control. The supporters of the
motion pointed out that in the new advisory committee the
representatives of the National Union were in a minority; that the
committee had authority merely to tender advice; and that even this
function did not extend to party finance, to the recommendation of
candidates for Parliament, or to patronage of any kind. They repeated
the charge, familiar even before the days of Lord Randolph Churchill,
that the party was a democracy managed by aristocratic methods, that the
leaders ought to trust it more and suspect it less, and that the Central
Office had not its confidence. In short the demand was the old one for a
more popular control of the party machinery. Sir Alexander Acland-Hood,
the chief whip, met it by stating frankly that the finances were a
delicate and confidential matter, which must be in the hands of one man;
and--referring to the new advisory body of seven--he said that it would
be disastrous to have the party managed by a committee. The party could
stand many things, but in his judgment it could not stand a caucus.
Policy must, he said, be initiated by the leaders; no leader and no whip
would submit to anything else. Although the demand for greater popular
control had been greeted with applause, it was evident that the
prevailing sentiment of the meeting was with the chief whip, and the
motion was finally withdrawn; not, however, without an intimation that
it would be renewed in the near future.
[Sidenote: The New Rules of 1906.]
The special Conference then went on to debate and adopt the new set of
rules, the most important change involved being the enlargement of the
Central Council by the direct representation thereon of the counties and
boroughs, the former in the proportion of one member for every fifty
thousand voters, the latter in that of one for every twenty-five
thousand. This, it was thought, would make the body more truly
representative, by freeing it both from the control of a small group of
men, and from the tendency of every annual Conference to choose persons
whose names were known in the part of the country where the Conference
happened to meet.[567:1] The only other change of importance related to
the provincial divisions. These were made more elastic by a provision
that any one or more counties might be erected into a separate division.
Their internal organisation was also remodelled; and the arrangement for
furnishing sub-agents of the Central Office as their secretaries, free
of charge, was abolished, partly because it had ceased to work
smoothly, and partly because many members of the Union felt that it kept
them in leading strings.[568:1] The discussion of the divisional
councils brought up an interesting question. By the rules of the
National Union honorary members had already a right to attend the
Conference without votes;[568:2] and by the new rules they were given
full membership in the councils of the provincial divisions. When
strenuous objection was made to this as undemocratic, a delegate replied
that if money was the root of all evil, it was also the source of all
power; and that in order to get money it was necessary to do something
for the men who gave it. The clause was the subject of the only vote at
the Conference close enough to require a count, and the new provision
was adopted by 148 to 103. In other respects the existing rules, though
much changed in detail, were not altered in their essential
features.[568:3]
[Sidenote: Their Probable Effect.]
The new arrangements have increased the functions of the National Union,
while the enlargement of the Council will, no doubt, change its method
of work, and may possibly make it more useful as an organ for
interpreting the feelings of the party. But it is highly improbable that
these things will cause any substantial change in the relation of the
organisation to the leaders in Parliament. There are still several means
of controlling the Union, and preventing it from getting out of hand.
One of these is furnished by the party war chest, or campaign fund, over
which Lord Randolph Churchill tried in vain to get a large share of
control. It is disbursed by the Central Office, and its distribution
holds many constituencies in a state of more or less dependence.
Then again, even in the last reorganisation, the recommendation of
candidates for Parliament to places seeking for them has been retained
under the exclusive control of the Central Office, instead of being
allowed to pass into the hands of the National Union; and this is in
itself no small source of power. As a further security against capture
of the Union, the practice was established in 1889 of changing the
chairman of the Council every year, so that no one could acquire
influence enough to be dangerous. Moreover, fidelity upon the Council
has often brought its reward in the form of a seat in Parliament, or of
a baronetcy. So far these various precautions have been effective. Since
1884 no one has attempted to get control of the Union for his personal
advantage. Certainly the capture of the organisation has been made more
difficult than it was formerly, but it would be rash to predict that it
is altogether impossible. Nor would it be safe to say that the Union
will never embarrass the leaders by laying down a definite course of
policy and insisting that the leaders should adopt it; this, however,
never has happened, and there appears no more reason to expect it in the
future than in the past.
The National Unions both in England and Scotland[569:1] have very
important functions, which they perform with great efficiency; but they
are really electioneering bodies. Their work is to promote local
organisation, to arouse interest, to propagate Conservative doctrines,
and this they do exceedingly well by means of departments for the
publication of party literature and for providing lecturers. The English
Union has established also a political library in London, which collects
a large amount of information, including the speeches and records of all
the leading men in public life. But as organs for the popular control of
the party, for formulating opinion, and for ascertaining and giving
effect to the wishes of the rank and file, these bodies are mere
pretences. Both the National Liberal Federation and the National Union
of Conservative Associations have been sources of anxiety to the party
leaders, but for the time, at least, both have been made harmless. The
process in each case has not been the same, although the results are not
unlike. Both are shams, but with this difference that the Conservative
organisation is a transparent, and the Liberal an opaque, sham.
FOOTNOTES:
[535:1] The reports of the first three Conferences are found only in the
manuscript minutes of proceedings. Reports of the fourth to the ninth
Conference inclusive were printed. Since that time only the reports of
the Council and the programmes for the Conferences have been published.
[535:2] In the original constitution it was to meet every third year in
London, but this was changed in 1868. It will be observed that the
Conference corresponds to the Council of the National Liberal
Federation; and the Council, although a much smaller body, to the
General Committee of the Federation.
[537:1] _Cf._ Statement made at first Conference, 1868, and Rep. of the
Council at the Conference of 1875.
[537:2] _Cf._ Leaflet No. 1, 1876.
[537:3] Manuscript minutes, p. 57.
[537:4] Rep. of the Conference of 1873.
[537:5] Rep. of the Council for 1871. He held the post of principal
agent through the general election of 1874 which his efforts helped much
to win. In 1881 he took the position again, and at that time was made a
vice-chairman of the Council so as to bring the Union into coöperation
with the whips' office. (Rep. of the Council for 1881.)
[539:1] Punch made the expression the subject of a cartoon.
[539:2] Curiously enough he suggested one principle which has only
recently been taken up seriously by Conservative leaders. Among the
three great objects of the party he placed the upholding of the empire,
and in speaking of this he said that when self-government was given to
the colonies, it ought to have been with provisions for an imperial
tariff, common defence, and some representative council in London.
[539:3] Rep. of Conference of 1878. But many of the local associations
may have been branches with less than one hundred members, and therefore
not admissible under the rules.
[539:4] The need of a reorganisation of the party on a more popular
basis was afterward urged by Mr. Gorst and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff in
an article entitled "The State of the Opposition," _Fortnightly Review_,
November, 1882.
[540:1] _E.g._, by Dr. Evans. Rep. of Conference of 1878.
[540:2] "Lord Randolph Churchill," I., 69.
[541:1] The best accounts of the Fourth Party are to be found in Winston
Churchill's "Life of Lord Randolph Churchill," I., Ch. iii., and in
three articles by Harold E. Gorst entitled "The Story of the Fourth
Party" in the _Nineteenth Century_ for November, and December, 1902 and
January, 1903, afterward republished as a book. These accounts are
written by the sons of two of the members of the group, and may be taken
to express the views of those two members.
[544:1] These words are taken from the manuscript report of the
Conference in the records of the National Union. The language is more
brief, and differs in unimportant details from that quoted in Winston
Churchill's life of Lord Randolph.
[545:1] A motion was also carried unanimously requesting the Council to
consider a method of electing its members, such that the associations
might be represented upon it by delegates.
[547:1] These two letters do not appear in the report of the Council,
but are quoted by Mr. Winston Churchill.
[548:1] Winston Churchill, "Lord Randolph Churchill," I., 318.
[549:1] "It appears to us that these objects may be defined to be the
same as those for which the Associations themselves are working. The
chief object for which the Associations exist is to keep alive and
extend Conservative convictions, and so to increase the number of
Conservative voters. This is done by acting on opinion through various
channels; by the establishment of clubs, by holding meetings, by
securing the assistance of speakers and lecturers, and by the
circulation of printed matter in defence of Conservative opinions, by
collecting the facts required for the use of Conservative speakers and
writers, and by the invigoration of the local press.
"In all these efforts it is the function of the Council of the National
Union to aid, stimulate and guide the Associations it represents.
"Much valuable work may also be done through the Associations, by
watching the registration and, at election time, by providing volunteer
canvassers and volunteer conveyance."
This letter and the reply to it are printed in full in Winston
Churchill's "Lord Randolph Churchill," I., App. II.
[550:1] Here follows a rehearsal of the functions Lord Salisbury had
ascribed to the Council, which are pronounced to have been clear,
definite, and satisfactory. The assurance with which they are assumed to
mean something quite different from what his Lordship must have intended
is one of the marvellous things about the affair.
[552:1] Maclean's own account of the matter is given in his
"Recollections of Westminster and India," 68-79.
[552:2] The terms were briefly as follows:--
1. The two bodies to occupy the same offices.
2. The Union to attend to the formation and maintenance of local
associations. The agents of the Central Committee to assist in this and
report to the Union through the principal agent.
3. Parliamentary elections, the recommendation of candidates, and
questions of general policy, to be outside the province of the Union.
4. The Union to publish literature as it may desire, and to provide
speakers.
5. The Council to help the party leaders to organise public meetings,
and circulate pamphlets.
6. The Central Committee to allot a sum of money to be paid annually to
the Union.
7. The chief whip and the principal agent to have seats on the Council,
and the chief whip to sit on all committees.
8. If the chief whip thinks any action of the Union inconsistent with
the welfare of party, the matter to be referred to the leaders for
decision.
9. The leaders of the party to appoint one or two members of the Council
on the Central Committee.
It may be observed that this arrangement gave the leaders of the party
more formal power of control over the Union than ever.
[553:1] The changes were the omission of Nos. 1 and 9; and that the
chief whip should have merely a right to be present at all the
committees, instead of being a member of them.
[553:2] Mr. Winston Churchill (I., 324, 331) and Mr. Ostrogorski
attribute a larger measure of success to Lord Randolph, but that opinion
seems to me inconsistent with the correspondence, the reports of the
committees and the proceedings of the Council, which are set forth in
the printed report laid before the next Conference.
[555:1] Winston Churchill, "Lord Randolph Churchill," I., 356-59.
[555:2] _The Times_ of Oct. 27, 1886, p. 6, c. 3.
[556:1] Mr. Winston Churchill's account of the occurrence is extremely
interesting; but the motives he attributes to his father do not seem
wholly consistent with one another.
[558:1] For workingmen's clubs with less than one hundred members the
fee is only half as large.
[558:2] The sums required for these offices are the same as when the
Union was originally formed. The subscriptions from associations go one
half each to the National and divisional unions; those of individuals go
wholly to the divisional union except in the case of life payments,
which are made to the National Union, one half of the interest being
paid over to the division.
[558:3] To these the principal paid agent, or secretary, in each English
or Welsh constituency was added in 1892. This has not been a matter of
much importance, because few of them can afford to attend.
[559:1] All the Conservative members of Parliament for constituencies in
the division were given the right to attend the annual meeting, and were
made members of the Council.
[559:2] Rep. of the Council, October, 1886.
[561:1] These were both passed in 1887 and at intervals thereafter.
[562:1] _The Times_, Nov. 24, 1887.
[562:2] _E.g._ Rep. of the Conference in October, 1886.
[566:1] In the original plan these were to be chosen by the Council; but
at the special Conference in July it was agreed that they should be
elected at the annual Conference.
[567:1] Under the new rules the Central Council--previously called
simply the Council--consists of the president and trustees of the
National Union; the chief whip and the principal agent of the party; one
representative for every fifty thousand voters, or fraction thereof, in
each county, chosen at the meeting of the provincial division by the
delegates of the county thereat; one representative for every complete
twenty-five thousand voters in each parliamentary borough that contains
so many, chosen by the central council of the borough; twenty-one
members elected annually by the Conference; the chairman, honorary
secretary, and two representatives from the National Society of
Conservative Agents; one representative from each of the eight local
associations of Conservative agents; and two representatives apiece from
the Association of Conservative Clubs, the National Conservative League,
and the United Club. The Council as thus enlarged contains nearly two
hundred members.
[568:1] Opinion on this question was by no means unanimous. One or two
divisions wanted to retain the former system on the score of economy,
and the chief whip agreed to allow them to do so for a time.
[568:2] Rule V.
[568:3] By the new rules the Conference consists of the officers of the
Union, and the members of the Central Council; of the honorary members
of the Union, who have, however, no vote; of the Conservative members of
both Houses of Parliament; of the officers of each provincial division;
of the chairman, the paid agent, and three representatives of the
central association in each constituency; of one representative for each
subscribing association or club; and of twenty representatives apiece
from Scotland and Ireland.
[569:1]
[Sidenote: The Caucus is Largely a Sham.]
[Sidenote: The Scotch National Union.]
The Union hitherto described covers England and Wales alone, although
the Scotch and Irish organisations are entitled to send to the
Conference twenty delegates apiece. North of the Tweed there is a
separate National Union of Conservative Associations for Scotland. It is
a copy of the English body, but except for the twenty delegates is
entirely independent. It has a conference which adopts resolutions as
ineffective as those passed farther south. It has six territorial
divisions; but, owing to the fact that Scotland is in the main Liberal,
several of these are not very vigorous, and do not raise money enough to
have councils of their own. All the divisions are very much under the
control of the Central Council of the Scotch Union, to which they send
their reports for approval. They are, indeed, largely ornamental.
But if the National Union for Scotland is independent of the English
Union it is by no means free from the influence of the whip's office.
The party agent for Scotland, who has a right to attend--although
without a vote--all meetings of the central and divisional councils and
their committees, is appointed by the principal agent in London, and,
like the secretaries of the divisions in England, is practically his
subordinate. In this way the whip and the principal agent, acting
through the agent for Scotland and the local agents, and fortified by
subsidies at election times, maintain a real control over the whole
party organisation throughout the kingdom.
By the Right Hon. JAMES BRYCE, D.C.L.
The American Commonwealth
_Third Edition, revised throughout, after many reprintings._
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Abridged Edition of James Bryce's
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Being an introduction to the study of the Government and Institutions of
the United States for the use of colleges and high schools.
_In one crown 8vo volume, $1.75 net_
"The greatest historical work of the age."--_Times._
The Cambridge
Modern History
Planned by the late LORD ACTON, LL.D., Regius Professor of Modern
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TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:
The following corrections have been made to the text:
Page 122: adds, also, his own comments wherever[original has
where-ever hyphenated across a line break]
Page 141: true that the problem[original has probem] has been
one
Page 146: but be capable of reëlection[original has
re-election hyphenated across a line break]
Page 235: [Sidenote: Merits of the Election Courts.[period
missing in original]]
Page 240: loses his seat, but can be reëlected[original has
re-elected hyphenated across a line break]
Page 251: desires to emphasise its freedom[original has
freeedom]
Page 295: without further amendment or debate.[original has
comma]
Page 327: evening sittings reserved for private[original has
privae] members' motions
Page 376: [Sidenote: The Committee[original has Committes] and
Public Policy.]
Page 470: the expression goes, coöpted[original has co-opted
hyphenated across a line break], by itself
Page 495: [Sidenote: Local Pressure on Members Neither New nor
Systematic.[period missing in original]]
Page 543: [Sidenote: The Conference at Birmingham in
1883.[period missing in original]]
Page 552: Lord Randolph was unanimously reëlected[original has
re-elected hyphenated across a line break]
[28:1] arrest any man for suspicion[original has suspition] of
Treason
[39:2] Hans., 3 Ser. CXCI.[period missing in original], 1705,
1724
[128:1] in Gneist, _Das Englische Verwaltungsrecht_,[original
has extraneous quotation mark]
[161:2] Com. Papers, 1860, IX., 1[original has extraneous
period], pp. vii-viii
[228:2] Vic., c. 51, Sched. I.[period missing in original],
Part IV.
[161:4] Com. Papers, 1888, XXVII.,[comma missing in original]
1
[320:5] Hans. 3 Ser. CCLXXV., 306-7.[period missing in
original]
[323:4] If[original has It] we take only the party in power
[555:2] _The Times_ of Oct. 27, 1886, p. 6, c.[original has
comma] 3.
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