The Government of England Part 37

The last committee on national expenditure reported in 1903 in favour of having a select committee examine each year one cla.s.s 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 pa.s.s 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 princ.i.p.al 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 pa.s.sed 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 att.i.tude 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 subst.i.tuted 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 a.n.a.lysed 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, x.x.xIII., 851-54, CII., 345.

[319:4] Hans. 4 Ser. Cx.x.xV., 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 Cx.x.xV., 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. CCCx.x.xIX., 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%