The Mother of Parliaments Part 26

Divisions provide legislators with plenty of exercise, combined occasionally with acute mental anxiety. The latter they share with those hardworked and hardworking individuals, the "Whips" or "Whippers-in," whose duties are at all times heavy and become especially onerous with the approach of a division.

These Whips, who are four in number--two representing the Government, two the Opposition--have rooms provided for them in the Lobby, and hold positions of the utmost responsibility and influence. In the House of Commons the office of princ.i.p.al Government Whip is one of immense importance and requires, as Disraeli said, "consummate knowledge of human nature, the most amiable flexibility, and complete self-control."[406] As Patronage Secretary to the Treasury, with a salary of 2000 a year, he is the descendant of that official, sometimes known as the "Secretary for Political Jobs," who in former times bought members, their votes and const.i.tuencies, and disposed of the Government secret service money to obtain (and retain) a majority for the party in power.

[406] "Life of Lord George Bentinck," p. 314.

The Chief Whip is generally a.s.sisted by two of the Junior Lords of the Treasury, and, in conjunction with the Opposition Whips, arranges all the details of the sessional campaign. On the occasion of important debates the Whips conspire to choke off any garrulous nonent.i.ties who may wish to make their voices heard, and practically arrange a list of the influential speakers on both sides in the order in which they are to address the House. At such a time the Speaker's eye may almost be said to be a party to the conspiracy, though never yielding its discretion to be caught by members whose names are not upon the Whips'

list.

Tact, good temper and unceasing vigilance are virtues necessary to Whips. They must combine the discretion of the diplomatist with the ac.u.men of the sleuth-hound. It is their business to smooth the ruffled feathers of any members who consider themselves aggrieved, to listen patiently to the bores, to suffer the fools gladly. They are expected to ascertain the "sense" of the House upon all important questions, either by instinct, by worming their way into the confidence of members, or by secret detective work in the Smoking Room. They must keep their leader informed of their discoveries, and thus guard the party against any sudden unexpected attack. If necessary they act as emissaries or amba.s.sadors between the party heads, arranging an occasional compromise or deciding what particular questions shall be discussed in an uncontroversial spirit.

The Whips have been called the autocrats of the House of Commons, but though they rule individual members with an iron hand, it must ever be their desire to keep their party contented and happy and harmonious.

When a private member is very anxious to escape from the House for a holiday it is to the Whip he applies for permission. If possible he "pairs" with some member on the other side who is equally desirous of escaping. At the door of the House lies a book in which members "pairing" with one another inscribe their names, and it is one of the Whips' duties to arrange these "pairs," and, above all, to see that no member gets away unpaired.

At a time when a ticklish division is expected, when the majority on either side is uncertain, the Whips are stimulated to herculean labours. Threats, entreaties, cajoleries, all must be employed to bring members up to the scratch. The waverers must be secured, the doubtful rea.s.sured. Nothing can be left undone to ensure that every available member shall be in his place when the decisive moment arrives. The byways and hedges are scoured for absentees, who are besought to return at once to Westminster to record their votes and perhaps save their party from defeat.

When Pulteney, whom Macaulay considered the greatest leader of the Opposition that the House of Commons had ever seen, gathered his forces in 1742 to overthrow Walpole, the Opposition left no stone unturned to ensure a majority. They collected every man of the party, no matter what excuses he put forward. One was brought into the House in a dying condition, but contrived to defer his impending dissolution until he had recorded his valuable vote. Both sides produced a number of incurables, and the House looked (as Ewald says) more like the Pool of Bethesda than a legislative a.s.sembly. The Prince of Wales was an interested spectator of the scene. "I see," he remarked to General Churchill, "you bring in the lame, the halt and the blind!" "Yes,"

replied the General, "the lame on our side, the blind on yours!"[407]

[407] Ewald's "Biography of Walpole," p. 419.

A similar scene took place in 1866 when the Russell-Gladstone Cabinet was defeated over the Reform Bill. The Whips had achieved wonders in collecting their flocks together; they had haled to Westminster the sick, the senile, the decrepit, the doting and the moribund. The grave alone seems to have been sacred from their ravages. Some of the members, as we read in a contemporary account, "had been wooed from the prostration of their couches; one had been taken from the delights of his marriage-trip; and several from the bedsides of relatives in extremity."[408]

[408] "Chambers' Journal," December 26, 1886, p. 819.

To be able to accomplish such feats the Whips must be well acquainted with the habits and haunts of the individuals beneath their charge, so that at any moment of the day or night they may send a telegram or a message to an absentee whose presence is urgently required. Pepys in his Diary (December 8, 1666) describes how the King gave an order "to my Lord Chamberlain to send to the playhouses and brothels, to bid all the Parliament-men that were there to go to the Parliament presently," to vote against some Bill of which he disapproved. The modern Whip in like manner must be ready at any moment to despatch an urgent summons to the Opera, to the Clubs, to houses where parties are being given, recalling members to their parliamentary duties. And in doing so he must exercise the greatest possible tact. The wife of a much respected member of Parliament was sleeping peacefully in her bed one night when a frantic message arrived from the party Whip imploring her husband to come at once to Westminster. She remembered that her spouse had informed her that he would probably be kept at the House until late and had begged her not to sit up. Inspired with horrible suspicions of conjugal perfidy, the good lady rose in haste and hurried down to the House of Commons to confirm them. As a matter of fact her husband had never left the precincts of Parliament, and the Whip's message had been despatched in error. The member was therefore much surprised at the sudden appearance of his wife upon the scene.

His attachment to home and duty had been equally unimpaired, and he received her explanation somewhat coldly.

A notice, more or less heavily underlined, is sent to each member of Parliament every morning, apprising him of the business of the day's sitting and of the necessity for his presence in the House. These "whips," as they are called, were in vogue as long ago as the year 1621, when, Porritt tells us, notices underlined six times were sent to the King's friends.[409] The urgency of the summons can be gauged by the number of underlines, and a "whip" that is underlined three times can only be ignored at the peril of the member who receives it.[410]

[409] Porritt's "Unreformed House of Commons," vol. i. p. 509.

[410] Until a few years ago all "whips" were underlined twice and in urgent cases five times.

Though the Whips seldom address the House themselves, they must on all occasions be ready to provide other speakers who shall feed the dying embers of debate with fresh fuel. At all hazards the ball must be kept rolling. Sometimes a debate shows signs of languishing in an unexpected fashion, and the Whip is horrified to find that his usual majority has dwindled away to nothing. When this occurs he must at once find members who are willing to talk against time while he and his colleagues hasten round and beat up a majority. On one famous occasion within recent memory, while most of the supporters of the Conservative Government were disporting themselves at Ascot on the Cup day, the Opposition prepared to spring an unexpected division upon the House. The situation was only saved by Mr. Chaplin, who spoke for several hours, in spite of the howls of his opponents, while a special train was bringing absentees from the racecourse to the House of Commons.

It is, then, the Whip's duty, not only to "make" a House and to "keep"

a House, but also, like Sidmouth's sycophantic relatives, to "cheer the Minister." To quote the lines of Canning--

"When the faltering periods lag, Or the House receives them drily, Cheer, oh, cheer him, Brother Bragge; Cheer, oh, cheer him, Brother Riley!

"Brother Bragge and Brother Riley, Cheer him! when he speaks so vilely, Cheer him! when his audience flag, Brother Riley, Brother Bragge!"[411]

[411] "Ode to the Doctor." (Bragge Bathurst, Lord Sidmouth's brother-in-law, and Riley, his brother, were place-hunters who felt bound to applaud their patron.)

CHAPTER XV

STRANGERS IN PARLIAMENT

Theoretically speaking, Parliament is averse to the presence of strangers; in practice both Houses are as hospitably inclined as is compatible with the limited s.p.a.ce at their disposal.

One of the chief duties of the Sergeant-at-Arms originally consisted in "taking into custody such strangers who presume to come into the House of Commons."[412] This duty has however, long been neglected, and a modern Sergeant-at-Arms who sought to accomplish such a task would find his hands full.

[412] House of Commons "Journals," vol. x. 291.

In the early days of Parliament, the most drastic measures were taken to maintain the secrecy of debate, and the intrusion of a stranger was looked upon as a cause for grave alarm. In 1584, a man named Robinson succeeded in obtaining admission to the Commons, and sat in the House unnoticed for two hours. When at last his presence was discovered, Mr.

Robinson was roughly handled by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and, before he had time to utter his own name, was "stript to the shirt" and searched.[413] Nothing of an incriminating nature being found beneath the intruder's clothing, he was brought to the bar, sworn to secrecy and compelled to take the Oath of Supremacy before being finally released with a severe reprimand. A hundred years later two inoffensive but ignorant strangers walked into the House and sat quietly down beside the Sergeant-at-Arms. Here they remained for some time, much impressed by the hospitality of the Commons, until a division happened to be called. Their presence was not observed until the lobby doors had been finally locked, and they had to be hurried out of the way by a side staircase to the Distinguished Strangers'

Gallery. Here they remained until the division was over, and were subsequently dismissed with a caution. In 1771, a stranger who had accidentally mingled with the members in the lobbies was actually counted in a division.

[413] D'Ewes' "Journal," p. 334.

As time went on Parliament grew more and more tolerant of the presence of strangers, and, though the order forbidding their admission remained upon the order book of the House of Commons, it soon came to be universally disregarded.

In the old House members would sometimes be accompanied by their sons, quite little boys, whom they would carry to their seats beside them, and strangers could always obtain a seat in the gallery by means of a written order given them by a member, or by the simple method of slipping half-a-crown into the hand of the attendant at the door. When C. F. Moritz, the German traveller, visited the House in 1782, he sought admission to the gallery, but, being unprovided with a pa.s.s, was turned away. As he was sadly withdrawing he heard the attendant murmur something of an apparently irrelevant nature concerning a bottle of rum, but not until he reached home did it occur to him that the remark might possibly have some bearing upon the situation. The next day, having been enlightened as to the general custom in vogue among those who wished to be present during a debate, he returned to the gallery. He had taken the wise precaution of providing himself with a small sum of money. This he had no difficulty in pressing upon the door-keeper, who at once showed him into a front seat.[414] No doubt Edmund Burke, who in his youth spent so much time listening to the debates and gaining that Parliamentary experience which was afterwards destined to stand him in such good stead, unlocked the gallery door with the same golden key.

[414] Pinkerton's "Voyages," vol. ii. p. 506.

Up to the year 1833 the doorkeepers and messengers of the House of Commons were paid princ.i.p.ally in fees and gratuities. Members were called upon to contribute about 9 per session towards a fund raised on their behalf, and they received a small nominal salary of less than 13. The doorkeepers earned farther payment by delivering the Orders and Acts of the House to members, as well as various fees from parliamentary agents, and were likewise ent.i.tled to a quarter of the strangers' fees. In 1832 the two chief doorkeepers were making between 800 and 900 a year, and the chief messenger nearly 600. The man whose duty it was to look after the room above the ventilator to which ladies were admitted was not so successful as his colleagues, and complained that he only received about 10 a year in tips from the more economical s.e.x.[415]

[415] "Report of the Select Committee on the Establishment of the House of Commons" (1833), pp. 84-5. (To-day the messengers and doorkeepers, of whom there are about a score, earn regular salaries ranging from 120 to 300. Except for a share in the fund for messengers and police to which members may or may not contribute, no gratuities of any description are allowed to them.)

Pearson, for over thirty years doorkeeper in the old House of Commons, was one of the most familiar figures in and about St Stephen's Chapel during the latter part of the eighteenth century. In his box near the gallery he sat--

"Like a paG.o.d in his niche; The Gom-gom Pearson, whose sonorous lungs, With 'Silence! Room there!' drown an hundred tongues."

Long service had given him a position of authority of which he took every advantage. If a member were negligent in the matter of paying the door-keeper his fee, or treated that official in a manner which he considered derogatory to his dignity, Pearson revenged himself by sending the offender to the House of Lords or the Court of Requests in search of imaginary friends. By such means he generally reduced the irritated member to submission, and could extract a handsome present and a promise of future politeness. Pearson had his own importance so much at heart, as we read in his biography, that he spurned a member's money unless he had previously humbled the man. Long experience had enabled him to time the length of a debate or even of an individual speech with extraordinary accuracy. Members wishing to be informed as to the probable hour of adjournment would ask him at what time the Speaker had ordered his carriage. "The Speaker has ordered his coach at eight," Pearson would reply, "but I'll be d----d if you get away before twelve!"[416]

[416] The familiar way in which Pearson addressed members seems to have been generally condoned on account of his long service. Once when General Grant, who had boasted that he would march victoriously through America with three thousand men, asked the door-keeper how long a certain member would speak, Pearson replied, "As long, General, if he was allowed, as you would be in marching through and conquering America!" Pearson's "Political Dictionary," p. 10.

Pearson's treatment of strangers was no less autocratic. He could not always be corrupted into finding room for them in the galleries unless he happened to take a fancy to the appearance of the visitors. "If a face or a manner did not please him," says his biographer, "gold could not bribe him into civility, much less to the favour of admission. One stranger might be modest and ingratiating; Pearson, like Thurlow, would only give him a silent contemptuous stare; another would be rude; Pearson would laugh at his rudeness, tell him the orator of the moment, and, perhaps, shove him in, although he had before refused dozens who were known to him."[417]

[417] Ibid., p. 6.

In the first year of Queen Victoria's reign a suggestion was made that the public should be admitted without orders of any kind. This idea was successfully opposed by Lord John Russell, who expressed a fear that in such circ.u.mstances the galleries would be filled with pickpockets and other objectionable persons.

Prior to 1867 strangers sometimes hired subst.i.tutes to keep places for them in the crowd which thronged St. Stephen's Hall on the morning of a big debate. These representatives would arrive as early as 2.30 a.m., and, like the messenger boys in the _queue_ outside a modern theatre, wait patiently until the door was opened in the afternoon.

In 1867 the system of balloting for seats in the Strangers' Gallery was first inst.i.tuted. Members had long been in the habit of giving orders "to bearer," written on the backs of envelopes or any sc.r.a.ps of paper, which were freely forged and transferred from one visitor to another. Strangers who were armed with these gallery pa.s.ses were now compelled to ballot for precedence, and though on important nights the number of disappointed applicants was great, visitors gained the advantage of not being kept waiting for hours on the chance of obtaining a seat.

This system continued to obtain until the time of the Fenian scares, in 1885, when, owing to the fact that two strangers admitted to the Gallery on August 4th proved to be well-known dynamiters, the police became alarmed for the safety of the House. To prevent the recurrence of such an unwelcome visit it was ordered that all applications for admission should be made in writing to the Speaker's secretary. The signatures of the strangers applying for places could thus be verified by comparison with their signatures in the Gallery book.

The deliberations of Parliament are supposed to be secret, and, though the practice of avoiding publicity has long fallen into disuse, it is still always possible for strangers to be excluded should the occasion demand it. They were not welcomed with effusion in either House, a century or two ago. In 1740 Lord Chancellor Hardwicke declared to the Lords that "another thing doth diminish the dignity of the House; admitting all kinds of auditors to your debates. This makes them be what they ought not to be, and gives occasion to saying things which else would not be said."[418] Thirty years later, as we have already seen, during a speech of the Duke of Manchester's on the state of the nation, Lord Gower rose and desired that the House of Lords should be cleared of all who were not peers. The Duke of Richmond strongly objected, considering this an insult to the members of Parliament and others who were present. Chatham tried in vain to address the House, and finally, as a dignified protest, he and a score of other peers left the Chamber.

[418] "Life of Lord Hardwicke," vol. i. p. 489.

Somewhat similar scenes have occurred in the Lower House. On one occasion, indeed, the members of the popular a.s.sembly so far forgot themselves as to hurl epithets of abuse at a distinguished stranger who was in their midst. On February 22, 1837, Sheil made a violent attack in the House of Commons upon ex-Lord Chancellor Lyndhurst, the Irish Munic.i.p.al Bill being under discussion at the time. Lyndhurst had been accused of saying that three-quarters of the people of Ireland were aliens in blood and only awaited a favourable opportunity to cast off the government of England as the yoke of a tyrannical oppressor, and this had roused the Irish to fury. The ex-Chancellor happened to stroll into the House of Commons while Sheil was speaking, and took his seat below the bar. Immediately the Irish members turned upon him, and for about ten minutes shouted insults at the venerable statesman, who remained apparently unmoved by the clamour.[419]