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 role 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, Sec. 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," Secs. 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," Sec. 209.
[277:4] May, 412-16; Ilbert, Sec. 250 note.
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, Sec. 54. Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act, Sec. 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_l._ 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_l._; to which the latter replied that defeating the government at a cost of 100_l._ was money well spent. (Hans. 4 Ser. CXXXI., 1141-47.)
Again in 1906 a motion to reduce by 100_l._ 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," Sec. 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, Sec. 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.
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," Secs. 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.
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," Sec. 36 note.
[304:2] S.O. 1 (2), (3), (5), (7), (8). Ilbert, Secs. 35-39. The Annual Army Bill has always been treated as exempted business. Ibid., Sec. 36 note.
[304:3] S.O. 1 (4). A division in progress is not interrupted. Ilbert, Sec. 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, Sec. 50. The procedure on private bills will be described in Chap. xx. infra.
[304:5] Ilbert, Secs. 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, Sec. 53 (6).
[305:1] S.O. 9. Ilbert, Secs. 55-60. It is not usual to ask on Friday questions requiring an oral answer. Ilbert, Sec. 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, Sec. 47 note.
[305:5] S.O. 10.
[306:1] Ilbert, Sec. 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.
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," Secs. 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.
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," Sec. 231.
[342:4] May, 574.
[342:5] Ilbert, "Manual," Sec. 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," Sec. 64.) An amendment can also be moved (Ibid., Sec. 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.