FEWER MEMBERS, OR A LARGER HOUSE?
riE intensity of the party struggle, and the growing keenness of Members, is rendering the want of accom- modation in the House of Commons more than ever a burning question. When half the House never thought of attending, except during great debates, the grumbling was only occasional and spasmodic. There was a certain amount of complaint and dissatisfaction among those who could not find places on the day of an important division, but this soon died away, and was forgotten. Then, the men who were regular in the discharge of their Parliamentary duties always managed to find seats, and, therefore, no permanent inconvenience resulted from i the smallness of the House. Now, however, there s every day a race for seats which, but for the good temper and camaraderie which always distinguishes the great public school of politics, might easily end in an unseemly scuffle. Members who are not officials or leaders of a party have to come down to the House several hours before it meets, in order to get good seats ; and those who are not very knowing, or very pertinacious, on days when something interesting happens, have often great difficulty to find a place in which to sit. It is not to be wondered at that there are plenty of Members who find such a state of things in- tolerable, and who hold that a Member of Parliament who wants to assist at a first-class debate in comfort should not be forced to adopt the arts which have to be practised by those who want to hear a prima donna sing in a popular opera. Plenty of worry and inconvenience in other ways have to be faced by the legislators of the United Kingdom, and it is monstrous to add to these the nuisance of not knowing whether they will be able to take part in comfort in the work of Parliament. The fuss and friction caused by the difficulty of getting a seat is an aggravation to which Members of Parliament ought not to be subjected. That Is a proposition to which all reasonable men might be expected to agree.
Strangely enough, however, plenty of people can be found who are willing to argue that it by no means follows that, because there are 670 Members of the House of Commons, there ought to be seats enough to accommodate that number. To provide a House big enough to hold all its Members would, they declare, be a most foolish and short-sighted act. A deliberative body works best in a small room, or, at any rate, in one not too big for it ; for a great empty hall discourages real debating, and induces men to make harangues, instead of sensible, businesslike speeches. Accordingly, it is urged that the House ought to be of the size required to hold comfortably the average number of men accustomed to attend regularly. A Chamber which, when the attendance is small, does not se em forlorn, and which is suitable to the intimate discus- sion of the details of legislation, but which, when neces- sary, can, by means of squeezing, just hold the whole i House, s therefore the best fitted for the deliberations of the Lower House. It is impossible to have a House which shall be both comfortable when all the Members are pre- sent, and suitable for small debates ; and therefore it is best to have the accommodation which is best calculated to assist the efficient discharge of the normal business of the House. Such arguments sound excellent enough till they are. examined. In reality, however, they have no substantial foundation. We are perfectly 'willing to admit that 670 is too large a number for efficiency in debate, and for that, among other reasons, we have always urged the reduction of the number to one-half. But because 335 would be a better number for the House of Commons, it is childish to say that we ought to have a House which will only hold 335 with comfort, and let the places be scrambled for. The arguments we have noticed are, in fact, merely arguments for the reduction of the Members to a businesslike number, and do not apply to the plain question : "Ought or ought not the House of Corn-. mons to be capable of holding its Members ? " The answer to that must be " Yes ; " and but for the intense love of Englishmen for what is paradoxical, this answer would have long ago been regarded as final in rela- tion to the size of the House of Commons. In no country but in England would Barry have been de- liberately instructed to build a House which could not contain its Members. It is curious to reflect how it happened that, after the burning of the Palace of West• minstnr, a proper-sized House was not erected. We suspect that the true reason is to be found in the fact that the old St. Stephen's Chapel was too small, and that therefore it was resolved to abide by the wisdom of our ancestors, and provide no more accommodation than they had provided. One can imagine how the matter would have been debated, and how the arguments crystalised by Sydney Smith in "Noodle's Oration" would have been applied. "If this. enlargement had been really necessary, would the Saxon not have adopted it ? would the Dane have passed it by ?- would the Norman have rejected it ?" We can hear the tones of impassioned declamation, the appeals to the opinion. of "Cicero and the Attorney-General," and the peroration. " Nolumus Cameram Anglia3 mutari." We may take it, then, as agreed or, at any rate, as agreeable to reason, that if its numbers are to 'remain at 670, the House of Commons must be enlarged. But if it is to be enlarged, we must ask, how and in what form ? Most emphatically do we protest against the notion that its present shape should be altered, and a circular or horse-shoe form adopted. Mr. Burns is re- ported to have advocated the adoption of this plan because it would break up our present party system. For that very reason we oppose it most strenuously. As long as we abide by Parliamentary government—and it will be idle to advocate any other system in England for many generations—it is essential that we should have as near an approximation as is possible to two parties divided by a hard-and-fast line. But this we should soon cease to have if we had the seats in the House of Commons arranged as in the French Chamber,—a centre occupied by the Moderates of both parties, with two Extreme wings. That is the worst arrangement conceivable, for it encourages the notion that the Moderate element should withdraw from either party to act together. At present, both. parties contain. Moderates, who, to some extent, leaven the mass. Under the French plan, there is a constant appeal to- the Moderates on both sides to abandon their true functions. By sitting together, they are apt to forget that the use of a drag is to keep fast to the wheel to which it belongs, and not to set up by itself for a separate motive force. Just now, too, is the least suitable of all moments for adopting any change that would tend to the creation of groups. We- cannot doubt that the form of the House has done a great deal to counteract the tendency towards the creation of groups which has been at work of late in our Parlia- ment. It may be said, no doubt, that, in spite of the present shape of the House, we have five distinct parties, Liberals, Liberal Unionists, and Conservatives, Anti-Parnellites, and Parnellites ; and that, therefore, our- argument falls to the ground. We should, however, reply that these groups would have split into yet other groups if the seats in the House of Commons had been arranged on the French pattern. The present system has, at any rate, saved us from all the Moderates sitting together, and so getting to feel that they are a party in themselves. To put ourselves in order, in regard to the question of the enlargement of the House of Commons, we will con- clude with a definite proposal. Our plan would be, if possible, to enlarge the present House, by making rt broader by three rows of benches on each side and longer by, say, twenty feet. In this way, we believe that accommodation- for all the Members might be secured. A long House of this kind would practically be quite as, convenient as the present Chamber, when there were only some hundred Members present. But though we trust that the House will find sitting room for all its Members,. we most devoutly hope that it will not adopt the sugges- tion that each legislator shall have opposite his seat a desk where he can write his letters. Let the men who want to write, do so in the writing-rooms, but do not let us make the House of Commons look like a colossal counting-house. In nothing but in size would we alter the look of the House of Commons. Its long green benches must rule the Empire in the future as they have ruled it in the past.
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