THE APOLOGY CORROBORATIVE.

UNABLE to comhat our Parliamentary statistics openly, the Illorning Chronicle admits them in order to weaken their effect by smothering the facts in excuses. Like Archelaus the Enchanter, who inveigled Amadis de Gaul by a make-believe of yielding, the Champion of Parliamentary idleness has no power in the open air or the wide world of facts, and cannot conquer you unless you consent to enter upon his own premises. The plain facts he is obliged to admit, and he strives to seek shelter under cover of a "but." The see-saw of assent and qualification occasioned by this policy is remarkable. Thus— "The analysis of the Division-lists of the House of Commons, copied in our Yesterday's paper from the Spectator, is a curious and valuable document. It will enable such constituencies as may be so inclined, to come to a short and easy reck- oning with their representatives; it will operate as a check on the idle; it will bring sundry pseudo patriots to shame; and superficial observers will be led by it Without an effort to conclusions which months of elaborate writing might have failed to force upon them." But— "It leaves reflecting politicians pretty nearly where it found them, as regards both thought and knowledge; it suggests no new views; it elicits no fres/s truths; and it furnishes, in our opinion, a very doubtful, if not deceitful standard, for es- limating the labours, setvices, energy, capacity, or general utility of an

The writer very much fears-

" It will be found that the last thing in the thoughts of the majority [of Can- didates for the House of Commons] was lawmaking. A seat in Parliament is a social distinction, a source of inffuence, or a stepping-stone to ambition, in all ranks."

But— "Let it cease to be considered in this light, and the House would rapidlyde- teriorate ; yet so long as it is so considered, the evil (if it be an evil) of occasion- ally slack attendance must be endured."

He confesses the delinquencies of Members-

" On turning to the Metropolitan districts, where the franchise is on the most liberal footing, we find that two have voluntarily submitted to whole or half dis-

franchisement, from private influences We find, also, that the others have neglected to exact even the average amount of attendance from their representa- tives.'

But it is the electors who are in fault- " Most of them deliberately prefer the occupied banker or lawyer, the sporting baronet, or the aristocratic idler, to the earnest patriot or philanthropist who is really anxious to do his duty Like the rest of the human race, they are in- fluenced not only by reason but by passion, by prejudice, by vanity, by caprice, by interest. We strongly suspect, that more than one of the noblemen or gentlemen thus rudely arraigned at the bar of public opinion, might reply to the parties who have apparently the most legitimate right to call them to account, as Anthony Henley replied to the electors of Southampton in 1733 .... bought you, and I will sell you: you used me for your purposes, and I will use you for mine.'" The writer rings the changes on this last argument, and declares that "the mischief is too deeply seated for Mr. Hume's or Sir Joshua Walmsley's probe" ;—as if we had not already recorded the opinion, that "unless a new spirit be introduced into the exercise of the elective suffrage and the representative function, no ad- dition to the number of voters, whether by the purchase of votes or the enactment of a charter, can materially improve the Legis- lature and its operations." There is, however, one multitudinous and important party that has some right to make its voice heard on this point—the party that consists of the unenfranchised classes. If constituencies are thus lax in the performance of their so-called "trust," the unenfranchised classes have a right to insist that the trust shall be withdrawn. The only defect in their right to withdraw it is the lack of power; but these wholesale confes- sions, that representatives get elected out of vanity, uniformly ne- glecting their set duties, and that the limited constituencies so abuse their " trust " as to continue reaecting the worthless legis- lators—such barefaced admissions will go far to stir up the ex- cluded classes, and to develop their power of taking away the trust. We say that the mischief is too deep for Sir Joshua Walmsley's probe or Mr. Hume's ,• but a formidable question of suffrage lies behind—universal suffrage enforced by these dam- ning confessions.

Our contemporary does not relish the discussion in that di- rection, and he strives to make light of the dereliction : he talks of " occasionally slack attendance '; whereas our analysis showed that the attendance is always "slack,"—that is, not stringently and fully observed ; that it is in nine case out of ten so loose that more than half the Members are absent ; and that in more than half the divisions the attendance does not amount to a quarter of the Members. "Occasionally slack "I it is always slack, most often so slack as to indicate a shameful and habitual dereliction of duty. But the apologist feels that he must seek other comfort, and, while he describes the effects of slack attendance as slight, he refers it to a cause too wide for the grasp of amend- ment. He despairs of cure, but takes comfort in a hope that the disease is not fatal. He "suspects " that "the sin and evil of non-attendance at divisions have been preposterously overrated, and that a far more minute analysis will be needed, before voting can be accepted as a test of efficiency." Possibly a minuter analysis might supply a better test, and next session we may be prepared to furnish it. In one respect it is plain that the voting is a bad test of attendance or efficiency, as it is a scale that is too short for all that happens when fewer than forty Members are present ; since counting for a division with fewer Members pre- sent would oblige the Speaker to adjourn the House. That state of the Representative Chamber might be checked by a more reso- lute use of the privilege to insist that the House be counted ; for that would compel Ministers to "keep a House." Two important results would immediately follow,—public business, no longer left to Ministers, would not pass so readily without watching ; and the processes which are so wasteful of time, especially the practice of making impracticable motions as a means of speaking at the public through the resounding vault of the empty House, would be arrested.

Our candid contemporary implies that there is a great deal of ignorance among Members—so much that many of them are quite as well away from divisions : and we devoutly believe that. But then, we say, that the constituencies fail in their duty while they pander to the ambition of ignorant candidates. The apologist's example, however, is not happy, when he takes the best attend- er at divisions, and asks, "how many of the questions on which Colonel Thompson voted did he understand 1 "—for Colonel Thompson, like some other Members—say Mr. George Smythe of Canterbury—is a man of an accomplished and encyclorediacal mind. He is a man not only of great intellectual power and cultivation, but also of honesty, zeal, and independence ; so that while he could cap verses or historic instances with the Member who attended divisions only sixteen times, he prefers a diligent attendance upon his duties to an elegant repose in the library, or to a tame following of any whipper-in "ex or actual." The apologist for the Honourable George Smythe and his brother delinquents admires the gallant officer's unparallelled energy ; but . . . . cannot admit that every senator who happens to be gifted with inferior per- spicacity or more limited powers of endurance is to be held up to public indigna- lionus sluggard." And he asks, a Suppose all were to follow the Colonel's ex • ample, would -the business of the nation be better done, upon the whole?"

Undoubtedly it would. And it would be better done if Colonel Thompson and those who supported hint in this better attendance were more resolutely to enforce the rules of deliberation and of decorous lawmaking. But of that hereafter. By the way, Colonel Thompson is • sixty-six years of age : Mr. Smythe, not the youngest Member in the House, is at the vigor- ous age of thirty-one. The accomplished and sympathizing apologist for the delin- quents attempts the "trifling importance" dodge-

" Ought there to be a call of the House to consider a law-amending act or a drainage bill? Would the details of Government measures be best settled with five or six hundred Members present? There is seldom any lack of attendance when principles or systems of policy are to be discussed."

. . . . That is, when great party contests are waged. True. But, if questions are not worth the attention of Members, we say, they ought not to be obtruded on the House of Commons.

The apologist, whose excuses are as valuable as his confessions, tries also the scholastic dodge—

"We have seen more than one distinguished speaker studying blue books, or other still more recondite authorities, during an entire evening at a club, careless of divisions on subjects with which he was not acquainted; and it never struck us that he was neglecting his duty."

"More than one "I Possibly, on rare occasions : but if it is meant that the club-library is a sort of school-room in which the honourable and learned and gallant good boys are conning their lessons of statesmanship, we say that this odd apology for coming to Parliament as to school, untaught in the business of the place, is the wildest "historic fancy" that ever emanated from an imaginative pen. Would that it were true that honourable gentlemen really did resort to their school-books in classes of scores or even hundreds : then there might be some compensation for absences from division. Sharp as the sarcasm of that tardy apprenticeship might be on the presumption of candidates and the approval of constituencies, the fruits of such mutual instruction might avail. But alas ! it is not the modesty of conscious ignorance that withholds Members from coming to the Speaker's bell. Anything but that. Catch a man in the library poring over a book, and ten to one he is not storing his own mind with knowledge, but hunting up a passage to convict some "inconsistent" Member, who now talks sense, of having once talked incompatible nonsense, and "said" this or that. The most frequent motive that sends Members to the li- brary is that invidious desire to damage an antagonist, not to elucidate the subject-matter. The apologist resorts to the impartiality and modesty dodge- " We have known many a conscientious listener so embarrassed by conflicting arguments daring a debate, as to refrain from voting." Poor conscientious honourable Hamlet ! amiable "ass between two potties of nay" logical! Yes, such things are, and they are the negative form of indecision : the positive form is to speak on one side and vote" on the other ; which may be compensated next time by speaking on the other side and voting per contra. But Hamlets and asses of the Mahomet's-coffin pattern make in- different Members, and we do not think that constituents need pause in ousting a chronically suspensive Member because he may have been too profound and impartial to make up his mind— said mind not always being "such every large parcel" as to need a whole session for making it up. There is another motive for not voting, omitted by our apologetic coadjutor, namely, the possession of conclusions only too strong : it does happen that Members find a proposition too absurd for the intellectual part of their conscience, -T-always the most sensitive part, since all men, especially "hon- ourable" men, fear more to be called "fool" than "rogue' " and yet the negative to that proposition may be -unpopular, or locally detrimental : then Members "stay away from division." Not, observe, because they don't understand, but because they do under- stand only too well; and sometimes other people understand too. The "more minute analysis" may hereafter throw light on these aberrations.

The champion of honourable gentlemen who get elected for ambition, who cannot bring down their too soaring intellects to the voting-point, and waste their days in the library studying states- manship—the volunteer defender of that prized and precious class winds up with a solemn de proftindis. "Do we approve such levity, or justify the existing state of things? Quite the contrary. ft ts bad, iJery bad. All we say is, that the evil is both wide-spread and.deep-seated ; and that the chief blame lies with the constituencies. Thev must reap as they sow.; and We draw afar more pro/motley:al/1.0m the anali- 68 than Its framers. Contemplated from our point of view, it would be a satire on the House of Commons, if it-were net a satire on.theuation; or perhaps it would be truer still to say, Psat :4TIonld be a satire upon the nation, ' if '—te borrow the language of Erskine—' human nature were not unfortunately obliged to take the greater part of the disgrace and share it amongst mankind.'" 5.11 It is bad, very bad," says the fashionable preacher legisla; tiifOtut it is human nature. " Ah! Sir," as the Yankee apolo- g(isitior drunkenness sagely said, " there 's a'deal of human natur in man!" The Commons are very forgetful of their duties, but they Were born so. It is original sin ; and any hope of mending Would be blasphemy against this newest doctrine of election. Such is the "more profound moral" of our apologetic and paradox- ical auxiliary. To us, indeed, the moral appears less "profound" than superficial; and irLddei'dcetir to us, that by " bottoming" the subject, a more truly' piktfoliticliimoral might be drawn. But

&iced an en„0-ineer in we have no wish to compete with se • flproeess 'of haring44 the waterii Oft ont the hint that there is a deer aaptIter week to try if he canittallnkpt ity ; we only throw and we concede him