THE MUTINY IN THE COMMONS. T HE three Irish Members who
have this week attracted an almost national attention—Mr. Parnell, a young squire, from Wicklow ; Mr. O'Donnell, a Catholic litte'rateur, with a curious knowledge of the less known foreign polities; and Mr. Biggar, a provision-merchant of Belfast—have certainly accom- plished something. They have not transformed the British Empire into a Confederation, but they have found out a weak place in its Constitution. They have put a grain of sand in the nation's eye, and the nation wriggles. They have discovered that it is in the power of three individuals, if only gifted with good constitutions, complete insensibility to opinion, and. unlimited power of being bores, to arrest the action of the House of Commons,—that is, of the machine which, in the long- run, controls the British Empire. Hating that Empire as DOW organised, they have used this discovery unscrupulously, and
have compelled the House and its leaders to seek for some easily procured and effective cement for the weak place. It is not creditable work, for every man who courts entrance into any Club binds himself, by virtue of his own request, to observe its rules, in spirit as well as form ; but it is impos- sible to deny that the three have had their success, and made themselves disagreeable enough to be attended to. Their last stroke had a sort of perverse genius about it, as of a bore who intercepts his host, not when he is going to prayers—he could bear that—but when the servant has just announced that dinner is served. The country can bear to go without legis- lation just now, but it cannot go without administration, and the Three threw themselves across the path of the Bill allowing Confederation in South Africa, which is not a piece of legislation in the proper sense at all, but an adminis- trative measure, proposed by the Colonial Department, sanc- tioned by Parliament, and approved by the public outside. Mr. O'Donnell, however, whom we regret to see in this galley, for he was made for better things, proposed seventy-three amend- ments, and he and his associates were quite capable of making speeches on every amendment. As the forms of the House are based on a supposition that no group of men will misuse them for mere obstruction, it was quite possible that the Bill might be talked out, and a permissive measure of great importance, in- volving the labour of months to the Department and the success of a great policy, might be lost, for no other reason than that five or six Irish extremists wished to bring home to Parliament that they had rather sit in a less powerful Assembly. It was evident that the same tactics might be pursued on more important occasions, and indeed, the combined Members have only to resist the Mutiny Bill by the same devices, to disorganise the whole service of the Empire. No risk of the kind could be permanently endured, and the announcement of the Chancellor of the Exchequer that Government could bear the interruption of State busi- ness no longer was fully expected, and received by a crowded House with delight so rapturous, that if Sir Stafford North- cote had proposed to send the three Refractories to the Tower, his motion would possibly have passed with acclamation. Sulky boys who tell the schoolmaster they will interrupt his lectures till the classes are assembled in smaller rooms are not of necessity detested by their schoolmates, who have a lurking notion that there is humour in the situation ; but when the interruptions are as long-winded as sermons and as stupid as Blue-books—all three talk in the Commons of malice pre- pense like so many Women's-Rights lecturers, till even Admirals yawn with sleepiness—and, moreover, delay the holidays, schoolboys naturally reflest whether some sort of a metaphysical cobbing is altogether impossible.
Seriously, the Government and the House are right enough in principle. The nuisance must be put down, and means must exist to do it ; but there will, we suspect, be a good deal more difficulty before they are discovered. Sir Stafford North- cote is so good-tempered that when irate he is sure to put him- self in the wrong, and he began with a very considerable blunder. He proposed that Mr. Parnell, whom he regards as the Seeva or Principle of Destruction of the Irish Triad—clearly Mr. Biggar is the Preserver, so Mr. O'Donnell, by exhaustion, therefore; must be Brahm—should be suspended till Friday night, that is silenced and deprived of his vote for one particular debate. That would never do. The right of the House of Commons to expel is clear enough, and rests on its right to guard its own pro- ceedings, while asking the constituency to send up a better repre- sentative; and it might even,, upon duo cause shown, declare a particul ar man disqualified for life. That would not hurt his con- stituency, which could always find another representative. But to declare that Meath shall be disfranchised because Mr. Parnell is intolerable, and disfranchised without a statute, is an abuse of power, quite, we believe, without precedent—for the lawyer who in the Puritan times was bidden to hold His peace was not deprived of his vote—end might in excited moments be fatally misused. No one who saw the way in which the House behaved to Mr. Auberon Herbert when he tried to speak to Sir Charles Dilke's Republican motion will deny that it an be carried out of all decency by caste and party feel- ing, and we might some day have Mr. Gladstone put to silence because Members dreaded his oratory, or Mr. Bright put in a corner because he could not help speaking against a declaration of war. The precedent would have been too dangerous, and Sir Stafford Northeote's hesitation and final withdrawal of his proposal, as applied to Mr. Parnell, showed that he had become aware of his own hastiness. He has, no doubt after reflection, recurred to his device, and proposed as a resolution that a Member who defies the Chair may be silenced for a debate ; but although we must write before the House of Commons has decided,. we regard that proposal as already out of court. It is not fair to the constituencies, and it does not meet the evil, for it does not settle what is to be done with Mr. Parnell, if after his inhibition he persists in claiming his right to speak. The second resolution, prohibiting any Member from moviug the adjournment or demanding that progress be reported twice in one night, is unobjectionable in itself, but will not stop the Obstructives, who will still find plans for annoying the Speaker and multiplying divisions ; and we are very doubtful if anything short of a Standing Order enabling the House by a three:fourths vote to declare discussion ended—an Order never to be used without the Speaker's previous declaration that the "forms of the House are being abused "—will prove effectual for the purpose. Before try- ing so radical a reform as that, however, it would be well if the Commons appointed a Committee to consider the powers of the Speaker or President in all Parliamentary countries, and report on the first day of next Session whether those powers might not be usefully increased in this country. There is an impression abroad, based, we imagine, mainly on his social rank in the Kingdom and the long tradition of respect for his office, that the Speaker of the House of Commons is invested with unusual authority. This, however, is not the case. Mr. Reginald Palgrave, a most experienced and cau- tious authority, in his little book for the guidance of Chair- men says :—"It is a remarkable feature of the Speaker's office that he has to keep order with no power to compel order ; he cannot commit a Member to custody, flagrant as may be his conduct ; he cannot even order him to quit his place in the House. The utmost punishment the Speaker can inflict is to name a Member." We see no reason why the Speaker should not be invested with the authority of a Judge, to be held in strict reserve, but to be available whenever the House feels that its dignity, or efficiency, or use- fulness, as the highest governing body of the realm, is seriously menaced by the conduct of any individual or of any clique not numerous enough, or important enough, or sensible enough to be considered a party in the State. Held, as it would be, in strict reserve, checked by the House itself, and watched with acrid vigilance by the country, we can hardly believe that such a power would either be abused, or so used as to impair in any perceptible degree the freedom of debate. After all, a barrister's tongue is not the tongue which is in England most restrained.
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