THE DIGNITIES IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
IT is quite clear that the dignities are vanishing from the House of Commons, and, indeed, are fast disappearing from almost all the Representative Assemblies of the world. It is not easy to keep them up,—infinitely valuable as they are in clearing a certain space round individuals,—when Members get into the habit, as they do now, of thinking not of the particular audience to which they are speaking, but of the larger audience outside the walls of Parliament. Some Member of Parliament, in discussing the Conybeare incident of the week before last, remarked that con- stituencies are not greatly impressed by the knowledge that their representative has violated one of the rules of the House, or even put an affront upon the Speaker. We fear that he may be right. The feeling out-of-doors is getting more and more wide-spread that the House of Commons is the mere servant of the people, and not even the best interpreter, much less the guide of the popular will. It is a thoroughly false impression, for the people, though they may know in a vague way some of the aims which they desire to attain, are entirely dependent on a sagacious and orderly House of Commons for shaping their aims into any practicable form. Still, the impression that because the people are the last court of appeal in politics they are the only objects of real political honour, and that any one of their direct representatives has a sort of sacred right to do in their name exactly what he chooses, so long as they do not forbid it, even though he refuses to respect the formal rules of the House itself, is obviously a growing one, and it is one which greatly interferes with the re- spect felt by even the greatest magnates of our Parlia- mentary life for the order of the House of Commons. There is a feeling that you may tell fibs to the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees if you please, and even let it be clearly seen that they are fibs, because their authority is the mere artificial creation of the House itself ; but that you must not tell fibs to your constitu- ency,—at all events, fibs which can be found out,—for if you do, your constituency will dismiss you, and your power will be gone. That was not the old feeling in the House of Commons. The old feeling was that it was a good thing to get into Parliament, but a much better thing to win the confidence of the House of Commons. The former was a mere step to the latter ; now it is not unfrequently sought to win favour with a constituency by an elaborate exhibition of disrespect for the House of Commons and all its chief personages. Defying the Speaker, baiting the First Lord of the Treasury, jeering at the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is now regarded in many quarters as .a glorious kind of achievement, which will attract special favour at the poll to him who pushes this sort of enterprise beyond the point at which the average party-man stops. The scenes of this last week have made us all distinctly aware that unless the democracy are prepared to identify the House of Commons with them- selves, and to punish deliberate affronts to its rules and its chiefs,—and of this as yet they have shown no sign,— the Lower House of Parliament may soon become some- thing like the Assembly in which Robespierre after his fall screamed out,—" President of Assassins, for the last time I demand a hearing." We have not got to that yet, but we are rapidly approaching it.
And the reason is, no doubt, that with the growth of the notion that the source of honour is solely the popular will, the bearing of Members of Parliament towards the mere temporary depositories of popular confidence becomes much less modest on the part of unconspicuous men, and much less deferential even on the part of those who have gained a great position. The former rather parade their claim to look beyond the House, and virtually to address the constituencies through the House of Commons ; the latter, of whom there are every year fewer and fewer, have got rather into the habit of malting the House realise its own comparative insignificance, and using towards it a tone not of happy confidence that they interpret its wishes rightly by virtue of long familiarity with its ways, but rather of warning that if it does not take their view, it will be exchanged for one that will. Even Mr. Gladstone, who has far more prescriptive right to be jealous for the House of Commons by virtue of his long experience in it, and his immense influence in making a large proportion of its Members what they are, has rather exchanged of late years the tone of deference in which he used always to address the House, for a tone which, even when it is most impressive, has a tendency to humiliate the House, and to make it feel that its own special traditions are no longer sacred. Thus, while the younger Members try to earn a certain popularity in the country by their audacities in the House, the magnates of the House are rather disposed to break down its self- respect by constantly reminding it of their influence with its masters. Democracy, with all its advantages, has this disadvantage,—that it too visibly overrules the prescrip- tions and rules by which its organic institutions are governed, and brandishes the rod, as it were, over even its own chief agent. The House of- Commons is visibly losing in the sense of its own dignity. This talking to the people over its head is a habit that rapidly undermines that legitimate pride in its own greatness which is at least as essential to that greatness as popular election itself. The- people are dwarfing the dignity of their own Assembly almost more even than they are dwarfing the dignity of the- House of Lords.
We pointed out last week that after a most deadly attack on the authority of the Speaker, a great party was almost unanimous in attempting to reduce the penalty from the excessively lenient one of a month's suspen- sion to one of half that amount, while time after time in previous sittings the apologies made to the Chair by recalcitrant Members for a breach of the rules of the House, had been ostentatiously perfunctory and almost unmeaning. This week has been one long series of experiments on Mr. Courtney's indefatigable vigilance and patience. And not only so, but the Government, who after all are the Government trusted by the majority of the House, and therefore entitled to the respect of the House, have been baited as if they were not political opponents, but cunning knaves without either patriotic purposes in their policy, or so much as moral characters to lose by playing false with their adversaries. Mr. W. H. Smith, the First Lord of the Treasury, has been as good as told to his face that no declaration of his, however specific and positive, can be trusted at all, and this not only by the embittered minority led by Mr. Parnell, but by statesmen in the position of Sir William Harcourt, supported rather than checked by Mr. Gladstone. And the worst of all this defamation and scoffing is that Ministers themselves do not take up a position as dignified as they otherwise would. You cannot be bespattered with mud all day, and yet feel the same self-respect and fastidious regard for appearances which is an obligation of the highest kind in the trustees of a nation. When you have got accustomed to being told in effect every hour that you are a ruffian or a scoundrel, you at least cease to feel like a grandee. It is to us obvious that the Ministers suffer by this sort of daily vilification through which they have to pass. though not so much, perhaps, as those who study this art of vilification. Ministers who never get any credit from their opponents for any sense of delicacy or honour, are satisfied if they know themselves to be free from just reproach, but do not care, as they used to care, to be irreproachable in all their public acts. Sensible and cool as the First Lord of the Treasury has shown himself, he has made some mistakes this week which he could never have made if he had fully realised the dignity of his position as the representative of a great nation in their chief Legislative Assembly. But, as we have said, dignity, unless very deeply rooted in the. individual character, cannot survive the sort of fierce depreciation which now goes on habitually in the House of Commons whenever the Parnellites are irritated and Mr. Gladstone and his friends see that it is necessary for them to come to the rescue. A tutor who is habitually covered with ink-spots and bruises through the malevolent activity of the boys, cannot possibly keep up his personal dignity ; and Mr. W. H. Smith, heartily as we appreciate his services, has certainly failed lately in realising the attitude which a Minister in his position should take up,—the attitude in which he is not only conscious of pure intentions, but resolved to be as irreproachable even to his enemies as he is to his own knowledge pure in intent. The Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, who have no contentious duties to perform, sustain nobly enough in difficult circum- stances the honour of their offices. But Ministers who live in a shower of mud suffer by the consciousness of the ugly imputations rained upon them week after week, and hardly act as they would have acted in old times, when the de- meanour of opponents made it easier to realise the dignity of their duties, and the prestige of their trust.
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