TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DISCONSIDERATION OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
NO observer of the political situation can have felt anything but the profoundest anxiety at the dis- consideration into which the House of Commons has fallen. The present House of Commons, judged by the individuals that compose it, is not a bad House of Commons in any way. Indeed, the standard of ability and of patriotic desire is probably higher than, certainly ns high as, that of any House of which we have had experience. And yet this disconsideration, this 'unpopularity, we had alniost said this sense of dislike for the House of Commons, has grown up and is increasing. What makes this the more remarkable and the more menacing is the fact that the House of Commons has never been more absolute in the Constitution. We may dislike the House of Commons, and the term " politician " may have become, as it unfortunately has, a term of abuse, and yet the House of Commons is the sole source of power. It may be a bad lever with which to move our universe, but it is the only one which we possess, the only motive-force which we have got. It is true that the Cabinet, or rather, let us say, a Committee chosen by the majority of the House of Commons, largely usurps the power of the House of Commons, yet the fact remains that at any moment the House of Commons can destroy the Government by an adverse vote. It is all very well to talk about mandates and pledges, and about the vast majority in the House of Conunons owing their election to the fact that they pledged themselves to support the Coalition—i.e., Mr. Lloyd George —yet the fact remains that the House of Commons has the power to put the present Government out of office like any other, subject of course to the risk of dissolution and the possibility that a different House would be elected.
The House of Commons, except for the delay en- joined by the Parliament Act, which indeed merely gives the House of Commons an excuse for retaining power without an appeal to the People, is now absolutely supreme ; or, to put it in another way, the power of the House of Lords has shrunk to the power of delaying legislation for two years. That is the maximum of its legal and Constitu- tional authority, though no doubt, through the ability of its members and the independence shown in its debates, it exercises a great influence on public opinion, an influence comparable with that exercised, or we fear perhaps we i ought to say that was once exercised, by an independent Press. Truly the situation is a strange one. The House of Commons is legally supreme in the land ; it has eaten up and destroyed all competitors and become the sole depository of political power under the Constitition ; and yet, instead of earning the respect which one might imagine would belong to such absolutism, it is, as we have said, suffering from a disconsideration such as has never before attached to it in its history. How has this come about ? What is it that has, as it were, robbed the House of Com- mons of the complete authority at which it grasped ? Why has its supremacy made it less, not more, respected by the nation at large ?
The answer to the question we have put is, we believe, to be found in the remarkable dissertation on political power and our political history contained in the thirteenth chapter of Coningsby. We are not to be counted amongst those who regard Disraeli as in any sense a great political philosopher, or even as a great political prophet, yet unquestionably he showed on occasion marvellous insight into the workings of our political system, and felt far more clearly than most of his contem- poraries the " very pulse of the machine." His historical judgment was not very profound, was often, indeed, fantastic and ill-balanced ; but when he was at his best, and was not using history to do the dirty work of political partisanshiii, as was too often the case, he read us lessons which are still of the highest value. In the chapter to which we have referred Sidonia puts his finger upon the very point with which we have been dealing and affords an answer to our question :-
" You will observe one curious trait," said Sidonia to Con. ingsby, " in the history of this country : the depository of power is always unpopular ; all combine against it ; it always falls. Power was deposited in the great Barons; the Church, using the King for its instrument, crushed the great Barons. Power was deposited in the Church ; the King, bribing the Parliament, plundered the Church. Power was deposited in the Kimg ; the Parliament, using the People, beheaded the King, expelled the King, changed the King, and., finally, for a King substituted an administrative officer. For one hundred and fifty years Power has been deposited in the Parliament, and for the last sixty or seventy years it has been becoming more and more unpopular. In 1830 it was endeavoured by a reconstruction to regain the popular affection ; but, in truth, as the Parliament then only made itself more powerful, it has only become more odious. As we see that the Barons, the Church, the King, have in turn devoured each other, and that the Parliament, the last devourer, remains, it is impossible to resist the impression that this body also is doomed to be destroyed ; and he is a sagacious statesman who may detect in what form and in what quarter the great consumer will arise."
In spite of the overstatement, or at any rate overemphasis, and the pomp of Lord Beaconsfield's rhetoric, we believe that the essential part of Sidonia's speech is perfectly true. The English People have never been sympathetic towards the depository of power. They have always disliked it, and always will dislike it. The possession of power is not an attribute which is to them endearing, or even awe-inspiring. Rather it is a cause of suspicion, an instigator to resistance. In remarking this instinctive jealousy of power, we stumble indeed against the fact which Napoleon noted when, with an acumen which one feels he had hardly the right to possess, he declared that the difference between the English and the French was that the French cared a great deal for equality and nothing for liberty, while the English were indifferent to equality but valued liberty above everything else. It is because of this intense feeling in regard to his liberty of action that the Englishman is so consistently jealous of the wielder of supreme power. He is always fearful lest his freedom should be infringed. To tell him that it will only be infringed for his good seldom pacifies him. It is true that for any practical purpose and in anrgreat emergency he is the best- disciplined man in the world, and accepts without a murmur the strictest of military discipline ; but to make himself really obedient, to make himself the really splendid soldier that he is, he likes to nourish the belief that his militarism is only local and temporary." While he is on the job he has not the slightest objection to taking orders and executing them with what seems almost like a blind confidence ; but there is always in his heart that quality that Dr. Johnson so finely analyses when in his paper on the English Common Soldier he speaks of the quality which he describes in his heaviest Barrow style as " a kind of plebeian magnanimity," or again, as a " neglect of subordination "—a quality which, by the way, troullx1 Goldsmith, and which he analysed in the famous passage in The Traveller describing the English people:
"Fierce in their native hardiness of soul,
True to imsgin'd right, above emtrol."
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