THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND ITS WORK. T HE House of
Commons is of all deliberative assemblies the hardest to understand. If there lie two things which more than any others are singled out for complaint in every review of the Session with which a Member obliges his constituents, they are the waste of Parliamentary time, and the impossibility—daily growing more complete—of private Members getting a hearing for their Bills. No doubt both grievances are exaggerated ; but for all that, both of them contain a share of truth. There are many hours in every Session which yield but a scanty harvest, either in legislation or in preparation for legisla- tion, and there are useful measures introduced by private Members, which have never a chance of coming to so much as a second reading. Yet when an opportunity presents itself for devising some working scheme for amending this state of things, the House shows an almost ostentatious want of interest in the whole subject. We hear a great deal about the burdens which Parliament has to bear. We are told in speech after speech that the work it has to do is beyond the power of any single body to get through. The necessity of devolving some part of its business upon other shoulders is almost a by-word. But all this appears to be quite consistent with entire indifference to every form of devolution save one. Constitutional revo- lutions are to be had for the asking, and "Home-rule all round" is put forward as a remedy for all the ills which afflict the body politic. The great hindrance to any improve- ment is this determination of the majority to look for it in one direction only. Irish or Scottish Home-rule Bills, and even such lesser changes as the creation of Grand Com- mittees constructed on national lines, cannot be trusted to do the humble work of saving the time of the House of Commons. The passing of them is in itself a fresh de- mand on that time, and a demand of extraordinary mag- nitude; and if they were passed, the friction that would arise in the working of them might be found a more fertile source of delay than any of those which they had super- seded. Home-rule may have every merit from the consti- tutional point of view, but its operation as a mode of getting more work out of Parliament is too remote to be taken into present account.
All this is so obvious that such a motion as that brought forward. by Sir Albert Rollit on Tuesday seemed just the expedient which a practical assembly would have hastened to close with. All kinds of suggestions have been made from time to time with a view, of relieving the House of Commons from some of its multifarious duties, and the appointment of a Committee to inquire into their several merits is the natural first step towards putting some of them into action. It is true that the mover's speech dealt mainly with the simplification and acceleration of proce- dure within the House. But the motion covered proposals for making over some of its business to other bodies, and if devolution were really as much desired as readers of Ministerial speeches might suppose, such a Committee might easily have been made a means of bringing it about. One kind of devolution, though not, as we think, a good one, was expressly mentioned in Sir Albert Rollit's speech. Private Bill legislation, he said, ought not to be transacted in the House of Commons, but handed over to the County Councils. Some change in this direction, though not asw e think this particularch ange would relieve Members of a very heavy demand on their time, as well as lead, in all probability, to the business being better done. The cost of bringing witnesses to London would be saved by the transfer of the work to local tribunals ; and even to the Parliamentary counsel, the consequent incon- venience would be no greater than falls to the lot of every common-law barrister. They would have to go circuit instead of practising entirely at Westminster. Upon this point, Sir Albert Rollit had. the support of Mr. Courtney ; and no better proof could be asked for both of the neces- sity of doing something, and of the wisdom of inquiring what is the best thing that can be done. But the House cared no more for Mr. Courtney than for Sir Albert Rollit, and the division showed only 41 Members in favour of the appointment of a Committee, and 136 against it. This is the measure of the genuineness of the alleged anxiety of the majority to get more time for work.
It may be, indeed, that there were things to be said against the motion which were not actually said ; and the fact that Mr. Balfour, as well as the Government, would have opposed it if the division had not been taken so early, certainly points in this direction. But Mr. Balfour could have opposed it with perfect consistency. He is not always insisting upon the necessity of having Irish business relegated to Dublin and Scottish business relegated to Edinburgh, nor is he sufficiently impressed with the excellence of the House of Commons as a legis- lative machine, to be in any hurry to find it more work. What we complain of is not that Sir Albert Rollit's motion was rejected, but that it was rejected by men who are continually insisting on the paralysis which has over- taken the House of Commons in consequence of its having too much to do.
Nor is this the only or the most mischievous form in which this inconsistency shows itself. It is a common thing to hear from the same lips complaints that the House of Commons is overworked, and proposals to extend the area of its action. Only the other day, for example, the majority which would not hear of a Com- mittee to consider how to relieve the House of some of its existing burdens, was quite ready to appoint one to con- sider how to add a fresh burden to those it already has to bear. As if it positively had time on its hands of which it did not know how to dispose, it must needs want to take in hand the administration of all the charities of the Kingdom. The ideal of the modern Radical is a repre- sentative Chamber which shall have its finger in every- body's pie. He is not merely unwilling that people should manage their own affairs ; he is not even content that they should be managed by Officers appointed by the Govern- ment. His notion of a Charity Commission is not that it should be a, body of trained experts administering vast funds on fixed principles without deference to local pressure. On the contrary, this deference to local pressure is the virtue he wishes to impart to the Commission. He is never so happy as when he is doing a little wirepulling, and when he talks of drawing closer the relation between the Commissioners and the representatives of the people, he really means making charitable administration dependent on any passing feeling which may happen to take hold of the House of Commons. The records of the Charity Com- mission could furnish abundant examples of the mischief which Parliamentary interference would have done, if the process of invoking it had not involved delay and difficulty. What is now wanted is that this delay and difficulty should be got rid of, and the administration of Charity be altered by the result of every General Election.
The truth is, that while the representative principle, like most other principles, is excellent in its own , sphere and for its own purposes, it is thoroughly mis- chievous in spheres and for purposes to which it has no proper relation. Administration is one of these latter spheres. The object of administration is to secure that the public service shall be carried on by the best attain- able persons and in the best possible way ; and the first requisite for securing this object is to keep the appoint- ment of the persons and the selection of the ways out of the hands of a representative body. The tendency of such bodies is to be subject to all manner of influences which have quite other ends in view than those just named. Those influences will be exerted upon the Members, not so much with a view of making the best appoint- ments and choosing the best methods, as of appointing such and such classes of persons and adopting the methods which will benefit, or at all events please, such and such other classes. To take a familiar example, if special work has to be done it will be given not to the best workman, but to the man who has best learned the art of proclaiming that he is out of work. Consequently, we only go half-way with Sir Albert Rollit in the matter of Private-Bill legislation. Should it be taken out of the hands of the House of Commons ?—Yes. Should it be made over to the County Councils ?—No. For County Councils are representative bodies, and as such are and will be exposed to all the dangers which beset large repre- sentative bodies, as well as to some peculiar to themselves. What is wanted for Private-Bill legislation is just what the Radical reformer wishes to drive out of that and every similar field, — impartial tribunals armed with special knowledge and able to give effect to this know- ledge by reason of their immunity from private or personal pressure.
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