THE FIVE-YEAR OLD PARLIAMENT.
.14i CURIOUS paragraph has been going the round of the morning papers which implies that the Parliament is likely to be dissolved next spring. The notion seems to be that a Parliament can only sit seven sessions, and that as next seasien is the seventh of the present Parliament it can never meet again after the next prorogation. This idea is of course entirely erroneous. By the- let of 1 George I., stet. 2, c. 38, Parliaments may " have continuance for seven years and no longer, to be accounted from the day on which by the writ of summons . . . Parliament shall be appointed to meet." As the present Parliament met on the 31st May, 1859,it will, if not dis- solved sooner, expire by efflux of time May 31, 1866, but there is no legal or constitutional reason why it should not sit for a dozen sessions before that date. Nor is the argument that an election in the autumn would interfere inconveniently with the harvest at all convincing. It is not indeed usual to allow the Parliament to expire, but even if it were necessary to choose the spring, why should the spring of 1865 be selected in preference to the spring of 1866 ? There is, however, no such necessity. The general election might take place in November, and yet the new Parliament not meet for the despatch of busine3s till the usual period—a course which was adopted in 1761 and 1.790. Or if the writs were issued on the 1st of January, 1866, Parliament could meet on the 5th of February. If therefore the ensuing session is brought to an untimely end, and the general election is to take place in the spring of next year, the reason for it must be sought in political considerations. Has the Government any reason to be dissatisfied with the present Parliament ? Summoned by Lord Derby it at once ejected the Conservatives from power by a vote of 13, and after an interval of five years it has re- affirmed this decision by a vote of 18. The Whig Tadpoles and Tapers—we suppose there are such persons—will not want to go to the country without a cry. An election in the spring, however convenient to the rural districts, is a great hindrance to legislation, and in particular postpones all private bills for a twelvemonth. Parliamentary agents, and counsel, and engineers would lose a year's income, and though private interests must of course yield to the public good they are a not uninfluential body of men. The interests of the large class of shareholders in railways, and docks, and canals, and bridges, and other industrial projects ought certainly to be considered. So that unless the Commons should turn rest- less in their old age there would seem to be good reason for expecting that they will be allowed to sit out the next session in peace. Certainly if the paper, which under the title pre- fixed to this article has just appeared in the new number of the Edinburgh Review, may be regarded as emanating from authority, the existing House of Commons is now contem- plated by the powers that be with peculiar favour. " The result," says the reviewer,- "of the division in the Lower House has been indefinitely to postpone the dissolution which a short time ago appeared imminent."
Indeed the Edinburgh reviewer has devoted his whole powers to the glorification of the present Parliament. So far from having done nothing, it has passed like the little busy bee from subject to subject and gathered some legisla- tive honey from each. Nearly half a page of the reviewer's space is consumed in barely enumerating its achievements, and " the chief results" of its unwearied activity are extended' before our astonished eyes under nineteen distinct heads. The process by which this unexpected result is brought about is as ingenious as amusing. Finance, for instance, is by com- mon consent the strong point of the present Government, and one expects it to be made the most of. But in the reviewer's enumeration it appears again and again; like some comedian playing many parts in the same piece, whose' dress, wig, and even features alter while the identity of the player remains unchanged. Thus we take stock of the financial " work accomplished" by the Commons as follows 1. Reduced taxation. 2. Reduced debt. 3. Expenditure checked. 4. Revenue buoyant. 5. Tariff simplified. 6. Trade largely augmented." With this specimen before him it will not be difficult for the most matter-of-fact reader to fill up the list of nineteen "chief results" for which the country is debtor to the House of Commons.
We can scarcely think that this mode of stating the achievements of the Parliament is likely to make any great impression on the national mind. If the great nugget from the diggings had been beaten out into gold-leaf it would have covered more space no doubt, but it would scarcely have attracted the attention of the curious. The financial policy of the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the one subject in which the history of the last five years satisfies the imagination. It has been as bold and daring in conception as successful in results. Twice has the budget, explained in orations of marvellously sustained power, seized, as it were, on the appro- val of the nation and overawed even the Opposition. If under the shield of the Times an attempt was made to resist the repeal of the paper duty the Government might if it had been beaten have dissolved without fear of the result. In finance at least Parliament has been willing to let the Govern- ment move on.
It is also entitled to credit for some very considerable practi- cal improvements in matters of ordinary social administration, but even here its action has been of a very negative character. Mr. Gladstone really deserves all the glory of the Post-Office Savings' Bank Bill and the Annuities Bill. So far as the House meddled with the last of these it was not improved, and may turn out to have been seriously curtailed of its beneficial effect. The most that can be said for the Parliament in reference to these measures, as well as to Lord Westbury's law reforms, is that it was decidedly not hostile. To claim for it any particular credit with respect to the organization of the Volunteer force or the mitigation of the cotton crisis seems simply preposterous. The country took these matters into its own hands, and the unemployed operatives have, it seems, derived little advantage from the advance of money for public works. It was the magnificent voluntary subscription which enabled the workmen to tido over the crisis, and by proving to them that the nation sympathized with their cala- mities, disarmed discontent. On other points the action of the Commons has been either passively or actively mischievous,— passively mischievous when it succumbed to the sentimental crotchet which exempts the property of the so-culled charitable foundations from taxation, — passively mis- chievous as well as mean when it gave way again to the narrow middle-class interests which stickle for the privi- leges of the City because those interests were strong enough to endanger the seats of borough members ; actively mischievous when it turned the county police into game- keepers, and risked the popular respect for the law to give new security to an aristocratic amusement. Bad as was the law the spirit manifested by the House was far worse. While that Bill was passing it certainly was not ado nothing Parliament. It rushed into fierce activity. The country gentlemen actually clamoured down even the Conservative leaders. The Bill was carried by an enormous in ijority. All that hesitation and languor, all that scrupulous timidity which did not so much reject as Burke the Reform Bill, in a moment disappeared. There have not been wanting other instances in which there has been no want either of courage or decision when an annoyance to the upper classes has had to be sup- time for a new advance has not yet come. Mean- pletely alters our Asiatic position. We do not want to con- while they are wise in their generation, and in the words of quer France, but the power of doing it in the last resort the proverb put their best leg foremost. The budget, it would alter all our relations towards that country, and alter seems, is to be again the great feature of the coming session. them to our advantage. We have in Asia, in fact, as an ally Their finance would certainly be the best question on which a first class monarchy, with a revenue of European magni- to appeal to the country, and it is perhaps not bad policy to tude, an army all Asia combined could not resist, a fleet equal give the Opposition no other point of attack. Until the for transport purposes to any work demanded, and this ally is Ministers have matured a definite scheme for the lowering of so faithful that ho never permits his policy to diverge from the franchise without endangering the representation of all ours, so devoted that till we are crushed his assistance is classes of the community they have no other claim than their absolutely secure, so humble that he never expresses even finance to be preferred to the Tories. And subject to the an opinion as to the terms of peace, or the need of war, or inevitable chapter of accidents, a quiet session and a dissolu- the character of the operations to be undertaken. If tion after the harvest seems to be the programme for the asked for troops he sends them be it to Egypt, Chinn,
coming year. or New Zealand without remark ; if for a fleet he hires it
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