19 JULY 1890, Page 4

THE CRY AGAINST A WINTER SESSION.

THERE has been a great deal of nonsense talked about Sir William Harcourt's letter to Monday's Times having " pulverised " the proposal of the Government to bold a Winter Session, as one "that deservesrather to be laughed at than discussed." The letter was written because Sir William Harcourt thought he could do more in the way of laughing at it than in the way of discussing it; and no doubt he did. laugh at it, and very boisterously,—if elephants could laugh, they would laugh like that,—but he did not discuss it, and did not even shake one of the grounds on which it has been recommended and will be adopted. Under similar, though nothing like such urgent circumstances, Mr. Gladstone adopted a similar expedient in 1882. Then he had only the Parnellites obstructing business in the House of Commons, whereas the present Government have the whole of the Opposition doing all in their power to defeat the principal measures of the Government. In that year Mr. Gladstone summoned an Autumn Session on October 24th, and then summoned Parliament to meet on February 15th for a new Session. The Government now propose to open the new Session in the latterof November, and to get the (useless) debate on the 4treten's Speech and as much as possible of the Committee on their Land-Purchase Bill over, with, of course, a Christmas holiday interposed, before Parliament has usually been asked to begin its deliberations. The difference between the two plans is imperceptible, Mr. Gladstone's Autumn Session having begun earlier than the present Government's Winter Session will begin, but a longer interval having been allowed between the prorogation and the meeting of Parlia- ment than will be interposed between the adjournment and the reassembling on the present occasion. Besides, in 1882 Parliament did not adjourn till August 19th, and in the present case it seems most probable that the proroga- tion will take place at least a week earlier. On the whole, it is quite clear that Mr. Gladstone worked his obstructed Parliament in 1882-83 at least as hard as the Government propose to work their much more obstructed Parliament in 1890-91.

And in spite of all that is said, and justly said, about the mischief to Ministers and the mischief to Members, in Sessions so fatiguing, there is no ignoring the fact that some one must suffer for the block of Parliamentary business which has been so skilfully brought about ; that the country expects some one to suffer for it ; and that the evil which cries out for a remedy never will be remedied unless the country at large knows, and is compelled to fix its attention on the fact, that a good many persons are suffering, and will continue to suffer for the waste of time that takes place till some adequate remedy is found. We feel the greatest sympathy with the First Lord of the Treasury when he thus offers himself up for the public good. But we cannot deny that it is for the public good that he should thus offer himself up. In 1882, it had been admitted to be quite essential to find, or try to find, some remedy for the mischiefs of wasted time and obstructed legislation, and Mr. Gladstone very properly forced the subject into the chief place in public attention by ask- ing Parliament to overwork itself till a remedy could be found. The present Government have to cope not only with the party which was causing so much obstruction then, but with that party backed by the whole force of the Opposition ; and very properly, they too fix public attention fully on the matter by requiring Parliament to make up for lost time, and so giving an object-lesson to the country in the real meaning and effect of all this obstruction. We believe that no other course would have been legitimate. We admit all that can be said as to the injury to Ministers from their Parliamentary overwork. We admit all that can be said of the disgust with which society and the country gentleman will regard this serious abridgment of their winter amusements. But nobody can both eat his cake and have it too. The Opposition have chosen to earn the gratitude of their partisans by rendering it impos- sible to pass measures for which there is a large majority in the House of Commons ; and now they must bear the responsibility for what they have done. The country ought to know how unreasonably hard the Government and the House of Commons must work in order to make up for the obstructive triumphs of the Opposi- tion, and how certain it is that Parliamentary institutions will become almost a laughing-stock under the pressure to which they are now subjected, if these obstructive triumphs are to be repeated. We do not wonder that Sir William Harcourt objects to this powerful object- lesson in the meaning of obstruction. It will be an object- lesson that will not redound to his credit with the con- stituencies, for, in spite of all his disclaimers, the country knows very well that constant, bitter, and tenacious obstruction has been practised in Parliament under the favour and encouragement, and often at the instance of the front Opposition Bench. But laugh as boisterously and hoarsely as he will at the Winter Session which is the only possible expedient for meeting the obstruction that has been offered to most necessary measures, the country will not laugh at it. The constituencies will approve the resolve which insists on passing the Land-ParchaRe Bill and the Tithe Bill before the dissolution of Parlia- ment, and on defeating the tactics of a factious and un- scrupulous minority. And we sincerely hope that the effect of the lesson wilt go far beyond its immediate purpose. The Winter Session is essential for that purpose. Nay, the future use of the expedient recommended by the Procedure Committee, the hanging-up of Bills from one Session to another of the same Parliament, may, we hope and believe, be an effectual help in the same direction. But with the frictional forces increasing as they do increase, and the unscrupulousness of party conduct increasing as it does increase, all these mere palliatives of the difficulty will prove quite insufficient, and the country must face the fact that they are certain to. prove insufficient, and that a much more stringent and thorough remedy will ultimately have to be adopted. We believe ourselves that either the numbers of the House of Commons should be at least halved, or that some large and comprehensive adjustment of the methods of legisla- tion to the exigencies of the case,—such a method, for example, as has been adopted where a department lays- on the table regulations which become law in the ab- sence of any vote of either House to the contrary,— must supersede our present clumsy and time-consuming process of legislation. It is obvious that exceptional sacrifices can only be asked from Ministers and Parlia- ment on exceptional occasions. Mr. W. H. Smith may be willing to be used up in the public service, and we may be obliged, for once, to accept the holocaust. But we cannot use up our public men systematically as holocausts of obstruc- tion. Such gentle palliatives as using the deliberations of one Session for the purposes of the next Session, will only reduce slightly the increasing block of business. We shall come to a new stand-still before long, in spite of all such palliatives. And the sooner the people of this country realise that a new departure is urgently needful, and that either the monster debating club must be cut down to reasonable proportions, or its facilities for defeating, the wish of the majority removed, the sooner we shall find ourselves grappling with the real issue, and ceasing to chip away with mere penknives at mischiefs which require the free use of the sharpest axe.