THE DEBATE ON MR. O'DONNELL.
THE scene of Monday night would seem to us a very ominous one, if we did not believe profoundly in the sincere dread felt by the Prime Minister of creating precedents for curbing the liberty of debate, and in the positive resolve of the party behind him not to permit such precedents to be made. We do, however, believe that no feeling was stronger on the Ministerial benches on Monday, than dismay at the necessity which had arisen for making the motion which was made, and determination not to admit it as a precedent for any occasion less urgent than that for which it was used, --namely, the silencing of a Member who, without notice, and against the earnest expostulation of the Speaker, was using the exceptional power accorded by the courtesy of the House of moving the adjournment, in order to discuss the personal character of a man who had been appointed an Ambassador to this country by a foreign Power. Under such circumstances, and under such circumstances alone, we think that Mr. Glad- stone's interposition, in reply to the appeal of the Speaker, to move "That Mr. O'Donnell be not heard," was a right, and even a necessary interposition ; but it was one to be used, and which, indeed, was used, by Mr. Gladstone, with misgiving, and the utmost precaution against its becoming a pre- cedent for the guidance of the House in cases not so urgent. Indeed, we hold that Sir Stafford Northcote's appeal, to which Mr. Gladstone virtually assented, that had the motion for adjourning the debate been disposed of, words should have been added to guard against the throttling of free debate in future by the use of so drastic an instrument, was a reasonable and wise one. Had the Leader of Opposi- tion made this suggestion at an earlier period of the debate, —had he suggested it in place of the rather unfortunate speech in which he referred to former grievances of his own, and twitted Mr. Gladstone with supporting Mr. Bright in making use of the motion for adjournment, though for a very different and much less dangerous purpose,—we should probably have had a different and more satisfactory result. But the " spretae injnria formae " rankled too deeply in Sir Stafford Northcote's breast, and he could not refrain from taking party advantage of an emergency which he ought to have felt was above the level of party. But Sir Stafford Northcote was by no means the only leader in fault in the discussion. Unquestionably, Sir William Har- court irritated needlessly and dangerously passions which he ought to have sought to allay, when he accused the Leader of Opposition of lending his "powerful and influential support to the Member for Dungarvan." Sir Stafford Northcote had disclaimed all sympathy with Mr. O'Donnell's course in the most emphatic language, and though it is quite true that, in his resentful memory of former difficulties, he did not lend such support as he ought to have lent to the Speaker and to the leader of the House, it was an injudicious and mischievous course in the Home Secretary to seize that opportunity for making a party fight of it, and accuse the leader of Opposi- tion of backing up the Member for Dungarvan. What such situations need is not more inflamed passion, but the most disinterested self-restraint. And certainly there were but few who intervened in Monday's debate, except, so far as we can judge, the Prime Minister,—who, under a shower of taunts and direct ac- cusations that he had lost his temper, seems to have kept it quite unruffled by the acrimonies of the hour,—did show much self- restraint. Mr. Parnell—whom we need not say we regard as one of the most dangerous politicians in the House—showed perhaps as much self-restraint as any. His suggestion that the debate should be adjourned to give Mr. O'Donnell time to re- consider his course, was, to our mind, quite inadmissible, after such an appeal as the Speaker had made, and which Mr. O'Donnell had ignored. But coming from the leader of the Irish party, it was a moderate proposal. It was a proposal made with much address, and without any attempt to excuse Mr. O'Donnell's attitude to the House. Even Lord Hartington and Mr. Forster, though they spoke with force and gravity, did not give sufficient impression,—and this was the most urgent requisite of the debate,—that they were aware of the overwhelming force of the instru- ment which they proposed to use, and of the very dangerous abuses of which it might be susceptible. Now, without giving the House the deepest impression that they were fully aware of this possible abuse of the weapon in their hands, the advocacy of its special use on that occasion was dangerous. The truth is that a Minister with a majority might at any time silence an opponent by an unscrupulous use of the power thus assumed. And if it were unscrupulously used, the House of Commons would cease to be. Supposing Sir Stafford Northcote could have got up and moved, at the time questions were asked and discussions raised as to the secret Anglo-Russian, and Anglo-Turkish Conventions, that the Member addressing the House "be not heard," Parliament of course would become a sham. It is clear, we think, that there are rare and great occasions when, if the Speaker be not able to interfere by his own authority,—and this we should greatly prefer,—the leader of the House may, in response to an appeal of the Speaker, and only in response to such an appeal, stop a speech which the Speaker deems to be dangerous to the order, honour, or dignity of the House. The difficulty of the present case was that the Speaker would not absolutely rule Mr. O'Donnell out of order, because he had permitted on other occasions motions for adjournment made solely to discuss the reply given to questions which a Minister had answered in a manner that seemed unatisfactory to the questioner. But though he had permitted this course in cases not specially dangerous to the honour of the House, that was, we think, no reason why he should not have ruled against it, when the honour of the House was certainly involved, as it clearly was, in the discussion of a question as to the personal character of a foreign Ambassador without adequate notice to the Ministers beforehand. And we are sure the Speaker would have been justified, and would have been sup- ported by the House, in ruling that a course always regarded as exceptional, could only be used under circumstances which would not derogate from the esteem in which the English Parliament ought to stand with the rest of the world. Mr. Gladstone said that the Speaker, though he had the guardian- ship of the order of the House, was not the authorised guardian of the proprieties of the House ; in other words, we sup- pose that it is his duty to see the Rules of the House observed, but not to determine, in doubtful cases, the limits within which they are applicable. We believe, however, that difficult as it is to impose on the Speaker duties which it might be imputed to him that he discharged in a partisan spirit, the House of Commons would much rather see a " propriety " of this kind ruled by the Speaker, who is the representative of both sides of the House, than see it imposed by the leader of the House, who is the recognised chief of only one side of it. Mr. Brand would have done wisely, we think, to claim the right of refusing to Mr. O'Donnell the exceptional privilege, sometimes accorded to Members whose questions are not answered in a way that they think satisfactory, to move the adjournment of the House. The Speaker might well have said that it did not become the House to accord such a courtesy to a Member who was pressing charges against a foreign ambas- sador without giving due notice of their nature and scope ; and if he had done so, he would have been sustained by both sides of the House, and Mr. Gladstone's motion would have been unnecessary. As, however, he shrank from that course, we hold that the Prime Minister would have been guilty of cul- pable weakness, if he had not risen in response to the appeal of the Speaker to give the House an opportunity of forbidding the continuation of Mr. O'Donnell's speech ; nor do we think Mr. Gladstone could have been absolved of weakness if he had accepted the poor compromise of the adjournment of the debate. Indeed, without the concession made so late and so reluctantly by Mr. O'Donnell, Mr. Gladstone could not have avoided dividing the House on his motion, though he might well have modified it, as he expressed his willingness to do, in Sir Stafford Northcote's sense.
Mr. O'Donnell's letter to the Times of Thursday con- tains what, no doubt, he considers a fair account of the emergency, but probably no one else will agree with him. His contention is that he and the Speaker are the only persons who were absolutely right; and that the leader of the House was absolutely wrong. We fear the Speaker will not assent to that very skilful classification ; and on Thursday night, at all events, Mr. O'Donnell showed himself in no mood to admit that the Speaker was at all more right than Mr. Gladstone had been on the Monday. The truth is, that Mr. O'Donnell's high praise of the Speaker's conduct on the Monday must be regarded as somewhat diplomatic. "I must put it to the House," said the Speaker,—and, of course, putting it to the House is putting it to the leader of the House,—" whether the question as to the appointment of a foreign ambassador at this Court can properly be debated on a motion without notice for the adjournment of the House?' The Speaker's appeal, therefore, was not made to Mr. O'Donnell, as he assumes ;—was not a warning addressed to him, as Mr. O'Donnelrs language implies, not to abuse his privilege ; but was an appeal to the House not to grant him that privilege, not to let him continue his speech on such a subject at all. Mr. O'Donnell did not respond to that appeal. He simply expressed his intention to "confine himself to the fewest possible words," and was beginning again, when the Prime Minister rose to respond to the Speaker's appeal. We say confidently, that if the Speaker were "absolutely right," Mr. O'Donnell was "absolutely wrong ;" and if Mr. O'Donnell was absolutely right, the Speaker was absolutely wrong. The Speaker declared that Mr. O'Donnell might properly give notice of a new question, but that he was acting improperly in continuing a speech on the adjournment. Mr. O'Donnell gave no indication of complying with that ruling, but only promised to be as brief as possible, and there was nothing to show that that brevity might not have easily included new and grave charges against the French Ambassador-designate. We repeat, then, that we should have held Mr. Gladstone guilty of grave weakness, if, on the Speaker's appeal, he had not interfered as he did. But the interference was of so serious a kind, and might be made into so ruinous a precedent, that the Liberal party would rightly have regarded it with dismay, but for the evidence which the Prime Minister gave, though all his colleagues did not equally give it, that only in an emergency so serious, and only under guaran- tees of the most stringent kind, would it be used again. The truth is that the Speaker should himself either forbid, or be empowered by the House to forbid, so improper an ex- ercise of a very exceptional privilege as was attempted by Mr. O'Donnell,
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