A LOST PARLIAMENTARY VIRTUE.
(To Tay EDITOR or Tas " SPECTATOR:1 SIR,—The state of affairs in the House of Commons at the present moment constrains me to address you on an incidental matter which I believe may be considered to account for much which has happened during many Sessions. Many a- ils can well recollect the Palmerstonian suaviter in modo, and how well it lasted through the fifties and sixties, notwith- standing such miniature storms as, for instance, the West- bury incident. In the post-Palmerstonian times, however, much has been changed—not because men have begun to feel more deeply or to be more in earnest, but because the- temperament of recent leaders has not made for the suave. Post-Palmerstonian chiefs have brought forward great measures with a determination to ride down all resistance or- to oppose them with, at least, "implacable hostility," and in- vective has become recognised as " an ornament of debate?' Sir Stafford Northcote and Mr. W. H. Smith delighted in the suaviter, and would have brought it back had they been able,. but with other times came other manners and other Members. also, with manners grossly unparliamentayy. Angry passions. rose higher and higher until the culminating point was reached when a Bill offensive to the country was driven brutally through the House with nearly four-fifths of its
undebated. Violent partisanship grew tip an& flourished, and now almost everything must be received with implacable hostility and invectives be hurled about like- boomerangs.
Mr. Arthur Balfour would be able to do much to restore the Palmerstonian suaviter if only he were faced by chiefs of similar temperament. He is naturally suave, urbane, courteous, and perhaps as much a master of himself and of his face as Disraeli ; but opposite to him is a leader who often speaks as though ho were taking part in a brawl, and as if his following must be whirled into fury ere its few votes can be secured. Next century perhaps Palmerstonian days may return, and meanwhile I think I am justified in saying that failure to legislate on an adequately satisfactory scale is not
the result of overcrowding the Queen's Speech or even of much speaking, but is primarily due to the loss of the old Parliamentary :smiler in modo.—I am, Sir, &c., R. ST. J. CORSET.
St. Mary's Place, Shrewsbury, June 15th.
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