PUBLIC BUSINESS. T HE House of Commons has got to work
in a proper and orderly fashion, and has begun by discussing the method of its procedure. The week has virtually been given up to this subject, and we hope that we shall not be accused of irreverence, if we say that the result has been to leave things pretty much where they were. The obstruction of which the Government have from time to time been the victims has had an unfortunate but not uncommon effect on them. They have felt that, in presence of an annoyance already so grave, and always threatening to become graver, it behoved them to do something ; but they have not paid equal attention to the importance of doing the right thing. They have hit out, as a policeman sometimes does in a crowd, and have this week been seen solemnly marching to the police- station with the wrong man in custody. The effect of Mr. Parnell's sins on the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been to make him extremely sensitive to other people's sins. He leaves Mr. Parnell alone, but he pounces upon any one whom he can charge with ever having wasted half-an-hour of the public time. To a man in this mood, there is something specially monstrous in the use which is often made of Monday night. The Government put Supply on the paper, and no Supply is to be had. What by a polite archaism are called " Grievances" take precedence, and the evening is spent in the discussion, if not of some wholly alien subject, at least of subjects which, though they may be connected with the purposes for which money is wanted, do not in the least advance the provision of it. Sir Stafford Northcote fondly thinks that, if this practice were put an end to, all would go right. Monday would become the day on which the Estimates would invariably be taken, and, with the mouths of troublesome Members once closed, substan- tial progress would be made with them at least once a week. It may seem almost cruel to dash the hopes of the long-suffering Leader of the House, but we can- not ourselves see that the alteration he has persuaded the House to adopt will make any substantial difference. As re- gards the Estimates themselves, the attention bestowed on each separate item will be redoubled, and Members below the gang- way will vie with one another in showing how much ingenuity they can bring to bear upon the separate items. If a night's debate which would otherwise have taken place before the House went into Committee is in future taken in Committee, the real inconvenience remains the same. The opposition to the passing of the Estimates may take a different and more precise form, but it will not be a whit less effectual. As regards that legislation which the Government is so constantly dangling before our eyes, its chances will be in no way improved by the inability under which Members will now labour to get a hearing before going into Supply. They will watch their opportunity, and under some fiction or other contrive to deliver themselves of their burden. It would take a very long time to impose any really efficacious restriction upon freedom of speech in the House of Commons, and we see nothing in the rule relating to Mondays which will have this effect. All that it will do, will be to irritate the Members against whom it is directed into finding other and even more inconvenient occa- sions for speaking their minds. The one genuine improve- ment which might be introduced into debates on the Estimates is not included in the Chancellor of the Exchequer's programme. It is that the Minister having charge of the Estimates should make his statement on the motion that the Speaker do now leave the Chair, and that all amendments to that motion should be debated after, instead of before, the statement. This would put the House in possession of what the Minister had to say at the outset, and would enable the Estimates to be proceeded with on subsequent nights when there might be time enough left to take a few Votes, though there might not be time for the Minister to make his introductory preface, Many of the amendments relating to the subject-matter of the Estimates would be thus disposed of by anticipation, and even where the Minister was not able to satisfy the malcontents, he would at least put the House in possession of his case beforehand, and thus help on the rapid disposal of the amendments when they presented themselves. Why a change so simple and yet so
effectual has failed to recommend itself to Sir Stafford North- cote it is hard to say.
The rule designed to limit a Member's right to move the adjournment of the House or of the Debate undoubtedly pre- sents an obstacle to the particular form which obstruction has occasionally taken. It will prevent Mr. Parnell and Mr. Biggar from winning such conspicuous victories by their own almost unaided efforts. But supposing the obstructives to be a dozen strong, how would the rule bear on them ? Mr. Parnell would rise and move the adjournment of the debate, and having once spoken, he would be silenced for the re- mainder of the discussion, and precluded from subsequently moving the adjournment of the House. But Mr. Biggar and ten other obstructives would be waiting to carry on the struggle, and each of the eleven obstructives other than the author of the motion would be free to speak to each succes- sive motion for adjournment, whether of the House or of the Debate. Is it worth while to make any change in the rules re- lating to discussions in Committee, if no greater improve- ment is secured than this ? The new rule will be to Mr. Parnell as the "seven green withs " were to Samson. He may pretend to be fettered by them for a moment, but as soon as any question arises which he thinks it is not beneath an Obstructive to take notice of, he will show the House that his strength has not really departed from him. The truth is that no automatic restrictions on obstruction are of any avail which are not at the same time restrictions on legitimate freedom of debate. If it should prove necessary to take steps to facili- tate the progress of business in the House, the right course to take is to proceed not against Obstruction, but against Obstruc- tives. Any attempt which stops short of this will either be futile, or it will go further than its authors desire. At present, the ideas of the Leader of the House do not seem to have got beyond the former stage.
If Mr. Dillwyn's motion on the Civil Service Estimates had been carried, it is far from unlikely that, though not designed for that end, it would have done more to hasten the passage of the Estimates through Committee than all Sir Stafford Northcote's resolutions put together. The real enemy of ill- considered opposition to an item in the Estimates is judicious criticism. Many votes are challenged and wrangled over, merely for want of sufficient knowledge on the part of the House of Commons of the subject to which they relate. The sum named seems large, and it is not until a Minister has been dragged up late in the debate to explain how the money is spent, and what we get in return for it, that the objector is, or ought to be, satisfied. If the Estimates were referred to a really strong Committee, and the House were put in possession of this information before the dis- cussion began, a great deal of this unsatisfactory squabbling might be dispensed with. Mr. Lowe's clever speech against the motion was based on a misconception of the true function of such a Committee. Undoubtedly, if the Committee were appointed for the purpose of recommending the House to accept or reject any proposed Estimate, there would be a great deal in his argument. But, as we understand Mr. Dillwyn's motion, what the Committee is wanted for is not to advise the House which way to make up its mind, but rather to put it in possession of materials on which to make up its mind. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer could say, ' This item ought not to appear in the Estimates, but I am very much pressed to let it in, and can do so safely, because the Committee are sure to strike it out,' that would undoubtedly tend to lessen his responsibility. But suppose that, instead of this, the Com- mittee merely reported that the Government had included such and such an item in the Estimates, that the object with which it appeared to be included was so-and-so, and that the effect of voting it would be so-and-so, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would know that if he gained present ease by yielding to an importunate Department, it would be at the cost of future annoyance, when he stood up in his place to justify a proposal which the Com- mittee had reported to the House to be of such-and-such a kind. To meet a searching report which is based on full in- formation, is a different thing from facing a House of Com- mons which necessarily knows very little about the matter. The House would not be advised by the Committee to accept or reject the item, it would simply be told what the public would get in return for the money it was asked to vote, and left to decide on that information whether it would vote it or not. Nothing apparently could be better adapted to make the discussion of the Estimates pertinent, and therefore brief.
Previous page
