PROCEDURE.
THE new Rules of Procedure proposed by the Government appear at once moderate and sensible, and with the exception of the first, which no doubt involves a great change, they ought not to provoke great discussion. It is quite right that a Member suspended for offensive language should apolo- gise for his conduct before he is readmitted, and though we wish the old practice of exacting heavy fees from him could be revived, we are aware that the penalty is open, as all other fines are open, to the charge of inequality. A fine of £300 does not fall on Lord Hartington and Mr. Sexton with equal weight. It is wise, too, to lengthen the hours of sitting, and begin at 2 o'clock instead of 4, for though the change will be a burden on the Speaker and the officials of the House, it will facilitate business. In practice, nobody with anything to do will go down to the House till 4, and the fools, bores, faddists, and " notes of interrogation," now so numerous in the House, will have two hours in which to exhaust their stupidi- ties before serious business begins. As the House is afraid to reduce any of its Members to permanent silence, or to punish imbecility as an offence, any palliative is acceptable, and the extra time conceded may be so used as to prove one. The argument that business men will be injured is no argument at all ; for, not to mention that they can stay away, all business Members not Londoners are already suffering from that very injury. Lastly, we welcome heartily the revival of Standing Committees, for though they have not yet worked well, it is in that direction that ultimate improvement must lie. Details should be referred to a small House, composed of experts only ; and a Standing Committee, properly organised and fully trusted, should be precisely that.
It is, however, round the first of the new rules that the battle will rage. The Government, with commendable courage, have at last resolved to adopt the Closure, and it is the Closure which every one who at heart desires to paralyse Parliament will steadily resist. Under the new rule, any Member can propose, " with the consent of the Speaker "—a qualification intended to prevent obscure Members from springing the Closure on the House—that " the question be now put," in other words, that talk end ; and if his opponents number less than forty, he need have only a hundred supporters. If, how- ever, they number more than forty, he must, to be successful, be supported by more than two hundred Members, though, of course, his motion may be carried by a majority of one. We do not quite see the utility of the clause about the forty Members, or the reason for fixing the numbers of the majority, and should infinitely prefer a simpler order,—that when the Closure was proposed, one-third of the House must be present. That would prevent any resort to the Closure by surprise, as would also a rule that no Member should ask for it unless he was also a Privy Councillor. The former alternative is, however, the better, as it would not be levelled against the Parnellites ; but the Government will doubtless give strong reasons for their figures, and the one important point is that they propose the Closure. That is an open confession that Conservatives at last feel, as Liberals have long felt, that Parliament must be released from its fetters ; and shows that, with the exception, perhaps, of a few extremists, all British representatives have upon this subject slowly come to be of a single mind. There is no doubt that they will be supported almost unanimously by the country, and the single question still in suspense is whether the Government are determined enough to overbear the resistance of a minority. The Parnellites and their few Radical allies will no doubt resist to the death, and they are too numerous to be overcome by mere physical exhaustion. Eighty Irishmen could keep up a continuous debate from to-day till the sun cooled, and the Government must therefore be prepared at some point to intervene with the strong hand, and, with the assistance of the Speaker, to insist that the House decide. If they do this, they will have performed a service to the State greater than any conceivable act of legislation ; but to do it will be a severe teat of their nerve and disinterested- ness. They will be forced to give deadly offence to some of their own followers ; they will be obliged to seek help in a quarter where it is painful to ask it ; and they may be com- pelled to allow some pressing subjects of legislation to wait for another Session. The question has, however, come up at last in its full breadth ; they are sure of the support of every Unionist in the Kingdom ; and they could not find in the whole range of politics so good a subject on which to dissolve. The country is utterly sick of the powerlessness of Parliament, which implies the powerlessness of the constituencies ; and the Government which appealed to it to restore authority to the representatives of the people would be sure of a nearly unanimous response. We hope, therefore, that there will be no weakness, but that we shall see a Government for once resolved either to carry its point or to declare that the House of Commons is incom- petent, and that the people must exclude the avowed enemies of their first right,—which is to embody their will in the form of law. It is the people, not the Government, whom the Obstructives defy and challenge ; and no man who votes on that side should ever again be returned.
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