THE INCONVENIENCE OF POLITICAL SUPERSTITION.
TN some ways political England is the least super- stitious, and in others the most superstitious, amongst the different countries of Europe. We have on one occasion beheaded a King ; we have changed the dynasty ; we have threatened civil war to carry reforms. And yet where we have suffered great, indeed almost intolerable, inconvenience, because a powerful Minister happened to be a Member of the House of Lords when we wished to have him in the Commons, we have found the difficulty quite insuperable because it was so small. The present writer can remember the last appearance of that wonderful actor, John Parry, in public, just before his retirement and death. The only subject of the little piece with which he convulsed a crowded house, was the miserable preoccupation of his mind with a tin-tack which he had just perceived on the floor, and which he could neither persuade himself to remove nor to forget. Whatever subject he tried to enter on, his mind kept recurring to this unfortunate tin-tack and the danger that he should stumble over it, till the tin-tack became a sort of Rubicon, which he could neither pass nor ignore. The political inconvenience which the English people feel and resent and cannot remove, as other people remove their little incon- veniences, by the stroke of a constitutional pen, is the scruple we feel in allowing a Minister who happens to be in the Lords, to address the House of Commons, or, indeed,— though we have never really suffered from that incon- venience,—the scruple we feel in letting a Minister who happens to have a seat in the Commons, address the House of Lords. Those are the most trifling of incon- veniences—inconveniences about which the French never made the smallest difficulty. We, however, find it a kind of political tin-tack. We propose to remove it 11 the great remedial measure of passing a Bill empowering a Minister in the Lords to prefer, if he wishes to do so, to lay down his constitutional right to a writ of summons to the Lords, and to accept in place of it the right to be a candidate for a constituency which sends representatives to the House of Commons ; but somehow the Bill never gets itself passed. It was on for a first consideration on Wednesday, but Mr. Curzon never got his opportunity; and if he had got it, we do not suppose it would have passed the House. The remedy is too elaborate for its purpose. It looms too big for the very petty need which it is intended to supply. Like the tin-tack, it assumes a disproportionate importance in the mind of the sufferer. Why should a man stoop to pick up what he can step over if he pleases ? But he cannot step over it and leave it there without being haunted by it, and he cannot pick it up because he could so easily step over it. And so we go on bothering our heads about a political trifle of the most insignificant proportions just because it is too insignificant to deserve an elaborate remedy, and too irritating to the imagination to be got rid of by the sincere resolve to ignore it.
What is there to justify the need for a Bill such as Mr. Curzon was prepared to propose ? Why not let each House of Legislature pass a Standing Order to give any Minister of the Crown the right to sit and speak in either House of Legislature, though without the right to vote in it? The French never made any difficulty on the subject, and nothing seems either more reasonable or less open to objection. The House of Commons may always summon a witness whom it wishes to hear to the bar, and this is nothing more than allowing a Minister to sit and speak without voting, except that it is desirable to give any Minister whom it is convenient to hear a seat in the House itself, and not to treat him as if he were an alien to it, when, in fact, he has all the interests of the case on which he is desired to speak as much at heart as any Member of the House to which he does not happen tc belong. It is a simple matter of political convenience that a Member of the Administration should have access to either Assembly intrusted with the duty of looking after the legislative and administrative affairs of the nation. To deprive the House of Commons of the immense advantage of hearing the chief authority on any subject which occupies their minds, discuss at length the reasons for the policy he proposes, is indeed perfect folly,—a mere political betise. True he has not received the political consecration of a popular election, but then he does not claim the right of a vote, only the right of informing those who have that right how they ought to vote, and why they ought, in his opinion at least, to vote in one way rather than the other. But is not that right one of the first- importance in order to guide the judgments of the representatives of the people ? What can be more foolish than to exclude the people who have the right to decide a national policy from the privilege of hearing the views of the men who ought to know most of the matter, in answer to the objectors who either do know, or at least think that they know, more? The Minister is not asking the right to interfere with the decision, only the right to help those who have the power to decide, in mastering the conditions for a right decision ; and no scruple can be more superstitious than any which inter- feres with the qualification of a juror to appreciate justly the bearing of the evidence with which he has to deal. The only objection we can imagine to letting any Minister be heard by either House of Legislature on subjects on which he is well qualified to enlighten that House, is that there may be now and then able Ministers who are not qualified to make good speeches in a great Assembly accustomed to the utmost freedom of debate ; and that when this is the case, a prejudice might be raised against the judgment he had formed, and perhaps rightly formed, only because he had not availed himself of the permission to defend it, as he might have done, when it was challenged in the House of Commons. That is a conceivable ease; and of course, in that case, it would be a misfortune for him, rather than a privilege, that he might be heard in the Commons,—if he felt that he could not really improve his case by availing himself of that right. But such cases are comparatively rare amongst those who rise to the position of Ministers, and we could well afford to set off the disadvantage of conferring a privilege which could not be usefully used, against the great advantage of conferring so many privileges which could and would be usefully used, especially in the case of a Prime Minister. There is something absolutely monstrous in denying him the right of stating his policy in his own words before any Assembly which has the power either to sanction or to reject that policy. The truth is, that English politicians do not make enough of mere political convenience. After all, in small matters, political convenience is the true guide, and there is no more use in requiring a statutory remedy for a matter which can easily be dealt with by the Standing Orders of either House of Parliament, than there was in Newton's making a little hole for the little cat after he had already made a big hole for the big cat. Pure formalities should not need constitutional solutions. It is a mistake in political life to grow morbid over the misplacement of a tin-tack.
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