THEDISCIPLINE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
THE second suspension of Mr. Healy during the present Session,—in this case, at all events, a suspension which there can be little doubt that that able Nationalist was deter- mined to force upon the Speaker,—gives us an opportunity for saying a few words on a subject of which Englishmen's minds, and even hearts, should be full,—the condition of the House of Commons. That is a subject which more or less contains every other political subject. If the House of Commons is to degenerate and become the kind of assembly which it bids fair to be unless the auguries of the last year or two are to be falsified, there is nothing to which Englishmen can look forward except the gradual failure of Parliamentary government, and the resort to some other in all probability less free and liberal system of self-government. A greater calamity could hardly befall us, and yet it is one of which we can see the imminent danger, unless the country is prepared, as we trust it is, to nerve itself to resolute, and even peremptory, although absolutely impartial action. Our own attitude in relation to This matter has been, and is likely to be, much misunder- stood. We are supposed by some of our correspondents, —by Mr. Spicer, for instance, whose very fair and temperate letter we publish to-day, and by another gentleman, who takes a more indignant tone, and announces his intention to give up reading this journal for the future,—to have tak m a most unjust view of Dr. Tanner's case last week, because we did not state his own view of it, and that of his adherents, in full. The truth is, that we did not think that in the least relevant. We were not unwilling to suppose that Dr. Tanner's statement of what happened last week in the House of Commons was at least as near the truth as Mr. Long's. We are quite ready to admit that Mr. Long may have deserved a severe rebuke for provoking Dr. Tanner, as we are willing to admit that Mr. Courtney was jastified on Thursday in reproaching Mr. De Lisle with conduct that is frequently calculated to incite the Irish Members to disorder. But what was obvious in the case of Dr. Tanner was that, even if we accept his own account of it, he had violated the decencies of the House of Commons not for the second, or third, or fourth time this Session, but after a number of previous offences that were so numerous as to indicate a genuine contempt for the authority of the House. It was for this, and not for his conduct in relation to Mr. Long especially,—which may even have been just what he himself described it,—that we ventured to express our deep conviction that Mr. Peel was for once wanting in firmness and decision. No one can entertain a deeper respect for the Speaker than ourselves, and we heartily agree that the House was bound to defer to his judgment,— mistaken though we deem that judgment to have been. We should have supported him warmly had he thought right to reprimand Mr. Long, as Mr. Courtney on Thursday night virtually reprimanded Mr. De Lisle. We should have even been gratified had it so happened that the heavy displeasure of the House had descended first on an English, and not on an Irish Member, though that, of course, is not a matter in which there can be any discretion. We would have the authority of the House upheld against English even more strenuously than against Irish Members, who have perhaps more excuse for their outbreaks. Bat when the moment comes that any Member, English or Irish, shows his deliberate neglect of the decencies of the House,— and deliberate neglect has, we think, been shown both by Dr. Tanner and by Mr. Healy,—we would have judgment short and sharp pronounced upon them, and a kind of judgment that will relieve the House from their defiance, if it does not secure their humble submission.
Mr. Spicer evidently holds that till Home-rule is conceded to Ireland, it is hopeless to enforce discipline on the Irish Members. We understand his argument perfectly, and think it a good argument, so far as it goes, for Home-rule in Ireland. But to grant Home-rule to Ireland in order to get more autho- rity over Irish Members, reminds us of Charles Lamb's story of the Chinese who burnt down villages in order to get roast pork ; or, to use a more dignified simile, it is like enhancing the beauty and richness of a flower by burying at its root the head of a murdered man. If it be no danger to the Empire, and be for the benefit of Ireland to grant Home-rule, let us grant Home-rule by all means. But to grant Home-rule only to render the Irish Members more amenable to discipline, is to defeat our own ends. Directly they had got it, they would repeat the raanceuvre to gain some further end which, in their opinion, would be desirable for the improvement of the relations between Ireland and England. If we cannot enforce discipline without dismembering the Empire, we certainly shall not enforce dis- cipline after we have dismembered it.
Our case is, that without stern discipline the greatest of British institutions will become a by-word among the nations, and that it is a sickly tenderness for individuals which considers the special "attenuating circumstances " affecting their case so anxiously, that the greater historical interests of the nation are not seen in their due proportion. We see with fear and dismay,—a fear and dismay which are hardly ever completely absent from the mind of the present writer at least, even when politics are not uppermost,— the degenerating tone of the House of Commons. And we must express our frank belief that the scrupulous desire to be what we may call pedantically just to any one man which pre- vents the public from seeing that the Howe of Commons suffers while these individual offenders are having all con- ceivable allowances made for them, is like the tenderness of the physician who, to spare the pain of an amputation, allows a limb to mortify. Let us grant that Mr. Healy and Dr. Tanner were provoked, and provoked by a party who were disposed to boycott the Irish Members. Still, Mr. Healy and Dr. Tanner, not for the first or second, or third or fourth times, showed their indifference to the rules and amenities of the House of Commons, and for that reason only,—namely, that more than any one else they have displayed utter indifference to the dignity of the House in a Session when a similar in- difference has been displayed in a less degree, by a number of other Membere,—we hold that their reiterated and persistent offences of this kind demanded an example. Undoubtedly, if Mr. Peel erred last week, he erred on the side of generosity to the Irish Members ; and as he has probably suffered more from their indifference to the dignity of the House of Commons than any other person, he may have felt that he had some right to be generous. But the House degenerates in tone so rapidly, that every opportunity lost of vindicating the dignity and authority of the House is a public calamity, a public calamity which to many of us becomes a serious private calamity too. It is no trivial misfortune which threatens us. If the House of Commons is to become what it is now from year to year tending to become, and at a rate of acceleration which is thoroughly alarming, the great days of the British Parliament are already numbered.
What is urgently needed is a growing conviction on the part of the public that strenuous measures are called for, and a con- viction in the House that strenuous measures will be justified by public opinion. Sir William Harcourt challenged the Tories to move his own suspension. We should have been very sorry to see him suspended at that moment, because we think that he was right in appealing to the House not to permit the provocative sounds of triumph with which Mr. Healy's suspension was cele- brated by some of the Ministerial Members, and we should like to see anything that is provocative on either side punished as peremptorily as the disorder which provocation causes. But Sir William Harcourt has not always been so well employed as he was at the moment when he challenged the Tories to move his suspension. He is not unfn3quently as provocative a speaker, and sometimes as irrelevantly provocative a speaker, as there is in the House of Commons, and it would be setting a salutary example which we should rejoice to see, if in a mood of that kind he did bring upon himself the sentence which he challenged. What we need is the enforcement of a stern discipline on both sides alike, without favour and without weakness. If we cannot save the House of Commons from the decay into which it is falling, we certainly cannot save its legislation from exhibiting the signs of that decay. Mr. Peel and Mr. Courtney are just the men vho can give us what we want. But then, the public must make them see that they will be supported with earnestness by the nation, if they use their authority with a sternness for which as yet there is no precedent. It is a case of kill or care. For our own part, we look on no other political feature of the day with so much alarm. We may make a terrible mistake about Ireland, and yet expiate that mistake. But if we do not strengthen the hands of the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, and not only
strengthen their hands, but make them see that we wish them, with all due impartiality, to exert a kind of authority for which there is no precedent, and for which till within the last few years there has been no excuse, we shall let the one powerful institution of this country fall into a condition in which its power will be a pure misfortune, because it will be power for mischief, and for mischief alone.
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