Farewell to Westminster
By WILSON HARRIS
AT twelve noon today, Friday, the third day of February, nineteen hundred and fifty, the gates of St. Stephen's clang remorselessly against me. Henceforward I am no longer an M.P. Some six hundred-odd of my colleagues, I know, are in the same case, but they have seats to return to if they can. Mine has been summarily struck from under me—a painful and dis- concerting process. I have said all the goodbyes ; I have cleared out my friendly locker and given back the key ; I have returned my unused travel vouchers ; I have eaten my last lunch in the dining-room ; I have taken back my last book to the Library ; I have written my last Spectator leader in the Silence Room ; my car has made its last sojourn in New Palace Yard.
But is it all regret ? No sense of relief ? No welcome for a little more leisure ? The answer to the first question, in Parlia- mentary language, is, Yes, Sir ; to the second and third, No, Sir. I know some Members are retiring at the end of this Parliament voluntarily, mostly men who have sat long and done good service. - Their decision is understandable. If I had their record I might feel as they do. But a single Parliament is only enough for Westminster to exert its irresistible fascination, not long enough for the edge of enthusiasm to be blunted or the sense of privilege in being there to be dulled.
To analyse it is not too easy. What makes the House of Commons what it is ? Tradition, of course, first and foremost. Whether you datt it back to 1265 or 1295 matters little ; the shorter period is long enough for most. Tradition, and all the minor picturesque ceremonial handed down unchanged, at any rate since the Long Parliament that compassed the death of a king—the Speaker's procession through the lobbies as the Parliamentary day opens ; prayers, with no witness present apart from Members, the chaplain who takes them, and the Serjeant-at-Arms ; questions to Ministers ; points of order ; divisions ; and at the end of it the cry through the halls and lobbies, "Who goes home ? ".
All that, yes. - But so much more than that. All the diversity and delight of the human element. For let no one forget that, with all the antagonisms and occasional animosities that mark debates, the whole activity of the House is conditioned by fundamental agreement. Above all things, the Parliamentary machine (if this living organism may be so styled) must work. Its rules must be observed ; its conventions must be respected; the rights of the Opposition, as a minority, must be recognised ; when the estimates for departmental expenditure are being debated it is the Opposition which chooses the particular topic for criticism, in pursuance of the sound and time-honoured doctrine, "grievances precede supply." That explains the camaraderie characteristic, so charac- teristic that foreigners find the cross-party friendships beyond comprehension, of life at Westminster. The explanation, in fact, is simple. We are all first and foremost (I grant myself resurrection for a moment) members of the greatest legislative chamber in the world, and only secondly Labour or Conservative or Liberal. As Mr. Churchill most truly said last session, the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide.
It is not active consciousness of all this that binds us ; Members are not reminding themselves of their privileges all the time ; it is a perpetual and pervasive sub-consciousness, sustained by the crowded benches of the Chamber itself, the Speaker in his chair, the clerks at the table below him, the Press and the public and the visitors of varying degrees of distinction overhead ; sustained by the notices "Members Only" on the doors of the Library and the Smoking Room and the Members' Dining Room and the Division Lobbies ; sustained by the. sense of unmerited fortune which has allotted these six hundred and forty men and women positions which six hundred and forty thousand others would give all they have to occupy. Rightly estimated, membership of this great society breeds humility, not pride, with deep gratitude to the persons and the circumstances that have brought it within reach.
What, then, shall I remember most ? That needs some thought. What I shall value most, beyond all question, are the friendships made in four years and a half at Westminster. Never, except perhaps in undergraduate days, have I made so many and so well worth making. They will fade, no doubt ; that is inevitable ; they depend more than one might wish on the constant contacts, and the contacts, except for a few, will now be broken. But something has been woven into the weft of one's life, and there it will stay as long as anything stays at all.
What next ? The few speeches that I have made in the House ? Quite certainly, No. None of them have ever satisfied me, and almost all are better forgotten. Yet speaking in the House of Commons is something unique. No assembly has so definite an atmosphere, none in which it is so easy to go wrong. Not that Members are ungenerously critical. On the whole, they are the opposite. But they expect you to know the House's mood, and a Member who causes disapproval has a long road to journey back to favour. Humour, in particular, is a perilous pastime. Will this joke, probably in a supplementary question, go down ? If it does, nothing is more warming than the whole-hearted laughter the House permits itself. But if not, if stony silence, or at the best a polite titter, follows, the first impulse is to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds on the spot. Speaking, incidentally, is a thankless busi- ness. Often it means sitting tight, tealess and dinnerless, from 3.30, when Questions end, in the hope of getting ten minutes in an almost empty House by 8.30. Why does one do it ?
I have never quite decided that. A verbatim report in Hansard, of course, but how many people read Hansard ? The portentous information in The Times that "Mr. So-and-So thought the introduction of the Bill was untimely." Still, we were sent.to Westminster to say what we thought, and we ought, I suppose, sometimes to say it. No, it is not one's own speeches one re- members, but other people's—not always, by a long way, from the Front Benches. And, above all, it is the great occasion—the last hour of a hot debate, when Members flock in from the Library and the Smoking Room and the Dining Room ; when others who have dined out of the House come back to it, filling the red benches, crowding in packed rows at the Bar or behind the Speaker's chair ; when the winding-up speeches from the•two Front Benches evoke tornadoes of defiant, or it may be derisive, cheers ; when the atmo- sphere is electric and excitement runs high, and the Speaker puts the question, "Those who are of that opinion say Aye, those to the contrary No" ; when Members flock through the packed lobbies and the tellers come to the table with the result—that, that above all things, is what no House of Commons man will ever forget.
And now ? Well, for me it is all over. I cannot put that on paper without a certain emotion. Everyone who has ever sat in the House will understand. Still, I have had it ; and I never deserved it. Who am I, out of all the tens of thousands with far better right, to have gained a place among the six hundred and forty men and women who have sat through this thirty-eighth Parliament of
the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland ? It will hurt a little to be outside when it begins again in March, when the Central Lobby teems with life, when Members flatten themselves against the wall and stand to lention and bow as the Speaker passes down the corridor from his chair to his house, or queue up in the tea-room with their trays and any evening paper they have been able to seize in time. How well it will get on without me, and how ill I shall get on without it. Still, as I say, I have had it. I have helped, not indeed to govern the country, but to control its government. I have contributed little ; I have gained immeasurably much. Nothing, after all, when the balance is struck, is here for tears.
"Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures new " ? I suppose so. Yet for the moment one string in the broken lyre remains. "We shall restore," I read in a certain manifesto, "the University con- stituencies, holding elections immediately after the necessary legisla- tion has been passed." Does an inch-wide chink appear in the barred gates ? Better not to think so. After all, the House of Commons may restore a constituency, to restore the Member is another matter ; only the electors can do that. No. I said goodbye to the Speaker at the end of last session. To hear him some day say, "Members desiring to take their seats will come to the table" is more than a mortal has right to dream of.
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