THE PALACE AND THE COMMONS. T HE Queen, with her habitual
tact, and what is better than tact, for tact is often merely wise cynicism,. with her habitual good sense and good nature, has cut the .tangle of wounded dignity, bitterness, and annoyance caused by the fiasco which took place at Buckingham Palace when the Commons went in state to congratulate the Sovereign. The Palace officials, worn out, no doubt, with a week of incessant labour at ceremonial observances, and anxious to get as many things as possible into the Queen's working day, managed the reception of the two Houses so badly that they first got the Lords and Commons "clubbed" an the corridors and ante-rooms of the Palace, and then 'hurried the Commons in and out of the presence in such a way that half the Members never saw the Queen at all, and that those who did manage to see her only did so by ,lumping over forms and benches and behaving like boys at a school-treat. We do not want to be unfair to the Palace officials, and are, of course, perfectly aware that they had so sort of intention of slighting the Commons because, as has been hinted, they were mere Misters. English Court officials are much too Olympian in their attitude to entertain any such notions. They would make in their own minds little distinction between six hundred Dukes and Earls and six hundred commoners, and, no doubt, merely looked upon both Lords and Commons as the raw material out of which it was their business to manufacture a ceremonial. But though they had no wish to snub the Commons, they clearly made a hideous muddle -of the reception, and they must bear the blame. They ought to have said to themselves, The Commons are -coming, and many of them know little about our diffi- culties, and are besides extremely touchy and self- -conscious people. We must, therefore, be specially careful not to let anything happen which can be twisted 'into disrespect for them. They are very proud of their status and not very orderly, and we must run no risk of -their being hurried or treated with apparent disrespect. It would be better to lengthen out the Queen's day by an hour than that' Unfortunately the Palace officials seem to have forgotten to think of things in that way. Instead They yielded to the temptation to get too many functions into one afternoon. They imagined that the reception of `both Lords and Commons might be sandwiched in between a lot of other engagements, and that if they allowed just enough time all would be well. But it happened that what they thought would be just enough time was not enough, and so there came about the fiasco which has been so bitterly resented by the Commons. Apparently the Lords were in reality quite as much harried and driven about as the --Commons, but they have complained very little. Their experiences in receiving tenants and neighbours at comings- of-age and other such functions doubtless made them v-understand and sympathise with the Lord Chamberlain's Department. The ordinary Peer is as critical as are most Englishmen, but he contented himself with saying that 4 he thing was very badly managed. He would have thought • it unfair to the officials and derogatory to his own sense . of dignity to impute conscious disrespect to the Palace officials. Men of high birth in England have often very ,bad manners, but they are generally carefully taught that it is shockingly bad form to take offence lightly, and -to stand on your dignity over small matters. To do so would be " just like the people who come over to us from Teddleborough to balls and things, and make such an amusing fuss if their precedence gets muddled." The Peers -know that "true gentlefolks never suspect themselves," and accordingly are terribly loath to show signs of offence. When such men are most offended their impulse is only to sulk in silence. The Commons, however, or rather some • of them, "suspecting themselves" a little, were furious about their treatment, and could not find it possible to laugh it off by sneering at the wretchedly rough way things are done at the Queen's. They wanted to be apologised to, to see the Lord Chamberlain humiliated, and to have him made to feel that he was a footman who had insulted his master's honoured guests. Very natural, no doubt ; but they forget that it is an unwritten rule of .society never to complain of your host's servants, however insolent and disagreeable they may be.
But though we cannot help thinking that the ,Commons would have in reality cut a more digni- 1ed figure if they had laughed the incident off with What a pity it is the Queen's household isn't kept in better order, and isn't more up to its work ; somebody really ought to tell her, though of course we can't,' we are quite of opinion that a very bad muddle was made, and one very little creditable to the Palace. The truth is that all the ,..eremonial arrangements in regard -to the Members of the House of Commons are extremely 'bad and confused. The House of Commons has no definite place allotted to it in out eperegwaials. The ex- planation is historically simple enough. The Commons were summoned to do a definite piece of work—i.e., to grant supplies—and hence they had, as it were, no locus standi at the great mediaeval Royal festivals of coronation, marriage, and burial. They were not a permanent body like the Peers, who existed even when Parliament was dissolved, but merely a more or less fortuitous body of in- dividuals sent up from the country districts. Now, how- ever, that the House of Commons, as the vital part of Parliament, has become in fact, though not in legal theory, the sovereign body of the realm, its true position ought to be officially recognised, and a place of prime importance given to it on all ceremonial occasions. It ought to be a matter of universal admission that the Members of the two Houses of Parliament should in their collective capacity be treated as next in honour to the Sovereign. As it is, no one knows exactly what the status of the House of Commons, regarded as a corporate entity, is, and a place of su fficient importance has to be improvised for it whenever any great ceremonial takes place. Yet in truth the matter is one which ought not to be a subject of debate or conjecture. Every one should know as a general principle that, allowance being made for physical diffi- culties, the Houses of Parliament always come next in consideration to the Sovereign. That is, whenever the Speaker and the Mace are with the Commons, and the Lord Chancellor with the Lords, those two bodies of men must have first consideration. When they go as individuals they must, of course, have only their individual rank, for no one can want to see each Member of Parlia- ment given temporary rank as an Earl, or a Duke, or any such nonsense. To be the sole Members of a Legislative Assembly who have neither title, precedence, nor pay is too great and unique a badge of honour to be bartered away. To give Members any sort of rank, title, or precedence would be to degrade the House of Commons. Fortunately, the House feels this instinctively, and realises that what was good enough for Pym and Hampden, Harley and St. John, Fox and Pitt, and Bright and Gladstone, is good enough for them. To give great ceremonial, rank, and distinction to the House of Commons in its corporate capacity—we are not, of course, so ignorant as to imagine that the House is legally a corporation—is, however, quite another matter, and this ought most certainly to be done.
Remember that it is not merely the Court which has failed to give due consideration to the Commons. They have been equally careless and indifferent themselves. Look at what happened in regard to the Naval Review. The Commons should have had the beat steamer procurable put at their sole disposal, and should have been given, with the Lords, the post of honour in the Procession. (It would destroy the continuity of our history to put the Commons ceremonially above the Lords ; the contrast of real power and apparent rank is too piquant to be lost.) Instead they were tumbled into a steamer already half full of ordinary sightseers, run through the fleet, and then bundled out of their boat in the rain, in order that the more privileged occupants of the steamer might be able to get back in good time to see the illuminations. The Commons were not apparently thought worthy of seeing those. To top all, the Treasury, according to the news- papers, considered that a luncheon at ls. 41. per head would meet all the requirements of the case. Fortunately, the owners of the Campania' were not in the habit of providing luncheons on the tariff of a beef and ham shop, and so, unless the newspapers are in error, treated the Commons to a decent lunch, and saved the Treasury the expense of the frugal fare they had provided. The story is so exceedingly funny that one can hardly believe it to be strictly accurate. In any case, however, it well illustrates our manner of treating the Commons. No doubt there is a certain Spartan simplicity in voting hundreds of millions to im- prove the Navy and then contemplating your creation in the intervals of a ls. 4c1. lunch ; but is it not just a little absurd ? If Members of Parliament usually lunched so frugally there would be some sense in not departing from their usual simplicity of fare, but unless we are much mistaken neither they nor the Treasury officials are ordin- arily so frugal. Why, then, this outburst of penury on a great ceremonial occasion ? Truly we are a wonderful people, and in truth also there is something rather• attrac- tive in our blundering plainness. Still, fiascos like that at Buckingham Palace, and in a less degree at Spi.head. ought not to occur, and therefore we would press strongly for the adoption of a set of well-defined rules as to the place and status of the House of Commons at all great national functions.
Previous page
