The pageant of Parliament, vol. 1 of 2

CHAPTER XX
A NIGHT IN THE HOUSE OF COMMONS

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The House of Commons is the supreme authority in this land. It should, therefore, be a consoling thought to the people that every sitting of the House is opened with a prayer for Divine light and guidance in the exercise of its unlimited powers of legislation. Both Houses of Parliament have used the prayer since the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Besides the spiritual benefit that a Member derives from attendance at the service, he also gets the material advantage of a seat during the sitting, which, as the Chamber provides places only for about half its membership, is an additional inducement to be present at prayers.

Mr. Speaker stands at the head of the Table. By his side is the Chaplain in gown and bands. Standing in files along the benches are the Members—the two great political Parties facing each other across the floor. The service opens with the 67th Psalm, with its aspirations for the enlargement of God’s Kingdom, to the joy of the people and the increase of God’s blessings. “O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth.” The sublime maxims of the Lord’s Prayer are recited. For social policy: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread;” and for foreign affairs, “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation.” There are prayers for the King and Queen. Then follows the invocation to God on behalf of the House of Commons, at which the Members turn to the walls with bowed heads.

The Chaplain prays:

Strangers are not admitted to the galleries until prayers are over. If they were present they could not fail to notice a strange thing. That is, that the Treasury Bench is always empty during the service. Ministers may be really more in need of prayers than private Members, but then their seats in the Chamber are secured to them by prescriptive right.

The first sight of the plain architectural features of the House of Commons must be disappointing to anyone swayed by the great and stirring historical associations of the place. If there be any secular institution to which something of religious solemnity should attach, it surely is the free Legislature of a Nation, where the habits, customs and institutions of the people are largely moulded, where, at any rate, the morality or ethics of the country find expression in laws. The Chamber is unadorned. The prevailing colour is dull brown, conveyed by the oak framework of galleries and panelled walls plainly carved. In the daylight a warm dimness prevails. At night the Chamber looks more impressive, when a mellow radiance streaming from the lights through its glass ceiling falls upon the crowded benches. But to the uninstructed stranger accidentally straying into it on an off-day, its stiff arrangement of tiers of benches, upholstered in dark green, on each side, and the absence of any pictorial background, would suggest an assembly-room or debating-hall, with a certain air of distinction, it is true, but lacking character and soul. Is it really in this simple Chamber of modest dimensions and severe aspect that the elected and principal House of the Imperial Parliament is content to meet? Is it here that since 1852—the year the Chamber was first occupied—so many exciting and momentous battles over political principles have been fought? Is it from this narrow hall that influences radiate which are felt to the farthest confines of the world, in the wigwams of savage tribes as well as in the Chancelleries of the Great Powers? You would do well, indeed, when you visit the House of Commons and desire to fall under its spell, to come with your historical memories refreshed, for you will there see nothing in the way of portraits of its immortal Members, or pictures from its storied past, to tell of its greatness and renown.

What emotions have there found vent! These walls, sheathed in oak, have echoed to the voices of the great Parliamentarians of three reigns—Victoria, Edward and George—Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Cobden, Disraeli, Bright, Parnell, Randolph Churchill, Gladstone, Chamberlain, Balfour, Asquith, John Redmond, Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Lord Hugh Cecil—laying down beneficent truths or pernicious fallacies. Think of the groans of despair and the shouts of exultation these forcible and vibrating personages have aroused! With what volumes of sound, rising from the hearts of men and expressive of every phase of human feeling—joy and grief, pathos and humour, pity and contempt, exasperation and rage—has the Chamber reverberated. Fine things have been said here, and mean things. Great ideas have been expressed by great men who worthily served them. The storms of passion, evoked by the clash between opposing reason and thought in the political controversies that have been fought out there at close quarters, have made the atmosphere of the House of Commons humid and warm with emotion, and one with a mind at all sympathetically attuned to the spirit of places cannot be there very long before the effluence that emanates from these panelled walls is thrilling him through and through.

Yet there are objects within the Chamber, made sacred almost by history and tradition, which at once catch the eye. The visitor will notice with becoming awe the high-canopied Chair, surmounted by an oak carving of the Royal Arms, and will look with fitting reverence on Mr. Speaker in his big grey wig and black silk gown. At the head of the Table, beneath the Speaker, sits the Clerk of the House and the two assistant clerks, all in the gowns and short wigs of barristers-at-law, busily discharging their multifarious duties, such as sub-editing papers handed in by Members containing questions to be addressed to Ministers, amendments to be moved to Bills, and notices of motions to be proposed should opportunity offer, and also taking minutes of the proceedings for the Journals of the House. The Table is indeed a “substantial piece of furniture,” as Disraeli once described it when he spoke of his satisfaction that it lay between him and Gladstone, who had just concluded a fierce declamatory attack. It contains pens, ink and stationery for the use of Members, volumes of the Standing Orders and other works of reference. At the end of the Table, on either side, are two brass-bound oaken boxes. These are the famous “dispatch-boxes” on which Ministers and ex-Ministers lay their notes when addressing the House, and following the traditional example of great statesmen in the past, thump to give emphasis to an argument or, metaphorically, to bash the head of an opponent.

The Table is also made to serve a part in parliamentary procedure. Important documents, such as the reports of Committees, and Foreign Office papers have to be “laid on the Table,” or, in other words, presented to the House, before they can properly be made public; and Orders of Departments have likewise to be “laid” for specified periods preliminary to their coming into operation. Even the floor-covering of the Chamber is a chapter from history. See the red border-lines on the matting right down the floor, about two feet from the front benches below the gangways. The opposing parties must not step beyond that line while in the act of speaking. And why? Because centuries ago Members were as ready to enforce an argument with the sword as with the tongue, and, to hedge them in, these lines of demarcation were drawn down the centre of the House. But of all the objects in the House calculated to awaken historic memories the Mace, perhaps, is the most potent. Made of silver and gilt with gold, its large globular head surmounted by a cross and ball, its staff artistically embellished, it lies a prominent and luminous object, when the Speaker is in the Chair, on raised supports at the end of the Table.

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Business begins the moment the Speaker takes the Chair. It is noted for its miscellaneous character. Private Bills—or Bills introduced on behalf of the promoters of commercial or municipal undertakings which interfere with rights of property—are first considered. But the proceedings are formal, and devoid of interest. Petitions are also presented to the House at this stage of the sitting. A Member rises in his place and, stating that he has a petition to present, reads a brief summary of its purport. It invariably ends with the phrase, “And your petitioners will ever pray, etc.” No one has ever seen the sentence completed. What, then, can “etc.” imply? It seems a slovenly and irreverent way of saying one’s prayers, reminiscent of the backwoodsman who chalked up his pious wishes at the head of his bed, and, when tumbling in at night, jerked his thumb over his shoulder saying, “Lord, them’s my sentiments.” “Will the honourable Member bring it up?” says the Speaker, referring, of course, to the petition. The Member walks up the floor and drops the roll into the yawning mouth of a big black bag, hanging at the back of the Chair. More often than not there is no public mention whatever of the petition in the House. The Member to whom it is sent contents himself with privately stowing it away into the bag, without anyone being made a bit the wiser as to its nature or signatures. Through the yawning mouth of this big black bag petitions may be said to drop out of sight and out of mind into the limbo of waste and forgotten things. Their presentation is recorded in the Journals of the House. But they make no impression whatever on the minds of Members as to the grievances they are intended to expose, and they are heard of no more, except the Committee on Petitions, before whom, in due course, they come for scrutiny, find some of the regulations have been violated—that, for instance, the prayer of a petition, instead of being in writing, is printed, or lithographed, or typewritten, or that several of the signatures are in the same handwriting, or denote persons manifestly fictitious, such as “Charles Piccadilly,” “John Trafalgar Square”—put down by jokers—when the petition is either returned for correction to the Member who presented it or its rejection is recommended. Two municipal bodies have the privilege of presenting petitions ceremoniously at the Bar of the House of Commons—the Corporation of the City of London and the Corporation of Dublin. In the early decades of the nineteenth century petitions were read in full by Members who presented them, and there were great debates arising out of them on such questions as Negro slavery within the Empire, the political emancipation of Catholic or Jew, and parliamentary reform. I have seen, in the later years of the same century, huge petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures trundled up the floor of the House like enormous cartwheels or big drums. They related usually to proposed changes in primary education or the liquor laws—the two chief subjects of controversy in the dull and happy time I speak of. But the sending of petitions is almost a thing of the past. The House has become indifferent to any form of persuasion save that of elections.

The Chamber has now rapidly filled up for “question time,” which is often the most interesting part of a sitting. One of the most precious and highly cherished privileges of a Member is the right to question Ministers—before the House proceeds to business—in relation to public affairs, matters of administration, policy or legislation. Moreover, these interrogations and replies are an unfailing source of interest and also of entertainment. The House then invariably wears an alert and animated aspect. The benches on both sides are thronged. Every Member is supplied with a copy of the official programme called the “Orders of the Day”—a white folio paper of many pages, in which the questions are printed, with other matter relating to the business arranged for the sitting—and one of the most characteristic sights which the House affords is the flutter of these papers on the crowded benches, as the questions are put and answered. The proceedings are followed with the closest attention, with, in fact, an absorbed interest which during a debate is evoked only by a really great speech on a subject of the first importance. The questions deal with all sorts of topics, illustrating at once the freedom of inquiry within the House and the jurisdiction of Parliament within the far-spreading Empire.

Questions are given in writing to the Clerks at the Table. “A question,” according to the Standing Orders, “must not contain any argument, inference, imputation, epithet or ironical expression.” The judge of the regularity of a question is the Speaker. He disallows it if in his opinion it is an abuse of the right of questioning, the sole object of which is to obtain information from the Government. Questions are sometimes altered by the Clerks on the ground of impropriety of expression. Members occasionally complain of this censorship. The Irish Party once resented the insertion at the Table of the word “Roman” before “Catholic” in a question handed in by one of their Members. Mr. Speaker Lowther was greatly surprised that they should have regarded the word as offensive, but promised, in deference to their feelings, it would not be used again. On the other hand, they rejoiced over their success in having the term “land-grabbers”—one of ill-omen, in Irish agrarian agitation—passed in a question and thus appearing for the first time on the official records of Parliament. I can also recall instances of Members who refused to put questions as they appeared in print. They were so different from the form in which they had been given in manuscript to the Clerks that their authors absolutely disowned them. But however questions may be sub-edited, it is rarely that one is rejected altogether by the Speaker. A question addressed to a Minister must, of course, relate to some public affair with which he is officially concerned, or to a matter of policy or administration for which he is responsible. Subject to these limitations a Member may put down four questions daily interrogating Ministers on any subject, no matter how local or trivial, for there are little things as well as great things in regard to which the House daily exercises supervision or requires to be informed. The Minister, however, may decline to answer a question on the ground that it is against the public interest. This stops the irresponsible interference of Members in the most delicate functions of the Executive, which, if allowed, especially in foreign affairs, might be productive of embarrassing and perhaps hazardous consequences.

Questions of an urgent character, or of exceptional importance, may be asked without being printed in the “Orders of the Day,” provided private notice—or notice, by letter—has been given to the particular Minister and the consent of the Speaker has been previously obtained. These special interrogations are always put when the printed questions are disposed of. But the usual custom is for two or three days’ notice to be given, in order to afford time for the preparation of the replies. It is not the Ministers who discharge the task of obtaining the information that is asked for. The questions are sent to the different departments, to whose parliamentary chiefs they are addressed, and the answers are drafted by the permanent staff. In most cases all the Minister has to do with the replies is to read them in the House of Commons. The day’s questions are printed, as I have said, in the “Orders of the Day.” They are prefixed with the names of the Members responsible for them and are also numbered. The way in which they are put is direct and simple. Each Member rises in his place when called on, in succession, by the Speaker, and says: “I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department question No. 1,” or, “I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty question No. 40.” The Treasury Bench, be it understood, is crowded with Ministers, each of them in possession of a bundle of typewritten answers supplied to him by the clerks of his department. Accordingly, the Home Secretary looks up question No. 1, or the First Lord of the Admiralty question No. 40, from his bundle and reads it to the House.

The growth of this practice of questioning Ministers has been very remarkable. It was not until the middle of the nineteenth century that it became an established feature of the proceedings of the House of Commons. In 1849 a special place was assigned to questions in the “Orders of the Day.” Before that year they were few in number; they referred mainly to the arrangement and progress of business, and were rarely printed. The first time a question appeared in the “Orders of the Day” was in 1835. But after 1849 questions were printed regularly in the “Orders of the Day,” and the subjects inquired about—confined, previously, to pending legislation—extended gradually to public affairs and matters of administration. Still, it was rare to see more than twelve, or at the most twenty, questions on the paper for thirty years subsequently. In the session of 1860 the number of questions asked was 699; in 1870, 1,203; in 1880, 1,546; in 1890, 4,407, and in 1920 over 5,000. The questions occasionally exceed 200 per day. The average number is about 150. All this shows how interpellation, like other functions of the House of Commons, came almost haphazardly into operation, and now rests immovably on the foundation of privilege. And the Committee on National Expenditure reported during the Great War that each question costs the country thirty shillings.

Until 1880 it was the practice of Members to read every question when putting it to the Minister, although it was printed in the “Orders of the Day.” On July 8, 1880, after question time, Joseph Cowen called attention to the fact that two hours had been occupied in asking and answering questions. Yet the number of questions put that day was only thirty. He added that, having taken the time on his watch, he had found the mere reading of the questions occupied an hour; and he asked the Speaker whether, as the questions were printed in the “Orders of the Day,” it was necessary they should be read. Mr. Speaker Brand, in reply, said: “It has been the general practice for many years for hon. Members, in putting questions, to read these questions, and it has been generally found to be a convenient course. There is, however, no absolute rule on the subject.” From that day, however, the reading of questions was gradually discontinued; and questions were put simply by a reference to the numbers as they appeared in the “Orders of the Day.” It was only a month later that an Irish Member, named Finigan, on reading a question, was received with loud cries of “Order!” The Speaker was asked whether it was not “a great abuse of the rules of the House” for the hon. Member to have read his question. “The matter is not so much one of order as of propriety,” replied Mr. Speaker Brand. “I consider that the hon. Member in reading the question of which he has given notice was, strictly speaking, not out of order. With regard to the propriety of his doing so, I give no opinion.” This was the last occasion a question appearing in the “Orders of the Day” was read on being put to the Minister.

Often the real interest of a question and answer only develops when the Minister has read his typewritten reply. This arises from the custom of putting what are known as supplementary questions. “Arising out of the right hon. gentleman’s answer, may I ask ——?” the Member begins. His purpose is to extract further information from the reluctant Minister. If the subject is controversial, the Minister is made the target of inquisitorial arrows, which he meets or parries as best he can. Mr. Speaker Peel never attempted to set up any limit to the liberty of a Member—dissatisfied with the answer to the question he had placed on the paper or, as often happened, anxious to show off his humour—to cross-examine, as it were, the Minister by means of supplementary questions.

I remember many instances of Arthur Balfour, when Chief Secretary for Ireland, being subjected for a quarter of an hour to a harassing fusillade of supplementary questions arising out of the question on one paper, and Mr. Speaker Peel saw no occasion for interference. But a totally different line was taken by Mr. Speaker Gully. When a Member rose to put a supplementary question, Mr. Speaker Gully interposed with a cry of “Order, order!” and informed the hon. gentleman that his question did not arise out of the question on the paper. The rule regulating supplementary questions previously was that they must arise out of the answer of the Minister. Some Members, notably the most pertinacious hecklers of the Government, chafed under this unwonted restraint, and occasionally showed signs of a disposition to revolt against the Chair, but Gully had might on his side, at least, and could not be trifled with. Mr. Speaker Lowther was disposed to follow the precedent set by Gully. “If,” he said on one occasion, “questions are at all important they should be put on the notice-paper, and if they are not important, they should not be asked.” Under Peel there was no limit to the duration of question time. It was limited to an hour under Lowther, and a point he repeatedly urged was that supplementary questions were unfair to Members who had questions on the notice-paper because they lessened the chance of these questions being reached within the time allowed. The answer to such questions as are not reached within the hour, and therefore are not read by the Ministers, are printed with those orally given by the Ministers in the official report of the proceedings of the House. Of questions generally it may be said that while great principles are frequently raised or indirectly suggested by them, many of them are concerned with what appears to be small details of administration interesting only to the individuals whom they affect.

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New Members are introduced after questions. Quaint indeed are the contradictions of parliamentary procedure. Rules that are entirely different regulate the taking of the oath of allegiance and their seats in the House of Commons by M.P.’s returned at the General Election, and M.P.’s who come in at by-elections. We have seen on the opening days of Parliament hundreds of men appear at Westminster and being permitted to take the oath and their seats without any examination of credentials or any evidence of identification. It was quite possible, on the occasion of a large influx of new representatives, unknown by appearance to the officials, for a “stranger,” impudent enough and sufficiently strong of nerve, to pass in with the crowd, and snatch the fearful joy of sitting on the sacred Treasury Bench or Opposition Bench—in front even of the brass-bound box associated with leadership and quite close to the Mace—without anyone saying him nay. On the other hand, there is an elaborate ceremony of introduction prescribed for those returned at by-elections. The new Member has to be escorted to the Table, to take the oath of allegiance and sign the Test Roll, by two full-blown Members of the House. This custom has survived from a remote past when, in order to prevent personation, two Members of the House were required to identify the claimant of a seat after a by-election as the person named by the returning officer in the return to the writ. This precaution has been unnecessary for many a year. But such is the reluctance of the House of Commons to part with any of its historic ceremonies, such is its scrupulous regard for ancient precedents—no matter how incongruous they may appear owing to the changes effected by time—that this formality is still retained; and though a representative may appear at the Bar of the House as the unanimous choice of a constituency of 20,000 electors, and produce the certificate of the official return of his election, he will not be sworn in and permitted to take his seat unless two Members act as his sponsors, and so declare that, as the conjurers say, there is positively no deception.

There is the famous case of Dr. Kenealy, counsel for “The Claimant,” in the Tichborne Trial, who was disbarred by the Benchers of Grey’s Inn, and afterwards returned for Stoke-upon-Trent at a by-election in February 1875. He came to the Table alone. It is not clearly established whether he failed to find two Members who would accompany him as sponsors, or whether he wanted to put to the test a custom which, in his opinion, was no part of constitutional law. At any rate, the Speaker informed him that as he had not been introduced by two Members, in accordance with the ancient usage of the House—founded on a Standing Order dating from 1688—he could not be sworn in or take his seat. Kenealy was, therefore, obliged to withdraw from the House. No objection could be raised to Dr. Kenealy’s election. He produced the certificate of his return as Member for Stoke-upon-Trent. Everyone in the House knew that he was the person named in the official document. He laboured under no legal disability. Had he been returned at the General Election he could have taken, without question, the oath and his seat. But coming in at a by-election he was not allowed to do so solely because of his inability to comply with what, after all, in this age is but a mere ceremonial function. The position was, indeed, absurd. It was impossible that a duly elected representative of the people could be excluded from Parliament for so unsubstantial a cause. Accordingly, a special resolution, moved by Disraeli, who was then Prime Minister, was carried dispensing with the ancient introductory ceremony in the particular case of Dr. Kenealy. In the course of the discussion John Bright and another Member named Whalley intimated that they were willing to walk up the floor with Kenealy “out of deference,” as Bright put it, “to the will of a large constituency.” The Member for Stoke-upon-Trent once more came to the Table unaccompanied; the oath was administered to him and he signed the Roll—the sole instance of a departure from a custom observed since 1688. Kenealy then disappeared in the mass of Members among whom he could not count two friends. “He was in the House, but not of it,” said Joseph Cowen, speaking in 1881. He was effectually and completely boycotted.

Sometimes the new M.P., returned at a by-election, forgets to bring to the Table the certificate of the return to the writ. This document, which is sent by the Clerk of the Crown to the Clerk of the House, is given to the new Member on application at the Vote Office, in the Lobby, just before the ceremony of initiation, and must be presented to the Clerk of the House at the Table as evidence that he is the person named in the return to the writ as having been duly elected, before the oath can be administered to him. As a rule, therefore, the new Member takes care that he has this indispensable official paper in his possession before he starts to walk, between his two sponsors, from the Bar to the Table. But Hardinge Giffard, afterwards Earl Halsbury and Lord Chancellor, when elected at a by-election in 1877, found on reaching the Table that the little blue document was missing. In his consternation he hurriedly turned out all the contents of his pockets, piling them upon the Table—letters, a purse, some loose coppers and silver, a bunch of keys, a briar-wood pipe—all sorts of things but the essential certificate. In this case the Speaker refused to accept any evidence—not even the testimony of identification by the two sponsors—but the Clerk of the Crown’s certificate that the man at the Table was the man that had been duly returned at the recent election for Launceston. The House, of course, was amused at the spectacle. Happily, one of the Whips who went in search of the missing return found it in the hat of the new Member, under the cross-bench below the Bar, where Hardinge Giffard had sat with his sponsors awaiting the time for the Speaker to make the customary announcement—“New Members desirous of taking their places will, please, come to the Table.”

Yet it would seem, after all, as if the production of the certificate of the return to the writ were not absolutely necessary before a new Member, coming in at a by-election, can take his seat. On March 11, 1848, Mr. Hames was elected for the Irish borough of Kinsale; on the 15th he took the oath and his seat, but it was not until the 18th that the return to the writ was received by the Clerk of the Crown. The Clerk of the House of Commons had neglected to ask for the certificate on the appearance of the new Member at the Table, thinking that the formality might be dispensed with as the return to the writ had not arrived. When the mistake was discovered there was great wagging of official heads. But none of the authorities could suggest a way out of the difficulty. It was unprecedented. The Clerk went about haunted by visions of the deepest dungeon under the moat of the Tower of London. At last a committee of the House was appointed to make inquiries; and after due investigation they reported that the Clerk had done a perfectly sensible thing, however unwittingly. They said it was true that the return to the writ had always been required by the House as “the best evidence of a Member’s title to be sworn.” “Nevertheless,” continued they, “the absence of that proof cannot affect the validity of the election, nor the right of a person duly elected to be held a Member of the House.” Truly, a most proper decision! Still, the committee recommended a strict adherence to the practice of requiring the production of the document. This much, at least, can be said for it, that it is a picturesque detail in the initiation of a new Member of the House of Commons.

The House then comes to the real business of the sitting. At this stage of the proceedings leave may be asked for to move the adjournment of the House, but, even if it be granted, action is not immediately taken. The object of such a motion is to obtain from the Government an explanation of some act of commission or omission on their part; of something which, in the opinion of the Opposition or any other section of the House, they have wrongly done or left undone. The matter complained of must be—as the Standing Order says—“a definite matter of urgent public importance” in the opinion of the Speaker, and the motion must also have the concurrence of at least forty members. Therefore, when a Member rises after questions and asks leave to move the adjournment of the House, stating at the same time the object he has in view, the Speaker, should he consider the subject definite and urgent, asks whether the hon. Member is supported by forty Members. Immediately the Members in favour of the motion rise in their places, and if they muster forty, leave is granted, but the debate stands over until a quarter past eight o’clock. Forty members make a quorum, without which no business can be done. If leave is not given because it lacks the necessary support, the Member who asks for it may challenge a division in the hope of winning in the lobbies, or for the purpose of getting a record of those for and against his motion. I remember in the session of 1912 when George Lansbury the Socialist startled everyone by claiming that a division should be taken on a motion for the adjournment, in support of which only 38 Members had risen. The Speaker, Mr. Lowther, had recourse to the little book containing the rules of the House which he always has by him on the arm of the Chair, for this was probably the first time that such a request had been made, and satisfied himself that Lansbury was within his rights. The motion was lost by 115 against 86.

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This being disposed of, the Speaker rises and says: “The Clerk will now proceed to read the Orders of the Day,” and the Clerk, with a copy of the Order Paper in his hand, reads the title of the first of the list of Bills down for consideration. It may be the second reading or the third reading stage, at which, on all great Bills, there is usually a big debate. Disraeli is said to have described the House of Commons as a dull place, with some great moments. In my opinion, it would be difficult for the House of Commons ever to be downright dull. Its great moments are, indeed, many. The variety and vitality of the questions at issue there and its personalities secure it against tediousness. For Disraeli—as for most of those who have once breathed its intoxicating atmosphere—it always had an absorbing charm. Joseph Gilles Biggar, one of the best known of the Irish Party, lived in the House and for the House. Outside it he had no interest or amusement. I happened to be talking to him in the Lobby during a sitting that was supposed to be dull, when a colleague asked him whether he might go to a theatre for the evening. Biggar was then the Chief Whip of the Nationalist Party, and a stern martinet. “Theatre!” he exclaimed contemptuously. “This is better than a play, Mister. It is all real here.” Yet he was the man who, by the invention of obstruction, and its use, did most violence to its time-honoured and dearly cherished customs. The House of Commons is, indeed, a most alluring place. It has an interest of the highest dramatic intensity on the occasion of a big debate relating to the predominant political question of the day, which deeply stirs Party passions and prejudices, and brings down into the arena of the floor the great chiefs to fight for principle with the keen and subtle weapon of the tongue.

“Mr. Speaker.” So begins each Member who rises to address the House. Of all the speakers in the Chamber, Mr. Speaker speaks seldomest, and in the fewest words. The Speaker sits in his high-canopied Chair, not to talk but to listen to talkers. Hours may pass, and “Order, order,” may be the only words spoken by Mr. Speaker. He guides the deliberations of the House. He names the Member who is to continue the debate. This is not a matter simply of “catching the Speaker’s eye,” as it is popularly called. The Speaker does not always name the Member upon whom his eye may first rest. On both sides of the House Members jump to their feet, eager to join in the debate, each straining forward, or shaking his notes to attract the attention of Mr. Speaker. The Speaker’s selection of one from among these competitors to fix his wandering eye is careful and deliberate. If an opponent of the Bill has just spoken, it is almost certain that a supporter will be selected to follow. The aim of the Speaker is to secure that, as far as possible, every phase of opinion shall find expression. In this he is assisted by lists given to him beforehand by the Whips of the different Parties, containing the names of their chief spokesmen in the debate. Therefore it is that Members on opposite sides follow each other alternately, the only exception to the rule being that should a Minister, or one of the leading occupants of the Front Opposition Bench, intervene at any moment, he has the right, more or less prescriptive, to be called on by the Speaker.

The Speaker follows the flow of discursive talk with what appears to be the most absorbing interest. Indeed, it is into his ears that the Member “in possession of the House”—to use the traditional phrase—pours all his views and prognostications, all his fears and expectations. It is, “Now, Mr. Speaker, let me say,” or “With great respect, Mr. Speaker, I submit.” Accordingly, the Speaker may not betake himself, even for a little while, to his own select and profitable thoughts. He must always be seized of the drift of the argument of the Member who is addressing him. At any moment he may be called upon to rule a point of order. His faculties must always be wide awake. At any moment some emergency may arise, without the least forewarning, when all his authority, tact, and common sense will be needed.

It is said there are Judges of the High Court who can sleep during the speeches of counsel, and wake up at the moment that the slumberous presentation of argument is concluded. The atmosphere of the House of Commons is often drowsy. Members may be seen asleep on the benches at all hours. Yet it is a remarkable fact that there is only one instance on record of a Speaker—impassive figure though he be, in a big wig and a flowing gown, reclining in a large Chair under a spreading canopy—having been caught nodding or napping. It was to Shaw-Lefevre, the only Speaker over whom tired Nature asserted itself, and whose weighted lids, despite his desperate resistance, were finally closed in slumber, that Mackworth Praed addressed these lines:

End Vol. I.