The pageant of Parliament, vol. 1 of 2

CHAPTER XI
“ORDER, ORDER!”

1

What are the qualities, then, which make a successful President of the representative Chamber? “Go and assemble yourselves together, and elect one, a discreet, wise, and learned man, to be your Speaker.” Such were the words a Lord Chancellor in the reign of Elizabeth addressed to a new House of Commons. The order in which the qualities deemed essential for the Speaker are arranged is not without its significance. Discretion comes first. It might be given the second place and the third also. Marked ability is by no means indispensable in a Speaker. Intellectually his duties are not searching. But undoubtedly in the twentieth century, as in the sixteenth, the faculty which is of the highest importance in the art of the Speakership is sagacity, prudence, circumspection—making allowances for the weaknesses and eccentricities of human nature.

John Evelyn Denison had sat in the House for more than thirty years when, in 1857, he was chosen Speaker. Nevertheless, he was awed by the responsibilities of the Chair. In such a position timorousness or irresolution would be fatal. To Denison the prospect was not made less formidable by the reply which he got from his predecessor on inquiring whether there was anyone to whom he could go for advice and assistance on trying occasions. “No one,” said Shaw-Lefevre; “you must learn to rely entirely upon yourself.” “And,” proceeds Denison in his Diary, “I found this to be very true. Sometimes a friend would hasten to the Chair and offer advice. I must say, it was for the most part lucky I did not follow the advice. I spent the first few years of my Speakership like the captain of a steamer on the Thames, standing on the paddle-box, ever on the look-out for shocks and collisions.” But these “shocks and collisions” are rarely uncommon or unfamiliar. The House of Commons has not had a life and growth of several centuries without providing an abundance of precepts and examples for the guidance of its Speaker. Very little happens in the House of Commons that has not happened there often before. Almost every contingency that can possibly arise is covered by a precedent, and if a Speaker be but acquainted with the forms and procedure of the House and the rulings of his predecessors, both of which hedge his course, he cannot go far astray. Nor is it the fact that there is no one to whom he can go for advice. It is the custom for Members to give the Speaker private notice of questions on points of order; unless, of course, such as spring up unexpectedly in debate; and for aid in the decision of these questions the Speaker has not only the clerks who sit at the Table below him to refer to, if necessary, as to custom and procedure, but also a counsel outside to direct him on points of law. “I used to study the business of the day carefully every morning,” says Denison, “and consider what questions could arise upon it. Upon these questions I prepared myself by referring to the rules, or, if needful, to precedents.” It is also the practice for the clerks to have an audience with the Speaker every day before the House meets, to draw his attention to points of order that are likely to arise, and to confer with him generally on the business of the day. Therefore it is a rare experience for the Speaker to be brought suddenly face to face with an unprecedented situation. And in such a difficulty he has the advantage of being able, as the supreme authority in the House, to impose his ruling unquestioned on all concerned, even should he have gone beyond his exact functions and powers as the director of debate, the preserver of order, the guardian of the rights of Members. Mr. Speaker Lowther was asked, May 14, 1920, how a mistake he might make could be redressed. His reply, greeted with loud laughter, was “The Chair, like the Pope, is infallible.”

It must not be supposed, however, that smooth and easy is the way of the President of the House of Commons. The whole art of the Speakership does not consist in presenting a dignified, ceremonial figure, in wig and gown, on a carved and canopied Chair, and having a mastery of the technicalities of procedure. The situation that tests most severely the mettle of the Speaker is one that not infrequently arises in the House of Commons, when there is what the newspapers call “a scene,” and he is expected to stand forth on the dais of the Chair the one calm, serious, stern and impartial personality, looming above the noise and recrimination which arises from the benches below. It is not cleverness that is then the indispensable quality in a Speaker. More to the purpose, for the controlling and the moderating of the passions of a popular assembly, are the superficial gifts of an impressive presence, an air of authority, a ready tongue, and a resonant voice. Still, the control of the House in such an emergency will depend not so much upon the appearance, the temperament, the elocution of Mr. Speaker, as upon the measure of the confidence and respect of Members which he has previously won by more sterling qualities; and the qualities upon which the trust of the House of Commons in its Speaker reposes most securely and abidingly are strength of character, fairness of mind, urbanity of temper, or a combination of tactful firmness with strict impartiality.

No doubt it is difficult for the Speaker to appear impartial at all moments and to all sections of the House. Some passing feeling of soreness will inevitably be felt by Members censured, or placed at a disadvantage in Party engagements, by decisions of the Chair. But if the Speaker has not impressed the House generally with his discretion and judgment, with confidence in the impartiality of his rulings, with the conviction that he regards himself as the guardian of the House, and not the auxiliary of the Government in getting business done, that feeling of soreness will not be, as it ought to be, brief and transient, and the Speaker will find on a crucial occasion that the Assembly has passed from his control.

Even so, the Speaker must not be too stern in action or demeanour. I have witnessed many violent scenes in the House of Commons, and I have invariably noticed that, in a clash of will and tempers, genial expostulation by the Chair is most potent in the restoration of order. Disraeli said of Denison that even “the rustle of his robes,” as he rose to rebuke a breach of order, was sufficient to awe the unruly Member into submission. But Members are not disposed to forget that, after all, the Speaker is but the servant of the House. There was once a very proud and haughty Speaker, Sir Edward Seymour by name, in the reign of Charles II. “You are too big for the Chair and for us,” said a Member smarting under a reprimand or a ruling. “For you, that think yourself one of the governors of the world, to be our servant is incongruous.” The Speaker must not be too fastidious or impatient with the commonplace or the eccentric. He should have a genial tolerance of the extravagant in personality and character, which is certain to appear in company of 707 men, chosen from all classes and all parts of the kingdom, and which, indeed, makes the House of Commons a place of infinite interest, abounding in humour and comedy. Moreover, the House will not tolerate the despot or the master in an officer of its own creation. Indeed, it is a mistake to suppose that the Speaker wields unfettered authority, that his individual will is law in the House of Commons. It is true that his controlling powers are great, and that his rulings on points of order and procedure are final. But the will which he imposes upon the House is not his own: it is the law of the House itself, for everything he does must be in accordance with rule and precedent.

2

But suppose a Speaker, who, of course, puts his own interpretation on precedents and Standing Orders, ultimately finds that he has made a wrong ruling, what ought he to do in the way of rectifying it? Thomas Moore relates in his Diary an extraordinary discussion on this point with Manners-Sutton after dinner one evening in 1829 at the Speaker’s house. “Dwelt much on the advantages of humbug,” writes Moore, in reference to Manners-Sutton; “of a man knowing how to take care of his reputation, and to keep from being found out, so as always to pass for cleverer than he is.” Moore says he himself argued that this denoted a wise man, not a humbug. If by that line of policy a man induced his fellow-men to give him credit for being cleverer than he really was, the fault could not be his, so long as he did not himself advance any claim to it as his due. The moment he pretended to be what he was not, then began humbug, but not sooner. The poet then goes on:

Moore again insisted that wisdom, and not humbug, was the characteristic of such an action. “To his supposed case all I had to answer,” the poet writes, “was that I still thought the man a wise one, and no humbug; by his resolution in a moment of difficulty he prevented a present mischief, and by his withdrawal of a wrong precedent averted a future one.”

There are only two instances of the action of a Speaker being made the subject of a motion of censure, followed by a division. In neither case, however, was the motion carried. On July 11, 1879, Charles Stewart Parnell moved a vote of censure on Mr. Speaker Brand on the ground that he had exceeded his duty in directing the clerks at the Table to take notes of the speeches of the Nationalist Members, then inaugurating their policy of obstructing the proceedings of the House. The motion was lost by 421 votes to 29, or a majority of 392—one of the largest recorded in the history of Parliament. The Irish Members were also the movers of the other vote of censure on the Speaker. On March 20, 1902, Joseph Chamberlain, then Colonial Secretary, speaking on the concluding stages of the South African War, quoted a saying of Vilonel, the Boer General, that the enemies of South Africa were those who were continuing a hopeless struggle. “He is a traitor,” interjected John Dillon, the Irish Nationalist, and Chamberlain retorted; “The hon. gentleman is a good judge of traitors.” Dillon appealed to the Chair whether the expression of the Colonial Secretary was not unparliamentary. “I deprecate interruptions and retorts,” replied Mr. Speaker Gully, “and if the hon. gentleman had not himself interrupted the right hon. gentleman, he would not have been subjected to a retort.” “Then I desire to say that the right hon. gentleman is a damned liar!” exclaimed Dillon. He was thereupon “named” by the Speaker, and, on the motion of Arthur Balfour, was suspended from the service of the House. On May 7th J. J. Mooney, a Member of the Irish Party, moved that the Speaker ought to have ruled that the words applied by the Colonial Secretary to Dillon were unparliamentary, and accordingly have directed Chamberlain to withdraw them. On a division the action of the Chair was supported by 398 votes to 63, or a majority of 335.

3

If the duties of the Speakership are arduous, its dignity is high and its emoluments handsome. In former times the Speaker was paid a salary of £5 a day, and a fee of £5 on every Private Bill. This fluctuating income was replaced by a fixed salary of £6,000 a year on the election of Henry Addington to the Chair in 1789. It was also decided at the same time that a sum of £1,000 equipment money was to be given to the Speaker on his first appointment. In the reign of William IV the salary was reduced to £5,000 to be paid, free of all taxes, out of the Consolidated Fund direct, without having to be voted every year by the House of Commons. At the same time an official secretary, with a salary of £500, was attached to the office. The Speaker also has a residence, furnished by the State and free of rent, rates and taxes, with coal and light supplied. The Speaker’s house is in that conspicuous wing of the Palace of Westminster, with its carved stonework and gothic windows, extending from the Clock Tower to the river. It was first occupied by John Evelyn Denison in 1857. Here the Speaker gives several official entertainments during session. There are dinners to the Ministers, to the leader Members of the Opposition, and to private Members. According to long-established custom, a Member who accepts an invitation to dine with Mr. Speaker is required to appear either in uniform or Court dress, ordinary evening dress being debarred. As a result, many eminent parliamentarians, such as William Cobbett, Joseph Hume, Richard Cobden, John Bright, Joseph Cowen, all sturdy democrats and Radicals, who could not bring themselves to wear Court dress, never had the pleasure of dining as guests of Mr. Speaker. The rule is still enforced. The only departure from it was made by Mr. Speaker Peel during the short Liberal Parliament of 1895, when he had a separate dinner party of the Labour Members of the House, and told them they might come in any dress they pleased. But that precedent, at least, has not once been followed at Westminster, though subsequent Speakers have in such cases given luncheons instead of dinners. The Speaker is attired at these dinners in a black velvet Court suit, knee-breeches with silk stockings, a steel-handled sword by his side, and lace ruffles round his neck and wrists. The table and huge sideboards in the oak-panelled rooms are spread with magnificent old plate, and the walls are hung with portraits of many famous “First Commoners.”

The Speaker is the First Commoner of the Realm, according to an Act of Parliament passed in 1688 (1 William and Mary, c. 21) after the Revolution. It provided that the Speaker’s place in the order of precedence is next after the peers of the Realm. In 1919 the Speaker was raised a great many steps in the scale. By an Order in Council issued by King George V it was ordained that he “shall have, hold and enjoy place, pre-eminence and precedence, immediately after the Lord President of the Council,” which makes him the seventh subject of the Realm. The order is: Archbishop of Canterbury, Lord Chancellor, Archbishop of York, Prime Minister, Lord Chancellor of Ireland, Lord President of the Council, the Speaker.

The Speakership is one of the highest prizes of political ambition. In dignity and importance it is next, perhaps, to the office of Prime Minister. Four Speakers have resigned in order to become Prime Ministers. One of them, Henry Addington, after being Speaker for twelve years, was summoned by George III, in 1801, to form an Administration in succession to Pitt’s, which failed to complete its Irish policy at the Union, owing to the King’s rooted objection to Catholic emancipation. The only position for which the Speakership would be relinquished is certainly that of Prime Minister. Sir John Freeman-Mitford, who followed Addington in the Chair, resigned after a year’s service in order to become Lord Chancellor of Ireland; but he did so only at the earnest solicitation of the King and the solatium of a salary of £10,000 per year and a peerage as Lord Redesdale. The Lord Chancellorship of Ireland is a high and honourable position, but it is unlikely that anyone would now give up the Speakership of the House of Commons for it. Charles Abbot resigned the Chief Secretaryship for Ireland—a post of greater political importance than that of the Lord Chancellorship—in order to succeed Freeman-Mitford as Speaker in 1802. Abbot refused the offer of a Secretaryship of State from Perceval, the Prime Minister, in 1809 during his occupancy of the Chair; and Manners-Sutton could have been Home Secretary in the Administration formed in 1827 by Canning, but he did not think it good enough.

On the other hand, Ministers have been willing to give up their portfolios for the Speaker’s Chair. Spring Rice, Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Melbourne Administration, had his heart set on that coveted office. He was in the running for the Speakership in 1835, when James Abercromby was elected. In 1838 Abercromby intimated to Lord Melbourne his intention to resign—throwing a curious side-light on the relations at the time between Mr. Speaker and the Treasury Bench—because from the attitude of Lord John Russell, the Leader of the House, he felt he no longer possessed that degree of Ministerial confidence which, in his opinion, was essential to the due conduct of public business and the maintenance of the authority of the Chair. The Prime Minister induced Abercromby to postpone his resignation, and at the same time satisfied the renewed pretensions of his Chancellor of the Exchequer with the promise that he should be the Government candidate for the Chair whenever it became vacant. But when Abercromby retired in the following year it was found that Spring Rice was not acceptable to the Radicals, and Shaw-Lefevre was selected in order to maintain the unity of the Party and preserve the Liberal succession to the Chair. Again, on the resignation of Arthur Wellesley Peel in 1895, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman was willing to lay down his portfolio as Secretary of State for War in the then Liberal Government for the object of his ambition—the Speakership; and it is said that he reluctantly yielded to the urgent representations of his colleagues that the Party could ill spare his services. Just ten years later he became Prime Minister.

Still, the office has, as a rule, fallen to unofficial Members, or to Members who have held subordinate Ministerial appointments. Denison, in the opening passages of his Diary, states that on April 8, 1857, he was seated in his library at Ossington, when the letters were brought in, and among them was the following:

Denison says the proposal took him by surprise. “Though,” he writes, “I had attended of late years to several branches of the private business, and had taken more part in the public business of the House of Commons, I had never made the duties of the Chair my special study.” William Court Gully had been ten years in Parliament before his elevation to the Speaker’s Chair, but he was one of that large, modest band of “silent Members” who, confining themselves to voting in the division lobbies, are unknown in debate, and, consequently, are never mentioned in the papers. Moreover, being a busy lawyer, Gully took little or no part in the routine work of the House, such as service on Committees upstairs, which is supposed to afford a good training for the Speakership. Indeed, the Chair may be said to be the one great prize that is open to the occupants of the back benches as well as the front benches who possess the necessary physical and mental qualities. Personal appearance is undoubtedly an essential qualification for the office. This includes the possession of clear vision. A Speaker with spectacles would look incongruous in an assembly where the competition to catch his eye is so keen.

4

The term of office of Mr. Speaker is usually short. Arthur Onslow, who was elected in 1726, continued in possession of the Chair for thirty-five years, through five successive Parliaments, apparently without ruffling a hair of his wig. So long an occupancy is now wellnigh impossible. For one thing, the duties of Mr. Speaker are physically more responsible and irksome. The sessions are longer, the sittings of the House more protracted, and the fatigue of the prolonged and often tedious hours in the Chair must be most severe mentally and physically. Besides, there has grown up of late a preference for a certain maturity of age in the Speaker. Arthur Onslow was only thirty-six when he was called to the office. Henry Addington, who occupied the Speaker’s Chair at the opening of the nineteenth century, was thirty-two only on his appointment. William Court Gully, who was in possession of the Chair at the opening of the twentieth century, had passed his sixtieth year on his election. The occupancy of the office must be comparatively brief if men are appointed to it only when their heads are grey or bald. Of recent Speakers, Henry Bouverie Brand sat for twelve years, Arthur Wellesley Peel eleven years, William Court Gully ten years, James William Lowther sixteen years.

The Speaker receives a pension of £4,000 a year. John Evelyn Denison refused this retiring allowance. “Though without any pretensions to wealth,” he wrote to Gladstone, then Prime Minister, “I have a private fortune which will suffice, and for the few years of life that remain to me I should be happier in feeling that I am not a burden to my fellow-countrymen.” He retired in February 1872, and died, without heir, in March 1873. A peerage is also conferred on the Speaker when he resigns. This was not the custom in the eighteenth century. When Arthur Onslow retired in 1761, after his long service of thirty-five years, George III, in reply to the address of the Commons to confer on Onslow “some signal mark of honour,” gave him a pension of £3,000 a year for the lives of himself and his son, but no peerage. The custom began in the nineteenth century with Charles Abbot, who, on retiring in 1817, was made Baron Colchester. Since then every Speaker has been “called to the House of Lords”—Manners-Sutton as Lord Canterbury; Abercromby as Lord Dunfermline; Shaw-Lefevre as Lord Eversley; Denison as Lord Ossington; Brand as Lord Hampton; Peel as Lord Peel; Gully as Lord Selby.

But he is Speaker no longer; another presides in his place; and what a shadowy personage he seems, even as a Lord, compared with the resounding fame and distinction that were his in the glorious years when he filled with pomp and dignity the Chair of the House of Commons!