Part 19 (1/2)

[OPINIONS FAVOURABLE TO PRINTING.]

Since the foregoing paper was written, opinions have been expressed favourable to the use of printing as a means of shortening the debates in the House of Commons. Among the most notable of the authorities that have declared their views, we may count Lord Derby and Lord Sherbrooke.

Both advocate the printing of the answers by ministers to the daily string of questions addressed to them. Lord Derby goes a step farther.

He would have everyone introducing a bill to prepare a statement of his reasons, to be circulated among members at the public expense. Even this small beginning would be fruitful of important consequences; the greatest being the inevitable extension of the system.

I am not aware that my suggestion as to requiring a plurality of members to back every bill and every proposal, has gained any degree of support.

It was urged that, if the power were taken away from single members to move in any case whatever, the few that are accustomed to find themselves alone, would form into a group to back each other. I do not hesitate to say that the supposition is contrary to all experience.

Crotcheteers have this in common with the insane, that they can seldom agree in any conjoined action. Even in the very large body const.i.tuting our House of Commons, it is not infrequent for motions to be made without obtaining a seconder. The requirement of even five concurring members would put an extinguisher upon a number of propositions that have at present to be entertained.

The last session (1883) has opened the eyes of many to the absurdity of allowing a single member to block a bill. When it is considered that, in an a.s.sembly of six hundred, there is probably at least one man, like Fergus O'Conner, verging on insanity, and out of the reach of all the common motives,--we may well wonder that a deliberative body should so put itself at the mercy of individuals. Surely the rule, for stopping bills at half-past twelve, might have been accompanied with the requirement of a seconder, which would have saved many in the course of the recent sessions. It is the gross abuse of this power that is forcing upon reluctant minds the first advance to plural backing, and there is now a demand for five or six to unite in placing a block against a measure.

It occurred to Mr. Gladstone, during the autumn session of 1882, to take down the statistics of attendance in the House for several days running.

His figures were detailed to the House, in one of his speeches, and were exactly what we were prepared for. They completely ”pounded and pulverised” the notion, that listening to the debates is the way that members have their minds made up for giving their votes.

[EXTRA-PARLIAMENTARY DISCUSSION INCREASING.]

The recent parliamentary recess has witnessed an unusual development in the out-of-door discussion of burning questions. In addition to a full allowance of vacation oratory, and the unremitted current of the newspaper press, the monthlies have given forth a number of reasoned articles by cabinet ministers and by men of ministerial rank in the opposition. The whole tendency of our time is, to supersede parliamentary discussion by more direct appeals to the mind of the public.

To stop entirely the oral discussion of business in Parliament would have some inconveniences; but the want of adequate consideration of such measures as possessed the smallest interest with any cla.s.s, would not be one of them.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: _Contemporary Review_, November, 1880.]

[Footnote 19: I have often thought that, the practice of circulating, with a motion, the proposer's reasons, would, on many occasions, be worthy of being voluntarily adopted.]

_Notes and References in connection with Essay VIII., on Subscription._

It may be useful here to supply a few memoranda as to the history and present practice of Subscription to Articles.

In the _Quarterly Review_, No. 117, the following observations are made respecting the first imposition of Tests after the English Reformation:--

”Before the Reformation no subscription was required from the body of the clergy, as none was necessary. The bishops at their consecration took an oath of obedience to the King, in which, besides promising subjection in matters temporal, they 'utterly renounced and clearly forsook all such clauses, words, sentences, and grants, which they had or should have of the Pope's Holiness, that in any wise were hurtful or prejudicial to His Highness or His Estate Royal'; whilst to the Pope they bound themselves by oath to keep the rules of the Holy Fathers, the decrees, ordinances, sentences, dispositions, reservations, provisions, and commandments Apostolic, and, to their powers, to cause them to be kept by others. And, as their command over their clergy was complete, and they could at once remove any who violated the established rule of opinion, no additional obligation or engagement from men under such strict discipline was requisite. The statement, therefore (by Dean Stanley), that 'the Roman Catholic clergy, and the clergy of the Eastern Church, neither formerly, nor now, were bound by any definite forms of subscription; and that the unity of the Church is preserved there as the unity of the State is preserved everywhere, not by preliminary promises or oaths, but by the general laws of discipline and order'; though true to the letter, is really wholly untrue in its application to the argument concerning subscriptions. For it is to the total absence of liberty, and to the severity of 'the general laws of discipline and order,' and not to a liberty greater than our own, that this absence of subscription is due.

”In point of fact, the requirement of subscription from the clergy was coeval with the upgrowth of liberty of opinion: while the circ.u.mstances of the English Reformation of religion made it essential to the success and the safety of that great movement. It was essential to its success; for as it was accomplished mainly by a numerical minority, both of the clergy and laity of the land, there could be no other guarantee of its maintenance than the a.s.surance that its doctrines would be honestly taught, and its ritual observed by the whole body of the conforming clergy.

”Thus the _Reformation subscriptions aimed at the prevention of covert Popery_, a danger to which the Reforming laity felt that they were exposed by the strong wishes of a majority of their own cla.s.s; by the undissembled bias of many of the parochial clergy; and by the secret bias of some even of the bi-hops; whilst the diminution of their absolute control over the clergy lessened the power of enforcing the new opinions when the bishop was sincerely attached to them.”

The entire article is of value both for its historical information as to the history of Tests in the English Church, and for its mode of advocating the retention of subscription to the Articles, as at present enforced.

[Subscription came with the English Reformation.]