PARLIAMENTARY MANNERS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1402, 30 March 1912, Page 6

PARLIAMENTARY MANNERS.

"Now I have done with compliments." These six words' from Mil. Bonar Law's speech on the Address-in-Rcply in the House of Commons are picked out by the Saturday lieview as striking the keynote of the current session. "I am sorry to say," continued tho Unionist leader, still referring to compliments, "that 1 do not think they will be very frequent during the session on which we have just entered." Tho alacrity with which Mr. Bonar Law passed from soft sayings to hard hits was taken quite rightly as typical, not only of the man, bait also of the changed aspect of political life. "Tho old Parliamentary style," says tho Saturday, "the style in which absolutely all tho great men in politics were schooled, is dead." The remark is surely too sweeping, for the lost urbanity to which tho Saturday refers was not a regular characteristic of the age of some of the greatest of England's Parliamentary giants. Chatham, Fox, and Burke sometimes used a brutal frankness, and perhaps the milder manners of the nineteenth century were in part a reaction from the bludgeoning speeches of the eighteenth. Lord Brougham, whose career overlapped both periods, noted the change. In his sketch of Chatham, ho speaks of tho disapproval with which some of the language of that statesman would bo received "in these days of extreme decorum." He quotes the passage in which Chatham described a statement in the Speech frohi tho Throne as "an absolute, a palpable falsehood," and the King of Spain as "a receiver of stolen goods who should be treated accordingly." "How would all the country," comments Brougham, "at least all the canting portion of it, resound with the cry of 'Coarse! Vulgar ! Brutal!' if such epithets and such comparisons were used in any debate nowadays, whether among the 'silken barons' or 'squeamish Commons' of our time !" Describing the debates on the American AVar, the same author says: "Tho rage of party never was carried to greater excess, nor ever more degenerated into mere personal violence. Constant threats of impeachment, fierce attacks upon himself and all his connections, mingled execrations of his measures, and scorn of his capacity, bitter hatred of his person . .

were without intermission exhausted upon the Minister." Lord Brougham mentions in this connection "the unbridled license of invective in which the young blood of Fox nightly boiled over," and cites "Mr. Fox declaring, with, much emphasis, his opinion of the Minister" —the amiable and placid Lord North— "to be s*.ich that he should deem it unsafe to be alone with him in a room." Even of Burke the complaint was made that sometimes "tho violence of his invective carried him away," and he even "descended to coarseness." The failings of the great Parliamentarians of the past are, of course, no justification for the errors of their successors, but it is not amiss to inquire whether there may not have been similar causes at work to the injury of political etiquette—and perhaps of much deeper national interests. The eighteenth century was a period of constitutional unscttlement —which means to Englishmen a time of struggle concerning their rights and liberties, and there is nothing which stirs the political consciousness like that. If it is natural to fight for freedom, it is not strange that members of Parliament at such times should speak daggers, though they use none. Violence on the one side provokes violence on the other, and so the little courtesies of Parliaments are banished from the arena.

This is in fact tho view implied by tho comments of the Saturday from which we have already quoted.

"Tho brutal guillotine," it continues, "has at length sheared clean off thoso traditions which made tho House a model for popular assemblies. Tho Parliament Act has done away incidentally with other things besides tho Upper House; and by cramming threo revolutionary measures into their programmo for a single session, tho Government have taken good care that the old camaraderie, tho old Parliament feeling between tho two sides, shall not for a moment be restored."

Tho Saturday also recalls how Mr. Gladstone treasured "this Parliamentary tradition, the tradition of being humane," but "now his successors invite a resort to political savagery ! Mr. Bonar Law was bound to accept the challenge."

It is a little curious that tho one participant in that afternoon's debate who did explicitly uphold the "old camaraderie" of Parliament was the head of the Government. Mr. Asquith's compliments to tho seconder of the Address—Mr. W. C. G. Gladstone, grandson of tho great Gladstone—comprised the following charming, and, under tho circumstances, rather pathetic passage: —

Nothing can be more gratifying to those who cherish—as I think we all do, even in this chaos of tho Constitution—(Ministerial laughter)—tho best traditions of the House of Commons—nothing can bo more gratifying or moro welcome to us than to see that these great historic families, whoso names are associated with our best memories of tho past, preserving them worthily, and contributing, as their fathers and ancestors were anxious to do before them, to the common stock of_ the House of Commons. (Cheers.) It is a peculiar gratification to mo that I should have had tho pleasure of inducing my hon. friend who seconded the Address to take that duty on him. I owe everything that I have in Parliamentary life, or nave over had, to the favour and consideration and indulgence of his illustrious grandfather.

Thus the disciplo of the great Liberal, though Wustled by Socialistic colleagues and ill-assorted allies along paths that his old-time master abhorred, still retains something of the fine Gladstonian tradition. This House of Commons feeling is a far deeper thing than mere etiquette. Its disappearance is the removal of one of the checks upon that growth in the power of the Cabinet which in Britain, as in New Zealand and other parts of the Empire, is one of the most disquieting and portentous things in recent political history. So long as a Parliament has its corporate consciousness, its camaraderie, its soul, it can exercise some real control over the actions of the Executive and the affairs of the nation, but when it consists of a majority obedient to a Cabinet, and a minority whose most powerful reasonings and highest eloquence cannot alter a single vote, the despotism of the Executive is established. Recovery may come but slowly through wasteful and painful years, but a reaction may begin before the disease has run its full oourco. Ono of tho elgno of butter f&i*>fig is Bpjcfettfctt ia i» aosa in tta

first stirrings of a revival of Parliamentary eloquence and debating force. "The speeches were good," says the Saturday Review. "The note of indignation" in Mr. Asquitii's speech "made its effect," and Mr. Bonar Law went in and hit. "He has a singular way of getting clean down to the raw bones of things." The fact is—history proves it—that where power and freedom and popular rights are the issues, men's minds rise above their common levels. If the brutal frankness of (be eighteenth century returns, perhaps some Hashes of its eloquence may not be far off.