The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1912. PARLIAMENT & GOVERNMENT

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1628, 20 December 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20, 1912. PARLIAMENT & GOVERNMENT

It is unlikely that the public, which has begun to take some real interest in British politics, has forgotten the remarkable scenes in the House of Commons which'followed the defeat of the Government on Sir Frederick Banbury's amendment to the Home Rule Bill. Nothing is more clear from the full reports of the proceedings, and from the comon them, than that Hit. AsQUiTii, in proposing to break with all precedent and allow the House to rescind tho amending resolution forthwith, committed a blunder so serious, and so charged with danger to sound Parliamentary government', that the Opposition deserve much credit for having forcibly saved him from his folly. When the Government was defeated, it must have been clear that a full muster would have prevented the defeat, but when even Me. Redmond declared, in an interview, that any more such defeats would be of disastrous effect, it is little wonder that a good many Oppositionists claimed that the Government should resign. It would have been absurd (and, in view of the foreign situation, dangerous too) for Mr. Asquith to resign; but there was no good reason why he should not have decided at once upon the constitutional and correct course which he was. induced to take through the happy arid statesmanlike intervention of the Speaker. But in his resentment at losing a day or two, he proposed a humiliating and dangerous course. Lord Robert Cecil explained very clearly the effect of his actual proposal: '

They resolved to heap yet one moi-e humiliation upon wliflt used to be the proudest assembly in the .world, and by an unsparing use of ail the terrors aiul rewards of the. party system to .compel the House of Commons to eat its own words. It was pointed out to them that to rescind an amendment accepted'by the House was .'ibsohitelv unprecedented, and that since 'Sir Frederick Bu'nbury's amendment limited the charge on the revenues of the country its rescission must involve an increase in the charge— nn operation which; by the Standing Orders required a previoue resolution in Committee of Ways and Msnns. To nwet these difficulties the Ciovei'ninent jiropos: e<l to iusert in their resolution of rescission the \yonls "NotwilhstnndinK anytliing in any Standing Order"! No wonder the Opposition were aghast, finch a proposal, wns pure anarchy. Standing Orders e,\ist to regulate the proceedings of the House, to compel even the majority to act according to well-estal)lishfd precedents. But if the Government resolution had been accepted every On)er nnd Rule of "the House might have been torn up. Any proposal, however unprecedented, howovor' contrary to tho Orders and KuL?s of the House, could thenceforward havo been mads if only it were prefaced by a "notwithstandiii!,'" clause. It is interesting to observe tjio close parallel lietween the Government phrase and tho "mm olistante" clause by which the later Stuarts sought fo "dispense" with Statutes which happened to bo iuconvenient to thorn, AH tyranny i? indeed the mine, whether it is exercised by a caucus-driven Parliamentary majority or by the prerogative of an absolute monarch.

As a matter of fact, if the Opposition had not prevented the Government' from carrying out its plan, there would have been established a principle which, pushed to its logical conclusion, would warrant the Ministry in merely calling Parliament together once a quarter, for a day or so, to ratify the decisions of tho Executive. •

There remains the conduct of the Opposition. With >i few exceptions the Unionist press and tho chief' Unionist writers applauded the successful suspension of business. Disorder and violent obstruction are always deplorable, but there arc occasions when acquiescence in outrages <;f procedure or outrages in legislation would be criminal. Seven years ago, in our own House of Representatives, a party of members— led by Mi:ssns. Hemues, Fishek, Moss, and T. E. _ Taylor— maintained a determined stonewall against what was a trubr outrageous proposal in a Bill

of Mn. , Sbddos's. They were no I. violent—violence wan iinnec'iisarv ■■• but they were certainly upHoUliip and obstructing tho program ul himness, and it wns. well known that, they wore roady to go to practically any length. Tho result wan thai, n monfitroiiß proposal was withdrawn. Had these meiiiboro acquiesced in the right of an unscrupiiloiiK and tyrannical majority to do im it choso, they would have boon l.raitoni to the public good. Ho, too, if. Mio Oppwiition in tho British Hoime had meekly allowed Mil. Asquitu and lii» majority to ride rough-uhod over what the Speaker has called "tho common law" of the House, they would have been parties to a groat and dangerous injury to Britnih Parliamentary government. When in 1011 the Unumiatß refused tho Prime Minister a hearing on one occasion, no Radical newspaper condemned their behaviour more strongly fclntn the Spectator did. Tho_ Spectator, as a Btrong constitutionalist and Consorvativo organ, is naturally bound to oppose violence coining from any quarter—Radicals everywhere opposo violence only when it is violence against them—yet tho Upeclat-nr approved of tho Unionists' forcible suspension of business on this occasion. There was, it points out, no other way in which they could have saved tho Houfjo of Commons from tho revolution proposed by the Primo Minister.

No objection was raised to tho elimination of the Banjjuhy amendmont when the elimination was proporly carried out. Mr. Asquitii ,could have done at once what he finally did, but he chose to propose a destructive course merely in order to save two or three days, What made the Premier's proposal to set aside .all tho rules of procedure specially dangerous was the fact that the Parliament Act has established Single-Chamber government. The rules of procedure, even under Single-Chamber government (such as we had in New Zealand until lately) do afford some protection to ,the nation by giving minorities a real power of debate and delay. The Spectator pointed out that the refusal to be bound by its own rules is always one of the stages in the downward course of a democratic Legislature, for it makes the Assembly the toy of "passion, the whim of the moment, party exigencies, or the opportunism of a facile Minister." We have seen in New Zealand in recent years how easy it is for an opportunist Government to degrade and stultify Parliament, and to make it that tyrannous thing, the mere registration stamp of the Executive. Fortunately the Government now in office is there through the efforts of thnse who realised how much the nation was suffering from Executive tyranny so that there is no likelihood that Parliament will sink back to its .old position—the position'to which' Mr. As'quith was foolishly ready to reduce the House of Commons.