THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 PROF. CHARLES A. KOFOID AND 
 MRS. PRUDENCE W. KOFOID 
 

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 
 OUTLINES OF AN INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 Second Edition, crow ft 8vo, cloth , price 6s. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 "The dissatisfaction with the current doctrines of political economy is evidently 
 on the increase. The number of attacks from different points of view is already 
 considerable, and they are likely to be more numerous in future. The name and 
 the thing are alike disagreeable to many writers, and both the method and the results 
 pi former investigations are called in question. One of the most vigorous attacks made 
 in recent years is that contained in this volume by Mr. Syme. It is a book which may 
 be read with thorough enjoyment ; Mr. Syme is master of a clear, vigorous, and inci- 
 sive style. No greater contrast could there be than between the transparent English 
 ot this volume and the clumsy, lumbering sentences of many former writers on this, 
 which Carlyle calls the dismal science. Mr. Syme's polemic is most enjoyable a 
 healthy breeze of moral indignation breathes through the book ; nor do we think the 
 indignation out of place when we consider the revelations which he makes. . . In 
 attack, Mr. byme is often irresistible ... no more vigorous polemic have we read 
 lor a long time than the attack on competition." Edinburgh Daily Review. 
 1' D P Klei " e ? u ? h tritt mit dem Gefuhl eines neuen ur.d Kiihnen Versuchs 
 in durchweg polemischem Ton auf gegen die Englische National-okonomie. ... So 
 muss man ihm zugeben dass er der Englischen National-okonomie gegeniiber durchaus 
 neu und selbstandig dasteht. . . . Wiinchten wir auch dass dieses Euch recht bald 
 m deutcher Uebersetzung crsddca^."AOg)fmfftte Zeitung. 
 
 . " * . Svn ? e *? as written a treatise on what he calls Industrial Science, in which, 
 m a sufficiently friendly spirit, he calls in question some of the most popular dogmas 
 Cep AT e -n I En S llsh Poetical economists. On the whole he accords in spirit with 
 Mr. Mill, but mostly on those sides of him on which he was least of a pure econo- 
 mist _and most of a social philosopher. Mr. Syme's view is that among writers on 
 political economy too much emphasis is laid on the narrower, coarser, and by no 
 universal facts of man's nature and of the physical world, and not enough 
 
 -." Av.elings to which these facts 
 
 give me. _ Nevertheless, Mr. Syme is by no means a sentimental writer, and in fact 
 his work is closely and aptly reasoned throughout, and in a mode which Mr. Mill 
 of all others, would have admired." Westminster Review 
 
 here T 1 ^ 6 n u^ on f P inion > th at he displays remarkably acute powers of 
 ing, and shows himself perfectly competent to handle and make intelligible 
 some of the abstruser questions connected with our industrial forces, and their rela- 
 tion to the social well-being of the community." Liverpool Mercury. 
 
 " We should advise the friends as well as the opponents of the modern school of 
 economists to read this book attentively. It is thoughtful, full of suggestions, and 
 worthy at least of fair consideration." Standard. 
 
 " ' I regard political economy as a purely mental science.' Such is the startline 
 statement which faces us on page 10 of this little volume, and which may be said to 
 define the purpose of the author. To those who are accustomed to regard political 
 economy as plutology, or the science of wealth, and who see in it only rules or the 
 expression in theoretical terms of the modes in which wealth is distributed accord- 
 ing to the dictates of self-interest, the sentence we have quoted will appear a 
 paradox _ Is not wealth the most material of all things ? and if the science which 
 treats of it be mental, where can there be found in any direction a science of material 
 phenomena ? Yet Mr. Syme has a good deal to say for himself. ... We have not 
 space to follow him in his expositions of 'principles ' and of the ' relations ' of industrial 
 science to sociology, to ethics, and to art ; but we have said enough to show that we 
 regard this little book as well worthy of careful study. It is full of freshness and 
 Tv/ Ce o lhou h it contains only 'outlines,' they are suggestive; and we hope that 
 Mr. Syme_will take an early opportunity of filling in the outlines, and giving us a 
 complete view of industry as a mental science." British Quarterly Review. 
 
 LONDON : KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH Co., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE. 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT 
 IN ENGLAND 
 
 ITS FAULTS AND FAILURES 
 
 BY DAVID SYME 
 
 AUTHOR OF "OUTLINES OF AN INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE" 
 
 SECOND EDITION 
 
 
 LONDON 
 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH & CO., i, PATERNOSTER SQUARE 
 
 1882 
 
(The rights of translation and of reproduction are reserved.) 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Legislative remedies General character of British legislation 
 Great expenditure of labour and time requisite to carry a 
 measure through Parliament Questions now awaiting settle- 
 ment How such slow progress is made ... ... xi.-xxvi. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 
 
 History of, divided into three periods I 
 
 The Commons passive during the first period 2 
 
 Aggressive during the second 3 
 
 Insolent and tyrannical during the third ... 5 
 
 The Peers in no sense representatives 7 
 
 Earliest Parliaments at which representatives were present ... 8 
 
 The Parliament of 1295 10 
 
 Subordinate position of representatives in the early Parliaments 12 
 
 Usage with regard to the assembling of ... ... 13 
 
 The qualifications required of representatives ... 14 
 
 Freedom of elections 16 
 
 The place and mode of election ... 17 
 
 Compulsory attendance of members 18 
 
 M314137 
 
VI CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 And payment for services ... ... ... ... ... ... 19 
 
 Three different classes represented ... ... ... ... ... 20 
 
 And each by its own representatives ... ... ... ... 22 
 
 Representatives were agents or attorneys ... ... ... ... 24 
 
 Early electors familiar with parliamentary functions ... ... 25 
 
 Analogy of ecclesiastical assemblies ... ... ... ... 26 
 
 The residential qualification of representatives ... ... ... 27 
 
 Why two representatives were elected by each constituency ... 29 
 
 The duties of a representative ... ... ... ... ... 29 
 
 Why there are no instances of representatives having been dis- 
 missed by their constituents ... ... ... ... ... 32 
 
 Representatives chosen by an indirect process ... ... ... 32 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A NEW DEPARTURE. 
 
 Abandonment of the residential qualification for members ... 37 
 
 Consequent increase in the number of candidates ... ... ... 38 
 
 Corresponding increase in the cost of elections ... ... ... 39 
 
 Bribery and corruption ... ... ... ... 40 
 
 Change in the character of the representative body ... ... 41 
 
 The substitution of Septennial for Annual Parliaments and its 
 
 consequences ... ... ... 44 
 
 The Act for Preventing the Long Intermission of Parliaments ... 47 
 
 Abuse of the royal prerogative in summoning Parliament ... 47 
 
 The Triennial Act of 1694 48 
 
 The object of the Legislature in passing that measure ... ... 51 
 
 The Commons dissatisfied with ... .. ... ... ... 52 
 
 The Septennial Act brought in under false pretences ... ... 53 
 
 Pernicious operation of ... ... ... 55 
 
 Increase of bribery and corruption under ... ... ... ... 56 
 
 Tyrannical conduct of the Commons ... ... ... ... 57 
 
 Failure of subsequent attempts to repeal this Act ... ... 59 
 
CONTENTS. vii 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 
 
 The organization of party ., ... ... 6l 
 
 The unprincipled character of English political parties ... ... 63 
 
 Recent origin of Government by Party ... ... 67 
 
 Government by Party not government by. the majority ... ... 68 
 
 Party government and parliamentary government often antago- 
 nistic ... ... 7 
 
 As under the leadership of Earl Grey ... ... ... ... 7 
 
 And Lord Palmerston ... ... ^l 
 
 Parliamentary reform retarded in consequence of its having been 
 
 made a party question .- 72 
 
 Government by Party at variance with representative institutions 74 
 Instances where the ministry of the day have overruled the 
 
 majority in Parliament ... ... ... ... j6 
 
 The dogma of ministerial authority ... ... ... 78 
 
 Strong governments and how secured ... ... ... ... 78 
 
 The Walpole and Pitt administrations compared with those of 
 
 Earl Grey and Mr. Gladstone 82 
 
 The danger of strong governments ... ... ... 84 
 
 The natural results of Government by Party exhibited in the 
 
 political history of Italy 87 
 
 Singular position taken up by the advocates of party government 88 
 
 The general tendency of Government by Party ... ... ... 91 
 
 The system confined to political life ... ... ... ... 93 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 
 
 A new force in politics '. 95 
 
 Public opinion what is it? ... ... ... ... ... ... 98 
 
 The Commons have repeatedly rejected measures approved of by 
 the constituent body because public opinion had not endorsed 
 them ... 99 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Lord John Russell's three Reform Bills 100 
 
 Mr. Edward Baines' Reform Bill ... ... ... ... ... 106 
 
 Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill 108 
 
 The Commons have rejected measures approved of by the con- 
 stituent body because public opinion was supposed to be 
 
 adverse to them no 
 
 The Church Rates question ... ... ... ... no 
 
 The Commons have passed measures to which they were them- 
 selves opposed when strong outside pressure was in favour of 
 
 them ... ... ... 112 
 
 How the Derby Reform Bill was carried ... ... 113 
 
 The Lords and the Irish Church Disestablishment Bill 1 1 8 
 
 The danger of giving way to outside pressure ... ... ... 120 
 
 The platform and the press are valuable educational agencies ... 122 
 
 But unreliable as organs of public opinion ... ... ... ... 123 
 
 Public opinion made a convenience of ... ... 126 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 
 
 What parliamentary government has degenerated into ... ... 130 
 
 Gradual introduction of the present system ... ... ... 132 
 
 The position of the cabinet relative to Parliament ... ... 135 
 
 The cabinet act first and ask the sanction of Parliament after- 
 wards ... ... ... ... 136 
 
 Sir G. C. Lewis on government by departments 138 
 
 Earl Grey on popular assemblies ... ... 141 
 
 The fallacy of his views ... ... ... .. ... ... 142 
 
 Cabinet control over legislation inconvenient ... ... ... 146 
 
 And has to be abandoned on great emergencies 149 
 
 Lord Palmerston's India Bill ... ... ... 150 
 
 Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill ... ... ... ... ... ... 151 
 
 No rule determining what is, or what is not, a cabinet question... 153 
 The incoming ministry do not always assume the responsibility of 
 
 the policy on which they may have obtained office ... ... 154 
 
CONTENTS. ix 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Portland administration and the peace treaty ... ... 154 
 
 Lord Melbourne's administration and the Irish Church question 155 
 Absence of any rule determining the issue to be put to the country 
 
 at a general election ... ... ... ... ... ... 156 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 
 
 Close relationship between representatives and their constituents 
 
 in the early Parliaments 159 
 
 The true meaning of representation now lost ... ... ... 160 
 
 Edmund Burke's view ... ... ... ... 161 
 
 Macaulay on the question of candidates giving pledges to the 
 
 electors ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 166 
 
 A representative must represent opinions ... ... ... ... 169 
 
 And existing opinions ... ... ... ... ^iyd'') 
 
 Important public questions arise during the interval between two _. 
 
 general elections ... ... ... ... 172 
 
 The principle of the continuity of representation already re- 
 cognized ... ... ... ... 173 
 
 Earl Derby on the influence of public opinion on Parliament ... 174 
 
 Objections to periodical elections ... ... ... ... .... 176 " 
 
 How the difficulty may be obviated ... ... ... ... ... 178 
 
 The necessity of local organization ... ... ... 179 
 
 The old English borough system ... ... ... ... ... 179 
 
 Alderman Thompson and the livery of London (note) ... ... 182 
 
 Reconciliation of representative institutions with popular govern- 
 ment 183 
 
 Objections answered ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 184 
 
 Plan proposed would secure continuity of representation ... 188 
 
 Prevent sudden changes of rulers 189 
 
 Reduce the cost of elections ... ... ... ... ... ... 190 
 
 And improve the composition of the House ... ... ... 191 
 
X CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The relations of the cabinet to Parliament ... ... ... ... 195 
 
 Subordination of Parliament to the cabinet ... 197 
 
 Inconsistent with the principles of representative government ... 198 
 
 At variance with constitutional law ... ... ... ... ... 200 
 
 And established usage ... ... ... ... 203 
 
 Ministers responsible to Parliament alone ... ... ... ... 203 
 
 The case of Lord Palmerston and the Queen ... 205 
 
 Ministerial appointments practically made by Parliament ... 207 
 
 Cases in which the premier has been nominated by his colleagues 208 
 
 Objections answered ... ... ... 209 
 
 Advantages which would be gained by Parliament nominating 
 
 ministers ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... 213 
 
 Recapitulation ... ,.. ... ... ... ... ... 217 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 THE value of a remedy depends very much upon the 
 facilities for obtaining it, and the promptitude with 
 which it can be applied. A remedy which is obtain- 
 able only by great effort, or at great expense, or after 
 long delay, is a comparatively useless one ; and if this 
 be true of a remedy in the ordinary sense, much more 
 is it true in the legal or constitutional sense. A 
 legal remedy is not only negatively useless, but, to 
 all who cannot avail themselves of it, positively in- 
 jurious. A remedy in the constitutional sense stands 
 in the same relation to the nation as a legal remedy 
 to the individual ; and if it be wrong to deprive an 
 individual of his legal rights it is equally wrong to 
 deprive a nation of its legislative rights. Nay, the 
 nation, or the majority of a nation, which cannot 
 apply a constitutional remedy for a social wrong, 
 suffers an injustice greater in proportion as the 
 
Xll INTRODUCTION. 
 
 aggregate f units composing that majority is greater 
 than the individual unit. Whether laws are made for 
 the people or by them, whether they are the ex- 
 pression of the will of the select few or of the majority, 
 there should be no difficulty in promptly providing 
 them whenever they are required ; there should be no 
 failure of justice by costly and tedious preliminary 
 proceedings ; no friction in the legislative machinery, 
 which should move smoothly, noiselessly, and ex- 
 peditiously in the work of producing adequate 
 measures for acknowledged national grievances. 
 Wise legislation should be prompt, not dilatory; it 
 should provide remedies for prospective as well as for 
 existing evils ; it should, in fact, be preventive rather, 
 than curative in its aim and tendency. 
 
 Not so has legislation proceeded with us in the 
 past. The history of British legislation is a record of 
 wasted forces and disappointed hopes, of party 
 wranglings and mangled measures. The work ac- 
 complished has been in an inverse ratio to the time 
 and labour expended upon it. There has been a 
 maximum of friction and a minimum of results. Parlia- 
 ment has responded languidly to the wishes of the 
 nation. It has seldom acted promptly and decisively. 
 It has never done to-day what it could put off till 
 to-morrow ; and what it has done, it has done grudg- 
 ingly. Piecemeal legislation has been the rule rather 
 
INTRODUCTION. xill 
 
 than the exception. Reforms have come by instal- 
 ments rather than in the lump. Questions have been 
 compromised rather than settled. Nor can it be said 
 that the country has been satisfied with the manner 
 in which Parliament has done its work. No doubt 
 there have been times when there was little or no 
 demand for the redress of grievances, when there 
 was no agitation for reforms. But it does not follow, 
 that there were no grievances to be redressed, that 
 no reforms were required. In periods of great pro- 
 sperity we seldom hear of any kind of agitation. 
 During the fifty years of Whig rule in the last 
 century, and especially during the twenty-one years 
 that Walpole held office, the country was quiescent. 
 But quiescence is not contentment. Quiescence may 
 be the result of indifference, of disappointment, or of 
 despair. The nation was quiescent after the passing 
 of the Reform Bill of 1832, but any one acquainted 
 with the history of that period knows that the country 
 was bitterly disappointed with the reformed Parlia- 
 ment. The people were quiescent after the collapse 
 of the Chartist movement, but this was because they 
 saw how utterly hopeless was the attempt, as Parlia- 
 ment was then constituted, to carry any one of the 
 numerous reforms that were required. 
 
 The amount of labour required to carry a reform 
 through Parliament is something enormous. No 
 
XIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 matter if the measure placed before it were obviously 
 proper and necessary, every obstacle is put in the 
 way of carrying it. There never was a subject that 
 more urgently demanded the attention of the Legis- 
 lature than parliamentary reform, before Earl Grey 
 carried his Reform Bill. The evils complained of 
 were notorious and scandalous. A majority of the 
 seats were in the nomination of ministers of the 
 Crown, of the territorial magnates, or of the resi- 
 dent gentry. It was asserted that upwards of 97 
 members of the House of Commons were actually 
 nominated, and 70 more indirectly appointed by 
 peers and the Treasury, and that ninety-one com- 
 moners procured the election of 139 more. The 
 facts were not disputed ; they were almost uni- 
 versally acknowledged to be indisputable. Yet to 
 abolish this iniquitous state of things required an 
 amount of outside pressure, of moral and physical 
 display of force on the part of the people, that is 
 difficult to comprehend at the present day. Parlia- 
 mentary reform had been forced on the notice of 
 the Legislature by long and persistent agitation out 
 of doors, and from the day when the Reform Bill was 
 introduced into the Commons till it passed the Lords, 
 the whole nation was kept in the wildest state of ex- 
 citement. Public demonstrations in favour of the bill 
 were unprecedented in extent and unanimity. It would 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV 
 
 have been impossible for the people to declare more 
 emphatically for any measure than they did for this. 
 Everywhere the country was unanimously in favour 
 of it, and gave expression to its feelings in no half- 
 hearted way. There were mass meetings, tumultuous 
 J assemblies, and riotings all over the country. At Bir- 
 mingham from 150,000 to 200,000 people assembled 
 and declared unanimously in favour of the measure, 
 and at other large centres of population public meet- 
 ings were proportionately numerous, enthusiastic, and 
 unanimous. A deputation, numbering 60,000, con- 
 sisting of delegates from every parish in the metropolis, 
 presented a petition to the king in favour of the bill ; 
 the City council petitioned the Commons to refuse 
 supplies till the bill was passed through the Lords ; 
 the same prayer was received from Leeds, Birming- 
 ham, Manchester, and almost every town in the 
 kingdom. When the bill met with opposition in the 
 Lords, public indignation vented itself in numerous 
 acts of violence in various places. There were riots 
 in Bristol, Derby, Nottingham, Bath, Worcester, 
 Coventry, Warwick, and other places ; the military 
 were called out, and many lives were lost before 
 the riotings could be suppressed. But nothing 
 could damp the enthusiasm of the country. For 
 a while the Reform question occupied public atten- 
 tion to the exclusion of almost everything else. 
 
 b 
 
XVI INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Business was at a standstill ; nothing was talked of but 
 the prospects of the bill. Even women and children 
 took up the question of reform. Every one felt as if a 
 great national crisis were impending ; and Mr. Moles- 
 worth, in his history of this period, has declared it as his 
 conviction that if the Lords had rejected the Reform 
 Bill, there would have been a revolution that would 
 have changed the whole course of English history. 
 
 Nor has legislation proceeded much more smoothly 
 under a reformed Parliament. The Chartist agitation 
 of 1838-39 caused nearly as great a ferment in England 
 for a while as did the Reform Bill. The mass 
 meetings, strikes, and riotings of 1832 were repeated, 
 though on a somewhat smaller scale. The agitators 
 were thoroughly in earnest, and showed by many 
 acts that they were capable of self-sacrifice. There 
 can be no doubt that the great majority of the people 
 were on the side of the reformers, and the move- 
 ment might have succeeded had it been in abler 
 hands. The agitation suddenly collapsed, and not 
 one of the many reforms demanded was advanced a 
 single step by a movement which produced an 
 amount of excitement unparalleled in recent times. 
 Yet there was nothing ridiculous or even unreason- 
 able in the demands of the Chartists. Four out of 
 the six reforms which they demanded have since been 
 conceded, wholly or partially, by Parliament, namely, 
 
INTRODUCTION. XV11 
 
 vote by ballot, the abolition of property qualification 
 for members, equalization of electoral districts, and 
 manhood suffrage ; and the shortening of the duration 
 of Parliaments, or something equivalent thereto, will 
 doubtless follow before the end of the century. 
 
 But the expenditure of labour in abortive attempts 
 at reform has been small when compared with the 
 time wasted upon them. At the present rate of 
 progress it is questionable, indeed, if the generation 
 now living under the British Constitution will be 
 able to enjoy the fruits of any great measure they 
 may set their hearts upon carrying. It is certain, 
 at all events, that very few of those eminent men 
 who devoted their lives to some great reform, lived 
 to see it embodied in law. This may seem small 
 encouragement to patriotic men to labour in the 
 public service, but it is true nevertheless. It took a 
 whole generation to accomplish Catholic emancipa- 
 tion. Mr. Wilberforce devoted a long life to the 
 abolition of slavery, and hardly lived to see it 
 accomplished. The reform of our brutal criminal 
 code was the work of more than a quarter of a cen- 
 tury. It took half a century to carry the abolition of 
 religious tests at matriculation and graduation, and 
 to establish a national system of education. Purchase 
 in the army was a public grievance for more than 
 half a century before it was abolished, and its aboli- 
 
XV111 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 tion was at last accomplished by a straining of the 
 royal prerogative. A measure for legalizing mar- 
 riage with a deceased wife's sister has been bandied 
 between the two Houses of Parliament for over thirty 
 years. Mr. Stuart Wortley's bill on this subject was 
 introduced into the Commons in 1849, when ^ passed 
 the same year ; it was again introduced and passed 
 the Commons in 1851. A similar measure has since 
 been repeatedly passed in one chamber and as often 
 rejected in the other, although there can be no manner 
 of doubt as to the wishes of the country with regard 
 to it. Parliamentary reform was a prominent subject 
 of public and parliamentary discussion for more than 
 a century before the first instalment of it was carried 
 in 1832. As early as 1766, the elder Pitt denounced 
 the system of parliamentary corruption that existed in 
 his day. Four years later, he stated in Parliament 
 that " before the end of the century either Parliament 
 will reform itself from within, or be reformed with 
 a vengeance from without," but the century ended 
 without the much-needed reform. The question of 
 vote by ballot was under discussion in the House of 
 Commons as early as 1708. The subject was again 
 and again brought up, but was only carried in 1872. 
 Not a single new fact was brought to light, or a 
 single fresh argument was presented, at the time it 
 was carried that was not known and applied when 
 
INTRODUCTION. xix 
 
 the subject was first discussed, and yet the question 
 occupied the attention of Parliament for more than 
 a century and a half before it was finally settled. 
 
 If we have made slow progress in the past, have 
 we any reasonable grounds for believing that we 
 shall proceed more expeditiously in the future ? One 
 thing is certain, that the work of legislation is as 
 much in arrear as ever it was. The measures await- 
 ing settlement are as numerous and as important 
 now as they were before the Reform Bill was passed. 
 The country has been waiting a long time for the 
 abolition of the law of primogeniture ; for the simpli- 
 fication of the transfer of land ; for compensation 
 for tenants' improvements ; for a reasonable settle- 
 ment of the game laws. It still wants the abolition 
 of church rates ; an equitable distribution of church 
 funds ; an abatement of that public scandal, the sale 
 of advowsons. We have made more than one effort 
 to settle the Irish land question, and we have dis- 
 established the Irish Church, but no attempt has yet 
 been made to settle the land question in Great 
 Britain, or to disestablish the English and Scottish 
 Churches. Parliament has never yet set itself 
 seriously to work to abolish sinecures ; to adjust the 
 incidence of taxation ; to amend the patent laws ; 
 to establish a national system of technical education, 
 or to improve the condition of the agricultural 
 
XX INTRODUCTION. 
 
 labourer, notwithstanding that all these questions 
 have been long and prominently before the public. 
 
 Does this state of things excite any surprise ? 
 For an explanation we have only to look at the 
 difficulties placed in the way of popular legislation 
 by our present mode of parliamentary procedure. 
 In the first place, any important scheme of reform 
 must be adopted by the government of the day, and 
 there is always a great difficulty in getting any 
 government to commit themselves to any scheme 
 of the sort, no matter how desirous they may be to 
 secure popular favour. The reason of this is not 
 far to seek. Why should ministers jeopardize their 
 position by taking up a scheme that will be sure 
 to alienate not a few friends, and give a rallying- 
 point to their enemies, if they can manage to rub 
 along without it ? It is more in their line 
 
 To promise, pause, prepare, postpone, 
 And end by letting things alone ; 
 In short, to earn the people's pay 
 By doing nothing every day. 
 
 In the second place, a measure of this kind must 
 have the unanimous approval of all the mem- 
 bers of the ministry. Government by Party does 
 not permit differences of opinion on the part of 
 ministers on any great questions ; and the difficulty 
 of finding unanimity on all the essential points of 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXI 
 
 any important measure is enormous, has often proved 
 insurmountable, and even when it has been overcome 
 it has usually led to a break up and reconstruction 
 of the government. Macaulay had once occasion to 
 explain the difficulty I refer to. In 1839, when the 
 Melbourne Cabinet, at a loss for something that might 
 bring it popularity, agreed that the more liberal of its 
 members might vote in favour of Mr. Grote's Ballot, 
 Bill, the opposition took an obvious objection to such 
 a proceeding. On that occasion Mr. Macaulay said, 
 " I rejoice to see that we are returning to the wise, 
 the honest, the moderate maxims, which prevailed in 
 this House in the time of our fathers. If two men 
 were brought up together from their childhood ; if 
 they follow the same studies, mix in the same society, 
 and exercise a mutual influence in forming each 
 other's minds, a perfect agreement between them on 
 political subjects cannot even then be expected. But 
 governments are constructed in such a manner, that 
 forty or fifty gentlemen, some of whom have never 
 seen each others' faces till they are united officially, 
 or have been in hot opposition to each other all the 
 rest of their lives, are brought at once into intimate 
 connection. Among such men unanimity would be 
 an absolute miracle." And the difficulty is further 
 increased by two circumstances. The first is that all 
 ministers, as such are, for the time being, consciously 
 
xxii INTRODUCTION. 
 
 or unconsciously, more or less under the influence of 
 the Crown, which is always conservative ; the second 
 is, that a large proportion of the members of every 
 ministry, Liberal as well as Conservative, are more or 
 less intimately connected with " the great governing 
 families," and are, therefore, by family ties and associa- 
 tions, naturally disinclined to any change in a popular 
 direction. A popular scheme of reform, therefore, 
 runs a great chance of being rejected, or at least 
 mutilated, at the very outset, and by the very men to 
 whom it has been entrusted, and who alone, accord- 
 ing to the existing practice, can be permitted to 
 take charge of it. But supposing the members of the 
 ministry are unanimously in favour of a measure, and 
 will zealously support it, they must, in the third place, 
 be kept in office till it is carried. Of course a measure 
 of this sort would only be introduced by a Liberal 
 government, and if they were turned out of office there 
 would be no likelihood of their successors taking up 
 the bill. The ministry must therefore be retained in 
 office till the measure is carried, and this involves a 
 general support of their whole policy and all their acts 
 of administration, as the government may be turned 
 out on a variety of pretexts altogether unconnected 
 with the measure in question. They may be defeated 
 on a question of administration, or on their home, 
 foreign, or colonial policy ; and their defeat may come 
 
INTRODUCTION. xxiii 
 
 quite suddenly and from an unexpected quarter. 
 They may have been carrying on negotiations with 
 some foreign Power, for instance, and all the world 
 may know the direction in which they are proceeding, 
 and the opposition may apparently acquiesce in what 
 ministers have done ; but no sooner have the govern- 
 ment fairly committed themselves, than such are the 
 ethics of party warfare the opposition, who never 
 dropped a hint to put ministers on their guard, all at 
 once discover that the whole negotiations are an 
 atrocious blunder, a scandal and disgrace to the 
 English nation, and a vote of censure or want of con- 
 fidence is forthwith carried against them. Not only 
 is the fate of the measure bound up with the ministry, 
 but, in the fourth place, the very fact of the ministry 
 having become responsible for it makes the measure 
 itself the object of attack on the part of the opposi- 
 tion. The whole forces of the opposition are at once 
 concentrated on the bill which the government have 
 introduced. Had the measure not been introduced by 
 the government, it would have escaped all this ; but 
 now it will receive support from one side only, some- 
 times lukewarm enough, and the most strenuous 
 opposition from the other. As a neutral vessel sailing 
 under a belligerent flag draws upon itself the whole 
 guns of the enemy, so a bill brought in under minis- 
 terial auspices is exposed to a combined attack from 
 
XXIV INTRODUCTION. 
 
 all sections of the opposition. Such a measure is 
 never once discussed on its merits. If there is the 
 smallest flaw in it, neither side will make any attempt 
 to improve it ; its defects, whether few or many, 
 trifling or serious, will be exaggerated by the one side 
 and defended by the other with all the bitterness of 
 party spirit. Then follow weeks or months in dreary 
 debates, in first, second, and third readings, in post- 
 ponements and adjournments without end, till the 
 public become sick of delay, their enthusiasm dies 
 out from sheer exhaustion, and the measure is left 
 to be mutilated by the House at its leisure, or to be 
 disposed of in a more summary fashion at the close 
 of the session. 
 
 So far I have only enumerated a few of the 
 dangers which beset a popular measure in one branch 
 of the Legislature only ; and if it was difficult to 
 carry such a measure safely through the popular 
 assembly, where it was amongst professed friends, what 
 chance is it likely to have in the hereditary chamber, 
 where it would be amongst avowed enemies, where a 
 Liberal ministry is always in a minority, where even 
 the principles of party government are not recog- 
 nized, and where no responsibility attaches to any 
 vote whatever, no matter what the consequence of that 
 vote may be ? As a matter of fact, popular measures 
 have always been treated with scant courtesy by the 
 
INTRODUCTION. XXV 
 
 members of that House, and if they have not rejected 
 them off-hand, or mutilated them beyond recognition, 
 it was only the fear of evil consequences to them- 
 selves that prevented them. Is it then to be wondered 
 at that the work of legislation proceeds otherwise than 
 slowly, or suddenly stops altogether, when attempted 
 to be carried on under such conditions ? 
 
 Perhaps enough has been said to show the practical 
 working of our Constitution. We cannot say that 
 results justify any extravagant amount of admiration. 
 That it is such an exquisite piece of mechanism 
 as Earl Grey pronounces it to be, 1 we confess we 
 believe to be a delusion. It is at best a cumbrous 
 and unwieldy piece of machinery. What little 
 work it does, it does slowly and badly. In order to 
 start it, there is sometimes required an amount of 
 external force which is sufficient to overturn it. The 
 machine moves, certainly, after a time, if sufficient 
 force be steadily applied ; but the friction of its parts 
 is enormous, and the work it produces is out of all pro- 
 portion to the labour and time expended in putting it 
 in motion. Whether the machine has been constructed 
 on a wrong principle, or has simply got out of order, 
 we shall discover when we come to examine the 
 working of our early parliamentary institutions. 
 
 1 Parliamentary Government, p. 67* 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 
 
 THE history of representative government in England 
 may be divided into three periods. The first extends 
 from the assembling of the first representative Parlia- 
 ment in 1295 to the close of the third quarter of the 
 fourteenth century ; the second, from the beginning 
 of the fourth quarter of the fourteenth century_to 
 the Revolution ; the third, from the Revolution to the 
 present day. In the first period, the representative 
 body had little or no influence on the government, 
 which was almost a pure despotism ; in the second 
 period, the Commons had acquired great power, and 
 we had government by king and Parliament ; in the 
 third period Parliament was supreme, and we had 
 Government by Party. 
 
 During the first period the functions of the newly 
 constituted Parliament were not clearly defined. The 
 
 B 
 
2 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Commons appear to have been a consultative rather 
 than a legislative body. They exercised little or no 
 control over the administration. The sovereign was 
 supreme. All legislative and administrative power 
 centred in the Crown. The barons, and not the Com- 
 mons, took the initiative in actively resisting the power 
 of the Crown, which was often exercised in an arbitrary 
 and despotic manner. The Commons were too weak 
 to be aggressive. Their attitude towards the Crown 
 was that of passive resistance. Their position as a 
 third estate of the realm was, as yet, scarcely recog- 
 nized by either king or barons. They had not yet 
 made themselves a power in the State, and they 
 could hardly have felt that they possessed any power. 
 But although they did not at this time exhibit an 
 aggressive spirit, the Commons showed that they were 
 as tenacious of their rights as the sovereign was of 
 his, or the peers were of theirs. Good Catholics and 
 loyal subjects as they were, they nevertheless boldly 
 resisted the encroachments of the Holy See ; they 
 protested against "the men of the Church" mono- 
 polizing the high offices of state to the exclusion of 
 laymen ; they complained of the delay in the as- 
 sembling of Parliament ; they evinced a dogged 
 determination to uphold national independence and 
 to maintain the legislative functions of Parliament by 
 withholding aids from the Crown till their grievances 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 3 
 
 were redressed. But the Commons did not long remain 
 in the subordinate condition assigned to them. A 
 body of men who speak and act for others, speak and 
 act boldly and with authority ; it is in the nature of 
 things that a representative body should be aggres- 
 sive, and this the Commons soon proved themselves 
 to be. 
 
 In the second period the Commons were no longer 
 passive. Instead of being led by the Lords they 
 became their leaders. The history of Parliament 
 during the first and second periods is the story of 
 a series of aggressions on the prerogatives of the 
 Crown, first on the part of the Lords, and afterwards 
 on the part of the Commons. In the first period the 
 Commons were used by the Lords in order to restrict 
 the power of the Crown ; in the second period the 
 Lords were used by the Commons in order to extort 
 further concessions from the sovereign. It was the 
 Commons who, in the first Parliament of Richard II., 
 demanded that the great offices of state should be 
 appointed in Parliament, and they made three sub- 
 sequent attempts, namely, in 1380, 1381, and 1383, to 
 secure that object. They failed in their first attempts 
 at administrative reform, it is true, but they did not 
 despair. If they could not succeed in one way they 
 might in another. If they could not appoint ministers, 
 they might at all events punish them when they were 
 
4 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 guilty of misconduct. It was the Commons who 
 proposed impeachment as a remedy for misgovern- 
 ment. It was the Commons who impeached Latimer, 
 Neville, and the courtiers of Edward III. It was 
 also chiefly through the action of the Commons that 
 Parliament succeeded in controlling the alienation of 
 crown land, in curtailing the expenses of the royal 
 household, in diminishing the abuse of commissions 
 of array, in restraining and ultimately abolishing the 
 king's power of legislation, of purveyance, of the 
 exacting of customs, and of the raising of loans, and 
 in establishing checks on the appropriation of sup- 
 plies. But they did not stop here. They had used 
 the Lords in order to wrest power from the Crown, 
 and now, with the aid of the Crown, they proceeded 
 to restrict the influence of the barons. They suc- 
 ceeded in passing laws against the abuse of livery, 
 the maintenance of suits, and for the suppression of 
 armed retainers. Thus gradually the Commons en- 
 croached on the prerogatives of the Crown and the 
 privileges of the barons ; step by step they forced 
 their way to the front rank in the Legislature and to 
 a predominant position in the State. 
 
 An individual who is placed in a new posi- 
 tion, and remains in that position till he becomes 
 thoroughly acquainted with his duties, usually passes 
 through three mental stages. At first he is awkward 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 5 
 
 in the discharge of his duties, diffident in appreciating 
 his performance of them, and is content if he is barely 
 tolerated ; when he has occupied his position some 
 time he has a less modest opinion of his abilities, and 
 begins to think himself extremely useful ; when he 
 has been longer accustomed to his duties, and perhaps 
 discharges them no better, he begins to believe that 
 his services are really indispensable. At the time of 
 the Revolution the Commons had arrived at this last 
 stage. At first they were awkward and diffident. 
 They were his majesty's "poor Commons;" they 
 quietly submitted to the tutorship of the Lords ; 1 and 
 they showed, in a variety of ways, that they had a due 
 appreciation of the subordinate position which they 
 occupied. On the assembling of each Parliament they 
 commenced proceedings by a recital of their rights 
 and privileges under various royal charters, a practice 
 which they kept up long after it was necessary. They 
 were quite content to hold what they had got without 
 demanding more. So far from wishing any extension 
 of their power, or the acquisition of new influence, 
 they distinctly refused, on more than one occasion, 
 to accept it when offered them. Gradually, however, 
 their attitude changed ; their confidence in themselves 
 increased with the acquisition of power, till at length 
 
 1 The Lords frequently appointed a few of their members to confer 
 with the Commons, " for their better direction and information." 
 
6 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 they began to think that they were really indis- 
 pensable. In the third period the Commons threw off 
 all restraint on their ambition. They were not content 
 with being legislators ; they were not satisfied with 
 merely exercising control over the administration. 
 They wanted to be administrators themselves. They 
 clamoured to have a division amongst them of all the 
 lucrative offices of state. They encroached on the 
 liberties of the people. They openly set their con- 
 stituents at defiance. They became factious, self 
 seeking, corrupt. They passed the Septennial Act, 
 which made representatives practically independent 
 of their constituents for seven years ; they claimed 
 unheard-of privileges for themselves, individually and 
 collectively ; they constituted themselves prosecutors 
 and judges in their own actions against the people, 
 and when they had condemned the offenders they 
 executed their own judgment against them. Having 
 emancipated themselves from all control, they gave 
 themselves up to the pursuit of place and power, and 
 there was then established that system of Government 
 by Party which exists at the present day. Speaking 
 of the House of Commons at the beginning of this 
 period, Macaulay says that it had " abused its gigantic 
 power with unjust and insolent caprice, browbeat 
 the Lords and the constituent bodies, violated the 
 rights guaranteed by the Great Charter, and at length 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. / 
 
 made itself so odious that the people were glad 
 to take shelter under the protection of the throne 
 and of the hereditary aristocracy, from the tyranny 
 of the Assembly which had been chosen by them- 
 selves." 1 
 
 Under the early Norman kings the representative 
 elements found no place in the legislative and judicial 
 assemblies of the realm. I assume, of course, that the 
 peers were not in any proper sense a representative 
 body. Curiously enough, however, they frequently 
 asserted their claim to such a character. It had long 
 been a matter of complaint with the Commons that 
 the knights of the shires had not received their full 
 wages for their attendance in Parliament, owing to the 
 fact that many tenants of peers, and many towns over 
 which the peers claimed manorial rights, had refused 
 to contribute their share, having no doubt been put up 
 to do so by their lords. To all these complaints the 
 Lords invariably -replied that they were in Parliament 
 " for themselves and their men " in proper person, and 
 that therefore the latter should not be called upon to 
 pay any share of the wages of the knights. In other 
 words, the Lords claimed to represent their tenants, 
 and the tenants claimed exemption from payment of 
 wages because the knights were not their representa- 
 
 1 History of England, vol. v. p. 168. 
 
8 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tives. 1 It is true that the Lords sometimes made a 
 grant to the Crown on behalf of their tenants as well 
 as on their own behalf ; and that the claim of the 
 former to be exempt from contribution was at length 
 formally acknowledged by statute ; but as the tenants 
 had no voice in the nomination of a peer, and there 
 is no case on record of a peer ever formally appealing 
 for advice or authority to his tenants, and as their 
 claim to a representative character was never asserted 
 except under the circumstances referred to, we have 
 a right to assume that it was only put forward 
 for the purpose of evading the just demands of the 
 Commons. 
 
 The first Parliament, constituted as it now is, dates 
 from the famous Assembly which met at Westminster 
 on the 3<Dth September, 1295. We had Assemblies 
 before this at which representatives were present, but 
 no properly constituted Parliaments, meeting at stated 
 periods for the transaction of the ordinary business 
 of state. On several previous occasions, extending 
 over a period of eighty years, representatives from the 
 townships of the royal demesnes, or from the shires, 
 or from the shires cities and boroughs, had been sum- 
 moned to meet the king and his barons at the Great 
 
 1 See proceedings in Parliament of 28 Edward III., 2 Richard II., 
 and elsewhere in Lords' Reports* vol. i. pp. 325-6, 336-7. Parry's 
 Parliaments, pp. 124 and 142. 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 9 
 
 Council of the nation. For instance, a reeve and 
 four legal men from each township of the royal 
 demesne were summoned to meet the king, arch- 
 bishops, bishops, and magnates at St. Alban's, on the 
 4th August, 1213. On the 1 5th of the same month and 
 year, four knights from each county were summoned to 
 a Parliament at Oxford. Two representative knights 
 from each county were summoned to the Parliament 
 of 38 Henry III. Three knights from each shire were 
 summoned by the barons, then at war with the king, 
 to a Council or Parliament held at St. Alban's, on the 
 2ist of September, 1261 ; and the king ordered the 
 same knights to be in attendance on him at another 
 Parliament, to be held on the same day at Windsor. 
 Four representative knights from twenty-nine counties 
 were ordered to attend a Parliament at London, on 
 the 24th of June, 1264. Next we had the Parliament 
 of Simon of Montfort, held at London on the 2Oth of 
 January, 1265, to which representatives from the cities 
 and boroughs, as well as from the shires, were sum- 
 moned simultaneously for the first time. Two knights 
 for each county, two citizens from each city, and two 
 burgesses from each borough, were summoned on this 
 occasion. At another Parliament held at Westminster 
 in 1 8 Edward L, the sheriffs were commanded to return 
 " two or three " knights from each county, and it 
 appears that five counties returned three, and all the 
 
10 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 rest two knights each. This is the first Parliament 
 of which we have any record of the names of the 
 representatives present. 
 
 These were the first Parliaments to which repre- 
 sentatives were admitted, but they were altogether of 
 an exceptional character, having been called together 
 for special purposes and at irregular intervals. Up 
 till this time the ordinary Parliaments or Councils of 
 State, consisting of prelates, magnates, and judges, 
 transacted all the legislative, judicial and administra- 
 tive business of the kingdom. The Lords were the 
 only original members of these councils long before 
 any knights, citizens or burgesses were admitted to 
 participate in their deliberations. 
 
 The first representative Assembly in which the 
 legislative, judicial and administrative functions of our 
 modern Parliaments were combined was, as already 
 stated, that which met at Westminster on the 3Oth of 
 September, 1295. This Parliament voted the supplies 
 to the Crown, took part in the work of legislation and 
 controlled the administration. In addition to the 
 Lords there were summoned to this Assembly two 
 knights from each county, two citizens from each 
 city, and two burgesses from each borough within 
 the kingdom. The writs for this Parliament have 
 been preserved, and they show that ample legisla- 
 tive and administrative powers were conferred upon 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. II 
 
 it. 1 The powers now for the first time conferred on 
 the representative body in common with the peers, 
 were at a subsequent period confirmed by the valedic- 
 tory Statute of York, which enacted that henceforth 
 all ordinances were to be void except such as were 
 made by the king " by the assent of the prelates, earls, 
 barons, and the commonalty of the realm." The 
 general body of the people were at length admitted 
 to a share in the government, and Parliament, thus 
 broadened in its basis and fairly representative of all 
 classes of the community, became the great con- 
 trolling power in the State. 
 
 For some time subsequent to this, however, the 
 Commons played a very subordinate part in the 
 proceedings of Parliament. Their presence was 
 tolerated rather than welcomed by the hereditary 
 legislators. The judicial functions, then as now, 
 belonged exclusively to the Lords ; but everf in 
 matters of legislation the powers of the Commons 
 were not regarded in the first instance as co-exten- 
 sive with those which belonged to the hereditary 
 chamber. They were expected to assent to what 
 the Lords proposed rather than to initiate legislation 
 themselves. We learn from the record of their own 
 
 1 The writs to the Lords set forth that they were summoned : ad trac- 
 tandum, ordinandum et faciendum nobiscum et cum cseteris Praelatus 
 et Proceribus et alius incolis regni nostri ; and to the sheriffs : ad fa- 
 ciendum quod tune de commune consilio ordinabitur. 
 
12 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 proceedings that the Commons were, for a long time, 
 the victims of something like very sharp practice on 
 the part of the king and the other branch of the 
 Legislature. In Parliament of 22 Edward III., they 
 complain of many charges having been put upon 
 them without their consent ; that answers granted 
 to their petitions were often altered without their 
 knowledge or consent ; that the king and Lords took 
 it upon themselves to alter the answers given to 
 their petitions after the Commons had retired from 
 Parliament. We also learn from the proceedings 
 in 2 Henry IV. that these practices were continued 
 notwithstanding the protests of the Commons, and 
 that in order to prevent their recurrence the Com- 
 mons pray " that the business done, or to be done 
 in Parliament, may be enacted and engrossed before 
 the justices take their departure, while they have 
 them on their memory." They also complain that 
 in many Parliaments their petitions have not been 
 answered before they made their grants, that is to 
 say, that evasive replies had been made to them, and 
 they pray that they " may know their answers first." 
 No wonder that after this they held over the supplies, 
 and made the Appropriation Bill the last measure 
 of the session. 
 
 The Assembly of 1295 also marks the commence- 
 ment of Annual Parliaments. From this time forth 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 13 
 
 one Parliament at least was held every year, some- 
 times two or three. The custom of holding sessions 
 of Parliament was not introduced for a long time 
 subsequently. When mention is made therefore of a 
 " Parliament " being summoned or held, it is a new 
 Parliament that is meant, not a new session of an 
 old Parliament. In 3 Edward II. it was ordained 
 that the king shall hold a Parliament " once a year, 
 or twice, if there should be need," and the average 
 of once a year was well kept up and even exceeded 
 in early times. Thus during the twelve remaining 
 years of the reign of Edward I., dating from 1295, 
 eleven Parliaments were held ; in the following reign 
 there were twenty-two Parliaments in twenty years ; 
 in the next reign fifty-eight Parliaments in fifty-one 
 years, and in the next succeeding reign twenty-four 
 Parliaments in twenty-one years. It appears from 
 the dates of the writs, and from the frequent com- 
 plaints of the Commons, 1 that Parliament was not 
 summoned regularly every year during the two last 
 reigns, some years there being no Parliament held 
 and in others more than one. It was during the last 
 of the reigns referred to, that the practice of pro- 
 roguing Parliament commenced, and which has been 
 continued to this day. 
 
 Certain qualifications were required of represen- 
 
 1 e.g. in 4 and 50 Edward III., I Richard II., and elsewhere. 
 
14 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tatives in the early Parliaments, but these were 
 neither hereditary nor territorial, nor even pecuniary. 
 They were simply personal and topical. The writs 
 directed the sheriffs or mayors to return "discreet," 
 " honest," or " able and discreet persons," and none 
 others, for the shires, cities and boroughs alike ; the re- 
 presentatives for the shires, however, were to be knights 
 or freemen (liberi homines), but otherwise there was 
 no distinction between the representatives of the 
 different kinds of constituencies. These were the 
 personal qualifications ; but in addition to these a 
 residential qualification was required. The repre- 
 sentative had to be a resident within the shire, city, 
 or borough which elected him. This condition was 
 regarded as an essential one, and for a long time it 
 was strictly enforced. In the reign of Henry VIII. 
 the rule began to be relaxed, and in 13 Elizabeth 
 a bill for the " Validity of burgesses non resient " 
 was introduced into the Commons and read a first 
 and second time and committed after much debate, 
 but was not proceeded with beyond this stage. 
 From this time, however, non-resident representa- 
 tives began to be common, but the law was not 
 altered till the statute of 14 George III. c. 58, 
 formally repealed the restriction of residence both as 
 to voters and members. Sometimes members were 
 required to have special knowledge of shipping and 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. IS 
 
 commerce, 1 and a statute provides against apprentices, 
 lawyers and sheriffs being elected. 2 It appears from 
 more recent writs that it had been common at one 
 time to elect few or any but yeomen or persons of 
 inferior rank as representatives. Originally no quali- 
 fications were required for electors beyond what 
 entitled them to take rank as citizens or burgesses 
 in the cities and boroughs respectively, and for a long 
 period none whatever were required for voters in the 
 counties. It was enacted in the Parliament of 8 
 Henry IV. that "all who shall be present at the 
 proclamation in full county, as well as suitors in 
 any case, as others, should attend the election of 
 their knights, and those in the county shall go to 
 the elections freely and indifferently, notwithstanding 
 any prayer or command to the contrary." It has 
 now been thoroughly established that the Act of 8 
 Henry VI., limiting the franchise in the counties 
 to 40^. freeholders, was a reactionary measure, which 
 was passed in consequence of a petition presented 
 by the Commons, praying " that whereas knights of 
 the shire had of late been chosen by outrageous and 
 excessive numbers of people of small substance." 8 
 The freedom of elections was guaranteed by 
 
 1 See writs for 47 Edward IV., for instance. 
 
 2 5 Henry IV. 
 
 3 See Cox's Ancient Parliamentary Elections, p. 80. 
 
1 6 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 numerous statutes. According to an Act passed in 
 13 Henry VI., if any soldiers or armed persons 
 disturbed the electors, the sheriff might refuse to 
 proceed with the election ; and in consequence of 
 several knights, citizens and burgesses returned for 
 the Parliament of 38 Henry VI. not having been 
 freely elected, all the acts of that Parliament were 
 repealed by the Parliament succeeding. Nevertheless, 
 the Commons had frequently to complain of in- 
 terference with the freedom of elections, and one of 
 the grievances of the rebels under Jack Cade was 
 " that the freedom of election for knights of the shires 
 hath been taken from the people by the great men, 
 who sent letters to their tenants and dependents, to 
 choose such men as the people approve not." The 
 Crown also exercised great influence over the elec- 
 tions. In early times, the king had absolute power 
 in the issuing of writs, and in prescribing the 
 qualifications for members to be elected ; and by 
 omitting to issue writs for refractory constituencies, 
 or regulating the qualifications of representatives for 
 others, he could to a great extent control the 
 proceedings of Parliament. In 7 Edward VI. the 
 sheriffs of certain counties were desired to return 
 certain individuals mentioned by name, and the writs 
 issued by Mary direct the sheriffs to return men of 
 the " wise, grave, and Catholic sort." It appears also 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. I/ 
 
 from a statement made by the Attorney-General 
 during a debate in 12 James I., that the Chancellor 
 of the Duchy of Lancaster had the nomination of 
 one of the borough representatives in one of the 
 Duchy towns, and that " it hath been so in his 
 remembrance, and is ancient." l 
 
 The place and mode of election was determined 
 by custom and statute. The elections were held at 
 the county court, as being the most convenient place 
 for all classes of electors, who had to attend there on 
 other business. The representatives of the cities and 
 boroughs as well as of the shires were elected there, 
 and usually on the same day as the knights were 
 chosen. It was customary for the mayor of any city 
 or borough, within the county, and a few leading 
 citizens or burgesses deputed for the purpose, to meet 
 at the county court, and then and there elect re- 
 presentatives for their respective cities and boroughs. 
 From the returns collected by Prynne, extending 
 over a period of fifty years (1407-1459), we get a 
 good idea of the manner in which elections were con- 
 ducted during the first half of 'the fifteenth century. 
 Thus " twelve persons " elect two knights for the 
 county of Kent, and the same individuals, at the 
 same time and place, choose two representatives for 
 Rochester, and two for Canterbury. "The mayor 
 
 1 Parry's Par!., p. 266. 
 
 C 
 
1 8 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and three other persons" elect two members for 
 Bath. " The mayor and all the burgesses " elect two 
 members for Reading. "Eight persons, acting as 
 attorneys, and one lady," are the electors for York- 
 shire ; " fourteen persons " are the electors for Cumber- 
 land ; " the mayor, bailiff, and nine citizens " are 
 the electors for Carlisle ; " the mayor and ten 
 persons " are the electors for Bedford ; " the mayor 
 and- two bailiffs " are the electors for Northampton ; 
 " two coroners, the custos and twenty-four citizens " 
 are the electors for Norwich. It is evident from all this 
 that the mass of the electors took no direct share in 
 the election of their representatives. We shall en- 
 deavour farther on to ascertain whether or not they 
 took any indirect share. 
 
 Attendance at Parliament was compulsory on the 
 part of the representatives. There does not appear 
 to have been any competition for seats in the early 
 Parliaments. If we are to judge from the precautions 
 taken to secure the attendance of the representatives 
 in Parliament, we may indeed assume that they gave 
 their services grudgingly, and often under compul- 
 sion. Plato asserted that the only persons who should 
 be invested with political power were those who were 
 most averse to it ; and there is reason to believe that 
 these were the sort of men who were elected to our 
 early Parliaments. The representative was not allowed 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 19 
 
 to resign his position from any cause whatever, and he 
 was required to give security for his due attention to 
 his parliamentary duties. Even as late as 17 Charles 
 I., a motion " that a member at his own request may 
 decline his election, and a new burgess be chosen in 
 his stead," was negatived after discussion in the 
 Commons. In a debate on the subject of election 
 in 25 Charles II. Mr. Waller quaintly describes the 
 difficulty of obtaining representatives for the early 
 Parliaments. " Formerly," he says, " the neighbour- 
 hood desired him to serve ; there was a dinner, and so 
 an end. But now it is a kind of an -empire. Some 
 hundred years ago many boroughs sent not. They 
 could get none to serve." 
 
 Compulsory attendance rendered it necessary that 
 representatives should be paid. It would have been 
 manifestly unfair to compel a man to attend to public 
 duties, which may have been forced upon him, without 
 making him some recompense for his time, trouble 
 and outlay. We find accordingly that all the repre- 
 sentatives in the early Parliaments were paid their 
 " wages " and expenses from the day that they left for 
 Parliament till the day they returned to their con- 
 stituents. The system of paying members commenced 
 with the Parliament of Simon of Montfort in 1265, 
 and continued in full force till about the middle of the 
 1 6th century. Some time before this latter date, 
 
2O REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 many representatives had ceased to accept payments, 
 and from a debate in the Parliament of 27 Charles II. 
 we learn that the practice of paying representatives 
 had been generally abandoned, but as no Act had 
 ever been passed for its abolition, the law remains in 
 existence to this day. 
 
 The foregoing facts will, I believe, amply support 
 the following conclusions, the bearing of which on our 
 arguments will be obvious as we proceed : 
 
 I. The Parliament of England was an assembly of 
 estates, and it was also, in part, a representative body. 
 One portion of it was nominated by the Crown, and 
 the other portion was elected by the people. The pre- 
 lates and barons were summoned by special writs, and 
 appeared in Parliament for themselves ; the Commons 
 were summoned by writs issued to the sheriffs, and 
 appeared as delegates or attorneys for others. The 
 prelates were summoned in their capacity as barons, 1 
 the clergy, as a separate estate, having their own 
 Parliament or convocations where they voted their 
 aids separately ; but latterly their secular charac- 
 
 1 In early times the peerage was strictly territorial. The dignity 
 belonged to the land and passed with it. Hence it was not uncommon 
 for the king to summon peeresses to Parliament. The wives or widows 
 of the barons made prisoners or slain in battle were summoned to the 
 Parliament of 49 Henry III., and four abbesses to the Parliament of 34 
 Edward I. Women also exercised the franchise in respect of their 
 territorial rights as freeholders, as, for example, Parliament, 13 Henry 
 IV., and i, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 Henry V. 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS, 21 
 
 ter was merged in their spiritual, and the prelates 
 came to be regarded as the first, and the peers as 
 the second, estate in Parliament. The Commons 
 formed the third estate, and represented all the en- 
 franchised classes not comprised within the other 
 two estates. Representation in the Commons was 
 strictly local in its character. The representatives 
 were chosen, not by the electors generally, but by 
 certain groups of electors in constituent bodies scat- 
 tered over the country. Each county, city, and 
 borough was a separate constituency, and each con- 
 stituency elected its own representatives. But the 
 representative body were something more than local 
 delegates. They were also class representatives. 
 The constituencies were divided so as to preserve as 
 far as possible class distinctions ; and the represen- 
 tatives were required not only to reside in the con- 
 stituency, but to belong to the particular class which 
 elected them. There were three classes or estates in 
 Parliament the upper, the middle, and the lower 
 class, and these classes, or estates, found their proper 
 places, or representation, in Parliament. If we elimi- 
 nate the tenants and bondsmen whom the barons 
 claimed to represent (a claim which the Commons 
 repeatedly refused to recognize, and on which the 
 Crown, when appealed to, as it often was, always 
 shirked pronouncing a decision), there remain first 
 
22 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the barons ; secondly, the freeholders of the coun- 
 ties ; and thirdly, the merchants and handicrafts- 
 men of the cities and boroughs. The barons cor- 
 responded [to the upper class of to-day, and were 
 in Parliament for themselves ; the freeholders of the 
 counties corresponded to the middle class, and were 
 represented by the knights of the shire ; the mer- 
 chants and handicraftsmen corresponded to the lower 
 middle classes, and were represented by the citizens 
 and burgesses. 
 
 There was therefore a marked distinction in the 
 system of representation in those days from ours. 
 These three classes were not only represented in 
 Parliament, but each class was there in proper 
 person, or was represented by members belonging to 
 itself, the barons being there for themselves, the 
 freeholders by the knights of the shires, and the 
 citizens and burgesses, by citizens and burgesses. 
 No lordling represented a yeoman ; no knight re- 
 presented a citizen or burgess in the early Parlia- 
 ments. The representatives of the freeholders of the 
 shires were actual freeholders ; the representatives of 
 the citizens and burgesses were actual citizens and 
 burgesses. The early writs were very particular on 
 this point. They directed that as far as possible the 
 representatives should belong to the same class as 
 their constituents, but superior men of their class. 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 23 
 
 The cities were to elect honest and discreet " citizens," 
 the boroughs, honest and discreet "burgesses," and 
 the counties, " knights or freemen " of the better sort. 
 This distinction of classes was long maintained even 
 within the walls of Parliament. The Lords sat apart 
 and voted by themselves, as they do now ; and the 
 knights of the shire, who were regarded as belonging 
 to a higher order than the citizens and burgesses, often 
 voted apart from the latter. We read of "knights 
 and Commons" in the early parliamentary proceed- 
 ings, clearly indicating that the distinction between 
 the two classes was maintained ; and as a matter of 
 fact they were often required to give their advice 
 separately. 1 All this was in strict accordance with 
 the ancient law and custom of the kingdom, which 
 provided that every member of the community should 
 be tried and represented by his peers. The Great 
 Charter provided 2 that earls and barons should even 
 be amerced by their peers ; freemen by a jury of 
 their neighbourhood ; merchants by juries of mer- 
 chants only; and knights, burgesses, and clergymen 
 alike were entitled to the same privilege, and often 
 exercised it. 8 
 
 1 As in 6 Edward III. See Lords' Reports, vol. i. p. 321 ; Parry's 
 ParL, p. 100. 
 
 2 20-23. 
 
 5 Thus in the case mentioned in the Year" Book of Edward I. the 
 accused challenged the jury on the ground that they were not his peers, 
 
24 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 II. We may now understand the status of a repre- 
 sentative in the early Parliaments. He did not hold 
 the quasi, or wholly independent, and altogether un- 
 definable position claimed for him at the present day. 
 He was not a senator, but a delegate ; not a principal, 
 but an agent. He was the spokesman for his con- 
 stituents. His duty it was to carry their grievances 
 before Parliament, to interpret their wishes, to vote 
 their aids, and to act generally on their behalf. The 
 term "representative" nowhere occurs in the early 
 parliamentary returns. Members of Parliament were 
 " knights," "citizens" or " burgesses," according as 
 they were elected by a county, city or borough. It 
 was also usual to speak of them as delegates. 1 And 
 they had another designation which was sufficiently 
 expressive of their position. They were termed 
 "attorneys" in many of the early returns. 2 The 
 functions of an attorney were familiar enough to the 
 electors from the earliest times, and especially to the 
 suitors at the county courts, where the parliamentary 
 
 he being a knight ; and knights were accordingly called in and sworn. 
 Amongst the earliest privileges of the citizens of London, was the 
 appointment of a justiciary from their own body, " and that no one 
 else shall be justiciary over the men of London " (Pearson's History of 
 England, vol. ii. p. 466). 
 
 1 Stubbs' Constitutional History, vol. iii. p. 485. Hatsell's 
 Precedents, vol. ii. p. j6. 
 
 2 For instance the community of Scarborough elected two persons 
 as "attorneys " (attornati) for the Parliament of 36 Edward III. 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 25 
 
 representatives were chosen. Attendances at these 
 courts was made compulsory on all freeholders once 
 a month, but the Statute of Merton (20 Henry III.) 
 empowered them to appear there by their attorneys. 
 The attorneys were simply the agents of the persons 
 for whom they appeared ; and the parliamentary 
 representatives were the agents of their constitu- 
 ents in the high court of Parliament, in precisely 
 the same manner as attorneys were the agents of 
 their clients in the lower court of the county. To 
 make the analogy complete, representatives were 
 furnished with letters of commission or powers of 
 attorney by their constituents for presentation in 
 Parliament. 1 
 
 It would be an error to suppose that the electors of 
 those days were either incompetent or unaccustomed 
 to instruct their representatives as to their parlia- 
 mentary duties, for the electors, and especially the 
 suitors at the county courts, had themselves long 
 exercised the functions which subsequently devolved 
 upon their parliamentary representatives. The county 
 courts had been the local Parliaments before local re- 
 presentation was concentrated in a National Assembly. 
 These courts voted their own aids separately, and had 
 direct access to the' king as Parliament has now ; 
 and the Crown habitually recognized their corporate 
 
 1 Parliamentary Writs, vol. i. p. 21, 22; also pp. 39-41 et seq. 
 
26 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 capacity by receiving their petitions and consulting 
 them through inquests. 1 The suitors at these courts 
 were therefore quite familiar with parliamentary duties, 
 and would not be likely to permit their representa- 
 tives to go to Parliament without full and explicit 
 instructions as to how they were to act. Members 
 of Parliament, no doubt, accepted instructions from 
 their electors, much in the same way as the repre- 
 sentatives at the church assemblies or convocations 
 were accustomed to receive theirs. All matters that 
 were to be laid before these convocations were first 
 discussed by the clergy or electors in the various 
 localities before they elected their proctors a term 
 sufficiently expressive of their functions. The law 
 provided, long before parliamentary government was 
 established, that the clergy of each diocese were to be 
 assembled by the bishop at a certain place, " and shall 
 then have carefully expounded to them the propo- 
 sitions made on behalf of the king," and those elected 
 were to be sent off "with sufficient instructions." 2 As 
 the parliamentary writs declared the cause of sum- 
 mons, the electors, if they had any grievances to lay 
 before Parliament, would take good care that their re- 
 presentatives were fully informed with regard to them. 
 So clearly, indeed, was their position as mere agents 
 
 1 Stubbs' Const* Hist., vol. ii. p. 226. 
 
 2 Ibid., p. 296, 297, and Select Charters, p. 456. 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 2/ 
 
 understood by the representatives themselves, that we 
 find them refusing to act without express instructions 
 from their principals. Thus, in 13 Edward III. a large 
 subsidy was demanded by the king which the Com- 
 mons refused to grant without the express consent 
 of their constituents. " They dared not give their 
 assent till they had advised and consulted with the 
 Commons of their countries, and would do their utmost 
 to obtain for the king a proper aid ; " and the king 
 assented that another Parliament should be called 
 which should come prepared with a definite answer 
 to his demands from the constituencies. The attor- 
 natorial functions of the representatives are further 
 shown 
 
 (i) By the residential qualification. The fact that 
 a member belonged to the same class as his con- 
 stituents was a guarantee that he would not misre- 
 present their sentiments ; but there was a further 
 guarantee in the stipulation that the representative 
 should be a resident within the constituency which 
 elected him. 1 The early writs direct the sheriffs 
 to return " men of knowledge of their own countries 
 and towns." In a proclamation of James I. (1621) the 
 electors are recommended to " make choice of them 
 that best understand the state of their countries, cities 
 and boroughs." In a debate in the Commons on the 
 
 1 7 Henry IV. c. 15 ; I Henry V. c. I ; 10 Henry VI. c. 2, etc. 
 
28 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 return of a non-resident member in the same year, 
 Sir Edward Coke, in interpreting the acts under this 
 head, said that residential qualification was required 
 in order that only such members " should be chosen 
 as know the state of the country and the grievances 
 thereof." It appears therefore that an intimate 
 acquaintance with the requirements of a constituency 
 was considered necessary on the part of a represen- 
 tative, and as residents were more likely to be better 
 acquainted with the affairs of their respective con- 
 stituencies than absentees, residence was made an 
 indispensable condition of membership. 
 
 (2) It was also in accordance with the attorn atonal 
 theoiy that members should be paid for their services, 
 We find accordingly that representatives were re- 
 imbursed their expenses in going to and returning 
 from Parliament, and that they received a moderate 
 salary at so much per day during the time they were 
 there ; and this salary and these expenses were paid to 
 the representative by the constituency which elected 
 him. The whole arrangement was carried out on the 
 strictest business principles. It was the agent who 
 gave his services who got payment for them ; and it was 
 the principal who engaged those services, and bene- 
 fited by them, who paid for them. 
 
 (3) In order that Parliament might be under no- 
 misapprehension as to the views of the electors, each 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 29 
 
 constituency was directed to elect tivo persons to 
 represent them. This number might be exceeded, but 
 it was never less than two, even for the smallest con- 
 stituency, and the smallest constituency returned no 
 more than the largest. The object of having two 
 representatives for each constituency was, no doubt, for 
 the purpose of securing trustworthy information with 
 regard to the state of the country, two witnesses 
 being considered more reliable than one. There is 
 reason to believe that in the earliest Parliaments 
 representatives did not even reach to the dignity 
 of agents or delegates, but appeared more in the 
 character of witnesses or messengers. 1 This may 
 account for the origin of an otherwise singular prac- 
 tice which undoubtedly existed at an early period of 
 our Parliamentary history, that of taking the votes of 
 representatives per stirpes instead of per capita as at 
 present. 2 
 
 (4) The relations between a representative and 
 his constituents may also be ascertained from the 
 
 1 Prof. Stubbs is of opinion that the representatives who attended the 
 Parliament of St. Alban's appeared as witnesses as to the sums due to 
 the plundered church which that assembly was called upon to assess. 
 Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 526; see also Green's History of the English 
 People, vol. i. p. 238. 
 
 2 The fact that the writs sometimes leave it to the discretion of the 
 sheriffs, as in 18 Edward I., to elect " two or three " knights for each 
 county, shows that questions were not then determined by a majority 
 of votes. 
 
30 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 nature of the duties performed. It is the duty of 
 an agent to apprize his principal, with all convenient 
 speed, of all acts done on his behalf. This duty the 
 parliamentary representatives seem to have scrupu- 
 lously performed. All the transactions of the early 
 Parliaments were regularly reported by the represen- 
 tatives to their respective constituencies, sometimes 
 while Parliament was in session, but always at its close. 
 For example, in the proceedings of the corporation of 
 Lynn Regis there are the following entries under their 
 respective dates : "April Qth, 1432. Thomas Botes- 
 ham and John Waterden, elected burgesses to serve 
 in Parliament ; " and in July 23 of the same year we 
 read that " John Waterden reported the transactions 
 of Parliament, at which time was granted by the cor- 
 poration half a fifteenth, to be paid at two several 
 payments, namely, at Martinmas next, and at Mar- 
 tinmas the next following. That the Parliament held 
 for the 1 2th day of May to the Thursday next before 
 the feast of St. Margret, on which day the Parliament 
 ended, and so Parliament held for seventy days. And 
 so there is owing to them for their appearance for 
 seventy-three days 6d. and 8d. for each day, of which 
 they received before their going or passage loos., and 
 there remains ig 6s. 8d." Again: "February 2Oth, 
 1436. The same day was read a letter sent to the 
 mayor by the burgesses of Lyn remaining in Parlia- 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 31 
 
 ment for the said town, which letter being fully 
 understood, it was appointed, by the assent of the 
 whole congregation, that an answer should be 
 returned to the said letter by the mayor aforesaid, 
 under the seal of the office of the mayoralty of Lyn." 
 And in the year following "April 4th, 1437. The 
 same day Thomas Burgh and John Warryn, burgesses 
 for the last Parliament for Lyn, did well and dis- 
 creetly declare those things which were substantially 
 done and acted for the mayor aforesaid in the Parlia- 
 ment aforesaid." And such entries as the following 
 repeatedly occur : " Oct. 3ist, 1449. A letter passed 
 the same day for the burgesses of Parliament." " Oct. 
 27th, 1450. The letter for the burgesses of Parlia- 
 ment was sealed." l The multifarious nature of the 
 duties performed by the representatives in the early 
 Parliaments may here be imagined from the follow- 
 ing entry in the records of the same corporation : 
 "May 2nd, 1572. Agreed that Mr. Pall and Mr. 
 Graves, now at London (members), shall travel for 
 the attaining of the making of clothes of this town, 
 and as much as they may have liberty to ship them 
 by the ancient custom, and to have some place to 
 transport the same clothes beyond the seas, and also 
 for any other thing thought good for the government 
 
 1 Archeology, vol. xxiv. pp. 317-327. See also correspondence of 
 Andrew Marvell with the corporation of Hull in Works, vol. i. 
 
32 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of this town, as well in the Parliament Houses as also 
 to the Queen's majesty and her honourable council, 
 which we refer to their discretions." 
 
 It may be objected that we have no instance of a 
 constituency dismissing its representatives, which it 
 would have the power to do had the relationship been 
 such as I have described. We have no dismissals, 
 it is true, but when we consider the short time that 
 Parliament usually sat, and the slow speed of 
 travelling in those days, this is not to be wondered 
 at, for usually the business of the session lasted only 
 a few weeks, and, so far at least as concerned the 
 country constituencies, the first intimation of what 
 had been done in Parliament would probably have 
 been brought by the representatives who had taken 
 part in its proceedings. Under such circumstances all 
 that a constituency could do when it discovered that 
 a representative had disregarded instructions, or neg- 
 lected his duties, was to take care that he should not 
 have an opportunity of doing so again. But the fact 
 is that we have no record of any such case. Dis- 
 loyalty to the constituent body seems to have been 
 unknown in the early Parliaments. 
 
 III. Representatives were chosen by an indirect 
 process of election. It would be erroneous to infer 
 from the small attendance at the county court that 
 the electors were few in number, or that they took so 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 33 
 
 little interest in the election of their parliamentary 
 representatives that they were not at the trouble to 
 attend and record their votes. Of course the electors 
 were not then so numerous as they are at the present 
 day ; but that those who attended and voted at the 
 county court constituted the entire body of the electors 
 who took part in the proceedings must by no means be 
 taken for granted. Indeed, it is clear from the returns 
 collected by Prynne, that the electors who voted at the 
 county court were present in a representative capacity, 
 or as delegates from the main body of electors in the 
 constituency. That this was the case as regards the 
 elections for the cities and boroughs is beyond a doubt. 
 Thus, we gather from the returns referred to that two 
 bailiffs, " in the presence of seven electors," elect 
 two members for Dunwich ; two bailiffs, " in the 
 presence of the electors and other resident burgesses," 
 elect two members for Ipswich ; the mayor and 
 bailiffs, " with the assent of the whole community," 
 elect two members for Portsmouth ; four burgesses, 
 " by the assent of the rest," elect members for every 
 borough in Dorsetshire ; thirty-five " trustworthy 
 men " (probes homines) are the electors for Newcastle- 
 on-Tyne ; and among the Parliamentary writs is a 
 memorandum dated London, Feb. 3rd, 1300, of the 
 election of four citizens, who were chosen " by the 
 mayor, aldermen, and six of the best and most dis- 
 
 D 
 
34 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 creet men of each ward." That these elections were 
 indirect, is beyond dispute, in my opinion ; the acting 
 electors themselves were evidently representative men, 
 and were selected because they were regarded as 
 " trustworthy," " the best and most discreet " in 
 their respective constituencies. Probably the electors 
 followed the practice of the clergy in this respect, who 
 usually deputed to a small committee of their body the 
 function of choosing the representatives for these 
 assemblies ; or the still more ancient practice of 
 electing the sworn knights to nominate the recog- 
 nitors at the great assize may have been their model. 1 
 But we are not left in any doubt as to the mode in 
 which these elections were conducted, as we have the 
 very process described in the record of the proceedings 
 of the corporation of Lynn Regis. From this we learn 
 that the burgesses were in the habit of choosing twelve 
 men as the parliamentary electors for the borough, 
 and the following entry shows how this was done : 
 " /th Jan., 1436. John Ashden and John Syff of the 
 twenty-four, John Adams and Bartholomew Colles 
 of the common council, were elected by the mayor, 
 by the consent of the whole congregation, who called 
 Edward Mayne and John Springewell, and they 
 called Galfrid Gatele and John Mariat, and the afore- 
 said eight called William Kyrketon and Thomas 
 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., vol. i., pp. 619 and 635. 
 
EARLY REPRESENTATIVE PARLIAMENTS. 35 
 
 Lok ; and the aforesaid ten called Thomas Talbot 
 and Martin Wrighte, which twelve were charged 
 (being sworn according to the custom to preserve the 
 liberty of the town) to choose two burgesses for the 
 borough of Lynn, to go to Parliament on the 2 1st 
 of January next ensuing." l This also seems to 
 have been the usual method of electing a jury in 
 those days, as we find from the proceedings of the 
 same corporation on I3th of April, 1442. It also 
 appears from the same record that it was usual for the 
 burgesses to elect their mayor to represent the borough 
 in Parliament on the expiration of his office a 
 custom which seems to have been followed in other 
 places up to a comparatively recent period, as we 
 gather from the correspondence of Andrew Marvell 
 with the mayor and corporation of Hull. We also 
 learn from the same source that the same representa- 
 tives were seldom elected for two Parliaments in suc- 
 cession by the same constituency. The representatives 
 in the cities and boroughs usually graduated at the 
 municipal board of their native place. The mayor 
 of one year usually became the parliamentary 
 representative of the next. The records of the 
 borough corporations show a regular graduation from 
 common councilmen to mayors, and from mayors 
 to parliamentary representatives. It was no doubt 
 1 Archaeology i vol. xxiv. p. 317. 
 
36 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 the close relationship thus formed between the local 
 bodies and their parliamentary representatives which 
 gave such marked political significance to municipal 
 elections in early times a characteristic which they 
 have not wholly lost even at the present day. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 A NEW DEPARTURE. 
 
 THE various changes which from time to time have 
 taken place in the constitution, have been brought 
 about gradually, often without any alteration in the 
 law, and, except when the Septennial Act was passed, 
 without any violent shock to public sentiment. Fol- 
 lowing the chronological order of events, the most 
 important changes we have to note are : (i) The 
 abandonment of residential qualification for repre- 
 sentatives ; (2) the extension of the term of Parlia- 
 ment ; (3) the introduction of government by party ; 
 (4) the establishment of the corporate responsibility of 
 ministers ; and (5) lastly, the substitution of outside 
 pressure for the constitutionally expressed will of 
 the electors. 
 
 From the earliest times it was regarded as indis- 
 pensable that a member of Parliament should reside 
 within the constituency which elected him, and for 
 a long period this rule was rigidly enforced on all 
 
38 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 occasions. We have no hint of any relaxation of the 
 law in this respect before the Commonwealth Parlia- 
 ment. In that Parliament the Commons (i3th 
 November, 1654), resolved, "that whereas the sheriff 
 was incapable of being chosen for any place, he may 
 be chosen anywhere but as a knight for his own 
 county." Formerly sheriffs were ineligible as repre- 
 sentatives for any constituency, but now, according to 
 this resolution, they might represent any place except 
 their own county, clearly implying that non-residence 
 was no longer a disqualification. Subsequently, in the 
 Parliament of 25 Charles II., it is mentioned, in a 
 debate on elections in the Commons, that it was then 
 usual for non-residents to be elected ; and again, in 
 the 27th of the same reign, during another debate in 
 the same place on the same subject, it was agreed 
 that "none should be capacitated to be chosen but 
 such as have estates, or reside in the county." From 
 the alternative here presented, we may infer that the 
 possession of an estate within the constituency was 
 now considered as equivalent to residence. At all 
 events we find that from this time forth the residence 
 qualification was practically abandoned, although the 
 law in the case remained, and still "remains, unaltered. 
 The immediate results of this change were : 
 
 i. A great increase in the number of candidates 
 seeking election. As long as candidates were re- 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 39 
 
 stricted to local residents their numbers were neces- 
 sarily limited, for in many places there were few who 
 cared to serve. When the area of selection was 
 increased, however, the competition was no longer 
 confined to the few constituencies where candidates 
 were plentiful but was generally extended over the 
 whole county. Under the old system it was an easy 
 matter for a constituency to get rid of an undesirable , 
 candidate, by pleading the law in the case, as witness 
 the following entry in the proceedings of the cor- 
 poration of Lynn Regis: "February 2ist, 1613-14. 
 Two letters, one from Sir Robert Hitchen, Knight, the 
 other from Sir Henry Spelman, Knight, desiring to 
 be elected burgesses for the next Parliament, foras- 
 much as the statute of the i Hen. V. c. I., doth 
 appoint that burgesses should be men residing and 
 free in the borough at the time of their election, it is 
 agreed to answer their letter, the corporation is 
 reminded to choose according to statute." Thirty-five 
 years later, however, when the law began to be 
 relaxed, we find another entry (dated January iQth, 
 1648), announcing the fact that the borough had 
 elected the Earl of Salisbury, a non-resident, as " a 
 burgess of the Parliament of England." l 
 
 2. There was also a corresponding increase in the 
 cost of elections. The competition amongst candi- 
 
 1 ArchfEology, vol. xxiv. p. 326. 
 
40 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 dates had, in accordance with a well-known economic 
 law, the immediate effect of increasing the cost of ob- 
 taining a seat. Thus we find it stated in a debate on 
 elections in the Commons in 25 Charles II., that " the 
 expenses are so vast that it goes beyond all bounds. 
 These changes arise commonly from competitors 
 who live in another county. Some carry their 
 elections by awe and force, and some by ability to 
 expend." 
 
 3. The introduction of a system of treating at 
 elections, and other mild forms of bribery followed in 
 due course, as soon as the restriction as to residence 
 was removed. The practice began to be noticed at 
 the time of the Commonwealth, although it was pro- 
 bably not unknown before. Thus we find the Com- 
 mons, on 28th August, 1650, resolved "that in the 
 case of bribery by any member, such witnesses as 
 shall give testimony shall not be damnified, except in 
 the case of perjury," and that the committee shall 
 have power to examine witnesses on oath. " This 
 bribing men by drinking is a lay simony," is the 
 quaint remark of a member in the debate in 27 
 Charles II., already referred to, who, while condemn- 
 ing the practice, acknowledged that it had then 
 become quite prevalent ; and the result of the debate 
 was a resolution which affirmed that " if any person 
 or persons, hereafter to be elected, shall by himself, or 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 41 
 
 other in his behalf, or at his charge, at any time 
 before the day of election, give any person or persons 
 having voice in such election, any meat or drink 
 exceeding in their value of $, in any place, but in 
 his own dwelling-house, or shall, before such election 
 be made or declared, make any other present, reward, 
 or promise," such election shall be null and void. 
 The House seemed to think it had gone too far on 
 this occasion, however, as we find that in the next 
 session of the same Parliament, it was resolved that 
 meat or drink up to the value of 10 might be given 
 by a candidate or his agent without incurring any 
 penalty or disqualification. The practice of bribing 
 electors was getting more common, and was therefore 
 considered not so venal an offence. 
 
 4. A great change was brought about in the 
 composition of the representative body. Heretofore 
 local wants and opinions were represented by local 
 residents. The knights or freeholders represented the 
 freeholders of the shire where they resided ; the 
 mayors or aldermen, themselves merchants or handi- 
 craftsmen, represented their own class in the city or 
 borough where they lived and carried on their business. 
 The representatives of those days may not have been 
 so wealthy, or in so good a position socially, as were 
 those of a later period ; the member for the borough 
 may have been a tanner, a tavern keeper, or a tailor, 
 
42 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 if discreet and honest ; and the representative for the 
 county may not have been much superior in rank, 
 although a higher social status was sometimes in- 
 sisted on in his case. Indeed, the county representa- 
 tives seem not to have always come up to the required 
 standard, as we find the Commons sometimes com- 
 plaining of the inferior social position of the county 
 members. It was in consequence of a petition of the 
 Commons, that an Act was passed in 23 Henry VI., to 
 prevent the election of persons of " mean quality and 
 estates " for the counties, " which the vulgar people in 
 these levelling times were so much inclined to." But 
 if the representatives as a whole did not occupy a 
 high social position in the early Parliaments, they 
 had other qualifications which were of far more 
 service to their constituents. They had local know- 
 ledge and local sympathies, and what in some respects 
 was even better, they had class sympathies, as they 
 belonged to the same order which they represented. 
 But all this was changed when the restriction as to 
 residence was removed. The yeoman or freeholder 
 of his shire, the mayor of his borough, or the alderman 
 of his ward, no longer represented his own order in 
 Parliament. A new class of members appeared upon 
 the scene, men of greater wealth and of superior social 
 position, perhaps, to the plain burgesses and citizens of 
 bygone times, but strangers to the place they repre- 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 43 
 
 sented, and alien to the people in sympathy and 
 interest. 1 
 
 1 The Parliament of England (Part I.) contains a list of the 
 representatives of all the Parliaments in England from 1213-1703, and 
 from the names one can form a pretty good idea of the classes to which 
 they belonged. From the Parliament of 23 Edward I. (1295), I take 
 a few of these names at random : Johannes le Palfrenur, and Nicholaus 
 Baret, were members for the city of Ely ; Henricus le Bailly, and 
 Robertas Maynard, the members for Trui-o ; Robertus de Grenesdal, 
 and Andreas le Seler, the members for Carlisle ; Willielmus de 
 Barnstaple, and Durant le Cordwaner, the members for Barnstaple ; 
 Radulphus de Satchevill, and Walterus le Wise, the members for 
 Tavistock ; Johannes le Tavenier, the member for Bristol (one 
 member) ; Henricus le Chaunger, and Rogerus le Heberer, the 
 members for Gloucester borough ; Nicholaus Capetown, and 
 Ricardus le Teynturer, the members for Huntington borough ; 
 Lambertus le Despenser, and Willielmus le Chaunter, the members 
 for Lancaster borough ; Adam fil. Ricardi, and Robertus Pynklowe, 
 the members for Liverpool : Willielmus le Teinterer, and Henricus 
 le Bocher, the members for Wigan ; Adam fil. Alani, and Hugo fil. 
 Hugonis, the members for Corbridge ; Walterus de la Mare, and 
 Henricus de la Chambre, the members for Axbridge ; Andreas le 
 Conestable, and Johannes Nichol, the members for Guildford ; Rogerus 
 le Carreuer, and Robertus Sakel, the members for Reigate ; and 
 so on. In this Parliament there were representatives from thirty- 
 five counties, two for each, except Bedford and Southampton, which 
 had three and four respectively, and representatives from 1 10 cities and 
 boroughs, two from each, except Totnes and Bristol, which returned 
 only one each ; in all 291 members. On the other hand if we turn to 
 the Parliament of 33 Charles II. (1680), we find only three members 
 without a prefix or affix to their names, namely, John Pollexfen, mer- 
 chant, member for Plympton ; John Dubois, merchant, member for 
 Liverpool ; and plain Henry Bertie, member for New Woodstock. 
 There were also two aldermen, representing the city of London, and 
 one doctor of laws, representing Oxford, and one professor of physic, 
 representing Cambridge. All the rest were earls, viscounts, baronets, 
 knights, or esquires. In this Parliament fifty counties were repre- 
 sented, two members being returned for each, and 220 cities and 
 boroughs, two or one member each ; in all 516 members. 
 
44 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The next change was the substitution of first 
 triennial and subsequently of septennial for annual 
 Parliaments. This was a far more serious innovation 
 than the abolition of the residential qualification. 
 When the Crown became alarmed at the encroach- 
 ments of the Commons it endeavoured to neutralize 
 the influence of that body, first, by prolonging a 
 subservient House beyond a single session ; secondly, 
 by discontinuing annual sessions, and only summoning 
 Parliament when it became absolutely necessary to 
 do so ; thirdly, by boldly, as was done by Charles I., 
 refusing to summon Parliament at all under any 
 circumstances. It was felt that there was no chance 
 of the House of Commons becoming a mere assembly 
 for registering the will of the sovereign as long as it 
 was elected annually, and therefore the first attack 
 was made on annual Parliaments. It was clearly 
 impossible for the sovereign to exercise any undue 
 influence over the House so long as its members 
 had to appear before their constituents every year. 
 Annual Parliaments placed the representatives in the 
 hands of the constituent body ; the irregular summon- 
 ing of Parliament placed them at the mercy of the 
 Crown ; septennial Parliaments rendered them practi- 
 cally independent of both the Crown and the con- 
 stituent body. 
 
 For a long period Parliament existed only for a 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 45 
 
 single session, every session having been preceded by 
 a general election and followed by a dissolution. 
 And the same course was followed even when Par- 
 liament met more than once within the year. On 
 one occasion only during nearly four centuries were 
 the same members elected for two consecutive Par- 
 liaments, and even then they had to go through 
 the formality of a fresh election each time. In the- 
 second Parliament, 45 Edward III., the sheriffs were 
 directed to return certain knights, citizens, and bur- 
 gesses who had been in the first Parliament of that 
 year, but they had to undergo a fresh election not- 
 withstanding. The reason why the same members 
 were elected was because certain matters had been 
 left unfinished by the first Parliament, and it was 
 considered desirable to summon the same repre- 
 sentatives to finish the work which they had begun. 
 The first instance we have of a Parliament being 
 extended beyond a single session occurs in the reign 
 of Henry IV. The Parliament which met in the 
 7th of that reign held three sessions, and existed 
 297 days. For the remainder of this reign, and 
 during the whole of the next, a new Parliament was 
 summoned regularly every year, and sometimes 
 oftener, and it was not till the 23rd Henry VI. that 
 any intermission took place. The Parliament which 
 was summoned in that year held four sessions, and 
 
46 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 existed 411 days. From this time, with one or two 
 exceptions, a new Parliament was regularly sum- 
 moned every year till the time of Elizabeth, when 
 the system was introduced of keeping Parliament 
 in existence from year to year, and only summoning 
 it when absolutely necessary. Thus, the Parliament 
 of 5 Elizabeth held only one session in four years ; 
 and that elected in I4th of the same reign held 
 only two sessions in eleven years. The same system 
 was continued by James I., although it was not 
 carried out to the same extent as it had been by 
 his predecessor. A new and a bolder policy was 
 however adopted by Charles I. This sovereign 
 commenced his reign by calling three Parliaments 
 within three years ; but finding them not to his taste 
 he attempted to carry on without a Parliament at all. 
 The Parliament of 3 Charles I. was dissolved on 
 loth of March, 1628, and no new Parliament was 
 summoned till the I3th of April, 1640, a period of 
 twelve years, and the Parliament that was summoned 
 in that year was also dissolved after existing for 
 three weeks. Next came the Long Parliament, 
 which was summoned 3rd of November, 1640, and 
 continued sitting almost continuously till the 2Oth 
 of April, 1653, a period of thirteen years. 
 
 It was during the first year of this Parliament 
 that an Act was passed " For preventing any incon- 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 47 
 
 veniences happening by the long intermission of 
 
 Parliament." This is not what is known as the 
 
 Triennial Act, nor is it an Act for abolishing annual 
 
 Parliaments ; on the contrary, it was rather intended 
 
 to confirm that practice. The preamble of the Act 
 
 sets forth that " by the laws and statutes of this realm 
 
 a Parliament ought to be holden at least once every 
 
 year. . . it be enacted therefore that the said laws 
 
 and statutes shall be henceforth duly kept." The 
 
 Act, which was almost revolutionary in its character, 
 
 provided for the summoning of a new Parliament, 
 
 " by any twelve peers of the realm," without the 
 
 consent of the king, and in defect of their acting, 
 
 "by the sheriffs, mayors and bailiffs" in case the 
 
 Lord Chancellor should fail to do so within three 
 
 years from the last meeting ; and to prevent a merely 
 
 nominal compliance with the law the Act provided 
 
 that " no Parliament henceforth to be assembled 
 
 shall be prorogued within fifty days after the time 
 
 appointed for their meeting." This Act was repealed 
 
 by the Pensioner Parliament of 16 Charles II., " as 
 
 derogatory to the honour of the Crown, serving to 
 
 discredit Parliament, and make the Crown jealous 
 
 of Parliament, and Parliament of the Crown." 
 
 With the Restoration there was a recurrence to the 
 former state of things which commenced under the 
 Stuarts. The Parliament of 13 Charles II. was kept 
 
48 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in existence by continual prorogations and adjourn- 
 ments for a period of seventeen years, which was 
 the longest Parliament which ever existed. The 
 prorogation of Parliament at the convenience of the 
 Crown had now become an established practice. If 
 a Parliament was insubordinate it was either immedi- 
 ately dissolved, or it was prorogued from year to year 
 without being summoned ; while, on the other hand, 
 if it did the king's bidding it was retained in favour 
 and might count on a long tenure. With penal 
 dissolutions on the one side, and royal favours on 
 the other, it is easy to see what would be the result. 
 Under this process of manipulation Parliament lost 
 all sense of self-respect, and became the mere in- 
 strument in the hands of the sovereign for the 
 attainment of his own ends. At length it became 
 apparent that if something more than the shadow 
 of a Parliament was to be preserved, some effort must 
 be made to curb the royal power and compel the 
 sovereign to summon Parliament at regular periods. 
 It was hardly to be expected that the Commons 
 would take the initiative in this matter, however, 
 as they were to a far greater extent under court in- 
 fluence than the Lords. It was accordingly left to 
 the Lords to bring in a measure for this purpose, 
 and they were strongly supported in their action 
 by the people out of doors. On the i6th of January, 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 49 
 
 1692, the Lords introduced a Triennial Bill, rapidly 
 passed it through all its stages, and sent it to 
 the Commons. Here it encountered violent oppo- 
 sition from the placemen and court party in the 
 House, ostensibly because the measure had emanated 
 from the Lords, but really becau.se it provided for 
 the early dissolution of the existing Parliament. Sir 
 Charles Sedley, who opposed the bill, said : " It is 
 argued we are the people's ambassadors, or attorneys, 
 as others say ; and they ought to have power to 
 change us, if they find we act contrary to the nature 
 of the trust reposed in us, or are corrupted to a court 
 interest, that they are any way dissatisfied with our 
 prudence or integrity ; and therefore be it enacted 
 that a new Parliament shall be chosen every three 
 years. Truly I cannot see any security for the people 
 against an ill Parliament in this act. . . . But my main 
 objection," he continues, " lies against the clause 
 which requires the dissolution of this present Parlia- 
 ment, by an act of the legislative power." Mr. 
 Goodwell opposed the measure because " the dissolu- 
 tion of the present Parliament is to revive animosities 
 in new elections, and punish the king, by making 
 it not his grace to call a Parliament." Sir Edward 
 Seymour, Sir John Lowther, Sir Joseph Tredenham, 
 Mr. Finch and others objected to the bill as coming 
 from the Lords, or as being an interference with the 
 
 E 
 
5O REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 prerogative of the Crown. The principal speakers 
 in favour of the bill were Mr. Harley, Mr. Pelham, 
 Colonel Titus and Mr. Herbert. Mr. Harley said 
 that "a standing Parliament can never be a true 
 representative. Men are much altered after being 
 sometime here, and are not the same men as sent up." 
 Mr. Pelham said, " A present member of this House, 
 and also of the Pensioner Parliament, told me that 
 he by order paid pensions to thirty members in that 
 House. The like by a long sitting may be done 
 again." Colonel Titus said, " I never saw long 
 Parliaments good ones. A picture now drawn may 
 be like the person it represents ; but in time the 
 colours will fade, and it so alter from itself, that no 
 one can know what it represents. If we would have 
 a picture like, it must be new drawn." Mr. Herbert 
 defended the dissolution clause, and said he "would 
 rather have a standing army than a standing Parlia- 
 ment." The bill was ultimately carried by a majority 
 of 200 to 1 64, but was vetoed by the king. 
 
 A bill for the same purpose was introduced the 
 following session into the Commons, but as there was 
 no serious attempt made to pass it, it was rejected by 
 146 to 136. The Lords again took the matter up, 
 brought in a bill to the same effect as their last one, 
 passed it through all its stages and sent it to the 
 Commons, where it met with the same fate as the 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 51 
 
 last, being rejected by 197 to 172. The Commons, 
 pressed on by public opinion out of doors, at length 
 took the matter up in earnest, and at the opening of 
 the next session instructed Mr. Harley to prepare 
 a measure on the subject. Mr. Harley 's bill was 
 introduced on the iQth November, 1694, passed the 
 third reading in three weeks ; was sent to the Lords, 
 who passed it without amendment, and it received the 
 royal assent before the end of the year. 
 
 This is the measure which is known as the 
 Triennial Act of 1694. The intention of the framers 
 of the Act is apparent from the preamble, which sets 
 forth that " whereas by the ancient laws and statutes 
 of the kingdom frequent Parliaments ought to be 
 held ; and whereas frequent and new Parliaments 
 tend very much to the happy union and good agree- 
 ment of the king and people, we, &c." The Act 
 provides that from henceforth "a Parliament should 
 be held once in three years at least ;" that "within 
 three years at furthest after the dissolution of the 
 Parliament then subsisting, and so from time to time' 
 for ever after, legal writs under the great seal should 
 be issued by the direction of the Crown, for calling 
 and assembling another new Parliament ; " and that 
 " no Parliament whatsoever shall continue longer 
 than three years, to be counted from the first day of 
 the first session." 
 
52 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The Triennial Act was a wise and a moderate 
 measure, and probably the best that could have been 
 carried at the time. But moderate as it was it was 
 far from being acceptable to a large section of the 
 Commons, who were quite ready to make laws to 
 restrain other people, but had no desire to be con- 
 trolled themselves. So long as the sovereign could 
 call Parliament together or not just as he pleased, the 
 position of a representative was not a desirable one, as 
 all his trouble and expense in getting elected might be 
 thrown away if Parliament never met, or met only to 
 be prorogued or dissolved. It was of little use his 
 being elected if Parliament was never summoned, or 
 was never allowed to exercise its functions. So far, 
 therefore, as the Act compelled the sovereign to 
 summon Parliament at fixed periods, it was acceptable 
 enough to the Commons ; but so far as it controlled 
 themselves, it was the reverse of agreeable. They 
 approved of the proviso which compelled the sovereign 
 to hold a session of Parliament once every year, but 
 they had a decided objection to be sent to their 
 constituents every third session, as provided by the 
 Act. To cut short their career at the end of three 
 years was to deprive members of the opportunity 
 of aggrandizing themselves at the public expense. 
 They accordingly soon found an occasion for 
 altering that part of the measure which compelled 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 53 
 
 them to appear before the electors every third year 
 On the accession of the House of Hanover a good 
 deal of dissatisfaction existed throughout the country, 
 especially in Scotland, and the king's supporters 
 in the House pretended to believe that the dynasty 
 might be overthrown if a general election took place 
 while the country was in this state of disquietude. 
 They accordingly introduced a bill for the lengthening- 
 of the duration of Parliament from three to seven 
 years. This bill was introduced into the Lords on 
 the loth of April, 1716, and rapidly passed through 
 all its stages by large majorities. In the Com- 
 mons the third reading was carried by 284 to 162, 
 notwithstanding that public opinion strongly con- 
 demned the measure. Almost all the speeches on 
 this debate which have been preserved are against the 
 bill, so that we must conclude either that the sup- 
 porters of the measure preferred giving a silent vote 
 on the occasion, or that they have been unfortunate 
 in their reporters. The bill as introduced had the ap- 
 pearance of being a merely temporary measure to set 
 aside the Triennial Act for a short period till public 
 excitement had subsided, and although it contained 
 no clause limiting the time it would be in operation, 
 the preamble set forth that if the provisions for 
 holding triennial Parliaments should remain, the con- 
 sequences might probably u at this juncture, when a 
 
54 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 restless and Popish faction are designing and en- 
 deavouring to renew the rebellion within the kingdom, 
 and an invasion from abroad, be destructive to the 
 peace and security of the government.'' There was, 
 however, no greater disaffection at the time the bill 
 passed through Parliament than there had been at 
 any period since the Revolution ; and even had there 
 been, the danger was not immediate, for the existing 
 Parliament had still , two years to run, and the 
 disaffection might have passed away before the 
 expiration of that time. Be that as it may, however, 
 it is now certain that all danger to the House of 
 Hanover from this quarter had passed after the battle 
 of Culloden, when the Jacobite party was almost 
 annihilated, but no attempt was made to repeal the 
 Act after that event. The whole transaction was as 
 manifestly unconstitutional as it was immoral. The 
 Parliament which passed the Septennial Act not only 
 assumed the power of prolonging the existence of 
 future Parliaments, but even its own. This Parlia- 
 ment had been elected for a term of three years, 
 and it deliberately passed a measure to prolong its 
 existence for a period of four years more without 
 appealing to the constituent body. There can be no 
 justification of the conduct of Parliament under the 
 circumstances, and no justification has been seriously 
 attempted. The same right that would enable this 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 55 
 
 Parliament to prolong its existence for four 'years, 
 might enable another Parliament to extend its 
 existence for forty or four hundred. 
 
 This unconstitutional Act has proved more per- 
 nicious in its operation, has done more to degrade 
 parliamentary government and retard the progress of 
 legislation, than any proceeding on the part of any 
 previous Parliament. But the Commons had now 
 got what they longed for. The Triennial Act, 
 by making annual sessions compulsory, freed them 
 from the control of the sovereign, and the Septennial 
 Act, by extending the duration of Parliament, placed 
 them practically beyond the control of the people. 
 Free from all restraint, they now commenced a -career 
 of profligacy unexampled in our parliamentary 
 history. No doubt we had corrupt Parliaments 
 before the Septennial Act came into operation. Par- 
 liaments were bad enough under Charles II. ; they 
 were worse under William and Mary ; but they 
 reached their last and worst stage under the three 
 Georges, when the Septennial Act began to bear its 
 legitimate fruit. Nor is it difficult to account for this. 
 If a seat in Parliament was worth competing for when 
 the tenure was a short one (and we know that it had 
 been an object of keen competition for more than a 
 century before this), it stands to reason that the com- 
 petition would not be diminished when the tenure 
 
56 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 was lengthened. The prolongation of the term had, in- 
 deed, the immediate effect of increasing the previously 
 existing demand, and with the increased demand 
 there was a corresponding increase in the value of the 
 seats. The electors, finding that there was a keen 
 competition for their votes, increased their demands ; 
 while the representatives, having now no longer the 
 fear of the constituents before their eyes, immediately 
 set about making the best of the opportunity which 
 a seat in Parliament afforded them of turning their 
 own votes to account. Members who had bought 
 their seats would have little scruple in selling their 
 votes. The men who offered bribes were not likely 
 to be scandalized at being asked to accept them. 
 That members were bribed is beyond all question. 
 The evidence on this head is pronounced by all com- 
 petent authorities to be overwhelming. Ministers 
 could carry on the government only by having the 
 support of the majority in Parliament, and this 
 majority they openly purchased by the free use of 
 state funds. The pay office, as Macaulay tells us, 
 was turned into a mart for votes, and it was not an 
 uncommon thing for ^"20,000 of secret service money 
 to be paid to members in a single morning. 1 It was 
 estimated that out of 550 members who were in the 
 first Parliament of George I., there were no less than 
 
 1 Essays Chatham. 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 57 
 
 271, and in the first Parliament of George II., there 
 were no less than 257 members, who were dependent 
 on the bounty of the government in one shape or 
 another. 1 
 
 It is needless to say that such a body as this was 
 not likely to care much for the liberties of the people ; 
 we know, in fact, that the representatives of those 
 days were selfish in their aims, insolent in their bear : 
 ing, and arbitrary and tyrannical in their acts. At 
 first the servants of the constituencies, they soon 
 assumed the air of masters ; from being the protectors 
 they became the oppressors of the people. They 
 were intolerant of criticism in any shape, and the 
 public they treated with sovereign contempt. After 
 they had secured themselves by the Septennial Act, 
 they began to exercise a severe censorship over the 
 press, and to persecute public writers without mercy. 
 Steele was expelled the House for writing political 
 libels ; Defoe was prosecuted for writing his Shortest 
 Way with the Dissenters ; Tutchin was whipped by 
 the common hangman, and many other writers and 
 editors were subjected to the grossest indignities. 
 The House claimed for its members, individually and 
 collectively, complete immunity from hostile criticism, 
 and any word uttered against a member was voted a 
 
 1 May's Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 317. In 1727 there was no less a 
 sum than ,250,000 on the estimates as secret service money. 
 
58 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 breach of privilege. They expelled and imprisoned 
 one of their own members for printing without per- 
 mission a collection of his own speeches. A report of 
 a debate in the House of Lords, written by the cele- 
 brated John Lock, was ordered by the Privy Council 
 to be publicly burnt by the hangman. Cave, the book- 
 seller, was imprisoned for having furnished a friend 
 with notes of the proceedings of the House of Com- 
 mons. During a debate in 1738, on the subject of 
 reporting the proceedings of Parliament, one member 
 said : " If we don't put a speedy stop to this practice 
 [of reporting], you will have the speeches of this 
 House every day printed, even during your session ; 
 and we shall be looked upon as the most contemp- 
 tible assembly on the face of the earth." Even 
 Pulteney and Walpole expressed their condemnation 
 of the practice in unqualified terms, and the same 
 House unanimously resolved that the reporting of 
 the proceedings of Parliament "is a high indignity 
 to, and 'a notorious breach of, the privileges of this 
 House," and "that this House will proceed with the 
 utmost severity against all such offenders." l The re- 
 presentatives of those days did not consider that their 
 constituents had any right to criticise their proceedings 
 in Parliament, and therefore had no claim to informa- 
 tion as to what was said or done there. Even the 
 
 1 Parl. Hist., pp. 800-811. 
 
A NEW DEPARTURE. 59 
 
 publication of the division lists was prohibited. Thus 
 the secrecy of debate, originally intended as a safe- 
 guard against the Crown, was used as a pretext for 
 protecting members from their constituents. In this 
 manner did Parliament treat their constituents and 
 flaunt their independence before the world. 
 
 And this Act is still the law of England. Nume- 
 rous attempts have been made to repeal it, but they- 
 have all failed. For one hundred and fifty years, off 
 and on, has the question been debated in Parliament. 
 Resolutions without number have been brought 
 before the House for shortening the duration of Par- 
 liament, but they have all been defeated by large 
 majorities, although they have been supported by the 
 most eminent statesmen in the country. Among the 
 names of those who voted with the minority on this 
 question are to be found Earl Grey, Lord Brougham, 
 Sir F. Burdett, Sir James Mackintosh, C. Buller, 
 George Grote, Joseph Hume, Serjeant Talfourd, Col. 
 Thompson, C. P. Villiers, and, when first seeking 
 election, Benjamin Disraeli. But notwithstanding the 
 prolonged and vigorous agitation against the Act, no 
 progress whatever has been made towards repeal. 
 Of late years, indeed, no attempt has been made in 
 this direction. We have made progress in most 
 matters since the beginning of the last century when 
 this Act was passed, and Parliament has been driven 
 
60 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 forward with the times ; but the Septennial Act still 
 remains on the statute book. The political creed of 
 to-day is very different from what it was in the time 
 of the three Georges ; but on the question of the 
 duration of Parliament, and of the relation of the 
 representative to his constituents which is involved 
 in it, there has been literally no progress. The spirit 
 of the eighteenth century stills pervades the Parliament 
 of to-day ; members have the same distrust of their 
 constituents, the same impatience of control ; and if 
 they do not express their feelings so offensively, they 
 show the same inclination to assert their independ- 
 ence of the constituent body as did fheir predecessors 
 at the beginning of the last century. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 
 
 THE passing of the Septennial Act prepared the way 
 for a complete change in the Constitution. Being 
 practically free from the control of their constituents, 
 the Commons proceeded to assert their independence 
 in a very practical way. Agents they no longer pre- 
 tended to be ; they only used their procuratorial 
 position in order to promote their own private ends as 
 principals. Instead of devoting their services to the 
 affairs of their constituents, they openly went into 
 business on their own account. On entering Par- 
 liament they found that there was a demand for 
 their votes ; and as they wanted office or place or 
 pay what more natural than that they should en- 
 deavour to make an exchange ? But the great 
 offices of state were already filled, and there was a 
 limit to the dispensation of ministerial favours, the 
 latter being reserved for the friends of the govern- 
 
62 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ment. That those who were out of office, or who had 
 been excluded from a share of ministerial favours, 
 should clamour for a change of administration and 
 should combine for such a purpose, was only what 
 might be expected. Accordingly they formed them- 
 selves into an organized band, called the Opposition, 
 and held themselves in readiness to oppose the govern- 
 ment on every possible occasion. Ministers, on the 
 other hand, being thus attacked, had also to organize 
 their supporters, and so we had two hostile bodies, 
 ranged on opposite sides of the House, each under its 
 own leader, the one fighting to retain, and the other 
 to seize, possession of the treasury benches. Here 
 we have the beginning of a new system of govern- 
 ment. This is what is now called Government by 
 Party. 
 
 In carrying out such a system as this it is evident 
 that the good of the country is likely to be sacrificed 
 for the benefit of party. If the government be carried 
 on purely in the interests of party, it is very certain 
 this cannot be to the advantage of the country. The 
 motives and aims in the one case are distinct from, 
 if not incompatible with, the motives and aims in the 
 other, unless we are to assume that the interests 
 of party and of the country are identical, which would 
 be as correct as to assert that an individual in follow- 
 ing his own selfish interests was acting disinterestedly 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 63 
 
 or that a pickpocket was a useful and patriotic 
 member of society. 
 
 Let me not be understood as objecting to the 
 existence of party spirit in politics. I think it is 
 neither possible nor desirable that party spirit should 
 be eliminated from politics, or from anything else. By 
 party I mean a body of men who are bound together 
 by common views, principles or policy. No great' 
 reform was ever carried without party organization, 
 because in every country there is an inert mass of 
 humanity who are opposed to all change whatsoever, 
 and who can only be moved by the united and per- 
 sistent efforts of the party of progress. But once 
 the policy of a party has been carried there is no 
 longer a reason for the existence of the party, which 
 should therefore be dissolved. There is a wide dis- 
 tinction between a party which exists solely as the 
 advocate of certain principles, and a party which sub- 
 ordinates all principles to office. Unfortunately the 
 two great political parties in the English Parliament 
 belong to the latter category. Neither of them has 
 ever been distinguished for honesty of purpose, or 
 for strict adherence to any principles. Both of them, 
 on the contrary, have made themselves notorious by 
 their fickleness, by their greed of office, and by their 
 unscrupulous use of means to attain it. They have 
 been trimmers and time-servers ; they have been 
 
64 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 everything by turns and nothing long. If they have 
 supported a good cause it has generally been from 
 a bad motive. They are ready to advocate one set of 
 principles to-day and another to-morrow, if by so 
 doing they may hope to trip up their opponents. At 
 the beginning of the last century the Tories were in 
 favour of short Parliaments, and the Whigs supported 
 the Septennial Act. At the same period the Tories 
 were in favour of the Place Bills and the Pension 
 Bills, and the Whigs were opposed to them and to 
 every measure which tended to restrict the corrupt- 
 ing influence of the government. In the eighteenth 
 century the Whigs carried the penal laws against the 
 Catholics, and the Tories opposed them. In the nine- 
 teenth century the Whigs abolished the same laws, 
 and the Tories strenuously opposed their abolition. 
 In 1711 the Tories swamped the House of Lords by 
 the creation of peers, a proceeding which the Whigs 
 strongly condemned ; in 1832 the Whigs threatened 
 to do the same thing in order to carry their Reform 
 Bill, and the Tories professed to be horrified at 
 the bare proposal. The Tories advocated and the 
 Whigs opposed free trade at the peace of Utrecht ; 
 the Tories opposed and the Whigs advocated free 
 trade at the time of the corn law agitation. Mr. 
 Pitt denounced and overturned the government of 
 Mr. Fox chiefly because it was a coalition, and imme- 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 65 
 
 diately proceeded to form a coalition ministry of his 
 own. 1 In 1859 Mr. Disraeli introduced a Reform Bill 
 and Lord John Russell managed to defeat it because 
 it did not go far enough ; the same year Lord John 
 Russell brought in a Reform Bill, and Mr. Disraeli 
 opposed it because it went too far. At the beginning 
 of last year (1880) the Conservatives (being in office) 
 assured us that Lords Beaconsfield and Salisbury had 
 placed England at the head of the nations by the 
 Treaty of Berlin ; at the end of the same year the 
 Conservatives (being out of office) assailed Mr. Glad- 
 stone with the coarsest abuse because he had pressed 
 Turkey to submit to this same treaty. In the same 
 year the Duke of Argyle and others of his recent 
 colleagues (being out of office) assailed Lord Salisbury 
 and the Conservative government for sacrificing the 
 
 1 Speaker Onslow relates a conversation he had with Walpol-e, on 
 the subject of the king's (George II.) partiality for his Hanoverian 
 subjects, which shows the lengths to which party feeling ran in his day, 
 "A little while before Sir R. Walpole's fall," he writes, "and as a 
 popular act to save himself (for he went very unwillingly out of his 
 offices and power) he took me one day aside and said : ' What will you 
 say, Speaker, if this hand of mine shall bring a message to the House 
 of Commons declaring his consent to having any of his family after his 
 own death to be made by Act of Parliament incapable of inheriting 
 and enjoying the crown and possessing the electoral dominions at the 
 same time ? ' My answer was : ' Sir, it will be a message from heaven.' 
 He replied, ' It will be done ; ' but it was not done, and I have good 
 reason to believe it would have been opposed and rejected at this time 
 because it came from him, and by the means of those who had always 
 been most clamorous for it." Cox's Walpole, vol. ii. pp. 571, 572. 
 
 F 
 
66 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 interests of India to those of Lancashire in the matter 
 of the cotton duties ; immediately on acceding to 
 office, Lord Hartington, speaking on behalf of all his 
 colleagues (not excluding the Duke of Argyle) in 
 reply to a deputation of Lancashire manufacturers, 
 stated that the government were determined to 
 abolish all which Lord Salisbury had left of the im- 
 port duties on cotton. The conduct of neither of the 
 two great parties in the State appears to have been 
 regulated by any principle whatever. Their politics 
 changed with the hour and the opportunity. What 
 one party approved of the other opposed ; what- 
 ever action one party took the other condemned. If 
 the Whigs were in office and brought in a measure, 
 the Tories would oppose it as a matter of course ; if 
 the Tories succeeded to office and brought in 'a 
 similar measure on the same subject, the Whigs 
 would pronounce it to be utterly worthless. And 
 their successors follow precisely the same course. 
 With Liberals and Conservatives alike everything is 
 fair in party warfare. Truth, honour, and fair deal- 
 ing are alike sacrificed to the exigencies of party. 
 The end justifies the means, according to the ethics of 
 either party, and the supreme end of both parties is to 
 secure or maintain possession of the treasury benches. 1 
 
 1 The following description of how the system of party government 
 is worked in the interest of the great governing families is amusing, as 
 coming from a Conservative party journal : 
 
 " No game of whist in one of the lordly clubs of St. James's Square 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 6/ 
 
 Government by Party is of a comparatively recent 
 date. It was the outcome of a long series of corrupt 
 Parliaments dating back from the Restoration. There 
 is no trace of its existence till after the Revolution, 
 and it was not till long after that event that it was 
 organized as it now is. Macaulay tells us that 
 political parties had their origin in the Long Parlia- 
 ment. It is true that there were two political parties 
 in the Long Parliament, and that is all that can be 
 said on the matter. They were not parties in the 
 sense understood by the term at the present day. 
 They were not organizations for the mere purpose 
 of securing or holding office. The parties of that 
 day had not become mere place-hunters. Previous 
 to the Revolution the sovereigns of England chose 
 their ministers on personal grounds alone, and often 
 in defiance of Parliament. The king's ministers 
 were the king's friends. William III. was the 
 
 was more exclusively played. It was simply a question whether his 
 Grace of Bedford would be content with a half or a quarter of the 
 cabinet ; or whether the Marquis of Rockingham would be satisfied 
 with the two-fifths, or whether the Earl of Shelbourne would have all, 
 or share his Power with the Duke of Portland. In those barterings 
 and borrowings we never hear of the name of the nation ; no whisper 
 announces that there is such a thing as the people ; nor is there any 
 allusion, in its embroidered conclave, to its interests, feelings and ne- 
 cessities. All was done as in an assemblage of a higher race of beings, 
 calmly carving out the world for themselves, a tribe of Epicurean 
 deities with the cabinet for their Olympus." Blackwood's Magazine, 
 No. 350, p. 754. 
 
68 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 first sovereign who formed a ministry on a purely 
 political basis, and his example was generally followed 
 during the subsequent reigns. But this was not 
 always the case, and it was not till the present reign 
 that ministers were regularly chosen from the majority 
 in Parliament. The last memorable instance of a 
 sovereign dismissing a ministry which had a majority 
 in Parliament was during the short reign of William 
 IV. Taking advantage of the accession of the premier, 
 Lord Althorp, to the peerage, the king suddenly dis- 
 missed his Whig ministers, and entrusted the Duke of 
 Wellington with the formation of a government from 
 the Tory party, who were in a minority in the House 
 of Commons. The defeat of the ministry at the general 
 election which followed showed that they were in a 
 minority in the country as well as in Parliament, and 
 from that time forth the premier, on whom now de- 
 volved the task of forming a cabinet, has invariably 
 been chosen from the party which for the time being 
 had a majority in Parliament. 
 
 Government by Party is usually spoken of as if 
 it were the same thing as government by the majority. 
 This is a great mistake. It is true, as I have said, 
 that the government of the day is now chosen from 
 the majority in Parliament, but it by no means follows 
 from this that the government is carried on by a 
 parliamentary majority ; on the contrary, we know 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 69 
 
 that Government by Party is not government by the 
 majority, but government by the majority of the 
 majority ; that is to say, the majority of the party 
 which has a majority in the House. And this majority 
 of a majority may be, and often is, really a minority 
 of Parliament Let me explain what I mean by an 
 illustration. Suppose a party in the House brings 
 about a ministerial crisis which results in the leader* 
 of the party forming a cabinet. Suppose also the new 
 cabinet has a large majority in the House, and that in 
 attempting to carry out the policy of their party, they 
 introduce a measure which is based on that policy. 
 But the measure may not be acceptable to all the 
 members of the party ; indeed, it would be strange if 
 it were, for there is almost invariably a dissentient 
 minority in every party on some question or other. 
 Party organization however, we shall suppose, 
 triumphs over the dissentients, who vote, if they do 
 not believe, with the majority on their own side of 
 the House, and the bill is carried. Now what I 
 wish to point out is that it is quite possible that the 
 minority among the government supporters who were 
 secretly opposed to the bill together with the whole 
 of the opposition might make a majority of the 
 House. In such a case the majority of the majority 
 would be a minority of Parliament. Take another 
 case. The government introduce a bill, some of the 
 
70 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 details of which are not acceptable to more than a bare 
 majority of their supporters. The ministerial minority 
 wish to amend it, and the amendments which they 
 desire would also be acceptable to the whole of the 
 opposition. But ministers refuse to give way, and 
 the bill is eventually carried, the whole of the 
 ministerial following voting for it rather than break up 
 the ministry. In this case the majority of the 
 majority would be a very small minority of the whole 
 House. 
 
 Government by Party and government by the 
 majority are therefore two very different things. 
 Indeed party interests are often antagonistic to 
 parliamentary government, or government by the 
 majority. The most truly representative Parliament, 
 and, on the whole, probably the best that ever existed 
 in England, was the Parliament which carried the 
 Reform Bill of 1832 ; and Earl Grey, the leader of the 
 party which carried that measure, was (for a while) 
 probably as earnest a reformer as ever held office in 
 any Government. Here, then, a favourable oppor- 
 tunity was afforded of showing the advantages of 
 party government. Yet if we are to believe contem- 
 porary opinion at least one other veiy important 
 reform might have been carried through that Parlia- 
 ment had Earl Grey been guided by his parliamentary 
 majority. " There could be no doubt that the great 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 71 
 
 majority of that assembly," says Mr. Molesworth, 
 speaking of the Parliament referred to, " were per- 
 fectly prepared to welcome and to carry any measure 
 against the church that might have been brought for- 
 ward by the government, and that in the temper in 
 which men's minds then were, the nation would have 
 received such a proposal with an enthusiasm little pr 
 at all inferior to that which had been excited by the ' 
 introduction of the Reform Bill." 1 But the wishes of 
 the majority were overruled for party reasons, as they 
 have been many times before and since, and the 
 question of disestablishment remains for settlement 
 to this day. 
 
 What Earl Grey did with the question of dis- 
 establishment Lord Palmerston attempted with the 
 question of reform. It is well known that Lord 
 Palmerston differed from his party, and even from 
 some of his colleagues, on the reform question ; but 
 in the session of 1860, his government, in order 
 to satisfy his followers, brought in a bill on the sub- 
 ject. It is probable that he had no ardent desire to 
 see it carried ; indeed, it is generally believed that 
 he was all along secretly opposed to it ; at all events, 
 by absenting himself from the debates on the question 
 he left the impression that he was not favourably 
 disposed towards it. That the measure was not 
 
 1 Hist, of Eng., vol. i. p. 275. 
 
72 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 carried was entirely due to the lukewarmness or 
 secret opposition of the premier, for it was well known 
 that there was a majority in the House in its favour. 
 But it suited Lord Palmerston's policy to overrule 
 the majority, and that policy he had no difficulty 
 in carrying out in this instance. 
 
 Notwithstanding the fact that the Reform Bill 
 in 1832 was carried as a party question, the history 
 of constitutional reform since that time shows that its 
 settlement has been retarded rather than advanced 
 by party organizations. So evident did this appear 
 to be the case, that in 1867 many of the leading 
 members on both sides of the House, notably Mr. 
 Disraeli and Mr. John Bright, expressed their opinion 
 that the question never would be settled until it had 
 ceased to be a party one. And more than one attempt 
 was made to divest it of a party character. On in- 
 troducing his Reform Bill in that year Mr. Disraeli 
 expressed it as his deliberate opinion that the reason 
 why the question of reform had not been settled by 
 previous Parliaments and previous ministries was, be- 
 cause it had always been treated from a party point 
 of view ; and he referred to the remarkable fact 
 that no less than six successive governments had 
 brought in Reform Bills, not one of which had 
 been carried. Mr. Disraeli had always been a 
 staunch advocate of party government ; yet what 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 73 
 
 stronger condemnation of the system could we have 
 than is furnished by these facts, and by his appeal to 
 the forbearance of both parties in the House on this 
 occasion ? The six Reform Bills referred to were 
 those introduced in 1852, 1854, 1858, 1859, l8 6o, and 
 1 866, Mr. Disraeli's own bill making the seventh ; and 
 this measure would undoubtedly have experienced the 
 same fate as the others on the same subject had not' 
 Mr. Gladstone, the opposition leader, in the spirit of 
 true patriotism, refused to oppose it on party grounds, 
 although he was extremely dissatisfied with the bill 
 as it left the hands of the ministry. Unlike other 
 party leaders Mr. Gladstone determined to use his 
 utmost endeavours to amend the measure, and by so 
 , doing, and thus removing it out of the category of 
 party questions, he succeeded in carrying a greatly 
 improved Reform Bill through the House. 
 
 If Government by Party is not government by 
 majority, on what ground can it rest its claims ? It 
 cannot be that party government is necessary to 
 the progress of legislation, as we have seen six 
 Reform Bills rejected in succession because they were 
 made party questions, and the seventh only carried 
 because both sides of the House agreed to withdraw 
 it from the sphere of party politics. Nor can it be 
 that party government is necessary for the support 
 of the government of the day, for it is in order to get 
 
74 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 at the government of the day that ministerial measures 
 are rejected, the opposition preferring to sacrifice 
 even good measures rather than allow ministers to 
 remain in office. Nor can it be said that party 
 government is an essential part of the representative 
 system, because it is evident that representative 
 institutions would work far better without it. Re- 
 presentative institutions flourished in England for 
 centuries before party government was ever heard 
 of. Indeed, party government is a positive hin- 
 drance to the effective working of the representa- 
 tive system. The fundamental idea of the represen- 
 tative system is responsibility to the constituent 
 body ; the leading principle of party government is 
 loyalty to party organization. The representative 
 owes allegiance to his constituents and to them only ; 
 the party man sinks the representative in the partisan 
 and votes and acts as his leader directs him. 1 
 
 The advocates of party government do not indeed 
 deny that their system is at variance with the prin- 
 ciple of representation. Nay more, they frankly 
 admit the fact, though, strangely enough, they never- 
 
 1 We have a curious illustration of party spirit in a remark made 
 by one of the rank and file of a party to the effect that he made it an 
 invariable rule never to be present at a debate, or absent on a division, 
 and that he only once, during the course of a long Parliamentary life, 
 ventured to vote according to his conscience, and on that occasion he had 
 voted wrong. Mirror of Parliament, p. 2376. 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 75 
 
 theless cling tenaciously to their theory. " Parlia- 
 mentary government," says Earl Grey, " is essentially 
 a government by means of party. . . . The House of 
 Commons owes its success as an active part of the 
 supreme authority, and its peculiar excellencies, to 
 what are regarded as defects and departures from 
 the principle in our representative system. . . . and it 
 is chiefly through these defects that the ministers of 
 the Crown have been enabled to obtain the authority 
 they have exercised in the House of Commons." 1 
 Parliamentary Government and party government are 
 here represented as synonymous, a mistake which 
 runs throughout Earl Grey's book on the subject. 
 But what we have here more particularly to note is, 
 first, the admission that party government owes its 
 success to " defects and departures " from the principle 
 of representation ; and, secondly, the statement that 
 it is owing to these very defects and departures that 
 "the ministers of the Crown have been enabled to 
 obtain the authority they have exercised in the House 
 of Commons." According to Earl Grey, therefore, 
 party government has had the happy effect of enabling 
 ministers to obtain "authority" in the House, and 
 it is carried on for the benefit of ministers, and in 
 order to enable them to coerce Parliament. And no 
 
 1 Parl. Gov., pp. 49, 67, 68 ; see also Todd's Parl Gov., vol. i. 
 PP- 9, 13- 
 
76 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 doubt, in this respect, the system has succeeded 
 admirably. Party government has placed Parliament 
 at the feet of the ministry of the day. We have 
 already seen how a ministry, by means of a party 
 vote, may coerce a majority ; we may also see how 
 a ministry may exercise authority and openly set the 
 House at defiance. 
 
 In 1844 the government of Sir Robert Peel was 
 defeated in Committee of the House of Commons on 
 the Factories Bill, the House having affirmed by 
 three separate votes, each of which were opposed by 
 ministers, the expediency of reducing the hours of 
 labour in factories from twelve to ten. Not satisfied 
 with this, however, ministers tried the question a 
 fourth time, and succeeded in reversing the former 
 decision by a majority of seven. The Home Secre- 
 tary, Sir James Graham, subsequently moved for 
 leave to withdraw the bill and introduce another, 
 which, while it embodied various points which the 
 House had affirmed, nevertheless upheld the principle 
 of twelve hours' labour. In the committee on this 
 new bill, Lord Ashley moved to insert a clause restrict- 
 ing the hours of labour ; but Sir Robert Peel stated 
 that if this motion were carried, ministers would resign, 
 and it was accordingly negatived by a large majority. 1 
 
 1 Todd's Parl. Gov., vol. ii. pp. 303, 304; Hansard, vol. Ixxxiii. 
 pp. 1482-1493 ; Ixxiv. pp. 899, 1094, 1 104. 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 77 
 
 Again in 1866, under Earl Russell's administration, 
 an instruction was carried in the House of Commons 
 in opposition to ministers to make provision against 
 bribery in the new Reform Bill. Nevertheless the 
 government proceeded with the measure, ignoring the 
 instruction with regard to the bribery clauses. This 
 course was objected to by the opposition, who con- 
 tended that it was the duty of ministers to embody - 
 the clauses in the bill ; but as the government was 
 soon afterwards defeated on another portion of the 
 same bill, and having thereupon resigned, the measure 
 was lost. 1 
 
 But ministers do not usually act in such an openly 
 hostile and defiant manner towards Parliament. These 
 are simply instances of gross ministerial blundering. 
 The same end may be attained by more conciliatory 
 means. As a rule, ministers profess great considera- 
 tion for the opinions of Parliament. It is only the 
 opposition minority that they treat with contempt. 
 Where an important vote is pending they first try to 
 make sure of their majority. If there are any signs 
 of disaffection in the ministerial rank and file, they 
 rally their party, an appeal is made to party feeling, 
 the disaffected have to stand out, all the influence at 
 the command of ministers is employed to conciliate 
 them, and when all else fails, a threat of resignation 
 
 1 Hansard, vol. clxxxiii. pp. 1348, 1589. 
 
78 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 or of a dissolution of Parliament will generally bring 
 them to terms. The ministerial ranks are then closed, 
 and the re-united majority behind the treasury 
 benches are used to crush the opposition minority. 
 To the outside public all seems fair and square, but 
 none the less effectively have ministers exercised their 
 influence and authority to silence the voice of the 
 majority. 
 
 But is it really desirable that ministers of the 
 Crown should exercise authority over Parliament ? Is 
 it not desirable rather that Parliament should exer- 
 cise authority over ministers ? Is it not an essential 
 principle of parliamentary government that ministers 
 should be held responsible to Parliament, instead of 
 Parliament being held responsible to ministers ? 
 What, may I ask, would become of the authority of 
 Parliament if the principle enunciated by Earl Grey 
 were carried out in its integrity ? The theory that 
 ministers of the Crown, who shape their policy and 
 prepare their measures in secret, should be permitted 
 to force that policy and these measures on the re- 
 presentative body, whose ministers they virtually are 
 and to whom alone they are responsible, is so mon- 
 strous that it is difficult to understand how it can 
 find acceptance amongst intelligent men at the pre- 
 sent day. 
 
 But, say the advocates of party government, the 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 79 
 
 business of the country cannot be carried on without 
 a strong ministry. It is necessary, we are assured, 
 that a government should have a large and pliant 
 majority behind them to enable them to retain 
 their position and to carry their measures through 
 Parliament. We are left in no manner of doubt as 
 to how this majority was got together in the pre- 
 reform era. " The adherents of the ministry," says 
 Todd, " were obtainable from the first by means of 
 various small boroughs which were under the direct 
 control of the Treasury, and of other boroughs which 
 were subject to the influence of certain great families 
 or wealthy proprietors, who were willing to dispose 
 of the same in support of an existing administration." l 
 And this majority was, according to the candid admis- 
 sion of another friend and advocate of party govern- 
 ment, retained in a still more objectionable manner. 
 " Parliamentary government," says Earl Grey, " de- 
 rives its whole force and power from the exercise 
 of an influence akin to corruption. The possession 
 and exercise by the ministers of the Crown of a large 
 measure of authority in Parliament is the foundation 
 upon which the whole system of government rests, 
 while the authority was from the first time main- 
 tained principally by means of the patronage of the 
 Crown, and of the power vested in the administra- 
 
 1 Parl. Gov., vol. i. p. 9. 
 
80 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tion of conferring favours of various kinds on its 
 parliamentary supporters." 1 Thus the rotten borough 
 system, the control of the Crown, and the influence 
 of great families were all necessary to the existence 
 of party government ; and it was only natural that a 
 system which owed its origin to such agencies should 
 resort to corrupt means in order to maintain its 
 existence. 
 
 A strong government, however, is not necessarily 
 a good one. A large following is not essential to 
 either good administration or to wise legislation. We 
 have had numerous strong governments in the past, 
 but, as a rule, they were not good ones, in the sense 
 of being either honest or efficient. If we are to test 
 the strength of a ministry by the length of time it 
 has held office, then the strongest government that 
 ever existed in England was that of Walpole's. But 
 that government was strong because it was corrupt, 
 and it was inefficient because it was strong. It was 
 corrupt because it purchased its support ; it was 
 inefficient, because firmly secure in its position it 
 was under no obligation to strengthen itself by at- 
 tempting any legislation that was not absolutely 
 necessary to its existence. The twenty-one years of 
 Walpole's rule are absolutely barren of legislative 
 results. Legislative activity abruptly ceased when 
 
 1 Par!. Gen)., vol. i. p. 38. 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 8 1 
 
 he entered office, and was only resumed when he left 
 it. Year after year passed and nothing was done, 
 and nothing attempted. 1 The opposition was so 
 weak that for a time they ceased to attend Parlia- 
 ment, so powerless did they feel themselves before 
 the overwhelming majority behind the treasury 
 benches. The next strong ministry was that of the 
 second Pitt. Pitt's policy was the very reverse of 
 Walpole's. He displayed great legislative activity. 
 He attempted to solve almost every problem that 
 Walpole shirked. He conducted the government of 
 England during a long and critical period of her 
 history, but his administration was as barren of 
 legislative results as that of Walpole's. And his 
 failure in this respect was not due to the want of 
 opportunity or of support. His ministry lasted 
 seventeen years, and so strong was it that it was said 
 that at one time the entire opposition could have 
 been held in a hackney coach. 
 
 The advocates of strong governments who deplore 
 the decline of the old nominee and close borough 
 system which the Reform Act of 1832 abolished, 
 should compare the legislative results of Walpole's 
 
 1 It is a remarkable fact that though he was at the head of affairs 
 during more than twenty years, not one great measure, not one im- 
 portant change for the better or for the worse in any part of our 
 institutions, marks the period of his supremacy. Macaulay's Essays ; 
 Walpole's Letters to Sir Horace Mann. 
 
 G 
 
82 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and Pitt's administrations with those of two other 
 ministries which have held office since the passing of 
 that measure. 
 
 The ministry of Earl Grey and Mr. Gladstone's 
 first administration were neither of them long lived, 
 but the measures passed by them during their short 
 tenure of office are in marked contrast with the 
 beggarly results of the two administrations referred to. 
 Thus, during the first session of the Reformed Parlia- 
 ment, there were passed a Bill for the Abolition of 
 Slavery, thus settling a question which had occupied 
 the attention of many previous Parliaments ; a Bill 
 for the Regulation of Factories, the first of a long 
 series of measures in the interests of labour, and 
 several important law reform bills. It was during this 
 session that the .first step was taken towards the estab- 
 lishment of a really national system of education. 
 Perhaps no single session of any Parliament ever pro- 
 duced so many important measures as this. Mr. 
 Gladstone's first administration was also prolific of 
 important legislative results. We have only to mention 
 the Irish Church Disestablishment Act, an Irish Land 
 Act, the present Education Act, the Abolition of 
 Purchase in the Army Act (abolished also during the 
 same session by royal prerogative), and Vote by 
 Ballot Act, which settled a controversy of 150 years' 
 standing. No government, either before or since the 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 83 
 
 Reform Act, achieved results at all corresponding to 
 those accomplished by the two administrations re- 
 ferred to. 
 
 A really strong government is a government that 
 is firm, self-reliant, and courageous ; and a government 
 will usually exhibit these qualities when it has public 
 opinion on its side, and not otherwise. It was because 
 Earl Grey and Mr. Gladstone were resolute and de- 
 termined, and were strongly supported in the country, 
 that they were able to accomplish so much. A 
 numerically weak government, strongly supported in 
 the country, can generally carry its measures when a 
 government numerically stronger, but without that 
 support, almost invariably fails. The reason of this 
 is obvious enough. The adherents of the government 
 are bound together by purely party ties ; ministers 
 will therefore always endeavour to avoid bringing in 
 measures that may tend to break up their party, and 
 reform measures, and more particularly reforms of an 
 important and comprehensive character, are especially 
 dangerous in that respect. On the other hand, a 
 government that is weak in the House but strong in 
 the country will attempt, and will often succeed, in 
 carrying measures through Parliament, because if it 
 fails it has nothing to lose but everything to gain by a 
 dissolution, which it can always claim, while the pro- 
 spect of an appeal to the country imposes a wholesome 
 
84 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 restraint on the opposition, and often induces them to 
 pass measures that are obnoxious to them. A govern- 
 ment that is only popular in the House is usually 
 averse to legislative action, for the more active it is 
 the more it is likely to alienate some section of its 
 numerous supporters ; a government, on the other 
 hand, that is popular out of doors is generally active 
 and aggressive, as a dissolution, if precipitated by its 
 action, would have the effect of increasing its influence 
 in the House. George III. used to say that he could 
 always manage a weak ministry, but that a strong 
 one was too much for him ; in like manner has the 
 country often had good cause to congratulate itself 
 on having a weak ministry at the head of affairs. 
 
 But there is another consideration which the 
 advocates of strong governments have altogether lost 
 sight of. There is a danger in strong governments. 
 Enormous administrative powers have been conferred 
 on ministers under the Constitution, and strong govern- 
 ments are far more likely to use these powers than 
 weak ones. Speaking of an administration supported 
 by a large and faithful majority in the House, Mr. 
 Sheldon Amos says : " When a government is thus 
 supported, there is no legal limit, and it is difficult to 
 find a political or a moral limit, to the lengths they 
 may go in asserting the most extreme, far-fetched, and 
 even absolute claims of the royal prerogative ; and it 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 85 
 
 is always open to them and their loyal adherents in 
 both Houses, to affix what interpretation they please 
 on all doubtful points of law and practice." l What 
 these enormous powers are, an eminent constitutional 
 authority has recently pointed out. " I said in this 
 book," writes Mr. Bagehot, " that it would very 
 much surprise people if they were told how many 
 things the Queen can do without consulting Parlia- 
 ment, and it certainly has so proved, for when the 
 Queen abolished purchase in the army, by an act 
 of prerogative (after the Lords had rejected the 
 bill for doing so), there was a great and general 
 astonishment. But this is nothing to what the Queen 
 can by law do, without consulting Parliament. Not 
 to mention other things, she could disband the army 
 (by law she cannot engage more than a certain 
 number of men, but she is not obliged to engage any 
 men) ; she could dismiss all the officers, from the 
 General commanding-in-chief downwards ; she could 
 dismiss all the sailors too ; she could sell off all our 
 ships of war, and all our naval stores ; she could make 
 a peace by the sacrifice of Cornwall, and begin a war 
 for the conquest of Brittany. She could make every 
 citizen in the united kingdom, male or female, a peer ; 
 she could make every parish in the united kingdom 
 a ' university ; ' she could dismiss most of the civil 
 
 1 Fifty Years of the English Constitution, p. 359. 
 
86 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 servants ; she could pardon all offenders. In a word, 
 the Queen could, by prerogative, upset all the action 
 of civil government within the realm, could disgrace 
 the nation by a bad war or peace, and could, by dis- 
 banding our forces, whether land or sea, leave us 
 defenceless against foreign nations." 1 If ministers 
 have a legal right to do all this (for of course the 
 Queen can only act through her ministers), a bold, 
 unscrupulous, and strong ministry may some day 
 carry it out, to the general astonishment of all parties 
 in the State. 
 
 But the days of strong governments, in the old 
 sense of the term, are passed, never to return. The 
 Reform Act of 1832, which abolished the close borough 
 system, has effectually disposed of them. It is only 
 in a Parliament elected during a period of great ex- 
 citement, which occurs but rarely, that a government 
 hopes to secure a large majority. The weakness 
 of modern administrations is, accordingly, a standing 
 complaint amongst the advocates of party govern- 
 ment. 2 In this respect party government has failed 
 
 1 English Constitution, Introduction. 
 
 2 " In this age the elements of governing are daily diminishing, the 
 power of governing nations is every day weakening. " Speech of Mr. 
 Disraeli, Hansard, vol. clxx. p. 430. 
 
 " In order that the ministry may be in a position to devise and re- 
 commend to Parliament a policy that shall commend itself to the highest 
 intelligence of the country, it is essential that they should have sufficient 
 strength in the popular assembly to enable them to withstand the pres- 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 8/ 
 
 according to their own showing, and there is no 
 salvation for them except by returning to the state of 
 things which existed in pre-reform times. But if they 
 want really strong governments they must go further 
 back still. Under the Tudors it was not an uncom- 
 mon thing for a minister of the Crown to hold office 
 for twenty years, or even longer. Burleigh held office 
 uninterruptedly for forty years. Sir Walter Mildman-, 
 Sir Nicholas Bacon, Sir Thomas Walsingham, and 
 Sir Thomas Smith, were ministers of the Crown for 
 periods varying from fifteen to twenty-three years 
 each, and all of them died in office. Governments 
 are not so long-lived nowadays, and we seldom or 
 ever hear of a minister dying in harness. 
 
 The fact is, that when there is no great question 
 agitating the country, parties in the House are, as a 
 rule, evenly balanced, and ministries are continually 
 changing. A succession of weak administrations is 
 the inevitable result of such a state of things. A 
 
 sure of temporary political excitement. Prior to the passing of the 
 Reform Bill, in 1832, there was no impediment of this kind ; but 
 thoughtful politicians foresaw, as an inevitable consequence of that 
 measure, that parliamentary government would become more and more 
 difficult and embarrassing. ... At the same time, by increasing the 
 weight and influence of the House of Commons in public affairs, while 
 it diminished the means previously at the disposal of the Crown for 
 exercising a constitutional control over the proceedings of Parliament, 
 it has served to render parliamentary government a more onerous under- 
 taking." Todd, ParL Gov., vol. i. pp. 14, 15. 
 
88 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 notable illustration of this we have in the condition of 
 political parties in the Italian Parliament for some 
 time past. The Parliament of Italy is modelled on 
 the English system of Government by Party, and 
 there have been no less than twenty-five new ad- 
 ministrations in that country in eighteen years, or an 
 average of one every eight or nine months. In New 
 Zealand, also, where the worst features of the parlia- 
 mentary system of the mother country have been 
 adopted, there were in 1872 no less than nine changes 
 of government within seven months. 1 A general 
 election, and a good cry to go to the country with, 
 would have put an end to this state of things. Party 
 government in England has only been saved from 
 merited contempt by the party leaders on either side 
 adroitly seizing on every question of public interest, 
 and turning it to account for party purposes. 
 
 The position taken up by the advocates of party 
 government is, indeed, an altogether extraordinary 
 one. They assume that strong governments are 
 desirable ; but by a strong government they mean 
 a strong party government, that is to say, a govern- 
 ment supported by an organized party and opposed 
 by another organized party with a proper balance of 
 power between them ; and they assign as a reason 
 for having an organized opposition, that it is neces- 
 
 1 Todd's Parliamentary Government in the British Colonies ; p. 544. 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 89 
 
 sary there should be a check upon strong govern- 
 ments. 1 In other words they want party government, 
 because by that means they hope to have a strong 
 government ; and they want a party government, 
 because by that means a strong government may be 
 kept in check. They want, in fact, to do and to undo 
 at the same time and by the same means ; they desire 
 a strong government, and no sooner have they got a- 
 strong government than they want to get rid of it, 
 and the method they propose for attaining both ends 
 is one and the same. 
 
 Under the system of Government by Party, Parlia- 
 ment exercises no permanent control over the govern- 
 ment, and as we have seen, its advocates profess that 
 it exercises none. That it exercises none in matters 
 
 1 " On the other side we find that government without party is 
 absolutism; that rulers without opposition may be despots." May, 
 Const. Hist., vol. ii. p. 93. 
 
 " But Mr. Pitt united all these classes in one irresistible phalanx of 
 power. Loyalty and patriotism, fears and interests, welded together 
 such a party as had never yet been created ; and which, for the sake of 
 public liberty, it is to be hoped will never again be known." Ibid., 
 vol. ii. p. 38. 
 
 " Where the balance of power between the component parts of the 
 supreme authority is duly preserved . . . Parliament will be able to 
 fulfil its proper function, of exercising a vigilant control over every act 
 of administration, and being prompt to interpose upon every occasion 
 of abuse or misgovernment. " Todd, ParL Gov., vol. i. p. 24. 
 
 Nay, what says the brilliant and versatile author of Coningsby? 
 11 No government can be long secure without a formidable opposition. 
 It reduces their supporters to that tractable number which can be 
 managed by the joint influence of fruition and hope." 
 
90 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of administration is certain, for of nothing are minis- 
 ters more jealous than of any interference in de- 
 partmental arrangements ; that it exercises none in 
 legislation is also certain, as we have seen that the 
 theory of party government, in fact its raison &etre, is 
 that the government, to use the words of Earl Grey, 
 shall " guide the decisions " of Parliament in such 
 matters. It is assumed throughout by the advocates 
 of this system that if the government did not exercise 
 authority in this respect the legislative business of 
 the country could not be carried on. On the other 
 hand, I contend that it is solely because ministers 
 exercise their authority that it is so difficult to get 
 any legislation out of Parliament. So far from being 
 of any assistance, in my opinion, party government 
 is a positive hindrance to legislative action. If a 
 private member bring in a measure the government 
 will, either openly or covertly, oppose it, and in that 
 case it is doomed ; on the other hand, if the govern- 
 ment introduce a measure of its own, no matter how 
 necessary or important it may be, it will have to en- 
 counter the whole forces of the opposition, which, com- 
 bined with the defections from the ministerial ranks, 
 will, in nine cases out of ten, succeed either in emascu- 
 lating it, or in defeating it, or what practically amounts 
 to the same thing, in delaying it indefinitely ; for there 
 is no denying the fact that a measure disposed of in 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 9 1 
 
 this way at once becomes unpopular in the House. 
 It is looked upon henceforth as a troublesome and 
 dangerous question to deal with, and no ministry, 
 present or future, will take it up again unless it is 
 forced upon them by the country, as was the case 
 with the reform question. 
 
 Like the dogma of the divine rights of kings and 
 passive obedience, party government came to the - 
 front during the stormy period of the Revolu- 
 tion. The system is indeed so monstrous, that it 
 could only have found acceptance at a time when 
 national animosities ran high, and the people were 
 in an abnormal state of excitement. Under no 
 ordinary circumstances is it conceivable that the 
 English people would have tolerated a political 
 system so entirely different from that to which they 
 had been so long accustomed, and so opposed to their 
 practice in the affairs of everyday life. To the mass 
 of the people it was, and always will be, a matter of 
 utter indifference as to who were in office or who out 
 of it, so long as the country is well governed. They 
 had been accustomed to send their representatives to 
 Parliament to confer together and co-operate for the 
 common good of the whole community. It must 
 therefore have shocked their moral sensibilities when 
 they discovered that their representatives, instead of 
 attending to the business of the country for which they 
 
92 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 had been elected, were devoting themselves to far other 
 purposes; that no sooner did they come together than 
 they immediately ranged themselves on opposite sides 
 of the House ; that they openly avowed hostile inten- 
 tions towards one another ; that they at once proceeded 
 to open acts of hostility ; that they spent their time and 
 energies in vilifying one another, in misrepresenting 
 one another's motives, opinions and actions, and in 
 attempting to ruin one another's reputations, to defeat 
 one another's plans, and to delay and mutilate, when 
 they could not reject, one another's measures. And 
 that men eminent for their talents, their eloquence 
 and even their uprightness in other relations of life, 
 should do all this without any sense of its impropriety 
 and its injustice, was a sight not calculated to raise 
 parliamentary institutions in the estimation of right 
 thinking men. Had it been the design of its authors 
 to demoralize the public mind, to impede the public 
 business, to create natural animosities and general 
 anarchy, they could not have better accomplished their 
 end than by the introduction of such a system as this. 
 Nothing can be more obvious to common sense than 
 that the representatives of a great nation could be 
 bound together by the same interests, aims and aspir- 
 ations as the people themselves, and that they should 
 co-operate with them for the common good of the 
 whole country ; and nothing can be more absurd than 
 
GOVERNMENT BY PARTY. 93 
 
 to suppose that the common good could be achieved 
 by a system that tends to create and perpetuate 
 party strife and national animosities. We might as 
 well create discord in order to produce harmony, or 
 provoke quarrels for the purpose of promoting friend- 
 ship and cordiality. The most extraordinary part of 
 the matter is that there are still men to be found who 
 believe such a vicious system is essential to parlia-' 
 mentary government. 
 
 This species of party warfare, too, is peculiar to 
 parliamentary life, I had almost said to English parlia- 
 mentary life, for it has not fairly established itself in 
 any non-English speaking races, and even in England 
 itself it has found no place in any other departments 
 of public or private service. It is unknown in the 
 Church. Ecclesiastical assemblies, whether established 
 or dissident, have not adopted it, and I am not aware 
 that these assemblies are more disorderly, or that their 
 business is worse conducted on that account. It is 
 also unknown in municipal life, where the representa- 
 tive system is in full vigour. The local representatives 
 do not range themselves in hostile camps and spend 
 their time and energies in faction fights. On the con- 
 trary, they meet, discuss and vote on civic matters, and 
 absolutely ignore parliamentary precedent in their 
 mode of conducting business. Party organization is 
 equally unknown in commercial life, where the repre- 
 
94 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 sentative system also exists. The board of directors is 
 a miniature parliament elected by the shareholders to 
 manage their business for them. But no one ever heard 
 of party organizations in the board-room of a joint 
 stock company. A commercial undertaking conducted 
 on the approved parliamentary model would be doomed 
 to certain ruin. Had Government by Party not come 
 into existence under exceptional circumstances ; had 
 it not been the slow growth of generations ; had it 
 not been associated with the names of our most 
 eminent men and with some of the proudest events 
 of our history and had almost become a part of our 
 natural life, it would find few defenders amongst us at 
 the present day. The system is tolerated because 
 of old associations, and because we have come to 
 think that it is in some way an essential part of our 
 time-honoured Constitution ; but if it were now, for 
 the first time, proposed for our acceptance, I venture 
 to say that it would not recommend itself either to 
 the intelligence or to the moral sense of the community. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 
 
 OUTSIDE pressure is a new force in politics. In 
 former times, the only means of communication be- 
 tween the general public and Parliament was through 
 the electoral body. Until within a century ago, 
 public meetings, at all events for political purposes, 
 were almost unknown, political organizations were 
 unheard of, and the platform and the press were not 
 recognized as organs of public opinion. Parliament 
 was then regarded as the sole exponent of the wishes 
 and opinions of the country, and any reference in 
 either House to what had been said or done outside 
 of it with a view to influence its decisions was con- 
 sidered as derogatory to its dignity, or as an interfer- 
 ence with its rights and privileges, and was resented 
 accordingly. Public meetings, the practice of petition- 
 ing Parliament on national questions, and organiza- 
 tions for political purposes, all originated about the 
 
96 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 close of the last century. The first public meeting 
 of note of which we have any record was the famous 
 assembly of the freeholders of Middlesex, and after- 
 wards of Yorkshire, to protest against the proceed- 
 ings of the House of Commons for expelling John 
 Wilkes. About the same time, petitions began to 
 be presented to Parliament in favour of constitutional 
 reform, and the abolition of the slave trade. The first 
 political organization was the " Society for support- 
 ing the Bill of Rights," which was followed by the 
 " Protestant Association," " The Repeal Association," 
 "The Anti-Slavery Association," and the "Catholic 
 Repeal League," and others of a similar character. 
 
 These various movements marked the commence- 
 ment of a new era in English politics. They 
 were the indications of the changed attitude of the 
 people towards parliamentary institutions. Public 
 meetings and political organizations grew out of the 
 abuses of our representative system. Parliament had 
 now ceased to represent the people, and the people 
 began to look elsewhere for redress. As long as 
 Parliaments were of short duration, the House of 
 Commons was fairly representative of the great body 
 of the people. Public grievances were rapidly cleared 
 off by each Parliament as they arose, and were not 
 allowed to accumulate for indefinite periods as they 
 do now. When the term of Parliament was length- 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 97 
 
 ened, however, the Commons were relieved from the 
 control of their constituents. Members who held 
 their seats for seven years were not under any obli- 
 gation to deal promptly with, and, as a matter of 
 fact, did not trouble themselves about, the grievances 
 of their constituents. Much-needed reforms were 
 accordingly put off from year to year ; public griev- 
 ances accumulated beyond hope of redress; the old- 
 channel of public opinion got blocked up, and the 
 obstructed stream overflowed its banks and formed 
 for itself new channels. It is along one of these new 
 channels that we are now proceeding. 
 
 In order to prevent the accumulation of public 
 grievances greater promptitude is required in dis- 
 posing of them on the part of Parliament. The 
 necessity for this is now beginning to be recognized. 
 Matters of importance are discussed out of doors, 
 on the platform and in the press, as they arise, and 
 Parliament is sometimes greatly influenced by the 
 opinions so expressed. Thus, the attitude of Par- 
 liament towards the general public has completely 
 changed. Demonstrations of opinion, which, a century 
 ago, would have been treated with contempt, and 
 those who took part in them probably punished for 
 sedition, are now accepted as the voice of the country. 
 The general public have been taken into favour. 
 Public opinion, or outside pressure, has become a 
 
 H 
 
98 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 great fact. It is the new force in politics which it is 
 the fashion to prate about. 
 
 What is this new force ? It is easier to say what 
 it is not than to define what it is. It is not a plebis- 
 cite. It is not the verdict of the electors at the 
 ballot box, or the constitutionally expressed voice of 
 the country. It is not a formal vote of any kind, 
 either of the whole people or of any part of those 
 entitled to act on their behalf. But it is difficult to 
 say what it is. It is as variable in quality as it is 
 in quantity. It changes with the place, time, and 
 circumstances, and what is regarded as public opinion 
 by one man is something altogether different in the 
 estimation of another. Macaulay is the only one I 
 have met with who has attempted to describe it. 
 " Public opinion," he says, " is expressed by the 
 measured voices of all classes, parties, and interests. 
 It is declared by the press, the exchange, the market, 
 the club, and society at large." 1 Public opinion of 
 this sort can hardly be said to be expressed by 
 " measured voices " at all, for this can only be done 
 by a vote. This description is only applicable to 
 public opinion when it is unanimous. But in politics 
 there is no unanimity. Except when some great 
 political crime or blunder has been committed there 
 
 1 Hist. ofEng.y vol. in. p. 543. See, also, something to the same 
 effect in Todd's Parl. Gov., vol. i. p. 14. 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 99 
 
 are always two or more parties who view things 
 in two or more different aspects. When one 
 speaks of the opinion of society, or of a club, or of 
 the press, we should therefore want to know What 
 society, What club, and What section of the press 
 was referred to. The very indefmableness of public 
 opinion has its advantages, however. It leaves full 
 scope for the play of the boldest imagination. The 
 thing we speak of is all around us. It seerns as 
 universally diffused as the air we breathe, and almost 
 as imperceptible. All parties in the state claim to 
 represent it, and yet each imagines it enjoys a mono- 
 poly. The most unpopular minister that ever held 
 office has never been without the comforting as- 
 surance that public opinion was on his side. No 
 doubt the three tailors of Tooley Street at length 
 became to believe that they were the country. 
 
 It cannot be asserted that it is a desirable thing 
 for a representative chamber to be influenced by any 
 force whatsoever outside the constituent body which 
 called it into existence. Yet there can be no doubt 
 that the House of Commons has been repeatedly 
 influenced by what is called public opinion or outside 
 pressure. While professing to have the greatest 
 respect for the verdict of the country constitutionally 
 expressed, the House of Commons has, nevertheless, 
 required, nay insisted and continues to require and 
 
IOO REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 insist that that opinion shall be endorsed by public 
 meetings and other demonstrations of the same kind, 
 and without that endorsement, it has on numerous 
 occasions refused to proceed with the business before 
 it. In the following pages I shall endeavour to show 
 (i) that Parliament has rejected measures which the 
 constituent body have approved of, because their 
 approval had not been endorsed by what is called 
 public opinion ; (2) that it has rejected measures 
 which the constituent body were in favour of, be- 
 cause public opinion was supposed to be adverse to 
 them ; (3) that it has passed measures to which it 
 was itself opposed, because public opinion was be- 
 lieved to be in favour of them, or because they were 
 enforced by outside pressure. 
 
 I. The House of Commons has repeatedly re- 
 jected measures which had been approved of by the 
 constituent body because public opinion had not 
 endorsed them. The history of Lord John Russell's 
 three Reform Bills will serve to illustrate what I 
 mean under this head. His first Reform Bill, intro- 
 duced into the House of Commons in 1852, was a 
 great advance upon the Reform Act of twenty years 
 before. It proposed the enfranchisement of several 
 large towns, the disfranchisement of certain small 
 boroughs, and the lowering of the borough and 
 county qualification for electors. It is not disputed 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. IOI 
 
 that the constituents were in favour of reform on the 
 lines here laid down at the time that this measure 
 was introduced ; and it admits of no doubt that this 
 measure owed its introduction to positive pledges 
 given by ministers to their constituents at the previous 
 general election. The premier, Lord Palmerston, had 
 on that occasion distinctly pledged himself to parlia- 
 mentary reform, and the Queen's speech at the opening 
 of the session showed that he had not forgotten the 
 circumstance, as it intimated that the government in- 
 tended to propose " such amendments in the act of 
 the late reign relating to the representation of the 
 Commons in Parliament as may be deemed calculated 
 to carry into more complete effect the principles upon 
 which the law is founded." This was distinct enough. 
 Here, then, was a bill which one might suppose would 
 be certain to be carried : the country had pronounced 
 in favour of it at a general election ; a majority of 
 members had expressly or tacitly given their adherence 
 to it at the hustings ; and the ministry had pledged 
 themselves through their chief to carry it into law. 
 It was not carried into law, however, and no serious 
 attempts were even made to discuss its provisions. 
 Its rejection was a foregone conclusion. It was laid 
 aside by general consent of all parties, and for no 
 other reason than because there was an absence of 
 enthusiasm in favour of it out of doors. The House 
 
IO2 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 would not bother itself about a measure when there 
 was no violent agitation out of doors in favour of it. 1 
 
 Lord John Russell's second Reform Bill, introduced 
 in 1854, was m many respects an improvement on 
 the first. It provided for the extension of the 
 franchise in counties and boroughs, for the disfranchise- 
 ment of boroughs having fewer than three hundred 
 electors ; boroughs not having more than five hundred 
 were to return only one member, and cities and 
 counties having a population of one hundred thousand, 
 and returning only two members, were to return three 
 under the bill. The measure appears to have been 
 carefully prepared, and its provisions were fully and 
 ably discussed by its author ; but like the previous 
 bill on the same subject, the House would not enter- 
 tain it. The bill was objected to as inopportune 
 (owing to the impending war with Russia) and 
 uncalled for, there being, it was alleged, no agitation 
 in favour of it out of doors. To these objections 
 Lord John Russell very forcibly replied : " I cannot 
 think," he said, " there is any danger in discussing the 
 question of reform during the excitement of a foreign 
 war. The time that is really dangerous for such a 
 discussion is the time of great popular excitement 
 and dissension at home. It is said there is no feeling 
 on the subject ; that there is a complete apathy about 
 
 1 Molesworth's Hist. ofEng., vol. ii. p. 371. 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. IO3 
 
 reform. If that is really the case," he went on to say, 
 "is it not the proper time to discuss questions of 
 reform, lest in the course of the war there should be 
 times of distress, when the people should become 
 excited, and large meetings should be assembled in 
 every town, partly crying out for more wages and 
 cheaper food, and partly crying out for an increase of 
 political power ? Supposing we should have the' 
 calamity of war, and with it the necessity for 
 increasing the public burdens, is it not," he continued, 
 alluding to the Whig doctrine of representation and 
 taxation going together, "a fitting time to enlarge 
 the privileges of the people when Parliament is 
 imposing fresh taxes ; that in imposing them we may 
 as far as possible impose them on those who have 
 elected us ? " Notwithstanding urgent important 
 considerations such as these, the bill was withdrawn 
 without being allowed to go to a division. 
 
 Lord John Russell's third Reform Bill was intro- 
 duced on the ist of March, 1860, and experienced 
 the same fate as the two previous ones. Some time 
 before this, the Derby ministry being in office, Lord 
 John Russell moved an amendment on Earl Derby's 
 Reform Bill as follows : " That it is neither just 
 nor politic in the manner proposed in the govern- 
 ment bill with the freehold franchise as hitherto 
 exercised in the countries of England and Wales, 
 
IO4 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and that no re-adjustment of the franchise will 
 satisfy the House or the country which does not 
 provide for a greater extension of the suffrage in 
 cities and boroughs than is contemplated in the pre- 
 sent measure." This amendment was carried, in 
 a full house of 621, by a majority of 39. The 
 Derby ministry thereupon dissolved Parliament, and 
 the result of the appeal to the country was 302 Con- 
 servatives and 350 Liberals, or a majority of 48 
 against ministers. On the assembling of Parliament 
 the ministry was defeated on the address by a 
 majority of 13. Lord Derby thereupon resigned, and 
 the Palmerston ministry took office. Soon afterwards, 
 Lord John Russell, who was a member of the new 
 administration, introduced a new Reform Bill in 
 accordance with the term of his amendment. Having 
 by that amendment defeated the late ministry, and 
 the country having subsequently marked its approval 
 of the policy of the opposition by returning a majority 
 in their favour, the new ministry were in honour, as 
 well as by constitutional usage, bound to stand or fall 
 by their measure. The new bill provided for a 6 
 franchise for boroughs and a 10 franchise for 
 counties ; and it proposed to take one member from 
 each of the twenty-five boroughs which returned two 
 members each, and to increase the representatives of 
 the counties and of certain large cities enumerated. 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. IO5 
 
 The measure was introduced by Lord John Russell 
 in a speech which occupied an hour in delivery, and 
 which was said to have been listened to "with a 
 decorous calmness that almost amounted to indiffer- 
 ence." The debate was adjourned no less than six 
 times before the 3rd of May, when it was read a 
 second time without a division. Its consideration 
 was again postponed till the nth of June, when it 
 was finally withdrawn. These repeated adjournments 
 and postponements plainly indicated that the ministry 
 had no sincere desire to carry their bill. It was 
 believed by many that the measure would have 
 passed had it received the cordial support of the 
 government, but ministers had no wish to proceed 
 with it, and it was therefore quietly allowed to drop. 
 The conduct of the ministry is easily explained. 
 " The bill," says Sir Erskine May, " was received with 
 coldness in the House, and by indifference out of it. 
 It had not been hailed by popular acclamation. The 
 cause of reform, which once had aroused enthusiasm, 
 now languished from general neglect. The press 
 was silent or discouraging ; petitions were not forth- 
 coming ; public meetings were not assembled ; the 
 people were unmoved." l In extenuation of the 
 conduct of the government in the matter, Mr. Moles- 
 worth says : " The people, though by no means 
 
 1 Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 390. 
 
106 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 indifferent, did not feel strongly on the subject, and 
 did not give the government any very warm support ; " 
 and, referring to the absence of excitement out of 
 doors on questions of this nature, he adds, "unfor- 
 tunately it is only when a very strong feeling on the 
 subject prevails that Parliament can be induced to deal 
 with them." The very strong feeling was not forth- 
 coming in this instance, and the bill was accordingly 
 lost. Yet there had been two appeals to the country 
 on this very question, and the result of these appeals 
 proved beyond a doubt that the country was in favour 
 of the policy embodied in the ministerial measure. 
 Nevertheless, as we have seen, the bill was withdrawn, 
 and solely because there was an absence of outside 
 pressure in favour of it ; and notwithstanding the terms 
 upon which they obtained office, the ministry made no 
 further attempt to carry out the wishes of the country 
 in this direction. 
 
 But bad as this conduct was, worse remains be- 
 hind. Not only did the ministry make no further 
 attempt to redeem their promises to the country and 
 to justify their retention of office, but they subsequently 
 opposed a Reform Bill introduced by a private member. 
 Four years after the withdrawal of the last-mentioned 
 Reform Bill, Mr. Edward Baines brought in a very 
 short and effective measure for lowering the franchise 
 in boroughs. The bill was an exceedingly modest 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. IO/ 
 
 one, and we can find nothing to justify a ministry, 
 pledged as that one was to reform, in treating it 
 with hostility. But ministers not only opposed Mr. 
 Baines' bill, they also spoke against it. Even Lord 
 Palmerston made a speech on the occasion in which 
 he attacked the measure, and brought out the stale 
 argument that the people were not agitating for 
 reform. 1 Mr. Gladstone, who was at the time a mem- 
 ber of the ministry, had the courage to reply to this 
 argument of his chief. " We are told," he said, "that 
 the working classes do not agitate ; but is it desirable 
 that we should wait till they do agitate ? In my 
 opinion, agitation by the working classes upon any 
 political subject whatever is a thing not to be waited 
 for, not to be made a condition previous to any par- 
 liamentary movement ; but, on the contrary, to be 
 deprecated, and, if possible, prevented by wise and 
 provident measures. An agitation by the working 
 classes is not like an agitation by the classes above 
 them, having leisure. The agitation of the classes 
 having leisure is easily conducted. Every hour of 
 their time has not a money value ; their wives and 
 children are not dependent on the application of 
 those hours to labour. But when a working man 
 finds himself in such a condition that he must abandon 
 that daily labour on which he is strictly dependent 
 
 1 Molesworth's Hist of Rug., vol. iii. p. 240. 
 
108 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 for his daily bread, it is only because then, in railway 
 language, the danger-signal is turned on, and because 
 he feels a strong necessity for action, and a 'distrust 
 in the rulers who have driven him to that necessity. 
 The present state of things, I rejoice to say, does not 
 indicate that distrust ; but if we admit that, we must 
 not allege the absence of agitation on the part of 
 the working classes as a reason why the Parliament 
 of England and the public mind of England should 
 be indisposed to entertain the discussion of this 
 question." The argument was unanswerable, but it 
 failed to convince the House, and the bill was defeated 
 by a majority of 272 against 216. 
 
 But these are not the only reform bills that were 
 sacrificed to what is called public opinion. Mr. Glad- 
 stone next tried his hand at reform, and was served in 
 the same way as previous reformers had been. His 
 bill, which was introduced on the I3th March, 1866, 
 proposed to reduce the county franchise from 50 to 
 14 ; to place copyholders and leaseholders on the 
 same footing as forty-shilling freeholders ; to enable a 
 man having 50 in a bank to claim a vote for a county 
 or borough ; to confer the franchise on compound 
 householders in boroughs, and tenants of separate 
 parts of a house, and lodgers paying 10 a, year for 
 their lodgings ; and to lower the borough 'franchise 
 from 10 to 7. These were the only changes pro- 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. IO9 
 
 posed by the bill, which was evidently a compromise, 
 and therefore not likely to rouse any enthusiasm in 
 the country in its favour. In the House it was not 
 only received with coldness by the Liberals, but, 
 which was somewhat significant, it also met with the 
 most uncompromising opposition from the Conserva- 
 tives and from a certain section of the Liberal party. 
 The old stock arguments were reproduced which had 
 done good service against previous reform bills ; the 
 House was again informed that the question was in- 
 opportune, that the country did not want reform, 
 and that, at all events, there was no agitation in 
 favour of it out of doors, which was true enough at 
 that time, but, as we shall see further on, that argu- 
 ment may be used once too often. It was deter- 
 mined that the measure should be got rid of in a 
 very summary fashion, and without any discussion 
 on its merits. Earl Grosvenor, a steady supporter of 
 the ministry, gave notice that on the question of the 
 second reading he would move that it would be in- 
 expedient to discuss any bill for the reduction of the 
 franchise until the House should have before it the 
 entire scheme of the government for the amendment 
 of the representation of the people. The government 
 thereupon became alarmed, and, on the night before 
 the commencement of the Easter recess, in moving 
 that at its rising the House should adjourn to the 
 
110 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 9th of April, Mr. Gladstone entered into certain ex- 
 planations, showing, among other advantages, that 
 the bill would confer the franchise on no less than 
 400,000 persons, and concluded by calling upon his 
 supporters to stand by it. The appeal was responded 
 to by the friends of reform out of doors in a some- 
 what lukewarm manner. The only noteworthy cir- 
 cumstance connected with the discussion of the 
 measure, was a remark made by Mr. Bright at a 
 reform meeting in Birmingham, when he told his 
 audience that their representation in the house was a 
 sham and a farce ; and that if the people wanted an 
 effective Reform Bill, they must take the matter into 
 their own hands, and bring a strong pressure to bear 
 on the Legislature. But the strong pressure was not 
 forthcoming, and after a protracted discussion extend- 
 ing to the 1 8th of June, the bill was shelved like the 
 others before it. 
 
 II. The House of Commons has rejected measures 
 which the constituencies were in favour of because 
 public opinion was supposed to be adverse to them. 
 Probably one illustration will suffice under this head. 
 The question of church rates has been under dis- 
 cussion for a long period, and more than one motion 
 for their abolition has been carried in Parliament. 
 As far back as 1832 Lord Althorpe carried a resolu- 
 tion in favour of abolition by 256 to 140, but nothing 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. Ill 
 
 came of it. Since then various proposals for their 
 modification or entire abolition have been made from 
 time to time, and were always received with favour 
 by the House. In 1861 Sir John Trelawney, thinking 
 the time had at length arrived for the settlement of 
 the question, brought in a bill for their entire aboli- 
 tion. It was no sooner apparent that the measure 
 was likely to be carried, however, than a determined 
 set was made against it. Mr. Disraeli took a pro- 
 minent part in the movement, and organized a strong 
 opposition to it both inside and outside the House. 
 At a combined meeting of the clergy and laity of the 
 rural deanery of Amersham, Bucks, he stated that, 
 in his opinion, the question of the maintenance of 
 church rates involved the very existence of a State 
 Church. This was made the key-note to the agita- 
 tion which immediately commenced. The old cry 
 was raised that the Church was in danger ; meetings 
 were convened in all parts of the country, at which 
 resolutions against the bill were carried, petitions 
 got up for presentation to Parliament, and true 
 churchmen were everywhere recommended to com- 
 municate with their representatives and urge them 
 to oppose the Bill, or, at all events, not to vote in 
 favour of it. The agitation was a complete success. 
 The second reading was carried, it is true, but by a 
 majority of only 281 to 266, which was a great falling 
 
112 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 off compared with previous divisions in favour of the 
 principle of the measure. This result greatly en- 
 couraged the opposition, and more strenuous efforts 
 were made to defeat the bill on the third reading. 
 When the division on the third reading took place 
 it was found that the numbers for and against the 
 measure were exactly equal, and on the speaker 
 giving his casting vote against it the bill was lost. 
 It was again brought up the following session, when 
 the result was, for the bill 286, against, 287, or a 
 majority of one against it. One more attempt was 
 made the next session (1863) to carry the bill, when 
 the majority against it rose to 10, a result which 
 settled the question from that day to this. 
 
 III. Not only has the House of Commons rejected 
 measures which the constituent body approved of 
 because their approval had not been subsequently 
 endorsed by public opinion, and rejected measures 
 which the country was in favour of because public 
 opinion was supposed to be adverse to them, but it 
 has also passed measures to which it was itself 
 opposed when sufficient outside pressure was brought 
 to bear in their favour. We have already referred 
 to the extraordinary agitation which prevailed in this 
 country in 1832, when the Reform Bill was under 
 discussion, and to the effect which this agitation had 
 in securing its passage through Parliament. In 1867 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURP:. . 113 
 
 we had a repetition of the same result from a similar 
 cause. When the Gladstone ministry resigned in 
 1866, on being unable to carry their Reform Bill, 
 Earl Derby took office and brought in a new Reform 
 Bill, which he probably hoped or expected would be 
 disposed of in the same manner as the previous bills 
 on the same subject. In this, however, he was dis- 
 appointed. This was the seventh Reform Bill that 
 had been introduced into the House of Commons 
 since 1832, the whole of the previous six having 
 been rejected or withdrawn, and this would un- 
 doubtedly have shared the fate of the others but 
 for one circumstance. The country was getting tired 
 of being trifled with. The rejection of the six 
 previous measures had taught the people a lesson they 
 were not likely to forget. They saw plainly that 
 Parliament would not pass any Reform Bill unless 
 it were compelled to do so by strong outside pressure. 
 Accordingly they commenced to organize ; associa- 
 tions, of which the Reform League was the most im- 
 portant, were formed throughout the country, pledged 
 to a thorough reform of the Constitution. By means 
 of public meetings and out-door demonstrations, an 
 agitation was commenced which soon attracted 
 general attention. A monster gathering in favour of 
 reform, to be preceded by a procession, was to take 
 place in Hyde Park, of which due notice had been 
 
 I 
 
114 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 given ; but the government determined that no meet- 
 ing should be held at that place, and a notice for- 
 bidding it was issued by the head of the police. The 
 Council of the League, however, believed that they 
 had a right to hold their meeting there, and accord- 
 ingly resolved to disregard the prohibition. What 
 followed are matters of current history. The crowd 
 that had assembled at the Marble Arch to witness 
 the procession pulled down the park railings, and 
 rushed over them into the park, bearing down by 
 their numbers the police who were there to prevent 
 their entrance. The League had nothing to do with 
 this part of the proceedings, but, curiously enough, it 
 was the only part that was really effective. The de^ 
 monstration at the park gates, and the disorderly con- 
 duct of the mob, convinced the House that the people 
 were no longer to be trifled with. " As we said with 
 regard to the Reform Bill of 1832," remarks Mr. 
 Molesworth, " that it was really carried by the mob 
 of Birmingham and the other parts of the kingdom, 
 so we may say with equal truth of the Reform Bill 
 of 1867, that it was mainly carried by the Hyde 
 Park rioters. Parliament had trifled with the question 
 till the people showed in an unmistakable manner 
 that it could not be trifled with any longer without 
 serious danger." 1 From that moment the question 
 1 Hist, ofEng., vol. iii. p. 291. 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 115 
 
 of reform was taken up in earnest by the House. 
 Mr. Disraeli immediately tabled a series of resolutions, 
 which he proposed making the basis of a Reform 
 Bill. While his resolutions were being submitted to 
 the House, Mr. P. A. Taylor, M.P., explained the pur- 
 port of them to 20,000 working men, representatives 
 of various trades unions, assembled at the Agricul- - 
 tural Hall, Islington. Mr. Disraeli's resolutions were 
 considered unsatisfactory by the meeting, and counter- 
 resolutions were passed in favour of " direct and real 
 representation." The meeting pressed upon the 
 Liberal members in the House "the absolute neces- 
 sity, as they regard the peace and prosperity of the 
 country," of not consenting to any measure of reform 
 designed to evade full and just rights of the people 
 to be directly represented in their own branch of the 
 legislature ; and brought proceedings to a close by 
 declaring their opinion that the statements made in 
 the House of Commons were " complete proof of the 
 present government being unworthy of the confidence 
 of the country." The earnest attitude of the people 
 convinced the government that a make-believe reform 
 would no longer be tolerated. Accordingly the bill 
 founded on the government resolutions was speedily 
 withdrawn, and Mr. Disraeli announced that he would 
 bring in a new bill on the subject. But it appeared 
 that the Cabinet were not agreed on the terms of the 
 
Il6 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 new bill, and this led to the resignation of three 
 members of the ministry who were not prepared to 
 concede so much as their colleagues in the direction 
 of real reform. The new bill was brought in on 
 the 1 8th of March. It proposed a two years' occu- 
 pation and payment of rates for the borough franchise ; 
 a twelvemonth's occupation of premises valued at 
 15, and previous payment of rates for the same 
 period for the county franchise. It provided an 
 educational franchise, also a pecuniary franchise of 
 not less than ^"50 deposited in the bank for two 
 years previous, and double voting was permitted for 
 ratable property. Provision was also made for the 
 disfranchisement of certain small boroughs, for an 
 increase in the number of members for larger 
 boroughs and certain counties. Altogether Mr. 
 Disraeli estimated ' that his bill would confer the 
 franchise on 237,000 additional persons, and that 
 the result of his whole plan would be that one-half 
 of the voting power would belong to the middle 
 classes, one quarter to the working classes, and one 
 quarter to the aristocracy. But even this was con- 
 sidered unsatisfactory, and the Liberal members in 
 the House, acting under Mr. Gladstone's leadership, 
 determined that they would amend it. At a meet- 
 ing of his followers, it was agreed to allow the 
 bill to pass the second reading, but Mr. Gladstone 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 1 1/ 
 
 enumerated a series of ten amendments, which he 
 proposed should be incorporated in the bill when in 
 committee. Mr. Gladstone and his party worked 
 indefatigably to get the bill improved ; and in spite 
 of the Conservative majority and the defection from 
 the Liberal camp, he managed to get nine out of the 
 ten amendments carried in committee. But his 
 success was due entirely to the fact that the agitation 
 out of doors was kept up during the whole of the 
 four months that the bill was under discussion. 
 Public meetings were held all over the country. A 
 great demonstration was held at Birmingham, at 
 which Mr. Bright spoke, and denounced the con- 
 duct of the Liberals who had deserted their party. 
 The Reform League also held several meetings in 
 Hyde Park, as since the riot it had been dis- 
 covered that the government had no right to pre- 
 vent them being held there. The consequence of 
 all this agitation was that the government had to 
 give way on almost every point. The ministry and 
 the House were, in fact, overawed by the attitude of 
 the people. A measure was forced on them which 
 they did not like ; amendments were carried on that 
 measure which they protested would have the effect 
 of destroying it, but which they nevertheless accepted. 
 The Conservative surrender was complete all along 
 the line. There was nothing now left for the op- 
 
Il8 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ponents of reform but to abuse one another for being 
 the first to give way, and this they did in a very 
 hearty and edifying manner. 
 
 The same means which proved so effectual with 
 the Lower House, have been equally successful with 
 the Upper. Outside pressure carried the Irish Church 
 Disestablishment Bill through the Lords, in the same 
 way as it carried the first Reform Bill through the 
 same Chamber. The bill for the disestablishment of 
 the Irish Church was introduced into the House of 
 Commons on the 1st of March, 1869, and it rapidly 
 passed the second and third reading by the large 
 majorities of 118 and 114 respectively. But the bill 
 had still to run the gauntlet of the Upper House, and 
 there it was understood it had no chance of passing 
 unless it was materially altered. Indeed it was 
 believed that the majority against the measure would 
 have been as great in that House, as the majority 
 in favour of it had been in the other. But the Lords 
 were baffled by the earnest attitude of the people out 
 of doors. They accordingly thought it prudent to pass 
 the second reading, which they did by a majority 
 of 33, but with the full intention of disposing 
 of the measure in committee. Great and numerous 
 amendments were accordingly made in committee, 
 which had the effect of giving better terms to the 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 1 19 
 
 Irish clergy than the bill proposed, and of relegating 
 the disposal of the surplus revenue of the Church 
 to some future period. The bill thus amended 
 passed the third reading by a majority of seven. As 
 soon as it was known what the Lords had done, a 
 strong agitation was got up in favour of the bill as it 
 originally stood. At London, Leeds, Bradford,, 
 Sheffield, Edinburgh, and other places, large, impor- 
 tant and enthusiastic meetings were held, at which 
 the amendments of the Lords were condemned and 
 denounced. At Manchester, the Executive Com- 
 mittee of the National Reform Union met and 
 resolved that all the branches of the union should 
 be invited to hold meetings and pass resolutions 
 against the amendments of the Lords. Indeed there 
 was no mistaking the temper of the people on this 
 occasion ; they showed that they were thoroughly 
 determined to have the bill in an unmutilated shape. 
 Mr. Gladstone was not slow to avail himself of the 
 assistance which this expression of feeling afforded 
 him, and when the bill came down to the Lower 
 Chamber he refused to accept a single material 
 amendment. Meantime there was no abatement 
 of the excitement out of doors. The press warmly 
 condemned the action of the Lords ; public meetings 
 in favour of the bill as it originally stood continued to 
 be held in various parts of the country, and deputation 
 
120 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 after deputation waited upon the government urging 
 them not to give way. The ministry were firm, the 
 Commons supported them in their resolution, and 
 the bill was returned to the Lords with the amend- 
 ments struck out. The result was that the Lords 
 made some trifling alterations in the bill, more for 
 the purpose of saving the honour of their House than 
 for any benefit they would be to the Irish Church, and, 
 with the best grace they could, they passed the 
 measure without further discussion. 
 
 These illustrations, I venture to say, go far to 
 prove the truth of the propositions laid down. They 
 also show (i) that public opinion may, and has been 
 made a convenience of by Parliament, and that (2) 
 when forcibly expressed, it may exercise, as it often 
 has exercised, an undue influence over the Legislature. 
 Where Parliament is adverse to a measure, and there 
 is the smallest semblance of an agitation against it 
 outside, this may be made the excuse for rejecting 
 it ; while, at the same time, the very moderation 
 with which a favourable opinion is expressed may 
 be alleged as a proof that the public are not in 
 earnest, or that they do not really want the measure. 
 On the other hand, when there is a violent agitation 
 of the public mind, this may become outside pressure, 
 which may prove a menace to the Legislature and a 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. T2I 
 
 source of serious danger to the State. If the people 
 come to learn that their reasonable demands will not 
 be listened to unless they are forcibly expressed, they 
 will soon learn to express them forcibly enough ; and 
 if demands forcibly made are always conceded, there 
 will soon be no limit to these demands, or to the form 
 in which they will be expressed. For you cannot 
 arbitrarily draw the line at moral force. The greater 
 the pressure, the more forcible the demonstration, it 
 will be argued, the more likely will it effect the desired 
 object. If moral force is not sufficient then physical 
 force may be resorted to. If the platform and the 
 press prove inadequate, these agencies may be supple- 
 mented by riotings and physical force demonstrations. 
 But why should Parliament seek for guidance or 
 instruction outside the constituent body ? The Con- 
 stitution has already provided the most complete and 
 elaborate machinery for ascertaining the opinion of 
 the country. Immense time and labour have been 
 expended by the Legislature in altering and improving 
 that machinery, in deciding who should be entitled 
 to vote and who should not, in arranging the time, 
 place and circumstances under which votes should be 
 recorded ; is it to be said that all this time and labour 
 is to be wasted, and that the electoral machinery 
 is to be laid aside as useless just when we are sup- 
 posed to have got it into nearly perfect working 
 
122 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 order? Is the verdict of the constituent body, 
 solemnly and deliberately taken, to be superseded 
 by the desultory opinions expressed on the platform, 
 the press, and even the club and the market ? and is 
 this verdict to be set aside by the very body which 
 it called into, existence ? By all means let public 
 questions be fully and fearlessly discussed in any 
 manner that will throw the fiercest light upon them ; 
 but we require something more than mere discussion. 
 We must have tangible and accurate results ; we must 
 have the verdict of the country distinctly pronounced 
 in accents that cannot be disputed ; and when the 
 verdict is pronounced we must also have it recorded 
 in legislative enactments. 
 
 The platform and the press have no doubt been 
 useful as organs of public opinion, but they have 
 proved far more valuable as public instructors. As 
 public instructors they stand unrivalled. Almost all 
 the progress we have made during the present century 
 is due to their influence. But for the platform and 
 the press not one of the great reforms of recent times 
 would have been carried. The newspaper press has 
 been especially useful as an educating agency, par- 
 ticularly of late years. Its ramifications now extend 
 in every direction ; its influence is felt in every village 
 and hamlet through the length and breadth of the 
 land. It brings every day to every fireside in- 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 123 
 
 formation on every subject that can interest mankind, 
 and on every event that transpires throughout the 
 civilized world. It grasps every question, social, 
 political or scientific, that concerns itself with humanity 
 at large. Every discussion in Parliament is antici- 
 pated, and every debate is reviewed in its columns. 
 The press at once forms and expresses public opinion. 
 It performs all the functions of a deliberative assembly. 
 There is not a question of home or foreign policy 
 that is not as fully and ably discussed in its columns 
 as in the debates of either House of Parliament. 
 And in these discussions every newspaper reader par- 
 ticipates, becomes as it were, a member of that vast 
 assembly which may be said to embrace the whole 
 nation, so widely are newspapers now read. Had 
 we only the machinery for recording the votes of that 
 assembly we might easily dispense with Parliament 
 altogether. 
 
 But while admitting to the fullest extent the 
 value of these agencies, we must be careful not to 
 make an illegitimate use of them. While it would be 
 difficult to exaggerate their importance as educators, 
 it would be quite possible to over-estimate their value 
 as organs of public opinion. Take the newspaper 
 press, for instance. What means have we of testing 
 the representative character of any newspaper ? 
 What its circulation is, amongst what class its readers 
 
124 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 are to be found, in what estimation it is held by 
 them, and how far it represents their views on any 
 question of the day, we have no means of ascertaining. 
 And yet it is absolutely necessary we should be in 
 possession of all these particulars before we can even 
 make an approximate estimate of its representative 
 value. Mere circulation by itself, for instance, even if 
 it could be ascertained, is no test, for some papers of 
 small circulation have a greater influence than others 
 with five or ten-fold their issue. Papers are also 
 taken for various reasons, some for their business 
 announcements, others for general information, a few 
 only on account of their politics, while many well-to- 
 do people take more than one newspaper holding 
 different and even opposite views. It is now evident 
 that the newspaper press did not represent public 
 opinion in England at the last general election. All 
 the metropolitan papers of large circulation were 
 opposed to Mr. Gladsone, and the great majority of 
 newspapers, both metropolitan and provincial, gave a 
 general support to the government of Lord Beacons- 
 field. 1 The signal defeat which this government 
 
 1 It is amusing to read, by the light of recent events, the speeches, 
 newspaper and review articles of the Conservative party during the 
 discussion on the Reform Bill of 1832, as to the effect which the 
 extension of the suffrage would have upon the time-honoured institutions 
 of the country. We were then told over and over again that the new 
 electors would come to exercise their franchise instigated "by an 
 incendiary newspaper press." The same sort of prognostications 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 125 
 
 suffered at the hands of the constituencies on that 
 occasion, was therefore a surprise to that section of 
 the public that put their faith in newspaper opinion. 
 Even the Liberal press never anticipated such a 
 victory, and the Liberal party as well as the Con- 
 servatives were altogether unprepared for it. We are 
 too apt to forget that newspaper readers are quite 
 capable of forming an independent opinion on the 
 questions of the day, and are therefore not disposed 
 to take for gospel all that their newspaper tells them. 
 Public meetings are even more unreliable than 
 the press as indications of the real feeling of the 
 country. In the first place, only a small portion of 
 the people ever attend public meetings at all, and, in 
 the second place, they are not fairly representative even 
 to the extent that the public patronize them. Public 
 meetings, as a rule, are got up by the wire pullers of a 
 party, and only the more active politicians of the 
 party attend them. No doubt they are admirable 
 devices for working up an agitation, and they make 
 good party demonstrations, but for that very reason 
 they are useless as a test of public opinion. Public 
 
 preceded the abolition of the Newspaper Stamp Act, and were again 
 indulged in when proposals were made to abolish the duty on paper. 
 But the " incendiary newspaper press " has not yet made its appearance. 
 The fact is notorious that even the penny press in England is distinctly 
 conservative in tone, and no doubt it will always be so more or less 
 as long as the chief profits of newspapers are derived from advertise- 
 ments. 
 
126 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 meetings are of value only when they are spontaneous. 
 If due notice has not been given when and where 
 they are to be held ; if the public generally, and not 
 a section of it only, have not been invited ; if they 
 have not been carefully packed beforehand so that 
 only one side is represented ; in a word, if they have 
 been got up to suit party purposes, they are 
 perfectly useless as demonstrations of public feeling. 
 But even supposing them to be spontaneous, what are 
 we to make of them ? How are we to distinguish 
 between one meeting and another, and how many 
 meetings will it take to constitute public opinion ? 
 Will the carrying of a resolution, or a series of 
 resolutions, at such meetings be considered con- 
 clusive, or will other measures require to be resorted 
 to in order to convince Parliament that the country 
 is in earnest? In London, for instance, will it be 
 necessary to supplement public meetings by a proces- 
 sion through the principal streets ; will a few hundred 
 roughs be required to pull down the park railings, or 
 to hoot and yell before the residence of an obnoxious 
 party leader? If that is not enough, will outside 
 pressure in the shape of tumultuous assemblies be 
 required, or must a riot or two be thrown in and 
 a few lives lost in order to make a really effective 
 demonstration ? 
 
 With Parliament public opinion may be anything 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. I 2/ 
 
 according to the humour it is in for the time being. 
 If it is in favour of a measure, a very mild demon- 
 stration in support of it is called public opinion ; 
 while, if adversely disposed, a much stronger demon- 
 stration, a large amount of outside pressure, some- 
 times nothing short of threats and signs of revolution, 
 will be accepted as an. indication that the public 
 really mean what they say. People of a certain class 
 when asked for a favour which they do not intend to 
 grant but which they do not like openly to refuse, 
 often resort to a mean and dishonest subterfuge. A 
 person of this class will in such a case pretend that 
 he requires to consult his colleague, or his partner, or 
 some person whom he represents to be interested in 
 the matter .before he can give an answer, well 
 knowing all the time what will be the result of the 
 consultation should any take place. In the same way 
 members of Parliament when asked by their con- 
 stituents to support a measure immediately profess 
 the greatest anxiety to know what the public think 
 about it. They express their readiness to do all 
 that lies in their power to pass it into law if the 
 public will only pronounce emphatically in its favour, 
 knowing full well all the time that the probabilities 
 are against the public speaking out strongly on the 
 matter. For the public are not equally in earnest 
 on every question that comes before Parliament. It 
 
128 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 is only on rare occasions that the people can be 
 roused to excitement, and it would be strange if it 
 were otherwise. On ordinary occasions the public 
 make no sign. We have seen reform bill after reform 
 bill rejected or laid aside and no excitement evoked, 
 although the country was all the time in favour of 
 reform. Moderate measures, as a rule, call forth no 
 enthusiasm in their favour ; and it is just such 
 measures that are sacrificed under the present system. 
 The absence of any popular agitation in favour of a 
 bill obnoxious to Parliament serves an excuse for 
 rejecting, or at all events for modifying or delaying 
 it, while the slightest adverse criticism is eagerly 
 seized upon for the same purpose. The modus 
 operandi is very simple. If there is no excitement 
 in favour of a popular measure, reject it without 
 ceremony, no matter how useful or necessary it may 
 be from a public point of view ; if there is a strong 
 feeling in favour of it, a more cautious course of 
 proceeding is necessary however. In such a case the 
 bill must be delayed, the people must be made weary 
 of the subject, and when they are in this frame of 
 mind the measure may without danger be " amended " 
 and mutilated in such a way as to neutralize any 
 advantages that the public might have derived 
 from it. That is the whole theory of parliamentary 
 government as understood and practised at the pre- 
 
OUTSIDE PRESSURE. 129 
 
 sent day. Sir Erskine May, no mean authority on 
 such a subject, has stated the case with his usual 
 candour. In describing the course followed by the 
 House of Lords when a popular measure comes up 
 before it, he says : " If the people are indifferent 
 to a measure the Lords can safely reject it altogether ; 
 if too popular in principle to be so dealt with, they 
 may qualify, and perhaps neutralize it, by amend- 
 ments, without any shock to public feeling/' 1 
 
 1 Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 266. 
 
130 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 
 
 GOVERNMENT by Parliament, we have seen, has 
 degenerated into Government by Party, and if we 
 follow the course of Government by Party we shall 
 find it again degenerates into Government by Cabinet, 
 to be further resolved into Government by a Single 
 Person. The cabinet has appropriated to itself all 
 the executive and legislative functions of state. It 
 is the cabinet that arranges the business of Parlia- 
 ment, prepares the measures that are laid before it, 
 and determines the domestic and foreign policy of 
 the country. And in the cabinet the premier is 
 supreme. He is the chief officer of state, the actual 
 head of the government, the leader and controller 
 of Parliament, and the ruler of the destinies of the 
 nation. 
 
 Government by Cabinet is another of those insti- 
 tutions which came in at the Revolution. Previous 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET, 13! 
 
 to that time ministers were simply the administrators 
 of the government. Their functions were purely 
 executive. They were in reality what they now are 
 only in name, the ministers of the Crown. It was 
 none of their duties to prepare measures for the con- 
 sideration of Parliament, or to control its decisions. 
 The business of legislation was left entirely to Par- 
 liament. All important measures which are now 
 prepared by ministers were formerly undertaken by 
 the House itself, at its own instance and on its own 
 responsibility. Indeed, had the early Parliaments 
 depended on ministers initiating and carrying through 
 important, and more especially popular measures, it 
 would have been impossible to have secured those 
 legislative safeguards of public liberty which the 
 nation now enjoys. The leaders of the Parliaments 
 of those days were not the king's ministers but 
 private members, men distinguished for their elo- 
 quence or their patriotism, and it was to them 
 that Parliament usually entrusted the preparation 
 of its measures. It was Harley, while he was a 
 private member, who, at the request of the Com- 
 mons, prepared the Triennial Bill ; it was Somers, 
 before he was a minister, who drew up the Bill 
 of Rights ; and it was to a committee of the House 
 of Commons that we owe the Habeas Corpus and 
 the Great Remonstrance. In early times, as a rule, 
 
132 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ministers of the Crown were not members of Parlia- 
 ment ; and when ministers desired any measure to 
 be passed they had to secure the services of some 
 private member to introduce it. Subsequently such 
 members as undertook the government business were 
 called " managers." Middleton and Sir Dudley North, 
 in the time of James II., for instance, were so 
 designated. 
 
 It took a long time for Parliament to become 
 reconciled to Government by Cabinet. On the 
 first introduction of the system, and before it was 
 known by its present name, cabinets were highly 
 unpopular both inside and outside of Parliament. 
 The giving of secret advice to the sovereign, or what 
 is practically the same thing, the political unity of 
 ministers, now considered an essential feature of 
 parliamentary government, was at first strongly con- 
 demned ; and Parliament, foreseeing the evils to which 
 such a system would inevitably lead, insisted that 
 ministers should be held individually responsible for 
 the advice they gave to their sovereign. With this 
 view a clause was introduced into the Act of Settle- 
 ment, which provided that "all matters and things 
 relating to the well governing of this kingdom, which 
 are properly cognizable in the Privy Council by the 
 laws and customs of this realm, shall be transacted 
 there, and all resolutions taken thereupon shall be 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 133 
 
 signed by such of the Privy Council as shall advise 
 and consent to the same." 1 The system of corporate 
 responsibility was first formally recognized in 1693 ; 
 but there is no instance of the dismissal or resignation 
 of a whole ministry, and its replacement by another, 
 till the reign of George I. ; and the change which 
 then took place was due to the personal objection of 
 that sovereign to the ministers of his predecessor' 
 rather than to any difference in their public policy. 
 Even when Walpole resigned, in consequence of a 
 vote of want of confidence being carried against him 
 in the House, his colleagues still continued to hold 
 office under his successor. The first instance of a 
 simultaneous change of a whole cabinet on political 
 grounds was that of the Rockingham ministry in 
 1782 ; and even in this instance Lord Chancellor 
 Thurlow did not go out with his colleagues. It 
 thus appears that nearly a century elapsed before 
 the political unity of ministers could be said to 
 be established. Up till this period, and for some 
 time subsequently, there were administrators of the 
 government, but no cabinet, no ministry. Towns- 
 hend, for instance, and others, used to set their 
 colleagues at defiance. The government was carried 
 on by departments, but the ministers at the head of 
 these departments were held to be less responsible to 
 
 1 12 & 13 William III. c. 2. 
 
134 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Parliament than to the sovereign. The king was in. 
 fact the head of the ministry. He exercised the same 
 influence over his ministers as the premier now does 
 over his colleagues. He appointed or dismissed them 
 at pleasure, and it was from him that they took their 
 policy. When the system was changed, the general 
 control of the departments was transferred, not to 
 Parliament, as it ought to have been, but to the 
 premier. When the famous coalition ministry was 
 formed in 1783, Mr. Fox, at a private meeting which 
 took place between his new allies, objected to the 
 king acting as his own minister, to which Lord North 
 replied : " If you mean there should not be govern- 
 ment by departments, I agree with you ; I think it 
 a very bad system. There should be one man, or 
 a cabinet, to govern the whole, and direct every 
 measure." 1 Lord North's suggestion has been acted 
 upon ever since. But the modern practice of leaving 
 it to the cabinet to initiate and carry through Parlia- 
 ment all important and public measures was not 
 established for a long time afterwards. In 1782, for 
 example, Mr. Burke carried his Bill for Economical 
 Reform, a measure which no government at the 
 present day would leave to a private member ; in 
 1819 Mr. Peel, when a private member, carried his 
 Currency Bill; and in 1830 Lord Brougham, in his 
 
 1 Russell's Correspondence of Fox, vol. ii. p. 38. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 135 
 
 private capacity, introduced his measure for the 
 establishment of Local Courts of Justice without con- 
 sulting with his colleagues in the government. 
 
 The position which the cabinet holds in the 
 Parliamentary system of the present day is thus 
 laid down by Earl Grey : " It is the distinguishing 
 feature of parliamentary government that it requires , 
 the powers belonging to the Crown to be exercised 
 through ministers, who are held responsible for the 
 manner in which they are used, who are expected to 
 be members of the two Houses of Parliament, the 
 proceedings of which they must be able generally to 
 guide, and who are considered entitled to hold their 
 offices while they possess the confidence of Parliament, 
 and more especially of the House of Commons." ] 
 The doctrine of the unity of the cabinet and of its 
 internal relations, is thus stated and explained by 
 another high authority : " The nicest of all the 
 adjustments involved in the working of the British 
 government," says Mr. Gladstone, " is that which 
 determines, without formally defining the internal 
 relations of the cabinet. On the one hand, while 
 each minister is an adviser of the Crown, the cabinet 
 is a unity, and none of its members can advise as 
 an individual without, or in opposition actual or 
 presumed to his colleagues. On the other hand, the 
 
 1 Parl. Gov., p. 4. 
 
136 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN. ENGLAND. 
 
 business of the State is a hundred times too great in 
 volume to allow the actual passing of the whole under 
 the review of the collective ministry. It is therefore 
 a prime office of discretion for each minister to settle 
 what are the departmental acts in which he can 
 presume on the concurrence of his colleagues, and 
 in what more delicate, or weighty, or peculiar cases 
 he must positively ascertain it." 1 Thus any action, 
 departmental or legislative, taken by any minister 
 with the consent of his colleagues, is regarded not as 
 the action of the individual minister, but of the cabinet 
 or of ministers collectively. Each minister is sup- 
 posed to be directly responsible to Parliament for 
 his own ministerial acts so long as he proceeds on 
 his own authority ; but if he consults his colleagues 
 beforehand and acts with their consent they share 
 his responsibility, and in that case they would be 
 jointly responsible for his acts. This joint consulta- 
 tion and responsibility is what is called Responsible 
 Government. 
 
 In all this, be it observed, no account is taken 
 of Parliament in the first instance. The cabinet 
 consult, act, and incur responsibility, and then ask 
 the sanction of Parliament for what they have done. 
 If the action of the cabinet is approved of, they hold 
 their places ; if not, they must resign. Parliament is 
 
 1 Gleanings, vol. i. p. 242. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 137 
 
 thus placed in an awkward dilemma : it cannot ex- 
 press disapproval of the action of the government 
 without bringing about their downfall ; and it cannot 
 pass over their offence without condoning it. There 
 is no third course open for it ; Parliament has no 
 option but to accept the cabinet and its policy 
 together, or reject both. If Parliament were made 
 the judge in the first instance, the arrangement would 
 be more in accordance with the theory of parlia- 
 mentary government, and the House would be more 
 likely to arrive at a sound decision on the merits of 
 the case submitted to it. On the other hand, if the 
 cabinet decides first, and afterwards asks Parliament 
 to confirm its decision, it is not in the least probable 
 that ministers will supply any information that might 
 lead Parliament to condemn their own conduct. 
 Besides, the fact of ministers having committed them- 
 selves to an issue, the question before the House 
 immediately becomes a party one, is no longer dis- 
 cussed on its merits, but is overshadowed by the, 
 from a party point of view, more important question 
 of the existence of the government. Of course, cor- 
 porate responsibility is an immense advantage to 
 ministers. A minister with a weak case is then 
 supported by the whole cabinet, and the cabinet in 
 turn are defended by their whole party. Individual re- 
 sponsibility, on the other hand, is far more favourable 
 
138 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 to good government, as a bad or incapable minister 
 could be got rid of without difficulty; and where there 
 is a difference of opinion among ministers on any 
 question of policy, the public are more likely to get 
 at the truth of the matter if the issue were made an 
 open one. 
 
 The other side of the question has been very 
 forcibly put by Sir G. C. Lewis. In a letter to Mr. 
 W. R. Greg, he points out what he conceives would 
 be the consequences which would follow from any 
 attempt to break up the political unity of the cabinet. 
 " You appear," he writes, " to assume that the govern- 
 ment would be a government by departments ; that 
 each man is to do what seems best to himself in his 
 own department, provided he can carry it in Parliament, 
 even against the opposition of his colleagues. You 
 put the case of a foreign minister in favour of con- 
 tinuing the war, and a chancellor of the exchequer 
 in favour of making peace. Now, in the first place, 
 it seems to me that your system would render meet- 
 ings of the cabinet useless or mischievous. Ministers 
 would meet to dispute, and part to differ. Besides, 
 how would it be safe to read confidential despatches 
 before persons who were in communication with men 
 of an opposite party, and would immediately go and 
 disclose the information ? However, I will suppose 
 that no cabinets were held, that each minister acted 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 139 
 
 for himself according to the best of his judgment. 
 What I do not understand is, how a war could be 
 conducted by a warlike foreign minister, if the chan- 
 cellor of the exchequer was peaceful. He would say, 
 I am against war ; I think it impolitic and mis- 
 chievous, and I shall propose a peace budget. When 
 the estimates came in from the War Department to 
 the Treasury for approbation, he would withhold it, 
 unless they were reduced to a peace scale. The same 
 argument might be extended to every department in 
 succession." 1 Sir G. C. Lewis here supposes that 
 if government by cabinet were abolished we should 
 have to fall back upon government by departments. 
 But there is another obvious alternative which has 
 not yet been tried. I mean, of course, Government 
 by Parliament. We have had government by prero- 
 gative, government by the army, government by 
 departments, government by party, and now we have 
 government by cabinet ; but we have never had 
 government by Parliament. When government by 
 departments was in operation, the heads of depart*- 
 ments were controlled by the sovereign ; we have not 
 yet had government by departments directly con- 
 trolled by Parliament. Yet this is precisely the kind 
 of government that the Constitution provides for. 
 The functions of ministers are, or ought to be, simply 
 
 1 Life and Letters of Sir G. C. Lewis, p. 284. 
 
140 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 administrative. Ministers are the executive com- 
 mittee of Parliament. It is their duty to carry on the 
 departmental business of government, and nothing 
 more. And there is no more reason to anticipate that 
 the members of a committee of this kind would meet 
 only to differ and dispute, than would any select com- 
 mittee of the House appointed for any other purpose. 
 If a select committee do not agree, the minority may 
 submit a separate report setting forth the reasons 
 why they differ from the majority, and when the 
 question submitted to them comes up before the 
 House the fullest light will be thrown on the whole 
 matter in dispute. There is no reason why ministers 
 should not follow the same rule. The remark that 
 it would be unsafe to read confidential despatches 
 before persons who might be in communication with 
 men of an opposite party is beside the question, 
 because I am assuming a state of things altogether 
 different from what at present exists. Sir G. C. Lewis 
 professes not to be able to understand how a war 
 could be conducted by a warlike foreign minister if 
 the chancellor of the exchequer was inclined for peace, 
 as the latter, in such a case, would withhold appro- 
 priation for war purposes. There need, however, be 
 no difficulty in the case, if we assume it to be the 
 duty of ministers simply to aclvise Parliament, and 
 the duty of Parliament to instruct ministers. Sir 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 141 
 
 G. C. Lewis's whole argument rests on the assump- 
 tion that ministers are independent of parliamentary 
 control. 
 
 But, say the advocates of party government, a 
 popular assembly like the House of Commons must 
 be brought under discipline ; there must be some 
 one to guide it, or nothing but hasty and ill-advised 
 results will follow from its deliberations. According 
 to the system of party government the head of the 
 ministry is the recognized leader of the House, who 
 brings it under his discipline and guides its decisions. 
 The dread of the resignation of ministers, we are told, 
 will induce their followers to support the measures 
 they bring forward, while their opponents will, at the 
 same time, be deterred from the factious opposition by 
 the fear entertained by its leaders that in succeeding 
 to office they might find insuperable difficulties in the 
 way of acting differently from their predecessors. 
 " Ministers," says Earl Grey, " could not be held 
 answerable for the conduct of a Parliament they had 
 no power to direct, and the only responsibility left 
 would be that of the House collectively. Experience, 
 as I have already remarked, proves that a responsi- 
 bility shared amongst so many is really felt by none ; 
 and that a popular assembly, which will not submit to 
 follow the guidance of some leader, is ever uncertain 
 in its conduct and unstable in its decisions. After the 
 
142 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 Revolution of 1688, when the House of Commons had 
 by that event acquired great power, and had not yet 
 been brought under the discipline of our present 
 system, these evils were grievously felt. They would 
 be far more so in the present state of society, and we 
 must expect to see the House of Commons arriving at 
 many hasty and ill-judged decisions, and its members 
 giving their votes much oftener than they now do 
 contrary to their judgment in deference to public 
 clamour, if they were relieved from the apprehension 
 of creating the difficulties that arise from a change of 
 government. Those who have watched the proceed- 
 ings of Parliament cannot be ignorant how many 
 unwise votes have been prevented by the dread of the 
 resignation of ministers, and that the most effective 
 check on factious conduct on the part of the opposition 
 is the fear entertained by its leaders of driving the 
 government to resign on a question upon which, if 
 they should themselves succeed to power, they would 
 find insuperable difficulties in acting different from 
 their predecessors." l 
 
 Now, in the first place, it is not ministers that should 
 be held answerable for the conduct of Parliament, but 
 Parliament that should be held answerable for the 
 conduct of ministers. In the second place, Govern- 
 ment by Party necessitates the existence not of one 
 
 1 Grey's Parl. Gov., p. 102. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 143 
 
 but of two leaders, not of one party, but of two 
 parties ; and these two leaders and two parties are 
 supposed to be in direct opposition to each other an 
 arrangement not conducive to unity of action on the 
 part of the House, but the reverse. In the third 
 place, the dread of ministers resigning if defeated on 
 their measures will, it is true, induce their followers to , 
 support them ; but their support will be of an indis- 
 criminating character, that is to say, they will support 
 the bad measures as well as the good ones. The 
 argument therefore proves too much, unless we are 
 to assume that ministers are infallible. In the fourth 
 place, for the same reason that the ministerial follow- 
 ing will give ministers an indiscriminating support, 
 will their opponents give them an indiscriminating 
 opposition, that is, they will oppose the good measures 
 as well as the bad ones. As for the opposition 
 being deterred from factious conduct by dread 
 of the resignation of ministers, the idea cannot be 
 seriously entertained for a moment. The resignation 
 of ministers is the very thing the opposition want ; 
 instead of dreading it, it is what they desire above all 
 things. It is the function of the opposition to oppose, 
 and the rules of party warfare will justify them in 
 opposing any and every measure proposed by the 
 government. And if the opposition succeed to office, 
 no matter by what tactics, they could find no difficulty 
 
144 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 in adopting a policy different from that of their pre- 
 decessors ; indeed they would be bound to do so by 
 the mere fact of having ousted them. To do other- 
 wise would be to stultify themselves, and to override 
 the majority which supported them in their opposition 
 and placed them in office. 
 
 The statement that " a popular assembly, which 
 will not submit to follow the guidance of some leader, 
 is ever uncertain in its conduct, and unstable in its 
 decisions," is open to question as a matter of fact, 
 and even if it were true it would be an argument 
 in favour of a system of pure despotism. The refer- 
 ence to the period of the Revolution is also an 
 unfortunate one for the advocates of party govern- 
 ment, for the disorderly conduct of Parliament in 
 those days was entirely due to the violence of party 
 spirit. If Parliament failed at that particular time, it 
 was because party feeling ran riot. At no period of 
 our history was it more headstrong, more vindictive, 
 more implacable, than immediately after the Revolu- 
 tion. " From the Commonwealth to the Civil Wai- 
 troubles of the seventeenth century down to the 
 Revolution," says Macaulay, "every victory gained 
 by either party had been followed by a sanguinary 
 proscription. When the Roundheads triumphed over 
 the Cavaliers, when the Cavaliers triumphed over the 
 Roundheads, when the fable of the Popish plot gave 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 145 
 
 the ascendency to the Whigs, when the detection of 
 the Rye House plot transferred the ascendency to 
 the Tories, blood, and more blood, and still more 
 blood had flowed. Every great explosion, and every 
 great recoil of public feeling, had been accompanied 
 by severities which, at the time, predominant faction 
 loudly applauded, but which, on a calm review, history- 
 and posterity have condemned." And speaking of 
 the mood in which the Whigs returned to Parliament 
 in 1690, he describes them as "smarting from old 
 sufferings, drunk with recent prosperity, burning 
 with implacable resentment, confident of irresistible 
 strength, they were not less rash and headstrong than 
 in the days of the Exclusion Bill. Sixteen hundred 
 and eighty was come again. All compromise was 
 rejected. Again the voices of the wisest and most 
 upright friends of liberty were drowned by the 
 clamour of hot-headed and designing agitators. 
 Again moderation was despised as cowardice, or 
 execrated as treachery. All the lessons taught by a 
 cruel experience were forgotten. The very men who 
 had expatiated, by years of humiliation, of imprison- 
 ment, of penury, of exile, the folly with which they 
 had misused the advantage given them by the Popish 
 plot, now misused with equal folly the advantage 
 given them by the Revolution. The second madness 
 would in all probability, like the first, have ended in 
 
 L 
 
146 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 their proscription, dispersion, decimation, but for the 
 magnanimity and wisdom of that great prince, who, 
 bent on fulfilling his mission, and insensible alike to 
 flattery and to outrage, coldly and inflexibly saved 
 them in their own despite." 1 Party rancour was 
 carried to such an extent as to render any kind of 
 government all but impossible. William tried each 
 party in turn, but failed to manage either. He was 
 so disgusted with the conduct of both parties that he 
 resolved to abdicate, and had actually made pre- 
 parations for leaving the country. At length he 
 discovered a way of managing Parliament. He re- 
 sorted to bribery. Macaulay tells us that he had an 
 aversion to this mode of influencing Parliament ; that 
 he had resolved to abstain from it, and during the 
 first year of his reign that he kept his resolution. But 
 had to abandon it at last. Burnet ventured to remon- 
 strate with the king on the subject. " Nobody," 
 William answered, " hates bribery more than I. But 
 I have to do with a set of men who must be managed 
 in this vile way or not at all. I must strain a point, 
 or the country is lost." 
 
 It is admitted on all hands that the practice of 
 holding the cabinet responsible for their legislative 
 measures is attended with great inconvenience. In 
 1841, Lord John Russell protested against the prin- 
 
 1 Hist. ofEng., vol. iii. p. 509. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 147 
 
 ciple that a government should be expected to carry 
 all the measures they may submit to Parliament. "If," 
 said he, " on the one hand new duties have been 
 imposed upon ministers, and you require them to 
 carry through Parliament measures which they deem 
 of essential importance, so, on the other hand, you 
 must make fair allowance for the effect of discussion 
 and the expression of the deliberate opinions, first of 
 members of this House, and secondly of our con- 
 stituents, which will inevitably occasion the alteration 
 of some measures and the rejection of others." l 
 Again in 1844, Sir Robert Peel, in the course of a 
 discussion on the Factories Bill, said that "with 
 respect to many great measures, the sense of the 
 Legislature ought to prevail ; and that if no great 
 principle be involved, and very dangerous con- 
 sequences are not expected to result, the government 
 ought not to declare to Parliament that they stake 
 their existence as a government on any particular 
 measures." 2 
 
 If the principle here laid down by Sir Robert 
 Peel be correct, namely, that with measures of an 
 ordinary character the sense of the Legislature should 
 prevail, it surely cannot be contended that Parliament 
 is to have no voice in regard to measures which 
 
 1 Mirror of Parliament, 1841, pp. 2120-21. 
 * Hansard, vol. Ixxiii. pp. 1482, 1493? 
 
148 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 involve great principles or dangerous consequences. 
 I should imagine, on the contrary, that it is precisely 
 on questions of great importance that the Legislature 
 should be consulted, and that to contend that it 
 should confine its attention exclusively to small mat- 
 ters is equivalent to saying that Parliament is unfit 
 for its duties. 
 
 It has, indeed, been contended that if ministers 
 cannot rely on being able to pass their measures 
 without substantial alteration, " they will naturally 
 refrain from bestowing the necessary pains to render 
 them perfect and complete." 1 It is evident, how- 
 ever, that if ministers will only bestow the necessary 
 pains upon their measures, on the understanding that 
 Parliament will not alter them, their measures will 
 not get any benefit from the deliberations of Parlia- 
 ment. The contention strikes at the very root of 
 parliamentary government, for if Parliament has 
 simply to endorse such measures as ministers are 
 pleased to submit to it, and in the manner they please, 
 it is difficult to see what advantage there is in having 
 a Parliament at all. But the argument has a grotesque 
 as well as a serious aspect. What would be thought 
 of a bank manager, for instance, who, whenever he 
 made a proposal to his directors, insisted that they 
 should either accept that proposal in its entirety or 
 
 1 Todd's ParL Gov., vol. ii. p. 312. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 149 
 
 his resignation ? Would the directors not say that 
 they were entitled to his best advice in any case, and 
 that it was for them to accept or reject that advice 
 as they thought proper ? Suppose the manager went 
 further, and said, " I have a scheme to lay before you 
 which I believe would benefit the institution, but that 
 scheme I decline to carry out, unless you tell me, 
 beforehand that you will not alter it in any way what- 
 ever" would not the directors consider it was time 
 to get rid of such a manager ? Yet this is exactly 
 the attitude which the cabinet assumes towards Par- 
 liament, if we are to accept the arguments put forth 
 by the advocates of the present system. 
 
 The theory of the corporate responsibility of the 
 ministers almost invariably breaks down when it is 
 put to the test of experience, and breaks down, be 
 it observed, precisely when great principles are in- 
 volved and when dangerous consequences are ex- 
 pected to result. When ministers are defeated on a 
 question of great importance to the country, one that 
 cannot be made the plaything of a party, the oppo- 
 sition who take their places are under an obligation to 
 bring in a new measure on the same subject, which 
 shall be accepted by the House in the place of the 
 one which they rejected. But the new ministers 
 almost invariably endeavour to shirk their responsi- 
 bility in this respect ; for they know that if they have 
 
150 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 not a large majority behind them, they are almost 
 certain to be defeated. They therefore decline to 
 proceed with the question in the ordinary way, namely, 
 by a bill, and adopt what is undoubtedly the safer 
 course but an altogether irregular one from a party 
 point of view that, namely, of proposing certain 
 resolutions which, if approved of by the House, will 
 form the framework of a bill to be afterwards em- 
 bodied into a ministerial measure. This course has 
 been followed in numerous instances, but I shall only 
 refer to two of recent date. 
 
 In February, 1858, Lord Palmerston introduced a 
 bill to transfer Her Majesty's possessions in India to 
 the British Government, but a change of ministry took 
 place before the second reading came on. In the fol- 
 lowing month, Mr. Disraeli, the new Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, brought in a bill for effecting the same 
 purpose ; but this bill was not any more acceptable 
 to the House than the one introduced by Lord 
 Palmerston. On its becoming apparent that ministers 
 would be defeated on their bill if they persevered 
 with it, and the question, which was pressing for 
 settlement, would be indefinitely postponed, Lord 
 John Russell, a member of the opposition, suggested 
 that they should consent to allow the question to be 
 discussed in committee of the whole, upon general 
 resolutions, in order that the principles might be 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 151 
 
 determined on which should form the basis of a new 
 bill. The House accepted the suggestion, and Mr. 
 Disraeli subsequently tabled fourteen resolutions, 
 which, after much debate, were ultimately reduced 
 to five, and reported to the House ; and a new bill, 
 in conformity with these resolutions, was introduced 
 and accordingly passed into law. Had this unusual' 
 course not been adopted, we should probably have 
 had a repetition of the occurrences which took place 
 in 1784 over the India Bill of Mr. Fox. No less 
 than three changes of ministries and one general 
 election, the most severely contested election on 
 record, took place over that measure, and all other 
 business was completely suspended while it was under 
 discussion. 
 
 The other instance occurred in 1867 in connection 
 with the question of parliamentary reform, and to 
 which reference has already been made. The Russell 
 ministry having resigned the previous year owing to 
 their inability to carry their Reform Bill, they were 
 succeeded by the Derby ministry, who, finding them- 
 selves compelled to take up the question left unsettled 
 by their predecessors, and feeling certain at the same 
 time that if they made it a cabinet question they would 
 immediately be defeated, proposed a series of resolu- 
 tions, with the view of eliciting from the House its 
 views upon the question. On this occasion Lord Derby 
 
152 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 announced that his object was "not to pledge the 
 government to a specific point upon any one of these 
 resolutions, but to endeavour to obtain the general 
 opinion of the House as to what measure would be 
 likely to meet with general assent." 1 The proposal 
 was received in a friendly spirit by both sides of the 
 House ; but the resolutions when submitted were 
 considered too indefinite, and it was suggested that 
 the subject of reform should only be dealt with in a 
 ministerial bill. In accordance with the wish of the 
 House, both sides being of opinion that the question of 
 reform could no longer be postponed, Mr. Disraeli 
 withdrew his resolutions and brought in his Reform 
 Bill. The bill, which was introduced on the 25th 
 February, however, failed to satisfy the House, and 
 the government withdrew it without waiting for an 
 adverse vote, and immediately introduced a second 
 bill of a more liberal character. Even this bill was 
 not liberal enough for the House, and it was materially 
 altered in committee notwithstanding the strenuous 
 opposition of ministers, who nevertheless accepted the 
 amendments, and the bill ultimately passed. Thus 
 on such a vital question as constitutional reform, 
 ministers not only took their instructions from the 
 House in the first instance, but even the second bill 
 which they introduced when they found that their first 
 
 1 Hansard^ vol. clxxxv. p. 1285. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 153 
 
 was not acceptable, they permitted to be materially 
 altered by the House. Had ministers defiantly told 
 Parliament that it must accept the measure as they 
 presented it, there can be little doubt but that it would 
 have gone the way of the other six Reform Bills which 
 had preceded it. 
 
 Notwithstanding all the learned treatises which 
 have been written on parliamentary government, will 
 it be believed that no rule, principle, or constitutional 
 usage has yet been discovered whereby it can be 
 determined what should, or what should not, be re- 
 garded as a cabinet question ? It would appear that 
 questions are not declared ministerial or non-ministerial 
 because of their importance or non-importance, as 
 one would expect, but are deemed ministerial only if 
 ministers are agreed upon them, and open ones if 
 they disagree. Thus important questions like Par- 
 liamentary Reform, Vote by Ballot, the Abolition 
 of the lave Trade, Roman Catholic Emancipation, 
 and Free Trade, have severally been considered as open 
 questions by some administrations and not by others. 1 
 The cabinet, it would appear, hold themselves re- 
 sponsible for just what they please and for nothing 
 more. If they cannot come to an agreement on any 
 
 1 Todd's ParL Gov., vol. ii. p. 327. 
 
154 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 question, they quietly leave it an open one ; but if 
 they do agree, it forthwith becomes a cabinet question, 
 and their followers are directed to vote for it. The 
 whole matter is left absolutely to the discretion of 
 the cabinet. There is nothing to guide ministers in 
 such a momentous matter but their own sweet will. 
 
 It is generally believed, however, that there is one 
 recognize^ rule, and that is, when a change of 
 ministry takes place the incoming ministry shall be 
 held responsible to Parliament for the policy which 
 occasioned the retirement of their predecessors. 1 But 
 if there be such a rule, all I can say is that it is 
 seldom put in practice, and it would not be difficult 
 to find instances where it has been glaringly set 
 aside. Thus, when the first Portland administration 
 succeeded to office, in consequence of Parliament 
 having expressed its dissatisfaction with the manner in 
 which they had negotiated the terms of peace, the 
 new ministry, on the assembling of Parliament, an- 
 nounced in the king's speech that they had signed 
 the treaty of peace, leaving it to be understood that 
 the terms were different from what their predeces- 
 sors were prepared to accord. But Mr. Pitt, the 
 leader of the opposition, informed the House that 
 the treaty was substantially identical with the pre- 
 liminary articles upon which ministers had turned 
 
 Todd's Par!. Gov., vol. i. p. 223. 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. 155 
 
 out their predecessors. 1 Again, on the 7th of April, 
 1835, Sir Robert Peel's first administration was de- 
 feated on a motion of Lord John Russell in regard 
 to the temporalities of the Irish Church and the 
 adjustment of the Irish tithe question, and the motion 
 was accepted by them as a vote of want of confidence. 
 On the 1 8th of the same month Lord Melbourne 
 accepted office, but he brought in no bill in accord- 
 ance with the terms of his motion, although he sub- 
 sequently held office for nearly six and a half years 
 altogether. 
 
 On two occasions only within the last hundred 
 years has the incoming cabinet assumed the respon- 
 sibility of the policy on which they obtained office. The 
 first was in 1783, in Pitt's first administration. Mr. 
 Pitt had, as already stated, succeeded to office on the 
 dismissal of the first Portland ministry on account of 
 the rejection of Mr. Fox's India Bill, and a measure 
 on that subject being extremely urgent, the new 
 ministry took up the question, and after a long 
 struggle and a general election, succeeded in passing 
 a bill through both Houses. In this case, however, 
 Mr. Fox's bill had been rejected by the Lords and 
 not by the Commons, where it had passed by a large 
 majority. The second occasion in which the same 
 course was followed was in 1867, to which I have 
 
 1 ParL Hist., vol. xxiii. p. 1140. 
 
156 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 already referred, when the Derby ministry took up 
 the reform question on which they had defeated the 
 government of Lord John Russell. 
 
 Still more extraordinary is the absence of any 
 rule, principle or established usage in respect to an 
 appeal to the country on a question on which 
 ministers have suffered a defeat in Parliament. One 
 should certainly expect that when ministers appealed 
 from Parliament to the country, they would appeal 
 on the issue on which they had been defeated, and on 
 no other ; or, at all events, if there were several issues 
 put before the constituencies, that this would be one 
 of them. This, however, is by no means the course 
 usually adopted. During the last hundred years 
 (from 1780 to 1880), there have been twenty-two 
 dissolutions of Parliament, and of them eight have 
 been on account of the near approach of its natural 
 term of existence ; five on account of defeats of 
 ministers, owing to their not being able to command 
 a majority in the House ; four on matters personally 
 affecting the sovereign, or on his demise ; and one to 
 admit of an enlarged system of representation being 
 put into immediate operation. Of the remaining 
 four, one was on a want of confidence motion carried 
 against the administration of Lord Melbourne; one was 
 a vote of censure on the administrative policy of Lord 
 
THE POLITICAL UNITY OF THE CABINET. IS/ 
 
 Palmerston in connection with the war in China ; 
 and two on account of the rejection of measures 
 introduced by ministers, the first being the Reform 
 Bill of Earl Grey, rejected by the Lords, and the 
 second, the Reform Bill of Lord John Russell, rejected 
 in the Commons. In only one, out of the last four 
 cases mentioned, was the appeal to the country made - 
 on the question on which ministers had been defeated 
 in Parliament. When Earl Grey obtained a dis- 
 solution on the rejection of his Reform Bill, the 
 appeal was made to the country on that bill, and 
 there was no other issue. In none of the other three 
 cases, however, was the appeal made to the country 
 on the question on which ministers had been de- 
 feated. At the dissolution which followed on a vote of 
 want of confidence being carried against the Mel- 
 bourne administration in 1841, the appeal to the 
 country was not that of confidence in ministers, but 
 on a proposal for a modification of the corn laws. 
 When Lord Palmerston obtained a dissolution on a 
 vote of censure on his policy in connection with the 
 Chinese war being carried against him, that subject 
 was scarcely even mentioned, the question that was 
 kept prominently before the electors being that of 
 confidence in ministers. Again, when Earl Derby 
 obtained a dissolution after defeating Lord John 
 Russell on his Reform Bill in 1859, he distinctly 
 
158 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 stated on that occasion that he would not appeal to 
 the country on that question, but on a totally different 
 one. The appeal, he said, would be on "a much 
 larger and broader question," namely, as to whether 
 or not the country would support his ministry. 1 
 
 It thus appears that on four occasions within a 
 century have ministries obtained a dissolution on 
 being defeated on a distinct issue, and on only one of 
 these occasions has the issue put to the country been 
 the true .one, that is, the same as ministers were de-. 
 feated on in Parliament. It is a significant fact, 
 also, that out of twenty-two dissolutions which have 
 occurred altogether within the period referred to, at 
 only one of them could it be said that the appeal 
 made was on a distinct question of policy altogether 
 disentangled from personal or party considerations. 
 That one occasion was when Earl Grey appealed 
 from the House of Lords to the country on the 
 Reform Bill of 1832. The issue put to the electors 
 on that memorable occasion was "The Bill yes 
 or no ; " and the answer to that issue, since become 
 household words, was unmistakably clear and em- 
 phatic. It was, " The Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing 
 but the Bill," by an overwhelming majority. 
 
 1 Hansard, voL clxii. pp. 1286-1291. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 
 
 THERE was no ambiguity as to the position of a 
 representative in the early days of our parliamentary 
 history. His functions were both clearly defined 
 and well understood. He was the attorney, dele- 
 gate, or agent for his constituents. The relation 
 between a representative and his constituents was of 
 the closest and most intimate kind. Their interests 
 were identical ; they were residents in the same 
 locality ; they belonged to the same class in society ; 
 they knew each other's wants, and they suffered under 
 the same grievances. It was then almost an impossi- 
 bility for a constituency to be saddled with a member 
 who did not truly represent them. The representative 
 was chosen for a single session which then constituted a 
 Parliament, and he went straight from his constituents 
 to Westminster with his instructions fresh in his 
 memory. And this close relationship was never 
 
l6o REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 interrupted ; representation was continuous from 
 the day of election till the day that Parliament was 
 dissolved, when the representative returned to his 
 constituents and related to them the results of his 
 parliamentary labours on their behalf. 
 
 By degrees, however, the relationship between 
 electors and representatives became less and less 
 intimate, till at length a complete estrangement took 
 place. This was brought about (i) by the relaxa- 
 tion of the rule with regard to residence, thereby 
 permitting non-residents to become representatives ; 
 (2) by the violation of the law and custom of pay- 
 ment of members, which placed representation ex- 
 clusively in the hands of men of wealth ; (3) by the 
 introduction of the system of nomination by the 
 Crown and by the territorial magnates, thus thrusting 
 upon the electors representatives they dki not approve 
 of; (4) by the purchase of seats, which demoralized 
 alike both constituencies and representatives ; (5) by 
 the lengthening of the duration of Parliament, which 
 practically placed representatives beyond the control 
 of their constituents. This last change rendered the 
 breach between the representative and constituent 
 bodies complete. 
 
 The close relationship formerly existing between 
 members and their constituents has now been so 
 long interrupted that we have almost lost sight of 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. l6l 
 
 the true principle of representation ; indeed, the very 
 meaning of the word may be said to have been 
 lost to us. The idea of delegation or agency is 
 no longer associated with the term. The repre- 
 sentative is not identified with his constituents by 
 class feelings and local interests, and he is no 
 longer supposed to represent their sentiments or 
 opinions. He is still called a representative, indeed, 
 but the term is used in a new and peculiar sense. 
 He is supposed to be a representative in the same 
 sense as the Queen is the representative of the British 
 nation, or as an elector is the representative of the 
 non-electors in a constituency ; that is to say, he is 
 not a representative at all, but a trustee. This, so 
 far as I can ascertain, is the new meaning attached 
 to the term representative ; and if it is difficult to 
 reconcile it with the ancient, and till recent times, the 
 acknowledged functions of a representative, it seems 
 not to be the less acceptable on that account. 1 
 
 It was probably some such idea as this which 
 Edmund Burke had in his mind when he wrote his 
 celebrated letter to the electors of Bristol. " Parlia- 
 ment," says he, " is not a congress of ambassadors, 
 from different hostile interests, which interests each 
 must maintain, as an agent and advocate against 
 all agents and advocates; but Parliament is a delibera- 
 
 1 Hearn's Gov. of Eng., p. 465. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 tive assembly of our nation with one interest, that of 
 the whole, where not local purposes, local prejudices 
 ought to guide, but the general good resulting from 
 the general reason of the whole. You choose a 
 member indeed ; but when you have chosen him, 
 he is not the member for Bristol, but he is a mem- 
 ber of Parliament." The fallacy of this view is con- 
 densed in the last sentence. So far from the 
 member for Bristol ceasing to be the member for 
 Bristol as soon as he is elected, he is never any- 
 thing else during the whole time he is in Parliament. 
 It is from Bristol that he derives his authority, and 
 though it cannot dismiss him it may refuse to re- 
 appoint him when his term expires. A member does 
 not divest himself of his procuratorial character when 
 he takes his seat in Parliament. He is a member of 
 Parliament in virtue of being a representative, and he 
 enters Parliament solely with a view to carry out his 
 representative functions. The mere transfer of his 
 person from Bristol to Westminster does not affect 
 his position in the least. True, the member for 
 Bristol may be said to represent the whole nation, 
 but only in the same sense as Bristol may be said to 
 represent the whole kingdom. It is the collective 
 voice that represents the nation, and the individual 
 voice which represents the constituency. The member 
 for Bristol is a member of Parliament because he 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 163 
 
 represents Bristol ; and as long as he represents 
 Bristol he continues to be a member of Parliament 
 and not a day longer. But whether as a representa- 
 tive or as a trustee he is equally bound by his pledges 
 or instructions. The trustee is no more at liberty 
 to act as he pleases than is a delegate or an agent. 
 He is bound, and very strictly bound, by the deed of 
 trust under which he acts, and any deviation from the 
 strict letter of it lays him open to severe punishment. 
 The same eminent authority presents us with another 
 picture of a representative, which is totally different 
 from that given above. In a speech to the electors 
 of the same constituency, Edmund Burke thus de- 
 scribes the duties which he performed in his capacity 
 of representative : " My canvass of you was not on 
 the 'Change, nor in the county meetings, nor in the 
 clubs of this city. It was in the House of Commons ; 
 it was at the Custom House ; it was at the Coun- 
 cil ; it was at the Treasury ; it was at the Admiralty. 
 I canvassed you through your affairs, and not your 
 persons. I was not only your representative as a 
 body, I was the agent, the solicitor of individuals ; 
 I ran about wherever your affairs would call me ; and, 
 in acting for you, I often appeared rather as a ship- 
 broker than as a member of Parliament. There was 
 nothing too laborious or too low for me to under- 
 take." In this case where the theory is not con- 
 
164 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 sistent with the practice, I prefer the practice to the 
 theory. The duties here enumerated were not exactly 
 such as pertain to a national representative, but 
 were clearly those of the member for Bristol. They 
 were the duties of an agent, and they were of so 
 extensive and laborious a character that only a man 
 who entertained a high sense of his responsibility to 
 his constituents could have undertaken them with 
 any satisfaction to himself. 
 
 The analogy between the position of a representa- 
 tive and an agent or a delegate is complete, but there 
 is no analogy between the position of a representative 
 and that of a trustee. A representative takes his 
 instructions direct from his principals, for whom he 
 acts ; a trustee receives his authority from a testator, 
 and acts not for him, but for a third person. A 
 representative is appointed for a terminable period 
 and his appointment may be renewed from time to 
 time ; a trustee's appointment is for life, and is usually 
 irrevocable. No doubt a representative is in a posi- 
 tion of trust ; but so is a delegate, so is an agent, so is 
 any one who carries a message from one person to 
 another. 
 
 The position of a representative or delegate I 
 hold to be a highly honourable and responsible one. 
 He is entrusted with vast power for good or for evil. 
 He has to carry out the instructions of his constitu- 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 165 
 
 ents so far as he can ; but there is a large field outside 
 the limits of his instructions where his constituents 
 can exercise no control and offer no advice. He is 
 free to speak and vote, even on the strictest procura- 
 torial principles, on a thousand questions on which it 
 is impossible for his constituents to give him any 
 directions. But it is not so much in what he is per- 
 mitted as in what he has in his power to do that 
 makes his position so responsible. He may abuse 
 the trust reposed in him. He may violate every pledge 
 he has made; he may neglect the interests of his con- 
 stituents ; he may refuse to carry out their instructions ; 
 he may make a corrupt compact with ministers ; and 
 by his aid the nation may be plunged into war, the 
 treasury impoverished and the country brought to 
 the verge of ruin. All this he has in his power to 
 do because he is trusted by his constituents. But 
 because he is trusted it does not follow that he is 
 only a trustee, or that he has abandoned his functions 
 as a representative. His responsibilities are not 
 incompatible with his position as representative but 
 are inseparable from that position. 
 
 It is difficult to discover the exact views enter- 
 tained by members of Parliament at the present day 
 in regard to their relations with their constituents. In 
 their parliamentary and extra-parliamentary utter- 
 ances they are particularly reticent on this subject. 
 
1 66 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 But they almost to a man repudiate the idea of being 
 delegates or agents. Some of them even go further 
 and refuse to give pledges to their constituents. 
 Even Macaulay took up this position. In a letter 
 addressed to the electors of Edinburgh he tells 
 them distinctly that he will not pledge himself in 
 any way. " I wish," he says, " to add a few words 
 touching a question which has lately been much 
 canvassed ; I mean the question of pledges. In this 
 letter, and in every letter which I have written to my 
 friends at Leeds, I have plainly declared my opinions. 
 But I think it, at this conjuncture, my duty to declare 
 that I will give no pledges. I will not bind myself 
 to make or to support any particular motion. I will 
 state as shortly as I can some of the reasons which 
 have induced me to form this determination. The\ 
 great beauty of the representative system is that it \ 
 unites the advantages of popular control with the 
 advantages arising from a division of labour. Just 
 as a physician understands medicine better than an 
 ordinary man ; just as a shoemaker makes shoes better 
 than an ordinary man, so a person whose life is passed 
 in transacting affairs of State becomes a better states- 
 man than an ordinary man. In politics, as well as 
 every department of life, the public have the means of 
 checking those who serve it. If a man finds that he 
 derives no benefit from the prescription of his physi- 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. l6/ 
 
 cian, he calls in another. If his shoes do not fit him, 
 he changes his shoemaker. But when he has called 
 in a physician of whom he hears a good report, and 
 whose general practice he believes to be judicious, it 
 would be absurd in him to tie down that physician to 
 order particular pills and particular draughts. While he 
 continues to be the customer of a shoemaker, it would 
 be absurd in him to sit by and mete every motion of 
 that shoemaker's hand. And in the same manner it 
 would, I think, be absurd in him to require positive 
 pledges, and to exact daily and hourly obedience 
 from his representative. My opinion is, that electors 
 ought at first to choose cautiously ; then to confide 
 liberally ; and, when the term for which they hav 
 selected their member has expired, to review his 
 conduct equitably, and to pronounce on the whole 
 taken together." 1 
 
 The position here taken up is a peculiar one. 
 A person seeks election, or permits himself to be 
 put forward as a candidate for a constituency, 
 and the electors naturally ask him to show his cre- 
 dentials or to state his qualification for the position 
 to which he aspires. In reply they are told that their 
 request is an improper one, and are refused any 
 information on the subject ; and as a reason for such 
 refusal it is explained that a man may dismiss his 
 
 1 G. O. Trevelyan's Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay, vol. i. p. 277. 
 
1 68 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 physician if he found he derived no benefit from his 
 prescriptions, or he may change his shoemaker if he 
 made shoes which did not fit him, and so they must 
 deal with their representative and elect him without 
 asking any impertinent questions. Unfortunately the 
 electors cannot change their representative as they 
 can their physician when his prescriptions fail, or their 
 shoemaker after his first misfit. If they could the 
 parallel might hold good ; but the present system 
 does not permit the electors to take their represen- 
 tatives on trial or to dismiss them on the first occasion 
 that they show their unfitness for the position which 
 they occupy. 
 
 Pledges at the hustings are considered objection- 
 able, because they are supposed to interfere with the 
 exercise of the independent judgment of the repre- 
 sentatives. But the claim to independence is incom- 
 patible with the representative character, while pledges 
 of some kind are absolutely indispensable at every 
 election. If no pledges were given an appeal to the 
 country would be a meaningless ceremony. Every 
 such appeal is made on some issue or issues more 
 or less distinct, or the whole proceeding is an ab- 
 surdity. The constituencies are asked, and they 
 are assumed to express, their opinions on the 
 questions submitted to them, and candidates are 
 supposed to put these questions before them. No 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 169 
 
 doubt a candidate may shirk the real issue before the 
 country. He may appeal on a side issue, or he may 
 put a false one before the electors, but nevertheless 
 appeal he must on some question or other, or he 
 cannot be elected ; and that view of the question, 
 whatever it may be, which he places before the 
 electors, and which meets with their approval, to that 
 view of the question he pledges himself, and so far 
 as that view of that particular question is concerned 
 he, if elected, is delegated by his constituents to do 
 his best to carry into effect. 
 
 But whatever may be the position of a representa- 
 tive, there is one qualification which it is absolutely 
 indispensable he should possess. He must reflect the 
 opinions of his constituents on all questions of public 
 policy which come before Parliament. There is a 
 vague idea afloat that in some sort of way a member 
 may represent his constituents without reference to 
 their opinions. The notions of trust, responsibility, and 
 personal character of the representative have got so 
 mixed up in some people's minds that the principle of 
 representation is completely lost sight of. To gain 
 what is called " the confidence of the electors " is 
 considered the main thing, no matter by what means 
 this may be secured. But it would be a burlesque 
 upon representative institutions to suppose that a 
 member can possess the confidence of his constituents 
 
I/O REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and not reflect their opinions. Representation is a 
 mental act ; it is the presentation or reproduction of 
 the state of mind of another person ; and before one 
 person can represent another person he must first 
 know what the opinions of that other person are. 
 A representative is a substitute ; he stands in the 
 place of, and acts for another person. But one man 
 cannot act for another unless he knows what that 
 other would do were he acting for himself. In other 
 words he requires to know the motives which actuate 
 that other person, or what influences his motives, 
 namely, his principles and beliefs. The House of 
 Commons is a representative body, not because every 
 individual member of it represents the opinions of the 
 whole nation, but because members in the aggregate 
 represent those opinions. " The virtue, spirit, and 
 essence of the House of Commons," says Burke, "con- 
 sists in its being the express image of the feelings of 
 the nation" ; and where the House does not express the 
 feelings of the nation, it does not represent it. In the 
 same way when a member of the House misinterprets 
 the feelings of his constituents, it cannot be said that 
 he represents them in any proper sense of the term. 
 
 But a representative must not only represent 
 opinions, but he must represent existing opinions. 
 Representation, if it exists, is in the present, not in 
 the past tense. It is not enough for a representa- 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 17 1 
 
 tive to hold the opinions that his constituents enter- 
 tained at the time of his election if the latter do not 
 hold the same opinions now ; or for the latter to hold 
 the same views now as at the time of election if the 
 former has abandoned them. In neither case could 
 there be any proper representation. Representation 
 must be co-extensive with membership. It must be . 
 uninterrupted and continuous. A representative 
 should represent his constituents not once in seven 
 years, but every year and all through the year. If the 
 electors can exercise the franchise only once in seven 
 years, and if they are powerless to influence the votes 
 of their representatives in Parliament in the interval, 
 representation must be regarded as practically sus- 
 pended during that period. There must therefore be 
 some means of bringing members under the control 
 of their constituents, of dismissing them when they 
 cease to be representatives, in the same way, in fact, 
 as a man would change his physician or his shoemaker 
 when his pills or his shoes turned out to be failures. 
 If the electors could dismiss those members who had 
 violated their pledges, or who had refused to carry out 
 instructions, or who misrepresented them on any 
 question, it would be a matter of comparative indif- 
 ference how long a Parliament lasted, as, be its 
 duration longer or shorter, it would always be in 
 accord with the opinion of the electors. 
 
1/2 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 But the constitutional functions of the electors 
 may also be suspended, or held in abeyance, when 
 there has been no change of opinion either on the 
 part of a representative or of his constituents. The 
 world does not stand still in the interval between 
 two general elections. New questions turn up every 
 day that require to be disposed of, and some of 
 these may be of vast importance. On these ques- 
 tions it may, therefore, be necessary that the views 
 of the electors should be known and represented 
 in Parliament. But on these the electors may 
 never have had an opportunity of pronouncing an 
 opinion. At the general election which gave Lord 
 Beaconsfield a majority, the Eastern question was 
 not heard of, there was no disturbance in South 
 Africa, and no demand for a scientific frontier for 
 India. All these questions arose during Lord 
 Beaconsfield's administration, and on not one of them 
 were the constituencies consulted. How, then, could 
 it, with any appearance of truth, be said that the 
 Parliament which supported the Beaconsfield govern- 
 ment on these questions represented the country ? 
 So far as concerned these questions, at all events, 
 representation was practically suspended till the fol- 
 lowing general election which replaced Mr. Gladstone 
 in office. True, the Constitution is supposed to pro- 
 vide a remedy for this state of things. The sovereign 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 173 
 
 may dissolve Parliament before the expiration of its 
 ordinary term of existence if he has reason to believe 
 that it is not in accord with the opinion of the country 
 on any question of policy. But as the sovereign 
 acts on the advice of ministers, and ministers never 
 recommend the dissolution of a Parliament in which 
 they have a working majority, the value of the remedy 
 may be easily understood. If, however, members 
 were held responsible to their constituents during the 
 whole term for which they were elected, there would 
 be no difference of opinion between them on any im- 
 portant question, nor would there ever be any urgent 
 necessity for an extraordinary appeal to the country, 
 as Parliament and the country would always be in 
 accord. 
 
 This right of appeal is itself a recognition of 
 what I contend for, as the Crown, whenever it dis- 
 solves Parliament because it is not in accord with the 
 country, by that very act acknowledges the principle 
 of the continuity of representation. Parliament itself 
 also practically acknowledges the same principle on 
 every occasion that it defers to public opinion or gives 
 way to outside pressure ; and the fact that this pres- 
 sure is applied in an unconstitutional manner rather 
 strengthens my argument than otherwise, as we must 
 assume that Parliament would prefer this pressure to 
 be applied in a constitutional manner if provision 
 
REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 were made for the purpose. The same thing may be 
 said with regard to extra-parliamentary utterances. 
 Every member of Parliament who asks for a vote of 
 confidence at a public meeting recognizes the right 
 of the electors to control their representatives. He 
 says, in effect, " this is a question on which you 
 have not been consulted, and as I cannot wait till 
 the general election in order to ascertain your opinion 
 in a constitutional way, I shall take the next best 
 thing the opinion of this meeting." Earl Derby put 
 this view of the matter very clearly on a recent occa- 
 sion. In returning thanks for the House of Lords at 
 a dinner of the Civil Engineers in March, 1880, Earl 
 Derby said " Only a generation ago Parliament had, 
 not merely the legislative power, which it still neces- 
 sarily retains, but also a practical monopoly of the dis- 
 cussions conducted on all important national affairs. 
 Now that monopoly has gone under the yearly in- 
 creasing competition of the platform and the news- 
 paper press. I have often thought how it would 
 astonish a politician of the days of Canning and 
 Castlereagh if he could rise from his grave and see 
 what has been going on now for some years past. 
 He would see ministers and ex-ministers, and all the 
 most notable politicians of the country attacking one 
 another, and defending themselves not merely at 
 election times, but every year, and all the year 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 1/5 
 
 through, on provincial platforms, discussing most 
 difficult and the most important questions of foreign 
 and domestic policy before electors and non-electors, 
 and addressing not a limited public, but the nation 
 as a whole. There may be abuses attending upon 
 the system, but I have no doubt that in the main 
 it is an enormous advantage. We do not speak 
 merely to Parliament or to the public once in seven 
 years, but to the whole nation continually, and we 
 are, to a great extent, guided by their judgment as 
 to the course which shall be followed. For my part, 
 I rejoice at that, because the larger proportion of the 
 public that is called in to deliberate and to actively 
 participate in the discussion of public affairs, the 
 more nearly we approach to that which in the idea 
 of all is a benefit, namely, a self-governed country." 
 The great advantage of the system to which Lord 
 Derby calls attention lies in the fact that it affords 
 the public an opportunity of discussing important 
 questions from day to day as they arise ; and if the 
 opinions expressed in this manner were really the 
 opinions of the country, and Parliament were really 
 guided by them, we should have a system, although 
 an altogether unconstitutional one, of continuous 
 representation. If septennial elections are practically 
 useless for ascertaining the current public opinion, 
 which Lord Derby tacitly admits, it is evident no 
 
1/6 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 great advantage would be gained by shortening the 
 term of Parliament unless important public questions, 
 could be held over. But questions of this nature, as 
 a rule, cannot be held over, and in these days of 
 telegraphs, railways, and ocean steamships, they are 
 always coming to the fore. There is no reason, how- 
 ever, why such questions should not be dealt with 
 as they arise, and in a constitutional way. If we wish 
 to preserve the Constitution, we must amend it as soon 
 as its defects have been discovered ; and as far as it is 
 defective in the present instance it can very easily be 
 remedied. What is wanted is a system of continuous 
 representation ; and one very simple and efficient way 
 of obtaining it is by providing that the constituencies 
 shall have the same power over their representatives 
 which the Crown exercises over Parliament, namely, 
 the power of dismissal. 
 
 There is another objection to periodical elections 
 held at long intervals. It is almost impossible to deter- 
 mine with anything like certainty the meaning of a 
 verdict pronounced at such an election, as there are 
 invariably several issues, and one and the same answer 
 is returned to all of them. We know which side gets 
 the votes, but we do not know, and we have no means 
 of ascertaining, why they were given. And the ex- 
 planation is obvious enough. At every general 
 election, and especially at an election held after a 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 1 77 
 
 long interval, there is necessarily a large accumula- 
 tion of questions of various kinds and of greater or 
 less importance, which are usually presented in dif- 
 ferent aspects to the electors by the several candidates 
 who solicit their votes. One candidate may make 
 one subject the main issue, while another candidate 
 may ignore that and give prominence to another 
 question which the previous candidate thought of no 
 importance. Even the leaders of the opposing parties 
 may present different issues to the country, as on the 
 occasion of the last election when Lord Beaconsfield 
 put forward one and Lord Hartington another. But 
 in addition to all this, another element of confusion in- 
 variably presents itself. The question of the personal 
 fitness of candidates will obtrude itself in a manner 
 more or less prominent at every contest, and the 
 electors will always favour a candidate who is per- 
 sonally popular, who is a fluent speaker, who has in- 
 fluence in the House or with the government of the 
 day ; and a certain proportion of them will vote for 
 him on these grounds alone, quite irrespective of his 
 views on any question of state policy. The conse- 
 quence is that the verdict of every election is a matter 
 of dispute. Scarcely two persons can be met with who 
 are agreed as to the causes which led to the defeat of 
 the Gladstone ministry in 1874. It is only when a 
 single issue can be put before the country, and the 
 
 N 
 
178 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 personal element evolved altogether, that anything like 
 an accurate opinion can be arrived at. But this is 
 clearly an impossibility under the present system, 
 when an almost infinite variety of questions are all 
 jumbled up together. Fortunately a single issue can 
 be put before the electors as easily as before a public 
 meeting. The personal element can also be eliminated 
 on these occasions by reserving for periodical general 
 elections the choice of candidates, who could then 
 be selected on account of their personal fitness alone. 
 In appointing a representative to a foreign court per- 
 sonal qualifications are alone taken into consideration. 
 An ambassador is not appointed because his opinions 
 accord with those of his minister, for the minister 
 would of course assume that the representative would 
 be guided by his instructions. The appointment is 
 made first, the instructions come afterwards. If the 
 same principle were adopted in electing parliamentary 
 representatives there could be no confounding of 
 personal qualifications with questions of state policy ; 
 and if the latter were left to the constituencies to 
 be dealt with singly, each question as it arose, there 
 would then be no doubt as to the meaning of the 
 votes recorded, as the electors would be able to give 
 a distinct answer to each question on the voting 
 papers while the subject was fresh in their memory 
 and at the precise time their decision on it was re- 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 179 
 
 quired. In order to carry out an arrangement of this 
 kind, however, some organization would be necessary 
 on the part of the electors. 
 
 At present the electors have no system of organiza- 
 tion. There is no central body in any constituency 
 for the purpose of conducting elections, or for acting 
 as a medium of communication between electors and 
 candidates or constituencies and their members. 
 Each elector acts by and for himself in choosing a 
 candidate, without reference to any other elector ; 
 and each candidate appeals directly to each indi- 
 vidual elector, without previous consultation with any 
 organization appointed on behalf of the constituents. 
 Electors and candidates are alike free to act as they 
 please, and they usually make the fullest use of their 
 freedom in this respect. There are no means of 
 stopping sham candidates from being put forward. 
 There is no care taken to prevent unsuitable candi- 
 dates presenting themselves, and no attempt is made 
 to prevent such candidates from being elected. There 
 is also no board or committee through which the con- 
 stituency may communicate with their representatives, 
 or representatives with their constituency ; there is 
 therefore no means whereby the constituents can, as 
 a body, officially convey instructions to their repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 A different state of things prevailed in the early 
 
180 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 days of our parliamentary history. We have seen 
 that in the borough and city constituencies, at all 
 events, a complete system of organization existed 
 both for electing parliamentary representatives and for 
 communicating with them after election. The borough 
 representatives were chosen by the borough council 
 acting on behalf of the general body of electors ; and 
 the borough council was also the medium of communi- 
 cation between the general body of electors and their 
 parliamentary representatives. But all this is now 
 changed. The village community, the old system of 
 concentration of functions in the local body 
 inherited from our Aryan forefathers, is gone and 
 can never be revived. One by one the political and 
 administrative functions of these local bodies have 
 been taken from them, till the mere shadow of their 
 former selves only remains. The police are now under 
 the control of the county authorities ; the manage- 
 ment of the poor has been handed over to the poor- 
 law guardians ; the board of waywardens maintain 
 the village roads ; and questions of health and 
 education have been remitted to separate boards 
 each of which has its own special duties allotted to 
 it. This is the new system that has taken the place 
 of the old. Instead of concentration there has been 
 differentiation of functions ; instead of one body per- 
 forming a multiplicity of duties, the various duties are 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. l8l 
 
 now performed by a multiplicity of bodies who have 
 no relation to each other. But if we are to have 
 differentiation in local matters, why not have it in 
 politics also ? We want local political organizations 
 to supply the place of the old village and borough 
 system. The framework of such an organization is to 
 be found in the system of indirect election which was 
 practised in the earlier period of our political history. 
 It was by indirect election that the recognitors of the 
 grand assizes were chosen ; it was by indirect election 
 that the Church chose its representatives for convoca- 
 tion ; and it was by the same process, as we have 
 seen, that the burgesses and citizens elected their 
 mayors and their parliamentary representatives. An 
 analogous system exists in Scandinavia and nearly 
 all the German States at the present day. In these 
 countries the mode of election is indirect; the general 
 body of electors first choose delegates, and the 
 delegates elect the representatives for their national 
 assemblies. In Norway, for instance, one in fifty 
 voters in towns, and one in a hundred in rural dis- 
 tricts, choose a delegate, and the delegates afterwards 
 meet and elect the representatives for the Storthing. 
 Some such delegated power as this, which can speak 
 on behalf and with the authority of the whole body of 
 electors, is what is required. Both the English and 
 the continental systems are objectionable as they 
 
1 82 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 stand ; the first, because the delegated body were 
 elected primarily for local purposes, and it is not 
 advisable to combine local and political functions 
 in the same body ; the second, because it is a tempo- 
 rary organization, whose functions are restricted to 
 the election of parliamentary representatives and 
 becomes defunct as soon as the elections are over. 
 An organization to act on behalf of the electors 
 generally, not only at election times but during the 
 whole term that Parliament is sitting, is what is wanted. 
 A body of delegates, chosen by the electors of each 
 constituency, could perform all the political functions 
 of the early borough and city councils, while it would 
 be free from the objections which have been urged 
 against them. Such a body would be a medium of 
 communication between candidates and electors for 
 arranging times and places of meeting and for advising 
 the sitting member as to the views of the constituency 
 on the leading questions of the day. But it should 
 exercise no control over the representatives. That 
 power should rest with the electors alone, and pro- 
 vision should be made whereby their votes might be 
 taken when the member disputed the judgment of the 
 board. 1 
 
 1 The advantage of a body of the kind referred to, even when it is 
 non-official, was strikingly shown by an episode which occurred during 
 the debate on the Reform Bill of 1832. On this occasion the Con- 
 servatives had recourse to their usual tactics, when in a minority, of 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 183 
 
 I have entered into these details because they 
 may help to solve a difficulty which to many persons 
 may seem insuperable. For my part, I can see no 
 means of reconciling representative institutions with 
 popular government, unless on the supposition that 
 the constituents exercise uninterrupted control over 
 their representatives. Independence on the part of 
 the representatives is not only incompatible with the 
 representative idea but with the principle of popular 
 
 moving innumerable amendments in committee, and Mr. Alderman 
 Thompson, one of the reforming members for the City of London (then 
 a thoroughly Liberal constituency), spoke and voted in favour of an 
 amendment to save the borough of Appleby from disfranchisement. 
 His constituents, however, regarded his vote on that occasion as an 
 act of treason against his party ; and the livery of London, acting on 
 behalf of the whole constituency, summoned him before them, and 
 distinctly informed him that he was sent into Parliament to support the 
 bill as it stood, and not such portions of it only as he approved of. 
 The result of the meeting was, that Mr. Thompson expressed his sincere 
 regret for his vote, pleading that such a prostration of body and mind 
 had seized him, owing to the fatigues arising from his close attendance 
 at the House, that he had committed an inadvertence, and promised 
 that in future he would vote against every proposal to alter the bill 
 which was not sanctioned by the government. The meeting accepted 
 his protestations and promises, and concluded by passing the following 
 resolution : "That the meeting of the livery of London, after a full 
 and complete inquiry into the vote of Mr. Alderman Thompson 
 relative to the borough of Appleby, and his explanation of the same, 
 are of opinion that he acted therein inadvertently, and Mr. Alderman 
 Thompson having renewed his pledge to give entire support to the 
 Reform Bill, this meeting feel themselves called upon to continue their 
 confidence in Mr. Alderman Thompson as one of the representatives of 
 the City of London in Parliament." The action of the livery had the 
 desired effect. Neither Mr. Thompson nor any other member of the 
 reform party after this ventured to support any amendment on the bill 
 not sanctioned by the government. 
 
1 84 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 government. Popular government can only exist 
 where the people can exercise control over their 
 representatives at all times and under all circum- 
 stances. It has therefore been my endeavour to pre- 
 sent some scheme which would combine the principle 
 of representation with the principle of the sovereignty 
 of the people ; and in no other way can this be done, 
 in my opinion, than by recognizing to the fullest 
 extent the right of the constituent body not only to 
 elect, but to instruct, and, if necessary, to dismiss 
 their representatives at any time they may think 
 proper. 
 
 Is it considered hard on a member to be taken to 
 task in this manner by his constituents ? It is not 
 the member that has to be considered so much in 
 such a case, however, as his constituents. What is he 
 if he does not truly represent them but an impostor ? 
 What little sympathy there may be to spare, there- 
 fore, in such a case, should be bestowed on the victims 
 and not on the victimized. The marvel to me is that 
 any member should desire to hold his seat if he had 
 even a suspicion that he had no moral right to it. 
 That there are many members in every Parliament 
 that suspect, and many more that know, that they do 
 not honestly represent the views of their constituents 
 is, unfortunately, a matter beyond dispute. 
 
 But it would not follow that a member and a 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 185 
 
 constituency would part company whenever there 
 was any difference of opinion between them. Absolute 
 uniformity is, of course, out of the question. Even 
 on the leading question of the day, a constituency 
 might not insist on uniformity. I can imagine a 
 case of a member being retained even when he differed 
 from his constituents on a very important question. 
 If a member has rendered good service to his country 
 and his views in the main are in accordance with 
 those of his constituents, there can be little doubt as 
 to what the result would be. All that I insist upon 
 is that the constituency should have the option of 
 retaining their member or his vote. 
 
 I shall no doubt be told that it would be derogatory 
 for a representative to hold a position of dependence 
 such as I have described. But how it would be 
 derogatory is a question to which no explicit answer 
 is ever forthcoming. We hear a great deal about the 
 dignity, but very little of the duties of a representative. 
 The position of an ambassador is surely as dignified 
 as that of a representative he is, in fact, a representa- 
 tive in the true sense of the term ; yet an ambassador 
 holds his appointment at the pleasure of his minister. 
 The authority to dismiss is the complement to the 
 power to appoint ; if it is not derogatory for a repre- 
 sentative to receive his appointment from his con- 
 stituents, it cannot be derogatory to be called upon 
 
1 86 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IX ENGLAND. 
 
 by the same authority to resign it. A representative 
 can suffer no indignity in submitting himself to his 
 constituents ; on the contrary, he would suffer both in 
 dignity and in honour if he retained his seat in 
 defiance of their wishes. It can be no discredit to a 
 representative to hold his seat on the same terms as 
 ministers hold office. Ministers do not consider it 
 derogatory to be called upon to resign their portfolios 
 whenever they have lost the confidence of Parlia- 
 ment. Even Parliament itself may be dismissed at a 
 moment's notice, although elected for a definite period ; 
 but no one ever heard of a dissolution being derogatory, 
 although it may be both inconvenient and expensive. 
 A representative cannot reasonably complain if he is 
 treated no worse than a minister of the Crown, or no 
 better than the Assembly to which he considers it an 
 honour to belong. 
 
 It may also be objected that electoral control 
 would interfere with the exercise of the deliberative 
 functions of the representative. But we have already 
 seen that the representative has full scope for the 
 exercise of his judgment within as well as without the 
 limits of his instructions. A parliamentary represen- 
 tative cannot be converted into a machine because he 
 is bound by his instructions, any more than can an 
 agent or an ambassador under similar circumstances. 
 His instructions may be definite as to the ends, but 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. l8/ 
 
 not as to the means to obtain them. He may not be 
 able to do all that is required of him, but he must 
 do the best he can, leaving his constituents to be 
 the judge of his conduct. His instructions extend 
 only to his general policy ; the framing of measures 
 for embodying that policy will be left to himself. 
 Outside the scope of his instructions there is also 
 ample room and verge enough. Only as far as they 
 are known to him is he bound to carry out the wishes 
 of his constituents ; in all else he must follow what 
 his judgment dictates. The cabinet is an executive 
 body, but it is also deliberative. Nevertheless its 
 executive acts must be approved of by Parliament. 
 The practice we have seen is common enough for 
 ministers to take the sense of the House by a resolu- 
 tion, or a series of resolutions. But ministers do not 
 resign if their resolutions are condemned. They in 
 effect ask for instructions when they present their 
 resolutions ; and if they did not accept them when 
 offered they would immediately be met by a vote of 
 want of confidence. If ministers, therefore, are not 
 prevented by instructions from Parliament from 
 exercising their judgment, why should ordinary 
 members be considered to be placed in a false 
 position by instructions from their constituents ? 
 
 The advantages of the system proposed are 
 numerous and manifest. It would secure continuity 
 
188 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of representation ; it would prevent sudden changes in 
 the composition of Parliament ; it would reduce the 
 cost of elections, and it would certainly make members 
 more truly representative of their constituents than 
 they now are, or pretend to be. 
 
 In the first place, it would secure continuity of re- 
 presentation. It would give us all the advantages of 
 annual Parliaments without the worry and incon- 
 venience of them. There would be no necessity for 
 dissolving Parliament before its usual term had ex- 
 pired, whatever that might be, for as members would 
 be always in accord with their constituents so would 
 Parliament be always in accord with the country. I 
 can understand the objection to annual Parliaments, 
 on account of their trouble and expense. But the 
 same objection holds good against periodical elections 
 generally if they are not necessary, and some other 
 objections as well. Why, for instance, should all the 
 members of the House be turned adrift whenever a few 
 have proved, or are suspected of having been, unfaith- 
 ful to their trust ? Why should the innocent suffer with 
 the guilty, the many punished'for the misconduct of the 
 few ? It would be far better if the constituencies who 
 were dissatisfied with their members called upon them 
 to resign and quietly replaced them by men whom they 
 could trust. In this manner the constituencies would 
 keep Parliament in accord with public opinion, by re- 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 189 
 
 moving from time to time those members who did 
 not possess their confidence and replacing them by 
 others who did. Instead of an inanimate machine 
 which had to be periodically set in motion Parliament 
 would become a living organism in which the process 
 of secretion and accretion would be continually going 
 on, an organism in which there could be no decay as 
 all its parts would be in a perpetual state of renewal. 
 
 In the second place, there would be no sudden or 
 wholesale displacement of members or parties as at 
 present after a general election, to be followed by a 
 reaction and perhaps the replacement of the old 
 members at the next general election. Whatever 
 changes took place would be effected quietly and 
 gradually. At present the country stakes too much 
 on a single issue. A general election sometimes 
 produces startling results and serious embarrassments. 
 The occasion of a general election is also a period 
 of great excitement. The pent up feelings of years 
 then find vent and calm deliberation is out of the 
 question. There are old scores with old members who 
 seek re-election, there are the competing claims of 
 rival candidates, there are local and national ques- 
 tions which had been accumulating for years, all of 
 them demanding immediate settlement. The interest 
 which the public take in politics should be permanent, 
 not periodical. Instead of being spread over the 
 
1 90 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 whole term of Parliament, it is now contracted into 
 as many days as an election lasts ; and as soon as 
 the election is over the public immediately relapse 
 into a state of apathy, and often of despondency, till 
 the next general election. If members held their seats 
 during good behaviour all this would be instantly 
 changed. The electors, on the one hand, would feel 
 their responsibilities increased ; they would take a 
 keener interest in political events ; they would keep 
 a more watchful eye on the proceedings in Parliament 
 and on the votes of their representatives. The repre- 
 sentative, on the other hand, would be compelled to 
 cultivate a closer acquaintance with his constituents ; 
 he would learn to understand their wishes and consult 
 their interests ; and if he differed from them on any 
 important question, he would know that either he must 
 convince them of their errors or they must convert 
 him to their way of thinking. Members would then 
 take good care that their constituents were properly 
 informed on all the leading questions of the day. 
 There would be constant intercourse and exchange 
 of views between them ; the old relationship which 
 has been long broken up would be restored, and there 
 would be something like a community of sentiment 
 and opinion between them. 
 
 In the third place, the cost of elections would be 
 greatly reduced. A seat in Parliament would not be 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. IQI 
 
 worth the money which is now paid for it. It would 
 not pay the territorial and monetary interest to invest 
 large sums in obtaining seats the tenure of which was 
 insecure. A seat in Parliament would be a tenancy 
 at will, not a leasehold, a distinction which many 
 of the present members profess to be unable to 
 understand but which they would keenly appreciate 
 if brought home to themselves. 
 
 In the fourth place, the composition of the House 
 would be vastly improved. Representation would 
 not be monopolized by one class of the community 
 as it is at present. There have been many changes 
 in the Constitution since the first Reform Bill was 
 passed. The suffrage has been widely extended ; the 
 rotten boroughs have been disfranchised ; the large 
 centres of population have a fair share of repre- 
 sentation ; the ballot has at length become law, and 
 bribery at elections, although still carried on, is severely 
 punished when discovered. But the composition of 
 the representative chamber is much the same as it 
 was. before these changes took place. The landed 
 interest still predominates there ; " the great govern- 
 ing families " still monopolize all the highest honours 
 and offices of state. The working classes largely 
 preponderate amongst the electors, but there is 
 scarcely a single representative belonging to these 
 classes in Parliament. The Reform Bill of 1867, we 
 
1 92 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 were told by Conservative prophets, would "give a 
 clear majority of votes in a clear majority of constitu- 
 encies to the men who B had no other property than 
 the labour of their hands ;" but the prediction has 
 not been verified. The omnipotence of Parliament 
 is not yet theirs. The whole of the lower middle 
 class now enjoy the franchise, but it is of no advan- 
 tage to them. Their representatives in Parliament 
 are conspicuous by their absence. The tenant 
 farmers are a numerous and ought to be an influen- 
 tial body, but they were able to return only some 
 half dozen members at the last general election. 
 The same stereotyped class of candidates we have been 
 so long familiar with continue to present themselves, 
 and the farmers and tradesmen, and " the men who 
 have no other property than the labour of their hands/' 
 continue to elect them as of old. The cost of an 
 election is so great that none but wealthy men can 
 afford to contest a seat. All attempts to introduce 
 the representatives of the struggling classes into 
 Parliament have signally failed. An analysis of the 
 present House of Commons certainly the most 
 unconservative we have yet had shows that the great 
 majority of that assembly belong to the territorial 
 and monetary class ; two classes, perhaps, in a social 
 point of view, but one politically. It was surely 
 never anticipated that this would be the outcome 
 
THE TRUE PRINCIPLES OF REPRESENTATION. 193 
 
 of all the agitation for parliamentary reform which 
 has been carried on almost uninterruptedly for half a 
 century. During that time, it is true, the people have 
 vanquished their opponents in many a severe contest ; 
 but what advantage has it been to them while the 
 enemy is left in possession of the citadel? They 
 have been running after the shadow and leaving the 
 substance. They have been fighting for the exten- 
 sion of the suffrage, forgetting that the franchise is 
 only a means to an end. If the government is to be 
 carried on for the benefit of all classes, representatives 
 should be chosen from all classes. We had class 
 representation in the early Parliaments, but then all 
 classes were fairly represented. The freeholders 
 were represented by freeholders, citizens by citizens, 
 burgesses by burgesses. It is not pretended that the 
 class which now enjoys a monopoly of parliamentary 
 representation, possesses all the talents and all the 
 virtues of the community. If those constituting this 
 class abandoned their policy of obstruction and 
 honestly attempted to carry on the business of the 
 country with a view to the general good of the whole 
 community, the case would be different. But they 
 give no indication of such a purpose. To them a 
 seat in Parliament is only valued as a means of 
 obstructing popular schemes of reform. To them 
 every change is an innovation ; every measure for the 
 
 O 
 
194 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 material advancement of those beneath them in the 
 social scale is denounced as class legislation, or con- 
 fiscation, which means interference with the interests 
 of another class. The experience of all ages and of 
 all countries teaches that government by a class is 
 practically government for a class. If the electors 
 will choose their representatives from the class who 
 have no sympathy with them, whose interests are 
 opposed to theirs, and who have long been accus- 
 tomed to the possession of power; they cannot expect, 
 and they do not deserve, any other kind of treatment 
 in the future than they have received in the past from 
 the men whom they have shouldered into power. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 
 
 THE cabinet is, as we have seen, a corporate body and 
 not a mere aggregation of individual ministers. Its 
 members stand or fall together. There is no getting 
 rid of one minister without parting with all. Parlia- 
 ment cannot express its disapproval of the conduct 
 of an individual minister if his colleagues approve 
 of it without, at the same time, censuring the whole 
 administration. The cabinet thus constituted arranges 
 the business of Parliament, selects the measures to be 
 laid before it, and determines what shall be the policy 
 of the country. And all these important matters are 
 transacted in secret. No one outside the cabinet 
 circle knows anything about the intentions of min- 
 isters before the assembling of Parliament. The 
 House is not consulted beforehand about the business 
 that is to be laid before it ; not even the supporters of 
 the ministry know anything about the measures to 
 
196 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 be introduced, although they cannot be carried with- 
 out their consent. At the opening of each session 
 ministers announce their policy, and their supporters 
 accept what is laid before them, often without a 
 murmur. The opposition will be dissatisfied of course 
 with whatever bill of fare the government may pro- 
 vide, but as they are supposed to be in a minority 
 in the House, they submit to their fate with the 
 best grace they can. The House can get no more 
 or no better measures than ministers are pleased to 
 place before it. Their policy must be accepted or 
 rejected as a whole. There can be no picking or 
 choosing. The ministry may go too far, or not far 
 enough ; their policy may be good up to a certain 
 point and bad beyond it, but the House cannot take 
 the good and reject the bad part of their scheme. In 
 all this the supporters of the ministry are as much 
 ignored as the opposition. They may not altogether 
 approve of the measures submitted to them ; they 
 may see their way to improve them in many respects, 
 but they dare not touch them. They must accept the 
 ministerial scheme as a whole or adopt the extreme 
 course of joining with their natural enemies and turn 
 out the ministry. Their choice is often between two 
 evils, a bad measure or a bad ministry ; and in nine 
 cases out of ten they will sacrifice their convictions 
 rather than turn their friends out of office. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. IQ/ 
 
 Such is the theory of responsible government as 
 laid down by the best constitutional authorities. Par- 
 liament is at the mercy of the government of the day. 
 The House has to submit to all the whims and short- 
 comings of ministers ; and, as we have seen, the friends 
 of the government are no better off in this respect than 
 the opposition. Although they exist by the favour of 
 their supporters, it is made to appear as if ministers 
 were conferring rather than accepting an obligation 
 by retaining office. Indeed the relation of ministers 
 to their supporters is altogether peculiar. It is a 
 complete reversal of the natural order of things. It 
 reminds one of the friendship between the Duchess of 
 Marlborough and the Princess Anne, where all the 
 loyalty was on the side of the mistress, and all the 
 haughty airs on the side of the waiting-woman. Of 
 course ministers could not conduct themselves as they 
 do were they only ministers, and not also members of 
 a cabinet. Their strength lies in their unity. They 
 can do as a cabinet what they would not dare to 
 attempt as individual ministers. The unity of the 
 cabinet or corporate responsibility of ministers, is 
 the key-stone of the whole fabric of modern parlia- 
 mentary government. As long as ministers can com- 
 mand a compact majority of the House, they are 
 unassailable. The ministerial rank and file form a well 
 disciplined army, with the premier as leader, in which 
 
198 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 every member obeys the word of command. The 
 organization is most effective, whether for purposes of 
 offence or of defence. " The first duty of an English 
 minister," says Mr. Disraeli, "is loyalty to his party," 1 
 and loyalty to its chief is the first duty of the party. 
 Ministers need be under no apprehension as to the 
 fate of their measures, therefore, so long as they can 
 manage to keep their party together. Is it to be 
 wondered at that, under such circumstances, ministers 
 pay far more attention ,to conciliate their friends, 
 than to the preparation of their measures or to the 
 administration of their departments ? 
 
 But is this servile submission of Parliament to the 
 dictation of the cabinet quite consistent with the 
 principles of representative government ? The House 
 of Commons is a representative body, and its members 
 are supposed to meet for the purpose of deliberating 
 on all matters affecting their constituents and the 
 country at large. But they have placed before them 
 on entering the House the business to be done and 
 the measures to be passed, which they are expected 
 to agree to without adding, altering or abstracting 
 anything, and about which they have not even been 
 consulted. They are, it is true, allowed the right of 
 free discussion ; but it can scarcely be said that they 
 are free to vote as their consciences may dictate or 
 
 1 Life of Lord George Bentinck, p. 390. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 1 99 
 
 as their constituencies may direct. Questions of policy 
 cannot be discussed on their merits as long as they 
 involve the existence of ministers, and the principle 
 which lies at the root of representative institutions, 
 namely, the right of the constituent body to be heard 
 in Parliament, is practically ignored. It is true private 
 members have the right of introducing measures ; but 
 the time set apart for private members' business is so 
 limited and is hampered by so many restrictions, 
 that the privilege is of very little use. Private 
 members' nights have come to be regarded as nights 
 when members may freely absent themselves ; and as 
 a rule no business is done on these occasions as both 
 sides of the House agree to ignore measures intro- 
 duced by private members. If, therefore, the business 
 of Parliament is arranged for it by ministers, and 
 members have only the option of accepting or reject- 
 ing what ministers provide for them, what becomes of 
 the deliberative functions of Parliament ? It is plain 
 that Parliament plays a very subordinate part in the 
 government of the country. The representative body 
 is elected not by one but by a large number of 
 separate constituencies, each of which has its own 
 particular wants, grievances, and opinions, which can 
 only be formulated after the whole body of represen- 
 tatives have met and conferred together. But now 
 Parliament has its work cut out for it before it has 
 
2OO REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 an opportunity of consulting. It is the function of 
 Parliament not merely to confirm or reject but to 
 deliberate and resolve, on all matters which the con- 
 stituencies, through their representatives, may think 
 proper to lay before it. But, as we have seen, the 
 representative functions of Parliament are altogether 
 ignored by the cabinet. The wishes of the constituent 
 body are treated with contemptuous indifference. 
 What is the use of our elaborate electoral system if 
 the representatives which the constituencies send to 
 Parliament are to have their mouths closed, or are 
 only allowed to affirm or to negative what ministers 
 are pleased to propose ? Ministers have no special 
 facilities for ascertaining the opinion of the country. 
 They know no more than the ordinary members of 
 the House what the country wants. The opinions of 
 the country can only be discovered after Parliament 
 has assembled and the representatives have had an 
 opportunity of expressing their views. In dictating 
 to Parliament the terms on which they will hold 
 office, ministers are, therefore, assuming a position 
 to which they have no manner of right ; they are 
 usurping the functions of Parliament itself. 
 
 This system of corporate responsibility is not only 
 contrary to the first principles of representative gov- 
 ernment but it is at variance with constitutional law 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2OI 
 
 and usage. It is contrary to constitutional law, 
 which recognizes the right of Parliament to control 
 administration ; and it is at variance with parlia- 
 mentary usage, which requires that the political head 
 of every important department should have a seat in 
 either House, as a recognition that he is directly 
 responsible to Parliament for its proper administration. 
 Parliament has the right to control the adminis- 
 tration not merely of the government as a whole, but 
 of every department of state. According to the 
 dictum of Earl Russell " the two Houses of Parlia- 
 ment constitute the great council of the King, and 
 upon whatever subject it is his prerogative to act, it is 
 the privilege and even the duty of Parliament to 
 inquire." * In conformity with the report of a select 
 committee to search for precedents on the subject, 
 the House of Commons, in 1784, resolved "that it is 
 constitutional and agreeable to usage for the House 
 of Commons to declare their sense and opinions re- 
 specting the exercise of every discretionary power 
 which, whether by act of Parliament or otherwise, is 
 vested in any body of men whatsoever for the public 
 service." 2 Four years afterwards, in accordance 
 with this resolution, on a motion for inquiring into the 
 Admiralty on a certain matter, Mr. Pitt, then premier, 
 
 1 English Constitution, p. 150. 
 
 2 Parl. Hist., vol. xxiv. pp. 534-571. 
 
202 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 said : " That the House had a constitutional power 
 of inquiring into the conduct of any department of 
 the government, with a view either to censure or 
 punishment, was unquestionable ; and whenever a 
 case was made out, strong enough to warrant a sus- 
 picion of abuse that deserved either censure or punish- 
 ments, he should even hold it to be the indispensable 
 duty of the House to proceed to inquire." Mr. 
 Fox on the same occasion observed that " it was the 
 constitutional province and the undoubted duty of the 
 House to watch over the executive departments, and, 
 when they had come to suspect abuse, to institute an 
 inquiry, with a view either to censure or punish- 
 ment." 1 In 1863, Earl Derby declared it to be an 
 established maxim that " every act done by the 
 responsible ministers of the Crown having any politi- 
 cal significance is a fit subject for comment, and, if 
 necessary, for censure in either House of Parliament," 
 and Earl Grey entirely coincided with this doctrine. 2 
 If the theory of corporate responsibility be correct, 
 then any attempt to institute an inquiry into the 
 conduct of any department would be frustrated at 
 once by the cabinet demanding an expression of con- 
 fidence in the ministry as a whole. 
 
 1 Parl. Hist., vol. xxvii. pp. 277-281. 
 
 2 Hansard, vol. clxxi. pp. 1720, 1728; also Russell's Eng. Const., 
 P. 157. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2O3 
 
 Corporate responsibility is also inconsistent with 
 established usage. Every important department of 
 state must be presided over by a minister of the 
 Crown, and every such minister must have a seat in 
 either House of Parliament. By this means each 
 department is brought under the purview of either 
 House. The object of this rule is to enable Parlia- 
 ment to interrogate ministers with regard to the 
 administration of the several departments with a view 
 to censure or punishment if necessary. It is obvious, 
 however, that if the cabinet holds itself responsible 
 for the conduct of all its members, there would be no 
 longer any necessity for the ministerial heads of 
 departments being in Parliament, as the presence of 
 one minister to speak on behalf of all his colleagues 
 would be quite sufficient. 
 
 Ministers at the present day occupy a peculiarly 
 anomalous position. They try to face both ways, 
 and profess a divided responsibility. They are sup- 
 posed to be equally responsible to the Crown, and 
 to Parliament. 1 But they cannot be both. They 
 cannot be ministers of the Crown, and at the same 
 time ministers of Parliament. Responsibility must 
 centre somewhere, in some one person or body, not 
 in two. There can only be one supreme and sovereign 
 
 1 " They are responsible to the king on the one hand, and to Parlia- 
 ment on the other." May, Const. Hist., vol. i. p. 12. 
 
204 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 power in any state. We might as well say that the 
 king is absolute and at the same time responsible ; or 
 that Parliament is responsible and irresponsible at the 
 same time. There can be no difficulty in determining 
 to whom ministers are responsible. Lord Macaulay 
 has clearly defined the relative position of ministers 
 to Parliament in the following oft-quoted passage : 
 "The ministry," he says, "is, in fact, a committee 
 of leading members of the two Houses. It is nomi- 
 nated by the Crown, but it consists exclusively of 
 statesmen, whose opinions on the pressing questions 
 of the time agree, in the main, with the opinions of 
 the majority of the House of Commons. Among the 
 members of this committee are distributed the great 
 departments of the administration. Each minister 
 conducts the ordinary business of his own office with- 
 out reference to his colleagues. But the most im- 
 portant business of every office, and especially such 
 business as is likely to be the subject of discussion in 
 Parliament, is brought under the consideration of the 
 whole ministry (or rather, it should be observed, of 
 that section of the ministry which is known as the 
 cabinet council). In Parliament the ministers are 
 bound to act as one man on all questions relating to 
 the executive government. If one of them dissents 
 from the rest on a question too important to admit of 
 a compromise, it is his duty to retire. While the 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2O5 
 
 ministers retain the confidence of the parliamentary 
 majority, that majority supports them against opposi- 
 tion and rejects every motion which reflects on them 
 or is likely to embarrass them. If they forfeit that 
 confidence, if the parliamentary majority is dissatisfied 
 with the way in which patronage is distributed, with 
 the way in which the prerogative of mercy is used, 
 with the conduct of foreign affairs, with the conduct 
 of a war, the remedy is simple. It is not ^necessary 
 that the Commons should take upon themselves the 
 business of administration, that they should request 
 the Crown to make this man a bishop and that man 
 a judge, to pardon one criminal and to execute 
 another, to negotiate a treaty on a particular basis, or 
 to send an expedition to a particular place. They 
 have merely to declare that they have ceased to trust 
 the ministry and to ask for a ministry which they can 
 trust." 1 
 
 A great deal of the confusion that has arisen with 
 regard to the position of ministers is owing to the 
 fact that they are appointed by the Crown. Nominally, 
 no doubt, their appointment rests with the sovereign, 
 but virtually they arc appointed by Parliament. The 
 House of Commons can at any time, by a vote of 
 want of confidence or of censure, compel ministers 
 to resign, and although the sovereign appoints their 
 
 1 Hist, of Eng., vol. iv. pp. 435, 436. 
 
2O6 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 successors, the House may withdraw its confidence 
 from them also, and compel the Crown to seek 
 for new men whom it approves of. Thus by an 
 exhaustive process of rejection the House has 
 practically the appointment of ministers in its own 
 hands. An instance of this kind occurred on a recent 
 occasion which strikingly illustrates the inconvenience 
 of the present system. On the 22nd December, 1851, 
 Lord Palmerston, who seems to have been as popular 
 in the House at this time as he was afterwards in the 
 country, was removed from the office of Foreign 
 Secretary in Lord Russell's administration by com- 
 mand of the Queen, for exceeding his authority in 
 writing an important despatch without submitting it 
 for the approval of the sovereign before forwarding it 
 to its destination. In the following February the 
 House ,met, and a few days afterwards the ministry 
 were defeated upon an amendment, proposed by the 
 dismissed minister, on a motion for leave to bring in 
 a bill to regulate the local militia, and on the 23rd 
 of the same month their resignation was announced. 
 Instead of sending for the mover of the amendment, 
 however, the Queen instructed Earl Derby to form a 
 ministry. He unfortunately succeeded, and the first 
 Derby ministry then took office, although it was 
 admitted that they were in a minority in the House 
 of Commons on the leading questions of the day. A 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2O/ 
 
 dissolution followed, but the new Parliament was not 
 any more favourable to ministers than the old, and 
 after being defeated on their financial policy on the 
 1 7th December, they resigned, having held office little 
 more than nine months. On the 27th of the same 
 month Lord Aberdeen succeeded in forming a 
 ministry, which held office till the 1st of February, 
 1855, when they resigned in consequence of an 
 adverse vote on the Crimean war. Again the Queen 
 had recourse to Earl Derby, and afterwards to Earl 
 Russell, each of whom failed to form a ministry; and, 
 having tried every leading statesman and every 
 possible combination, her majesty at length sent for 
 Lord Palmerston, who became premier in two 
 administrations, which held office altogether for nearly 
 ten years. Had the appointment to the premiership 
 been left with the House there can be no doubt that 
 it would have nominated Lord Palmerston in 1852, 
 and two changes of ministry and one dissolution 
 would have been avoided. The three years during 
 which Lord Palmerston lay under the Queen's dis- 
 pleasure were years of bad administration, as wit- 
 ness the conduct of the Crimean war, and were 
 utterly barren of legislative measures of any kind 
 whatsoever. 
 
 The prerogative of the Crown to appoint and 
 dismiss ministers can only be exercised at the present 
 
2O8 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 day within certain clearly defined limits. The sovereign 
 may appoint his ministers, but the ministers he may 
 appoint must receive the approval of Parliament. 
 The sovereign may dismiss his ministers, but Parlia- 
 ment may compel him to re-appoint them. It is with 
 Parliament, therefore, that the real power rests, and 
 Parliament might as well appoint them first as last. 
 Of late years the Queen has waived her prerogative so 
 far as regards the appointment of ordinary members 
 of the cabinet. The usual practice at the present 
 day is for the sovereign to appoint the premier, 
 leaving the premier to select his own colleagues. 
 And, indeed, there would be great difficulty ex- 
 perienced in the forming of a cabinet if the sovereign 
 interfered with the premier in his selection. The 
 Crown has, however, on two occasions abandoned its 
 prerogative even as regards the appointment of the 
 premier. 
 
 It was long held as a maxim by the Whigs that 
 ministers, and especially the premier, should be 
 nominated by the chiefs of the Whig party ; and 
 owing to his adherence to this maxim the Prince 
 Regent was unable to reconstruct a ministry in 1812. 
 The difficulty of forming a ministry on that occasion 
 was so unsurmountable that the members of the 
 existing ministry were commanded to elect their own 
 premier, which they did, their choice falling on Lord 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2OO, 
 
 Liverpool, who was accordingly appointed. Again, 
 on the premiership becoming vacant on Lord Liver- 
 pool's death the king forwarded a minute to the 
 cabinet stating, "that his majesty is desirous of retain- 
 ing all his present servants in the stations which they 
 at present fill, placing at their head in the station 
 vacated by Lord Liverpool some peer professing 
 opinions upon which his majesty's confidential servants 
 may agree, of the same principles as Lord Liverpool." 
 The result of these negotiations was that ministers 
 elected Mr. Canning as the premier. 1 
 
 It may be objected that if Parliament appointed 
 ministers there could be no appeal from Parliament 
 to the country, and in such a case a ministry might 
 be retained in office which the country disapproved 
 of. But an assembly subject to the control of. the 
 constituent body could never be at variance with 
 the country ; and to appeal from Parliament to the 
 country in such a case would be like asking the 
 country to repeat the verdict it had already pro- 
 nounced. Under a properly constituted representa- 
 tive system, therefore, the necessity for an appeal 
 would seldom arise. In any case, however, the Crown 
 could exercise its prerogative in this respect in the 
 same way as it does now, although its exercise is 
 always liable to great abuse. A dissolution is a 
 
 1 Todd's Par!. 6"0z/., vol. i. pp. 218, 221, 225. 
 
 P 
 
210 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 violent, almost a revolutionary, proceeding. It is an 
 instrument of coercion. It was so used by the Crown 
 in times past to get rid of refractory Parliaments, and 
 ministers occasionally resort to it now in order to 
 punish their parliamentary opponents. A dissolution, 
 moreover, is promised or granted on the advice of 
 ministers, who do not always carry it immediately into 
 execution. A wary minister will sometimes delay an 
 appeal to the country till he thinks the turn of events 
 will secure him a more favourable hearing ; and if 
 ministers are all the time lying under a vote of 
 censure, the Crown places itself in an unpleasant 
 and unconstitutional position by thus permitting the 
 government to be carried on in direct opposition to 
 the expressed will of Parliament. 
 
 Under the system of Government by Cabinet 
 the real governing power in the state is the premier. 
 He is in fact the government. All the power which 
 was formerly divided between the king and his 
 Parliament is now concentrated in the premier. He 
 selects his own colleagues ; he appoints them their 
 several departments ; he dictates the policy of the 
 cabinet and of the country. Nay more, he actually 
 nominates his successor, as it is now customary for 
 the sovereign to ask the outgoing premier who should 
 be sent for to form a new ministry. It is the power 
 to appoint his colleagues that gives the premier the 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 211 
 
 predominating influence that he has in the cabinet, 
 and consequently in Parliament, which compels him 
 to cast in his lot with them when they are attacked, 
 and which gives political unity to the ministry. As 
 Parliament has conceded him the right to select his 
 colleagues, it cannot now interfere between them and 
 him without first depriving him of the power of selec- 
 tion. 
 
 Parliament having established its right to control 
 the executive, directly by a vote of censure or a vote 
 of want of confidence, and indirectly by rejecting 
 their measures, it has only now to follow the logical 
 consequences of its action by proceeding to nominate 
 their successors. The king's government must be 
 carried on. If Parliament can signify its disapproval 
 of one ministry, it can surely mark its approval of 
 another. This need not be considered any encroach- 
 ment on the royal prerogative. In one respect the 
 proposal is rather for an extension than a limitation 
 of the prerogative. At present the sovereign selects 
 the premier only, and it is proposed that he should 
 have something to say about the premier's colleagues 
 also. But at the same time it is desirable that some 
 advice should be offered as to the selection. At 
 present the sovereign takes the advice of the out- 
 going premier (who by the way is the very last persbn 
 whose advice should be asked on such occasions), 
 
212 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 and all that is now proposed is that he should take 
 the advice of Parliament instead. We can even 
 imagine this to be a proceeding that would be highly 
 acceptable to the sovereign. It would certainly 
 relieve him from a serious responsibility, and at 
 times from great embarrassment. Those who may 
 affect horror at the bare idea of such a thing should 
 remember that there are good Whig and other prece- 
 dents for such a course. The only objection to the 
 Whig precedents is that they go too far, for it was 
 the members of the Whig party and not the Parlia- 
 ment of England which, in the days of Whig supre- 
 macy, nominated the cabinet. They should remem- 
 ber that the " great governing families," Whig and 
 Tory alike, allowed the sovereign no choice in the 
 appointment of ministers outside their own select 
 circle, and that these families practically enjoyed a 
 monopoly of the high offices of state for generations. 
 They should remember that as far back as the 15 
 Edward III., the Parliament of that day, known in 
 history as the Good Parliament, not only nominated 
 but actually appointed the king's council, the chan- 
 cellor, and other high officers of state, and also the 
 judges. They should also remember that in more 
 recent times the sovereign has had to surrender a 
 prerogative of infmitively more importance to him, 
 and far dearer to the royal mind, than this. I mean, 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 213 
 
 of course, the right to dictate the policy of the cabinet 
 and to guide the destiny of the country. George III. 
 clung to this prerogative to the very last day of his 
 life, and nothing would make him consent to forego 
 it. He threatened over and over again to abdicate 
 and leave the country rather than give way one hair's- 
 breadth on this point. The nomination of his min- 
 isters was a bagatelle in comparison with this. A 
 sovereign might well forego his right to select and 
 even to appoint ministers so long as he could impose 
 on them his own policy. Having surrendered the 
 substance there need be no difficulty in giving up the 
 shadow. Formerly ministers were really the servants 
 of the sovereign. They were appointed by him, and 
 were responsible to him alone, and his policy was their 
 policy. Not only was the existence of the cabinet 
 formerly unknown to the law, but the individual 
 members of it were not even represented in Parliament 
 till comparatively recent times, and all deliberations 
 in the cabinet were conducted in the presence of the 
 sovereign. But all this is now changed. Cabinet 
 meetings are no longer held in the royal presence. 
 It is even considered necessary that the sovereign 
 should be expressly excluded from its deliberations, 
 in order that the cabinet may be able to arrive 
 at impartial conclusions on matters which come 
 before it. 
 
 P3 
 
214 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 The nomination of the executive by Parliament 
 would, in my opinion, bring about a vast and bene- 
 ficial change in the government of the country. It 
 would put an end to the dominating influence of the 
 premier and destroy the unity of the cabinet. Parlia- 
 ment could then remove at pleasure any minister 
 whose conduct it disapproved of. It would have the 
 selection of ministers in its own hands, and the best 
 men from both sides of the House would be eligible 
 for office in the same way as the speaker is now. 1 
 The selection would not be from one section of Parlia- 
 ment but for all sections, and the ministry would re- 
 present all shades of opinion. At present one half of 
 the best men in Parliament are permanently excluded 
 from office. 
 
 There would also be a possibility of differentiating 
 the functions of administration and legislation. Both 
 kinds of functions are now exercised by the cabinet. 
 Ministers attempt too much when they undertake to 
 administer the affairs, and at the same time to pro- 
 vide legislative measures, for a great empire. The 
 functions of administration are sufficiently onerous 
 and important to engage their undivided attention. 
 By relieving them of the business of legislation, which 
 
 1 The speakership is no longer a political office. Mr. Brand has 
 been elected speaker by three successive governments, in 1872, 1874, 
 and again in 1880. 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 21$ 
 
 properly belongs to Parliament, there would be some 
 chance of obtaining an efficient system of depart- 
 mental supervision ; while by leaving Parliament un- 
 hampered by considerations of changes of govern- 
 ment, it would be able to devote itself zealously to 
 the work of legislation. If the heads of departments 
 found it necessary to recommend legislation, their 
 proposals would, no doubt, be impartially considered 
 by Parliament. In this as in other matters ministers 
 would take their instructions from Parliament, not 
 Parliament from ministers, as at present. Probably 
 it might be necessary, in order to prevent the time 
 of the House being wasted in discussing the various 
 proposals which might be introduced by private 
 members, to appoint a legislative committee to ex- 
 amine and report, as is now done in France and in 
 several continental states where parliamentary govern- 
 ment exists. 
 
 The whole system of party government could in 
 this manner be quietly and effectually got rid of. 
 There would then be no striking at ministers through 
 their policy ; no rejecting of good measures in order 
 to bring about a change of government. Members 
 would be in a position to discuss measures on their 
 merits, or, at all events, without permitting party 
 questions to influence them. There would be no 
 weak governments, and no danger to the liberties 
 
2l6 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 of the people from too strong ones. As ministers would 
 not be appointed because they belonged to a party, 
 there would be no motive for turning them out of 
 office. They would be in deed and in truth the 
 ministers, not the masters of Parliament. 
 
 Parliament would also be able to exercise an 
 effective control over every department of state, as 
 each member of the executive would be directly and 
 exclusively responsible to it. If friendly relations 
 with a foreign power were imperilled by a bellicose 
 minister, if the commissariat were mismanaged, if the 
 army were improperly officered, if unsuitable persons 
 were appointed to the bench or the magistracy, the 
 offending minister would alone be held accountable 
 to Parliament. There would be no secrecy, no 
 screening of colleagues ; the public would know, in 
 every instance, who was to blame for the mismanage- 
 ment ; the delinquent alone would be liable to 
 censure or punishment, and the administration of 
 affairs would pass into the hands of efficient and 
 capable men. 
 
 Such a change as is here indicated ought to 
 specially commend itself to the conservative mind. 
 The present system is almost too revolutionary in 
 its character and tendencies. A change of ministers 
 is absolutely a change of rulers. It means the retire- 
 ment, sometimes sudden and always inconvenient, of 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2 1/ 
 
 one set of masters, and their replacement by another 
 set. It means more than this. It means the over- 
 throw of one set of masters and the substitution of 
 another set holding diametrically opposite . opinions 
 on almost every question of the day. It means, 
 therefore, a complete and entire reversal of the foreign 
 and domestic policy of the country. It means also a 
 change in the method of administration. The new 
 ministers bring with them into office new ideas and 
 new habits, and may undo in an hour arrangements 
 for carrying on the business which may have taken 
 their predecessors years to elaborate. What would 
 be thought if the managers of a factory, of a school, 
 of a prison, or of a lunatic asylum, if they changed 
 their officials after this fashion ? What method of 
 administration, what kind of discipline, could be 
 carried out under such conditions ? Only a nation 
 habituated for centuries to self-government, could 
 withstand the strain of such a vicious system. 
 
 In the foregoing pages I have attempted to show 
 that our process of legislation is slow, tedious, and 
 laborious ; that some of the most necessary and 
 valuable measures have taken generations of agitation 
 before they were passed into law, and that many use- 
 ful and urgent reforms still await legislative sanction. 
 I have also endeavoured to point out how our present 
 Constitution differs from the old, and wherein it is 
 
2l8 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 inferior to the latter ; how the former relationship 
 between the constituent and representative bodies no 
 longer exists ; how the continuity of representation 
 has been interrupted ; how annual Parliaments have 
 been superseded, first by triennial then by septennial 
 ones ; how useless the latter are as an index to current 
 public opinion, and how, as a consequence, Parliament 
 now looks, or professes to look, for instruction and 
 guidance to outside opinion instead of to the con- 
 stituent body. I have also endeavoured to explain 
 the inherent defects of the present system of govern- 
 ment, and have indicated how these defects may be 
 remedied. And in proposing a remedy I have not 
 lost sight of the fact that this should be simple, 
 effective, of easy application, and in perfect accord 
 with the spirit of the Constitution under which we 
 live. It is, I conceive, no small recommendation to 
 the plan proposed that it professes to meet all these 
 requirements. I have suggested only two alterations 
 in the existing system. The first is that a majority of 
 the electors of any constituency should have authority 
 to change their representatives without waiting for a 
 general election. The second is that Parliament 
 should have the right to nominate the members of 
 the ministry. The first will make the House of 
 Commons as truly representative of current public 
 
THE FUNCTIONS OF MINISTERS. 2IQ 
 
 opinion as were our early Parliaments when they 
 lasted only one short session ; the second will 
 accomplish what we still want, and which our early 
 Parliaments strove with all their might to bring 
 about, namely, an effective control over every de- 
 partment of administration, while at the same time 
 it will destroy party combinations for the sake of 
 office, and terminate the existence of Government by 
 Cabinet. 
 
 I do not imagine, however, that we shall ever get 
 rid of party altogether ; nor is it necessary or desirable 
 that we should. But it is desirable that we should do 
 away Avith party as it is ; that we should get rid of 
 the bitterness of party feeling, the dishonesty of party 
 tactics, and the evils inherent in the system of party 
 government. It would be a gain to society if we could 
 divest politics of its mean and mercenary character. 
 But wherever men have strong convictions, and are 
 earnest in the propagation of them, they will always 
 combine and organize in order the more effectu- 
 ally to secure their adoption by the public. We 
 shall still have party, therefore ; in politics, as in 
 other departments of human knowledge, there will 
 always be at least two parties the party for things as 
 they are, and the party for things as they ought to 
 be. The spoils for the victors would, however, be no- 
 
220 REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 longer the motto of party warfare. The victory, to 
 whichever side it turned, would be one of principles ; 
 the prize of contention would not be place or 
 patronage, but the favour and gratitude of a great 
 nation. 
 
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