THE CLOSURE CARRIED.
THE rapid passage of the new Rules of Procedure through the House of Commons with little serious opposition and no scenes, points to a decided change of opinion, either within the House or in the constituencies. We trust it is the latter, because in that case the Ministry of the day, when hereafter it becomes necessary, as it will become, to introduce much more stringent rules, and to fine or imprison rowdies who disgrace the House by their conduct, will have the support of heavy majorities for their proposals. The new rules are almost childish in their treatment of " disorderly conduct," and their lenity shows how difficult it is for a House so old and so unbroken in its external routine, to forget the tradition of days when it was composed of gentlemen. The change, however, though not complete, is great, and must be due to the operation of some external force. It is true Mr. W. H. Smith makes an admirable Leader, always conciliatory yet always persistent, and totally free from that impulse to talk needlessly which is the temptation of so many trained Parliamentarians ; but it is not three years since we were told that the Closure by majority was a tyrannical proposal, that it was a method of gagging the House, and that those who resisted it would fight it Session after
Session, and never allow it to be passed. It was passed on Tuesday by a vote of 256 to 134, after a debate of less than an hour, distinguished for its calmness and modera- tion. No Member thundered, no Member appealed from the House to the democracy, and no Member, except Mr. Dillon, threatened revenge. That Member, indeed, recollecting, per- haps, his threats to the Irish police of punishment to be inflicted when his colleagues attained power, informed the House that " when the Irish Members got hold of the end of the rope, and the Liberal Party were passing the Home-rule Bill, the Conservative Party might depend upon it the Home- rule Party would pull that rope very sharply." It is of little use discussing events to occur in the next generation, but we earnestly trust that if, in a worn old age, his millennium arrives to the Member for East Mayo, he will fulfil his threat to the letter. We only wish obstructives could be hanged off-hand ; and if the Unionists resist Home-rule by the methods used to obstruct public business by the Irish Members, they will deserve to be silenced, just as, if they insult the Chair or hurl filthy expletives at their opponents, they will deserve imprisonment and expulsion from the House. We support the Closure not in the interests of any party or of any geographical section of the representatives, but in the interests of the whole com- munity, which requires the legislating and controlling body to be competent, after due deliberation, to announce its will. Unpunished obstruction produces paralysis. The Closure as now adopted is, in all but form, the abso- lute closure, with the restriction that the Speaker must assent to its being put in force. A Government in possession of a majority can always secure the attendance of a hundred Members, except upon those nights when practically nobody intends to resist any of the business to be brought forward. The rule is quite sharp enough, and the single objection to it is that it might be so applied as to become an instrument of tyranny. That, however, is unavoidable, and is a defect inherent in the unrestricted power allowed by our Constitution to Parliament itself. We have seen a Bill to correct a blunder in an Act passed through both Houses in three hours ; and there is nothing whatever in the way of
form to prevent a Minister, possessed of a majority in the Lords as well as the Commons, proposing a Bill to make himself dictator, suspending the Standing Orders, and passing the Act at once. There is nothing in the Closure to add to the power of a tyrant, while it greatly facili- tates the beneficial work of a thorough business-man. It is true, in its present form, it will add to the responsibility of the Speaker ; but then, that is the very principle of all recent changes. Sir J. Simon exaggerated when he said that the Speaker, from the servant, was becoming the master of the House ; but it is true that his dignity is being elevated and his powers greatly increased. He is being clothed with many of the attributes of a Judge, and will in a few more years, we trust, be invested with the powers of one. The Judges do not abuse the great authority entrusted to them ; nor will the Speakers, unless, indeed, the time should arrive when, all decent men refusing to sit in Parliament, Speakers at once of character and ability shall be practically unpro- curable. We are far from that yet, and as to any abuse of power in the immediate future, those who fear it have only to read the debate upon the rules enabling the Speaker to repress disorder or deliberate speaking against time. It was not even proposed to give him any power except that of suspension for one night ; and grave Members—men like Mr.. Whitbread, fathers in the Parliamentary Israel—talked as if they were appalled. A proviso that an offender, who will be usually a public nuisance, and must in the best case have utterly lost for the moment his sense of decency, should be compelled to " quit the precincts of the House," was discussed as if it had been proposed to send him to the stake or the triangles. The House fell into an agony of imbecile pity. ' Good God said one ; 4 why, he might want to write a letter in the library." Heavens !' thought another ; he might be expelled at dinner-time, and have nowhere to go !" Positively,' exclaimed a third, ' his comfort might be interfered with.' It will be an amusing scene to read when Englishmen, at last irritated into fortitude by revolutionists, socialists, and philan- thropists, come to pass the disciplinary rules which will be accepted within ten years ; and although it ended in the adop- tion of Mr. Smith's proposals, it showed that no Speaker not provoked beyond human endurance, will ever put them in force. Still, there the rules are ; and henceforward a drunken rowdy who insults the Chair may be put out, as he would be in the smallest village alehouse in the land.
The new rule fixing the assemblage of the House at 3 p.m., and 12.30 as the hour of closing, was passed with an altera- tion making midnight the regular time for the arrest of work. We still believe that the early hour for commencing will' greatly harass Secretaries and Under-Secretaries of State ; bat it is the 12 o'clock rule which has attracted almost all public attention. We should have attributed this to the de- light in it felt by journalists and reporters, whose lives will be distinctly sweetened by the new ways, were it not that the impression of the magnitude of the change is shared by many Members of experience. They differ with each other, but they agree that the change may prove the most important of all the innovations. According to one set, early closing facilitates obstruction and delays business. The faddists, they say, will have only to talk, and nobody will be able to wear them out. Moreover, the House will con- stantly leave over unfinished bits of business, and those remanets, which would have been discussed and settled in ten minutes, will next day occupy as many half-hours. Their opponents, on the other hand, urge that business which must be done by a certain hour always is done, that the Bank of England's work is never in arrear, and that the elaborate arrangements necessary for getting out a daily journal are finished every day at a certain hour, just because they must be. If the Times could be published at any time, the Times would never appear. The House, they contend, under the strong whip of the rule, will acquire new instincts and fresh courage, and the one thing which will never be tolerated will be a waste of time intended to interfere with practical work. That will be stopped, just as it is in any office in the City. We confess we agree with the second division of these reasoners ; but, of course, experience is required to test the rule. Meanwhile, how- ever, it has two obvious and, indeed, undisputed advantages. It makes sittings of thirty hours, forced for purposes of obstruction, almost impossible, and it reduces the heavy strain upon the health of Members. This had become exceedingly serious. Ministers were almost worked to death. They were compelled to sit till 3, and were then obliged to meet their
secretaries in office by 11,—thus leaving themselves eight hours a day only for sleep, private business, and domesticity. Even private Members felt the burden very severely. Seats are filled more and more by elderly men ; and though English constitutions are strong, and English hours are late with all
classes, still the late hours of the House used up men with dangerous rapidity. It was not that they died quickly, which might not have mattered, but that they became exhausted men, unfit for calm debate, and given to a lassitude of thought fatal to purposeful deliberation. We have only to mention further that Mr. W. H. Smith, to the surprise of the House, and amidst the warmest congratu- lations of his opponents, announced the determination of Government to submit the question of Private-Bill legislation to a joint Committee of both Houses. That is an immense step forward towards the good government of the country. We confess to a fear that the Committee, when it comes to the point, will hesitate to recommend the only effective reform,—namely, the transfer of the whole private business of Parliament to an energetic tribunal, or series of tribunals, one for each province ; but to acknowledge so fully that radical reform must come, is, with our English manners, a long step towards securing it. It could not have been taken a few years ago, and in taking it, the Government acknowledge, what we believe to be true, that we are on the eve of far-reaching changes in the whole method of organising Parliamentary work, changes all tending to separate the strictly political from what may be called the business functions of the Houses. Naval and Military Estimates are already to be sent to a " Bureau," and so will much more of the supervising work.
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