PROCEDURE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.* ANY one who attempts
to deal with the procedure of the House of Commons must be struck with the difficulty that will at once present itself in the great antiquity of its forms and rules, and the character of the sources and authorities from which they must be sought. The journals of the House of Commons go baok to the year 1547, and throughout their pages will be found Resolutions and decisions directed to a definition of procedure and the order of Parliamentary
• The Proredure of the House of Conttnons : a Study of its History and Present Form. By Josef Redlich. With an Introduction and Supplementary Chapter 'by Sir Courtenay Ilbert, K.C.S.I., Clerk of the Hones of Commons. 3 vols. London: A. Constable and Co. [4.1 lls, ed, net.]
discussion. Many of these Resolutions, though technically enduring only for a Session, have been adopted by the House without any formal step as a part of its permanent procedure; but when it is mentioned that sixty years ago the House of Commons had only fourteen Standing Orders dealing with its conduct of public business, the difficulty of the historian of House of Commons' procedure will be realised. At the present time the House of Commons has ninety-five Standing Orders dealing with public business ; but no one acquainted with its everyday life will hesitate to say that its common law and tradition are at least as important as what may be called by analogy its statute law. To trace the historical development of this procedure during some six centuries, and to grasp the characteristics of Parliamentary government in this its native land, are the tasks which Dr. Redlich has set himself in his latest work.
In his treatment of the development of procedure Dr. Redlich deals first with the period of the Estates, beginning with their first meetings under Henry III. and Edward I., and continuing to the middle of the sixteenth century. During this period, he points out, the simultaneous gatherings of Barons and prelates for the purpose of a High Court of Justice, and of the representative knights and burgesses as deputies of the commonalty for the consideration of taxes, coalesced. A single Assembly was thus established constituting Parliament in its present form. Opportunities were afforded to the persons brought together for the purpose of granting taxes by the conjunction of the Royal Law Sittings for bringing before the Crown and its Council petitions for redress and assistance. These were readily grasped, and petitions, at first, indeed, coming principally from without, but gradually from the Estates as a whole, were laid before the King in Parliament, forming, as Stubbs has pointed out, the basis of conditions for money grants and of administrative and statutory reforms. As far back as the beginning of the fifteenth century the principle that redress of grievances should precede the grant of Supply was established. This period of the Estates was distinguished also under Henry V. and Henry VI. by the substitution of Bills, or drafts of the enactments that the Commons desired, for the older petitions or requests to the Crown. The form of a Bill was soon applied to accusations of high treason in the form of Bills of Attainder and to grants of taxes. This adoption of the Bill as the basis of Parliamentary procedure completed the edifice of Parliament as the representation of the kingdom by means of two corporate bodies with equal rights.
The second period of Parliamentary development, which takes one to the Revolution of 1688, finds Parliament beginning to meet regularly, and its procedure appears on the whole on its permanent fundamental basis. The authorities for this period present procedure in a highly developed state, showing clearly that most of its fundamental elements must have been formed at an early date. This period witnessed great struggles between the Crown and the House of Commons over political and religious questions, with the result that the procedure of the House of Commons was, Dr. Redlich says, worked out, so to speak, as the procedure of an Opposition. This characteristic has never really disappeared, while the principle of the protection of the minority has always been a fundamental basis of English Parliamentary government. The third period which Dr. Redlich selects carries on the history of procedure to the time of the Reform Bill,— a period of conservative Parliamentary rule, and the golden age of 'the English Parliamentary system. The party system was by this time firmly established; but it must be remembered that both parties in the House of Commons were drawn from the same social class, and that politics were largely a game to be played like other games, strictly according to the rules, so that it is hardly surprising that this period records very few Procedure Orders or new maxims as to the conduct of business. Restrictions were indeed placed on the initiation of financial measures, while towards the end of the period notice began to be required of a Member's intention to make an important Motion. At the same time, one or two days a week were begun to be reserved for Government business by giving Government Orders of the Day precedence thereon. Such, very briefly, was the state of affairs which faced the new House of Commons with its changes in social structure and political character caused by Roman Catholic emancipation and the first Reform Act. Almost immediately alterations in procedure were made by setting aside a special period at the commencement of the sitting for private business and petitions, and by reforming the procedure connected with the presentation of the latter. This change, however, did not suffice for long. The special sitting for private business and petitions was quickly aban- doned, while as early as 1839 debate on the presentation of petitions was forbidden. It is impossible to follow in detail the changes that have taken place until the present time. The growing importance and scope of Government business, the constantly widening circle of subjects for which the House of Commons asserts its responsibtlity, and the growing appetite for legislation have made demands upon the time of Parliament, to meet, or to endeavour to meet, which it has had recourse to constant alttrations in its methods of business. Since 1832 no fewer than fifteen Select Committees have been appointed to consider questions of procedure, while important proposals have also been made to the House without a pre- liminary investigation by a Committee,—the changes of 1902 affording a recent example. It must not be forgotten, how- ever, that the proposals of Select Committees have often been adopted, years after their formulation, when circumstances have rendered reform inevitable. For the first time the pro- posals of these various Committees are submitted to the public in a collected form. Scattered through a series of Blue-books are the opinions of Speakers and officials which were offered to the various Committees, themselves generally composed of Members well versed in the practice of the House. From these Dr. Redlich has collected the most important parts, and has at the same time summarised the proposals of the Committees, and shown how far they were adopted by the House, either immediately or subsequently. To the student of procedure this will appeal almost as strongly as Dr. R,edlich's historical sketch of the earlier periods. A chapter is devoted by Dr. Redlich to the organised obstruction by the Irish Home-rule Party begun by Biggar and developed by Parnell. This policy of obstruction, which had its prototypes in the struggles over the Grand Remon- strance of 1641, and the proceedings of 1771 over the publica- tion of Parliamentary debates, the pertinacity of which Burke said posterity would bless, culminated in the famous sitting of Monday, January 31st, 1881, which was ended at 9 o'clock on the following Wednesday morning only by the personal action of Mr. Speaker Brand. The subsequent rules of urgency and the introduction of the Closure are fully described by Dr. Redlich, as well as the changes in procedure of 1888. Mr. Balfour's proposals for dealing with the business of Supply of Session 1896, the most important features of which were the allocation of a fixed number of days to the discussion of Supply, the distribution of such discussion evenly over the Session, and the automatic conclusion of the votes on a fixed day, and which, with a few modifications, were made part of the Standing Orders in 1902, are next dealt with, together with the whole scheme of pro- cedure reforms proposed by Mr. Balfour in the latter year. Dr. Redlich very usefully reproduces the original proposals of Mr. Balfour's scheme, and shows how far they were accepted, modified, or not persisted in.
In addition to dealing with the history of procedure, Dr. Redlich describes the proceedings of the House of Commons and the forms of Parliamentary work as they exist to-day in considerable detail, appending to each division of his subject historical notes of great value. He is much to be congratulated that in dealing with so technical a subject he should have attained such a high standard of accuracy and provided such an interesting study. He traces the history of the Speaker- ship, for instance, from the early days when the President of the Lower House was a Court official dependent upon the Crown, and shows how his office has become "a synonym for dignity and impartiality all over the Anglo-Saxon world." Another chapter of practical importance at the present time is that dealing with Committees, and it is not a little interesting to notice the extent to which the recent increase in the number of Standing Committees and the extension of their operations have been anticipated in the proposals of reformers in the past. The chapters relating to financial procedure include a discussion of fundamental principles as well as the proceedings of the Committees of Supply and Ways and Means, and a description of the "Budget." The concluding task that Dr. Redlich has set himself is to endeavour to draw some general
conclusions from his studies, and to develop a theory of Parliamentary action and procedure, a subject practically neglected in England since Bentham's time. It only remains to notice that a preface and a supplementary chapter have been supplied by Sir Courtenay Ilbert. In the latter the changes in procedure since the publication of the German edition of Dr. Redlich's book in 1905 are described, and accounts are given of the Committee on Procedure presided over by Sir Henry Fowler and the Committee on Anticipatory Motions. Upon the recommendations of the latter action has still to be taken.
Previous page
