House of Commons

“ To go into the House of Commons is to go aside out of the general stream of the community's vitality into a corner where little is learnt and much is concocted, into a specialised Assembly which is at once inattentive to and monstrously influential in our affairs. ”

“ The House of Commons is, indeed, a most alluring place. It has an interest of the highest dramatic intensity on the occasion of a big debate relating to the predominant political question of the day, which deeply stirs Party passions and prejudices, and brings down into the arena of the floor the great chiefs to fight for principle with the keen and subtle weapon of the tongue. ”

“ From the moment when its sole right to tax the nation was established by the Bill of Rights, and when its own resolve settled the practice of granting none but annual supplies to the Crown, the House of Commons became the supreme power in the State. ”

“ The traveller, entranced by the power and eloquence of these leaders, could scarcely have failed to feel that the House of Commons was the most glorious assembly on earth, the incarnation of the highest political wisdom, the theatre and school of the noblest energies, worthy to instruct and guide the English nation, or any other nation in the world. ”

“ With a great number of Americans, that have not visited England, there is in some way or another an abiding impression that the House of Commons is the most stately and dignified legislative body in the world. ”

“ It is as well to say here that the House of Commons quickly cuts short the ambitions and hopes of many young men who on the strength of platform popularity look for triumph at Westminster. The House of Commons, whatever may be its drawbacks, has some human qualities, is kindly to beginners, has a respect for sincerity, an undisguised yawn for bores, and a cold contempt for swollen-headed young members who try to impress it with their capacity. ”

“ Now, as most people are aware, the House of Commons is about the most easy place in the world of access if any man or woman has the most flimsy pretext of business with any one of its six hundred or so solemn and dignified members. ”

“ It is by a middle position between an oligarchical senate, and a popular assembly, that the House of Commons is best preserved both in its dignity and usefulness, subject indeed to swerve towards either character by that continual variation of forces which act upon the vast machine of our commonwealth. ”

“ But besides these necessary qualities which are needful before a parliamentary government can work at all, there are some additional pre-requisites before it can work well. That a House of Commons may work well it must perform, as we saw, five functions well: it must elect a ministry well, legislate well, teach the nation well, express the nation’s will well, bring matters to the nation’s attention well. ”

“ The House of Commons is a debating assembly, not a lecture hall, where prosy papers may be read to sparse audiences. The House is seen at its best when masters [Pg 632] of fence follow each other in swift succession, striking and parrying, the centre of an excited ring. ”

“ Happily a way has been found out in which the House of Commons can exercise a paramount influence over the executive government, without assuming functions such as can never be well discharged by a body so numerous and so variously composed. ”

“ Can we do any Thing much worse, than to subvert one of the three Estates of the Realm, and to substitute a new one in the Place thereof, and instead of a House of Commons by the Choice of the People, as it always has been, and ever ought to be, to establish a new Kind of House of Commons, and 'till now unheard of, by Act of Parliament? ”

“ If a British House of Commons, from the most feeble beginnings, from the mere power of assenting or disagreeing to the imposition of a new tax, have, by rapid strides, reduced the prerogatives of the Crown and the privileges of the nobility within the limits they conceived to be compatible with the principles of a free Government, while they raised themselves to the rank and consequence of a coequal branch of the Legislature ”

“ Besides, the House of Commons is a mob divided beneficially, though it requires some knowledge of the general genius and practical bearings of a representative government to see all the advantages of such a division, into parties. What such parties value is that which is done in their ranks, that which is useful to themselves, of advantage to a common cause; any mere personal exhibition is almost certain to be regarded by them with contempt or displeasure. ”

“ The House of Commons did not originate as a matter of right in the people to delegate or elect, but as a grant or boon. ”

“ The English system makes the House of Commons the supreme governing organ of the realm, with no legal checks upon its omnipotence. It affords, moreover, a degree of leadership in legislation which the American plan fails to provide. ”

“ The House of Commons is represented as a wise and august Assembly; what it was long ago I shall not say, but in our days, it is full of disorder and confusion. The members that are capable and mindful of business are few in number, and the rest mind nothing at all. ”

“ It is a very fair and candid abstract, which, in fact, puts the whole question on one single issue, "that the House of Commons is the sole court of judicature in all cases of election, and that this authority is derived from the first principles of our government, viz., the necessary independence of the three branches of the Legislature." ”

“ The decision of the House of Lords is not likely to be endorsed by the representative House of Commons, which, as pointed out, hereafter, has never yet been induced to sanction the introduction of a system not asked for, and certainly not wanted by the people. ”

“ The House of Commons is totally unmanageable in any such view. The whole weight of the Ministers there, combining their aid as they now do, is, as you see, hardly sufficient to carry on the ordinary public business from day to day. I very much question whether all the weight that the Opposition could unite for the same purpose, if the task were committed into their hands, would be much, if at all, more adequate to it. ”

“ I have arrived at the conclusion that, eliminating great party issues, the House of Commons, with respect to the transaction of ordinary public affairs, is an assembly mainly composed of businesslike and reasonable individuals who, having to find certain funds for certain purposes, desire, in the main, that the pecuniary demands of Government should not be obviously excessive and that fair guarantees should be given for economical expenditure of the funds provided. ”

“ In France, the parliament soon became a mere engine in the hands of a few high-born and ambitious men, who had nothing in common with its interests, which were those of the people. In England, the House of Commons was a powerful body, sufficing to itself, and whose members had common cause in the privileges for which they contended. ”

“ The reform measures of 1867 and 1884, establishing in substance a system of manhood suffrage in parliamentary elections, converted the House of Commons into an organ of thoroughgoing democracy. The development of the cabinet system brought the working executive, likewise, within the power of the people to control. ”

“ Love of liberty among the English has begotten an almost superstitious reverence for Parliamentary institutions. Parliamentary institutions have practically meant the House of Commons; and the House of Commons has for many generations past implied the party system. ”

“ It is a struggle of which the end is not yet. In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries the British people worked out what seemed to them a satisfactory solution of the problem, by making the Executive, or Government, responsible to the House of Commons, which in its turn had at certain periods to appeal to the people in a general election. ”