Long Parliament

“ From this survey of the good works of the long parliament, we must turn our eyes with equal indifference to the opposite picture of its errors and offences; faults which, though the mischiefs they produced were chiefly temporary, have yet served to obliterate from the recollection of too many the permanent blessings we have inherited through its exertions. In reflecting on the events which so soon clouded a scene of glory, we ought to learn the dangers that attend all revolutionary crises, however justifiable or necessary ”

“ The old Long Parliament was restored to decree its own dissolution and the summoning of its successor. A general election when Royalism was stimulated by the Declaration from Breda promising amnesty and toleration produced the Convention Parliament which under stress of Royal promise and fear of the sectaries recalled the King. A Royal Council was hurriedly brought together, the House of Lords filled up, the Commonwealth officials and officers replaced as rapidly as might be by Royalists and before the end of June administration had been secured for the new monarchy. ”

“ Some would still insist upon the authority of the Long Parliament, of which, they say, they have members enough willing to meet; others have fancied to themselves by some computation of their own, upon some clause of the Triennial Bill, that this present Parliament was at an end some months since; and that, for want of new writs, they may assemble themselves and choose members of Parliament. ”

“ That the Parliament is a burden to the kingdom by the abundance of protections which hinder justice and trade; and by many subsidies granted much more heavy than any formerly endured. 166. To which there is a ready answer; if the time spent in this Parliament be considered in relation backward to the long growth and deep root of those grievances, which we have removed, to the powerful supports of those delinquents, which we have pursued, to the great necessities and other charges of the commonwealth for which we have provided. ”

“ But to give them local assemblies which have no real power, and which are doomed to sit by and be the impotent spectators of 380 their own and their constituents' ruin, by the burgh-directed measures of the Imperial Parliament, is to mock them with a shadow of constitutional privileges which, in this age of intelligence, will not long be borne. ”

“ We need not lament that the present forms and powers of our parliament are not those which existed a thousand years ago, as long as we recognize in them only the matured development of an old and useful principle. ”

“ The supreme power was gradually transferred from the Crown to the House of Commons. Step by step Parliament drew nearer to a solution of the political problem which had so long foiled its efforts, the problem how to make its will the law of administrative action without itself undertaking the task of administration. It is only by carefully fixing our eyes on this transfer of power, and by noting the successive steps towards its realization, that we can understand the complex history of the Restoration and the Revolution. ”

“ A four years’ Parliament has been found to be long enough for France, Germany, and the United States; and as the average of the last half-century has proved a seven years’ period to be unnecessarily long for England, the briefer should be enacted. Now that the suffrage is on so wide a basis, it is essential that members of Parliament should be in as close touch with the people as possible. ”

“ Long sessions, and a long continuance of the same parliament, have an inevitable tendency to generate a systematic opposition to the measures of the Crown, which it requires all vigilance and 324 management to hinder from becoming too powerful. ”

“ But between those early efforts at democratic government and the modern regime, a long period of darkness came over the world, and it is perhaps safe to say that the modern era in the political world began with the assembling of the first Representative Parliament in England. ”

“ Forster has remarked; it was "House of Commons tact." Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell, and Disraeli each understood that art of "managing Parliament," which is probably of far greater value to a Prime Minister than either virtue or eloquence. Lord Rockingham, George Grenville, and Lord Bute—the last uttering his words with hesitation and at long intervals, causing Charles Townshend to liken them to "minute-guns"—each lacked that power of oratory for which another Premier, Lord Derby, the "Rupert of debate," was more famous than for any intellectual ability. ”

“ It is useless to paint the dishonor of a court which followed gayly after such a leader. The first Parliament, while it contained some noble and patriotic members, was dominated by young men who remembered the excess of Puritan zeal, but forgot the despotism and injustice which had compelled Puritanism to stand up and assert the manhood of England. These young politicians vied with the king in passing laws for the subjugation of Church and State, and in their thirst for revenge upon all who had been connected with Cromwell's iron government. ”

“ Now, my notion is, that every great measure can have only one real importance, by throwing weight into the scale of one or other of the two great Parliamentary parties. Do what you will,—agitate, write, speak, pamphleteer, and libel,—but all resolves itself to some question of a harm to one side and good to the other, the country the while being wonderfully little the better or the worse for all the legislation. We used to have a Constitution in England: we have now only got a Parliament, and to be anything in the nation a man must make himself felt there! ”

“ The greatest reform ever effected by peaceful means [80] in the history of any government was that of the parliamentary reform of Great Britain, by which the rotten boroughs were disfranchised, populous towns admitted to representation, the elective franchise extended, the House of Commons purified, and made the predominant branch—the master branch of the British government. And how was that great reform effected? By a few desultory exertions in the parliament itself? No, but by forty years of continued exertion, and by incessant appeals to the people themselves. ”

“ He saw that if either Crown or Parliament must go down, better for England that it should be the crown. He saw also, that the vital principle in Parliament lay in the House of Commons. If the King refused to act with them, it should be treated as an abdication, and Parliament must act without him, and if the Lords obstructed reform, then they must be told that the Commons must act alone, rather than let the Kingdom perish. ”

“ If, however, we speak of parliamentary strategy in its larger sense, as covering familiarity with parliamentary forms and usages, the powers of seizing a parliamentary situation and knowing how to deal with it, the art of guiding a debate and choosing the right moment for reserve and for openness, for a dignified retreat, for a watchful defense, for a sudden rattling charge upon the enemy, no one had a fuller mastery of it. His recollection of precedents was unrivaled, for it began in 1833 with the first reformed Parliament, and it seemed as fresh for those remote days as for last month. ”

“ When the great measure of Reform in Parliament was introduced in 1831, apart from all question of party struggles there was the still greater question considered by many reflecting people, whether the new Parliamentary and electoral system would be found compatible with the old practice of government by means of party and steady Parliamentary majorities. ”

“ Wherever the Sovereign, the Peers spiritual and temporal, and the Representatives freely chosen by the constituent bodies of the realm were met together, there was the essence of a Parliament. Such a Parliament was now in being; and what could be more absurd than to dissolve it at a conjuncture when every hour was precious, when numerous important subjects required immediate legislation, and when dangers, only to be averted by the combined efforts of King, Lords, and Commons, menaced the State? A Jacobite indeed might consistently refuse to recognise the Convention as a Parliament. ”

“ They had therefore to be constantly steering a middle course, and assuming an appearance of weakness which rapidly undermined their popularity, while the two tendencies which they represented, affecting the individual members of the Cabinet in different degrees, speedily led to a division among themselves. It is for these reasons that the work of the first reformed Parliament, [1434] great as it was, has an appearance of weakness as compared with the burst of popular reform which might have been expected after so great a change. ”

“ A harassed leader, an ambitious Opposition, the balance of power resting in the hands of the Irish, divided amongst themselves, a new and probably noisy party, boredom increased, faddism intensified—such are the ingredients of the new House; and with little spice thrown in in the shape of a revived morality scandal, the new Parliament promises to be a hotch-potch of surprises. I myself take no side in politics, and am glad to say that I have numerous friends in all parties. ”

“ Their objects were to push on changes to any extent possible; to insist on whatever they chose to demand, as a right which could not justly be refused; to repress opposing opinions in their neighbourhood; and to make even the government feel that they existed in order to dictate, not to obey. The whole kingdom was indeed in a ferment; and not only the correction of abuses, but immediate relief from national calamities, was confidently expected by the multitude in a reform of parliament. It was to prove a balm for all their sufferings—the commencement of a golden era of prosperity. ”

“ But not a word of this is my present Business, which was to shew that Parliaments by the Constitution are not to be Stale; as I have seen one in my Time retained about Nineteen Years with Pensions, and another for fewer Years with Places and turning out of Places: But if a Parliament were corrupted neither of these ways, yet a standing Parliament will always Stagnate, and be like a Country-pond which is over-grown with Ducks-meat. ”

“ Success must never again be sought through paralysing the popular representation. The hindrance of Parliamentary work could only postpone or render quite impossible the realization of such aspirations as most deeply affected the public mind. The Sovereign then referred to the damage done to the interests of the Empire by the obstacles placed in the way of the regular working of the Constitution, and pointed to the indispensable necessity of the vigorous co-operation of Parliament in the approaching settlement of the commercial relations between the two halves of the Monarchy. ”

“ There were signs that the people at large were already growing weary of the influence of a few great nobles, of the squabbles of aristocratic parties for their own personal aggrandizement, and of the secresy in which the conduct of their nominal representatives was veiled. It is thus that the Opposition could generally rouse an almost irresistible expression of feeling by appealing from the overwhelming majority of Parliament to the passions of the nation. ”

“ We answer, if that part of the King's dominions, to which they removed, was not then a part of the realm, and was never annexed to it, the Parliament lost no authority over it, having never had such authority; and the emigrations were consequently freed from the subjection they were under before their removal. The power and authority of Parliament, being constitutionally confined within the limits of the realm, and the nation collectively, of which alone it is the representing and Legislative Assembly. ”

“ We have a plan which, for its originality, should draw down upon us the gratitude of the nation. It is no other than this: to make all Members of Parliament, for once in their lives at least, useful. The masons, hired to build the new temples of Parliament, have struck. The hard-handed ingrates,—let them go! We propose that, during the prorogation at least, Members of Parliament, should, like beavers, build their own Houses. In a word, every member elected to a seat in Parliament should be compelled, like Robinson Crusoe, to make his own furniture before he could sit down upon it. ”

“ At present, if the Commons decidedly oppose that policy, the Prime Minister, with his Cabinet, either resigns, and a new Cabinet is chosen, or the Minister appeals to the people for support, and the sovereign dissolves Parliament and orders a new parliamentary election, by which the nation decides the question. ”

“ An Act to prevent inconveniences which may happen by the untimely adjourning, proroguing, or dissolving this present Parliament.
Whereas great sums of money must of necessity be speedily advanced and provided for the relief of His Majesty's army and people in the northern parts of this realm, and for preventing the imminent danger it is in, and for supply of other His Majesty's present and urgent occasions, which cannot be so timely effected as is requisite without credit for raising the laid monies ”

“ The nation asserts its opinion in opposition to Parliament.
As in wealth and religion, so in its political tendencies, this period was one of growth and of preparation for the more important half century which was to follow. In that period was to begin the second phase of the political change introduced at the Revolution:—the gradual assertion by the nation of their right to proper representation in Parliament. ”