Member of Parliament

“ Communication between voters and representatives has thus become more direct than ever before, and the Member of Parliament is now completely subject to the authority of those whom he is supposed to govern. ”

“ Perhaps no public man ever burst so suddenly upon the house of commons as a leading party politician. He had been well known as a member of parliament, had conciliated general esteem, and won extensive respect, as a private gentleman, from both sides of the house; but as a politician he had scarcely been noticed, nor had he taken any pains to make himself felt in debate: his irruption, so to speak, upon the ranks of the ministerialists, was sudden and effective. ”

“ A vigorous and well-known member of parliament—a not very reputable aristocrat perhaps, or some one loosely connected with the Labour movement—whom everybody has hitherto feared and no one quite trusted, sees his opportunity. ”

“ The hours of work are still arranged on the old supposition, that a Member of Parliament is a man who, with great self-sacrifice, devotes a large part of his time gratuitously to the service of his country. ”

“ A Member of Parliament must be answerable that you are not dangerous or dull before you can be of the entree. You must commence toad-eater to have your observations attended to; if you are independent, unconnected, you will be regarded as a poor creature. ”

“ From the first hour I was encouraged to court your favor, to this happy day of obtaining it, I have never promised you anything but humble and persevering endeavors to do my duty. The weight of that duty, I confess, makes me tremble; and whoever well considers what it is, of all things in the world, will fly from what has the least likeness to a positive and precipitate engagement. To be a good member of Parliament is, let me tell you, no easy task,—especially at this time, when there is so strong a disposition to run into the perilous extremes of servile compliance or wild popularity. ”

“ At every public meeting the chief speaker is always “a jolly good fellow.” The man from Mars, reading our newspapers, would be convinced that every Member of Parliament was a jovial, kindly, high-hearted, generous-souled saint, with just sufficient humanity in him to prevent the angels from carrying him off bodily. ”

“ I think that parliament has done its duty: that constituted as parliament is, having in it as a member every [80] man noted in the country for his fortune, his talents, his science, his industry, or his influence; the first men of all professions, in all branches of trade and manufacture, connected with our colonies and settlements abroad, and representing, as it does, all the states of the United Kingdom, the government of the country is still a task almost more than human. ”

“ In our age, therefore, the stages of legislation, the rules of debate, the tactics of faction, the opinions, temper, and style of every active member of either House, are familiar to hundreds of thousands. Every man who now enters Parliament possesses what, in the seventeenth century, would have been called a great stock of parliamentary knowledge. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I found that the only way to be quiet in Parliament was always to vote with the Ministry, and never to take a place." [75]
No doubt the member of Parliament enjoys many privileges which are denied to the mere layman. He is stimulated by the excitement of participating in a perpetual political conflict; he delights in the intellectual pleasure of hearing the most interesting questions of the day debated by the shrewdest men of the age ”

“ Even in the most democratic system of representative government, some sort of educational qualification is required by principle. We must never lose sight of the truth, that the suffrage for a member of Parliament is power over others, and that to power over others no right can possibly exist. ”

“ In olden days members used to return from Westminster to London through lanes infested with robbers. This cry enabled them to assemble and leave the House in one another's company.
[80] It is curious to reflect that a man may be a member of Parliament even though he is not entitled to a vote as an elector. The Rt. Hon. Austen Chamberlain was not only a member, but even a Cabinet Minister, at a time when he had no vote. ”

“ With respect to responsibility, still the honorable member thinks that the House of Representatives and Senate will suffer by a comparison with the British Parliament. I will not repeat the contrast made before, which he has mentioned. He tells us what may be done by our representatives with respect to the admission to offices, and insinuates that less may be done in Great Britain by the members of Parliament. In this country, by this system, no new office can be taken by a member of the government, and if he takes an old one, he loses his seat. ”

“ Sometimes, by a more thoughtful brow, a still brisker pace, you recognize a busy member of the Imperial Parliament, who, advised by physicians to be as much on horseback as possible, snatches an hour or so in the interval between the close of his Committee and the interest of the Debate, and shirks the opening speech of a well known bore. ”

“ It being now an established axiom that every member goes into Parliament for the sole purpose of advancing his own private interest, and not, as has been ignorantly believed, for the benefit of his country or the constituency he represents, it becomes a matter of vast importance to those individuals who have not had the advantage of long experience in the house, to be informed of the mode usually adopted by honourable members in the discharge of their legislative duties. ”

“ If there is to be no contest, and at the assembling of a new Parliament the former Speaker is invariably re-elected unanimously, the motion that he “do take the Chair of this House as Speaker” is made by a leading unofficial Ministerialist, and seconded by an old and respected Member of the Opposition. The Government take no part in the ceremony so far, in accordance with an old-established tradition that the election or re-election of a Speaker is the independent and unfettered action of the House. ”

“ The State Chief Information Commissioner or a State Information Commissioner shall not be a Member of Parliament or Member of the Legislature of any State or Union territory, as the case may be, or hold any other office of profit or connected with any political party or carrying on any business or pursuing any profession. ”

“ That no person who has an office or place of profit under the King, or receives a pension from the Crown, shall be capable of serving as a member of the House of Commons;
That after the said limitation shall take effect as aforesaid, judges commissions be made quamdiu se bene gesserint, and their salaries ascertained and established; but upon the address of both Houses of Parliament it may be lawful to remove them;
That no pardon under the Great Seal of England be pleadable to an impeachment by the Commons in Parliament. ”

“ On the presentation of this report, it was resolved that annual Parliaments are the right of the people, and that "the present state of the representation is inadequate to the object, and a departure from the first principles of the Constitution." ”

“ In manners, in public spirit, in devotion to parliamentary duty, and in the range of their knowledge and experience, the members of the present Parliament compare most favourably with their predecessors in any Parliament in our history. ”

“ But here the subjects retain their proportion in the Legislature; the very meanest commoner of England is represented in Parliament, and is a party to those laws by which the Prince is sworn to govern himself and his people. ”

“ The House of Commons is the house of a few; the Sovereign is the sovereign of all. The proper leader of the people is the individual who sits upon the throne.’
‘Then you abjure the Representative principle?’
‘Why so? Representation is not necessarily, or even in a principal sense, Parliamentary. Parliament is not sitting at this moment, and yet the nation is represented in its highest as well as in its most minute interests. Not a grievance escapes notice and redress. ”

“ The prime minister selects, for membership in the cabinet, whomsoever he pleases, the only restrictions being that they shall have seats in parliament and that the cabinet as a whole shall have the support of a majority in the House of Commons. ”

“ As a natural consequence of the position thus taken by the nation as the supreme power in the State, Parliament, its representative, became in its turn supreme, and although the change was not yet fully understood, the representatives of the people were gradually taking to themselves not only the duties of legislation, but also the executive. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Instead of deciding once in three or six years which member of the ruling class was to misrepresent the people in Parliament, universal suffrage was to serve the people, constituted in Communes, as individual suffrage serves every other employer in the search for the workmen and managers in his business. ”

“ Members of Parliament are, in practice if not in form, Party delegates. To them the majority of the electorate have relegated their authority to support or oppose in the House of Commons the controversial political questions of the time in the light of certain Party principles. ”

“ All the members return for re-election by their constituencies, and the question at issue is quickly submitted for decision by the ballots of the electors. Thus the acts of the Premier or chief minister, and of his Cabinet, and also of the party of which he is leader, and the [Pg 258] whole Parliament, are at once subject to the opinion of the people without waiting for the completion of their term. ”

“ An act of parliament, thus made, is the exercise of the highest authority that this kingdom acknowleges upon earth. It hath power to bind every subject in the land, and the dominions thereunto belonging ”

“ In doing this, it merely recognizes the fact that a certain person is the candidate of the party whose general policy commands its support. In reality, the only thing which Parliament decides is, which of two, or at most three, parties or bodies of men shall furnish the executive government: the opinion of the party itself decides which of its members is fittest to be placed at the head. According to the existing practice of the British Constitution, these things seem to be on as good a footing as they can be. ”