as furnishing some guarantee, though, unfortunately, by no means a sufficient one, that he will not dishonestly abuse his trust. And the strength of this presumption is greatly increased if the character of his fortune is not fugitive and movable, but permanent and stationary, and if he holds a desirable social position which depends mainly upon opinion, and would be inevitably destroyed by an act of private dishonesty.
This is the mode of reasoning on which men invariably act in the transactions of private life, and it is equally applicable to politics. The code of honour which the conventionalities of society attach to the idea of a gentleman is, indeed, a somewhat capricious thing, and certainly not co-extensive with the moral law. It may be, and often is, compatible with acts that are, in truth, profoundly base and immoral. Without forfeiting this position in the eyes of the world, men have plunged their country, through motives of mere personal ambition, into the horrors of war; have sought for honours, or power, or party triumphs, by shameful acts of political apostasy and shameful incitements to class warfare; have purchased majorities by allying themselves with dishonest men pursuing dishonest ends; have framed constitutions to enable their allies to carry those ends into effect. Men of old families and ample means may be found among the active agents or the servile tools in some of the worst political transactions of our time. All this is profoundly true; and it is also true that when any one class, be it high or low, obtains an uncontrolled, or even a greatly preponderating, power, its policy will exhibit a class bias. At the same time, it is no less true that on special subjects, and within a restricted sphere, the code of honour of a gentleman is the most powerful of all restraining influences, more powerful even than religion with ordinary men. Wherever it pervades the public service men will soon learn to recognise that public servants cannot be bribed or corrupted; that in dealing with public money they will not be guilty of malversation; that their word may be trusted, that they are not likely to act by tortuous or intriguing methods. The credit of England in the world depends largely upon this conviction, and that credit has been no small element of her prosperity. Imputations against men in high office, which in many countries are constantly made, easily believed, and sometimes proved, are in England at once felt to be incredible. One thing, at least, is very apparent to all serious observers—if the government of England passes altogether out of the hands of the kind of men who have hitherto directed it, it will speedily fall into the hands of professional politicians. What the character and tendencies of such politicians are likely to be, the example of the United States abundantly shows, and it shows also how different must be the constitution under which alone they can be safely restrained.
I do not think there is any single fact which is more evident to impartial observers than the declining efficiency and the lowered character of parliamentary government. The evil is certainly not restricted to England. All over Europe, and, it may be added, in a great measure in the United States, complaints of the same kind may be heard. A growing distrust and contempt for representative bodies has been one of the most characteristic features of the closing years of the nineteenth century. In some countries, as we have already seen, the parliamentary system means constantly shifting government, ruined finances, frequent military revolts, the systematic management of constituencies. In most countries it has proved singularly sterile in high talent. It seems to have fallen more and more under the control of men of an inferior stamp: of skilful talkers and intriguers; or sectional interests or small groups; and its hold upon the affection and respect of nations has visibly diminished. Laveleye has truly noted the sigh of relief that is felt in many lands when a Parliament is prorogued, and the growing feeling that America has acted wisely in restricting many of her State legislatures to biennial sessions. He observes, with some cynicism, that Italy has one special advantage in her capital—the Roman malaria effectually abridges the sessions of her Parliament.
This great decline in the weight of representative bodies, which has made ‘parliamentarism’ almost a byword in many nations, has advanced contemporaneously with the growth of democracy. In a large degree, at least, it may be clearly traced to the general establishment of universal suffrage as the basis of representation. It is being generally discovered that the system which places the supreme power in the hands of mere majorities, consisting necessarily of the poorest and most ignorant, whatever else it may do, does not produce Parliaments of surpassing excellence. One thing, however, must be observed. Ignorance in the elective body does not naturally produce ignorance in the representative body. It is much more likely to produce dishonesty. Intriguers and demagogues, playing successfully on the passions and the credulity of the ignorant and of the poor, form one of the great characteristic evils and dangers of our time.
In England, no one can be insensible to the change in the tone of the House of Commons within the memory of living men. The old understandings and traditions, on which its deliberations have been for many generations successfully conducted, have largely disappeared, and new and stringent regulations have been found necessary. Scenes of coarse and brutal insult, of deliberate obstruction, of unrestrained violence, culminating on one occasion in actual blows, have been displayed within its walls to which there have been few parallels in other legislatures. Perhaps the nearest are to be found in the American Congress in the years of fiercely excited passions that preceded the Civil War. It is true that these scenes may be chiefly traced to one party, which made it its avowed object to degrade, dislocate, and paralyse the parliamentary machine till their objects were attained; but the contagion of their example and the connivance, through party motives, of other members have been very evident.
On the other hand, the power of arbitrarily closing debates, which has been placed in the hands of majorities, has been grossly abused. It has been made use of not merely to abridge, but to prevent, discussion on matters of momentous importance. Many clauses of a Home Rule Bill which went to the very root of the British Constitution; which, in the opinion of the great majority of competent British statesmen, would have proved the inevitable prelude to the dismemberment and downfall of the Empire; which was supported by a party depending on the votes of men who were ostentatiously indifferent to the well-being of the Empire, and was strenuously opposed by a great majority of the representatives of England, and by a considerable majority of the representatives of Great Britain, were forced through the House of Commons by the application of the Closure, and without any possibility of the smallest discussion. Nothing but the veto of the House of Lords prevented a measure of the first importance, carried by such means and by a bare majority, from becoming law.
And while this change has been passing over the spirit of the House of Commons, its powers and its pretensions are constantly extending. The enormous extension of the practice of questioning ministers has immensely increased the intervention of the House in the most delicate functions of the Executive. It insists on measures and negotiations, in every stage of their inception, being brought before it, and resolutions emanating from independent sections have more than once exercised a most prejudicial influence, if not on foreign affairs, at least on the government of India. At the same time, the claim is more and more loudly put forward that it should be treated as if it were the sole power in the State. The veto of the sovereign has long since fallen into abeyance. Her constitutional right of dissolving Parliament if she believes that a minister or a majority do not truly represent the feelings of the nation, and are acting contrary to its interests, might sometimes be of the utmost value, but it is never likely to be put in force. Her slight power, in the rare cases of nearly balanced claims, of selecting the minister to whom she will entrust the government, and the slight influence she still retains over the disposition of patronage, are regarded with extreme jealousy; while every interference of the House of Lords with the proposed legislation of the Commons has been, during a considerable part of the last few years, made the signal of insolent abuse. It would be difficult to conceive a greater absurdity than a second Chamber which has no power of rejecting, altering, or revising; and this is practically the position to which a large number of members of the House of Commons, and of their supporters outside the House, would reduce the House of Lords.
We can hardly have a more grotesque exhibition of this spirit than was displayed during the discussion of the Parish Council Bill in 1894. The Bill came for the first time before Parliament. It was one on which the House of Lords, consisting of the great proprietors of the soil, could speak with pre-eminent knowledge and authority, while a vast proportion of the majority in the House of Commons
