in Committee of the Whole. Many bills, however, never go before select or grand committees. While measures which excite political feeling or touch any powerful interest (such as that of landowners or railroads or liquor dealers) are exhaustively debated, others may slip through unobserved. The enormous pressure of work and the prolixity with which some kinds of business are discussed, involve the hurrying other business through with scant consideration.
5. Except in the case of discussions at unseasonable hours, the proceedings of Parliament are so far reported in the leading newspapers and commented on by them that bills, even those of private members, generally become known to those whom they may concern. There is usually a debate on the second reading, and this debate attracts notice.
6. A government bill is, by the law of its being, exposed to the hostile criticism of the opposition, who have an interest in discrediting the ministry by disparaging their work. As respects private members’ bills, it is the undoubted duty of some minister to watch them, and to procure their amendment or rejection if he finds them faulty. This duty is discharged less faithfully than might be wished, but perhaps as well as can be expected from weak human nature, often tempted to conciliate a supporter or an “interest” by allowing a measure to go through which ought to have been stopped.
7. Responsibility for everything done in the House rests upon the ministry of the day, because they are the leaders of the majority. If they allow a private member to pass a bad bill, if they stop him when trying to pass a good bill, they are in theory no less culpable than if they pass a bad bill of their own. Accordingly, when the second reading of a measure of any consequence is moved, it is the duty of some member of the ministry to rise, with as little delay as possible, and state whether the ministry support it, or oppose it, or stand neutral. Standing neutral is, so far as responsibility to the country goes, practically the same thing as supporting. The opposition, as an organized body, are not expected to express their opinion on any bills except those of high political import. Needless to say, private members are also held strictly responsible for the votes they give, these votes being all recorded and published next morning. Of course both parties claim praise or receive blame from the country in respect of their attitude towards bills of moment, and when a session has produced few or feeble acts the opposition charge the ministry with sloth or incompetence.
The rules and usages I have described constitute valuable aids to legislation, and the quality of English and Scottish legislation, take it all and all, is good; that is to say, the statutes are such as public opinion (whether rightly or wrongly) demands, and are well drawn for the purposes they aim at.
Let us now apply the same tests to the legislation of Congress. What follows refers primarily to the House, but is largely true of the Senate, because in the Senate also the committees play an important part.
In neither house of Congress are there any government bills. All measures are brought in by private members because all members are private. The nearest approach to the government bill of England is one brought in by a leading member of the majority in pursuance of a resolution taken in the congressional caucus of that majority. This seldom happens. One must therefore compare the ordinary congressional bill with the English private member’s bill rather than with a government measure, and expect to find it marked by the faults that mark the former class. The second difference is that whereas in England the criticism and amendment of a bill takes place in Committee of the Whole, and of other public bills in one of the large standing committees introduced since 1883, in the House of Representatives it takes place in a small committee of twenty members or less, often of seven. In the Senate also the committees do most of the work, but the Committee of the Whole occasionally debates a bill pretty fully.
Premising these dissimilarities, I go to the seven points before mentioned.
1. The excellence of the substance of a bill introduced in Congress depends entirely on the wisdom and care of its introducer. He may, if self-distrustful, take counsel with his political allies respecting it. But there is no security for its representing any opinion or knowledge but his own. It may affect the management of an executive department, but the introducing member does not command departmental information, and will, if the bill passes, have nothing to do with the carrying out of its provisions. On the other hand, the officials of the government cannot submit bills; and if they find a congressman willing to bring them in, must leave the advocacy and conduct of the measure largely in his hands.
2. The drafting of a measure depends on the pains taken and skill exerted by its author. Senate bills are usually well drafted because many senators are experienced lawyers; House bills are often crude and obscure. There does not exist either among the executive departments or in connection with Congress, any legal office charged with the duty of preparing bills, or of seeing that the form in which they pass is technically satisfactory.
3. The only security for the consistency of the various measures of the same session is to be found in the fact that those which affect the same matter ought to be referred to the same committee. However, it often happens that there are two or more committees whose spheres of jurisdiction overlap, so that of two bills handling cognate matters, one may go to Committee A and the other to Committee B. Should different views of policy prevail in these two bodies, they may report to the House bills containing mutually repugnant provisions. There is nothing except unusual vigilance on the part of some member interested, to prevent both bills from passing. That mischief from this cause is not serious arises from the fact that out of the multitude of bills introduced, few are reported and still fewer become law.
4. The function of a committee of either house of Congress extends not merely to the sifting and amending of the bills referred to it, but to practically redrawing them, if the committee desires any legislation, or rejecting them by omitting to report them till near the end of the session if it thinks no legislation needed. Every committee is in fact a small bureau of legislation for the matters lying within its jurisdiction. It has for this purpose the advantage of time, of the right to take evidence, and of the fact that some of its members have been selected from their knowledge of or interest in the topics it has to deal with. On the other hand, it suffers from the nonpublication of its debates, and from the tendency of all small and secret bodies to intrigues and compromises, compromises in which general principles of policy are sacrificed to personal feeling or selfish interest. Bills which go in black or white come out gray. They may lose all their distinctive colour; or they may be turned into a medley of scarcely consistent provisions. The member who has introduced a bill may not have a seat on the committee, and may therefore be unable to protect his offspring. Other members of the House, masters of the subject but not members of the committee, can only be heard as witnesses. Although therefore there are full opportunities for the discussion of the bill by the committee, it often emerges in an unsatisfactory form, or is quietly suppressed, because there is no impetus of the general opinion of the House or the public to push it through. When the bill comes back to the House the chairman or other reporting member of the committee generally moves the previous question, after which no amendment can be offered. Debate ceases and the bill is promptly passed or lost. In the Senate there is a better chance of discussion, for the Senate, having more time and fewer speakers, can review to some real purpose the findings of its committees.
5. As there is no debate on the introduction or on the second reading of a bill, the public is not necessarily apprised of the measures which are before Congress. An important measure is of course watched by the newspapers and so becomes known; minor measures go unnoticed.
6. The general good nature of Americans, and the tendency of members of their legislatures to oblige one another by doing reciprocal good turns, dispose people to let any bill go through which does not injure the interest of a party or of a person. Such good nature counts for less in a committee, because a committee has its own views and gives effect to them. But in the House there are few views, though much impatience. The House has no time to weigh the merits of a bill reported back to it. Members have never heard it debated. They know no more of what passed in the committee than the report tells them. If the measure is palpably opposed to their
