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NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
PARLIAMENTARY
PROCEDURE
THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY
BY
SIR EDWARD CLARKE, Q.C, M.P.
LONDON
STEVENS & HAYNES
13 BELL YARD, TEMPLE BAR
1896
��TO THE MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE
OF COMMONS.
The difficulty which recurs with every Parliamentary Session,
and annually disappoints the intentions of the Government
•and the hopes of its supporters, has in the present year become
more than usually serious.
We are threatened with the mutilation or abandonment of
Bills upon which the House of Commons has spent much time
•and labour, and which the large majority of that House strongly
desire to pass into law.
This difficulty will never be got rid of so long as the House
maintains the senseless rules which at present cripple its
capacity for Public usefulness.
The remedy has long been known ; it is already in operation
to France, Austria, Hungary, Belgium, the Netherlands, Den
mark, Norway and Sweden, Spain, Portugal and Greece.
In this country it was advocated by Lord Derby in 1848, and
by Lord Salisbury in 1869; and in 1882 I made a speech in the
House of Commons, to which I hope I may now be allowed to
invite the attention of my fellow-Members of that House.
Since 1882 a great advance has been made in the direction
■of the reform which I then advocated without success.
. In 1890, when the Parliamentary situation was one of much
difficulty, a very strong Committee was appointed to consider
these proposals, and the report of that Committee, which I now
�PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
4
reprint, is a declaration of opinion of the highest importance,
framed as it was by Mr. Arthur Balfour, and supported by Mr.
Goschen, Lord Hartington, and Mr. Chamberlain.
At this serious juncture in public affairs, when the leaders of
the Unionist party, if assured of the hearty support of their
followers, could relieve themselves from a position of humili
ating embarrassment, save valuable measures now threatened
with destruction, and effect a reform in Parliamentary practice,
which would weaken the forces of obstruction, lessen the strain
on Ministers and Members, and give to the House of Commons
a new capacity for deliberate and careful legislation, I respect
fully offer these pages for the consideration of all those who
are proud, as I am, of belonging to this great Assembly and
earnestly desire to increase its power and opportunity of public
service.
House of Commons, June ig, 1896.
EDWARD CLARKE.
�REPORT OF COMMITTEE OF 1890.
Mr. Arthur Balfour.
Sir Algernon Borthwick.
Sir Edward Clarke.
Mr. Chamberlain.
Mr. Dillon.
Mr. Dillwyn.
Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald.
Mr. Goschen.
Mr. Gladstone.
Sir William Harcourt.
Dr. Hunter.
Lord Hartington.
Mr. Jennings.
Mr. Labouchere.
Colonel Malcolm.
Mr. John Morley.
Sir Stafford Northcote.
Mr. T. W. Russell.
Mr. Sexton.
Mr. John Talbot.
Mr. Whitbread.
The Select Committee appointed to inquire whether by means of an
abridged form of procedure, or otherwise, the consideration of
Bills, which have been partly considered in this House, could
be facilitated in the next ensuing session of the same Par
liament ;------Have agreed to the following Report:
Four times since 1880 the House of Commons has been obliged
to revise its rules for the purpose of expediting public business.
Four times in the same period exceptional methods of restricting
discussion, not based upon the Standing Order or practice of the
House, have been adopted, when, in the opinion of the majority, it
became absolutely necessary to pass into law measures required to
meet a pending crisis. The causes, legitimate and illegitimate,
which stimulate discussion, have, however, counterbalanced, and
more than counterbalanced, the effect of the rules designed to
restrain it: the difficulty of -legislation has not diminished; the ex
hausting labours imposed upon Members of Parliament, excessive at
�PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
6
the beginning of this decade, have, if anything, increased ; and
experience shows that while closure, in the form in which it is recog
nised in the Standing Orders, may be, and, in the opinion of your
Committee, is adequate to deal with single resolutions and short
Bills, it is not adequate to enable the House to consider, within the
compass of a session of convenient length, measures which are both
long, complicated, and controversial. Unless, therefore, the House
is prepared to acquiesce in its increasing impotence to grapple with
such measures, some further modification of its procedure seems to
be necessary.
Such a modification can only take one of two forms. It must
either, by some very stringent form of closure, enable Bills which
would, if debate were free, be killed by a prorogation, to pass
through all the stages in the course of one session, or else it must
revive them'in the succeeding session under such conditions that it
would not be necessary, or indeed permissible, to repeat the dis
cussion which had taken place upon the stages to which the Househad already agreed.
As your Committee are of opinion that the first course might in
certain contingencies seriously endanger that right of free criticism,
which is one of the fundamental and most useful privileges of
Parliament, they are driven to the consideration whether the second
course might not be safely adopted, without introducing a more
serious innovation into the practice of the House. Your Committee
therefore agreed to the following resolution :
*“That, in the judgment of your Committee, it is expedient that a
Standing Order be passed for the purpose of abridging procedure in
the case of Bills originating in the Blouse of Commons which have
been partly considered, and your Committee advise that such
Standing Order should be adopted by the House in the following
terms :
“ In respect of any Public Bill which is in progress in Com
mittee of the whole House, or in a Standing Committee, 01
which has been reported therefrom, or which has reached any
further stage, a motion may be made (after notice given) by a
member in charge of Bill, ‘That further proceedings on such
Bill be suspended until the next session,’ and no amendment
shall be moved to such motion.
* This Resolution was proposed by the Chairman, Mr. Goschen.
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
7
11 If such motion be carried, then, in the ensuing session'
(being a session of the same Parliament), any member whose
name was on the suspended Bill may claim 1 That the resolution
of the previous session be read.’ Thereupon the Speaker shall
direct the Clerk to read the Resolution, and shall proceed to
call on the member to present the Bill in the form in which it
stood when the proceedings thereon were suspended; and the
questions on the first and second readings thereof shall be
successively put forthwith.
“ If both these questions be carried, the Bill shall be ordered
to be printed; and, if it had been partly considered in Com
mittee in the previous session, it shall stand committed to a
similar Committee, and it shall be an instruction to such Com
mittee to begin their consideration of the Bill at the clause on
which progress was reported in the previous session ; but if it
had been reported from Committee in the previous session, the
consideration of the Bill, as reported, shall be appointed for that
day week.
“ Provided always, that, if the first or second reading be nega
tived, such vote shall not be held to preclude the House from
entertaining a Bill, on the same subject-matter under the ordinary
rules of procedure.”
This Standing Order, it will be observed, differs fundamentally
both in its character and in its object from the various schemes with
which it has a superficial similarity, and which have been more than,
once considered by the House of Commons during the last forty
years. Committees have sat upon three such schemes in the years
1848, 1861, and 1869, but in every one of these cases the object of
the proposal was not to enable the House of Commons to deal
effectually with measures submitted to it by the Government, or by
private Members, but to enable the House of Lords to deal effectually
with measures sent up to it from the House of Commons. This last
object may be desirable or undesirable, and the means suggested for
carrying it out may have been effectual or ineffectual, but your Com
mittee desire to point out that neither the object nor the machinery
for obtaining it were the same as those of the proposed Standing.
Order.
In spite of these essential differences, fears have been expressed
lest the adoption of this Standing Order should supply a justification.
�PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
to the House of Lords for reviving and putting in force the rejected
schemes of 1848, 1861, or 1869. But it must be observed, in th
first place, that a plan by which one House is enabled more effectually
to deal with business which has originated in it, and which has never
left it, can hardly form a precedent for a totally different scheme by
which one House may be able to postpone without rejecting Bills
initiated in the other. And, in the second place, it is obvious that no
endeavour on the part of the House of Lords to carry out the second
of these objects can be effectual without the concurrence of the
House of Commons. For the change of procedure must either be
effected by Bill or by Standing Order. If by Bill, then the assent of
both Houses is required. If by Standing Order, then only by Stand
ing Orders adopted by both Houses, and to which both Houses.,
therefore, must be parties. “ It has been alleged that the Standing
Order now proposed would invite and countenance the adoption by
the House of Lords of a similar Standing Order, and thus enable
that House to postpone the consideration of all Bills passed and sent
up from the House of Commons.” In reply to this allegation, your
Committee deem it right and necessary to record their opinion that
any claim or attempt by either House of Parliament of its own
authority, by Standing Order or otherwise, to postpone to a future
session cf Parliament any Bill sent to it from the other House of
Parliament, would be a breach of the constitutional usage of Par
liament.
It has been suggested that, by suspending a Bill, the valuable power
of amending it during the recess and reintroducing it in a better form
would necessarily be lost. Your Committee are not prepared to
dispute the fact that changes wdiich may also now and then be
improvements are often made in Bills which have failed to become
law in the session when they were first introduced; but those who
are of opinion that such amendments are necessary or expedient in
the interests of good legislation should be prepared to carry out their
theory to its logical issue, and to propose a Standing Order under
which no Bill should be passed in the same session in which it was
first read a second time. By this means the advantages, inseparable
in their opinion from every abortive attempt at legislation, would not
be arbitrarily confined to a few measures chosen at random. It may
be noted in this connection that those who are impressed with the
. advantages of not passing measures till they have been twice intro-
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY,
g
duced into the House of Commons are hardly in a position to regret
that the proposed Standing Order may in certain cases extend legis
lation over two years instead of one.
The only other argument which it is necessary to consider is that
based upon the fact that the House of Commons has already
.adequate powers, without a Standing Order, to repeat in an abridged
form the stages of any Bill which have been already passed in a
previous session. In the words of Sir James Graham, “Whenever it
may be thought desirable promptly to pass and send to the other
House for concurrence, a Bill passed in a former session, but set
aside in the Lords, the Commons may pass the Bill rapidly through
.all its stages if they be so minded, and this course is not open to the
objection of providing fresh opportunities for the postponement of
legislation.” No doubt the House has such a power, as it has the
power of deciding, if it so pleases, that the first, second, and third
readings of a new Bill shall be put without amendment or debate.
But your Committee are of opinion that it is of the utmost import
ance that Parliamentary practice should be guided as far as possible
by settled rules, deliberately adopted, and generally applicable. And
it appears to them that every argument which can be urged against
the proposed Standing Order is equally effective against the policy
.suggested by Sir James Graham’s Report; while the latter is open to
the most serious objections, based not only upon the waste of time
which any attempt to carry it out must necessarily produce, but still
more upon its sudden, occasional, and arbitrary character, so little in
harmony with the general spirit of House of Commons procedure.
The preceding considerations may be briefly summarised as
follows :
The length of discussion to which it is thought necessary to
subject measures which are the object of party controversy has in
creased, is increasing, and does not seem likely to diminish. As a
result, the difficulty of passing such measures through all their stages
ill the course of one session has increased likewise. This difficulty
is especially felt in the case of long and complicated Bills, and it is
precisely in the case of these Bills that the closure of debate is most
ineffective as an instrument for facilitating the rapid progress of
business. It is, therefore, desirable to increase the power of the
House of Commons to deal with such measures; it is also desirable
to shorten the length of sessions, whose present duration overtaxes
�IO
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
the endurance of members and embarrasses the machinery of admini
stration ; but it is not desirable, so long as any other alternative
remains, to increase the stringency of the existing machinery for
closing debate. Your Committee believe that if these three prin
ciples be accepted every possible alternative is excluded, except one
which shall relieve Parliament in certain cases from the necessity of
repeating in two successive sessions the same debate upon the same
questions. They attach no weight, for reasons above given, to any
objections that have suggested themselves to this plan, based upon
the relations now existing between the two Houses of Parliament.
They think the change, though undoubtedly an important one, ismuch less violent in character and much less at variance with the
spirit of Parliamentary tradition than some alterations which have
been made of late years in Parliamentary procedure; and they point
out that if, as they recommend, it be effected, by Standing Order
instead of by Bill, the experiment may be purely tentative, and could
be abandoned, should that course be subsequently thought desirable,
by the sole action of the House of Commons, without requiring the
consent of the other branch of the Legislature.
Adopted by the Committee after a division, by 11 to 8.
Ayes.
Mr. Arthur Balfour.
Sir Algernon Borthwick.
Mr. Chamberlain.
Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald.
Lord Hartington.
Mr. Jennings.
Colonel Malcolm.
Sir Stafford Northcote.
Mr. T. W. Russell.
Sir Edward Clarke.
Mr. John Talbot.
Noes.
Mr. Dillon.
Mr. Dillwyn.
Sir William Harcourt.
Dr. Hunter.
Mr. Labouchere.
Mr. John Morley.
Mr. Sexton.
Mr. Whitbread.
�SPEECHES.
Parliamentary Procedure.
February 21, 1882.
[The following resolution was moved by Mr. Edward Clarke:—
“ That it is desirable that the practice of this House should
be so amended that the consideration of Bills which have
passed a second reading, but have not become law, shall be
resumed in the succeeding session of the same Parliament at the
stage of committee.”
It was seconded and supported by Mr. H. S. Northcote, and
was opposed by Mr. Beresford Hope, Mr. Sclater-Booth, Mr.
Dodson, and Mr. J. Lowther. Upon a division, the motion was
rejected by 126 against 61.]
SiRj —It is hardly possible to expect that, after the exciting scenes
of the last hour and a half (the incident of Mr. Bradlaugh going
through the form of taking an oath and the debate thereupon), the
House will readily address itself to the motion I have put on the
paper. I will venture to say that a great deal of what I should otherwise
have to urge on the House in justification of the present motion has
been rendered unnecessary, because last evening the House addressed
itself to another part of the great question to which the present
motion is directed. We have already had the advantage of the Prime
Minister’s [Mr, Gladstone] powerful arguments bearing upon the subject
of the defects of our present rules of procedure—arguments based
upon half a century’s experience of the House. The question is one
of so much importance to the public interests that it is, I believe,
the duty of all parties, whether Liberal or Conservative, to endeavour
�12
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE»
to effect some remedy for the difficulties that beset the House at the
present time. The Prime Minister has dwelt on only one of the evils
that beset public business; he spoke of the manner in which the
progress of legislation was being impeded. He pointed out that
many Bills of great importance, after having been carried forward
several stages, are ultimately lost on account of the pressure on the
time at the disposal of the House. It is a great misfortune for the
country that many measures that have been fully debated and
thoroughly well considered are ultimately thrown away on account of
.the impossibility of finding time to proceed with them. But there
.is another matter of almost equal importance. The mode in which
the work of this House is done frequently causes measures to be
¡passed in so hurried and haphazard a manner that Acts are left on
the Statute Book which have not only been insufficiently considered,
.but are so badly expressed, that costly litigation is needed before
their meaning is ascertained and very often that is not the meaning
which their authors wished them to have. I have, Sir, heard it said
that the House of Commons ought not to do much in the way of
.legislation. It is sometimes cynically remarked that the less the
number of Bills that are passed the better it will be for the country,
...and it has been suggested that no change is advisable that would
lead to more legislation. But in the present system of elaborate
social relations there must be change, and all change involves and
requires legislation. It is my firm belief that many a measure which,
while in progress, produces Radical agitation, when it once becomes
law constitutes an element of Conservative strength, through the
Peeling of relief that the particular questions dealt with by it have at
last been settled. Mischiefs exist that have to be removed. There
are very few men in the House of Commons who have a thorough
acquaintance with, say, a particular trade or profession, or with a
particular portion of society, who, in objecting to further legislation,
do not make a reservation in favour of some one measure affecting
the subject writh which they are themselves familiar. Sir, no one can
deny the existence of a widely spread and well-founded belief that
Parliament is unable to do its work. Look at the present state of
jthe Bankruptcy Laws. I do not know any Act that^ was so much
wanted as a new Bankruptcy Act. All persons conversant with the
Bankruptcy Laws are at one as to the necessity for an amendment of
the law, yet year by year a Minister of the Crown comes forward and
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
13
introduces a Bankruptcy Bill, the necessity for which has been
declared in Her Majesty’s gracious speech, and then when the end of
the session comes, he gives notice that the Bill will not be further
proceeded with; he puts it in his despatch-box, and preserves it
carefully for the next session, when the same farce is repeated. I
will give another instance. Last session the hon. baronet the member
for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock) brought in a Bill
which was intended to consolidate the law on Bills of Exchange. It
was a thoroughly commercial question, and a question that had been
fully considered by the various chambers of commerce throughout
the country. I read the Bill myself, and found it was drawn in
almost the exact words of a judgment of one of the superior courts
of law. But what took place with regard to that Bill ? The hon.
baronet moved the second reading, and the second reading was.
allowed on the understanding that the Bill should not be carried
further, the hon. baronet being congratulated on its having advanced
so far. So the House went through the solemn farce of reading theBill a second time, without any intention of passing it, and knowing
that the same steps would have to be gone all over again the follow
ing session. All this is calculated to wear out the patience of the
public. The Conveyancing Bill of Lord Cairns, which was passed
last session, was a very important measure. It contained over seventy
clauses ; it came down to the House towards the end of the session,
and there was, I may say, a conspiracy of silence on the part of
members in order to make it possible that the Bill should pass. I
was entreated not to read the Bill, because, if any discussion should
arise, a single night’s debate would make it impossible for it to get
through the House that session. The measure only got through by
the sacrifice of certain clauses comprising somewhat debatable matter,,
and which I think were introduced last night in a separate Bill in
“ another place.” However, that Bill passed, and I do not believe
that twenty members of the House ever read it before it became law.
It was, I believe, a good Bill; but it is not satisfactory that even a
good Bill should pass without the knowledge and discussion and
approval of the representatives sent here by the constituencies to
discuss and decide these matters. Again, there was the Registration
of Voters Bill of 1878, which in its practical result has been of im
mense importance. It has largely increased a great many of the
constituencies of the country. My own constituency, which was last
�i4
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
year 5600 in number, is now, since last year’s revision, 13,600, show
ing a greater increase than that made by the Reform Act of 1867.
What, Sir, happened with regard to the passing of that Bill ? In
1878 the Bill had been before a committee, and it came for report
before this House. Sections 1 to 21 were gone through without
any opposition or comment. Sir William Charley, then a member
of the House, objected that the Bill had only just been printed, and
asked that there might be some delay before its discussion was con
tinued. He interposed exactly at the right point, for sections 22
and 23 were those which have given so much difficulty to the courts,
and have, under the interpretation now given to them, so materially
affected the constituencies. The then member for Cambridge
(Mr. Martin), on the one side, and the hon. baronet, the member
for Chelsea (Sir Charles W. Dilke), on the other, assured Sir
William Charley that no considerable change was made by the
provisions of the Bill. Their appeal was listened to ; the whole of
the sections were gone through that evening; the third reading was
taken on the following night; the Bill went up to the House of
Lords, where, as it dealt with the registration of voters for members
of the House of Commons, no great amount of attention was paid to
it; and the result has been an entirely unexpected extension of the
franchise, which, whatever its merits, ought not to have been
made in that way, but if made at all should have been made
deliberately by Parliament, with a full consciousness of what it was
doing. But, Sir, there is another, and a very serious mischief in our
present system, and that is the tremendous strain that is thrown upon
the members of the House themselves. A great many of them are
actively engaged in commercial and professional life, and to them, of
course, the strain of the long hour's the House is kept sitting, night
after night, is enormous. But that is almost insignificant compared
with the mischief of the burden upon Ministers of the Crown. Is it
not a monstrous thing that Her Majesty’s Ministers, who are
expected to perform the responsible duties of their offices during the
day, should be expected to attend this House from four o’clock in
the afternoon until three or four in the following morning ? The
marvel is that any one should be endowed with vitality and energy
sufficient to enable him to continue for years in this splendid slavery.
One of the great advantages which would be likely to follow from the
adoption by the House of the resolution I am offering to its accept
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
ance is that there would be no necessity for the House to continue
sitting after 12 or half-past 12 at night, which would be a reasonable
time for the limit of our debates. Moreover, Sir, not only do our
present late hours heavily tax the endurance of Ministers and private
members, but they cause business to be done badly, and in a manner
which is by no means creditable to a legislative assembly. At 2 or 3
in the morning there is no pretence of adequate discussion of the
questions that come before the House ; and, worse than all, our
debates are almost wholly unreported. Practically, the proceedings
of the House cannot now be reported after one in the morning, and
within the last few days, as we have seen, it was only owing to the
enterprise of one great newspaper (the Times) that we were able to
have a full report a day later of the speech delivered by the leader of
the Opposition, and the reply of the noble Marquis the Secretary of
State for India, at the close of the debate on the Address. Now,
Sir, my proposal would deal practically with all the mischiefs that I
have indicated. The real difficulty of the House is that we are all,
whether Ministers or private members, competing just to get past a
certain point. If that point is passed, the Bill in which we are
interested becomes law. If we come short of that point, the whole
of our labour has to begin over again. There is one indefensible but
Very common species of obstruction to which the Prime Minister
did not advert last evening—namely, the persistent discussion of
matters which nobody cares about, in order to prevent other matters
which it is desired to impede from coming on. Valuable time is
deliberately and purposely wasted in order to keep up a debate until
a quarter to six on a Wednesday, when no decision can be come to;
and on many a dreary evening speakers go on repeating themselves
again and again, until the magic hour of half-past twelve arrives,
when nothing fresh can be entered upon. We should put an end to
that kind of obstruction by doing away with the temptation to prac
tise it. If we once provided that the House should be free to deal
with a Bill so obstructed when Parliament met again in February,
this kind of obstruction would practically be destroyed. For conduct
such as I have described excuse may in some circumstances be found,
but, Sir, I see no defence for the action of those who deliberately
waste the time of the House for the purpose of preventing Parlia
ment passing any measure at all. And I venture to urge upon the
House that these are valid reasons for adopting a substantial reform.
�16
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
I would also call the attention of the House to the fact that every
Parliament proceeds by jerks; that it is cut up into separate sessions,,
as though when we have finished our work in July we had done with
the whole matter. So long as the machinery of legislation goes on in
that spasmodic, jerky way, a very great waste of time is inevitable. I
will take, by way of example, the Bankruptcy Bill, to the repeated
promise and postponement of which I have before referred. There isthe Bankruptcy Bill which the President of the Board of Trade intro
duced last session, and which we expected this session. There is no
security whatever that his present Bill will be in the form which it
took last year, and I will point out to the House this most inconve
nient result. Some two or three months ago, the Associated Chambers
of Commerce held their meeting, and one of the subjects they dis
cussed was the Bankruptcy Bill. If it had been known that we would
have the same Bill before us as in the previous year, the Associated
Chambers of Commerce would, no doubt, have discussed the
measure and proposed amendments which would have been of great
service to us in framing that enactment. But the President of
the Board of Trade said that he knew the Bill going to be intro
duced would differ in some respects from the last one, and thus
the whole of what I might call the consultative power of the
country was thrown away. That was the case with the Associated
Chambers of Commerce. But let us take another instance—the
Rivers Conservancy Bill. That is a measure of very great interest
to the Chambers of Agriculture, and county members of this House
going back in the autumn to their places in the country would have
the advantage of hearing the opinion of their neighbours on the
subject • but, although I believe that the proposed Bill is to be the
same as that formerly introduced, we have no assurance of that, and
without such assurance we never can obtain that advantage of local
discussion and popular opinion. I think, Sir, it would be a very
good thing if any Bill dealing with a subject of general importance
were brought in in one session and passed in the next, for then hon.
members would have an opportunity of conferring with their con
stituents, and in the following session they would be enabled to bring
their ripened opinion—their completed knowledge—to the discussion
of the measure. The proposal that Bills should not require to be
introduced afresh each session is not a new one, or one for which I
am originally responsible. In 1848, and again in 1861, this question
�iy
THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
came before the House and before a Committee of the House of
Commons, as well as before the House of Lords. And here I would
venture for a moment to digress in order to say that, in my belief, it
is of the greatest moment to the country that the position of the
House of Lords should be properly appreciated as an integral part of
the legislative body. I do not understand the jealousy which exists
between the two Houses, or why there should be jealousy at all. It
is perfectly well known that the House of Lords contains men who
have served their apprenticeship in the House of Commons ; but the
House of Lords is discouraged, systematically discouraged, by the
action of the House of Commons towards it. Take the course pur
sued by the Government with respect to the Rivers Conservancy Bill,
upon which the other House bestowed a great deal of trouble. This
complaint has been made and repeated over and over again, and the
other House is deterred from beginning legislation, because it is prob
able that in the helter-skelter of July their labours will be sacrificed;
while, on the other hand, in July, Bills are sent up to them by dozens
when it is impossible for them to give them proper attention. Well,
in 1848, a Bill was introduced in terms somewhat similar to my own
resolution, enabling Bills discussed in one session to be proceeded
with in the next by the other House, subject always to this restric
tion—that when a measure had passed both Chambers it should be
Sent back to that from which it originated, so that if opinion respect
ing it had changed in the meantime that Chamber might have an
opportunity of recording that change. That Bill received the support
of the late Lord Derby; on the 5th of July 1848, it was read a
second time in the House of Commons, and Lord John Russell, who
was then the leader of the Liberal party in this House, suggested
that the Bill should only be a temporary one, because in case it did
not prove effectual for the purpose desired, it would otherwise be
impossible to rescind the Rule without the assent of both Houses of
Parliament. The Committee reported as late as the nth of August
that they did not advise the acceptance of that Bill; but they put
their advice on this ground—that it would introduce a material
change, and, as the session was drawing to a close, they had not
time to consider the effect of material changes in the procedure of
the House. Again, in 1869, a proposal on the subject was made in
“ another place.” On that occasion the Marquis of Salisbury made
a speech, to an extract from which I invite the attention of the House.
B
�aS
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
“Owing,” said he, “ to a rule of the Constitution, the origin of which
nobody can discover, and of which it is impossible to say more than
that we find it here, if when August comes your labours have not
.advanced beyond a certain point, those labours must be abandoned
as far as legislation is concerned. All that you have done goes for
nothing. If a Bill has been considered in great detail by a Select
‘Committee, the Committee must sit and go through the details again;
if it had to face a powerful opposition, all that opposition must be
faced again. All the work, all the debates, all the enormous labour
which attends the passing of any change, however small, in the laws
which govern us must be gone through again, in order to reach the
goal which you had nearly reached when the prorogation arrived.
Now is there in the nature of things any reason for this practice ?
Does it commend itself to any man’s common sense ? Do we act
in this manner in any other department of life ? Supposing you made
it a rule to give up writing letters at a certain hour, would you throw
all unfinished ones into the fire, or begin next morning at the point
where you left off? Is there any body of men, in any kind of busi
ness, that adopt what I must call this senseless practice, that whatever
you have not finished by a certain time you must begin again, next
year ? I have never heard any reason for such a rule. There is
nothing but the bare inert weight of unmeaning custom to justify a
principle which wastes so much of the labour and utility of Parliament.’*
Sir, the plan which I put before the House is already in operation
in France. It is subject to certain conditions there, and perhaps
limitations may also be required here, though I confess I do not
perceive any necessity for them. My plan is that a Parliament
■should be treated in all its sessions as one Parliament; and not as a
•series of separate Parliaments, or as if the sessions were water-tight
■compartments, designed to prevent Bills getting from one to the
other.
I think, Sir, that the Bills which this House has to deal with may
be divided into three classes: first, there are the political Bills;
secondly, the Departmental Bills ; and, thirdly, private Members’
Bills. Political Bills, like the Irish Church Bill, for example, are
usually introduced by a Government with a strong majority at their
back, and, consequently, such measures can be forced through
Parliament in the course of a single session. My proposal would
therefore not affect in the least degree measures with which the
�TUB MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY,
19
existence of the Government of the day was bound up. Departmental
Bills are for the most part independent of Party considerations, and
they are, in point of fact, practically prepared for the most part by
the permanent officials of the various departments. These Bills
would be assisted most substantially by the adoption of my proposal.
At present we are reduced to the necessity of putting on the Statute
Book a series of fragmentary Acts of Parliament. We are obliged to
do so, because if the Minister were to consolidate the laws on any
subject into a new Statute he would have a Bill so considerable in its
dimensions and giving rise to so much debate that there would be
Very little chance of squeezing it through in a single session. As an
instance of this, I may advert to the criminal code, although that
cannot properly be styled a departmental measure. The late AttorneyGeneral (Sir John Holker) took a great interest in it; three of the
btst lawyers in England were for a long time engaged in getting it
into shape; but it is almost hopeless to expect that any measure of
that importance and magnitude can be passed through the House of
Commons unless there is a power of continuing legislation from
session to session. With regard to the Bills of private members, no
doubt many of them are trivial, and ought never to be entertained by
the House. I hope, therefore, that if my proposal were adopted the
House would revert to the old practice of considering very carefully
Whether leave should be given to a private member to introduce a
Bill. There would be no hardship in requiring a member to explain
the provisions of his Bill in the first instance. One objection urged
against my plan is that it would cause a great number of Bills to be
introduced, and that there would be a great deal too much legislation.
My answer to that objection is that I do not think there need be any
fear of that result. The English people are not likely to submit to
too much legislation. We had a remarkable proof of this at the elec
tion, which changed for a time the position of political parties, in the
year 1874. It was the impatience of legislation which sapped, under
mined, and eventually destroyed, the power of a Government which
came into office with so great a majority in 1868. I do not think it
has ever been suggested that there was any real reason for the with
drawal of the confidence of the country from that Government except
the rapidity with which it had proceeded with legislation. The legis
lation required by the country is really Conservative in its tendency;
but, as matters now stand, people are irritated at the defective
�20
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
machinery which delays legislation on questions that ought to have
been dealt with long ago. I will not particularise any Bills which
have been so delayed, because it would divert the discussion from the
general issue. But of this I am quite certain, that there are at least
half a dozen Bills which have been accepted by the House in principle
over and over again, and which some day must become law, but the
delay in the passing of which is causing great irritation to the country,
and is a source of weakness to the Conservative party. It would be
desirable, as well in the interest of political parties as in that of the
country, that those Bills should be passed, and come into operation
with the least possible delay. It so happens that I am submitting
my proposal immediately after the discussion of other resolutions
with regard to procedure. I must not, of course, revert to arguments
which have been used in that discussion, but I believe that if my re
solution were adopted it would make quite needless the more strin
gent measures which are now proposed. Private Bill legislation is
included -within the terms of this motion, but I am aware that there
are difficulties with regard to that. My experience of Private Bill
legislation is that it is extremely well done, and that the tribunals
which deal with Private Bills are quite competent and decide with
great fairness and promptitude. But instances are constantly occur
ring in which promoters are obliged to submit to clauses, and make
compromises, enormously expensive, and which seriously interfere
with the benefit of the works proposed, in consequence of the know
ledge that a few days’ delay would destroy the benefit of all the work
done during the session. However, Sir, for the moment I wish to
rest this proposition on the larger issue, that it would be of benefit to
public legislation. One great merit it has is its simplicity. If it
should become necessary to fight the question of Parliamentary Pro
cedure before the constituencies, there is no question upon which I
would more gladly challenge their judgment than upon the merits of
the proposal I now make. It possesses the great advantage of neither
disturbing nor interfering with the traditions of the House. It would
not require that the Government, or any other authority, should be
entrusted with any extreme or exceptional powers ; and, above all, it
has that merit which cannot justly be attributed to the other pro
posals which have been submitted to the House, that it is pre
eminently simple and intelligible. I beg, Sir, now to move the reso
lution which stands in my name.
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
21
Extract from Annual Address to the Electors of
Plymouth at the Guildhall.
January 3, 1889.
I mentioned two years ago the subject to which Sir Edward Bates
has again called attention, and I said then that it would be needful
to rearrange the rules of Parliament in order to carry through legis
lation. That was done, and certain alterations in the rules of Parlia
ment were made. To a certain extent they have been successful.
There has been, as I feared there would be, a greater need for the
use of the closure, arising from the fact that the closure was in exist
ence. Whenever you provide a remedy for mischief you encourage
mischief to go on until the remedy is applied, and I am afraid that
the same observation will have to be made as to some of the remedies
which are now proposed. Sir Edward Bates has reminded you that
in the House of Commons we have been afflicted by certain members
who are in the habit of speaking a good many times in the course,
not of the session only, but of one evening, of even one debate, and
he has suggested that a rule should be adopted by which in com
mittee of the House of Commons a member should only be allowed
to speak once, and he should only be allowed to speak ten minutes,
unless, indeed—and I confess I think it was a very large and generous
exception—he were a member either of the present Ministry or of a
past Ministry, and then, I presume, he would be unlimited in the
time or number of his speeches. I am afraid such an exception
would be much too large to allow the rule to be effectual; but I
must confess that I do not see in that direction the best hope of im
proving our Parliamentary affairs. Suppose we were to make a rule
that no member should speak more than once in Committee of Supply,
and that he should only speak for ten minutes. If you had twenty
members willing to speak they would all speak for their ten minutes;
and the fact that there is a ten minutes’ limit would be a justification
to them for occupying the ten minutes in the observations they would
make, and if you got a series of ten minutes’ speeches in Committee
of Supply it is absolutely impossible, with our present arrangement
�22
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
for discussing the financial affairs of this country, that you could put
any effective limit on the length of discussion at all.
We have coming before the House of Commons volumes of
estimates, page after page of items of expenditure by the country,
which are all brought under the review of the House of Commons»
and all have to be voted by its authority. It is competent to any
member of the House to propose, with regard to any item in these
votes, whether it be a vote of a million or two for the payment of
seamen, or whether it be an item of payment of ¿25 for the wages of
a charwoman at a public office, it is competent to any member to
move that the sum be reduced by ^20, ^10, or ^5, as he may
think proper, and upon that motion every member would be entitled
to make his ten minutes’ speech. And I very much fear that by
making a procedure of that kind systematic we should rather aggra
vate than decrease the difficulty we are now in.
Sir, I confess that I think if this matter of dealing with the
estimates, and the enormous time occupied by them, is to be dealt
with by Parliament at all, it will have to be dealt with in a far more
courageous way. The fact is, there is a popular belief that the
House of Commons is the protector of the financial interests of the
people, and that the House of Commons prevents the people being
taxed too much. I assure you it is a great mistake. It is not the
House of Commons that keeps down the Estimates. It is the
Ministry that does so; and if you take the trouble to read through
the discussions which go on in the House of Commons upon the
Estimates when the House is in Committee of Supply, you will find
that almost every speech that is made, is made in the direction of
encouraging a larger expenditure than that which is proposed by the
Ministers of the Crown. Those who want to keep down expenditure
do not talk; if, indeed, there are any of them. Those who want to
enlarge the expenditure, by increasing the vote for particular services,
are continually pressing these matters on the attention of the Ministers
of the Crown. I had not intended to deal in any detail with this
matter to-night, but after the observations that my hon. colleague
has made with regard to it, I should like to say a word or two more
on this, which, I agree, is a very important subject.
The first duty of the House of Commons undoubtedly is to grant
supplies, and in granting those supplies its members are granting not
their own money only but the money of the people at large. It is
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
23
the duty of the House of Commons to be vigilant and watchful,
whilst there should be no extravagance on the part of the Ministry.
But, although the Ministry may be extravagant because it is incom
petent, because it undertakes tasks which are beyond its strength
with the means it has at its disposal, or because its members have
not a thorough knowledge of the work which they are entrusted to
do, you may depend upon it a Ministry is never extravagant because
it desires to spend a good deal of money. It is so unpopular a thing
among the constituencies that the last thing a Ministry desires is to
increase the amount that it calls for from the people in taxation.
But although the House of Commons is entitled to deal with the
matter of Estimates that have to be voted for the services of the
country, it is a very serious question whether a far better plan might
not be devised by which the Estimates should be considered and
revised. I should be very loth myself to allow it to pass from the
direct authority of the House of Commons. I would rather run the
risk of some expenditure of time which occasionally appears extra
vagant than allow the Estimates to be dealt with in any way which
prevented there being a watchful criticism over expenditure. But
if any change were to be made at all, I confess I think a change
should be made in this direction, that there should be a somewhat
large committee on public expenditure. That committee should
consist of men representative of the different sections of the House
of Commons, and contain upon it the present and past representa
tives of the Treasury—that is to say, the Chancellor of the Exchequer,
the Secretary for the Treasury, and the First Lord of the Treasury
for the time being, as also their predecessors in office—but not
contain any other Minister in office. And then before that committee
the chiefs of the great spending departments might come and be
interrogated by the committee as to the reasons for the proposals
which they were making for public expenditure. I am sure with
regard to any important matter in the Estimates a half-hour’s crossexamination by the committee of the Minister who was responsible
for the expenditure would be much more effective in checking
extravagant proposals, and, what is equally important to the country,
in justifying to the country proposals which were seriously and
wisely made, than ten hours spent in discussion in the House of
Commons, whatever rule with regard to the length of speech might
be adopted.
�24
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
I think it might well be that all the Estimates should pass before
that committee. But there are one or two things which should be
steadily insisted upon. No committee ought to have any power to
increase an Estimate. If it had power to increase Estimates the
responsibility would be gone from the Ministry to the committee,
. and the whole system of Ministerial responsibility would be lost. It
should have the power to cut down the Estimates, and in that case,
and that case only, should there be any power of appeal to the
House of Commons. I think in that way the Estimates of the
■ country might be dealt with. But I should not be hasty in proposing
the adoption even of that course, dhere is no other to my mind
which is practicable and safe, but I confess I would rather go on
running the risk of lengthened debates and the occupation of a good
deal of Parliamentary time, than I would allow direct control of the
Estimates to pass from the review of every member of the House of
Commons.
I think, and I have always thought, that there is another way of
dealing with this matter. I do not believe myself in any very great
extension of the rules of the House of Commons which imposes
(.punishment on people who are breaking in on our debates and put
us to difficulty. The fact is there are too many people in the House
of Commons who would think it a creditable thing to be called to
order and to be punished, to make the imposition of any such rules
of any great value. You know what my view always has been with
regard to this matter, and I think always will be. A great deal, of
this waste of time is not intended simply for the purpose of harassing
.and vexing the House of Commons. It is intended for the purpose
of preventing laws being passed which might be creditable to the
Ministry, and by passing which the Ministry might obtain repute in
the country. The real source and secret of this obstruction, practised
in the House of Commons in past sessions, and which became
intolerable in what I may term the permanent session during the
year just gone by, is the knowledge on the part of those who so
obstruct that if they can only keep Bills off until the end of the
session in which they are talking, those Bills will have disappeared
for a time, and will have to be started fresh again in the next session
of Parliament.
There never has been an illustration so complete as the last
session has given us of the need for that proposal, which I have made
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
25.
■over and over again, and will make over and over again, whenever I
get the chance, that the Bills which we have left unfinished in one
session we shall take up and try and finish in the next. And I am1
sure if those who obstruct our proceedings and waste our time knew
that the result of their action would be not to defeat or get rid of theBill, but only to postpone its discussion until the following February,
when the House would take up that same Bill again, the heart would
be gone out of obstruction and we should have got the best solution
of the difficulty. Let me give you an instance or two of the import
ance, as shown during the last session of Parliament, of this proposal.
Let me mention one Bill. You know very well how often I have
referred to the wish that I had when I first went to the House of
Commons, a wish which has strengthened with every year that has
since gone by, to put an end to that barbarous system in the
administration of our criminal law by which the prisoner who is
charged with an offence has his lips closed and is not allowed to give
evidence on his own behalf. It is an absolutely and utterly inde
fensible piece of barbarism, and for the last twenty-two years there
has been a growing opinion upon the subject. Parliament and
lawyers of any experience and knowledge have come to the unani
mous conclusion that it is our duty to do away with this blot upon
©ur administration of justice. Well, we have tried to do it year after'
year, and what is it that stood in the way ? The House of Commons
is anxious to accept the Bill, has accepted it in principle already.
The House of Lords has been urgent in trying to pass the Bill, and
has sent it twice down to the House of Commons. How is it wehave not been able to pass it ? Why, we find that the Bill, brought
in, discussed, and carried through some of its stages, cannot be got
through the House of Commons because of the obstruction which
takes place upon other matters. It is not a Bill so large as to
involve the fate of Ministry, or it would have been passed long ago,
nor so small as to escape observation, or else, perhaps, it would have
got through like one or two little odds and ends of Bills that did
scramble through in the last days of the session just gone by. But
as it is a Bill which does attract attention, but does not involve the
fate of a Ministry, it is obstructed, and this Bill which we brought in
in 1888, to the discussion of which we gave some considerable time,
and the second reading of which was accepted by a large majority of
the House of Commons, has again gone. And if next session we
�.26
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
find an opportunity of introducing it, as we intend to do very early in
the session, we shall have the same risk that those who do not
oppose that Bill, but who want to hinder us in passing other Bills,
will make that Bill the excuse for long and persistent discussion, and
so again we may find it postponed to another session and the whole
time of Parliament wasted.
That is a strong instance, but let me give you a more remarkable
and important instance still. One of the great regrets of the members
of the Government in the past session was that we did not succeed in
passing the Employers’ Liability Bill. There is no Bill of greater
value to the working people of this country than the Employers’
Liability Bill. When I went to the House of Commons first as
member for Plymouth I found an Employers’ Liability Bill under
discussion. I took my share in that discussion, and though, as you
know, I was sitting on the Opposition side of the House, I worked
then as well as I would have worked if it had been proposed by one
of our own leaders, to get that Bill passed in a satisfactory form. But
I pointed out to the House of Commons in that discussion, that
when you are passing a Bill that deals with the interests of working
men, that Bill ought to be as simple and straightforward as possible.
Any complication means going to law, and going to law is the last
thing which any wise man should think of, especially if that wise
man happens to be poor. Well, the Bill was passed, not in so
simple a form as I should like to see, but still in a form which was
of great advantage to the industrial population of this country. And
I am sure that the result is shown in a decrease in the number of
accidents from which workmen have suffered, a greater care and
anxiety on the part of employers to provide means of protecting their
workmen from accidents, and a greater care, also, in employing men
who are thoroughly competent.
So far it has been a great advantage. But it has been marred and
hindered in its beneficial effect by the necessity of the working man
going to law in order to enforce his rights. When an accident
happens in a factory, and a poor man has his leg broken, and is laid
aside for several weeks, his wages are stopped, no means are coming
in to him, and it is scarcely possible for him with any hope of
success to set a lawsuit on foot against his employer. If he does,
the employer very often belongs to an insurance company. The casts
.is handed over to the insurance company, and the officers of that
�THE MISCHIEF AND THE REMEDY.
27
company have legal advice, and know all the technicalities and difificulties of legal procedure; and the consequence has been that
although that Act has had an indirect effect of a very great value in
imposing more care upon employers, it has not had nearly so large
an effect as I and others hoped it would have in securing the pay
ment of money to the men who are injured. The fact is, a great
deal of money disappears between the man who ought to pay it, and
the man who ought to receive it, and I leave those present to specu
late on the direction in which that missing cash has gone.
I heard of a case the other day where a man brought an action
against his employer under the Employers’ Liability Act. He
succeeded in that action, and got a verdict for ^45. The cost to
the employer out of pocket was ^150. The man himself who brought
the action got in his pocket £15. The whole of the rest of the money
had gone in legal costs, and my belief is that the best thing that could
possibly happen with regard to this is first to reduce the technicalities
of the law with which you are dealing, so that there shall be fewer
pitfalls into which an experienced lawyer can lure the plaintiff against
whom he is retained, and further, and more important still, that you
should, as far as possible, try to substitute for the legal liability of
the employer the liability of an insurance fund, to which the
employer shall himself contribute. If you have an insurance fund
all this difficulty of legal cost is gone. If a man’s leg is broken, and
the man belongs to an insurance fund, his allowance will be paid to
him without reference to any difficult legal question as to who was
responsible for causing the injury. In the Bill which was brought in
by the Government for the amendment of the Employers’ Liability
Act we in the first place, in many respects, simplified and improved
the procedure. I need not enter into details, but the intention was,
and the result would have been, to make it less dangerous, less risky
for a man to go to law upon this matter. In the next place, we put
in this clause. At the present time, as the law now stands, an
employer can contract himself out of the Act. If a man goes to him
and asks for work an employer can say : ££ Yes, I will employ you on
condition you make an agreement with me that I shall not be liable
to you under the Employers’ Liability Act.” It is not a contract
that is very largely made, excepting in certain particular occupations,
but as the law now stands that is a contract which can be made.
We proposed in one clause of that Bill to say that no employer
�28
PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE.
should be allowed to contract himself out of that Act, unless he had
subscribed to an insurance fund, in which the man was to be insured,
which would provide compensation for all accidents, however occur
ring, and unless also the subscription of the employer to that fund
was equivalent to the liability which would rest upon him if he had
been bound by the Employers’ Liability Act itself.
That is an extremely difficult clause to frame, but the aim and pur
pose of it was to improve the administration of the Employers’ Lia
bility Act, while allowing to remain in existence such great societies
as that society which exists on the London and North-Western Rail
way, in which all the employés of that line are insured. But what
has happened to that Bill ? It was accepted on its second reading
by the House of Commons ; it went down to be discussed in Grand
Committee, and I had the pleasure of assisting the Home Secretary
while the Bill was before that Committee. We discussed it for
several days, and I believe came to sound and reasonable decisions
upon the matters before us. Then it came up again for discussion
in the House of Commons, and then objection was made to it. It
was opposed; there was a long debate; and the result was that
towards the end of the session the Government had to abandon all
hope of passing it, and to content themselves with passing a con
tinuance Bill, which leaves the old Act, with all its defects, in opera
tion, and we have not even the opportunity of taking that Bill up
again at the stage of committee when the House of Commons meets
again next year. If we want to deal with it we shall have again to
introduce the Bill, again have it read a first and second time, and
discussed all over again in Grand Committee or in the House itself,
at an expenditure of time which, I fear, will be so great as may inter
fere with the opportunity of passing that Bill at all. And that is the
result of a rule which treats as waste paper all the work we did not
succeed in finishing.
Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson
London and Edinburgh-
Co.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Parliamentary procedure : the mischief and the remedy
Creator
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Clarke, Edward, Sir [1841-1931]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 28 p. ; 20 cm.
Notes: Includes reprint of Report of Committee of 1890, of which Clarke was a member. Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., London; Edinburgh. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Stevens & Haynes
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1896
Identifier
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N087
Subject
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Parliament
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Great Britain-Parliament
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PRICE QNE PENNY.]
[SEVENTIETH THOUSAND.
WHAT SHALL I DO
WITH MY VOTE?
A Few Plain Words to the New Voters.
BY
ERNEST PARKE.
■4-
The Right Hon. JOHN BRIGHT writes: “I have read your pamphlet, which
■contains much that is good. It is not easy to write as briefly and as simply as
is needed for the instruction of a large portion of the new voters ; but they will
understand much that you have written for them.”
Mr JOSEPH ARCH writes t “I have read your pamphlet very carefully. It
contains some very good advice to the new electors. Any one contesting a
county division would do well to widely circulate your pamphlet.”
-------- ♦--------
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made.
But a bold pe santry, their country’s pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
The Deserted Village
--------- *--------
London
W. Reeves, 185 Fleet St., E.C.; The Cobden Club ; or, The Author.
Birmingham: The National Liberal Federation, Colmore Row.
Manchester: The National Reform Union, 46, Brown Street.
Liverpool: The Financial Reform Association, 18, Hackins Hey.
All Booksellers in town and country.
�JRead these Facts
-------- ~0--------------
There are about 520 members of the House of Lords.
490 of them are Landowners, owning 15,213,000 acres, and
the rental is at least .£12,750,000.
They draw out of the national moneys for salaries, pensions,
etc., over £600,000 a year, of which the Royal princes take
£104,642, the Bishops £165,771, and other peers the rest.
Since 1850, the peers and their relations have had over
£100,000,000 out of the taxes.
If you want to know what they have done for it, look at
page 8.
The annual income of the bishops and parsons of the Church
of England is about £6,000,000.
The greater part of this belongs to the whole nation, and
might go to pay for the schooling of the children.
In about 120 years over 8,000,000 acres of common lands
have been enclosed.
Taxes on food and other goods brought into a country arepaid, not by the foreigner who sends them, but by the people
who buy them, because taxes make the goods dearer. It is
not the Chinaman, but the Englishman who pays the tax on
our tea.
If a tax were put on corn, every man who bought a loaf
would help to pay it and the benefit would go into the land
lords’ pockets.
If Tories deny this, read to them what Sir Stafford Northcote,
their leader, lately wrote, (see page 12).
�A TALK ON THE QUESTIONS OF THE DAY.
THE VOTE.
At last, after many years of waiting and hoping, you have the
vote, and you will be able to use it most likely this autumn. Up
till now you have been of very little account in politics. No one
cared what you thought because you had no power. But that is
all changed, and as your class is now very powerful, many people
will be telling you not only what to do, but what to think. But
you will be wise to think for yourselves, and not take your
opinions second-hand from anybody.
IT IS SECRET.
The first thing you should remember about the vote is that it
is quite secret, and no one can know how you have voted unless
you tell him. If any persons say that they can find out, it is not
true, and they are merely trying to make you vote for somebody
whom they think you dare not vote against. If you don’t say
how you vote, no one else can. This way of voting secretly, or
by Ballot, was made law by the Liberals in 1872, though the
House of Lords did all they could to prevent it. They were
afraid that the farmers would vote against their landlords some
times instead of voting for them. Many of you, I dare say, know
cases where, years ago, farmers have been turned out of their
farms for voting against the landlord or his friends; but that
cannot happen now, unless the farmer tells somebody how he
voted. Some years past the Marquis of Exeter, a great Tory
landowner, since dead, ordered all his tenants who were widows
to get married again or else leave their farms. . The women had
no votes, and he wanted only men as tenants, so that he could
make them vote as he liked. The Ballot has put a stop to doings
of that sort, and that is the chief reason why the House of Lords
opposed it so long.
WHOM WILL YOU VOTE FOR?
Feeling now quite sure that the vote is secret, the next thing
is, to whom will you give it ? It seems natural that you should
support that party which has for so many years tried to get you
the franchise. You know that the men who have struggled to
fet you your rights are Liberals. They have worked for you in
'arliament and out of Parliament. They have shown themselves
to be your friends before you had any power, and they are still
more likely to keep friends now you have got it The Tories,
�4
till a very few months back, always said you were not fit to have
the franchise because you were not educated. Then the Liberals
passed the Education Act in 1870, which gives every child in the
land an education, and soon we hope to make the schools free,
because it is for the good of all that every child should be educated’
The Tories thus lost this excuse, and then they took to saying
that you did not care anything about the vote, and would n®t
know what to do with it when you had got it. Last of all,
when they found it was of no use trying to keep it from you, they
said they had been in favour of your having it all along. They
became afraid you would vote against them, and so they are now
trying to make you believe they have always been your friends.
I don’t think you will be deceived so easily. You will most
likely agree with me that these facts form very good reasons why
you should trust your votes to the Liberals. But there are very
many other reasons.
ARE YOU CONTENTED?
A short time ago Sir Stafford Northcote, the leading Con
servative in the House of Commons, said he was afraid people
would be going about telling you that you had wrongs to be
righted and ends to gain, and that you were as good as your
betters. It is plain that he does not think so. He seems to
believe that you are quite happy and contented. If you are, it
will be of no use any one telling you otherwise. But if you are
not, if you think the laws, as they concern you, want altering,
then Liberals and Radicals mean, if you will help them, to get
the laws altered so that they may be just towards you and favour
you as much as others. Your vote will enable you to do this.
Up till now you have otly had to obey the laws ; now you can
help to make them as well as obey them.
THE LAND LAWS.
The Land Laws will have most interest for you, because they
affect your means of getting a living. If they are not good laws
as they stand now, farming must be bad, and you cannot get
better wages. Now, Liberals and Radicals believe that our
present Land Laws need altering, for they partly account for
there being so many millions of acres of land not being tilled
now. The result is that wages are low and thousands of labourers
have left the land, and either gone into the towns to try to get a
living, or else gone to America and other countries where men
are better paid for working on the soil. Mr. Chamberlain, M.P.,
says it is reckoned that there are about 800,000 fewer persons
living on the land in England now than fifteen years ago. Think
of that! It is the same as if two thousand villages, each with
400 people in, were all empty and the people gone away—God
knows where. I can tell you of a case in my native county
arwickshire—which will show you one way how this has
come about. A landlord there has about 3,000 acres, and besides
that he is a rich man. When times got bad, about 1875, his
�5
tenants asked him to reduce their rent. He refused, and they
left their farms. He had plenty of money, and it did not matter
to him if the farms were not taken. But what became of the
labourers on this estate ? They had to work or starve, and as
there was no work for them there, they had to go wherever they
could get it. I dare say most of you can call to mind cases like
this one. This landlord, who never lifted his finger to work,
had the power under the present law to send scores of hard
working farmers and labourers out of their homes, and
besides that the land produced no food, and the other rate
payers in the parish had to pay the rates that this land should
have paid. This is one way in which the law wants altering. If
the land will produce enough for the farmer and the labourer—
the men who really work—it ought to be farmed to grow food
for the nation. The landlord—the man who does not work—
can take his share out of the land after the other two have got
their living, but he should not be allowed to let the land lie idle
and starve the labourer because he cannot get as much rent as
he wants. He cannot be allowed to act like a dog in a manger,
who won’t eat the bait of corn himself, or let the horse eat it.
When a ship is in a storm, the passengers don’t throw the captain
and the crew overboard, but they pitch the useless lumber out.
So, when farming is bad, either through bad laws, bad seasons, or
bad prices, the farmer and the labourer should justly be the last
to suffer, and the rich, do-nothing landlord should feel the pinch
first. One good way to effect this is that suggested by Joseph
Arch—make landlords let their farms by compelling them to
pay rates, whether, empty or not. They would be glad to let
them then, if only to get rent enough for the rates.
THE DEAD MAN'S CLUTCH.
Other laws which must be done away with are the laws which
permit settlement and entail. These allow a landowner to tie
up his land for three generations, so that his son and his son’s
son do not own the land to do what they like with, but only
receive the rents as long as they live. The result of these laws
is that the landlord is not ©ften willing to spend any money
to improve the land, because all he cares about is to get as
much rent as he can as long as he lives, and if the farmer
makes the soil bear better, the landlord will only raise the
rent. Consequently the land is not tilled nearly so well as it
should be, and it does not find work for so many labourers as
it ought to. These laws the Liberals and Radicals will try to
do away with, and if you help them, they will certainly do it.
THE GAME LAWS.
In the same way, we must do away with the game laws. The
game feeds on the farmer’s crops, and as he keeps the game,
it ought to belong to him—if it belongs to anybody. I wonder
how many thousand English labourers have been sent to prison
for disturbing the sleep of those sacred rabbits and hares ! Land
�6
lords and parsons sit on the bench and try the cases, and they
order men to pay heavy fines or to go to prison, without ever
thinking of how great a temptation it is to a poor man to kill a
rabbit for his children’s dinner. But the game has been preserved
long enough. We must now make some laws to preserve the
labourers.
ABOUT ALLOTMENTS.
The law as to allotments is the one in which you will, perhaps,
feel most interest. In many parishes there have been allotments
for years which have been let out to a favored few, often at rents
much higher than were paid by the farmer on the other side of
the hedge, and when one of the labourers offended the parson or
the squire, the allotment was taken from him. In 1882, however,
as you may know, the Allotments Extension Act was passsed by
Parliament. Mr. Howard Evans, who has for many years worked
hard for the labourer’s rights, and whose name is well-known to
every reader of the Labourer's Chronicle, collected the facts and
figures for this Act of Parliament; and Mr. Jesse Collings, M.P.,
whose political life has also been mainly given up to the good of
the labourer, got it passed into law. By this Act it is ordered
that all land left for charity shall be let to labourers in allotments
if they ask for it, at the same rent as the farmers round about
pay. As Mr. Collings made the Bill, if a labourer could not get
the charity land, he was to apply to the judge of the nearest
County Court, who would inquire into the reason why he was
not allowed to have it, and the matter would soon have been put
right. But when the House of Lords examined the Bill, they
ordered that the labourers had to apply to the Charity Commis
sioners in London, instead of the County Court, which meant in
most cases they could not get the land at all if any difficulty arose.
To help labourers who were in this trouble, Mr. Collings started a
society for which a lot of Liberal gentlemen find the money, and
now any labourer who cannot get the people who manage the
Charity lands to let it out in allotments, should write to the
Secretary, Allotments Extension Association, Birmingham, and
he will advise and help him. But this is another law which must
be altered so that all Charity land shall be let out to labourers
who requre it If you show that you mean to have this done,
the law will be changed very soon. Mr. Collings is trying to get
another bill passed, called the Yeomen’s and Small Holdings Bill,
which will make it much easier for labourers to get allotments
•md plots of their own. But if you want good laws like this to
be passed, ask the men who come to you to be sent to Parliament
whether they will vote for such bills, and then you will know
what to do when you hear their answer. The Liberals and
"Radicals mean to get the people back on the land again, and that
the labourer shall have a bit of land to farm for himself, so that
he will have something to look forward to in his old age besides
the workhouse.
�7
TAKING THE PEOPLE'S COMMONS.
They alfeo mean to stop landlords putting fences round com
mon lands, which do not belong to them, but which belong to
the people of the parish. Landlords are very fond of enclosing
land like this, and often say they do it so that the land may
grow something instead of lying idle. But that is no reason why
they should farm it for their own good. Why not let it out in
allotments to labourers, and let the rent go to the good of the
parish instead of into the pockets of the landlords ? Mr. Jesse
Collings is going to try to pass a Bill making landlords who have
fenced in land that does not belong to them in the last fifty years
give it up again. In the last 120 years about eight millions of
acres, or land equal to one-third part of all the workable land in
England, have been enclosed by landlords. Parliament was, and
is now, full of landlords ; and they can pass Acts which favour
their own class very easily. For instance, when a fstrmer becomes
bankrupt, the landlord can send the bailiffs and seize his cattle
and goods for rent, but other people to whom he owes money
have to take their chance of getting paid, and often lose their
money because the landlord has taken all the farmer has got.
Why should not the farmer’s goods be sold and the money divided
fairly amongst those to whom he owes debts ?
LAWS MADE BY LANDLORDS FOR LANDLORDS.
But there are many ways besides this in which the lords and
landlords in Parliament have made laws to suit themselves. When
a man dies and leaves a lot of money, the people who come into
it have to pay a heavy tax. But, if a landlord leaves a lot of
land instead of money, those who come after him hardly pay
anything for tax. Do you think this is fair ? Then, again, the great
squires and lords often do not pay as much for rates as they
ought to. The reason of this is because they are so rich and
powerful that the people who charge them dare not charge them
their full share. I could name six or more of our noblemen, all
of them with over £50,000 a year, who pay much less rates for
their parks than their tenants do for their farms, and they
pay nothing at all for their immense palaces. It would seem
fairer if these very rich landlords were to pay rather more
instead of less, than poorer folks. But there is a worse case
than all these of how they have put their taxes on to the
backs of the common people. About two hundred years ago,
in 1660, when that immoral and base king, Charles II., came
to the throne, the nobles stopped paying him the rents for their
lands which they had always paid to the Government, and instead
they imposed Excise and Customs duties. This meant that they
taxed beer and other things that the people used, and thus the
people paid to the Crown the taxes which the land had always
paid. Then, in 1692, as the taxes did not bring in enough money,
the nobles agreed to pay 4s. out of every pound they received as
rent, but when land got worth more and rents rose they did not
�8
pay any m6re taxes; and the result is that now, instead of the
landlords paying about thirty-four million pounds in taxes for
their land, they only pay a little more than one million. They
have made the poor pay the biggest part by taxing the things
that are used most—such as tea, tobacco, and beer. Here are
some of the taxes which the poor pay though most of them do
not know it. Out of every shilling they pay
For cocoa, l|d. is for tax;
For coffee, l|d. is for tax;
For currants and raisins, 2|d. is for tax;
For tea, 4|d. is for tax.
For every 8d. spent in tobacco 2|d. is for tax, and |d. for
tobacco. Taxes make a shillingsworth of spirits cost 4s. 4|d.
The tax on a shillingsworth of champagne (which poor men
don’t buy) is £cL
TAXING THE POOR.
I will give you an instance of how the poor were taxed. This
case was brought before Parliament in 1842. William Gladstone,
a labourer, earned 11s. a week, and spent 7s. 7d. on food, as
follows :— 1 ounce of tea, 2 ounces of coffee, 8 ounces of sugar,
8 ounces of meat, 8 pounds of flour, seven pints of ale, and a
quartern of brandy.
s. d.
The real cost of these was .................. 2 4^
The taxes on these were
.................. 5 2|
7 7
Thus out of the £28 a year that this poor man earned, £18
went in taxes. A man who had £10,000 a year ought, at the same
rate, to have paid about £4,700 a year in taxes. Instead of that
he paid not more than about £500—that is the poor man paid
nearly ten times as much as the rich man, according to his means.
Since that day the poor man’s taxes have been lightened—chiefly
by Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals—but there is still plenty of
room for change, for even now the poor man pays a good deal
more than the rich man, considering how little he has to pay
with. Liberals hope to reform this, and make the laws so that
rich and poor pay each according to their means.
THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
You will remember that last autumn, when meetings were
being held all over the country to get the Franchise Bill passed
so that you can have the vote, a great deal was said against the
House of Lords. They had refused to pass the Bill. Everybody
expected they would not pass it, because they have always de
layed or refused to pass every Bill of importance that the
Liberals in the House of Commons have brought in for the
good of the people. Before 1-832 the Lords usedto govern the
country how they liked, without taking much notice of what -+-he
people who paid the taxes wanted. Nobody but wealthy
�9
*u-rdt, could sit in Parliament, and the House of Lords really chosethe greater part of the House of Commons. But in 1832 the
Liberals passed the great Reform Bill, after nearly two years’'
struggling with the Lords and the King. The Peers agreed to it
at last, because there had been riots all over the country, and
they could see, if they did not, we should have civil war inEngland. They did not know whether the soldiers would fight
against the people, or side with them; so, in their fear, they
passed the Bill. By this Bill large towns like Manchester, Leeds
and Birmingham were allowed to send members to Parliament,
and little villages of a few hundred people, and, perhaps, with
only a dozen electors who were in the pay of some lord, stopped*
sending members. This was the beginning of that great reform
which has brought it about that now every man in the country
who has a house has a vote.
TKH4T THE LORDS HAVE DONE.
It is easy to see that the more power the people got, the less
was left to the lords, but they have struggled hard to keep their
wrongful power. They have always opposed bills to make elec
tions cheap and stop bribery, because they were rich and could
afford to bribe. They opposed the Ballot because it prevents
them knowing how a man votes, and so they cannot threaten to
turn him out of his farm or cottage if he does not vote as they
want. They refused to do away with cruel laws which punishedpeople severely because they were Roman Catholics or Jews, or
because they went to chapel instead of to church. They, of
course, opposed the first efforts that were made to give the poor
man’s child a cheap education, partly because they were afraid
of the poor knowing how the lords have treated them for hun
dreds of years, and partly because there would be many other
people to teach the children besides the church parson. Then
they opposed the Liberals taking the taxes off paper, because
they knew when paper was cheaper the poor would be able tobuy newspapers for a penny or a halfpenny, and these would
educate the workman and tell him of his rights and his power.
They did all they could to prevent people in the towns from,
having town councils to manage their affairs for them.
HOW THE LORDS HAVE RULED IRELAND.
In Ireland they have been far more powerful than they have
here, and the result is seen in the dreadful condition of that un
happy country. For years the Lords refused to pass every Bill
which the Liberals proposed for the good of the Irish people;
and, as the English did not care quite so much as when theLords refused English Bills, the reforms were much longer
delayed. The greater nrnnber of the farmers there only have small
plots of land. They build their own houses of mud, and make
all the fences and hovels on the land at their own expense, but
when they cannot pay the high rents to their landlords they are
turned out on to the roadside to beg or die. I could tell you of
�10
cases where as many as seven hundred men, women and
children—some of them sick and ill—have been turned out of
their homes in one day because the landlord wanted to knock
down their houses and turn the land into sheep-farms. This sort
of treatment has been going on for hundreds of years, and the
Lords refused to alter the laws which allowed it, although some
Irish landlords themselves said they were most unjust. It is no
wonder that landlords get shot, and Fenians come over here and
make disturbances. It is almost certain that if we had had no
House of Lords, we should have had no Fenians. The high rents
and bad laws in Ireland will also explain why Irishmen come over
for harvest time and do work which Englishmen might do.
Always remember that our House of Lords, by refusing to pass
better laws for Ireland, has made that country so that millions of
the people have left it and come here to live or gone to America.
Mr. Gladstone and the Liberals overcame the Lords in 1881, and
passed a Land Act in spite of them. Ireland is much quieter
now, and when we have given the Irish full justice it is to be
hoped that they will live at peace with us. We must let them
know it is not the English people but the English lords who
have refused them j'ustice. Our lords own immense estates over
there, but most of them spend the money in London and abroad
which their Irish tenants pay. This helps to make Irish trade
bad and the people more discontented.
HARSH AND CRUEL TO THE POOR.
Then, again, the Lords have always been in favor of punishing
the poor severely. How the squires send men to prison for
making a rabbit run away you already know. But that is mercy
itself to what the Lords allowed by the laws. In 1810 it was
lawful to hang a man for stealing half-a-crown’s worth of goods,
and the Lords refused to alter the law although the House of
Commons wanted to. Between 1810 and 1845 it was reckoned
that 1,400 people were hanged for doing what, if they did it now,
they would only be sent to prison for. But the Lords refused
for years to alter the law, although often asked to do so. These
noblemen were rich and well fed, and did not know, or care,
what a temptation it is to a poor and hungry man to steal a loaf.
I wonder how many poor people have been sent to prison for
months for stealing a turnip not worth a farthing ? Of course it
is wrong to steal a turnip, but often a man’s character has been
taken away for life because he took some such trifling thing.
When rich men do worse things (for only very poor people steal
turnips) they generally have a chance to get off by paying. For
instance, in January last (1885) a married clergyman in Lincoln
shire committed shocking assaults on two little girls. He was
only fined £20 and lost his situation. If a poor man had done
such a thing, he would certainly have had a long time in prison,
and most likely would have been sent to penal servitude for ten
or fifteen years, and his family would have gone to the work
�11
house. So, when a noble lord, not long since, assaulted a servant,
instead of being sent to prison and hard labour like any other
man, they arranged it so that he hardly suffered at all.
THE LORDS, THE LAND, AND THE LABOURERS.
But you will feel most interest in regard to what the Lords have
done about the land and the labourers. Every effort that has
been made to get justice for the farmer has always been opposed
by the Lords, although they pretend to be his friends. You
know that when tenants leave their farms, however mutch they
may have improved them, their landlords were not bound to give
them any money to pay them back what they had spent in making
the sheds better, or in manuring the land, or doing other things
that improve the farm for all time. The House of Lords have
always opposed any attempt to protect the property of the tenants
from greedy landlords. In just the same way they tried to defeat
the Bill giving the farmers the right to kill hares and rabbits.
How they have passed Bills enclosing immense quantities of
common land, and how they spoiled the Bill giving you the right
to have charity lands cut up into allotments, I have already told
you. In Ireland they refused to cottage allotments the same fair
treatment which the law gave to large farms. Then the workmen
in towns have suffered from the action of these noblemen just as
badly. They refused to women and children working in coal
mines the protection from hard masters and long hours, which
Liberals tried to get for them in 1842. Many of the lords are
owners of coal-pits, from which they get immense incomes, and
they did all they could to keep women and children at work in
them for long hours because their labour is cheaper than men’s.
They also tried to spoil the Employer’s Liability Act, which gives
a workman or his widow a claim against his employer if he is
hurt or killed through his master’s or the foreman’s carelessness.
In fact, the House of Lords has always opposed every Bill
intended to do good to the working classes or make them more
free. These noblemen sit in the House of Lords because they
are the eldest sons of their fathers, and not because the people
elected them. That may have been a very good reason many
years ago,
BUT IT WONT DO NOW.
No matter whether the Liberals or the Conservatives are in
power in the House of Commons, the House of Lords is always
Tory, and no one will say it is fair that the Liberals who have
been elected by the peeple to govern them should have all their
work delayed or spoiled by a lot of rich landlords who are elected
by nobody. Even if a peer goes to prison, as some do sometimes,
he can go back and make laws for us or spoil other men’s good
work. The People’s League, whose offices are at 14, Bucking
ham Street, Strand, London, has been formed to spread the truth
about the Lords amongst the voters, and you may be sure that
when their evil deeds are more generally known by the voters,
�12
the House of Lords will be either changed or done away with.
The People’s League, before it had been started three months,
had over 100,000 members, and it is still growing rapidly; so
you see very great numbers of your fellow workmen have made
11 p their minds that we can do better without the House of Lords
than with it, and I hope you will think so too.
WANTING TO TAX THE LOAF.
There is one change which a good many Tory landlords and
others want to make. They would like to put a tax on all corn
that comes into the country—that is, they want to tax the loaf.
But you will find that nearly all the people who want to do this
are landlords or their friends. They will tell you that if a small
tax is put on the corn you will have more work and more money.
It is not true, and I will tell you why. The landlord would get
a lot more rent, but will you be willing to pay more for your
bread that rich men may still be richer ? There used to be a tax
on bread. Between the years 1815 and 1846 bread was always
taxed, and what was the state of the people at that time ? Far
worse than it is now. Landlords were better off, but the working
men were starving. Farmers were ruined by thousands. The
workhouses were full; thousands of families had no food, no
clothing, nothing; there were riots in many places, women sold
their we'dding rings for bread, people boiled nettles for food and
ate bad flesh. At this time there were only half as many people
in G-reat Britain as there are now. Do you want these dreadful
sufferings over again ? They were the result of a tax on bread,
which benefits nobody but the landlords. Your wages are very
much higher even now than they were then. Joseph Arch has
written a book which shows up the shocking state of the country
at that time but folks who want to tax your bread don’t tell you
of these things. They say to you, “ What is the use of cheap
bread if you have no money to buy it with ?” They mean you
to understand that if bread was dearer you would have more
money. It is false. Bad as trade is now, it was far worse when
bread was taxed, and would be still worse if we were so foolish
as to allow it to be taxed again. The real change that wants to
be made i-s to alter the land laws so that the soil may be freely
tilled. There would be plenty of work then, and very much
more corn grown at home than there is now.
HOW TO MEET A TORY DODGE.
In the month of April (1885) Sir Stafford Northcote, the
Conservative leader in the House of Commons, wrote—“As
regards the future, I am distinctly of opinion that a return to a
protective duty on corn would be impossible, and that the idea
that a Conservative Government would attempt to impose one is
groundless.” Lord Salisbury a few days afterwards expressed the
same opinion. When a Tory comes to you trying to make you
believe that a tax on corn would raise your wages, show him this
sentence of Sir Stafford Northcote’s, and ask him why he is so
�13
dishonest as to recommend a plan that his own leaders will not
carry out and declare to be impossible.
THE CHURCH.
Now there is the question of the State Church. You know
that the Church of England, which does not include nearly half
the nation, uses for itself alone money which was meant just as
much for the poor as for the parsons. The Church is thus very
wealthy and powerful, and though the parsons are often good
and kind men, in many cases they use their power against the
poor who go to chapel, or who don’t send their children to the
church school, and they forget these poor people when the time
comes round for giving out blankets and coal. Sometimes
these parsons are magistrates and I have known some who have
been very severe in sending men to prison for poaching. When
they are on the Boards of Guardians, they often forget what
their Great Master told them about being kind and merciful.
Well, the Radicals are working to put an end to the special
power which the State gives to the Church of England, and they
wish to have the enormous wealth of the Church spent for the
good of all the people. For instance, it might be used in paying
for the schooling of the children. It was meant for all the
people years ago, and it ought to belong to all the people now,
instead of to only a part. These parsons are usually great friends
of the squires and the landlords. They taught you at school and
at Sunday school to be contented in that state of life into which
it shall please God to call you. You have learnt since that it is
a good thing for a man to better himself when he can. It is easy
to see why the parsons have taught you to be contented, for, as a
rule, they want the laws to stop as they are, instead of being
made better. The parsons and the bishops have always done
their best to prevent changes being made for the good of the
people. They often say the State church is the poor man’s
church, but if that is so, it is a strange thing the bishops and
most of the parsons always oppose laws meant to give poor men
their rights. The laws ought not to favour one church more
than another, and we must do away with the State church, so
that church and chapel will be on the same footing.
VOTE FOR PEACE AND AGAINST WAR.
Lastly, always vote for peace. No lasting good comes to
working men or anyone else from war, which wastes our taxes
and sheds the blood of our fellow men, and all for no real good.
Often wars are made by our rulers without the people being
asked, but the people have to find the money and the men,
although often they don’t agree with the objects for which war
is being made. War makes trade bad and wages low. Nothing
but misery and sorrow comes from it. It may be to the advan
tage of lords and gentlemen who are officers to fight and get
higher rank, but it can never be to the good of working men to
make war except to defend ourselves whaa attacked, and that
�14
we shall be always sure to do. It will help you to understand
what a curse war is when I tell you that out of every pound we
now pay in taxes 16s. 3^cL goes for war, war debt, or war prepa
rations and 3s. 8jd. for all other purposes of government.
WEIGH THESE CLOSING WORDS WELL.
. I have tried to show you some of the objects which you may
like to strive for. If you set your mind upon getting them, you
Can do it, for there are thousands and thousands of your brothers
and relations in the towns who are bent on getting the laws and
changes I have set before you. But how are you to do it ? By
acting together; and, if possible, through your Union. Taken
one at a time, your votes are worth very little : taken altogether,
there are no just and right things you cannot accomplish in timeby means of your votes. But you must not think these objects
can be gained without long and hard work. You must show the
men who want to be your Members of Parliament that you mean
to have these things, and tell them that if they won’t vote for
what you want, you won’t vote for them. We send men to Par
liament to do as we want, not to do as they like, and we must
make them understand it. The Liberals in town and country
everywhere will help you to improve your condition; they will
aid you in gaining whatever is rightly yours. Stand shoulder to
shoulder ; work steadily with your mates for the same just ends,
and there is no class in this country which is strong enough to
deny you your rights when right is on your side.
ERNEST PARKE.
103, Camberwell Grove, London, S.E.
�15
Bow the Lords and Bishops have Voted.
Some Samples oe Hereditary Legislation.
1807—Rejected Bill appointing a Committee of Council for Education.
1810—Rejected Bill abolishing Punishment of Death for stealing
goods value 5s. Seven bishops voted against the Bill. None for it.
More than 200 crimes then Capital.
1825—Rejected Catholic Relief Bill.
1829—Disfranchised 40s. Freeholders in Ireland.
1831— Rejected Reform Bill. 21 bishops assisted. Great riots.
1832— Mutilated Reform Bill in Committee. Renewed riots. Runon the Bank of England. Country on the brink of Revolution.
Refused to open Universities to Dissenters.
1833— Compelled withdrawal of Irish Education Bill.
1833- 57—Denied civil and political rights to Jews. 20 bishops
assisted. Rejected the Commons’ Bill seven times.
1834—Refused to allow more than 20 persons to meet for worship
in private house. Three times rejected Tithe Abatement Bill; also
Bill for legalising marriages in Dissenting chapels.
1836—Ordered banns of Dissenters’ marriages to be read before
Boards of Guardians. Mangled Municipal Reform Act.
1838—Refused to mothers the custody of infants during separation
caused by fault of father.
1839— Continued death penalty for sheep-stealing. RejectedNational Education Bill.
1842—Refused to give women and children working in mines the
full relief of the Commons’ Mines Regulation Bill. Prevented protec
tion of miners for 30 years.
1845—Refused compensation to the Irish tenants, and so for 25 years.
1858—Refused church rates abolition, and for next 11 years; 24
bishops in the majority.
1860—Rejected Bill taking tax off paper, which meant cheap press..
1868— Threw out Irish Church Disestablishment resolutions. Emas
culated Artisans’ Dwellings Bill.
1867-70—Thrice refused University Tests Abolition.
1869— Mutilated Irish Church Bill. Refused to allow Life Peerages.
1870—Mangled Irish Land Act.
1871—Rejected Army Purchase Bill. Threw out Ballot Bill and
next year made secrecy optional.
1873-6-7-9—Refused to amend Burial Laws.
1879 and since—Refused to legalise marriage with a deceased wife’s
sister.
1880—Rejected Compensation for Disturbance Bill. Ireland became
in a state of anarchy. Threw out Irish Registration of Voters Bill.
1882—Made Allotments Extension Act unworkable.
1883—Maintained Trap Pigeon Shooting. (No Bishops attended tovote.) Spoiled English Agricultural Holdings Bill, but retreated.
1884— « Hung up ” the County Franchise Bill.
After reading the above, do you net think that the House of
Commons was right when, in 1649, it resolved that the House of
Lords “ was useless, dangerous, and ought to be abolished ?”
�ALL THE NEW VOTERS
Should Read
The English Labourers’
CHRONICLE.
THE
1
Organ of the National Agricultural
Labourers’ Union.
ORDER OF ANY NEWSAGENT.
SOLD IN EVERY COUNTY.
Full of Interest for Workers and Voters.
The CHRONICLE contains—
News and Political Articles,
by Well-known Writers,
AFFECTING THE
WELFARE AND WAGES
OF THE LABOURERS.
ONE PENNY WEEKLY
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Dublin Core
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Title
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What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters
Creator
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Parke, Ernest
Description
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 15, [1] p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: Date of publication from internal evidence (list of House of Lords votes ends with date of 1884, and text refers twice to 1885). Advertisement for the English Labourers' Chronicle on unnumbered page at the end.
Publisher
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W. Reeves
Date
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[1885?]
Identifier
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T469
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Socialism
Politics
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (What shall I do with my vote? : a few plain words to the new voters), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
Great Britain-Parliament
Great Britain-Parliament-House of Lords
Great Britain-Politics and Government-1837-1901
Land tax
Politics-Britain
Socialism