James Ritchie - Here and There in London

Times would give it them all the next morning; and so it mattered little how empty of listeners was the House, provided the reporters were there and did their duty. It is the same when the House legislates for our Imperial colonies, or our 150,000,000 in India. It is to the Reporters’ Gallery members speak, not to the House. Thus is it orators are so plentiful in spite of the freezing atmosphere. Ordinarily no one listens – no one expects to be convinced – no one seeks to convince. Said an old M.P., “I never knew a speech that influenced a vote.” As a rule, the M.P. was right. Orators like George Thompson are quite out of place in it. Such a man as Henry Vincent would be a laughingstock. The House consists of middle-aged gentlemen of good parts and habits, and they like to do business and to be spoken to in a business-like way. Next to business-like speakers, the House likes joking. Hence it is Tom Duncombe and Lord Palmerston are such favourites. Hence it is that Colonel Sibthorp got and Henry Drummond gets so readily the ear of the House. The House cares little for declamation. It would rather be without it. It considers it a waste of time. Figures of arithmetic are far more popular than figures of speech. You must learn to speak to the House in its own style. Disraeli attempted to take the House by storm, and palpably failed. He altered his style. He learnt to talk figures, and became a success. More recently Mr. Warren attempted the same feat, and also failed. If you adopt the Parliamentary style, and have the requisite physique , whether you be Tory, Radical, Free-trader, or Protectionist – Protestant or Roman Catholic – Irish, Scotch, or English – whether you represent a borough or a county – you have a chance of being heard. The House of Commons, it is true, is a club, but it is not an exclusive one. All classes are represented there. The Roman Catholic wolf reposes in it meekly by the side of the Protestant lamb. There you see, side by side, teetotal Crossley and Bass famed for bitter beer. Oxford sends there its trained and scholarly churchmanship, and the manufacturing towns their vigorous dissent. Lowness of birth is no obstacle to success. Lindsay was a cabin-boy; Fox, a weaver in Norwich in his youth; poor Brotherton, a factory lad; Ingram cleaned the shoes of one of his constituents; yet the House gives these men as ready a hearing as it awards to the inheritors of broad domains and the most illustrious of historic names. If the House is flunkeyfied, conventional, and illogical, it is the fault of the public – more flunkeyfied, conventional, and illogical – whom it represents. Waste not your honest indignation, but reserve it for the proper parties out of doors. Nor grumble that the working men have had no representative since their order was represented by the idiotic and self-seeking Feargus O’Connor, when you remember that, by means of the freehold land societies, almost any working men who like to go without beer might in a very short time acquire votes, and, combined, might carry the counties. Aristocrats, you say, are in the People’s House. Yes, but they are men, most of them, of untainted honour – of lofty aim – of comprehensive views; and the general fusion and ventilation of opinion and clash of intellect elicit action most congenial with the intelligence of the age. Take any of the extreme men, for instance. What can they do? Are they the representatives of the mass of opinion? Is the country prepared to break up the National Church, as Mr. Miall would recommend – to dissolve the Union, as Gavan Duffy desired – to put down all our armaments, as Mr. Bright would think proper – to grant the five points of the Charter, as poor Feargus O’Connor contended? Most certainly not. Yet the representatives of such opinions are in the House, and rightly in the House. With them away, the opinions of the people would not be fairly represented. At the same time, it must be remembered, that such men represent but sections, and it is wisely arranged that the representatives of all sections shall meet. Thus justice is done to all. Thus mutual toleration is learned. Thus the mental vision of all becomes enlarged. We make these remarks because we think we see a tendency to run down the House of Commons, and the representative institutions of which it is the type. By Britons this feeling should not be entertained. That assembly contains, it is true, not the grandest, but the best practical intellects of which our country can boast. In its earliest days it rocked the cradle of our liberties, and still it guards them, though the stripling has long become a giant. At our elections there is deep-seated demoralisation, but still that demoralisation has its bounds which it cannot pass, and the high-minded and the honourable form the majority in the House of Commons. At any rate, the representative body is quite as virtuous and intelligent as the constituency. If, gentle reader, it laughs at your favourite idea, it only does so because that idea is a poor squalling brat, not a goddess with celestial mien and air. A time may come when it may be that, and then it will not knock at the door of the House in vain. Till then, the House may be forgiven for not thinking of it. The House is not bound to take notice of it till then. Law Reform – Parliamentary Reform – Financial Reform – Customs Reform – Education – Colonies – Convicts – India – these are the topics with which the House has now painfully to grapple. Your favourite idea must wait a little longer. In the meantime, if it be a good one let us wish it well – if it be a true one, we shall surely hear of it again.

Amongst the sights of London surely may be reckoned the Chamber of Peers – fallen from its high estate, but still existing as a potent institution in this self-governing country and democratic age. Of course it is usual to sneer at the peers – we all do so; and yet we would move heaven and earth to be seen walking arm in arm with a peer, no matter how old or vicious he be, on the sunny side of Pall Mall. We all say the peers must give way to the Commons; and yet we all know that half the latter are returned by the former, and that you can no more succeed in contesting a county against its lords and landlords, than you can hope to fly in the air, or to walk on the sea. Hear a pot-house orator on the House of Peers, you would think it the most indefensible establishment imaginable. But is it so? Ask Exeter Hall; that truly British institution is in raptures with the whole British peerage. A lord at a Bible meeting – a lord stammering a few unconnected common-places about the propagation of Christianity in foreign parts, or the conversion of the Jews – a lord denouncing the Pope, or anticipating the coming of the millennium – is a sight dear to the British public. Sneer at the Lords as you will, expatiate on the manifest absurdity of supposing that they are wiser and better than other people, say, what every one knows and thinks, that you cannot transmit brains as you can the family spoons, and that therefore the idea involved in hereditary peerage is a lie; nevertheless, the House of Peers still continues a great fact. And it is a gorgeous fact as well. The apartments of the Commons are poor and mean compared with the chamber, all resplendent with crimson and gold, where the Lords meet. As you enter the central hall in the new Houses of Parliament, the passage to the right leads you to the Lords. We will suppose you have got an order – any peer can give you one; and as the House commences its sitting at five, and there is plenty of room in the gallery, you may take your time almost as freely as the celebrated Miss Lucy Long herself. Passing the lobby, you soon find your way into the house, the magnificent adorning of which will be sure to excite your utmost admiration. Some may say it is too gaudy, everything pertaining to the chamber is so richly decorated; but it is very fine, and when Parliament is opened by Majesty in person, and the house is crowded with all the great men of our land, and the galleries blaze with beauty and diamonds, the effect must be, as it has always been described, imposing in the extreme. On ordinary evenings, however, nothing of this splendour is visible; the house has a deserted air; an assembly of a dozen or twenty is a very fair muster; a debate of a couple of hours is generally considered as unusually exciting and fierce. The best description of a debate in the Lords we have ever read is that by Disraeli, in the “Young Duke.” We quote the passage: – “The Duke of St. James took the oaths and his seat. He was introduced by Lord Pompey. He heard a debate. We laugh at such a thing, especially in the Upper House; but on the whole the affair is imposing, especially if we take a part in it. Lord Exchamberlain thought the nation going on wrong, and he made a speech full of currency and constitution. Baron Deprivey Seal seconded him with great effect – brief, but bitter, satirical, and sore. The Earl of Quarterday answered these, full of confidence in the nation and in himself. When the debate was getting heavy, Lord Snap jumped up to give them something light. The Lords do not encourage wit, and so are obliged to put up with pertness. But Viscount Memoir was very statesmanlike, and spouted a sort of universal history. Then there was Lord Ego, who vindicated his character when nobody knew he had one, and explained his motives because his auditors could not understand his acts. Then there was a maiden speech, so inaudible that it was doubted after all whether the young orator really did lose his virginity. In the end, up started the Premier, who, having nothing to say, was manly, and candid, and liberal; gave credit to his adversaries and took credit to himself, and then the motion was withdrawn. While all this was going on, some made a note, some made a bet, some consulted a book, some their ease, some yawned, a few slept. Yet, on the whole, there was an air about the assembly which can be witnessed in no other in Europe. Even the most indifferent looked as if he would come forward if the occasion should demand him, and the most imbecile as if he could serve his country if it required him.”

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