{37}
Since we have seen that, during the last century, power has been silently transferred from the House of Commons, it becomes a matter of vital importance to ask to whom it has been transferred. We have already said that it has been transferred to the Cabinet; but what is a Cabinet, and how is it constructed?
The theory of the Constitution is that Ministers are nominated by the Crown. Everyone knows that this has ceased to be the fact. Many people would tell you that now Ministers are in effect nominated by Parliament. But this is equally far from the truth. The plain truth is that Ministers nominate themselves. They form a self-elected body, filling up its vacancies by co-option.
The two Front Benches are close oligarchical corporations; or, to speak more accurately, one close oligarchical corporation, admission to which is only to be gained by the consent of those who have already secured places therein. The price which {38} has to be paid for admission is, of course, a complete surrender of independence, and absolute submission to the will of the body as a whole.
The greater number of the members of this close corporation enter by right of their relationship, whether of blood or marriage, to other members of the group, no matter of what social rank. They may be called the Relations. This family arrangement must not be confused with what once was the old aristocratic privileges of the Great Houses.
There are still indeed certain wealthy political families whose members are regarded as having a prescriptive right to share in the government of the country. Their wealth is more and more important, their lineage less and less.
The traditions of the English political system having been aristocratic in character, render the presence of the members of such families (in lessening degree) antecedently probable; but while the public realises this, it is not aware of the degree in which mere relationship, high or low born, enters into the making of Ministries, still less of the way in which family ties enter into the formation of the two closely connected Front Benches, where there is no question of aristocratic descent.
It is neither novel nor astonishing to discover a Duke of Norfolk acting as Postmaster-General under a Conservative Administration. As the {39} Duke of Devonshire was a member of former governments, so one would imagine that the present Duke, his nephew, would naturally hold office in any future Unionist Administration. The public even expects that Mr Austen Chamberlain should inherit, as it were, Cabinet rank from his father; nor is it much scandalised to see the Prime Minister’s brother-in-law, Mr Tennant, sitting by his side on the Treasury bench. Mr Churchill, of course, as a member of the family whose name he bears, and as heir to his father’s career, has a double right.
But the list begins to grow long when we see Lord Selborne, the son-in-law of a former Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, governing South Africa at a moment when his first cousin, Mr Arthur Balfour, is the Prime Minister of the day (being retained there subsequently by Mr Balfour’s “opponents”), while that Prime Minister’s brother, Mr Gerald Balfour, not only enjoys long years of office through his family connection, but a considerable public pension into the bargain when office is no longer open to him. That Lord Gladstone should inherit from his father may seem normal enough, though his name does swell this extended category. But to find Lord Portsmouth Under Secretary for War, while a cousin of his wife’s, Sir John Pease, has yet another post under the present Government, and his cousin again, Mr Pike Pease, the reversion of a “Conservative” post; and to have to add to this that the Liberal {40} Whip, Sir John Fuller, is actually the brother-in-law of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, Mr Hobhouse, both being grandchildren by blood or marriage of a Conservative Chancellor, Lord St Aldwyn (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach), touches upon the comic when we remember how large a proportion of the paid offices available this list represents. Nor do the names here jotted down almost at random present more than a very small sample of the whole system.
It must be noted that these family ties are not confined to the separate sides of the House. They unite the Ministerial with the Opposition Front Bench as closely as they unite Ministers and ex-Ministers to each other.
For instance, to quote again chance connections that occur to one, the present talented and versatile (“Liberal”) Under Secretary for Home Affairs, Mr Masterman, is the nephew by marriage of the late (“Conservative”) Colonial Secretary, Mr Lyttelton; who, in his turn, is closely connected with Mr Asquith, for they married sisters. The present (“Liberal”) President of the Council, Lord Beauchamp, is brother-in-law of a former Conservative Governor of Madras, Lord Ampthill; a “Liberal” and a “Unionist” Whip, the two Peases, are cousins (the latter of Ministerial rank, though not of course yet in enjoyment of office); and, as all the world knows, Mr Winston Churchill is not only the cousin of a former Conservative Minister, the Duke of Marlborough, but directly succeeded the head of {41} his own family in the post he held, that of Under Secretary for the Colonies.
Points of this kind are of importance, for they show to how restricted a group of men the functions of government have come to be entrusted. They are effects, not causes, of its narrowness. None can deny that the phenomena are peculiar to a political condition exceedingly abnormal. Groups of this sort could not possibly arise in a genuinely democratic society; and, what is more, are more closely and intricately bound together even than they were in the days when the government of this country was avowedly that of an oligarchy. The tendency to govern by clique is not decreasing; it is increasing.
But, it may be asked, is there anything wrong in men differing in politics yet remaining on friendly terms in private life? Is there any reason why a man should not marry a woman because her family belongs to the political party opposed to his? Not the least in the world. Such things would naturally happen in the most real and earnest political conflict. But they would happen as exceptions; there would be perhaps one or two such cases in every generation. When we find such things not exceptional, but universal, we may safely say that we are not considering a certain number of examples of personal sympathy or attraction over-riding political differences, but a general system of government by a small, friendly, and closely inter-related clique. We are not {42} surprised at Romeo loving Juliet, though he is a Montague and she a Capulet. But if we found in addition that Lady Capulet was by birth a Montague, that Lady Montague was the first cousin of old Capulet, that Mercutio was at once the nephew of a Capulet and the brother-in-law of a Montague, that County Paris was related on his father’s side to one house and on his mother’s side to the other, that Tybalt was Romeo’s uncle’s stepson, and that the Friar who married Romeo and Juliet was Juliet’s uncle and Romeo’s first cousin once removed, we should probably conclude that the feud between the two houses was being kept up mainly for the dramatic entertainment of the people of Verona.
It should further be noted that the kindly tolerance on which politicians are so fond of congratulating themselves is extended only to those who play the game and not at all to those who spoil the game. It was not extended to Parnell. It was not extended to Mr Victor Grayson. It is the result not of magnanimity, but of indifference.
Finally, the mere fact that the electorate is never allowed to learn the full truth as to these relationships and intimacies is sound moral proof that their motive is a motive of imposture.
The second division, and reserve as it were of Cabinet material, may be called the Private Secretaries. Sons of good families, inadequately provided for, sons of the new rich with political {43} ambitions, sons especially of persons who have helped to finance prominent politicians or have subscribed largely to the Party Funds, often obtain positions as private secretaries to the great men on the Front Benches. If they are fairly apt and industrious they have little difficulty in making themselves useful, in rising in the political world, and eventually (sometimes quickly) in obtaining Cabinet rank. Mr Montagu’s career, like that of his oousin Mr Herbert Samuel, has been of this kind. These two related members also touch another part of our subject, for one is the son, the other the nephew, of the late Lord Swaythling, formerly Sir Samuel Montagu.
Finally, there are those whom we may roughly describe as the make-weights—persons having no direct family or financial connection with the ruling group, but co-opted by the Ministers, sometimes because they have made some sort of reputation in the House or in the country, sometimes because they are in possession of some other source of influence which it is thought may be useful to the two Front Benches, sometimes because they have given, and are still capable of giving, annoyance to the Professional Politicians when in an independent position. Clever lawyers are often taken into the service of the oligarchy in this way, and there is at least one well-known case of an ex-workman being so taken. Such men, not feeling sure of their footing, are generally especially pliant to the will of the oligarchy. {44} Commonly they become merged in it. Thus, when Mr Asquith entered the Gladstone Government of 1892, he was, we believe, unconnected by any direct tie with the governing group. Now he and his are connected by a dozen such ties.
It is clear, then, that the method by which Ministries are formed is the method of co-option. No man is made a Minister by election or acclamation either of the people or of the legislature. Office, unlike the kingdom of heaven, is not taken by storm. That a man may enter its narrow gate, he must prove himself able and willing to be a serviceable tool of those who hold the keys. And this power of the oligarchy to admit or refuse Ministerial appointments is perhaps the most powerful means used by them to fetter the House of Commons. Their control over the bestowal of places has created in the House a large class of placemen and placemen-expectant, upon whose interested support the machinery of party discipline largely depends.
The Placeman is a historic figure in English politics. He is as prominent and important a figure at the present time as he was in Walpole’s day. The publication of Parliamentary proceedings and the introduction of a democratic element into the House of Commons have made it necessary {45} to cover his operations with a veil of somewhat greater decency, but his character and functions are in essence just what they always were.
The Placeman is the man who enters politics as a profession with the object of obtaining one of the well-paid offices in the gift of the Ministry. His mode of operation will necessarily vary according to his talents and temperament. Sometimes he will endeavour to earn the gratitude of the governing group by voting steadily according to the dictation of the Whips (a high record in divisions, when it is not a hobby or a method of duping a constituency, may generally be taken as the mark of an embryo or prospective Placeman), by coming to the rescue of the Ministers, and defending them when their followers prove restive, by always being ready to put down “blocking” motions to prevent the discussion of inconvenient topics, or to move “shelving” amendments or inconvenient motions. Sometimes he plays a bolder game, assumes the airs of an independent member, criticises the Government from time to time, asks inconvenient questions, and makes himself a mild nuisance to the Front Benches and the Whips. But by this sign the mere Placeman may always be known that, though he may ask questions or raise matters slightly inconvenient to his “leaders,” he will never hint at existence of things inconvenient to both Front Benches and awkward to the Party System as a whole, for on this system he proposes to fatten.
{46} The change which office produces in men of this type is often extraordinary. Take the case of Mr C. F. G. Masterman. Mr Masterman entered Parliament as a Liberal of independent views. During his first two years in the House he distinguished himself as a critic of the Liberal Ministry. He criticised their Education Bill. He criticised with especial force the policy of Mr John Burns at the Local Government Board. His conduct attracted the notice of the leaders of the party. He was offered office, accepted it, and since then has been silent, except for an occasional rhetorical exercise in defence of the Government. One fact will be sufficient to emphasise the change. On March 13th, 1908, Mr Masterman voted for the Right to Work Bill of the Labour Party. In May of the same year he accepted a place with a salary of £1200 a year—it has since risen to £1500. On April 20th, 1909, he voted, at the bidding of the Party Whips, against the same Bill which he had voted for in the previous year. Yet this remarkable example of the “peril of change” does not apparently create any indignation or even astonishment in the political world which Mr Masterman adorns. On the contrary, he seems to be generally regarded as a politician of exceptionally high ideals. No better instance need be recorded of the peculiar atmosphere it is the business of these pages to describe.
In the same category we may include the mischief which accompanies the presence of so large a {47} number of barristers in Parliament, where barristers abound, because they always have something to get from the Government. The prizes in this profession are high, and they are all at the disposal of the governing group. Therefore the fairly successful lawyer is always the most serviceable tool of the Ministers. It was a lawyer, Mr Buckmaster, who moved the amendment which shelved the question of the secrecy of the Party Funds. It was a lawyer, or rather two or three lawyers, who were employed to damp down the Nationalist movement in Wales. Indeed, Wales presents a particularly strong case, for the consistent policy of the Government has been to buy off the Welsh by giving promotion to Welsh barristers.
A striking case of the way in which barristers are rewarded is that of Mr Horridge. Mr Horridge defeated Mr Balfour at North-east Manchester in 1906. It was generally understood that he was to have the first judgeship that fell vacant. When, however, the first vacancy occurred the Education Question was to the fore, and it was felt that a by-election in Manchester would be dangerous. Mr Horridge was therefore passed over, and the place was given to another political lawyer, Mr Hemmerde. When the General Election came, Mr Horridge did not stand again; immediately after it his fidelity was rewarded with the long-expected judgeship. Now Mr Horridge happens to be a good judge. O si sic omnes!
There are thus in every House of Commons {48} a very large number of men who either have received or expect to receive places which are in the gift of the Government. On the other side of the House are an almost equally large number who expect to receive places from the next Government as soon as their own party is in power. Between them they make up an important section of the House, and they can be absolutely relied on by Government and Opposition to vote straight as the ruling group direct.
At the same time it must be remembered that the influence which the Front Benches can exert over members of Parliament is by no means confined to those who have places or to the much larger class of those who think they may some day get places. In a thousand ways the position of a man who renders himself obnoxious to the governing group can be made unpleasant; in a thousand ways submission to them can be rewarded by little favours. One member refrains from pressing some inconvenient inquiries on the Foreign Office or the India Office because he is about to take a trip to Egypt or India and wishes to have no obstacles thrown in his way. Another—perhaps a lawyer—will refrain from taking up a determinedly independent attitude because, if he gets the reputation of being “impracticable,” it may injure him professionally. Another wants some private Bill in which either he or his constituents are interested to pass smoothly and rapidly. None of these men want to make themselves unnecessarily {49} unpopular with the group in whose hands is not only the disposal of places, but the Executive Government and the absolute control of the time of the House. Add to these considerations the pressure which the Party Caucus can (as we shall see hereafter) exercise upon elections, and it is not surprising that the ancient control of the House of Commons over the Ministry has been replaced by despotic authority of the Ministry over the House of Commons.
There is, of course, a large margin in any House of Commons to whom no direct or conscious pressure can be said to apply. They would themselves be quite genuinely and sincerely astonished if they were told that any pressure was exercised upon them, or that any advantage was held out to them by what they would call “loyalty to their party.” They are men for the most part wealthy, men who regard a seat in the House of Commons as a social honour which they have purchased with a certain expenditure of their money and their energy, men who take the duties of their position seriously, and who perform all that part of parliamentary work which is less touched by corruption adequately and well. They do excellent work upon committees, they busy themselves with the minor details of their constituencies, they speak for hard cases, they try to obtain petty situations for their supporters, etc. These men are perfectly honest, and would be more astonished than any reader of this book, or than any ordinary member of the {50} electorate, to hear that pressure was put upon them by the cynical and happily outworn clique upon which the placemen openly depend for their livelihood.
Now, to the plain citizen the astonishment is not that pressure should be put upon such men, but that they do not recognise the pressure. The plain citizen will never be persuaded that Mr Brown, young Lord Jenkinson, and Sir James Smith always think in the same way upon all matters. He cannot conceive why they should always vote the same way, unless they have motives as bad and as fraudulent as those of the regular placeman whom they support. It behoves us, therefore, to ask how the contradiction arises, and how perfectly honest men can be made to serve the system?
The main pivot of the machine lies in the fixed custom of dissolving when a majority is expressed against the act of any Minister. True, this capital point of the whole parliamentary game has latterly, with the advent of groups, lost something of its force. But it still survives as a main instrument by which the ordinary and honest member is coerced.
The Government does now and then give way when it appreciates that a majority may possibly be formed against it; and there have been of late years two or three rare and minor instances in which the expression of the popular will through its representatives in Parliament has controlled {51} the Executive—as, for instance, in Clause IV. of the Trades Dispute Bill. But, as a rule, the working of the machine is as follows:—The Government, after consultation with the other half of the clique who sit on the Opposition Front Bench, determine that such and such a proposal is their “policy.” If a majority of the House of Commons disapprove by their vote of such a “policy,” a General Election, with all its expense of time, energy, and money, is imposed upon every member of the House.
The situation is precisely as though a King (when the Crown had real power) had been able to say to the Commons: “I propose to spend so many millions on an addition to my standing army, and if you express disapproval of this I will fine every man Jack of you a thousand pounds, and imperil his chance of ever coming back to oppose my will!” For it must be remembered that, though the party funds are lavishly used to support even the richest members of the party, they are despotically controlled, unaudited, and immediately withdrawn from any member who has voted against the directions of the Government, whose directions are never more emphatic than when they are issued after a consultation with their nominal opponents.
It is this necessity, the necessity of “keeping the Government in,” or paying a heavy penalty in money, time, energy, and the imperilling of one’s place in Parliament, which controls the great body {52} of men who cannot come under any of the categories we have yet mentioned, and in a later part of this book we will return to the subject when we consider what remedies there may be for the present impasse.
The popular defence of the elaborate system of indirect corruption described in the last section is that it is necessary for the maintenance of discipline.
Now, discipline is a military term, and implies the existence or prospect of a war. It is obviously inapplicable to matters of legislation, except under most extraordinary circumstances. It is the idea of a good soldier that he obeys the orders of his superior—“His not to reason why, etc.” But it is the very object of the legislator to “reason why.” His function is criticism; and discipline is fatal to criticism, and is meant to be so. Soldiers are not there to criticise their officers, but to follow them. Members of Parliament, on the other hand, are there (or ought to be there) to criticise the Ministers; and it is certain that they cannot effectively criticise so long as they obediently follow.
There is only one possible occasion upon which the word discipline could ever properly be applied to Parliamentary affairs, and that would be some momentous crisis (such as only occurs once in two {53} or three centuries) when politics begin really to take on the aspect of civil war or revolution. No one will pretend that such a state of things exists at the present time. But there are still a good many people who believe the conflict between the two parties to be, as far as it goes, a real one. Young Liberals are told that they must drop minor differences that they may present a serried front to the forces of reaction. The Conservative rank and file have it impressed upon them with equal emphasis that their enforced unity is the only obstacle to a devastating flood of confiscatory revolution.
Now, if we were soldiers in an army subjected to a system of military law of unusual severity, we should perhaps submit cheerfully to our lot so long as we believed in the vital reality and value of the cause for which we were fighting. But, if we found that all the time that we were being flogged or shot for the smallest infraction of discipline, our chief officers were continually conferring with the officers of the enemy, were on the best of terms with them, concocted their plan of campaign in concert with them, always carefully avoided every occasion of decisive engagement between the two armies, and generally treated the whole war as a friendly game of mixed chance and skill between themselves and their friends and relations on the other side,—then I think our floggings and shootings would justly become a matter for complaint and even for mutiny.
{54} That is, briefly, the political situation to-day. On the rank and file is imposed a rigid discipline which nothing but an extraordinary public crisis could justify, while at the same time the commanders treat the whole affair as the most frivolous of amusements, the keen enjoyment of which need in no way disturb the friendliness of their private relations. That is the situation, and it is becoming to most of us an intolerable one.
The recent “Conference” of eight members of the governing group to discuss the question of the House of Lords opened the eyes of a good many people who were previously blind to the unreality of the struggle. It was a little too impudent! Yet behind the irony of this silent compact coming after all the heroic rhetoric of the General Election there was a deeper irony. The ordinary journalistic picture of the conference suggests that Mr Asquith and Mr Balfour met for the first time, bowed to each other with cold civility, and proceeded to discuss terms of settlement with the polite hauteur of dignified enemies. As a matter of fact, of course, this Conference, trumpeted through the press as if it were a unique event, was only one of the hundred conferences which various members of the two Front Benches, and especially the two leaders, their secretaries, the two Chief Whips, the confidential hangers-on, and now and then the principal official paymasters habitually hold to settle the affairs of Parliament. Agreement between the Front Benches is not a {55} rare expedient suited to a special crisis. It is the normal method of governing the country.
We spoke just now of the generals as carefully avoiding the possibility of any decisive engagement between their followers. Anybody who recalls what has happened during the last twenty years can remember repeated cases where one side seemed on the point of achieving a decisive victory over the other, when a halt was suddenly called, the troops ordered back to quarters, and the battle abandoned. A subject is raised. It forms the topic of numerous and heated orations. The country is wildly excited about it. Then it is suddenly dropped; nobody knows why—except the Front Benches.
A very strong case may be found in the Committee of the House of Commons which inquired into the Jameson Raid. It will be remembered that that Committee seemed always on the very verge of some startling revelation, but that just at the sensational moment the inquiry—like a newspaper serial—abruptly stopped. Now, it is obvious that, if the fight between the parties were a genuine one, there was nothing more to be desired by the Liberal members of the Committee than an exposure which might have discredited the Ministers in power. Yet Sir William Harcourt and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, and their henchman, Mr Ellis, were as eager as any Tory could be to hush up anything that might discredit the Colonial Office. Why was this? {56} Because they also were Front Benchers, and at all times of crisis the Front Benches hang together.
Another case was that of Chinese Labour. If ever an election was won on a specific issue, the election of 1906 was won on Chinese Labour. This is not the place to express an opinion on the merits of the question; we simply state the facts. If the representatives of the people had acted according to their instructions, the repatriation of the Chinese would have begun at once and upon the largest possible scale. Everybody knows that this was not done; on the contrary, anxious negotiations were entered into by the Ministry to propitiate the South African Jews, a common plan was agreed on between the two Front Benches and those magnates, and 1300 Chinese were admitted to the Rand after the change of Government. But this is not the important point. The important point is that the new House of Commons, elected mainly on that issue, was not allowed to divide on the question or to express any opinion upon the policy which should be adopted. But we shall return to this capital and decisive illustration in more detail upon a later page.
A third example may be found in the recent “Conference.” Who, listening to the torrents of eloquence poured out during the last General Election, to the Liberal fulminations against the tyranny of the Lords, to the Unionist fulminations against the “Socialism” of the Liberals, to Mr Balfour’s denunciations of Mr Ure, and to Mr {57} Ure’s retorts on Mr Balfour, to the repeated appeals of both sides to the Voice of the People, would have believed that the whole tragic business was to be openly branded as a farce by its very authors, or that these gentlemen would indulge in sham secret meetings, which, even had they pretended to reality, would have been a negation of all that had been said and done five months before?
But if, from a past which is known, we turn to a future which may be confidently predicted (for accurate prediction is the best of all tests that can be applied to theory), we have an immediate example before us.
The moment at which this book appears offers an opportunity for putting its thesis to the test.
It has been determined by the two Front Benches to alter both the Constitution and the powers of the House of Lords. In what way will those powers be altered, and what body will take the place of the present Second Chamber?
Without any reasonable doubt, the powers of the House of Lords, after the most ridiculous sham demagogy from the Treasury Bench, and equally ridiculous sham indignation from their relatives and private friends across the table, and after perhaps some sham resistance organised to give vitality to the show, will be modified in such a fashion that:—
(1) The House of Lords shall not be able to prevent the passage into law of measures concerted upon between the two Front Benches; and {58}
(2) The House of Lords shall be able to prevent the passage of measures which, towards the end of a Parliament, are put up in order to secure the “swing of the pendulum.”
In other words, so far as its powers are concerned, the Second Chamber will be turned into a machine subservient to the bi-party system.
Now as to its Constitution: The House of Lords is at present composed of some hundreds of men, the mass of whom owe their seats to heredity. A smaller number owe their seats to the filling of posts within the gift of the professional politicians, such as Colonial Governorships, etc. Another batch owe their seats to purchase—this base method is increasingly common, and has become taken for granted in our modern social habits. A fourth (small) class consists in men promoted in order to permit the easy working of the Party game—they have been in the way or proved failures on one of the two Front Benches. A tiny fifth class, consisting of less than half a dozen, are men who appear simply because they have rendered great services to their country; in one case a man of letters received this distinction. The lawyers, who must be present in small numbers in order to preserve the fiction of the House of Lords as a Court of Appeal, are a class apart. Then there are the Bishops.
Now, when the House of Lords is reconstituted, after due consultation and agreement between the two Front Benches, which of these classes will {59} disappear? Not the handful of professional politicians already present; certainly not the peers who sit by right of purchase, for the sale of peerages is one of the most important aliments of the machine: still less the Bishops. Those who will disappear are the country squires who are in one sense really representative of England, and who, though usually bamboozled to some extent by the intrigues at Westminster, vote either in their own private interests or as they think best for the nation. Those are the men who will go. If new elements are added they will absolutely certainly include nominees of the machine, or, as the pretty phrase goes, “of the Crown.”
Here is a concrete instance, and it will be well worth the while of any reader of this book to watch whether it has not been well chosen and whether its fulfilment does not prove to what a pass the political system has come.
It is necessary, then, for the understanding of modern British politics to realise that the two Front Benches are not two but one. They are united not only by the close bonds of relationship, intermarriage, and personal friendship which exist between them, but also by a common interest. It is to the interest of both to keep the game going, and it is also to the interest of both to prevent the game from becoming too real. It is, of course, quite true that, within these limits, each side genuinely wants to win. Apart from the sporting interest of the conflict, there are very material prizes to be {60} gained by the winning side. To many politicians it makes a considerable pecuniary difference whether they are in office or in opposition—a fact which has decided many a political crisis, though we are all too well-bred to take it into our calculations. This, however, remains a secondary object, subordinate to the essential aim of both Front Benches, the maintenance of the Party System.
With the two Front Benches must be reckoned the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, officers chosen by them, and working with them. It is no derogation of the admitted impartiality of the Chair to say this. There has never been the smallest reason to suspect the Speaker or Chairman of leaning unfairly to one or other side of the House. Why, indeed, should he, seeing that he at anyrate knows the fight between them to be a sham one?
But it is well known that they continually consult with the leaders of the House and the Opposition as to the conduct of business, and that when the Front Benches are agreed they can almost invariably rely upon the support of the Chair.
Now, this governing group, as we may call it, comprising the two Front Benches and the Speaker, has attained absolute control over the procedure of the House of Commons.
First, it has the allotment of the time of the House. It can settle how much time shall be given to the discussion of any subject, and whether any {61} time shall be given thereto. It can therefore in effect settle whether any particular measure shall have a chance of passing into law. Secondly, it has control of the order of the House. It can settle what subjects may be discussed, and what may be said on those subjects. To the consideration of these matters we shall now proceed.