hink that to alter the rules of the House of Commons; to curtail and
limit the power of debate; to confer, if necessary, upon the Speaker, or
upon the bare majority of members present, authority to bring every
debate summarily to a close, is something like overthrowing the
monarchy, a thing not to be dreamt of by the wildest of innovators.
Plain men outside the walls of Parliament can assure our
representatives, that the world would bear with infinite calmness the
imposition of stringent restrictions on the overflow of Parliamentary
eloquence. If even the great debate on Home Rule had been finished say
in a week, the outer world would have been well pleased; and measures
such as the Government of Ireland Bill happily do not come before
Parliament every year. The more subtle evils arising in part at least
from the presence of the Irish members must be met by more searching
remedies. Parnellite obstruction has revealed rather than caused the
weakness of government by Parliament. The experience, not of England
only, but of other countries, shows the great difficulty of working our
present party system of government in a representative assembly which is
divided into more than two parties. The essential difficulty lies in
the immediate dependence of a modern ministry for its existence on every
vote of the House of Commons. If you see the difficulty, you can also
see various means by which it may be removed. In more than one country,
and notably in the United States and in Switzerland--states, be it
remarked, in which popular government flourishes--the executive, though
in the long run amenable to the voice of the people, and though in
Switzerland actually appointed by the legislature, is not like an
English Cabinet dependent on the fluctuating will of a legislative
assembly. If it were necessary to choose between modifications in the
relation of the executive to Parliament, and the repeal of the Act of
Union, most Englishmen would think that to increase the independence of
the executive--a change probably desirable in itself--was a less evil
than a disruption of the United Kingdom, which not only is in itself a
gigantic evil, but may well lead to others. A modification, however, in
the practice would, for the moment at least, save the real principles of
Parliamentary government. Were it once understood that a Ministry would
not retire from office except in consequence of a direct vote of want of
confidence in the House of Comm