time of William the Fourth connects
the reign of that monarch with the history of Westminster Palace. It
was not until the reign of Queen Victoria had made some way that the
towers of the palace began to show themselves above the river; but the
new principle which offered the design for the work to public
competition, and the fact that Mr. Barry's design was chosen from all
others, oblige us to associate the building of the new chambers with
the reign of a sovereign whose name otherwise was not likely to be
identified with any triumph of artistic genius. We must not set down
to any defects in the architect's constructive skill the fact that the
new House of Commons was almost as inadequate to the proper
accommodation of its members as the old House had been. The present
House of Commons does not provide sitting accommodation for anything
like the number of members who are entitled to have seats on its
benches. Even if the galleries set apart for the use of members only,
galleries that are practically useless for the purposes of debate, were
to be filled to their utmost, there still would not be room for nearly
all the members of the House of Commons. But at the time when the new
House was built, the general impression of statesmen on both sides
seemed to be that, if the chamber were made spacious enough to give a
seat to every member, the result would be {271} that the room would be
too large for anything like practical, easy, and satisfactory
discussion, and that the chamber would become a mere hall of
declamation.

At that time almost all the business of the House, even to its most
minute details of legislation, was done in the debating-chamber itself.
The scheme which was adopted a great many years later, and by means of
which the shaping of the details of legislative measures is commonly
relegated to Grand Committees, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, had
not then found any favor with statesmen. The daily work of the House
was left, for the most part, in the hands of the members of the
Administration and the leading members of the Opposition, or, in cases
where the interests of a particular class, or trade, or district were
concerned, to the men who had special knowledge of each subject of
legislation. It was therefore argued, and with much plausibility, that
to construct a chamber large enough to hold seats for all the members
would be to impose an insupportable, and at the same time a quite
unnecessary, st