APPROPRIATION—BUSINESS OF THE SESSION. (Hansard, 12 June 1841)

§ Sir G. Sinclair

said, that he, of course, should not offer the slightest objection to the progress of this bill, but he could not help observing that, within the memory of man, no Session had ever occurred at the close of which the people received so small a return, in the shape of useful and practical legislation, for so enormous a sum of money as it was now proposed to appropriate for the public service. He had of late been paying considerable attention to the somewhat mournful subject of Parliamentary necrology; and he observed every day with sorrow, but without surprise, that so many measures of great interest and value took their places in the diurnal obituary, and were included in the bills of mortality. The reams of paper wasted in printing during this Session would suffice to supply all the trunk-makers and tallow-chandlers in the metropolis with materials for the next six months. He did not by any means intend to cast exclusive blame upon the Government for this inauspicious and unsatisfactory result. All parties were equally in fault for having not only tolerated, but he would even say, encouraged, the pernicious and preposterous practice of adjourning debates—a practice which, if not put an end to by common consent, must inevitably bring on a national bankruptcy, as far as the public time was concerned, and leave very inadequate dividends to be appropriated for the diversified exigencies of legislation. The evil had been greatly aggravated during the course of this Session; "and, Sir," (said the hon. Baronet), "I may without impropriety, utter a complaint on this subject, as I have taken no part in any of these wearisome discussions to which I allude, and by which the public out of doors (I speak of all classes and of all parties) has been both exasperated and disgusted. Many persons are inclining to the opinion, that 658 honest operatives, who spoke less, and did more, would carry on public business with far greater advantage and satisfaction to the empire. The two debates on the sugar duties and the no-confidence question almost engrossed the space of a honeymoon—the one having begun during the first week in May, and the other having terminated during the first week in June; and if at the commencement of the former I had set out for 1478 Caithness, I might have passed one or two days at my own house in that remote district, and then returned to London, without any inconvenience, in ample time for the division. Another reason why the whole Session has been nearly thrown away (so far as measures are concerned), and why so many bills have been relinquished, is, that the leaders on both sides (of whom I wish to speak with all respect) so seldom condescend to address the House at a reasonable hour. They seem to be, if I may so express myself, avidi nimis auricularum, and are unable or unwilling to speak with empty stomachs or to empty benches; but if they would only, like the Horatii and Curiatii, stand forward at once as the accredited champions of their respective parties, the House would not be deserted at seven o'clock, as it now invariably is, and their respective adherents would, I believe, in general, be quite satisfied to leave the discussion entirely in their hands." The hon. Baronet then went on to say—" The accomplished debaters who occupy the front benches are but little aware of the sotto voce chorus of murmurs which their orations, however able, excite among the exhausted malcontents who' sit with sad civility' behind them. I may perhaps be allowed to put a hypothetical case, and to suppose that the Roman Senate had been so absurd and unwise as to devote the night to legislation. When the younger Members strutted in at a late hour, gorged with crude peacocks and hot with the Tuscan grape, I have no doubt that before they had long resumed their seats such objurgatory expressions of uneasiness would be gently interchanged as these—' Surely, Hortensius is particularly heavy to night.' ' Don't you think Lucullus is intolerably long-winded?' ' Ah, Cæsar, I wish to Morpheus you would hold your tongue and sit down; what you say is all very true, my fine fellow, but there is a time for all things, and we have heard these arguments at least a dozen times already.' And it must not be supposed that these comments would have at all been dictated by party spleen. Drowsiness, like death, levels all distinctions; and if the leader of the Movement party at Rome had addressed the House after midnight, before he had half concluded his speech, the great majority of his adherents would have begun to mutter between their teeth— 1479 ' Quosque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientià nostrâ?' and, although Brutus was an eloquent as well as an ' honourable man,' the sternest Republican would have ejaculated ' et tu, Brute !' if he had risen to reply at half-past three o'clock in the morning. Nay, he could even suppose the case of some plain, lackadaisical country senator, summoned from the plough, like Cincinnatus (not, however, to save the country by his sword, but to aid a party by his suffrage), sauntering about sunrise in the lobby, lengthways and breadthways alternately, with his hands crossed behind his back, whistling for want of thought, and exclaiming almost every five minutes to the door-keeper, in a semi-plaintive, semi-querulous tone, and with a face full of disconsolate impatience, ' Is Cicero still up !' The inconvenience, or rather torment, to which Members are subjected by the present regulations and practices is very imperfectly remedied by the expedient of pairing-off—a boon which is always most peremptorily denied to those who most stand in need of it. The later the hour, and the nearer the division, the more each of the masters of the ceremonies on either side becomes— Impiger, iracundus, inexorabilis, acer; and veterans who have hobbled down upon crutches, or valetudinarians who have been carried up in litters, ought, like a soldier when enduring corporal punishment, to have a doctor standing by to feel their pulses, and ascertain whether their lives may not be endangered by being compelled to sit up for another hour. I shall now very briefly state the only alternative of remedies which has occurred to me, and for which I think I almost deserve at medal from the Humane Society. I admit that our constituents are entitled to expect that we shall look after their interests, and attend to the business of the country, until a reasonable hour, but no longer. Now, supposing eleven o'clock to be, as I think it is, the period at which we should be released from the fatigue and turmoil of legislation, I propose that the officers of the House should at that time take their stations in the lobby, with the printed lists in their hands, and that all Members who have made up their minds how they shall vote should have their names marked, and be considered as included in the di- 1480 vision, as if they had needlessly and reluctantly remained for three or four hours longer, and gone through the ceremony of being successively tapped on the shoulder by the tellers. I cannot, I confess, see any very powerful objections to this plan. The curious, in long speeches, or the conscientious scruplemongers, if any such there be, with whom the debate has any influence in determining how they shall give their suffrages, might remain until the end; the orators might proceed without an ungracious accompaniment of yells and yawnings, and the only other consequence would be, a diminished consumption of stamped covers in the library, of sodawater in the lobby, and of cigars in the smoking-room. The second mode of obviating this great inconvenience would be by a regulation, that the debate should terminate at night, but the division not to take place until the House met again; when the question might at once be put from the Chair, and decided without any further discussion—an arrangement which would enable the Members who had remained until the end, to weigh more maturely the arguments to which they had listened, whilst those who had been unable to sit up until the close, might have the benefit of reading in the public prints, before giving their votes, the harangues which they had not had the good fortune to hear, or I should perhaps say, in a great majority of cases, the good fortune not to hear. I therefore venture to throw out these suggestions for the consideration of the future Parliament, and would say to every Gentleman now present— —Si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti; si non his utere mecum.