§ LORD PRNDOLPH CHURCHILLI rise, Sir, at this early period of the Sitting to move that the House do now adjourn. I wish, with great respect, to call the attention of the House to a grave departure from the Constitutional immemorial practice of the House of Commons which is occurring at the present moment, by the fact of this House being still in Session for the purpose of deliberating on proposals of Ministers at a time long subsequent to the Royal Assent having been given to the annual Appropriation Act, and the Business of the Session having been thereby absolutely closed, and in order to prevent the continuance of so dangerous an irregularity; and to suggest to the House as a remedy, as a safeguard, and as a grave protest against the recurrence of such an attempt on the part of the present Ministry, or of any future Ministry, to disregard well-established and vital principles of Parliamentary government, I propose to move that this 4 House do now adjourn. Had I been able to be in my place before the House adjourned in August I should have called attention to this matter at that time; but the House is, perhaps, aware that it was not in my power so to do, or to pursue any close inquiries as to the propriety of the prolonged Adjournment proposed to the House by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister stated on August 15th, when he moved the Adjournment, that there were precedents for the course he recommended. Such a statement from so high an authority no doubt prevented either debate or question at the time. I join issue on this point, and state that there are no precedents to authorize or justify the course taken by the Government. It has been hitherto the invariable practice of the House of Commons never to part with the Appropriation Bill until all the Business of the Session was to all intents and purposes absolutely concluded; at which time you, Sir, are accustomed to carry it up to the House of Lords in order that it may receive the Royal Assent; and by that act of yours you relinquish the supervision over the expenditure of public moneys with which you are intrusted during the Session of Parliament by virtue of your high Office. I quote, in support of this positive assertion, from Sir Erskine May's well-known work, at page 633, 8th edition—
The Resolutions of the Committee of Supply are reserved until all the Supplies for the Service of the year have been granted, when they are embraced in the Appropriation Act at the end of the Session; and it is irregular to introduce any clause of appropriation into a Bill passing through Parliament at an earlier period.And, again, on page 639, Sir Erskine May lays down—When the Appropriation Bill has passed both Houses, and is about to receive the Royal Assent, it is returned into the charge of the House of Commons until that House is summoned to attend Her Majesty, or the Lords' Commissioners, in the House of Peers for the Prorogation of Parliament; when it is carried by the Speaker to the Bar of the House of Peers, and there received by the Clerk of the Parliaments for the Royal Assent.The same is again positively stated by, if possible, a higher authority even than that of Sir Erskine May—I mean Sir George Cornewall Lewis, who, in an Appendix to a Report of a Committee 5 appointed by the House in 1857 to investigate the whole subject of public moneys, and put in by him in his official capacity as Chancellor of the Exchequer of that day, writes—The final grant of Ways and Means to cover the whole of the Supplies voted during the Session is always reserved for the Appropriation Act: thus, although the House of Commons at an early period of the Session might have voted the whole of the Supplies of the year, they could still hold their constitutional check upon the Minister by limiting the grant of Ways and Means to an amount sufficient only to last such time as they might think proper to give him the means of carrying on the public service, and they are by such limited grants at all times enabled to prevent the Minister from either dissolving or proroguing Parliament.I have searched through the records of the House as far as it has been in my power so to do, and I can find no precedent for the House of Commons ever parting with its power to withhold Supplies from the Crown so long as it continues its deliberations. From the days of the Plantagenets the Commons have always jealously insisted that all aids to the Crown, after receiving the assent of the other House, shall be left in their keeping, and be submitted by their Speaker, and by their Speaker only, when and only when all grievances have been heard, and, in their opinion, redressed. If the House will allow me, I will show, by two or three very singular examples, how extremely consistent has been the course of the House of Commons in this matter. In the ninth year of Henry IV., the King being in want of money, and the Commons being greatly disturbed at certain proceedings of the Lords, the King declared, in order to conciliate the Commons, that the grant should be made—In manner and form as has been hitherto accustomed; that is to say, by the mouth of the Speaker of the House of Commons for the time being.Again, in the year 1580, in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, the Lords declared that the return of the Bill of Subsidy to the House of Commons for presentation to the Crown by the Speaker—Was that the use was indifferent either to take it there or send it hither.The Commons, on hearing of this, at once resolved—That the use thereof is not indifferent, but always hath been and is that it be sent down into this House and not left there.6 Again, in 1642, a Commission was sent to give the Royal Assent to a Money Bill, and the Commission was fixed to the Bill, so that the Lords could not return it to the Commons to be brought up by the Speaker. The Commons appointed a Committee to consider the question, and the House resolved on their Report—That Mr. Speaker shall go up, and if the Bill be delivered to Mr. Speaker before the Commission be read, then he shall have leave to present it to be passed: but if the Lords do not deliver the Bill into Mr. Speaker's hands accordingly, then he shall immediately return.All these instances simply prove the extraordinary anxiety and determination on the part of the Commons never to part with their only shield of defence against Monarchical or Ministerial tyranny until the last moment. In the Reign of Charles II., the appropriation of Supplies by Statute to particular services grew into an occasional practice to guard against Royal extravagance; but after the Revolution this occasional practice, to use the words of Mr. Hatsell—Was made part of that system of government which was then established for the better securing the rights, liberties, and privileges of the people of this country.The present practice of withholding the Appropriation Bill till the end of the Session is merely a development of the practice of earlier times. Sir George Cornewall Lewis states, in the same document from which I have already quoted—It may be well here to advert to the Parliamentary check which the Constitution has provided over the acts of the Government while these proceedings are taking place during the Session. The Speaker of the House of Commons is considered to represent the House in all matters of finance brought before him, and to control all proceedings in reference thereto. As the Session proceeds he takes care that any Bill for giving Ways and Means to the Treasury is kept within the amount of the Votes in Supply-previously granted, and at the close of the Session he checks the final balance between the full amount of the Votes in Supply, including the sum required to pay the interest of Exchequer Supply Bills and the Ways and Means already granted, and he limits the final grant of Ways and Means in the Appropriation Act to that amount. In short, the Speaker exercises a direct control over all the financial forms of the House of Commons.This power or check was positively exercised by the House in 1784 against Mr. Pitt, a Tory Minister in a minority—an 7 event which has happened since, and which may happen again—to prevent his dissolving Parliament—Mr. Pitt, as a matter of fact, did dissolve Parliament; indeed, his whole proceedings at that time are now admitted by all to have been utterly unconstitutional; but he was most careful to spend none of the money voted during the Session except a very small sum—so small, that the succeeding Parliament did not consider that the Resolutions of their Predecessors against an expenditure of money voted before the Appropriation Act had passed into law had been practically violated. But in much more modern times the House has jealously insisted on the principle that no money should be finally appropriated until the close of the Session. In 1841 the Government of the day—of which, I believe, the Prime Minister was a Member—curiously enough tried to appropriate a sum of money to a particular purpose in the middle of the Session by inserting an Appropriation Clause in the ordinary Ways and Means Bill. On this occasion Mr. Speaker (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) interposed when the House came to the clause, and said—Before the Question was put he was anxious to call the attention of the House to what appeared to him to be an irregularity in its proceedings. The clause now before them was a clause of appropriation introduced into a Bill to provide for the ordinary Ways and Means of the year. Now, it was quite unusual and unprecedented to introduce a clause of appropriation into a Bill of this description at this period of the Session. He believed the object the Chancellor of the Exchequer had in view in proposing this clause was to mark the sense of the House on an excess of expenditure in the Departments of the Navy above the amount voted for that Service in the past year, that it might not be drawn into a precedent in future. Such clauses had been frequently introduced into the ordinary Appropriation Bill at the close of the Session; but since the year 1762 there was not a single instance of a clause of appropriation being inserted in any other Bill. Indeed, there was a very remarkable instance to the contrary."—[3 Hansard, lvii. 462.]Mr. Speaker then referred to an incident which had occurred in the time of Mr. Pitt; and then went on to use these most remarkable and impressive words—I mention this with the view of preventing the adoption of what may afterwards be found to be a most inconvenient precedent, and because I think that in matters of this description the House ought to exercise more than ordinary caution.Well, the Government and the House, in accordance with Mr. Speaker's ad- 8 vice, withdrew the clause. The conduct of Mr. Speaker Shaw Lefevre on this occasion illustrates remarkably how thoroughly that eminent man understood the nature of his Office, and how fully aware he was that the Speaker is not only the servant and mouthpiece of the House, but something far higher—the chosen guardian and trustee of allitsPrivileges—anxious, unremitting, Argus-eyed in their defence, whether against an individual, whether against a Minister, whether against the Crown itself. And, therefore, when a Speaker is chosen by the House of Commons, it always selects a Member of long standing, and, like the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair, intimately acquainted, not only with its Forms, but its rights. He is assisted, moreover, by able advisers—the ablest whose talents high salaries can secure—so that error or oversight would seem to be almost impossible. The last quotation with which I have troubled the House brings me to the point on which I am most anxious to rivet the attention of the House. The motive of the Government of 1841 in the trifling matter to which I have alluded was an excellent one, intended to prevent a Department exceeding the Estimate of the year; but, even with this excellent motive, the House refused, on the advice of Mr. Speaker, to allow this vital principle to be tampered with—namely, that no appropriation of moneys shall be passed before the absolute close of the Session. But what are we to say of the motives of the present Government in having entrapped the House into the first recorded instance of a departure from this principle? It is extremely difficult, and for the most part unprofitable and unsatisfactory, to attempt to divine motives. But, whatever their motives, this I will say—that the Constitutional practice might have been easily adhered to had the Government been content to prorogue Parliament at the usual time, and to summon it again by Royal Proclamation in the Autumn. But this course would have entailed a Speech from the Throne, an Address in reply, and, possibly, a long debate on that Address that might have been, I admit, inconvenient to the Government. But, after all, what is a debate on the Address? It is merely the first available occasion on which the Representatives of the people formally recite popu- 9 lar grievances against the Executive Government; so that the position is this—that the Government, in order to evade a statement of popular grievances, and to confine the discussions of the House to the consideration of certain proposals for the benefit of their own Business, have violated the Privileges of this House in a manner often before attempted, but never before effected, by any despotic Monarch, and, literally, at the present moment, have the House of Commons at their mercy. I may be told that the present majority in the House of Commons have such implicit confidence in the present Government that they have no objection to be placed in that position. But if anybody should suggest to me such a consideration I would repudiate it as utterly slanderous and calumnious. To put it as strongly as I can, I do not believe that if the Angel Gabriel was to take his place on the Treasury Bench as Prime Minister of this country, that even under such fortunate auspices the House of Commons would consent to relinquish one jot or tittle of its Constitutional rights, much less with the present Ministry, of whom not even its most enthusiastic admirers would assert that it was angelic. The Royal Assent to the Appropriation Bill and the Prorogation of Parliament are, by the fundamental principles of our Constitution, inseparably connected, and cannot be divorced one from another, and, practically, have never been hitherto. The House is now deliberating, and will be deliberating, if it continues in Session, with a rope round its neck, paralyzed and emasculated by the deprivation of its only weapons of defence against the Minister of the day. To put it more clearly, suppose a Motion is brought forward on the present state of affairs in Egypt, which is very probable, and it appears in the course of the debate that such a Motion might be carried against the Government, which is not so probable, the Prime Minister has nothing whatever to do, if he wishes to evade a decision of the House, or avoid the stigma of defeat, than to prorogue or even dissolve Parliament—a course he could not possibly adopt had the Appropriation Bill remained in the possession of the House of Commons. But more than that. The Government might await the decision of the House, and be 10 placed in a minority, but, owing to the absence of all Parliamentary control, they need neither resign nor appeal to the country for six months, but remain in Office all that time, after a Vote of Want of Confidence—a monstrosity which could not occur had we not parted with the Appropriation Bill; and in the interim thus gained the country might be committed irrevocably to courses which would never have obtained the consent of a majority of this House. But, again, still more strong is my point. Since the Adjournment the British Forces have been engaged in war. Before the Adjournment money was voted for the support of that war. The British Army is now occupying a foreign country. Is it possible—is it credible—that under this Constitution of ours, owing to the acts of the Government in extracting the Appropriation Bill from an unwary and thinly-attended House, no Member can now call in question, although the House is in Session, either the conduct of the war, the expenditure of the money, or the occupation of a foreign country, except by the permission and by the grace and condescension of the Advisers of the Crown? Such a state of things could not have come about if the House had not been entrapped into parting with the Appropriation Bill. I may be told that the present Prime Minister is not likely to act in such a manner. Quite so; but future Ministers may—indeed, they would be perfect fools if they did not, for now they have a precedent set before them which otherwise they would not have had, and which, with a subservient majority, depend upon it they will be sure to use. The Constitution of this country has not been constructed by considerations of what the Minister of the day might or might not do at any particular moment. Its apparently most antiquated and rococo forms are found, on a very slight examination, to possess the highest value for the safety of public liberty, and I refuse to believe that the present House of Commons, in which the great Liberal Party possess a large majority, a Party to whom we owe so much of our freedom, presided over by a Prime Minister whose name has always been connected hitherto with the cause of popular freedom, will allow so dangerous a precedent to pass unnoticed, or suffer the rights and privileges of Parliament, with regard to public 11 moneys, to be so seriously and so fatally infringed. I earnestly urge upon the House to remember the words of Mr. Speaker Shaw Lefevre, that in dealing with, these matters the House should exercise more than ordinary caution to give to them their most serious consideration; and, laying aside for the moment all thoughts of Party discipline or convenience, to remember that they are here, pledged as solemnly as men can be, to see and to take care that the historic freedom of this country shall not suffer at their hands the slightest, smallest, or minutest injury.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)
MR. GLADSTONEI have to express my own satisfaction, and I am sure the satisfaction of the House, on seeing the noble Lord again in his place, after what I am afraid has been a tedious, if not a severe illness, and I have to thank the noble Lord for having kindly given me, a few hours ago, Notice of the Motion that he was about to make. With regard to the speech of the noble Lord, I will say that there are certain parts of it which might with perfect propriety have been as warmly cheered on this side of the House as in his own immediate neighbourhood. I am ready, were it the question, to defend to all extremities the conduct of Mr. Speaker Shaw Lefevre in the matter to which the noble Lord referred; but that matter has no connection whatever with the subject now before the House. The question touched by the conduct of Mr. Shaw Lefevre is whether the whole finance of the year should or should not, as a matter of regular practice, be associated together in one and the same Appropriation Bill; and I will venture to say that there is no man who has oftener pressed upon the House, or, I may say, who has oftener wearied the House with laying before them the essential importance of dealing with the financial affairs of the year as one concern, as one comprehensive whole, than the humble person who now has the honour of addressing you. Let us, therefore, altogether dismiss from our memories—in order that we may fairly contemplate the matters before us—these words of Mr. Shaw Lefevre, which have nothing to do with the question 12 before us, but which relate to an exceedingly important question, with regard to which I have often witnessed with regret that it does not attract very great notice among Gentlemen not sitting upon this side of the House, but with respect to which I am very glad to see that upon the present occasion the minds of those Gentlemen are fully alive to its momentous character. Now, the censure of the noble Lord, which I think to be groundless, is a censure, not upon the Government, but upon the House itself. The course taken by the House in August last was not a course taken unawares by a thin and empty House, but a course approved by a very considerable Party before the Adjournment, unless my memory deceives me. I announced to the House on the part of the Government the course we intended to pursue; that we thought that the subject of Procedure should not be handed over till next Session, and that having examined what would be the most convenient method of approaching it, we were disposed to think that the best way would be to wind up Business in the ordinary way, to adjourn the House for a considerable period in order to enable Members to refresh themselves after the severe labours which they had undergone, and then to meet again to consider Procedure. Well, Sir, is this censure deserved, or is it not? If it is deserved the Motion of the noble Lord still appears to me to be wholly out of place and unequal to the purpose which he contemplates. The doctrine of the noble Lord is that the passing of the Appropriation Act and the Prorogation are inseparably connected, and he therefore intervenes with a Motion at this particular moment in order to prevent the House from transacting other Business, and to maintain this inseparable connection. But the inseparable connection is not maintained by moving the Adjournment of the House. It is quite evident that if there be anything in the principle of the noble Lord, the Motion which he should have made is not a Motion for the Adjournment of the House, which leaves the matter just as open as it was before the former Adjournment, and in no respect affirms any part of the doctrine of the noble Lord. The Motion should have been a Motion praying for the Prorogation of the House in order 13 to maintain that inseparable connection which the noble Lord thinks to be so necessary.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLI will make that Motion if you wish it.
MR. GLADSTONEThe noble Lord has approached this subject with immense consideration and with a Parliamentary research going back to the 10th year of Henry IV.; and if a review of so many centuries, conducted with the care for which we must, of course, give the noble Lord credit, has not enabled him to make up his mind, it appears to me that he becomes the first person to throw some doubt upon his qualifications both as an adviser of the House for the future, and as censor of its proceedings now. I will deal with two points upon which the noble Lord has touched. First of all, as to the terrible consequences that will arise out of this fearful error into which the House has been led owing to the absence of the noble Lord from its precincts; and, secondly, as to the soundness of the assertion on which the noble Lord has entirely built his argument—that there is an inseparable connection shown by an invariable practice between the passing of the Appropriation Act and the Prorogation of Parliament. I wish the noble Lord had not gone out of his way to introduce elements of contention into a debate which ought to be strictly based upon questions of principle and usage by his reference to the motives of the Government—with which it appears that he is better acquainted than they themselves. He says that their motive was to avoid a debate upon the Address. I am, perhaps, almost as well acquainted with the motives of the Government as the noble Lord himself, and I humbly state to the House as the motive of the Government that our present Business is Business with which the House has made considerable progress; that after a debate of five nights, occupying the whole of the Government time for between two and three weeks, the House arrived at a most important decision, and affirmed a most important part of one of the most important Resolutions of the Government, and that it appeared to us convenient and desirable that our labour should not be lost, and that the House should resume the consideration of the Business of Procedure at the point where it was dropped. Now, there is 14 nothing irrational in that representation of the case, and something which may tend to set aside the forced and farfetched view ascribed to us by the noble Lord. But I am not at all afraid to meet the noble Lord upon his own ascriptions. According to him, the natural course would have been to have prorogued Parliament, and to have commenced by a Speech from the Throne and an Address the Session which would virtually have been the Session of next year. Still, I do not hesitate to say that if there is to be an Address and a statement of popular grievances against the tyranny, either of the present Ministry, or of the Archangel Gabriel—I could not make out which—it is far more convenient to the House that the complaint should be made at the usual time than that it should be anticipated by three or four months, and the opportunity lost until the beginning of 1884. This was a very small matter. It was a question simply whether the House, having performed heavy labours, should take an adjournment. The course which was taken was taken with the full knowledge of the House. All parties had ample notice, and, as far as I understand, there was no objection from any quarter. It was recognized, undoubtedly, by those who became the organs of a widespread feeling of the House, in entering into a consideration with us on the footing on which we were to meet in the month of October, and obtaining from us the assurance that we did not intend to ask the House to go on with other Business, but that we should, so far as we were able, confine the proceedings to the question of Procedure. Consequently, I may say that the entire House has been a party to this arrangement. I am not going to throw any responsibility upon the House; but I am going to contend that it was a good arrangement, and that the noble Lord's argument does not apply. What says the noble Lord? He says that now, if a Motion of Want of Confidence is made, or any proceeding initiated inconvenient to the Government, the House will have lost the opportunity of displacing the Government. The noble Lord has a very inadequate measure of the strength of this House, if he thinks its power to displace the Government by a Vote of Want of Confidence depends in the 19th century upon the Appropriation Act. Let the 15 noble Lord show me a case where the House has laboured under any disability in that respect, Appropriation Bill or no Appropriation Bill. At all times the powers of the House are ample for such a purpose. But what has the House lost? Because the doctrine of the noble Lord appears to be that the House has lost a good deal by being called together at this time. Now, suppose we had proposed the ordinary course. Suppose we had prorogued in August and. then met again in February, with our six months' rest, in which we might perform any of the atrocities of which the noble Lord spoke. It would have been in the power of the House to displace us. Whatever this meeting of the House is, it is an enlargement, and not a contraction, of the opportunities possessed by the House of Commons for watching, correcting, and controlling the proceedings of the Government; and, therefore, all these terrible consequences which the noble Lord brought upon us in climax—"First of all," said he, "I will show you what will happen, and then something worse than that, and then something still worse than any of them"—what would have been still worse than the whole of them would have been that the House should have been dispersed for six months over the country, leaving the Government to work its wicked will without the slightest restraint. But what is it that has happened? What is this tremendous affair? It is, Sir, that a vital principle of the Constitution has been infringed—an invariable practice has been broken. These were the announcements at the commencement of the noble Lord's speech, and then he made some reference to the Tory Minister, Mr. Pitt, of 1784—the Tory Minister who, three years after 1784, boasted of his Whiggism, and boasted, when Mr. Fox had produced his doctrine about the Regency, that by virtue of that doctrine, "he would un-Whig the gentleman." Such is the accuracy of the noble Lord as to historical facts, though he will recollect that I have given him friendly warning on other occasions that these allegations of fact are most dangerous. If you happen to trip in them your whole ground is cut away from under your feet, and that is just what has happened to the noble Lord, not only in regard to the Tory Minister, 16 but in his statement that this is an invariable practice of Parliament, and that it is one of the essential principles of the Constitution. Now, Sir, I beg the House to observe that there are a great many practices of this House which are either almost or quite, perhaps, invariable, and which are not principles of the Constitution at all, but simply subsidiary arrangements, for the sake of convenience, with regard to which it has been advantageous to all parties that they should be clearly known and understood, and from which a gratuitous departure is not permitted. But my answer is, that this is not an invariable practice of the House of Commons; it is a convenient practice of the House of Commons. It is a convenient practice of the House of Commons when the Business of the House of Commons has run in its ordinary channel that the whole needs of the State should be met, and that an opportunity of meeting the needs of the State should be kept open till as nearly as possible the close of the Session, because new needs may arise at any time. For that reason the Appropriation Act is reserved to the end of the Session, that the House may, on the one hand, keep the whole of the financial transactions of the country together; and, on the other hand, give itself the largest and the longest opportunity for meeting the wants of the State. But, Sir, upon remarkable occasions that practice has been departed from. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Hear!] Then, why did the noble Lord say it was invariable?
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLI said that, practically, they were inseparably connected.
MR. GLADSTONEBut I say they are not practically inseparably connected, if in practice they have been departed from. The noble Lord said again and again that this was an invariable, vital, and Constitutional principle. I am sorry to say that we have arrived at an experience that has been of a most exceptional character. The state of the Business of the House of Commons is something deplorable, in a degree that I have at other times endeavoured to describe, and I need not greatly dwell upon it now. It is not in any common state of Business that we should have thought of asking the House of Commons to meet in this way in the month of Oc- 17 tober. It is a terrible burden to lay upon the shoulders of men who have already discharged labours of the greatest gravity and of the most arduous character from the month of February to the month of August. But, Sir, if it be quite true that there is something novel in meeting in October by adjournment, to consider our Procedure, it would have been still more novel to have prorogued and to have summoned Parliament again for the simple purpose of considering our Procedure, for it was to that simple purpose we were tied, and justly tied, by the House. You cannot, in times of extraordinary pressure, help varying from usages in some particulars. We varied in the smallest degree we could; and I say it would have been a greater innovation to call together the two Houses of Parliament for no other purpose than to consider Procedure in the House of Commons than it was to ask the House of Commons to adjourn from August till October. But it is not an invariable practice. I do not want to undervalue the present practice. It is a convenient and advantageous practice, and ought not to be departed from without grave cause. We have, I am sorry to say, grave cause on this occasion. Now, I have challenged the assertion of the noble Lord, and I will not go back with him to the 10th year of the Reign of Henry IV. I do not recollect, in the range of my own memory, which extends, I am sorry to say, back to the Reform Bill, that the House has made any adjournment after the winding-up of its regular Business. The reason has been that there never has been occasion for its so doing. The House has never been placed in anything like the condition it has been placed in lately. The House has always had, until quite of late years, a fair capacity of dealing with the Business with which it has had to deal. It has now reached a state of things in which it is in danger of losing, not only its efficiency, but its character and honour; and I say that far more special circumstances are before us than were before the House at the time which I am now going to quote. The time is not so very long before my own Parliamentary recollection. It is within the range of my memory as a living man. On the 26th of July, 1820—
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLHear, hear!
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLYes.
MR. GLADSTONEI would not have taken that from the mouth of any man but the noble Lord. The noble Lord, knowing that the practice was not invariable, says that he was aware of this, and then he rises and tells us that it is an invariable practice, as well as a vital principle of the Constitution.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLI look upon that case as the strongest precedent in favour of my argument.
MR. GLADSTONEI observed that the noble Lord quoted a number of cases that appeared to me to be irrelevant; and, therefore, it was a wonderful act of self-denial to have refrained from quoting this. Now, what is the argument, and what is the proposition? That there is an essential and invariable connection beteween the passing of the Appropriation Act and the Prorogation. I am now going to pursue a generous course towards the noble Lord, by quoting fully that which is the strongest argument in his favour. Here are the facts. On the 26th of July, 1820, the Appropriation Act having received the Royal Assent, the House was adjourned till the 21st of August.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLWhich House?
MR. GLADSTONEThe House of Commons. On the 21st of August, 1820, the Appropriation Act having been passed, the House, having prorogued its Session by adjournment, met after its adjournment and proceeded to transact Business of various kinds. Now, what I submit is, that that entirely smashes, destroys—and, as the noble Lord, being fond of variety of expression, said he would not have the smallest, the least, the minutest change in the Constitution, so I say that it smashes, destroys, and pulverizes the statement of the noble Lord, that there was this invariable union between the Appropriation Bill and the Prorogation. The general union of the two things I admit, and appreciate the value of.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLWhat Business was transacted?
MR. GLADSTONEThe noble Lord can refer to the Votes for himself. My affirmation is that the Business of the House was transacted. The noble Lord 19 wishes that no Business should be transacted at all. Now, it is rather remarkable that at that period they were raising this question. The Adjournment of the 21st of August only sufficed for the transaction of Business of various kinds, and then another Motion was made to the 18th of September, and on that Motion a Member rose to make, not the Motion the noble Lord has made, but the Motion he ought to have made from his own point of view, and to give effect to his views—namely, the Motion for Prorogation. That Motion was actually made on the 21st of August, 1820, as an Amendment, and took the form of a Motion for an Address praying for a Prorogation. But the Mover of that Resolution did not found himself upon the invariable connection between the Prorogation and the Act of Appropriation, which connection he had himself allowed to be ruthlessly broken and trampled under foot that very day; but he founded himself upon an entirely different doctrine—on the ground of the strong objections which he entertained to a Sill of Pains and Penalties affecting the Queen, and which the Prorogation of the Session enabled the House of Lords to carry forward. This Motion for Prorogation—this grand Constitutional Motion—would have given an opportunity, in those great days when eminent authorities sat in this House—such as Mr. Wynn and others—of raising all the ennobling doctrines of the noble Lord; yet not one man uttered a single syllable upon the subject, and the Motion for an Address for Prorogation was negatived without a division. They adjourned again till the 18th of September, and then a Motion of great importance was made—namely, for the appointment of a Committee to search the Lords' Journals for references in regard to the Queen's Attainder Bill. Then a Motion was made for an Address praying for a Prorogation on the same ground, and on that occasion there was a division, 12 Gentlemen voting for the Address, though not upon the ground now brought forward by the noble Lord, but on grounds having relation to the Queen, while 66 voted against it. And then, again—I am almost overcome in the endeavour to read records so dishonouring to the country—on the 18th of September that infatuated House of Commons proceeded to do the same 20 scandalous thing it had done on the 21st of August—it received Petitions, and, in fact, transacted various Business which the noble Lord will find regularly recorded. It again further adjourned itself until the 17th of October. Thus the same thing was done three times over by deliberate acts without one single word of objection being raised. I grant that this is a thing which ought not to be lightly done. By all means, under all circumstances, let us adhere to the regular course of precedent and usage; but extraordinary circumstances had then arisen, which, as they thought, justified the separation which the noble Lord objects to between the Appropriation Act and the Prorogation. On the 17th of October, for the third time, did that House of Commons, in its blindness, proceed to contradict the doctrine of the noble Lord and to transact various Business, and then further adjourned until the 23rd of November. On the25th of November it was prorogued. I wish it may be prorogued again at that time, Sir. Dismissing, therefore, all the great personages introduced by the noble Lord, what I contend is this—that the practice which prevails is a good, sound, and convenient practice—namely, that of uniting in all ordinary years the Appropriation Bill and the Prorogation for the reasons I have already stated, but not for any such reason as that if the House wants to kill a Ministry which it has no means of doing otherwise it should do by this means. I think that under circumstances of a special character a departure has been distinctly recorded as a precedent for us, and completely and absolutely warrants our taking the freedom of considering what course is the most practical and the most convenient. That was the course which we invited the House of Commons to take, and the House took it without objection, and I believe the House was right in taking it. If we had begun the Session of 1883 in October, 1882, I believe we should have been adopting a proceeding much more inconvenient than the present; if we had called a special Session with a double Prorogation, I believe we should have been taking a course far more inconvenient to the House, and not only so, but it would have been far more inconsistent with precedent and usage to have called together a special Session of Parliament to consider the question of Procedure 21 than to ask the House to adjourn for a period, and then to proceed with the question of Procedure. I hope, Sir, I have now met the objections of the noble Lord. I believe the course we have taken will be found to have the strongest precedent in its favour, and I leave the House to judge whether, upon the whole, the course we have taken is not one perfectly consistent with the principles of the Constitution, and one recommended by strong and urgent considerations.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEI do not intend to enter into the question that has been raised between my noble Friend and the Prime Minister as to the precise course which my noble Friend ought to have taken in consequence of the view he takes of our present situation. I should rather be disposed to assume that my noble Friend desires to put his views before the House clearly and distinctly, and, at the same time, in such a form as to cause the smallest embarrassment to the House, and that for those reasons he chose the course of moving the Adjournment of the House rather than that of raising the question on an Address for the Prorogation. However that may be, I think the House is greatly indebted to my noble Friend for having, even at this late period, called attention to the serious character of the step taken by the Government, with, as I admit, the assent of those Members of the House who were present at the time. My noble Friend speaks as one of those who were not present when this course was adopted, and many hon. Members were, no doubt, absent. The Prime Minister says that some considerable time before the Adjournment he publicly announced in a full House that it was his intention to move the Adjournment of the House, on its rising in August, for the purpose of discussing this question of Procedure in the month of October. No doubt that was so; but the point which my noble Friend, as I understand him, raises, is not whether it was right that the House should meet in October for the purpose of considering the Resolutions on Procedure, but whether it was right to get the Appropriation Act for the year disposed of and reported before that meeting; and whether the Appropriation Act, having been disposed of, ought not to have been construed as the close of the Session of 1882, and we ought not on the 22 present occasion to have the beginning of a new Session—that of 1882–3. There was another course which might have been adopted; the House, instead of parting with the Appropriation Act in August, might have voted the money that was necessary for present services and passed a Ways and Means Bill, and we might have still had the Appropriation Bill in our hands ready to be passed at the usual time—namely, at the Prorogation. I venture to say that either of these courses would have been more in accordance with the practice of the House—the almost invariable, practically invariable, course, founded upon experience, and pursued by the House. I do not propose to enter into a discussion of all the precedents that have been quoted. It seems to me that the precedents cited by my noble Friend were exceedingly strong, exceedingly well argued, and founded upon Constitutional practice and reasonable usage. I am bound to say, with regard to the last case mentioned by the Prime Minister, though I have not been able at this moment to get the volume which contains the proceedings of the day to which he referred, if I understand rightly what took place at the time, the House completed its own Business at the time when it passed the Appropriation Act for the year, and, though kept in nominal Session during the Queen's Trial, never took up any new Business. I am not surprised that my noble Friend interjected the observation that this case made for him, and not against him.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLNo, no; not Government Business.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEI do not know the case fully, and I do not wish to enter into it; but I understand that, as a general rule, the House of Commons did not transact any of the ordinary Business of the Government. But here you have a very different case. You have a case in which no emergency has arisen. This is Business to which the House had addressed itself at the very beginning of the Session, with which it had made certain progress, and which the Government found itself unable to carry through at the ordinary time. What did the Prime Minister do? He proposed to put aside that Business for the pre- 23 sent, that we should close the usual Business of the Session with the Appropriation Act, and then that we should meet for the discussion of Procedure. The Prime Minister says that he entirely agrees with the doctrine laid down by Sir George Cornewall Lewis and with your Predecessor, Mr. Speaker Shaw Lefevre, that there should be one Appropriation Act passed for the year. Now, I want to know what is the real position that the Government and the Prime Minister take with regard to our financial arrangements at the present time? Does he mean that we are to have no Votes or Estimates with regard to the war that has just been carried on? Does he so adhere to the doctrine, that the finance of the year should all be included in one Appropriation Bill, that he is not going to give us any of the finance of the war until we come to the year 1883? If he takes that course it is a very serious thing; but if, on the other hand, be does intend, now that Parliament is sitting, and expects to be informed on this question, to produce an Estimate and ask for any Supply, he will be obliged, himself, to have two Appropriation Acts in the same Session. Let me point out that, however we may be disposed to adapt our proceedings to the convenience of the Government and the convenience of the House, we are bound to take all possible care that we do not introduce precedents which may be enlarged, and enlarged to a very dangerous extent. If you do not take care what enlargements you make, you will come to this—that it will be perfectly possible to dispense with the close of the Session altogether. You may make one Session with repeated adjournments throughout the whole of a Parliament. I do not see what there is to prevent that if we have no natural close of the Session, such as an Appropriation Bill gives us. When many of us have left town, it will be in the power of a Minister commanding a majority to adjourn for any purpose whatever, and the House may be called upon to adjourn and take up Business in the Autumn so long as it is convenient to the Ministry. The practice is one that ought to be very narrowly scrutinized and carefully watched; and I do not think that my noble Friend is to be set aside by a sort of good-humoured or contemptuous treatment on the part of the Prime Minister, which, no doubt, he 24 will be supported by his Party in administering to anyone on the Benches opposite. I certainly think the question which has been raised is one which the House ought seriously to consider and discuss. The authorities that have been cited are of the very highest character; and, if only out of respect to them, and to those eminent persons whose names have been mentioned, I think the matter has been very properly brought forward. But when we consider the real meaning and the real importance of the practice which has so far prevailed, we cannot regard it simply as a practice of convenience, or as one which does not form a principle. It seems to me that the course which my noble Friend has taken in moving the Adjournment of the House is one well suited to the purpose of marking the peculiarity of the occasion. Whether it would be right to follow it up by moving that an Address should be presented to Her Majesty in favour of Prorogation, or for a Committee to search for precedents, or in any other way to take steps for establishing the real rule and principle of the House for the future, is a question upon which I do not just now enter; but I hope that the matter will receive further consideration and elucidation from those who are so well able to throw light on it.
MR. GORSTsaid, it was difficult to say what was the precise attitude the Government took up with regard to this Autumn Sitting. He would remind the House that the Prime Minister had stated that a considerable time before the end of the Sittings in August last he gave Notice that it was intended to take the course which had now been adopted. His (Mr. Gorst's) memory on that subject was not in accord with that statement. As far as he understood the Prime Minister, he had entirely changed the attitude he took up on the 15th of August last. He then understood the Prime Minister to say that there would be an Adjournment for an Autumn Sitting. He remembered that, up to the very last, the Prime Minister was in doubt whether there should be an Autumn Sitting or a Prorogation; and it was not until the 15th of August, only three days before the House adjourned, and when the majority of hon. Members had excused themselves from further Parliamentary duty, that the Prime Minister finally made up his mind 25 to recommend an Adjournment and not a Prorogation, and when he did so he gave as a reason that there were precedents for an Adjournment; but now, however, in answer to the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), the right hon. Gentleman took up an entirely different position, for he said that the reason for the Adjournment was to enable the House to provide a remedy for the present unsatisfactory and unprecedented state of things in Parliament. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I made no such admission.] He (Mr. Gorst) asked whether they were sitting now in accordance with precedent, or in opposition to all precedent? If the House were sitting in accordance with precedent, he denied that the right hon. Gentleman had answered the objections of the noble Lord. What did the Prime Minister mean by his declaration, on the 15th of August, that Parliament would be adjourned because there were precedents for doing so? It was the invariable practice to close the Session with the passing of the Appropriation Bill. Sir Erskine May laid it down that it was the practice and duty of the Speaker to retain the Appropriation Bill in his possession until he had been summoned to attend the House of Lords to hear Parliament prorogued; and he should like to ask whether the Government passed by that Constitutional usage on the 15th of August, and whether it was by their direction that the Appropriation Bill was taken up to the House of Lords? Because, if so, it was quite clear that the Government had themselves caused a violation of the Constitutional practice without giving any Notice to or receiving any order from the House. The circumstances of the year 1820 had been quoted by the Prime Minister; but was Parliament to be asked to hold an Autumn Sitting in accordance with the precedent in the case of Queen Caroline in 1820? He (Mr. Gorst) denied, in the first place, that that was a precedent, for there was then a continuous Sitting until the Appropriation Bill was passed; whereas, in the present case, there had been an Adjournment for two months. On looking over the records of the House of Commons in the case of Queen Caroline, he found that during that Sitting no Business whatever was transacted, with one exception—namely, that, 26 on one occasion, Mr. Hume insisted on bringing before the House the case of a Mr. Franklin, who had been imprisoned for sedition; but the Government of the day never, in fact, ventured to ask or invite the House of Commons to transact any Business during that Sitting. No one he (Mr. Gorst) was sure, saw the distinction between the two cases more clearly than the Prime Minister himself. It was true that in 1820 the House of Commons continued to sit formally, because the trial of Queen Caroline in the House of Lords was then proceeding, a Bill of Pains and Penalties was passing through the House of Lords, and the House of Commons was kept together that it might pass it, if it came down from the Lords. The Bill was, however, carried by so small a majority of that House that it was ultimately abandoned by the Government; but though the House of Commons was sitting, with three adjournments, from month to month, the Government never dared to ask it to transact any Business. It showed what regard the right hon. Gentleman must have for the fidelity and intelligence of his followers, that the only precedent he could give for the present Adjournment of the House was this one, which, in point of fact, was really no precedent at all. In 1820 they were under a Tory Government and an unreformed House of Commons. In 1832 the reformed House of Commons was brought into existence, and from that date to the present—50 years of a reformed House of Commons, 50 years of a Constitutional Government—no example could be found of the House of Commons having sat for the transaction of Business in such a case as the present. But now, for the first time in 50 years, and for the first time in the history of the reformed House of Commons, the Prime Minister, without giving the House Notice or warning that it was acting without precedent, invited the House to act contrary to all precedent, except that of the case of Queen Caroline in 1820! The right hon. Gentleman had taunted his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) with not moving an Address for Prorogation; but he knew full well that a Motion for Adjournment was the only Motion that could be brought forward before the Motion of which the right hon. Gentleman had given Notice, the discussion of 27 which would occupy the whole time of the House. Would the right hon. Gentleman afford an opportunity for a discussion upon an Address to Her Majesty praying for the Prorogation of Parliament? If an opportunity were given to any Member of the House to introduce a Motion of that character, he (Mr. Gorst) felt sure that the noble Lord would withdraw his present Motion and substitute one for Prorogation, so as to allow the Constitutional question being brought forward in a proper manner. The act of the Government in thus assembling Parliament was an act contrary to all Constitutional authority and usage, of which the Prime Minister could adduce no precedent except the evil precedent of the case of Queen Caroline.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that the manner in which the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gorst) had dealt with the precedent of 1820, which was the great argument in favour of the noble Lord's (Lord Randolph Churchill's) Motion, but which the noble Lord had unfortunately omitted altogether to introduce, was a singular one. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said that the invariable Constitutional rule was that, after the passing of the Appropriation Act, the House could transact no Business. Then he had gone on to say that the precedent of 1820 was no argument against that, because the House, in fact, transacted no Business, and never contemplated transacting any Government Business, after the passing of the Act in that year. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman said that the House was adjourned three times, for a month each time. But for what purpose did the House adjourn? Why, for the purpose of transacting what he (Sir William Harcourt) ventured to say was the most tremendous Business that a Government ever brought under the consideration of the Crown—a Bill of Pains and Penalties against the Queen Consort. The noble Lord had lost his opportunity of explaining that great precedent, because he had deliberately omitted it from his speech. The fact was that the Adjournments of that Parliament, in August, September, and October, were made in order that the House might receive from the House of Lords a Bill inflicting Pains and Penalties upon the Queen Consort, brought 28 forward by the Ministers of the Crown. The hon. and learned Gentleman, in fact, had said that it was impossible to transact Government Business after the passing of the Appropriation Act; but had not amended the case of the noble Lord, because he showed that the House of Commons had actually transacted Business after the passing of the Appropriation Act. The matter, however, stood, as a general rule, that the Government entirely admitted that it was right and proper that the Appropriation Act and the Prorogation should go together; they did not dispute it for a moment, and admitted that that rule ought not to be departed from, except in very grave and serious circumstances. So far the Government and the Opposition were agreed. In 1820 the rule was departed from, because the Government deemed the impeachment of the Queen a circumstance justifying Parliament in going on by successive Adjournments after the Prorogation, in order to consider what the House of Lords might do with that Bill. If that Bill had come down from the House of Lords, and had not been abandoned by the Government, it would have been taken into consideration by the House of Commons. He forgot whether Brougham was then sitting in the House of Commons. ["Yes!"] He was under the impression that he was not—that he had lost his seat. But what were the friends of Queen Caroline doing in the House of Commons, if such an objection was capable of being supported? They knew perfectly well that there was no foundation for the Constitutional doctrine of the noble Lord, and therefore that doctrine was not advanced. The course taken now was not at variance with Constitutional usage, and the only question was whether the Government were right or wrong in thinking that the present was such a case as justified a departure from the usual rule. What his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister had meant by saying that the circumstances were unprecedented was, that the circumstances were of such a character as to justify an exceptional procedure. He (Sir William Harcourt) remembered that hon. Gentlemen opposite were far from adopting the course recommended by the noble Lord, which they might have done if they had thought fit. He forgot whether it was the Leader of 29 the Opposition or his (Sir William Harcourt's) Predecessor at the Home Office—but it was some right hon. Gentleman opposite—who had asked him to give a distinct pledge on behalf of the Government that no other Business than that of Procedure should be taken; and he gave that pledge. Could anything be more inconsistent than that with the argument of the noble Lord? The Government then said that they could not control the action of private Members, but that, so far as they were concerned, no other Business should be taken. If the great Constitutional doctrine of the noble Lord was well-founded, why did not hon. Gentlemen opposite bring it forward? The Appropriation Act was in their own hands; they might have raised that doctrine on the third reading. On the third reading it was perfectly well known that the House was going to be adjourned. If hon. Gentlemen accepted the doctrine of the noble Lord, or had even learnt it for the first time from his lips, why was it not advanced? They knew that there was going to be a war in Egypt, and that there would be expenditure in consequence. So far from adopting that doctrine, the Opposition entirely agreed to the course taken by the Government, and even asked for a pledge from the Government that no other Business should be taken. How had the Government ill-treated the House in that matter? There never was a case in which the Government more desired to take the House into its confidence, in which more complete notice was given of an intended step, or in which there was more absolute and entire assent on both sides of the House. Both the contention and the Motion of the noble Lord came altogether too late in the day; and he hoped the House would not spend any more time in discussing the Motion for the Adjournment of the House. He (Sir William Harcourt) had really risen, however, for the purpose of saying that the Government did not desire to be understood as setting aside this Rule of the Prorogation and the Appropriation Bill going together. They attached very high importance to it; and it was only because they, and, he believed, the rest of the House, considered that there were circumstances in reference to the Business of the House which composed an exceptional case, that the Government 30 proposed to deal with it in an exceptional way, the object desired being, in the future, to save public time and to get through Public Business. It was perfectly idle for the noble Lord to impute to the Government a desire to evade a challenge of its policy. The noble Lord had said that no opportunity would be given of moving a Vote of Want of Confidence. It was open to the noble Lord to propose, if he chose, a Vote of Want of Confidence in the Government, who were prepared to meet any number of them. He (Sir William Harcourt) hoped the noble Lord might live long enough to move as many Votes of Want of Confidence as he wished. The more he did that, the better would the Government be pleased. They would not succeed. Even if the Angel Gabriel sat on the Treasury Bench, he believed the noble Lord would move a Vote of Want of Confidence in him. The House and the country knew perfectly well the object of the meeting of Parliament at that time—it was to enable the House of Commons to do the Business of the people better than it had hitherto been done. It was to clear the way in order that more effectual Business might be done next year than had been done hitherto. That was a considerable object, upon which it was worth while to expend the time of the present Session. For that reason it was that the Government had proposed to assemble the House, and for that reason the House adopted the course so proposed.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he did not think the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt) would commend itself to the judgment of the House. Because the House had made the mistake of passing the Appropriation Act in August, previous to the Adjournment, there was no reason why they should consecrate that mistake and set a Constitutional precedent subversive of the rights of the people. Such a usage would never meet with the approval of the country. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson) had himself, in 1854, when he was Chairman of Committees, declared that the Appropriation Bill was the last Act of the Session. Hon. Gentlemen would find, according to Sir Erskine May, that the granting of money was the most important duty 31 of the House of Commons, and that, consequently, the Appropriation Bill was the proper termination of the Business of the House of Commons. He thought that some attention at least ought to be paid to the opinion of that distinguished gentleman, whose textbook was laid on the Table of the House. He said in that book—
The ancient Constitutional doctrine as to the redress of grievances before granting Supplies is now represented in practice by every description of Amendment on the Question that the Speaker do leave the Chair.The Crown opened Parliament by recognizing the rights of the Commons to give Supply; and by ancient usage, as laid down by Sir Erskine May, the Speaker took up the Appropriation Act to the House of Lords at the end of the Session, if the Sovereign were there, and addressed him, narrating what had been done in the Session. At that time, he delivered over the Act of Appropriation to what was called by Lord Macaulay a Committee of both Houses, which acted for them during the Vacation. He would merely add one extract from a speech of Lord Palmerston in 1858, when a Conservative Dissolution was threatened. He said—Then it is said they may dissolve. I have no greater faith in their dissolving than I have in their resignation, and I am of that opinion because a Dissolution implies more than the will of the Government. The concurrence of the House is necessary to its own dissolution. They must pass the Appropriation Act and other similar Acts before they can take that step.Neither the Prime Minister nor the Secretary of State for the Home Department had brought forward the precedents of which they had spoken. The former right hon. Gentleman had certainly referred to the precedent of 1820, which they on that (the Opposition) side of the House said was none at all, inasmuch as since the Reform Bill the Constitution had taken a new departure. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to the doctrine of Mr. Shaw Lefevre in 1841; but he had not alluded to the remarks of Sir George Lewis nor of Lord Palmerston in 1859, nor to the Exchequer Amendment Bill of 1866, nor to Sir Erskine May's evidence in 1878. Although the Egyptian Question was a very prominent one and we had an Army of Occupation in that country, still they had no means of discussing it, because there were no days down for Supply, 32 and the Government was supposed to be hatching a policy, while they had no means of finding out what it was. The Government were, in fact, establishing a new precedent, which would deprive the Representatives of the people of the right which they had always enjoyed of not allowing Supply to be given until the grievances were redressed.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 142; Noes 209: Majority 67.—(Div. List, No. 341.)