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The House of Commons is the supreme authority in this land. It should, therefore, be a consoling thought to the people that every sitting of the House is opened with a prayer for Divine light and guidance in the exercise of its unlimited powers of legislation. Both Houses of Parliament have used the prayer since the Restoration of Charles II in 1660. Besides the spiritual benefit that a Member derives from attendance at the service, he also gets the material advantage of a seat during the sitting, which, as the Chamber provides places only for about half its membership, is an additional inducement to be present at prayers.
Mr. Speaker stands at the head of the Table. By his side is the Chaplain in gown and bands. Standing in files along the benches are the Members—the two great political Parties facing each other across the floor. The service opens with the 67th Psalm, with its aspirations for the enlargement of God’s Kingdom, to the joy of the people and the increase of God’s blessings. “O let the nations be glad and sing for joy, for Thou shalt judge the people righteously and govern the nations upon earth.” The sublime maxims of the Lord’s Prayer are recited. For social policy: “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread;” and for foreign affairs, “And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation.” There are prayers for the King and Queen. Then follows the invocation to God on behalf of the House of Commons, at which the Members turn to the walls with bowed heads.
The Chaplain prays:
Send down the Heavenly Wisdom from above to direct and guide us in all our consultations; and grant that we, having Thy fear always before our eyes, and laying aside all private interests, prejudices, and partial affections, the result of all our counsels may be to the Glory of Thy blessed Name, the maintenance of true religion and justice, the safety, honour and happiness of the King, the public welfare, peace and tranquillity of the realm, and the uniting and knitting together of the hearts of all persons and estates within the same in true Christian love and charity one towards another, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
Strangers are not admitted to the galleries until prayers are over. If they were present they could not fail to notice a strange thing. That is, that the Treasury Bench is always empty during the service. Ministers may be really more in need of prayers than private Members, but then their seats in the Chamber are secured to them by prescriptive right.
The first sight of the plain architectural features of the House of Commons must be disappointing to anyone swayed by the great and stirring historical associations of the place. If there be any secular institution to which something of religious solemnity should attach, it surely is the free Legislature of a Nation, where the habits, customs and institutions of the people are largely moulded, where, at any rate, the morality or ethics of the country find expression in laws. The Chamber is unadorned. The prevailing colour is dull brown, conveyed by the oak framework of galleries and panelled walls plainly carved. In the daylight a warm dimness prevails. At night the Chamber looks more impressive, when a mellow radiance streaming from the lights through its glass ceiling falls upon the crowded benches. But to the uninstructed stranger accidentally straying into it on an off-day, its stiff arrangement of tiers of benches, upholstered in dark green, on each side, and the absence of any pictorial background, would suggest an assembly-room or debating-hall, with a certain air of distinction, it is true, but lacking character and soul. Is it really in this simple Chamber of modest dimensions and severe aspect that the elected and principal House of the Imperial Parliament is content to meet? Is it here that since 1852—the year the Chamber was first occupied—so many exciting and momentous battles over political principles have been fought? Is it from this narrow hall that influences radiate which are felt to the farthest confines of the world, in the wigwams of savage tribes as well as in the Chancelleries of the Great Powers? You would do well, indeed, when you visit the House of Commons and desire to fall under its spell, to come with your historical memories refreshed, for you will there see nothing in the way of portraits of its immortal Members, or pictures from its storied past, to tell of its greatness and renown.
What emotions have there found vent! These walls, sheathed in oak, have echoed to the voices of the great Parliamentarians of three reigns—Victoria, Edward and George—Palmerston, Lord John Russell, Cobden, Disraeli, Bright, Parnell, Randolph Churchill, Gladstone, Chamberlain, Balfour, Asquith, John Redmond, Lloyd George, Winston Churchill, Lord Hugh Cecil—laying down beneficent truths or pernicious fallacies. Think of the groans of despair and the shouts of exultation these forcible and vibrating personages have aroused! With what volumes of sound, rising from the hearts of men and expressive of every phase of human feeling—joy and grief, pathos and humour, pity and contempt, exasperation and rage—has the Chamber reverberated. Fine things have been said here, and mean things. Great ideas have been expressed by great men who worthily served them. The storms of passion, evoked by the clash between opposing reason and thought in the political controversies that have been fought out there at close quarters, have made the atmosphere of the House of Commons humid and warm with emotion, and one with a mind at all sympathetically attuned to the spirit of places cannot be there very long before the effluence that emanates from these panelled walls is thrilling him through and through.
Yet there are objects within the Chamber, made sacred almost by history and tradition, which at once catch the eye. The visitor will notice with becoming awe the high-canopied Chair, surmounted by an oak carving of the Royal Arms, and will look with fitting reverence on Mr. Speaker in his big grey wig and black silk gown. At the head of the Table, beneath the Speaker, sits the Clerk of the House and the two assistant clerks, all in the gowns and short wigs of barristers-at-law, busily discharging their multifarious duties, such as sub-editing papers handed in by Members containing questions to be addressed to Ministers, amendments to be moved to Bills, and notices of motions to be proposed should opportunity offer, and also taking minutes of the proceedings for the Journals of the House. The Table is indeed a “substantial piece of furniture,” as Disraeli once described it when he spoke of his satisfaction that it lay between him and Gladstone, who had just concluded a fierce declamatory attack. It contains pens, ink and stationery for the use of Members, volumes of the Standing Orders and other works of reference. At the end of the Table, on either side, are two brass-bound oaken boxes. These are the famous “dispatch-boxes” on which Ministers and ex-Ministers lay their notes when addressing the House, and following the traditional example of great statesmen in the past, thump to give emphasis to an argument or, metaphorically, to bash the head of an opponent.
The Table is also made to serve a part in parliamentary procedure. Important documents, such as the reports of Committees, and Foreign Office papers have to be “laid on the Table,” or, in other words, presented to the House, before they can properly be made public; and Orders of Departments have likewise to be “laid” for specified periods preliminary to their coming into operation. Even the floor-covering of the Chamber is a chapter from history. See the red border-lines on the matting right down the floor, about two feet from the front benches below the gangways. The opposing parties must not step beyond that line while in the act of speaking. And why? Because centuries ago Members were as ready to enforce an argument with the sword as with the tongue, and, to hedge them in, these lines of demarcation were drawn down the centre of the House. But of all the objects in the House calculated to awaken historic memories the Mace, perhaps, is the most potent. Made of silver and gilt with gold, its large globular head surmounted by a cross and ball, its staff artistically embellished, it lies a prominent and luminous object, when the Speaker is in the Chair, on raised supports at the end of the Table.