The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

The Arrangement of Seats.

Even the arrangement of seats in the House is not without its bearing upon political life; and although a small matter, it affords another illustration of the principle that an institution which, instead of being deliberately planned, is evolved slowly, will develop in harmony with its environment, or force its environment into harmony with itself. The front bench at the upper end of the aisle, close at the right hand of the Speaker, is called the Treasury Bench, and is reserved for the ministers; the corresponding bench on the other side being occupied by the former ministers of the party now in Opposition. Behind these two benches sit for the most part men whose fidelity to their respective parties is undoubted, members whose allegiance is less absolute generally preferring seats below the gangway on either side.

Of course, on a crowded night members cannot always find seats that express their exact sentiments. Still, the arrangement is fairly well preserved, especially in the case of prominent men, with whom it is sometimes a matter of no little consideration.[251:1] Any group that desires to emphasise its freedom from regular party control always sits below the gangway. The Fourth Party, for example, sat in 1884 below the gangway on the Opposition side, the Labour Party has sat there since the election of 1906, and the same position is occupied by the Irish Nationalists under every ministry; while the Liberal Unionists at the time of their breach with Mr. Gladstone over his first Home Rule Bill took up their seats below the gangway on the government side. The House at a great debate resembles a martial array, with the leaders face to face in the van, supported by their troops in ranks behind them. The minister leans over the table, and points in indignation or in scorn at the "honourable gentlemen opposite." All this expresses the idea of party government, and lends a dramatic effect to parliamentary warfare.

Mode of Treating the Subject of Procedure.

Nowhere in the whole range of British institutions does the interaction of law and custom baffle any attempt at logical description so much as in the case of procedure in Parliament. The cabinet, which is becoming more and more exclusively the motive force in all important legislative action, is not, indeed, so completely unknown to the rules of the House as it is to the statute-book; and yet a study of the rules alone would give but a faint idea of the authority of the Treasury Bench. On the other hand, it is impossible to understand how the government is attacked, and how it carries through its plans, unless one is familiar with the rules themselves. At the present day the discussions connected with appropriations, for example, turn little on financial questions, and are used mainly as an opportunity for criticising administrative conduct; but to understand how this is done, and to what extent the government has sought to limit the practice, a knowledge of the process of granting supply is essential.

The actual working of the House of Commons involves three problems: first, the regular forms of procedure; second, the action of the cabinet and of private members, operating subject to those forms; and third, the methods by which the cabinet maintains a control over its own supporters, and through them over the House itself. To deal with these three matters together would involve so much confusion, that it has seemed better to take up one of them at a time. This chapter and the two succeeding ones are, therefore, devoted solely to the organisation of the House and the forms of procedure on public matters, the relation of the government to the work of the House being described in the chapters that follow, while the machinery for keeping the majority compact and under the lead of the Treasury Bench will be dealt with at a later stage under the head of "[Party Organisation in Parliament]." Legislation for private and local objects, which has had a peculiar and instructive development, is treated in a [chapter] by itself.

The Method of Voting.

A division.