The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

His Powers over Debate.

The Speaker is purely a presiding officer. He has nothing to do with appointing any committees, or guiding the House in its work. He is not a leader but an umpire, otherwise he could not remain in the chair through changes of party. As an umpire, however, his powers are very great, and in some cases under the modern changes in the standing orders they are autocratic. He decides, for example, whether a motion to closure debate may be put, or whether it is an infringement of the rights of the minority;[260:1] he can refuse to entertain a dilatory motion if he considers it an abuse of the rules of the House;[260:2] and he can stop the speech of a member who "persists in irrelevance, or tedious repetition."[260:3] Moreover, from his decision on those matters, or on any points of order, there is no appeal.[260:4] The House can suspend or change its own rules by a simple majority vote, but it cannot in a concrete case override the Speaker's construction of them.[260:5] This is a general principle of English parliamentary law, which is applied in almost all public bodies.[261:1] It may render a conscientious man more careful in his rulings, but it certainly places in his hands enormous power.

His Power to Preserve Order.

Familiarity with representative bodies seems to breed contempt, for the last half century has been marked by an increase of disorderly scenes in the legislatures of many countries. In England such things were brought about by the growth of the Irish Home Rule party, which regarded the government of Ireland by the British Parliament as unjust on principle, and oppressive in fact; and which, to say the least, was not distressed by loss of dignity on the part of the House of Commons. In 1880 the Speaker was given the power to repress disorder, now embodied, with subsequent modifications, in Standing Order 18. He can name a member who disregards his authority or obstructs business, and then a motion is in order, to be decided at once without amendment or debate, to suspend that member.[261:2] When the standing orders were revised in 1902 they contained a clause prescribing the duration of the suspension for the first and subsequent offences, but this was struck out during the discussion, and a suspension is now indeterminate. It is obvious that to a party, in a hopeless minority, which denies the authority of Parliament, a disorderly scene followed by a suspension, and an opportunity to go home and make stirring speeches, may not be an undesirable form of protest.

Apart from occasional outbursts chiefly, though not exclusively, on the part of the Irish members, a stranger in the gallery is much impressed by the respect paid to the Speaker, and by his moral control over the House.[262:1] His emoluments are in proportion to the dignity of his position. He enjoys a salary of five thousand pounds a year, with an official residence in the Houses of Parliament and other perquisites; and although standing aloof from political leadership, he is regarded as the first commoner of the realm. He is, indeed, on the threshold of the House of Lords, for it has been the habit of late years to make him a peer when he retires.

He Votes Only in Case of a Tie.

The Chairman of Committees.

As late as 1870 the Speaker occasionally took part in debate, when the House was in Committee of the Whole where he does not preside;[262:2] but it would now be thought inconsistent with his position of absolute impartiality to speak or vote in committee. He therefore never votes unless he is obliged to do so by a tie occurring when he is in the chair. It is commonly said that he always gives his casting vote in such cases so as to keep the question open; but this is not strictly true. When, however, his vote involves a final decision, he bases it, not upon his personal opinion of the merits of the measure, but upon the probable intention of the House as shown by its previous action, or upon some general constitutional principle;[262:3] and it may be added that the chairman of a Committee of the Whole, when called upon to break a tie, follows the same practice.[262:4] The chair in Committee of the Whole is regularly taken by the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means—commonly called for that reason the Chairman of Committees—who, like the Speaker, withdraws, on his appointment, from political contests, speaking and voting in the House nowadays only on questions relating to private bills. He is nominated at the beginning of the Parliament by the ministry, from among their prominent supporters, and retires from the position when they resign. Considering that his duties consist in presiding, like the Speaker, with strict impartiality, and in a purely non-partisan supervision of private bill legislation, it is somewhat strange that he should go in and out of office with the cabinet, but in fact one hears no criticism of his conduct on that score, largely, no doubt, because he always takes the Speaker as his model. Since 1855 he has acted as deputy speaker, when the Speaker is unavoidably absent,[263:1] and in order to prevent any possible inconvenience from the absence of both of these officers from the House, or of the Chairman of Ways and Means from the Committee of the Whole, provision was made in 1902 for the election of a deputy chairman who can fill the vacant place.[263:2]

Other Officers of the House.

The only other officers of the House that need be mentioned here are the Sergeant-at-Arms, who acts as the executive officer and chief of police of the House under the direction of the Speaker; the Clerk of the House; and the Counsel to Mr. Speaker, who is a legal adviser, and has important duties in connection with private bill legislation. It is a curious survival that the Sergeant-at-Arms,[263:3] and the Clerk of the House with his chief assistants,[263:4] are appointed by the Crown, and hold office permanently. Their work is, of course, of a non-partisan character, and they do not always belong to the party of the ministry that appoints them. Sir Courtenay Ilbert, for example, the present Clerk of the House, although a Liberal, was appointed by the Conservative government, and not by way of promotion in the service of the House, for he was at the time Parliamentary Counsel to the Treasury.