The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

The Platform and the Ministers.

Meanwhile the platform was used more and more freely by the parliamentary leaders, but this came gradually. Pitt spoke only in the House of Commons; and in fact until a few years before the Reform Bill almost no minister, except Canning, made political speeches outside, and his were addressed mainly to his own constituents. In 1823, however, he delivered a speech at Plymouth, in which for the first time a statement about foreign policy was made by a minister in public, and five years later the change in the government's policy about Catholic disabilities was announced at a banquet. With the reform movement the ministers began to take the public a little more into their confidence. At the general election of 1831, Lord John Russell made the first public speech intended as an election cry,[429:1] and aroused an echo at meetings throughout the land. In the same year Lord Grey talked about the bill at the Lord Mayor's dinner, a festivity that became in after years a regular occasion for announcements of government policy. From that time the use of the platform grew rapidly in favour with the cabinet. In 1834 Lord Brougham made the unfortunate series of harangues in Scotland that wrecked his political career. A little later Lord Melbourne explained his own dismissal in a public speech; and Peel, on taking office, declared his policy in an address to his constituents. So important a matter, indeed, did the platform become in public life, that Lord Melbourne, referring to the performances of Brougham and O'Connell, spoke of the vacation as a trying time.[430:1] Thereafter the platform was constantly used both by ministers and leaders of the Opposition to bring public opinion to their side.

As usual in English politics, practice outran theory; for so late as 1886 Mr. Gladstone, in answer to a remonstrance from the Queen, felt it necessary to excuse himself for making speeches outside of his constituency, on the ground that in doing so he was merely following the example of the Conservatives.[430:2] Yet in 1879 he had set the nation ablaze by his Midlothian campaign; and although his orations there were delivered as a candidate for the seat, they were, and must have been intended to be, published by the newspapers all over the country.[430:3] It was, in fact, at this very time that Lord Hartington spoke of the far greater interest taken in public speeches than in debates in Parliament.[430:4] Not that the platform became at once of especial value to the party leaders. On the contrary, it was at first used much more frequently by the Anti-Corn-Law League, the Chartists and others. But since the introduction of something very near manhood suffrage, which began in 1868, great popular movements, unconnected with party politics, have become well-nigh impossible. In a real democracy there is little use in trying to overawe the government by a display of physical force, and hence an agitation has for its natural object the winning of votes. But the House of Commons has now been brought so fully into accord with the masses of the people that any strong popular sentiment is certain to find immediate expression there. Once in the House it is on the edge of a whirlpool, for even if it originates quite outside of the existing parties, and gives rise, at first, to a new political group, it can hardly fail, as it gathers headway, to be drawn into the current of one of the two great parties, and find a place in their programme. Now in any question connected with party politics the highest interest attaches to the speeches of the party leaders, both because they are the standard bearers in the fight, and because they are the men who have power, or at the next turn of the wheel will have power, to give effect to their opinions.

Public Speaking now Universal.

The platform has thus had a perfectly natural evolution. So long as elections to the House of Commons were controlled by a small number of persons, public speaking could be effective only occasionally, when popular feeling could be deeply stirred over some grievance; and it was employed chiefly by outsiders in an effort to force the hands of Parliament. This was in part true even after 1832. But when the suffrage was more widely extended in 1868, so that elections depended upon the good-will of the masses, it became necessary for any one with political aspirations to reach the public at large, and the most obvious means of so doing was from the platform. Speeches by candidates at elections became universal, and in order not to let the flame of loyalty burn low, it has been increasingly common to fan it at other times, by the talking of members to their constituents, and still more by addresses to the whole community on the part of leaders of national reputation. Public speaking has, therefore, become constant, without regard to the existence of any issue of unusual prominence. James Russell Lowell long ago made a remark to the effect that democracy is government by declamation, and certainly household suffrage has loosened the tongues of public men. An observer at the present day is struck by the fluency of Englishmen upon their feet, and by the free use of humour as a means of emphasis, instead of the sonorous phrases formerly styled oratory.

The Platform has Increased the Influence of Party Leaders.

It has now become a settled custom for the cabinet ministers and the leaders of the parliamentary Opposition to make a business of speaking during the late autumn and the spring recess; and the habit tends to magnify their power, for they are the only persons who have fully the ear of the public. Except for a few important utterances, the debates in Parliament are not very widely read; editorials in the press are read solely by members of one political faith; the remarks of private members to their constituents are published only in the local papers; but public speeches by the chief ministers, and to a less extent those by the principal leaders of the Opposition, are printed at great length by the newspapers of both parties, and are read everywhere.[432:1]

Moreover, the platform gives a greater freedom than the floor of the House. The ministers do not want to bring before Parliament a policy they are not immediately prepared to push through, nor would it be easy to find time amid the business of a session to do so. It is not altogether an accident, it is rather a sign of the times, that Mr. Chamberlain broached his plan of preferential tariffs, not in Parliament, but at a public meeting in Birmingham. It was, indeed, a strange thing to see an ardent discussion on a most important question conducted in public meetings and in the press, while the ministers were striving to prevent debate upon it in the House of Commons. It was a mark of the limitation which the course of events has placed upon Parliament. The platform has brought the ministers face to face with the people, and this has increased the political importance of both. Not only is the electorate the ultimate arbiter in political matters, but the platform has in some degree supplanted the House as the forum where public questions are discussed.

Its Benefits.

Frequent public addresses by the men in whom the whole responsibility for the conduct of national affairs is concentrated, and by those who will be responsible when the next change of ministry occurs, cannot fail to educate the voters, and quicken their interest in all the political issues of the day. Moreover, the process is not confined to the intermittent periods of election, but goes on all the time; and although the practice, brought into vogue by the Anti-Corn-Law League, of joint debates at public meetings has not taken permanent root in England, the same result is reached in another way, because the party leaders answer one another's speeches from different platforms, and if the listeners are not identical, the public reads both arguments. Sir Henry Maine spoke of the tendency to look upon politics as a "deeply interesting game, a never-ending cricket-match between Blue and Yellow";[433:1] and the fact that this aspect of the matter is more marked in England than anywhere else makes English politics the most interesting, and the most easy to follow, in the world. The rulers of the country, and those who both have been and will be her rulers, fight at close range across a table for six months of the year, and during the rest of the time they carry on the ceaseless war by public speaking. As in the Athenian democracy, the citizens witness a constant struggle among rival statesmen for supremacy, but in England they are merely spectators until a general election summons them to give their verdict. One can hardly conceive of a system better calculated to stimulate interest in politics without instability in the government.