The Government of England (Vol. I)

by A. Lawrence Lowell

Connected with this question is another: that of the relation of a member of Parliament to the association of his constituency. In the early days of the Birmingham Caucus, shortly after it had begun to spread over England, a case of friction between a sitting member and the local association occurred, which caused much controversy and no little alarm. The caucus was the bugbear of the day, and men feared that it was about to turn the representative into a mere instrument to register the decisions of a party machine—an anxiety heightened by the fact that the new associations were in the hands of the Radical wing of the party.

The Case of Mr. Forster.

Mr. W. E. Forster, in carrying through Parliament the Education Act of 1870, had offended the more extreme Radicals, because the act did not provide that education supported by public rates should be compulsory and free, and because, in their eyes, it treated the Church schools with too much favour. Although opposed by the Radicals, he was reëlected for Bradford in 1874 by the help of Conservative votes; but in 1878 he came into collision with the Liberal association which had just been formed there. One of its rules provided that any one proposed for nomination to Parliament must give an assurance to the general committee that he would abide by their decision in regard to the selection of the candidate. To that condition Mr. Forster refused to submit, denying the right of any association to come between him and his constituents. The association insisted upon its rule, and the controversy in Bradford provoked a discussion in the public press of the country. In the end the matter was compromised by changing the rule so as to read that such an assurance "may be required" instead of "shall be required," and Mr. Forster allowed his name to be submitted to the general committee. He had won his point, for he had been nominated without giving the assurance; but his troubles with the association were not at an end. In 1882 he resigned from Mr. Gladstone's ministry because he disapproved of the so-called Kilmainham treaty, and before long the quarrel broke out again, continuing until his death in 1886.[495:1] The particular provision which gave occasion to the dispute in 1878 has not proved a permanent source of difficulty, for the local associations have not been in the habit of demanding a pledge of that kind, and on the other hand the ordinary rules of fair play require that a man who allows his name to be proposed for nomination shall abide by the decision of the body to which he submits it, unless he feels that he has been unjustly treated, or unless some important question of policy is involved.

Local Pressure on Members Neither New nor Systematic.

A much more important matter is the control exerted by the local party association over its representative in the House of Commons, whether by urging him to take a particular line of action, by refusing a renomination, or even by the more drastic measure of requesting his resignation in case he fails to comply with its opinion. Mr. Ostrogorski lays great stress upon the quarrel in 1885 between the Liberal association in Newcastle and Mr. Joseph Cowen, who had taken a highly independent attitude in Parliament, and had not given a consistent support to the Liberal cabinet.[496:1] No one would assert that an association, any more than an individual voter, is bound to support a candidate of whose views and conduct in public affairs it seriously disapproves, because he is an estimable person. Yet this was very nearly the relation of Mr. Cowen to the local association. Voters and organisations must consider the opinions as well as the personality of the candidate, and this they may well do without reducing him to a mere mouthpiece of their wishes.

But in order to determine the real import of an attempt to fetter the independence of a member of Parliament, one must consider how far it introduced a new practice into English politics, and for what purposes the claim of the association to call the member to account has been used. The question whether a member of Parliament is the agent of his constituents, morally bound to carry out their wishes, or whether he is to act solely according to his own opinion of the interest of the whole kingdom, is as old as Burke's famous discussion with the electors of Bristol. The latter view always has been, and still is, the prevailing one in theory; but the charge that the representatives have become mere delegates has been constantly cropping up. In 1849, for example, very nearly at the high-water mark of independence in Parliament, and long before the party machine had been thought of, there were complaints about the thraldom of members to their constituents.[496:2] A member must always have been more or less in bondage in the proprietary boroughs, and this continued in some places after the first Reform Act. As late as 1857 Sir Stafford Northcote gave up his seat for Dudley because he found that he practically represented Lord Ward.[496:3] The exercise of control over their member by influential constituents is, therefore, not a new thing, and the advent of the modern party associations has not, as men feared, developed it into a system. No doubt the Liberal caucus in the days of its youth tried to bring an organised pressure to bear upon the members,[497:1] but this has diminished rather than increased of late years.

The Question When a Member Ought to Resign.

The question under what circumstances a member ought to resign his seat is one which always has been, and always will be, perplexing. The doctrine that he must resign simply because the local party association asks him to do so can be confidently asserted to have made little or no headway in either of the two great parties. But that a member who has pledged himself expressly or tacitly to the support of a certain policy, and then changes his mind, may, in some cases, be bound in honour to go back to his constituents, would hardly be denied. Whether such an obligation has arisen or not must depend upon the circumstances, and upon the definiteness and importance of the pledge or understanding. When Peel decided to bring in the bill for Catholic Emancipation, to which he had previously been openly opposed, he felt constrained to resign his seat for Oxford, and was defeated for reëlection to his great grief;[497:2] but he did not feel under a similar duty when converted to the repeal of the Corn Laws, and was reproached on that account by Disraeli.[497:3]

A candidate who seeks election as a member of a party, or as a supporter of a cabinet, may well be considered to have given a general pledge to remain in the party or to support that cabinet, so that if he ceases entirely to do so he may be bound to resign. This is the form in which the question has arisen of late between members and local associations, but both obligation and actual practice are as unsettled to-day as similar questions have been in the past. When the South African War broke out a few members on the government side of the House felt unable to support the cabinet on that question. One of them, Sir Edward Clarke, who sat for Plymouth, was requested by the Conservative association of the borough to resign, and did so,[498:1] provoking comment favourable and otherwise. The same action was proposed in the case of Mr. (now Lord) Courtney; but he took the ground that as a Liberal Unionist he had professed to support the cabinet only on the issue of Home Rule, and had caused his independence upon other matters to be clearly understood. The motion to request his resignation was defeated in the Liberal Unionist association of his constituency,[498:2] but he was not renominated at the next general election. In the same Parliament Mr. (now Sir) George Doughty, who, for other reasons, crossed the floor from the Liberal to the government side, resigned his seat at Great Grimsby, and was reëlected by an increased majority. While in the following Parliament Sir Michael Foster and Mr. Winston Churchill crossed in the opposite direction, without feeling bound to resign. The former, representing a university, had, indeed, stated at the election that he was by no means a strict party man, and retained his seat after a good deal of reflection.[498:3] Other cases of a radical change of policy could be cited, but these are enough to show that local party organisations have not fastened on their members chains that can be used with certainty to withdraw them from their seats even in so strong a case as an open breach with their party.

Refusal to Renominate.