Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World, says:—“The doctrine which Machiavel taught unto Cæsar Borgia, to employ men in mischievous actions, and afterwards to destroy them when they have performed the mischief, was not of his own invention. All ages have given us examples of this goodly policy; the latter having been apt scholars in this lesson to the more ancient, as the reign of Henry VIII. here in England can bear witness; and therein especially the Lord Cromwell, who perished by the same unjust law that himself had devised for the taking away of another man’s life.”
Free-speaking.
Archbishop Whately, in his very able Lecture on Egypt, referring to the writers on Public Affairs at home, reprehends the practice of exaggerating, with keen delight, every evil that they can find, inventing such as do not exist, and keeping out of sight what is good. An Eastern despot, reading the productions of one of these writers, would say that, with all our precautions, we are the worst governed people on earth; and that our law-courts and public offices are merely a complicated machinery for oppressing the mass of the people; that our Houses of Lords and Commons are utterly mismanaged, our public men striving to repress merit, and that our best plan would be to sweep away all those, as, with less trouble, matters might go on better, and could not go on worse. Charges of this nature cannot be brought publicly forward in the Turkish Empire. In Cairo, a man was beheaded because he made too free a use of his tongue. He was told not to be speaking of the insurrection in Syria, and had dared to be chatting of the news; and there are other countries, also, where because such charges are true, it would not be safe to circulate them. But these writers do not mean half what they set forth. They heighten their descriptions to display their eloquence; but the tendency of such publications is always towards revolution, and the practical effect on the minds of the people is to render them incredulous. They understand that these overwrought representations are for effect, and they go about their business with an impression that the whole is unreal. If one of these writers were visited himself with a horrible dream that he was a peasant under an Oriental despot, that he was taxed at the will of the Sovereign, and had to pay the assessment in produce, valued at half the market-price, that he was compelled to work and receive four-fifths of his low wages in food consisting of hard, sour biscuit—let him then dream that he had spoken against the Ministry, and that he finds himself bastinadoed till he confesses that he brought false charges; that his grown-up son had been dragged off for a soldier, and himself deprived of his only support, and he would be inclined to doubt whether ours is the worst system of Government.
Speakers of the Houses of Parliament.
The late Sir George Cornewall Lewis, in a communication which appeared in Notes and Queries, in the week of the author’s lamented death, states the following:
“In modern legislative chambers it has been customary for the Chamber to appoint one of its own members as president. In the English House of Lords the Lord Chancellor is President by virtue of his office. Although a member of the executive Government, and holding his office at the pleasure of the Crown, he is nevertheless a high judicial officer, and is deemed to carry his judicial impartiality into the performance of his presidential functions. In general, however, the president of a legislative chamber is not, according to modern practice, a member of the executive Government. He is an independent member of the legislature, who is appointed by the chamber, and holds his office at its pleasure, such as the Speaker of the English House of Commons.
“The principal functions of the Speaker of the House of Commons were not originally (as the title of his office indicates) what they are at present. The House of Commons were at first a set of delegates summoned by the Crown to negotiate with it concerning the payment of taxes. They might take advantage of the position of superiority which they temporarily occupied to remonstrate with the Crown about certain grievances, upon which they were generally agreed. In this state of things it was important that they should have an organ and spokesman with sufficient ability and knowledge to state their views, and with sufficient courage to contend against the displeasure of the Crown. The helpless condition of a large body which is called upon to conduct a negotiation without any appointed organ is well described by Livy. When the Roman plebeians seceded to the Mount Aventine, after the Decemvirate, the Senate sent three ambassadors to confer with them, and to propose three questions. ‘Non defuit,’ says Livy, ‘quid responderetur; deerat qui daret responsum, nullodum certo duce, nec satis audentibus singulis invidiæ se offerre’ (iii. 50). Since the Revolution of 1688, and the increased power of the House of Commons, the functions of the Speaker have undergone a change. His chief function has been no longer to speak on behalf of the House; that which was previously his accessary has become his principal duty. He has been simply chairman of the House, with the function of regulating its proceedings, of putting the question, and of maintaining order. The Speaker of the House of Commons is now virtually disqualified by his office from speaking; but as their debates have become more important, his office of moderator of these debates has acquired additional importance.
“The position of the Speaker of the Irish House of Commons was similar to that of the Speaker of the English House (see Lord Mountmorres’s History of the Irish Parliament, vol. i. p. 71-79); but in Scotland the three estates sat as one House; there was no separate House of Commons, and the Lord Chancellor presided over the entire assembly.” (See Robertson’s History of Scotland, b. 1, vol. i. p. 276, ed. 1821.)
The National Conscience.
When we come to the proofs from fact and historical experience, we might appeal to a singular case in the records of our Exchequer, viz., that for much more than a century back, our Gazette and other public advertisers have acknowledged a series of anonymous remittances from those who, at some time or other, had appropriated public money. We understand that no corresponding fact can be cited from foreign records. Now, this is a direct instance of that compunction which our travelled friend insisted on. But we choose rather to throw ourselves upon the general history of Great Britain: upon the spirit of her policy, domestic or foreign; and upon the universal principles of her public morality. Take the case of public debts, and the fulfilment of contracts to those who could not have compelled the fulfilment; we first set this precedent. All nations have now learned that honesty in such cases is eventually the best policy; but this they learned from our experience, and not till nearly all of them had tried the other policy. We it was who, under the most trying circumstances of war, maintained the sanctity from taxation of all foreign investments in our funds. Our conduct with regard to slaves, whether in the case of slavery or of the Slave Trade—how prudent it may always have been we need not inquire—as to its moral principles they went so far ahead of European standards that we were neither comprehended nor believed. The perfection of romance was ascribed to us by all who did not reproach us with the perfection of Jesuitical knavery; by many our motto was supposed to be no longer the old one of divide et impera, but annihila et appropria. Finally, looking back to our dreadful conflicts with the three conquering despots of modern history, Philip II. of Spain, Louis XIV., and Napoleon; we may incontestably boast of having been single in maintaining the general equities of Europe by war upon a colossal scale, and by our counsels in the general congresses of Christendom.—De Quincey.