In the camp of the opposition there is the same fusion. Sir Robert Peel has dressed all the tories in the uniform of conservatives. Even the little irresolute batallion of Lord Stanley, has recently, with its chief, assumed the new livery of the defenders of the church and of the throne. The tiers-parti has not been more successful on the side of the Manche than on the Parisian.
The question, then, is simply and plainly raised. It is the great question that is to be decided between the old society and the new, the same that was raised in France in 1789; only, if the throne is wise, here the whole war may be finished on the floors of Parliament.
The field of battle is now before the reader. You have the army of reformers and that of the conservatives in the presence of each other—each recognizing but one watchword, but one standard; the first, stronger and bolder, but having too many leaders, and a rear guard more impatient to arrive in action than the principal body; the second, more compact, better disciplined, and more obedient to its only chief.
Great as may be the exasperation on each side, you will rarely ever observe the belligerent parties, even in their hostilities, depart from their habits of chivalrous loyalty.
There is a sort of Parliamentary law of nations established in the house.
The opposition never takes advantage of the absence of a minister to interrogate his colleagues on matters foreign to their own departments.
Nor will a minister ever introduce a bill without notice; the courtesy, in this respect, is extremely great between the two parties. Challenges are regularly exchanged; the day and the hour are both fixed. If any member mentions his inability to attend at the appointed time, the motion is hurried or delayed to suit his convenience.
If the question should be one of importance, and the decision doubtful, whatever urgent business may call a member away, he will not desert his post, unless he is enabled to find among his adversaries some one equally desirous to absent himself. They make an arrangement then that both shall stay away, and this double contract is always held sacred.
In their struggles, though often violent, the blows are always generous, and aimed in front. However, the noise of the interruptions by which approbation or discontent is expressed, would astonish and terrify a stranger—above all, one unaccustomed to the discordance of English pronunciation. The sound is unusual, striking, and the more astonishing, as at first you are unable to tell whence it proceeds. There are six hundred men, seated, uttering savage cries of joy or anger, their bodies all the while remaining immovable, their features preserving their usual phlegmatic and calm expression. These tumults produce quite a fantastic effect. Hear! hear! is the cry of satisfaction and encouragement. Listen to the speaker!—his discourse penetrates and touches the soul of the question; let us listen to him—hear him. Spoke!—spoke! indicates impatience, ennui, lassitude. You abuse your privilege—you have said enough—you have spoken! This reproach is imperative—it is rarely resisted. Order! order! is the call to order; it is a summons to the speaker to notice and reprimand the offending member who has passed the boundaries of propriety—for, to the speaker alone belongs the right to pronounce judgment on such occasions.
The speaker centres in himself the omnipotence of the chamber of which he is the representative. His authority is supreme, within as well as without the walls of the Parliament house. His situation renders him a personage of very high importance. He has his official palace, he holds his levees, to which none are admitted unless in court dress. Singular inconsistency! the very same Commoners who enter booted, spurred, with their over-coats and their hats on, into their own hall, would find the doors of their own speaker closed against them, if they should present themselves without ruffles and dressed à la Française. This rigorous particularity is unreasonable. Mr. Hume, however, in a recent attack upon this absurd etiquette, found himself unable to succeed against the powerful prejudice by which it is upheld. The sound sense of his objections only passed for radical folly. Thus it is that with the English the ancient forms of etiquette have deeper root than even their old abuses. You may be certain that they will have reformed the church, the aristocracy, and perhaps the crown itself, before the grotesque wigs of their magistrates. Their entire revolution will have been completed, while their new liberty will be still distinguished by the manners and dress of the ancien regime.