A Year in Europe

by Walter W. Moore

London, July 15, 1902.

The nominal ruler of the British Empire is His Majesty, Edward VII. The real ruler is the House of Commons. Though I was in Great Britain at the time of the coronation, and saw something of the pomp with which it was celebrated, I have not thought it worth while to occupy the time of my readers with descriptions of it, since it is only one of those glittering fictions which the English people see fit to preserve, notwithstanding their general good sense—a somewhat childish observance of outworn mediæval ceremonies, a foolish and expensive form. But certainly I ought not to quit the subject of the political ideas suggested by a sojourn in London, and especially by repeated visits to that most interesting portion of it, Westminster, without some reference to the part it has played in developing the model of all the free governments of the world. For, as a British writer has truly said, Westminster is historically the centre of politics, not for London and Great Britain only, but for the civilized world. "All civilized nations, both in Europe and America, as well as all the British colonies, have now adopted the constitution which was here founded and developed, with a single head of the State and two chambers; though, with regard to the headship of the State and the upper chamber, the elective has, in the most advanced politics, been substituted for the hereditary principle, while in the cases of the United States and Switzerland there is a federal as well as a national element. The Roman imposed his institutions with arms upon a conquered world; a willing world has adopted the institutions which had their original seat at Westminster. But the British Constitution now means little more than the omnipotence of the House of Commons. The immense edifice is still styled the palace; but the King who now dwells in the palace is the sovereign people."

The Houses of Parliament.

For this reason it is more common now to speak of the Palace of Westminster as the Houses of Parliament. It is a vast and costly pile, one of the largest Gothic buildings in the world, erected about fifty years ago, in the Tudor style, at an outlay of fifteen million dollars. The extremely florid exterior is constructed of a limestone so perishable that already it costs ten thousand dollars a year to keep it in repair. Tastes differ as to the merit of the architecture. Some pronounce the building majestic and imposing. Others say that at a little distance the river front looks like a large modern cotton mill. All agree that there is too much elaborate ornamentation.

This is true of the interior, as well as the exterior, and, as some one has said, it is interesting to observe the attempt made to preserve a constitutional fiction by decorating with special gorgeousness that Chamber of the House which has been stripped of all its power, viz., the House of Lords. It is resplendent in the vivid red leather which covers the seats and backs of the straight benches, rising in tiers on the opposite sides, and in the sumptuous frescoes of the walls, the rich stained glass of the windows, and the excessive gilding of the ceiling. The leather on the benches in the House of Commons is black, and there is less of magnificence in general than in the Chamber of the Peers, though it also is a rich interior.

THE HOUSE OF PARLIAMENT, LONDON.

Yet neither of them makes an impression of spaciousness and grandeur, and, to one who has seen the noble halls in which our Senate and House of Representatives sit at Washington, both of these legislative chambers of Britain seem small and cramped. They are also mean and uncomfortable in their arrangements as compared with those of our Congress. At Washington each member has his own chair, and a desk for his books and papers. But here there are no desks, only rigid benches, upon which the members sit or loll, facing each other across the narrow chamber, the supporters of the government on the Speaker's right, and the opposition on his left. Worst of all is the fact that, though the combined science of the country was employed in the construction of these halls of session and debate, they are both wretched failures as to ventilation and acoustics, the House of Lords being so bad in the latter particular that it used to be said that members went out to buy an evening paper in order to learn what the debate was about.

Getting into the Lower House.