SCIENTIFIC PARLIAMENTARY REFORM 367 



there is little chance of time being found to revive, and again 

 pass through all their stages, measures sacrificed on this 

 account. Yet one Government after another has refused to 

 consent to the trifling alteration in procedure which would be 

 required to enable uncompleted Bills to be " carried over," 

 at the stage they had reached, from one session to another ; 

 the only reason vouchsafed for such an attitude being the 

 irrelevant argument that if the House of Commons carried 

 over its Bills the House of Lords could do the same ! It is, 

 of course, comprehensible that Ministers should hesitate to 

 part with one of the arguments which enable them, on occasion, 

 to overawe troublesome members by declaring in committee 

 that discussion of their amendments will " kill the Bill." It 

 is the Whips' part to privately, and in the most obliging 

 manner, warn inexperienced legislators that their Constitu- 

 encies may resent their "wrecking" Government measures. 

 The warning is usually sufficient. 



Again, all-night sittings are not considered an unmixed 

 evil, for many a " deal " is done in the silent watches of the 

 night between an astute Minister and a tired-out Opposition, 

 which buys repose by the temporary sacrifice of its principles, 

 or momentarily abandons obstruction in order to get to bed. 

 It is scarcely surprising that an assembly whose members 

 are thus manipulated, wrapped in the swaddling clothes of 

 effete tradition and strangled by the Closure, has become the 

 obedient instrument of powerful Ministers, who have arrogated 

 to themselves its powers, annulled its rights, and contemptu- 

 ously ignore its privileges. 



Was it for this, one is tempted to ask, that the House of 

 Commons defied kings and disarmed nobles ? And will the 

 British People, in this its time of testing, stand by and see its 

 representatives abandon to any man, no matter how great or 

 how distinguished, powers which belong to the People and to 

 it alone ? Will it not, rather, in the days of reconstruc- 

 tion which are soon to come, insist upon a new Magna Charta, 

 under which all usurped authority shall be laid down and the 

 supremacy of the Mother of Parliaments restored ? 



No revolution is required to recover for Parliament its 

 rightful place in the Constitution nor to regain for the House 

 of Commons the respect and confidence of the nation. Trifling 

 alterations in procedure, permitting, for example, the carrying 



