IN PARLIAMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 146, 22 June 1934, Page 14

IN PARLIAMENT

ABSENTEE MEMBERS

PROBLEM OF THE CENTURIES

-•BRITAIN BAFFLED

To hold' a General Election is easy enough. To ensure that members, once elected, will attend, is not so simple -a matter.' This thorny, though familiar, problem has been engaging the attention, of his Majesty's . Government in Northern Ireland, ivrites Dingle Foot, M.P., in the "Daily Telegraph." It seem that Mr. de Valera and Mr. P. Maclogan, though returned at the head of the poll for South Down and South "Armagh, respectively, have neglected to take their scats. In consequence the Commons House at Belfast is two members short. So a Bill has boon introduced to make attendance compulsory. . The aim of this measure is doubtless laudable, but the precedents are not j encouraging. For the question of the- absentee memberhas baffled the ingenuity of English Parliaments for over six hundred years. - .'; .'■ - In the Middle Ages lie lvas a constant problem.: ' Frequently the knights or burgesses .wearied of their Parliamentary duties, and went home before the end of the session. Sometimes they did -not even- come when summoned. The most extreme case is that of, the two knights of the shire for Oxfordshire, ..who. fled the country on receiving news that they had been elected to Parliament. ]^\en the Pailiameutary -wages of 4s a day foi a knight and 2s for a citizen 01 buigcss do not seem to have ■hecfi a sufficient recompense for the thankless task of voting subsidies for the King's needs. STATUTORY DUTY. It is not ah\ajs jppreciated that there is a 'statutory duty on M.P.'s to attend the hittings of Parliament. A statute of Eichaid I[ provides that "If; any peis'on' (be he archbishop, bishop, abboty>'piioi, duke, earl, baron, banneiqt,!knight ,of the shire, citizen ot city, ,burge_ss..o± borough, or other suigulai person or commonalty) do absent himself, and come not at the said summons '(e^cdptJ he may reasonably ajid honestly excuse himself to our Lord the King) ho shall be amerced, and othenvLso .punished, according as of old times hath been used, to bo done within the said realm." Drastic, ras they were, these penalties do,not,seem to have had the desired eftect Or; maybe by the lGth century the piospcct ot amercement or other customaiy punishment had lost its teriois>. Foj in IGI4, under Henry VIII, we find Parliament again returning to the, charg(f.- Fiom the preamble to the Act of that year we learn that "Tn the- end of every Parliament divers and many great and weighty matters, as well touching the pleasure, weal, and surety ot our sovereign lord the King as the common weal of this, his realm and subjects, are to be treated; communed of, and by authority of Parliament to be concluded." But divers knights of shires, citizens' for cities, burgesses for boroughs, and barphs of the Cinque Ports, "long time, before the end of the said Parliament,; of their- Qwn authorities, depart and go home int6 ( their countries, whereby thesaid gre.at and .weighty matters are many times greatly, delayed." It ia therefore enacted that none of the said knights, citizens, burgesses, and barons may, without the express leave of the Speaker and Commons, depart from .the said Parliament '' till the s,aid Parliament be fully finished, ended; or prorogued.' r"Any"member "who does so depart without leave is to forfeit his Parliamentary wages. This was the last Act of Parliament on the subject, but by no means the last attempt to enforce attend-, ance. Xiord Coke has recorded in his Institutes how in 1554 a number of emembers voluntarily witht diew from the House as a protest as a protest against the subservience of the majority of the Ministry of the day. . The Attorney-General was ordered 'to indict the seceders in the King's Bench," and an information was preferred against them for "departing without licence, contrary to the King and Queen's inhibition, in the beginning of the Parliament." Six of the members, it appears, were "so timorous" as to submit to the mercy of the Court, and paid their fines. The rest traversed; but judgment against them was prevented by the Queen's death. There- has been no stibsequent attempt to invoke the jurisdiction of the Courts. Instead the House of Commons has taken the matter into its own hands. In 1643 a Mr; Constantine presumed to depart from the House without leave. By a resolution of his indignant colleagues he was ordered to be sent for by the Serjeant-at-Arms, at his own charges,, to attend the service of the House. ' FINES PAID BY MEMBERS. '<" The Restoration Parliament was oven harsher.': Defaulters, who failed to bo present oh an appointed day, and who had no legitimate excuse for absence, were ordered to pay a fine of £.20. The favourite device of the majority in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, in order to compel the presence of their .errant colleagues, was the call. A Jruture'iday ; would be fixed when the House was"to bo called over.Those whqfxlid,.not theii.'.answer to their names weieJusua'lly given- a second and even a tliir'd chance. ..'.'Jf finally they failed to appear and sent no satisfactory explahatiQ,nV:oi their absence, they wore ordered; 4° -he sent, for in custody of the Scrjeanf-at-Arms:. Thus in 1825 the Serjeant was commanded to take six members into custotty. Among them was the Marquis' of Tavistock, who after a day's incarceration 'was alloivucl to be"discharged on payment of iho Serjeant's fees. ■*■■:"• . The last occasion when the House was called over was in IS3G.i There have been,'-':sevei-nl motions for a call since then,'but fhey have all been negatived, or "discharged "before- the appointed day. Presumably this method of coercion would still be open to a conscientious majority. The!difliculty has not been confined-to indu'erag the members to come to Westminster; There have been occasions when, although within the building, they showed a strange reluctance to enter the House itself. On February 6, 1688, a largo numher had gathered in a room known as the Painted Chamber: The Serjean'fr-at^Ai-ms was sent to require the return '.to. th'.e House of all those pre-SO-nt, with .the exception of three who | were lame. "" j HIDING FROM MR. SPEAKER. j After a few minutes he returned with the announcement "that he having acquainted the members of the Houso in the Painted Chamber with the order of the House for their speedy return, very few of them took notice of the direction of the House." History repeated■: itself twenty-seven years later, when an ad hoc committee was appointed to take the names of members "in the places in Westminster Hall." In due course the chairman reported "that there were several morribers in the said places who refused to come .out. of. the said...plac&sr'int.o the .Hpuse;.;'.Pe.rcmn't.Q.rjvp.r.d..e,rs.were forthwith sent td'the fecaTcitraiits to attend the House immediately, and eventually all of them complied. Fines, calls, aud actkms-at-law, lave1

alike fallen into disuse. The methods of the twentieth century are less obvious but more effective. They are twofold, namely, the pressure "of party Whips and the publication of division lists in local newspapers.

.The Ulster Parliament would be vrell advised to. wait until the-electors of South Dotvti and South Armagh-become' .tired of being disfranchised,