NOTES ON PARLIAMENT.

Otago Witness, Issue 653, 4 June 1864, Page 1

NOTES ON PARLIAMENT.

(From the " Home News.")

THE INSURANCE OFFICE DELUSION.

Mr Gladstone has made one of those ' splendid orations in Parliament which stand out conspicuously from the ordinary line of the debates, and literally strike home to the intelligence of the whole country. The subject was extremely unpromising on the surface. A speech upon insurance offices suggested little hope of being decorated with flowers of rhetoric, and the listener who was not directly interested in the matter anticipated the driest statement of dreary facts and figures. Yet Mr Gladstone held his hearers in the spell of his eloquence for considerably above two hours, during which time a pin might be heard to drop on the floor of the House. Many of those who v/ere present, declare that it was the greatest triumph of parliamentary oratory that has been heard inside the walls of St. Stephen's within the memory of the present generation. However that may be, there is no doubt that it invested a very dull theme with the deepest interest, and presented, in the most lucid and logical array such a mass of curious and startling details as was never before collected on the sub- . ject. The speech drew its charm from two distinct sources — the exposure of the unsoundness of many of the offices, clubs, and societies which at present carry on the "business of insurance ; and the development of a plan now proposed to be carried into effect, under the auspices of Government, for enabling poor people to ■enjoy all the advantages of insurance without incurring any of the risks by which it lias been hitherto attended. The amount -tit good which is expected to flow from 4;his speech is incalculable; and not the -leaßt important is the extinction of many of the establishments to whose unsafe condition Mr Gladstone directed attention. "No quality in this speech was more remarkable than the courage displayed in grappling with a great abuse, which the commercial circles, and the general public, lad long felt that legislation had never «ffectually reached before. TOUTI3TG. That is to say, canvassing in the lobby. "We may say of it, as Dunning said of the power of the Crown, "It has increased, is increasing, and ought to be diminished." £<et nobody be surprised if the House should some night pass a resolution, "That canvassing votes in the lobby is an infringement of the privileges of Parliament ; and that the sergeant-at-arms be ordered to stop it forthwith." Indeed such a bore and annoyance lias this sort of lobby-rolling > become that, unless some such resolution 'be passed, Mr Speaker must either order ' the lobby to be cleared of strangers, or open some back way' through which members may escape from their pestilent persecutors. A WEONG WITHOUT A BBMBDI. The ruieß of both Houses of Parliament to enforce order in debates, and generally to maintain the honor and dignity of Par•iiament, are very stringent. It is unlawtful for a member of one House to speak disrespectfully of the other House, nor is •*ny member allowed to use offensive words against the conduct and character of his own House. Great care is also taken to .prevent unseemly personal altercations. Mo one in debate may call a member by his name. Imputations of bad motives, misrepresentations of language, accusations "of falsehood and deceit, and contemptuous and insulting language, are also atrictly forbidden under penalties. But, though the Houses are so careful of the rights, privileges, and character of their own • members, it is observable that they^have -taken no care in [these rules? of the rights, and privileges, and characters of strangers; -for, whilst not a whisper against the character of a member may be uttered in Parliament, members may say what they please about strangers outside ; call them, irom the highest to the - lowest, rogues, thieves, liars, traitors, or by any -opprobrious term that the dictionary retognwes or the imagination can invent. Said strangers have no remedy. They -cannot go to the courts of law, for privilege of Parliament stops the way. If they -were to bring the slanderer to book by commente in the newspaper, they would be hauled up to the bar of the House, and perhaps imprisoned. In a hort, your High Court of Parliament takes no thought of the characters of strangers. This might <1o very well when Parliament sat with -tloeed doors; but now when any slander

uttered is, in less than 24 hours, sent upon the wings of a million newspapers to the remotest parts of the globe, the case is altered, and the said High Court of Parliament ought to do one of two things— either I to prevent by stringent rules and orders slanderous attacks upon strangers in the same manner as it forbids all imputations upon the characters of its own members, or else allow the slandered to clear himself by appeal to law. ROEBUCK — ONE FOB HIS NOB. Some few nights ago Mr Roebuck made a somewhat rude and unprovoked assault upon Mr Kinglake. The hon. and learned gentleman took no notice of the iusult at the moment, but quietly bided his time. At last a time came, and thus Mr Kinglake paid the debt with iuterest thereupon. " The honorable member for Sheffield," said Mr X., " has so serene a confidence in the accuracy of his own judgment that he does very frequently, in this House, state a very foolish proposition with a degree of solemnity which gives it, for the moment, something like judicial importance. 1 ' Loud laughter and significant cheers followed this hit. A DEBUT. The debutant is Mr Shaw Lefevre, nephew of Lord Eversley the late Speaker, and son of Sir John Shaw Lefevre, X.C.8., who holds in the House of Lords tke high and honorable office of Clerk in Parliament. Mr Shaw Lefevre came into the House, iugt before it assembled, as member for Reading, in place of Mr Sergeant Pigott, when that learned gentleman left the House to take his seat upon the Bench. Mr Lefevre is, by profession, a barrister, and he inaugurated his career in Parliament by the delivery of a set speech. He spoke upon the question of the Confederate vessels, and, no doubt, from a brief, the facts of which were probably got from that famous international lawyer, Mr Everett, of the United States, who cane over some months ago to act as adviser to the embassy, and sat under the gallery. But what if this were so ? All •peakers must get their facts from somebody, unless, indeed (as Earl Russell said of Lord Derby, and as Sheridan said of some one else many | years ago), they imagine them ; and the question is not so much how or where speakers get their facts, aa how they handle them. At present there is no promise that Mr Lefevre will ever be an orator ; but he has a good voice, a prepossessing personal appearance, self-possession, an easy flow of language, and the power of arrangement and of keeping his subject, as it is said, well in hand — no mean qualifications these, in a youthful aspirant ; and if they do not augur oratorical fame, they certainly foreshadow a possibly useful Parliamentary career. POBTBAITS IN A DEBATE. Whenever we have an exciting debate in the Hoase of Commons, individual traits come out with special force. Take the discussion on the Birkenhead ironclads as an example. Mr Seymour Fitzgerald begins. He is a bright, f resh-complexioned gentleman who always looks as though he had just stepped from yacht, moor, or breezy downs, and was redolent of fresh air. The Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs in the last Derby Administration, he ranks at least as high as the member with the pronounced beard and the lion like front who now fills the office and confronts him on the Ministerial bench. A vigorous, ready speaker, with a case which, if not irrefutable, at all events is very difficult to meet and to upset, Mr Fitzgerald does his party full credit, and Bits down amid encouraging cheers with a most warlike peroration. The evening is far advanced. Sir Roundell Palmer is the champion selected to do battle for the Government, and a most argumentative and powerful champion he always (mows himself. Next after the Chancellor of the j Exchequer, the Attorney-General is cerI tainly the Minister who carries the heaviest metal as an orator, and his value to the Government throughout the recent discussions on international law has been inestimable. His pale, thoughtful, earnest face lights up as hi 3 arguments begin to tell, and he gradually warms to his work and makes his points with a force of manner of which you would hardly have thought him capable. The style is rather too involved. The sentences are often too long and complicated, and are weakened by over-much of parenthesis • and reservation. Mr Horsfall, who follows him, speaks quietly and plainly, as becomes the

British merchant-representative, who knows what he wants to say, and says it without more to do. Then, on the same (Opposition) side, upon ' the front bench below the gangway, a tall rather ungainly figure rises, and, with bitter invective, declaims against the new power asserted by the Government to suspend the rights of individuals and to dispense with laws. Some men have the power of saying cutting things in a pleasant, genial manner, which almost takes the eting from out of them. But Lord Robert Cecil has not this happy knack, nor, apparently, does he care to cultivate it. All he says which is likely to damage or to wound comes with double force by reason of his emphasis and his manner. There is no lurking smile, no j glimpse of humour, no good nature in his blows, which makes a man who is knocked down by them get up, shake himself, and say, "Well, he's not a badj fellow, after all." As he speaks, Lord J Robert has a habit of talcing half a ntep in advance, as if his backers were prompting him to " go in > and win." J He retreats, but not to the same position, and occasionally, by the time he is in his peroration, finds that he is halfway across j the floor on his way to the Ministerial bench, very much as though he had determined to grapple with somebody. Just opposite, on the corresponding Ministerial bench below the gangway, a member has been watching and waiting his opportunity, bobbing up and down when he thought there was an end of the philippic, and using those other little arts which members think lawful and expedient when they have a strong desire to catch the Speaker's eye. A tall man, with rugged face and disdainful of the well-trimmed locks, but keen of eye and confident in manner, dashing into his subject with a quickness and impetuosity which make you desire to know more of him. It is Mr W. E. Forster, the crack shot of the Commons, and (the more the pity, some will say !) the most ardent Federalist there. He springs with alacrity— in the spirit only, of course — upon Lord Robert Cecil, asks how we should like it ourselves if our commerce were preyed upon by American Alabaraas, taunts the Opposition with a wish to urge the Government into war, and with a fear to submit a definite vote of censure, and generally proves himself an awkward antagonist. But a mightier man than he is also watching his opportunity, and when Mr Forster sits down, Sir Hugh Cairns, the ex-Solicitor-General ia Lord Derby's last Government, the AttorneyGeneral in that which is to come, and the Conservative Lord Chancellor of the future, rises, and, disdaining smaller game, at once fastens on the worthy legal opponent who has spoken in defence of Ministers. Sir Hugh has much of the Irish dash and abandon, toned down and refined by professional training, and he has, besides, the logical and the statesmanlike mind which enables a man to deal with great principles in a sound and statesman like way. It is long since the strangers in the gallery have listened to a more eloquent or a more brilliant harangue on what now appears to be a great Constitutional question. It is not rhetoric alone, but brilliant rhetoric joined to cogent and snstained argument, acting on the reason as strongly as on the feelings of those who listen to it. On a back bench behind Mr Disraeli and his followers sits a well-favoured member, , with a frontal development! which would delight the phrenologist, and on his rising you see at once that he is high in the respect of the House, and is a man whose words have weight wherever they are heard and read. Wr Walpole, as all know — unhappily, as his party think—seceded . from Lord Derby's Government on the subject of the Conservative Reform Bill, along with Mr Henley, who now sits by him. But his sincerity and unimpeached character place him above the level of ordinary politicians, and give him authority beyond the narrow circle of party. He now goes dead against the Government, praises the speech of Sir Hugh Cairns as an oratorical effort which has been rarely surpassed in our day, and is more earnest and impressive than even he is wont to be in deprecating the seizure of the rams and the apparent desire of the Government to introduce, ef their own authority, a new clause into the Enlistment Act At this moment the Opposition seem triumphant. But latet angnis. Mr Tom Baring rises in the very midst, and pours in a storm of, rhetorical shot and shell which flies through their ranks aad does infinity ex-

ecution. He la an American merchant. He acts as financial agent for the Federal Government. His sympathies and in- 1 ' terests are all hound up with the cause of the North. But that does not matter. Hestands the Government in good stead, blames the leaders of Opposition for hounding on a war , with the States, and thanks Earl Russelltfor averting it. No wonder Mr Seymour Fitegerald looks askance at him in hia reply, and tries to he severe. But the game if up; the Conservatives were in * dear majority, but after this some of them aurry out to avoid the division, and the chief ministerial teller, Mr Brand, . announce*, amid great cheering, a ministerial majority of 25. It is not much : but it is enough. • A. BTOBM. Whenever Mr Bernal Oabarneii see* early in theJHouse, perched. up. on the edge of the horizon, nervous and. restteso, and holding papers in his hand* a roY maybe expected. He is like one of tatse clouds which sailors call "storm-breeders.^ The storms, though, which he breeds arq seldom very mischievous in the eadv They are like thunder without lightning; — noisy, but innocuous. The honorable member got up one of these temporary,. ' noiay, furious, and as some folks 'thought, dangerous— likely, indeed, to be destructive of the Government and of the ParhV ment itself; but from the first there. wa» no danger. The case was this ;; — Erer since Parliament met there had been a cry ' , from the Conservative benches for certain ; papers on the Danish war. Lord Robert Cecil first made the demand; and almost every night since it had been reiterated iii every note of the gamut. "Papers! papers! Mr Under - Secretary Uayw'd when shall we have these papers P" Tto all this there- was but one answer. "The papers have to be sorted, editedi printed*, : corrected— in short, are aot ready." 1 Well, on this occasion, Lord Robert again lifted up the cry for papers, and again the same answer was given. Whereupon Mfc Phs~ raeli, on motion made that the House resolve itself into committee of supply, rate, and dilated at length, in hia usual forcible, sarcastic inannet, ifpon the subject otthtoQ papers, and was so eloquent and caustit that the House got into quite a red heat of excitement. ,Nor was this excite- • ment allayed, but rather increased, by the Chancellor of the Exchequer's sarcaatfe speech. " The right honorable gentleman," he said, "everybody knows, i» a great master of political fireworks,, and has no difficulty in producing at a momeat's notice any amount of display." Load cheers and laughter followed this sally, bat it did not, of course, damp down the ex-r citement. After the Chancellor came Lord Robert Cecil, who, as his- wont js, added fuel to the fame, evidently, rejoicing in the blaze ; and then Mr Oaborne rushed into the fray in so towering at passion' that he could hardly speak coherently, andi so digappointed that these papers were net forthcoming, that he moved, " Tkat ikp consideration of the navy estimate* be postponed to this day three weeks." ■