THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

Timaru Herald, Volume LVIII, Issue 1770, 3 June 1895, Page 3

THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

A London daily, in an article on the retirement of Mr Peel from the Speakership of the House of Commons, says : — Mr Peel, doubtless, like Mr Gladstone, somewhat idealised the House of Commons. The traditions of that body are not altogether so dignified as these two illustrious Commoners would have us suppose. What the House was like in early times we do not positively know, but there is no reason to suppose it was very far above the general manners of the age. Indeed the special value of the House is that it is really a representative assembly ; it catches the tone and sentiment, nay it mirrors forth the very " form and body of the time." In the Tudor period, at which we first begin to know what the House was like, it expressed the inner sentiments of the rising middle class — deeply respectful, «knoßt servile indeed, to the Crown, but with a new touch of Puritan firmness, as exemplified in Wentworth,.a foretaste of the coming Puritan rule. During the last century the House was prohably a far from really dignified i body. We must not be misled by the stately oratory of Pulteney and Pitt into supposing that they represented the modern level of intelligence or decorum, The manners of Walpole, who, was by far the greatest member of the first half of the century, were coarse in the extreme, while many of the benches were packed by the rough and ignorant Squire Westerns of the time, and by the members Of the October Club. No respect was shown to Burke, whose finest orations emptied the House ; while the violence of Burke himself, of both Henry Fox and Charles James Fox, and the drunkenness of Pitt the younger a.qd Sheridan, would not be tolerated now for a single instant. How the House in the early years of the present century struck an intelligent observer who came to it with idealised expectations, we may learn from Samuel Bamford's interesting "Passages from the Life of a Radical." Poor Bainford was disgusted when he found that these noisy, dull, unruly, and in some cases drunken persons made up the great House of Commons of which he and his fol low-workers had Bpoken so much of in their Lancashire homes. Bu,t all through itwillheseen^hat; tf*pH.Quae did really repres.en.Uhe general tone and manners Qf those who elected it, If it Was servile the age was servile ; if it was coarae the age was equally coarse. As a matter of fact no institution can stand unless it is idealised, unless it is mirrored in the historic imagination, unless our analytic judgments about it are taken, as George Eliot says, in " a strong solution of feeling." No one, therefore, will criticise too closely the tender sentiment of reverence for the historic House entertained by Mr Gladstone asd. Mr Peel. Where we should fee inclined to criticise Mr Pe.eVa farewell utterances is jn, his laying exclusive stress upon the maintenance of the historic dignity and traditions of the IJouse. Unquestionably the manners of the House have improved, There is greater decorum than ever. The House rather tends to the commonplace, to the colourless monotony of an assembly of respectable city men. In this too, it reveals its tepreseiitative charaoter, for that is the nbte of an English public assembly today. We have no sleepy, ignorant country squires, stupefied by strong ale ; but then we have no Pitt, no Grattan, no Burke. Things tend to a dull uniformity. The House is therefore likely.on the whole to maintain its dignity, which has certainly never been lowered by a single Labour member. The real question. }s whether it will maintain its. 6sciency. Old traditions are \yell enough, but we heed them wedded to" new methods in order that flie new tasks, of to; -day may be performed, The methods whjch did well enough for a narrow m.iddje*cjass electorate and a leas complex social life are scaroely equal to the far more difficult and onerous duties of to-day. The machine is clogged, and the nation's work is in serious arrears. If Parliament is to overtake its work, if the national demands are to be satisfied, a great scheme of legislative reform is inevitable. Until that is undertaken we fear that there will be little else than " ploughing the sand."