IN PARLIAMENT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 77, Issue 155, 3 July 1934, Page 3

IN PARLIAMENT

ABSENTEE MEMBERS PROBLEM OF THE CENTURIES. BRITAIN BAFFLED. To hold a General Election is easyenough. To ensure that members, once elected, will attend, is not so simple a matter. This thorny, though familiar, pro-blem has been engaging the attention of his Majesty’s Government in Northern Ireland, writes Dnglie Foo’t, M.P., in the Daily Telegraph. It seems that Mr. de Valera and Mr. P. Alaclogan, though returned at the head of the poll for South Down and South Armagh respectively, have neglected to take their seats. In consequence the Commons House at Belfast ds two members short. So a bill has been introduced to make attendance compulsory. The aim of this measure is doubtless laudable, but the precedents are not encouraging. For the question of the absentee member has baffled thc ingeuity of English Parliaments for over six hundred years. In the Middle Ages it was a constant problem. Frequently the knights or burgesses wearied of their Parliamentary duties, and went home before thc 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. Even the Parliamentary wages of 4s a day for a knight and 2s for a citizen or burgess do not seem to have been a sufficient recompense for the thankless task of voting subsidies for the King’s needs. Statutory Duty. It is not always appreciated that i I there is a statutory duty on M.P.’s Ito attend the sittings of Parliament. A 'statute of Richard 11. provides that. [ “If any person (be he archbishop, : bishop, abbot, prior, duke, earl, baron, j banneret, knight of borough, or other singular person or commonalty) do abI sent himself, and come not at the said summons (except he may reasonably and honestly excuse himself to our Lord the King) he shall be amerced, and otherwise punished, according as of old times hath been used, to be done within thc said realm.” iDrastic as they were, these penalties do not seem to have had the desired ! effect. Or maybe by the 16th century the prospect of amercement or other customary punishment had lost its terrors. For in 1514, under Henry VIII. [ we Jimi Parliament again returning to ' the charge. From the preamble to the ; act of that year we learn that “In the end of every Parliament | divers and many great and weighty i matters, as well touching the pleasure, ; weal, and surety of our sovereign Lord I the King as the commonweal 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 ; barons of the Cinque Ports, “long time I before the end of the said Parliament, • of their own authorities, depart and go | home into their countries, whereby thc | said great and weighty matters are i many times greatly delayed.” i It is therefore enacted that none of I the said knights, citizens, burgesses, and barons may, without the express leave of the Speaker and Commons, de- ! part from the said Parliament “till the ' said Parliament be fully finished. 1 ended,, or prorogued.” 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 attendance. Lord Coke has recorded in his Institutes how in 1554 a number of members voluntarily withdrew from the House as a protest against, the subservience of the majority of the Alinis-t-ry of the day. The Attorney-General was ordered to indict the seceders in the King's Bench, and an information was pie ferred against them for “departing without license, 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 lines. The rest traversed; but judgment, against them was prevented by the (Queen’s death. There has been no subsequent attempt to invoke the jurisdiction of the Courts. Instead the House of Commons has taken the matte.” 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 Berjeant-at-Arms, at his own charges, to attend the service of thc House. Fines Paid by Members. The Restoration Parliament was even harsher. Defaulters who failed to be present on an appointed day, and who had no legitimate excuse for absence, were ordered to pay a fine of £2O. 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 future day would be fixed when the House was to be called over. Those who did not then answer to their names were usually given a second and even a third chance. If finally they tailed to appear and sent no satisfactory explanation of their absence, they were ordered to be sent for in custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms. Thus in 1825 i.ic .(.■•cant was commanded to take six members into custody. Among them was the Alarquis of Tavistock, whe r u day 's incarceration was a) iowed to be discharged on payment ol the Serjeant’s fees. The last occasion when the Housf was called over was in 1836. There jase .’.ii ._’vcra..l ons for a ca |J since then, but they have all beer iitg.ilived, m’ discharged before thc appointed day. Presumably this method of coercion would still be open to a conscientious majority. The difficulty has not been confined to inducing the members to come tc Westminster. There have been occa. sions when, although within the bvili ing, they showed a strangr ra’.suance to enter the House n&eif. On February 6, 1688, a large number had gathered in a room known as the Painted Chamber. The Serjeant-at-Arms was sent to require the return to the House of ail those present, with the exception of three who were lame. Hiding from Mr. Speaker. After a few minutes he returned with the announcement “that he having acquainted the members of the House

in the Painted Chamber with thc order of the House for their speedy return, very few of them took notice of the direction of the House.” History repeated itself 27 yyars later, when an ad hoc committee was ap-po-inted to take the names of members “in the places in Westminster Hall.” In due course the chairman reported “that there were several members in the said places who refused to come out of the said places into the House.” Peremptory orders were forthwith sent to th© recalcitrants to attend thc House immediately, and eventually all of them complied. Fines, calls, and actions-at-law have alike fallen into disuse. The methods of the twentieth century are less obvious but more effective. They arc twofold, namely, the pressure of party Whips and the publication of division lists in local newspapers. The Ulster Parliament would be well advised to wait until the electors of South Down and South Armagh become tired of being disfranchised.