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THE LAZY-BONES PARLIAMENT.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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"VfOTHINGr can be worse than the British House oi J- Commons , if the mode of its composition is considered theoretically . 'So many members are returned by the dictation of the aristocracy , and the remainder , with scarcely an exception , purchase their seats with an extravagant expenditure , directed by professional sharpers , who contrive that elections shall be managed with the least possible regard to the principles of honesty , or the fitness of the candidates . The suffrage is restricted under the pretence that the working-class is not sufficiently educated to understand political questions . ; and , at the same time , a system is sustained which almost precludes the possibility of an intelligent constituency returning a representative qualified for his task . When a vacancy occurs , the question is , not who would make a useful member of the Legislature , but who can be found who will bribe the attornies , employ the printers , open the public-houses , purchase the old freemen , and treat the electors at large . The choice is limited by these conditions , and not once in a hundred times will a man who deserves to be an ]\ £ P . comply with them at all . The orders of men who will pay the money , and pass through the ordeal of degradation , may be summed up in a few words . They comprise the political hacks of both parties , who look to the corrupt administrators of patronage to recompense their outlay , of place-hunting lawyers , jointstock company diddlers , and vain , wealthy idlers , who fiud the House of Commons the pleasantest as well as the most expensive club . Gradually , but steadily , have the influences worked that produce this result , until we have arrived at an elective assembly which seems near the apotheosis of respectable delinquency ; which is widely divorced from the intellect of the country ; which cherishes no aspirations and exhibits no patriotism ; which knows and cares nothing ' . about political principles , and has become top lazy to pay attention to any question it Jias to decide . It is a pity that Mr . Grladstone , and one or two Other valuable men , should be members of such a body ; it would be better to leave it to its corruption , —to let it putrefy and disappear all the more quickly for the removal of its small inodi 6 um of saving salt . JU ™ Some time ago a celebrated essayist enquired why " people of taste " objected to Evangelical religion . iSince then , Mr . Babbage has descanted on the "D ecline of Science in . England , " and we now want some one to conduct a philosophical investigation into the causes which have made poli tics a "bore , lowered the faith in public men , and rendered the proceedings of Parliament a most heartless and empty-headed waste of time . If Englishmen were more ^ giV 6 n ~ a 1 ^ lTet specul ations' ; ' they" \ voultl ~ b ^^ OTi sc - roii ^ fa declining faith in representative institutions , The working class stand outside the pale of the sidlrage , inaking no efforts to get in . They want a larger share of the wealth they assist to create ; they want bettor education for their children , more leisure from daily toil , and ji higher standing in . the social scale . Formerly they thought politics everything ; now they think , them nothing . ' But if the first state had its inconveniences , the last is not without its dangers , alarming euough to any one . who can see a little further than his nose . It is true the grievances of the working class are social rather than political ; but legislation and taxation come into contact with social questions at every point . Without legislation the rural labourer will for ever suffer from the squire ' s uon-performance of the duties that ought to be inseparable from property in land . While the state protects the game in preference to the peasant , the lord or squire will pull clown the cottages , compel the labourer to walk miles to and from his work , and ruthlessl y deprive him of the means of decency or health . Nor is legislation less needful to secure the rights and raiBO the condition of the factory arfcizan . It is the fashion to boast of our industrial civilization , the might of our steam-engines , and the number of bur looms ; DUt there are few spectacles more dismal than the ugly , squalid streets of a manufacturing town : and no philanthropist , no Chris- . tian-can- believe that-tbe-masses have- no higher-destiny than exhausting toil , for no better result than u barq provision of the necessaries of a Ioav form of animal' life . French treaties and extended trade are fine things in their way , but if they only keep a somewhnt larger population , at tho same lovol of suffering , want , and crime , neither civilization uor humanity have gained much by their operation . It is true that tho factory serf to-day has bohio comforts which the old feudal baron could not enjoy , but while tho total of good things divisible by society has increased , tho mode of ;
division is , if anything , less equitable than in some former _ times . A Parliament that represents the selfish interests of the L wealthy classes , does not interest the working man ; and if ' no improvement in representation takes place , he will look to some other means of bettering his state ; Nor does this sort of Parliament interest the nien of original mind 3 . Its Loryism is pig-headed ignorance and self-seeking , and its Radicalism has no basis in earnest , painstaking thought . The Tiberal leaders in the House of Commons have not for many a day furnished a new idea , or suggested a new application of an old one . The Manchester school has lived upon a fragment of thfe thinking bf men like Huskisson , Bentham , and Mill , and has never arrived at a higher view of political principles than as commodities for exchange . For years they bothered the country about India—they helped to destroy the Company , because it did not force its subjects to grow cheap cotton , but they had no practicable scheme of Indian government , and they now find that they gratified their destructiveness at the expense of a dangerous increase of the patronage of the Grown . Unfortunately , no other school of opposition politicians has become conspicuous , and session after session passes without remedying a single important social wrong , or performing one single promise of Constitutional Reform . Members do not like work , they prefer voting without hearing the debates . During the debates preceding the second reading of the Indian Army Bill- —one of the most important measures of this or any other session—according to Col . Sykes , " the maximum number of members present was o n ly 38 , while at one period it dwindled down to 23 . " Such a Parliament is not an honour'to the country , but a . national disgrace , and yet it is the natural result of those principles of election which are defended with so much zeal . If it be not possible to change the working of our representative institutions they must decline ; the press must form and collect the opinions that are to rule . Such , a theory is by no meansTlncommon ; but we cannot believe that Parliaments have done their work , arid regard a revival of interest in their proceedings as essential to the-. welfare " . ' -and stability of ^ oui * society . Politics will . have ' "to become social , and all great questions must be "looked at in the light of Benthain ' s famous principle of the ' ¦ * ' greatest happiness of the greatest number . " We have yet solved no . . important question of the relative claims of labour and capital ; and scores of strikes every year demonstrate the barbarism of our condition . If , as Mr . J . S . Mill , and other leading thinkers believe , some form of associated labour must replace the present relation of master and servant , why does Par l iament neglect the . consideration of the case ? The answer is plain , that it is a Parliament , not of statesmen , but of capitalists , who wish to delay tho hour of change . Whether we look to home or Colonial Government , we find that our legislature does nothing to grapple with , a single , great social question , and this is the fundamental reason why it is sinking into disrepute . We produce crime and pauperism in . customary and timehonoured abundaiice ; and if we can point to some ameliorations of the condition of the massos , we find them "balanced , or nearly so , by corresponding depressions . This is shown by striking facts , such as tho largo area , in which cottages have diminished while population has , increased , and in the lower condition of stocking and silk weavers , as compared with former times . When tho factory system replaces homo industry , the number of persons employed may be greater ; but their condition is worse . It is more dependant , and ndeessarily associated with a painful neglect ; of domestic duties . This faot was tho cause of the shoemakers' strike in Northampton and e . sewhcre . Tho men were mistaken , as tho Coventry weavers aro , in resisting ohango ; but tlioy were right in a moral rebellion against the degradation of thoir condition . It is enough to havo in the House of Lords n drag upon , our wheols . If tho Houso of Commons is determined to bo a vulgar caricature of tho Lords , find bo a drug too , our legislature : will-be :-all ; < lrag ™ aiul no- wlieels r -wlHoh tho ~ - oountry will not be able to tultrato aw a ijermimont condition of things . We havo now n Houso of Commons thai ; cannot pass a budget till , tho fag ond of tho session , when it surrenders its rights to tlio Lords ; that cannot got through ft Bankruptcy Bill ; that cannot pass a Reform Bili : that ' will not pay attention to anything that roluton lo India ; that has not been able to got iin ono Hihtflo intelligent debate on foreign policy ; that hnw no other idea of national defence than voting any preposterous sum that is
Untitled Article
Aug . 4 , I 860 . ] The Saturday Analyst and Leader . 699
The Lazy-Bones Parliament.
THE LAZY-BONES PARLIAMENT .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 4, 1860, page 699, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2359/page/3/
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