The Press.
London, England, 1858-06-19 00:00:00

THE POWER OF THE HOUSE

OF COMMONS.
" Tlt AT the power of the House of Commons has
" increased, is increasing, and ought to be dimi-
" fished," is an assertion which no one will
question who has observed its action of late, and
has respect to the balance of the Constitution.
To attempt to settle questions of grave political
importance by resolutions of its own has become
its almost daily practice ; and if it finds itself
thwarted in any of these leaps at legislation, by
the obstruction of the Government or the con-
stitutional veto of the Lords, the House of Com-
mons grows angry, and threatens the subversion
of all authority that puts itself in the way of its
assumed supremacy.
An attempt, we believe, has recently been
made to get up another " CARDWELL resolu-
tion," grounded on the refusal of the Ministry
to abolish the office of the " General Com-
manding-in-C hief," at the bidding of a small
majority of the II ouse of Commons. " How
dare you ref use to carry into effect at once," is
its language, " a vote of ours ? Know you not
that we, the Commons, govern England—that
we mean our voice in all cases to be obeyed ? It
is our office to enact laws, and the shortest way
to do this is by resolutions. It is for the other
branch of the Leg islature—and especially for the
Government, who exist only by sufferance from us
—to put in force our will. If they refuse to do
this, we will pass a vote of censure."
When this becomes the bearing of the House
of Commons, it is clear that we must look to a
gene ral election to decide whether or not we are
tending to the re-establishment of what is
known in history by the name of the " Long
Parliament."

The chief command of the army has always
been considered as one of the prerogatives rightly
belonging to the Crown ; but the present House
of Commons, in its adventurous boldness and
self-sufficient wisdom, would take the manage-
ment of all departments of the State into its oim
hands. Nothing is too difficult for it to settle—
nothing too perilous for it t o undertake. First,
it overruled by a vote of its own the new system
of qualified competition, which the Military
Council of Education recommended and the
other military authorities adopted, for admissio n
into the army. Having carried this point so
easily, its next step was to vote unnecessary the

office of Commander-in-Chief; directing the whole
army from the Horse Guards, in order to centre
all military control in one Secretary of State for
War, who should himself be under the direct
control of Parliament—thus, in fact, taking the
command of the army into its own hands. Nor
is it such questions alone that the house
takes upon itself to decide. The Jews, upon
the strength of its sole decision, must be ad-
mitted to take their seats in Parliament ; the
ancient right of the Church to rates must be
abandoned at the bidding of what is ominously
termed a "commanding majority." Thus legis-
lation, which our forefathers thought required a
politic caution and prolonged deliberation to
make it safe, is rapidly becoming a thing of po-
pular resolution and railroad celerity, without
regard either to the danger of collision or of run-
ning off the line.
We have made these observations, not because
we are any enemies to the just rights and con-
stitutional powers of the House of Commons,
but because we have observed in it of late a
tendency to override the other estates of the
realm, and to constitute its sole will the law. In
the opinion of men of large experience, there
never was a more uncertain and ungovernable
Parliament than the present—which will become
known to posterity as the Palmerston Parliament,
since it was returned, not to support a principle,
but an individual. Many of its members, being new
to legislation, seem to think that an overweening
confidence and a daring presumption are the sole
qualifications for a perfect legislator. But these
are only the common characteristics of ignorance
combined with inexperience. To make progress
is not always to improve ; to advance is not
always to get nearer the destined end. The
true legislator may, indeed, catch his ultimate
object with an intuitive glance; but his move-
ments towards it will always be slow, because
careful ;—deliberate, because intended to be de-
cisive. Time is required to produce anything
solid and permanent. Patience will achieve
safer results than a precipitate activity. here
Nature herself is our teacher—all of whose pro-
cesses are slow where the products are designed
to be lasting. All legislation that proceeds not
upon this principle is vulgar in the conception,
and perilous in the execution.
Great, undoubtedly, is the rightful power of
the house of Commons, and long may it be able
to preserve its greatness, and the spirit that be-
longs to true greatness, at the full ; and it will
do so as long as, instead of being a breaker of
law, it is content to help in being a maker of law.
The bow of power if overstrained will in-
evitably snap.
We want a Parliament elected under the
influence of some great constitutional prin-
ciple—not one evoked only to support one
particular person. Our regret is that Mr.
CARDWELL did not push his vote of censure
to its decisive issue, even though the Govern-
ment had been beaten ' • for then we should
have had a dissolution followed by a new elec-
tion, in which the cry would have been, not
PALMERSTON, but Right—a policy of justice
tempered with mercy, not a policy of ruthless
confiscation. We can have no doubt how the
people of England would have responded to that

cry.
But no House of Commons, we arc convinced,
can be fully trusted till we have had another
reform in that House. Nothing is made more
clear by late proceedings than the necessity for
this. And if the Conservatives are wise, they,
we think, will be the first and the most forward
in demanding Reform—a large and generous
Reform, in which the intelligent middle classes of
England shall be really represented. The great
Conservative party need not, we are persuaded,
be at all afraid to cast themselves upon the con-
fidence of their countrymen at large. The last
RefOrm Bill was carried by the Whigs, and they
made it onesided; the next Reform Bill ought
to be, and it is but fair that it should be, intro-
duced and carried by the Conservatives, if only
for the purpose of making even the balance.
The Whigs will, no doubt, if this be done,
seek to avail themselves of certain popular cries,
and appeal, as is their wont, to the passions, not
the reason of the people. But this will not avail
them so well now as it did thirty years ago.
There is a much larger middle class, with a much
larger amount of general intelligence, which will
keen people from being so easily deceived. Thou-