The Osceola times., 1880-05-01
Discipline iu the House of Commons.
New York Sun.

debate, are equivalent to kind of revo-
luton in Parliamentary procedure. By
their operation, guarantees which have
long been deemed essential to freedom
of debate will virtually be swept away
This innovation, which Conservatives
and Liberals have joined hands to ratify,
will eflectually silence the Irish minor
ity; yet the time may come when the
same power of muzzling obnoxious MEM
bers will be turned against the inven-
tors.
The methods of obstruction which the
new rules are designed TO Illustrate may
be recalled in few sentences. 1t has
heretofore been practicable for any
member to protract or postpone the dis
cussion of particular measures by vari-
ETY. of motions which, as being debatable
and requiring division of the House,
necessarily consumed much time. Some
of these dilatory proceedings might be
taken when the Speaker was in the chair,
and others when the House had resolved
itself into a committee of the whole.
There were certain limits to the extent
to which single member could thus
block the wheels of the Parliamentary
engine, but there was literally no check
on the power of a knot of members
leagued together for obstructive pur-
poses. During the last session Mr.. Par
nell demonstrated. to the intense disgust
of the majority, the use to which this
feature of the British Parliamentary
mechanism might be put by sagacious
and determined men. His own motives
were plain enough. lie desired Home
Rule for Ireland; and, convinced that
this concession could never be extorted
in tn, existing temper of Parliament, he
endeavored to arouse such degree of
evaporation and Embarrassment as would
dispose hls opponents to rid themselves
of the Irish members at any sacrifice.
If he could not actually secure an
indorsement of Home Rule, he might,
at all events, extract one concession after
another, until he gained the reputation
of a second O'Connell in the eyes of the
Irish people.
Mr.. Parnell was. by no means, reckon
ing without his host in counting on his
system of obstruction as a permanent
instrument of coercion. He calculated
on the opposition of the mass Of the
Liberals TO any curtailment of the abso-
lutte freedom Of debate. The record and
attitude of their party, their precedents
and principles, indisputably favored that
assumption. Parliamentary history is
full of gallant struggles prosecuted and
great achievements wrought during the
long contest between the Commons and
the Crown, by virtue of the very privil-
eges to which the Irish champion had
recourse. 1t seemed, too, not improba-
BILE that the weapons which had proved
80 precious to the people in their COLI
sion with the royal power might become,
in some future crisis, no less important
to a minority representing the sober
sense of the nation, and striving to arrest
the headlong progress of revolution.
Both in the last session and during the
late recess some of the most prudent
and trusted leaders of the Liberals have
spoken and written with extreme diff
dence and perplexIty touching the mode
of dealing with the obstructionists.
They have pointed out that, even in its
latest phase, the government of Great
Britain has not been in principle,
although it has seemed to be il practice,
the absolute, untrammelled government
of Parliamentary majority; but that,
on the contrary, the rights OF mlnorities
and factions representing every section
anu sildut Ol III lllt
islands were fortified by bulwarks here
tofore held sacred and impregnable. SO
long as votes in supply and the annual
mutiny bill could be interrupted and
deferred by few resolute members, no
body of men, however preponderant in
numbers and influence, could be the
unchallenged masters of the purse and
of the sword. Under the unwritten
British Constitution, where the execu-
tive has shrunk into a legal fiction, and
where the Judiciary has no power of
revising legislation, the rights OF minor
tiles, it was argued, found their main
groundwork and defense in the liberties
and immunities painfully built up by
the experience of three centuries. 1t
would be rash and perilous, they said,
to deal rudely with the hard-won privi-
leges of debate, because these, now and
then, proved irksome to that Parlia-
mentary majority which had gradually
absorbed the power once exercised by
the Crown.
The judgment of these cautious poll
ticians might have had more weight
with their party but for the awkward
quandary in which the Liberals found
themselves at the beginning Of this ses-
sion. The attempt of many OF their
members to secure the Irish vote by
pledging a species of support to the
Home Rule movement, had caused q
reaction against them in the minds Of
English electors. Notwithstanding the
more or less overt cooperation OF Lord
Derby, and the support of the Irish ele-
ment. the Liberals failed to win seat
in Liverpool, and little later lost South
wark. which had been one OF their
strongholds. At this juncture, when the
signs of Liberal weakness were multi
plying. Lord Beaconsfield took advan-
take ut n repetition of Parnells tactics
during a single evening to place the
opposition in a dilemma, either horn
OF which was sure TO be unpleasant.
He refused, he said, to take the respon-
sibihty of altering, by strict party
vote, the venerable precedents OF Par
liamentary procedure. Either the Lib
erals must make common cause with
him in 'extlnguishing the obstruction
lists, or he would forthwith dissolve
Parliament and appeal to the country
for its decision on that question. Now,
in view Of the recent elections, an abrupt
dissolution was not, by any means,
desired by the Liberal leaders; and
least of all could they venture TO defend
at the polls the propriety of allowing a
few Irish members to clog the move
ment of tho whole Parliamentary
machine. What we should call eau
Gus of their followers was accordingly
held, and it was resolved to sustain the
Government in muzzling the obstruc-
tionists. In pursuance of this policy,
the resolution moved on Thursday by