The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-06-25
Questions Asked and Answered by T. P
O'Connor Bearing on Happenings
of This Nature.
The Arts of Parliamentary Strategy Interest
ingly Explained by the Noted
Nationalist.

vote against their ministry. What
members of this type do is to abstain
If, for instance, you look down the list
of the divisions which have recently
taken place on the fiscal question, you
will find the ordinary supporters of the
government divided into three classes.
There are, first, of course, the main
body, which goes into the lobby and
supports the government. Then there
is the much smaller body, the Free
Fooders, as they are called, who go
into the opposition lobby and vote
against their own government. They
number something like twenty-six.
And then comes the third section-that
is to say, the members who abstain
and do not vote either for or against
the government. They run up some
times to as high a number as twenty
or thirty.
These gentlemen, of course, are
largely responsible for the breakdown
of the government, but at the Same he
time they place themselves in a much
more favorable position with their par
ty organization, than if they had voted
against the government. They can al
ways continue to demand the support
of their associations because they have
not violated party discipline, and, if
there be a strong current of opinion,
which takes the same unfavorable
view as they do Of some act of the gov
ernment, they will be able to divide
| their associations, and to wrest the
| nomination from the majority.
There was curious case in the first
parliament of which I was member
the parliament of 1880. There was
a member for northern constituency
who never gave a single vote in sin
gle division during the five long years
of this parliament's duration. The sad
explanation in his case was that imme-
diately after he had been elected he
lost his reason, and that all through
the duration of the parliament he was
an inmate Of a lunatic asylum. At
that time there was no provision in the
law of parliament for vacating the
seat of lunatic-the law, l believe,
has since been changed, and so this
constituency had to remain unrepre-
sented during all those five years.
Now, assuming the conditions that
l have described, it is easy to see how
a majority begins gradually to dwin-
die and to become by degrees beauti-
fully less. But still there is a majority
left, and a substantial one; how does
that in the end disappear? And this
brings me to the explanation of how
a snap division is taken. The house
of commons has several very different
lives during the course of a single sit
ting. There are hours when it is near
ly always fairly full, there are hours
when it is nearly always fairly empty.
1t used to be always full at question
time when the house began questions
at half-past three; but now that the
house meets at the early hour of two,
question time is an empty instead of a
full season. Then the house is nearly
always pretty full between seven and
half-past seven, for that is the period
of divisions, and, however members
may desire to keep away from the
house when there are debates but nc
divisions, they are always anxious to
be present when they can have a de
vision, and, at the same time, miss
the speech. Again, the house is near.
| ly always empty from nine to ten
o'clock at night; there are no divis
ions. as rule, to be expected at SC
early an hour.
4 The first thing, then, a party has tc
do if it wants to take snap division
is judiciously to choose the hour for
the division. That hour will, Of course,
be the hour when the attendance is
likely to be small instead of large.
The other day, for instance, when the
government was left in a minority of
eleven, the division took place at half
past two-that is to say, at an early
hour when, as rule, the house of