Parliaments in the eighteenth century and in the French wars were not ...

Parliaments in the eighteenth century and in the French wars were not in the first instance legislative bodies: they met to ventilate grievances, vote taxes, and control the executive. From about 18w the age of continual legislation begins, and, as it proceeds, the ascendancy of the business end of Parliament over the debating end, of the Cabinet over the back benches, is more

and more strongly affirmed.

But between the two Reform Acts the executive and deliberative elements in Parliament were still

in reasonable equipoise: Mr Gladstone's punctilious

phrase, that the Government would seek the advice of the House, was not quite a formality in an age when the Government commanded less than half the time of the House; and the fact that a large minority, sometimes a majority, of the Cabinet were Peers relieved the congestion of debate by spreading it over two Houses. This is of great importance for the character of Victorian Parliaments.

After the disappearance of Speeches on Petitions in 1843, questions to Ministers steadily increased. The Government had only Mondays and Fridays, and on the motion for adjournment to Monday any member could raise any question, the result being, as Disraeli said, a conversazione (The present system of numbered questions goes back to a proposal for regulating the conversazione made in 1860). Moreover, every Monday and Friday before Easter, on the motion for going into Committee of Supply, the same liberty existed.

As a result, I find in one fortnight, besides several useful little Bills introduced or advanced, the following subjects reviewed by the commons, often in great detail, on the initiative of private members (sometimes, of course, by arrangement with the Government): Corruption at Elections, Criminal Appeal, Civil Service Economy, Defective Anchors, the Shrubs in Hyde Park, Publication of Divorce Reports, Church Rates, Indian Finance, the Ballot, Naval Operations in China (by the Admiral Commanding, at great length), Flogging, Manning the Navy, Competitive Examination, and the Export of Coal. As a branch of the legislature, the House of Lords is of limited utility, and it could neither compel nor avert a change of Ministry or a Dissolution; but it was an admirable theatre for the exposition or criticism of policy, and Peel, a House of Commons man through and through, came late in life to the opinion that public business might be advantaged if the Prime Minister were relieved of the management of the Commons and set to direct operations from the security of the Upper House.

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