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    Aug. 4, I860.] TheSaturday Analyst andLe...

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    THE LAZY-BONES PARLIAMENT. NOTHING can b...

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    Aug. 4, I860.] Thesaturday Analyst Andle...

    Aug . 4 , I 860 . ] TheSaturday Analyst andLeader \ 699

    The Lazy-Bones Parliament. Nothing Can B...

    THE LAZY-BONES PARLIAMENT . NOTHING can be worse than the British House of Comm ons , 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 M-. 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' patronage to recompense their outlay , of place-hunting lawyers , jointstock company diddlers , and vain , wealthy idlers , who find the House of Commons the pleasantest as welLas 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 ; trHieb 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 too lazy to . pay attention to any question it has to decide . It is- a pity that Mr . Gladstone ^ and one or two other valuable men , should be members of

    such a body ; it would be better toleave it to its corruption '—Fo let it putrefy and disappear all-thejnore quickly for the removal of its small modicum of saving salt . "Soihe time ago a celebrated essayist enquired why ?' people of taste " objected to Evangelicarreligion . Since then , Mr . Babbage has descanted on the " Decline of Science in England , " and we now want someone to conduct a philosophical investigation into the causes which have made politics a bore , lowered the faith in public men , and rendered the proceedings pt" Parliament a most heartless and empty-headed waste of time . If Englishmen were more j ? iven to abstract speculations , they would be conscious Of

    a declining faith in representative institutions . The working class stand outside the pale of the suffrage , making no efforts to get in . They want a larger share of the wealth they assist to create ; they want better education for their children , more leisure from daily toil , and u . higher standing in the social scale . Formerly they thought politics every , thing ; now they think them nothing . But if the first state had its inconveniences , the last is not without its dangers , alarming euotigh 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 non-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 down the cottages , compel the labourer to walk miles to and from his work , and ruthlessly deprive him of the meana of decency or health . Nor is legislation less needful to secure the rights and raise the condition of the factory arbizan . It is the

    fashion to boast of our industrial civilization , the might ot our steam-engines , and the number of our looms ; but there are few spectacles more dismal than the ugly , squalid streets of a manufacturing town ; and no philanthropist , no Christian can believe that the masses have no higher destiny than ¥ xhauittug " " tdil , "Ibr "fflsrbBttBP ~ r 08 ttltrtlT « m ~ a ~ bwia-pi ¥ Dviflfonr of the necessaries of a low form of animal life . . French treaties and extendod trade aro lino tilings in their way , but if they only keep a somewhat larger population , at the same level of suffering , want , nnd crime , ncitlior civilization nor humanity lniA r o gained much by their " operation . It is true that the factory port' to-clny 1 hih some comforts which the old feudal baron could not enjoy , but while the total of good things divisible by society has increased , the mode of

    division is , if anything , less equitable than in some former times . A Parliament that represents the selfish interests of the 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 men of original minds . Its Loryism is pig-headed ignorance and self-seeking , and its [ Radicalism has no basis in earnest , painstaking thought . The Tiberalleaders 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 the thinking of men like Huskisson , Bentham , and Mill , and has never arrived at a higher view of political principles than as commodities for exchange . Eor 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 Crown . Unfbrtunatelv , 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 he a ring 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 only 38 , while at one period it dwindled down to 23 . " Such a Parliament is not an honour to the country , but a national disgrapej 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 means uncommon ; but we cannot believe that Parliaments have done their work , and regard a revival

    of interest in their proceedings as essential to the welfare and stability of our society . Politics will have to become social , and all great questions must be looked at in the light '' --of Behthain ' 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 Parliament neglect the consideration ¦ of the case ? The answp . KJs iplain ^ -thaLit is a , Parlmiiiftnfy not of statesmen , but of capitalists , ; who wish to delay the hour Of change . Whether we look to home or Colonial Government , we find'that our legislature does nothing to grapple with a single , great sociql question , and this is the fundamental reason why it is sinking into disrepute .

    We produce crime and pauperism m customary and timehonoured abundance ; and if we can point to some ameliorations of the condition of the masses , wo find them balanced , or nearly so , by corresponding depressions . This is shown by striking facts , such as the large area , in which cottages have diminished while population lias increased , and in the lower condition of stocking and silk weavers , as compared -with former times . When tho factory system replaces home industry , tho number of but their condition is

    persons employed may be greater ; worse . It is more dependant , and nocessarily associated with a i ) ainful neglect of domestio duties . This fact was the cause of the shoemakers' strike in Northampton and csewhere . The men were mistaken , as the Coventry weavers aro , in resisting change ; but they were right in a moral rebellion against the degradation of their condition . It is enough to havo in tho House of Lords a drag upon , our wheels . If tho Houso of Commons is doterniinod to

    bo a vulgar caricature of tho Lords , and bo a drag too , our legislature will be all drag and no whoels , which tho opimtry-will-Tiot ™ bp - able-to tolerate as apermanenfe-condition of things . Wo have now u Houso of Commons that cannot pass ft "budgot till tho fag ond of tho session , when it suiTondGrB its rights to tho Lords ; that cannot got through a Bankruptcy Bill ; that cannot puss a Reform , Bill ; that will not pay attention to anything that rolatos to India ; that has not boon ablo to got u ]> ono isinglo intolligent dobato on foreign policy ; that has no other irioa oi national dofonoo than voting any proposlorouw sum that is

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 4, 1860, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_04081860/page/3/