construct as well as to destroy; to develop and apply as well as to grumble and criticise. Parliament has lost its power, because every limb is loaded, like a railway porter's with luggage; it has more learning than it has wit to apply, more sense than discretion, an abounding intelligence equal to the apprehension of anything and everything, but without science or art to methodize its knowledge and turn it to practical account. We believe that it wants no capacity for any of its functions; count off its members of every rank of distinction, and it will furnish some one able to do each requi site; but regarded collectively, it is what Cobbett once with witty apposition designated it, a mob-embarrassed by the multitude and the variety of its riches. The thousand and one matters under consideration never engage its attention long enough to insure its determination; it deals with them momentarily and fragmentarily. Its Blue-books overwhelm instead of inform, and the members of every sort are "wholly to seek." They take up bits of a subject, but never comprehend the State, and the composition of the State. Each for his own subject, indifferent to the fate of that of others, forgets that the successful carriage of the latter, by right methods of investigation, by candid treatment and happy adaptation of its specialities to the general purpose, would prepare his way, would train the House to the fair consideration of his own measure, and dispose it by its knowledge to appreciate it, instead of by its ignorance to regard it as a bore and a crotchet. We have to consider how to bring about a better state of things; how to help the people, help the Government, and help one another, in a quiet, natural manner, is the problem. It is no use blaming the Government; we are all the Government. Every voter is a bit of it; every member of Parliament is a bigger bit; every member of the Government is a bit, but though nominally bigger, less powerful, by the pressure of responsibility to his fellows. The member of Government is the share of the plough, but not the ploughman. The independent member of Parliament, who has knowledge, sense, independence, experience, and habits of industry, with some liberality in employing the necessary means for doing his duty, now in supporting, now in opposing the Government, and now moderating the party rage of supporters and opponents, is the true governor among us. Appreciating and encouraging to the Government, just and considerate towards the active independent member, he may give efficacy to the thousand good but imperfect qualities of the ambitious, vain, eager, active persons who constitute a free representative assembly; like a gentleman and a patriot and a Christian, giving to each his due consideration, and turning every man's effort to a good purpose, even better than the purpose of the mover. But how are we to rescue the House, and by freeing the limbs of our members from their burden, to enable them to act? We regard the present as a moment in which much direct conclusive action cannot well be performed. We are inclined to act upon the maxim, "reculez pour mieux sauter;" to make this a stage of reflection and of preparation; to take accurate stock of our affairs, with a view to a wise selection of future adventures; to do whatever is needful and quite ripe, demanded by the present emergency, or acceptable to all. Acting on this policy, not final but provident, we would begin by a survey of the nation in each locality, and by an enumeration of every class of personages within it. We would collect the information that fills so uselessly our Blue-books, in reports of the state of things in each county-a range neither too extensive nor too minute. Our county members, in which we include the borough members of the counties, having embodied in a connected form all the information relating both to the local institutions of their county, and to the general institutions of the country within the county, would have a standard of comparison with other counties, and a test of the operation of the institutions of the country upon the people; their observation would be narrowed in range, and more accurate. A member of Parliament full of information thus systemati cally collected, tested too by the remarks of his constituents, would come to Parliament the bearer of testimony to the state of that part of the nation which he represents. He would be a statesman in spite of himself; for so informed he would not fail to be infected with the largeness of view, which would soon become the characteristic of the assembly. Not that the House of Commons has not largeness of view; it is largeness of view inaccurately informed, and undisciplined by the habit of constantly regarding parts and specialities in reference to the whole subject and to the generalities to which they belong. But it is unfair to consider the member as the person to blame most; he is but a representative. His constituents must be imbued with right ideas, keenly felt, before the representative will feel sufficiently supported, to impel urgency, on his part, in Parliament. Reform, like charity, should always begin at home. Let us exert ourselves. If we suffer, let us memorialize, with great earnestness, our member. If several suffer, let them join in assisting the member, with a condensed statement of the subject; we have no right to expect that he should do all the work of telling our tale of suffering, nor, indeed, prepare the measure for its redress. It should be prepared at our expense, and the preparation would acquaint us with many things which we are apt to lose sight of in the generalities of a petition. Every member being armed with these facilities, would find opportunities to compare notes with others charged with a like mission, and all would join in choosing for the subject a leader, who would easily be found, if a sufficient number of members were in a condition to support him, not by presence only, but by speech and action. The great men of the day, instead of lying by, bandit-fashion, to take advantage of the weak moments of their rivals, would be compelled to engage more industriously than they do in practical matters, and to demand for themselves, as well as for their followers, the assistance and facilities which every member should have in getting up the legislative matter, and in framing the legislative measure, and in conducting the correspondence and intercourse incident to the management of a measure. Step by step our reformation would grow; the Government, beset by well-organized forces, would organize its own force; would take care to be provided, with able assistants, both within the House and without the House, learned not only in legal and official lore, but in the constitutional rationale of many useful traditions and technicalities, which appear to be obsolete or merely formal, and in the history and state of the subjects of their respective departments. But more than this, the Government, being put upon its mettle, would find it necessary to educate the House, and to remove the obstacles which result more from ignorance of the whole view of the subject than from any other cause. It would find it necessary to convert the monstrum horrendum informe of Blue-books into a manageable mass, which it might do by requiring, as we have elsewhere suggested, that all information therein contained should be arranged in counties, and embodied in county reports for the use of the representatives, as well as in general reports for the use of the departments of State; a merely mechanical operation, if rightly worked. The Government should have in its Privy Council, and in the official establishments of the departments of the Privy Council, systematic and permanent means of collecting the information now scattered and lost in the respective executive departments, and of dispensing that information, not only among the existing members of the Government, but (by making them take active part in the Council so far as relates to the collection of information) probably extend the same means to all the Privy Councillors, their duty being confined to the superintendence of the general collection of information,-the policy of the day and the active conduct of business being intrusted to the Cabinet and the working members of the Government. Thus far we have proceeded in the present system, suggesting much which might be adopted without going greatly out of our way, or proposing novelties which might require some degree of exhaustive effort to think of, and still more to bring about. Our proposition, hitherto, has been to look about us, to master each a limited and not extravagant range of public knowledge, and by mutual appreciation and assistance to do the best we can in our present predicament, by our present means. More, however, much more, we feel to be requisite. The Secretary of the Treasury had last session much ado to get sufficient time to vote the estimates, which have been extended of late by the adoption of the principle of bringing all expenditure before the House of Commons, and voting everything. The SolicitorGeneral complained that he could not find time for his Bills, nor disposition in the great body of members to deal with them. The same difficulty Mr. Lowe experienced with several important measures affecting trade; and it is believed that all departments of the public service have suffered in like manner from the want of an assigned agency to do the work to be done— of an organization, in short, of committees specially appointed, with their assigned periods of sitting, their proper rules, proper facilities of business. Unquestionably, the time has come for a better distribution of business. Opinion is in its favour, and it only requires that some of our eminent parliamentary men should apply their high abilities to the task, or even declare for it. Let us have five committees, corresponding to the great divisions or departments of the State business:- 1. A Committee of Persons and Privileges, Petitions and Claims. 2. A Committee of Public Instruction. 3. A Committee of Justice and Law. 4. A Committee of Finance. 5. A Committee of General, Local, and Special Affairs. Each to be one hundred in number, with a power to appoint sub-committees, say of Justice and Law. 1. A Committee of Consolidated Law. 2. A Committee of Tribunals. 3. A Committee of Pleading. 4. A Committee of Forms and Instruments. 5. A Committee of Procedure. And it might be— 6. A Committee of Personal Laws. |