Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/472

 anticipation of the division on the Home Rule Bill last September, it was found, though the Parliament of Victoria was already twelve months old, upwards of 100 peers had not made response to the writ received by them when it was summoned. They came up breathless in batches of a dozen or a score in time to vote against the Bill. That duty accomplished they have gone their ways, and will certainly not come to town for an autumn Session, in which no sacred ark of Land, or Church, or Union is touched.

It must be admitted that, on the whole, the House of Lords is not an attractive place, either for members or for lookers on. During the Session it meets four days a week, but oftener than not finds itself in the position of having no work to do. The Lord Chancellor, with something of the pomp, circumstance, and inutility of the valiant Duke of York, marches up to the Woolsack and marches back again; when, as the Parliamentary report puts it, "the House then adjourned."

For all practical purposes the House of Lords might for at least three months of an ordinary Session be content with meeting once a week, and need not on that particular night sit beyond the dinner hour. As such an arrangement would imply that for six days out of the seven the world would go round pretty much the same as if their lordships were in Session, they are not likely to fall in with this suggestion.

In various matters of procedure the House of Lords differs from the Commons. Like the Commons, it is presided over by a member of its own body, holding his seat by equal tenure. But a gulf, wider than the passage between the two Houses, divides the Lord Chancellor from the Speaker. In the first place the Speaker is elected by the House of Commons. The Lord Chancellor is nominated by and is actually a member of the Government of the day. The consequence follows that whilst the Speaker is above all political consideration, the Lord Chancellor is a leading active member of his party. The Speaker never takes part in debate. In the House of Lords no big debate is complete without a deliverance from the Lord Chancellor.

It is a quaint custom, significant of some uneasiness in the situation, that when the Lord Chancellor takes part in debate, he steps a pace to the left of the Woolsack; thus, as it were, temporarily divesting himself of presidential function and speaking as a private member.

One natural consequence of the diverse circumstances under which the Lord Chancellor and the Speaker come to the chair is seen in their varied measure of authority. The Lord Chancellor presides, but does not govern. The Speaker in the chair of the House of Commons is autocratic. Whilst the Speaker orders the course of a debate, selecting successive contributors out of the competing throng, no one in the Lords is so poor as to do the Chancellor the reverence of trying to "catch his eye." In a set debate like that of September, the succession of speakers is settled by the Whips in conference on either side.

Another custom in which Lords and Commons pointedly differ is in the matter of reference to individual members made in the course of debate. In the Commons it is a grave breach of order that would be promptly and angrily resented for any member to allude to another by name. He is always "the hon. member" for the borough or county he county he represents, "the right hon. gentleman," "the noble lord," or "my hon. friend." The only variation to this custom is on the part of the Speaker, who when he calls upon a member to take his turn in debate, does so by name, Even the Speaker