all its legislative and financial proposals, and may be required to explain and justify any branch of its administrative action. It must be admitted that the time allotted to the criticism of administration in committee is frittered away in the ventilation of unimportant grievances. The system has its defects. but it exercises a wholesome influence on the official world, and frequently gives rise to debates of great value and importance. Nothing clears the air more effectually than a good parliamentary debate, or reveals more distinctly the currents of popular feeling and public opinion, and the force with which they flow. Of the results of such a debate the division list is a very imperfect and fallacious test. The arguments and attitude of minorities and of individual members are factors of the greatest importance in determining the action of the government.

It must be repeated that parliament does not govern, and is not intended to govern. A strong executive government, tempered and controlled by constant, vigilant, and representative criticism, is the ideal at which parliamentary institutions aim.

CHAPTER V

SITTINGS AND PROCEDURE

EVER since the beginning of parliamentary history Westminster has been the place at which parliaments have been ordinarily held. They have been held elsewhere in exceptional circumstances, but Westminster has always been their normal home. The last occasion on which parliament sat in any other place was the Oxford parliament of Charles II. The habits of Plantagenet kings were migratory, and, for reasons of war, state, or economy, they often shifted their quarters. But the Palace of Westminster, outside, yet conveniently near, their chief city, was their principal residence, and it was natural that the assemblies which developed into parliaments should usually be summoned to meet in their Westminster palace.

The old palace and the abbey closely adjoined each other, and were practically contiguous, for one passed into the abbey through a gateway from Old Palace Yard, which was the inner court of the palace. Which particular hall or room in the palace

was most frequently used for the meeting of the earliest parliaments is uncertain, but it is known that for many centuries, and down to the end of the eighteenth century, the lords sat in an ancient building at its south end. This was the building which Guy Fawkes tried to blow up.

Whether in the earliest parliaments the two houses sat together, and if so at what time they began to sit apart, is also still a matter of discussion among historians. Perhaps one is entitled to ask whether it is certain that they sat at all. As has been remarked in an earlier chapter, the proceedings of these parliaments resembled those of an eastern durbar, and one may picture to oneself the king sitting on his throne, with seats for some of his great nobles and prelates but with no more than standing room for the majority of the assembly. These would group themselves as dignity and convenience suggested, the barons who represented themselves often mingling with the knights of shires who represented counties, and separated by no physical barrier from the citizens and burgesses. However this may have been, we know that early in the reign of Edward III the commons were, after the opening of parliament, directed to withdraw for their deliberations into a separate chamber. Their place of deliberation seems to have been usually in the adjoining abbey, either the chapter-house or the refectory. Direct evi

dence on the subject is scanty and imperfect, but tradition is uniform that until the end of Henry VIII's reign their usual place of sitting was the Westminster chapter-house. It was conveniently near the palace, and we may surmise that its use for this secular purpose was as much by order of the king as by permission of the abbot. The relations between palace and abbey, king and abbot, were very close, and it did not suit either to examine too minutely the authority of the other. Plantagenet kings kept their treasure in the abbey, close to the chapter house, and exercised rights over this part of the building. And to this day the chapter-house is, as the presence of policemen indicates, under the custody, not of the dean, but of the king's chief commissioner of works.

Henry VIII disestablished and disendowed the foundation of St. Stephen's Chapel, which had been the royal chapel of the palace, and in 1547, the first year of his successor's reign, this chapel was set apart for the use of the house of commons, and continued to be its home until the fire of 1834. After the demolitions and alterations which began in 1800, the lords sat in a large hall known at various times as the White Hall and the court of Requests, parallel to Westminster Hall, and situated where the statue of Richard Cour de Lion now stands. At right angles to this hall, and therefore parallel to St. Stephen's Chapel, was an old building called the Painted

Chamber, from the decorations on its walls. In this chamber conferences between the two houses were usually held. The fire of 1834 destroyed the whole of the ancient palace, except Westminster Hall and the crypt and part of the cloisters of St. Stephen's Chapel. But the hall then used as the house of lords, and the Painted Chamber, were temporarily repaired and fitted up, the first for the commons, the second for the lords.

The new palace which rose on the ruins of the old was designed by Sir Charles Barry, and took many years to construct. The lords first occupied their present quarters on April 13, 1847, the commons theirs on May 13, 1850.

The old palace had ceased to be a royal residence since early in Henry VIII's reign, but remained a royal palace. Its successor is still a royal palace, and, as such, is under the charge of the lord great chamberlain, an hereditary officer of state.

The rooms set apart in the palace for the sittings of the two houses face each other in such a way that, through the intervening hall and corridors, the king's throne at the south end of the house of lords is visible from the Speaker's chair at the north end of the house of commons. At right angles to them and to Westminster Hall is St. Stephen's Hall, lined by statues of parliamentary statesmen, and occupying the site of St. Stephen's Chapel, which was the home of the house of commons for nearly 300 years.