spent in vindictive decisions and animosities about the late elections; the second session had entered into business; the third session has languished in the pursuit of what little was intended to be done in the second; and the approach of an ensuing election has terrified the members into a servile management, according as their respective principals were disposed towards the question before them in the House.' Although the Bill was strongly opposed by the Tories in both Houses, it passed its third reading in the Commons with a dissentient minority of only 121. Among the most important effects of the extension of the natural duration of Parliaments was a marked increase in the stability and power of the House of Commons, and a strengthening of the influence of the Ministry. Mr. Speaker Onslow declared that the Septennial Act formed the era of the emancipation of the British House of Commons, from its former dependence on the Crown and the House of Lords.' The difference between the position of the Lower House under the Triennial and Septennial Systems is, indeed, strongly brought out by the fact that in the reign of Anne party leaders, like Harley and St. John, joined the ranks of the Peerage in the very midst of their political careers, while under the Septennial System Sir Robert Walpole designedly confined himself to the House of Commons, and only accepted an earldom from George II. when defeat had closed his long Administration.

repeal the

Septennial

From the reign of George II. down to the reign of Victoria, various Attempts to attempts have been made at different times to repeal the Septennial Act, and shorten the duration of Parliaments. The great Earl of Act. Chatham, in 1771, with the most deliberate and solemn conviction, declared himself a convert to Triennial Parliaments.' And so recently as 1849, Mr. Tennyson-D’Eyncourt obtained leave to introduce a Triennial Bill by a majority of five. But more recently, as the operation of an extended suffrage has brought the House of Commons into closer and more sympathetic relations with the mass of the people, the popularity of this question has sensibly declined. There is no principle involved in either of the numbers 3 or 7. Any 1 Coxe's Life of Sir Robert Walpole, i. 75.

2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xvii. 223.

3.It is a remarkable illustration of the changes that may pass over party warfare, that the Republican Milton at one time advocated the appointment of members for life in his Ready and Easy Way to Establish a Commonwealth']; that the Tory Party under Walpole and Pelham advocated triennial, and even annual Parliaments, which afterwards became the watchwords of the most extreme Radicals; that the Whigs, taking their stand upon the Septennial Act, contended against the Tories for the greater duration of Parliament; and that a reformn which was demanded as of capital importance by the Tories under George I. and George II., and by the Radicals in the succeeding reigns, has at present scarcely a champion in England.' Lecky, Hist. of Eng. i. 450.

Abrogation of old rule

that Parlia

ment was

dissolved by death of the Sovereign.

Privilege of Parliament since the

restriction on the duration of Parliaments is but a means to an endthe maintenance of a House of Commons fairly representing the wishes of the Nation, as those wishes periodically change amidst the vicissitudes of Home and Foreign politics. In practice it is found that no Parliament is continued longer than six years ;1 and indeed, whatever be the legal limit fixed, the practical limit will necessarily be somewhat less, in order that the Government may retain its freedom of dissolving Parliament untrammelled, and that the inconvenience of a forced dissolution at an untoward moment may be avoided. Should the question be again taken up in earnest, a quinquennial or sextennial limit would probably, on the ground of convenience and efficiency, be found preferable alike to the somewhat excessive prolongation possible under the existing system, and to the inadequacy of the shorter period which it replaced.

The rule that Parliament was ipso facto dissolved by the death of the Sovereign was abrogated in Queen Anne's reign by an enactment that the Parliament in being at the time of a demise of the Crown should continue for six months afterwards, unless specially prorogued or dissolved by the new Sovereign. A statute of George 111.'s reign further provides, that if the Sovereign should die in the interval between the dissolution of one Parliament and the meeting of a new one, the last preceding Parliament shall ipso facto revive and continue in being, unless again dissolved, for six months. The six months' limit imposed by the Act of Anne was abolished by a clause in the Reform Act of 1867, so that now the continuance of a Parliament in being at a demise of the Crown is in no way affected by that event.1

Prior to the Revolution, privilege of Parliament had been nearly always asserted on behalf of Popular rights and liberties against the Revolution. arbitrary authority of the Crown. The Revolution established the supremacy of Parliament in the government of the country; but by the time that the House of Commons had become all powerful in the State it was ceasing, as we have seen, to be a real and effective

1 Frequent dissolutions have reduced Parliaments, at several periods, to an average duration of three or four years. Sir Samuel Romilly stated, in 1818, that out of eleven Parliaments of George III. eight had lasted six years. But from the accession of William IV. in 1830 to the year 1860, there were no less than ten Parliaments, showing an average duration of three years only. (May, Const. Hist. i. 444) The Parliament which met on the 31st of May, 1859, was not dissolved till July 6, 1865, exceeding the six years' practical limit by thirty-six days.

2 7 & 8 Will. III. c. 15; 6 Anne, c. 7,

3 37 Geo. III. c. 127.

4

30 & 31 Vict. c. 102, S. 51.

Supra, p. 268, et seq.

wielded by

tive for the
oppression
of popular
liberty.
Expulsion of

Steele,

Wilkes,

representative of the Commons of England. Corrupt in itself, and the Sometimes offspring of narrow and corrupt constituencies, its necessary power the Execu of inflicting punishment for breach of privilege was placed at the disposal of the Executive for the oppression of popular liberty. In 1714, Sir Richard Steele was expelled the House for writing 'a seditious and scandalous libel' called The Crisis, a pamphlet reflecting Sir Richard on the Tory Ministry of Queen Anne as inimical to the Hanoverian 1714. succession. In their proceedings against Wilkes in 1763 and Proceedings following years, the Commons first withdrew the shield of privilege in against order to justify a Judicial decision contrary to law and usage, and 1763. then, not content with expelling the obnoxious Member, proceeded illegally to deprive the electors of Middlesex of their free choice of a representative. Wilkes had been arrested and imprisoned, in consequence of the publication of the celebrated No. 45 of the North Briton, on a 'general warrant,'-i.e., a warrant not specifying any person by name, but directed against the authors, printers, and publishers generally-signed by Lord Halifax, Secretary of State. Released on a writ of habeas corpus, on the ground of his privilege as a member of the House of Commons, the Lower House, eager to second the vengeance of the King, voted the publication, while still the subject of a prosecution in the King's Bench (which Wilkes declared himself ready to meet notwithstanding his privilege), 'a false, scandalous, and seditious libel, tending to excite traitorous insurrections,' and resolved 'that privilege of Parliament does not extend to the case of writing and publishing seditious libels.' Wilkes, having been proved to be He is exthe author and publisher of the obnoxious No. 45, was expelled the Pelled the House, and withdrew to France, an exile and an outlaw. Returned for Middlesex in 1768, he was again expelled; 3 and on his immediate re-election, the House not only expelled him a third time, but resolved Declared incapable of that his expulsion rendered him 'incapable of being elected a member re-election, to serve in this present Parliament.' Again re-elected by the county 1763 of Middlesex, the House declared his return to be null and void; and, on his being once more returned by the county, the House not only declared his election void, but adjudged the seat to Colonel Luttrell,

1 [The same fate, in our own day, practically befell the electors of Northampton, owing to the long series of struggles in Parliament regarding the eligibility of Mr. Bradlaugh.-C.]

2 Cobbett's Parl. Hist. xv. 1359 seq.

On the 25th April, 1768, we find George III. writing to Lord North, then Chancellor of the Exchequer: Though entirely relying on your attachment to my person as well as on your hatred of any lawless proceeding, yet I think it highly expedient to apprise you that the expulsion of Mr. Wilkes appears to be highly expedient, and must be effected.' Lord Mahon, Hist. of Eng. v. 227.

House.

the second candidate, who had received only 296 votes, against 1143 recorded for Wilkes. A profligate demagogue was thus turned into a popular hero and a champion of Constitutional freedom. After a lapse of five years Parliament was dissolved, and to the new Parliament in 1774, Wilkes was again returned for Middlesex. The former intemperate proceedings respecting the Middlesex election, which Lord Camden said had 'given the constitution a more dangerous wound than any which were given during the twelve years' absence of Parliament in the reign of Charles I.,' were at length, in 1782, The declara expunged from the Journals .of the Commons, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors in the Kingdom.1

tion ex

punged from the Journals of the Com

mons, 1782. Expulsion and disqualifica

tion of mem

bers.

Disability

felony.

Smith

O'Brien, 1849.

The right of the Commons to expel a member is undoubted: but since the reversal in 1782 of the proceedings against Wilkes, it has been equally undoubted that expulsion, though it vacates the seat of the expelled Member, does not create any disability in him to serve again in Parliament. In fact, the Commons have no control over the eligibility of candidates, except in the administration of the laws which define their qualification, for Che House of Parliament cannot create a disability unknown to the law. May, Parl. Practice, p. 63, 4th ed.) The question of the disability arising from conviction of treason or felony has been the subject of arising from discussion in the Commons on two or three recent occasions. By the Common conviction of Law a person attainted of treason or felony was incapable of being elected a treason or member of Parliament (Coke. 4th Inst. 47). But a doubt was at one time entertained whether a person who was not attainted for treason or felony, but was merely convicted, was disqualified. In 1849, a resolution was brought before the House of Commons that Mr. Smith O'Brien, M.P., having been convicted of treason, was ineligible to sit in the House. It was proposed as an amendment that the resolution should run that he was attainted, but the amendment was rejected, and the resolution carried was, that having been adjudged guilty of treason, he was O'Donovan ineligible to sit in the House. The next case was that of O'Donovan Rossa, in Rossa, 1870. 1870, who was returned for Tipperary while undergoing sentence of penal servitude for treason-felony. As he had been convicted and sentenced under the Treasonfelony Act 11 & 12 Vict. c. 12 (supra, p. 327, n.) it was contended that, not being attainted, there was no disqualification: but the House again rejected the contention, and resolved that O'Donovan Rossa 'having been adjudged guilty of felony, and sentenced to penal servitude for life, and being now imprisoned under such sentence, has become, and continues, incapable of being elected or returned as a member of this House. In order, however, to obviate any doubts as to the legality of this determination, a provision was inserted in the Act which abolished forfeiture and attainder for treason or felony (33 & 34 Vict. c. 23, passed in the same year, 1870) that any person thereafter convicted of those offences should be incapable, while undergoing punishment, of being elected a member of, or sitting or voting in, Parliament, or of exercising any parliamentary or municipal franchise. The proceedings in O'Donovan Rossa's case also established that the House, notwithstanding the Act of 1858 (31 & 32 Vict. c. 125, supra, p. 284), reserved in its own hands the power to decide on the eligibility of Members. The next leading case is that of Mr. John Mitchell. In 1848 he was tried for treason-felony, found guilty, and sentenced to 14 years' transportation. After a comparatively short period he escaped from his imprisonment, and after remaining abroad for many years, returned to Ireland in 1874, without having suffered his sentence or received a pardon. In February 1875, he was returned unopposed for Tipperary. On the 18th of February, on the motion of the Premier, Mr. Disraeli, and notwithstanding the expression of several doubts as to the legality of the course proposed to be adopted, the House resolved That John Mitchell, returned as a member for the

مع

Act 33 Vict. c. 23 (1870).

John

Mitchell, 1875.

34

printer Mist,

In the exercise of its powers of commitment the House of Com- Abuse of the privilege of mons, on more than one occasion since the Revolution, has been commitcarried by passion beyond the reasonable and customary limits of ment privilege. In 1721 a printer named Mist was committed to Newgate Commitby the House for printing a Jacobite newspaper which the Commons ment of the resolved to be ‘a false, malicious, scandalous, infamous, and traitorous 1721. libel.' As the offence of Mist could not possibly be interpreted as a contempt of the House, or a breach of its privileges, this proceeding of the Commons was quite as unjustifiable, if not quite so violent, as their treatment of Floyd in the reign of James I. The more recent practice of the House of Commons has been to avoid such excesses of jurisdiction by directing a prosecution by the Attorney-General for offences of a public nature which have been brought to their notice.

Alex.

The right of the Commons to commit for breach of privilege was Case of Mr. distinctly recognised by the Judges in the two celebrated cases of the Murray, Hon. Alexander Murray brother to Lord Elibank, a noted Scottish 1751. Jacobite), in 1751, and of Sir Francis Burdett in 1810. In the course of an enquiry before the House into a contested Westminster election, the High Bailiff complained of Mr. Murray (who had been actively engaged in the election against the Ministerial candidate) for obstructing and insulting him in the discharge of his duty. The Commons decided to hear the parties by counsel, and after ordering Murray to give bail for his appearance from time to time, finally resolved that he should be committed to Newgate, and should receive his sentence on his knees. This humiliating command he steadily refused to obey. 'Sir, I never kneel but to God,' was his haughty reply to the Speaker ;a and the Commons were obliged to content themselves with ordering that he should be kept under the closest restrictions in Newgate, without pen, ink, or paper, and that no person, not even his servant, should be admitted to him,-a severity which, on account of his illhealth, was soon afterwards relaxed. On suing out his writ of habeas corpus in the King's Bench, the Judges unanimously refused to discharge him, on the ground of their want of jurisdiction to judge of

county of Tipperary, having been adjudged guilty of felony and sentenced to transportation for 14 years, and not having endured the punishment to which he was adjudged for such felony, or received a pardon under the Great Seal, has become, and continues, incapable of being elected or returned as a member of this House.'

1 Supra, p. 433, seq.

2 Lord Orford, Memoirs of last Ten Years of the Reign of George II., i. 24. 3 By a standing order of the Commons, in 1772, the offensive custom of requiring prisoners to kneel at the bar of the House was renounced. The Lords, though silently discontinuing the practice, still affect to maintain it, in cases of privilege, by continuing the accustomed entries in their Journals.-May, Const. Hist. ii, 73.