Note 29 — III

Even the physical conditions under which the House of Commons meets and plays at government, are ridiculously obsolete. Every disputable point is settled by a division, a bell rings, there is shouting and running, the members come blundering into the chamber and sort themselves with much loutish shuffling and shoving into the division lobbies. They are counted, as illiterate farmers count sheep; amidst much fuss and confusion they return to their places, and the tellers vociferate the result. The waste of time over these antics is enormous, and they are often repeated many times in an evening. For the lack of time, the House of Commons is unable to perform the most urgent and necessary legislative duties—it has this year hung up a cryingly necessary Education Bill, a delay that will in the end cost Great Britain millions—but not a soul in it has had the necessary common sense to point out that an electrician and an expert locksmith could in a few weeks, and for a few hundred pounds, devise and construct a member's desk and key, committee-room tapes and voting-desks, and a general recording apparatus, that would enable every member within the precincts to vote, and that would count, record, and report the votes within the space of a couple of minutes.