Chapter XI · PARTY TRICKS AND STRATAGEMS

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The Whips of the two chief Parties, Liberal and Conservative, have in their service at the House of Commons a band of retainers whose business it is to take note of the Members as they come and go. These clerks, or messengers, are stationed in the Lobby, and, provided with printed lists of the names of Members, they mark in those who arrive and mark out those who go away. The result is that when a division is approaching, the Whips on each side, by referring to these lists, can tell to a man the number of their followers and the number of their opponents within the precincts of the House, and consequently whether the Government would have a majority, or would be left in a minority, if the division were at once taken. If the Ministerial Whips should be in the least degree apprehensive of defeat, word is sent round to delay the division by keeping the debate going. Someone is put up who may be relied upon to keep talking as long as may be necessary. It does not matter how disconnected or incoherent his speech may be, for it is time and not wisdom that is now needed in the interest of the Government. Meanwhile urgent telephone messages are dispatched by the Whips to their absent followers dining at the clubs and dallying over their cigars, and messengers are sent in cabs here, there, and everywhere that a Party man is likely to be found; and not until the Members, thus unduly torn from gay and festive scenes, have arrived at Westminster is the division allowed to be taken.

All is fair in the Party fight, as well as in love and in war. Sometimes practical jokes are made to serve great purposes. A favourite club of Conservative Members is St. Stephen’s, in Bridge Street, opposite the Clock Tower, which is connected with the House of Commons by an underground passage. Bells ring in the club, as in the precincts of the House, on a division being challenged, and when their shrill warning is heard, Members who happen to be in the club hasten to the House to record their votes. During the session of 1875 the Disraeli Administration were defeated in a “snap” division on an amendment moved in Committee on an Irish Bill, because fifty of their supporters, who were known by the Whips to be dining at St. Stephen’s Club, failed to answer to the bells. It was discovered subsequently that just before the division was challenged the connecting wires between the House and the club had been cut. The same subterfuge was resorted to when Balfour was Prime Minister, and again a “snap” victory was secured. It was proposed at the time to bring the matter under the Speaker’s notice; but Acland-Hood, the Chief Government Whip, took the sportsman’s view that those who planned the manœuvre deserved to enjoy its gain. A Liberal Member subsequently asked why the club should be thus favoured, and it was explained that while the bell circuit was tested and maintained by the Post Office officials, it did not form part of the division bell system, but was worked independently from the Unionist Whip’s room. On a similar occasion, big with the fate of the Government, the Whips sent out their corps of messengers to summon Members from dinner-tables, balls, clubs, and theatres. But not a single cab was available in Palace Yard. They had all been engaged and scattered over London a short time previously by free lances of the Opposition.

The closing session of the Balfour Administration in 1905 was marked, like the waning hours of all Parliaments, by slack attendance of Ministerialists and diminishing Government majorities. But in this instance the disintegration that affects all Government majorities, however compact and powerful they may have been, when disillusionment about politics or languor and indifference begin to creep over Members, and the General Election looms in sight, was quickened by divisions between the leaders of the Party on the entirely new issue of fiscal reform. The crack of the Party Whip had in some degree lost its potency.

“No quarter” became the watchword of the Opposition. There never was a session in which parliamentary tactics—the move and counter-move planned and engineered by the rival Whips—were so absurdly illustrated. Stories were nightly told in the Lobby of extraordinary plots hatched by the Opposition to circumvent the Ministerial Whips and their languid, divided, and dwindling majority. The Irish Members were to obtain access to the vaults of the Palace of Westminster, and there, unknown to the Ministerial Whips, were to hide themselves, as Guy Fawkes did of old, until, warned of the approaching division, they were to emerge, as it were, from the ground and overwhelm the unsuspecting Government. One of the County Council river steamboats was to be seized at night, and, with a crowd of Radicals, was to approach close to the Terrace, as if the captain were innocently satisfying the curiosity of ordinary passengers for a closer view of their representatives taking the air. At the sound of the division bells the Radicals were to scale the Terrace wall, bravely risking a ducking or even drowning, in an attempt to oust a hated Government from office. Naturally the perplexed Ministerial Whips accosted each other in the Lobby with anxious faces. “What next?” was their constant inquiry. They adopted unprecedented measures to out-manœuvre the Opposition. They had sentries posted at all the entrances to the Palace of Westminster. They had agents in Parliament Street watching for any suspicious movement of cabs with Liberal Members towards the House of Commons. It was also said that they had two men stationed on Westminster Bridge with field-glasses on the look out for the coming of the enemy by steamboat.

The usual manner of announcing the approach of a division in Palace Yard was deemed by some of the Ministerialists to be insufficient in this fight without quarter between Government and Opposition. Shouts of “division” by the constables on duty in the corridors and passages of the building accompany the ringing of the bells. The police outside in New Palace Yard take up the cry, and all around the Palace of Westminster, “division,” “division,” swells high above the roar of the traffic. Many of the passers-by, unacquainted with parliamentary customs, think it is a cry for help—that the “D” division of the police is wanted badly on the floor of the House of Commons—and speculate whether it is the Nationalists, or the Labour Members, or the more sedate occupants of the Front Opposition Bench that are making it hot for the Government. But Members approaching the Palace of Westminster at that moment know full well what the shout forebodes, and they quicken their steps, or, if their limbs are limber enough, break into a run to get into the House before the lobbies are locked. Several devices were suggested to the First Commissioner of Works with a view to supplementing this outside warning of an approaching division. One was that the white light on the Clock Tower should flare up red. Another was that a loud-clanging bell should be placed in Palace Yard. A third suggestion was to fire off a cannon. Such are the pleasantries or absurdities in which the solemn Parliament often relaxes its ponderous strength. They show how true it is to liken the representatives of the people to a gathering of schoolboys, always ready for any “lark.” But arising out of it all, Mr. Balfour laid down the principle, which has been accepted by all Governments, that the only divisions to be regarded as conclusive are “those in which there has been a trial of strength between the Parties, with all the circumstances of notice and other attendant incidents required to make it clear that the issue to be decided is one of confidence or of no confidence.”

Sir Alexander Acland-Hood, who continued to act as Chief Unionist Whip during the earlier years of the subsequent Liberal Government, was the author of the most remarkable and unusual “Whip” that has ever been issued. In April 1907 the Government brought in new Rules of Procedure, and proposed to limit the discussion upon them. For the day upon which the “guillotine” motion was to be considered, Unionist Members received the following three-line “Whip”:

MOST IMPORTANT

On Monday, April 15th, the House will meet at 2.45 p.m.

The Prime Minister will make his usual Motion to suspend the illusory 11 o’clock Rule.

The Government, physically unable to sit up late, and mentally incapable of defending or explaining their scheme for strangling Free Debate in the House, will move a Resolution to guillotine the discussion on the New Standing Orders—a combination of Guillotine and Bowstring.

An early Division is certain.

Other Divisions will follow.

Your punctual attendance by 3.30 p.m. is most earnestly and specially requested.

A. Acland-Hood.

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“Whipping” is not instituted by any Standing Order. In Erskine May’s great work on Parliamentary Practice (12th edition, 1917) there is only a passing reference to “the Whips,” and they are said to be “gentlemen who are entrusted by their political Parties with the office of collecting their respective forces on a division,” a description which ignores their principle work, that of Party management. The invention of the terms “Whip” and “Whipping,” or their adaptation to the parliamentary system, was due to Edmund Burke. In 1769, when there was an important debate on the expulsion of Wilkes as Member for Middlesex, the Government made unusual efforts to bring up their men for the division. They summoned some from Paris, who had anticipated the Recess, and others from their country houses in the North, acting, as Burke said, like the whipper-in of a pack of hounds. The sally was highly appreciated by a House then largely composed of country squires, and the phrases “Whip” and “Whipping” soon became part of the current coin of parliamentarians.

But the practice was far older. The Secretary to the Treasury looked after the attendance of the supporters of the Government, and his communications were known as “Treasury Notes.” At that time the practice was conducted more or less secretly, as if it were something that did not quite fairly come within the playing of the game, or was out of harmony with the boasted independence of Members. A motion condemning the practice was moved in 1748, but was negatived on a division. It ceased to be regarded as an underhand manœuvre in the later years of the eighteenth century, and from that time has been openly pursued by both Parties.

The pious opinion is often expressed in the House of Commons that this question, or that, should be lifted out of what is called “the rut of political controversy.” It is said that Party recrimination should be hushed in the presence of so great an issue. It is said that the question should be discussed in a solemn and earnest spirit. How curious it is to note this affectation, that Party is a base and sordid thing which defileth those who touch it, on the part of hardened Party men! In truth, the only questions that are earnestly discussed in the House of Commons are Party questions. Business which does not evoke the clash of Party principles is transacted, as a rule, in an almost empty Chamber. One also hears it frequently said that the House of Commons is at its best when the Whips are taken off—that is when Ministerialists are left free to vote according to their convictions without being disturbed by the thought that they might defeat the Government. I have frequently seen the House on such occasions, and the abiding memory is always the spectacle of groups of Members gathered at the Bar, before the division is taken, apparently very unhappy in their freedom, puzzled, undecided as to which lobby they should enter, remonstrated with, and urged to go this way or that by other Members who were in the blissful position of having their minds made up. And is there not a story told in parliamentary circles that an old Member was heard to confess that once only in his long career did he vote strictly in accordance with his own personal opinion, without regard to Party considerations, and that he had come to the conclusion it was one of his few mistakes?

Moreover, the unforgivable sin in the House of Commons is Party insubordination. Any public expression of hostility within the ranks of the Party to the Party policy, any flank attack tending to disturb the solidarity or harmony of the Party, is bitterly resented and condemned. The refractory Member may be sound on the main Party programme, and the point in dispute may be but a difference merely of method and detail. It does not matter. “Crank,” “eccentric,” “humbug,” are the mildest of the terms of reproach applied to him. He may consider himself indulgently treated if he be not denounced as a traitor and ostracized as an outcast by the more earnest of his colleagues. It is, of course, open to any Member to refuse to submit himself to the dictatorship of the Party Whip. But he must be prepared to pay the penalty of his independence. From it there is rarely any escape. And that is the loss of his seat in the House of Commons. The Member whose convictions or interests prompt him to raise the flag of revolt inside the entrenchments of the Party he was returned to support had better—unless he is indifferent about his political career—return to his allegiance, or else cross the floor of the House and accept as his oriflamme the thumb of the Whip of the opposite Party. There is really no feeling against the political deserter. But there is a strong animosity to the malcontent who remains a member of a Party only to be able to attack it more effectively from within.

Revolts against Party subordination always proved impotent, at least before the World War. I think it would be impossible to point to a single instance within at least half a century before the World War—the period during which the discipline of Party increasingly became more rigid and severe—of a Member at issue with his Party on some great question of policy who succeeded in getting returned again to the House of Commons. At the General Election another candidate was adopted by the Party. The Member was usually a man of strength of will and tenacity of purpose. Perhaps to proclaim what he conceived to be the true policy of his Party, and, at any rate, to vindicate the great principle of free and independent representation, he might decide to submit himself again to the electors. There was a triangular contest. One or other of the orthodox Party nominees was returned. But the independent candidate found himself where the non-Party man was then always found—at the bottom of the poll. It was the constituency which banished him from parliamentary life. But the sentence was pronounced by the Party Whips. Thus had every politician who tried to escape from the obligations of Party got beaten and gone under.

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When we remember that the House of Commons is composed of 707 men of all classes and the most varied types of character, it is remarkable how extremely rare are these conflicts between freedom of opinion and submission to Party. By this I do not mean to suggest anything derogatory to the House of Commons intellectually. No one who has heard a great Party debate need be told that the opposing cases are stated not only with interesting oppositions in the light and shade of argument, but with fervour and distinction, and even nobly. Nor could there be a greater error than the inference that a discipline apparently so humiliating could be accepted only by the tamest of Party men. On the contrary, Members of Parliament of the highest character and spirit find in it nothing that is distasteful or irksome. They are convinced that the highest needs of the country, as they see them, are served best by the cohesion and discipline of Party. Without Party unity, a strong and homogeneous Ministry, with a normal life of five years, is impossible. Without Party unity there would be a great deal of academic talk in the House of Commons, but very little that is practical would be done. Certainly, the more a Member of the House of Commons is animated by an earnest political faith, and has emptied his mind as a politician of every selfish thought, the more thoroughly and gladly does he consent to the complete subordination of himself personally to giving legislative expression to the principles of his Party. Every House of Commons contains a large number of serious, earnest and high-principled young Members connected with all Parties. They make manifest their recognition of the oneness of the community, of the close relations between all classes. They strive to understand the case of the other side. They are anxious to deal with all questions from the national point of view, and according to the standards of truth and justice. Yet they remain faithful Party men. They see it is only through the agency of Party that things can be done. It must never be forgotten that behind these Party moves and subterfuges in the House of Commons, which often appear so petty and undignified, great principles for the progress of human life are at stake, and it is among those representatives of the people, whose political cause has assumed in their eyes something of the sacred character of religion, that the rigid Party discipline imposed by the Whips finds its most submissive and fervid votaries.

Not the least of the many strange features which Parliament presents to the curious in the manifestations of human nature is the scanty attendance of Members during the main part of a Party debate. The reason is that Members have minds made up on all Party questions. When they attend the debate it is in the hope of hearing a speech in which rhetorical inspiration may add freshness and force to the statement of the Party case, a speech that will prove a splendid vindication of their political principles. The result of the division which is to follow is always easily anticipated. The Government will win by their normal majority. Yet it would not be true to say that the verdict pronounced in the division lobbies is the verdict of men who are more or less ignorant of the arguments on the question at issue. The Whip stands at the entrances to the lobbies with raised and pointing thumb. Still, it is matured political thinking and ripe experience of life that direct our representatives to turn into the “aye” or the “no” lobby. Often and often did Disraeli put up his eye-glass to see the direction of his Whip’s thumb above the rush of Members answering to the division bells. Often and often did Gladstone submissively turn to the right or to the left in answer to the “ayes, sir,” or “noes, sir,” of his Whip. And their example was followed by Balfour, Asquith, and Lloyd George. These distinguished statesmen were well aware that the raised thumb of the Whip is poised and upheld, not by pride and insolence, but by the great strength both of argument and authority by which Party policy is supported; that it is, in fact, an infallible finger-post pointing—shall I say?—to the path of Party, which must always be the politician’s path of duty.

In truth, Party preserves us from political degeneracy. I am convinced that should the spirit of Party ever lie dormant in the country, the House of Commons would become but the meeting-place of “cranks” and “faddists,” and nothing would be heard there but the murmur of bees in the bonnets of daft Members.