Chapter VIII · PARLIAMENT AND THE PRESS

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That it is a high indignity to, and a notorious breach of the privilege of, this House for any news-writer in letters or other papers (as minutes or under any other denomination), or for any printer or publisher of any printed newspaper of any denomination, to presume to insert in the said letters or papers, or to give there in any account of the doings or other proceedings of this House, or any Committee thereof, as well during the Recess as the sitting of Parliament, and that this House will proceed with the utmost severity against such offenders.

The above resolution, drawn up by the Speaker, Arthur Onslow, was adopted unanimously on April 13, 1738—a time when the magazines were audaciously reporting the debates—to give emphasis to much earlier declarations of the inviolable secrecy of Parliament. It still stands unrepealed in the Journals of the House of Commons. And yet, for many years now, about 200 journalists have been employed in the Press Galleries of the two Houses, the Lobby of the House of Commons—in which the London correspondents and the writers of political notes get most of their interesting gossip during the session—and in the committee-rooms of both Houses upstairs, where commercial projects which need parliamentary sanction and special matters of public policy are investigated before the Bills or resolutions embodying them are passed into law. There are five varieties of the parliamentary journalist. The largest and most important of the groups are the reporters of the debates and committees. Then there are the sketch-writers; the Lobbyists; the writers of London letters, and the artists. The diversity of their work has the common unifying aim of satisfying the inquisitiveness of the public in regard to Parliament.

The secrecy of the debates in Parliament, which, as Macaulay says, would now be a grievance more intolerable than ship-money or the Star Chamber, was inseparably associated with constitutional freedom before the Revolution of 1688. It was a precaution devised to protect the country party—the first fore-runners of democracy—against the displeasure of the King. In 1641 the Commons made it a breach of privilege for a Member to deliver out a copy, or notes, of anything that was brought into their House, or propounded or agitated there. In the very next year Sir Edward Dearing published a collection of speeches which he had made in the House. It was innocently done. Nevertheless, a resolution was solemnly passed by the House ordering the book to be publicly burnt by the common hangman, and committing Dearing to the Tower. But in later times the objection of Parliament to any publication of its debate was due to an intense jealousy of its independent authority, and resentfulness of any attempt to bring popular, or outside, influence to bear upon it. In 1788 the growing practice of giving in the newspapers accounts of what was being done in the House of Commons was denounced by the Speaker as “a reflection on the dignity of the House.” A Member said that if such publications were not sternly repressed, “Parliament would be talked of, when it did amiss, with the same freedom as any other set of men whatever,” and Sir Robert Walpole, then at the head of the Government, declared that if the debates were to be hawked up and down the streets for sale, the House would be looked upon as the most contemptible Legislative Assembly on the face of the earth.

This discussion arose on a complaint that the Gentleman’s Magazine was making the reporting of Parliament one of its main features. Its editor, Edward Cave, was brought to the Bar of the House and condemned to fine and imprisonment. But the reporting of the debates went on, for it sent up the circulation of the Gentleman’s Magazine. So as to evade the Standing Order against printing or publishing in print anything relating to the proceedings in Parliament, the magazine resorted to the expedient of giving its reports the heading “Debates in the Senate of Great Lilliput,” and only the first and last letters of the speakers’ names with a — in between. Dr. Samuel Johnson was subsequently employed as the parliamentary reporter of the Gentleman’s Magazine, and his versions of the debates made the oratorical reputation of some of the statesmen of the eighteenth century. “The eloquence of Greece and Rome is revived in the British Senate,” said Voltaire. He had probably read some of Johnson’s reports, and these reports were written by Johnson in a garret off the Strand, as he said, without ever having been down to the House of Commons, and possessed of no more material than the names of the speakers and a few notes supplied by Cave. Johnson also told Boswell that he “took care the Whig dogs should not have the best of it,” a saying which explains a thing that greatly puzzled Sir Robert Walpole the Whig. “He had read,” he said in the House of Commons, “professed debates of the House, wherein all the wit, learning and argument appeared on one side, and on the other nothing was shown but what was low, mean and ridiculous, and yet, strange to say, the division had gone against the side which, according to the report, had reason and justice to support it.” Well, even nowadays the division is carried by the big battalions of the Government, without reference, sometimes, to the right or wrong of the question at issue. At least, so it is said.

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The first of the parliamentary reporters, in the real sense of the term, was William Woodfall (brother of Henry Woodfall, editor of The Public Advertiser, in which the famous political letters signed Junius appeared); for he was the first to publish reports of the debates in both Houses on the following day in The Morning Chronicle, from 1769 until 1789, and afterwards in The Diary, which he established for himself. His method of reporting was entirely an effort of memory. As the taking of notes was prohibited by the Orders of the House, his custom was to sit in the Strangers’ Gallery during a debate, with his eyes closed, leaning both hands on his stick and listening intently. He was popularly supposed to be endowed with something like supernatural powers, and such was his fame that the first question of the visitor from the country, on entering the House of Commons, was, “Which is Memory Woodfall, and which is the Speaker?”

Woodfall’s versions of the speeches were accepted in his day as wonderful examples of accuracy. In our times, when reporting has attained so high a perfection, they would be regarded as inadequate and possibly garbled summaries. Still, they reflected with far greater faithfulness what was actually said than the more or less imaginary reports of Dr. Johnson. It is to Woodfall that we owe the best report extant of one of the most renowned of parliamentary orations—the speech in which Sheridan moved in the House of Commons on February 7, 1787, that the spoliation of the Begums of Oude should be included in the articles of the impeachment of Warren Hastings. So great was the sensation caused by this speech that the Prime Minister, William Pitt, consented to the adjournment of the House for the extraordinary reason that the minds of Members were too agitated to continue the discussion of the question. I have read Woodfall’s version in The Morning Chronicle of the following day. The newspaper is a small sheet of four pages, with four columns each. The report of the speech fills just a page, and is preceded by the following modest apology:

It would be the most arrogant presumption in the Reporter of a newspaper were he to attempt to follow Mr. Sheridan under an expectation of its being in his power to do him justice. A faint sketch of the outlines of his speech which, like the title to an elegant and copious work, may give the reader an idea of the nature of the contents, is all that can be pretended to, and we heartily wish we were able to do even that better; but we ardently hope the speech will be given to the public completely and correctly in a separate publication.

Sheridan spoke for five hours and a half, and, at the average rate of speaking, he must have uttered at least 32,000 words. Woodfall’s report contains only 4,000 words, just one-eighth of what Sheridan must have said. If the oration were reported fully and in the first person, as great parliamentary speeches are now reported, it would fill sixteen columns of The Times, and could hardly have been got into two numbers of The Morning Chronicle of 1787. Woodfall merely gave the compressed essence of Sheridan’s argument, making no attempt to reproduce the fire and energy of the orator. “Mr. Sheridan,” says he in the course of his report, “whenever occasion offered, animated his speech and gave it abundant variety and attraction by blending glowing expressions and figures of rhetoric with his pursuit of detail and his narration of facts.” To report Sheridan fully and accurately must have been a difficult feat.

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At the opening of the nineteenth century the hostility of Parliament to the Press had almost entirely subsided. The reporters were no longer regarded as pernicious interlopers and eavesdroppers in the galleries and lobbies of Westminster. No longer had they to take fugitive notes by stealth or rely entirely upon their memory, in order to escape the harrying of the officials. Members had tasted the delight of seeing their opinions in print, and, to be sure, they liked it. But the reporters still pursued their avocation arduously under many difficulties. They had to scramble for places in the Strangers’ Gallery with mere sightseers. In those days the reporters were allowed to take notes on the back-row of the Strangers’ Gallery. It was the worst place in the gallery for seeing and hearing; but notebooks and pencils were still an unholy sight in the eyes of the Speaker, and the reporters, sitting in darkness, and so remotely that their heads were but three feet from the ceiling, were unobserved from the Chair. Even to secure seats on the back-row the reporters had to be early at the door, especially on important occasions, for they had no recognized title to the bench as against other strangers, and it was a case of first come first seated.

The year 1803 is memorable in the history of the Reporters’ Gallery as witnessing the first official recognition of the existence of the reporters, and the breaking with the ancient fiction of Parliament that in deliberation it is neither seen nor heard by the public. Mr. Speaker Abbot then acknowledged the right of the reporters to the exclusive occupation of the back-row of the Strangers’ Gallery. It came about by an accidental circumstance, rather than through the operation of general causes. One night William Pitt was expected to make a great speech on the war with France. A crowd gathered before the door of the gallery, and in the general rush for the seats the reporters were unsuccessful. The occupants of the back-row refused to budge, even when the reporters held out to them the alluring prospect that if they would only give up their seats they might read Pitt’s speech in print. Consequently, instead of the usual parliamentary report appearing in the papers next day, there was given only an account of the difficulties under which the reports were made as an explanation why nothing that Pitt had said was made public. The result was that on May 24, 1803, Abbot wrote in his Diary: “Settled with Serjeant-at-Arms that the gallery door should be opened every day, if required, at twelve; and the Serjeant would let the housekeeper understand that the newswriters might be let in in their usual places (the back-row of the gallery), as being understood to have the order of particular Members like any other stranger.” Not only was the back bench thus reserved to the reporters, but soon after a door was constructed giving them special access to it, and a room for writing was also placed at their service. Simple though it appears, what a stage in the democratization of the State is marked by this incident! The statesman had come at last to understand that he could no longer afford to address himself solely to the House of Commons, that if he was to succeed in his mission he must appeal to the people outside, and that he could reach them only by favour of the newspapers.

One of the most famous of parliamentary reporters is Charles Dickens. He was nineteen years of age in 1831, when he joined The True Sun (his father being engaged in the same capacity for The Morning Chronicle), and he subsequently reported for The Mirror of Parliament (a short-lived rival to Hansard) and also for The Morning Chronicle. In May 1865, presiding at the dinner of the Newspaper Press Fund, he gave an interesting and amusing glimpse of his experiences as a parliamentary reporter. “I have worn my knees,” said he, “by writing on them on the old back-row of the old gallery of the old House of Commons; and I have worn my feet standing to write in a preposterous pen in the old House of Lords, where we used to be huddled together like so many sheep, kept in waiting, say, until the Woolsack might want restuffing.”

Dickens, indeed, was a witness of that mighty event—the official establishment of a Reporters’ Gallery in both Houses of Parliament. In the temporary building that was erected for the Commons after the fire of 1834 a separate gallery was provided for the Press. The day it was first occupied, February 19, 1835, should be for ever famous. The Lords preceded the Commons by three years in recognizing that a Reporters’ Gallery had become an essential adjunct to Parliament. At the opening of the nineteenth century the reporters were permitted to stand with other strangers below the Bar of the House of Lords, and listen to the debates. In time the taking of notes was allowed, provided it was done furtively, or with some pretence of concealment. One evening Lord Chancellor Eldon came down to the Bar to receive from Mr. Speaker a message from the Commons, and with the expansive sleeve of his flowing gown knocked the notebook from the hand of a too forward and indiscreet reporter, Samuel Carter Hall, a well-known writer in his day. For a moment the panic-stricken attendants were fearful of dismissal for not having kept the reporter in his proper place. The journalists were convinced it was their last appearance at the Bar. But it was the unexpected that happened. The mighty Lord High Chancellor, in his wig and gown, before that assembly of Lords and Commons, actually stooped and picked up the notebook, and with a smile and a word of apology handed it to the reporter. From that evening all the ridiculous make-belief that no notes were being taken of the proceedings was at an end. On the ever memorable October 15, 1831, the Lords took the sensible and yet portentous step of providing a gallery for the reporters. The recognition of the Press by the Commons came in 1850. When the present Chamber was opened for the first time in that year it was found to contain a Reporters’ Gallery, not as an excrescence or makeshift, but as an integral part of the Assembly, extending the whole width of the Chamber over the Speaker’s Chair. Then a remarkable thing occurred. The Chamber had a lofty Gothic roof, similar to the beautiful roof of the House of Lords, but it was found to affect injuriously the acoustic properties. And the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, and the Leader of the Opposition, Sir Robert Peel, actually went up to the Reporters’ Gallery personally to put the matter to the test, with the result that the Commons went back to their temporary Chamber for another two years until the present glass ceiling was constructed, thus willingly reducing the architectural splendour of their House in order that the reporters might hear and publish their speeches. The complete and final act in the evolution of the Reporters’ Gallery took place in 1909 when both Houses appointed official staffs to report their proceedings, in continuation of the old record known as Hansard, which was compiled as a private enterprise.

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Special tickets of admission are issued to the Press representatives by the Serjeant-at-Arms for the House of Commons, and by the Lord Great Chamberlain for the House of Lords. The number of men composing a reporting staff varies on different newspapers, and ranges from five to twelve. But be the staff large or small, the system of working is identical in every case. The reporters follow each other in regular rotation and at stated times, according to the roll, or list, drawn up by their chief. The “turns” are usually a quarter of an hour, to begin with, and are shortened, first to ten minutes, and subsequently to five minutes, as the night advances, bringing nearer the hour at which the newspaper is to be printed. The object of this system of relays and short “turns” is to get the “copy” speedily to the compositors. The entire staff is quickly brought into operation; the preparation of the report begins within less than half an hour after the House opens, and thenceforth until the close of the sitting there is a regular conveyance of “copy” by messengers from Westminster to the printing offices in the Strand and Fleet Street, or to the London offices of the provincial newspapers, whence it is telegraphed to the place of publication. When his “turn” is over, and he is relieved by his successor, the reporter goes to one of the writing-out rooms. He has a choice of several large and comfortable rooms in which to transcribe his notes. This extensive suite of apartments has been added to from time to time since the opening of the House of Commons in 1852.

Then there are the sketch-writers who produce descriptive summaries of the proceedings, giving pictures of the scene in the House, the characteristics of its leading personages, and describing the varying effects of a great speech in a debate—the passages that were loudly cheered or ironically greeted. The function of the parliamentary correspondent, or “Lobbyist,” as he is commonly called, differs entirely from both reporting and sketch-writing. The Lobbyist frequents the Lobby of the House of Commons, with the special permission of the Speaker and the Serjeant-at-Arms, on the search for news.

“The Lobby,” by which name the antechamber of the House of Commons is known, is a spacious square hall. Its four symmetrical walls are of limestone of a rather drab colour, with floriated embellishments, and have windows of painted glass. The ceiling is of carved oak, with coloured armorial devices. The tessellated pavement, into which the motto “God Save the Queen” has been worked, has probably been trodden by more distinguished men and women of every race than have walked the floor of any other hall in the world. Under lofty archways of exactly similar proportions and arrangements are four massive swing-doors with glass panels, through which Members and visitors continually come and go while the House of Commons is sitting. One door gives entrance from the fine Central Hall, to which the general public have admittance; the opposite door leads directly into the Legislative Chamber; the door to the right admits to the refreshment-rooms, libraries, and smoking-rooms of the Members; and its opposite door leads out into New Palace Yard. Such is the outward semblance of that famous Lobby of the House of Commons, which is often more the centre of political activity than the Legislative Chamber itself. Bill after Bill may be introduced in the House, and business may be progressing with the surety and uneventfulness which all Governments desire, but to get at the true inwardness of things political one must walk the Lobby. There it is that events are turned over and discussed from the inside. It is there you will learn what is going on behind the scenes, the secret moves and counter-moves in the great fight for place and power between the rival political Parties.

Here, then, the parliamentary correspondent gathers the political gossip of Members, the official communications of Government and the Opposition, and serves them up in crisp paragraphs, often with spicy personal comments, in the “London Letters” of the provincial Press, or in the columns headed “Political Notes” of the London morning papers.

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It was my privilege once to witness statesmen absolutely refusing to allow the great machinery of Parliament to be put in motion because of the absence of the reporters. That remarkable event took place in the House of Lords on December 2, 1902. The Education Bill of the Unionist Government was before the House. The peers met that day for the resumption of the debate on the second reading at four o’clock, instead of a quarter-past four, their usual hour, but by an oversight no notification of the earlier sitting was conveyed to the Press. The result was that the Reporters’ Gallery was empty when the time came for the Marquis of Londonderry, President of the Council of Education, to address the House, and in the circumstances his lordship naturally declined to speak. The reporters took their places in the gallery at a quarter-past four, and Lord Londonderry, seeing them ready with notebooks and pencils, rose and delivered his speech. What an absolute change in the point of view of statesmen since William Woodfall sat in the Strangers’ Gallery of the House of Commons with closed eyes, endeavouring to fix on his memory the points of the discussion, and, later still, Charles Dickens stood for hours with tired feet among the crowd at the Bar of the House of Lords furtively reporting!

“There are three estates in Parliament,” said Macaulay once in a speech in the House of Commons, “but in the Reporters’ Gallery yonder there sits a fourth estate more important than them all!” By means of the fourth estate, or the Press—its relentless observation, its ceaseless criticism—Parliament has been brought completely under the domination of the people. The numbers of those who closely and jealously watch the proceedings of Parliament have, through the agency of the newspapers, become multitudinous. Each Member of the House of Commons is thereby impressed with a deep sense of his responsibility to the millions outside, and especially to that section of them by whose favour he sits in the Assembly. The influence the Press has upon him is twofold. So splendidly public is the stage of the House of Commons, so vast is the audience of interested onlookers, that he is stimulated to do his best in the service of the State—to achieve great things, if he has the capacity so to do, as well as the desire—and at the same time he is oppressed with the uncertainty of his position; and knowing that those who made him M.P. have the power to unmake, he has often to stoop in order to placate them and keep them in good humour with himself. Thus has the Reporters’ Gallery at once made sweet and bitter the career of the politician, filling it with resounding fame, adding to its cares and drudgery.