THE COMMONS AND DISORDER.

A motion has been placed on the notice paper of the House of Commons for “an early day” which deserves the attention of us all, and which, in accordance with a familiar custom of the House, is intended rather to state a certain point of view than to lead to an actual debate. It has been put down by Sir HENRY CRAIK and some other Conservative members, and it expresses the conviction “that the dignity of the House and the proper discharge of its duties to the country can be upheld only by firm, impartial, and prompt application of the rules laid down by the House for the conduct of business and for the maintenance of order in its proceedings.” The motion goes on to say that the House looks with confidence to its officers to act in the spirit of this resolution, and promises them loyal support in so acting. It is quite evident that a point has been reached at which the House of Commons is bound to consider very seriously, and with active intention, the question raised by this motion. The cup that the disturbers of Parliamentary order and dignity have been filling up since the Session opened brimmed over on Tuesday last, when for the first time in this Parliament a motion was passed suspending a member from the service of the House. The pages of “Hansard” have been strange and disquieting reading for some time past, but the report of this sitting contains something which, as far as we know, is a novelty even in the annals of Socialist-labour disorderliness.

Mr. NEWBOLD, the Communist member, addressing himself to the Deputy-chairman, said: “On a point of order – Do you allow arguments to be made against me all night, and then never give me any chance io answer, like the bourgeois that you are?” This was a direct insult to the Chair, and we believe it is the first offence of that very exceptional character which has been committed since a considerable section of the Labour party set themselves to degrade the proceedings of the House of Commons. A vast amount of excited and irrelevant clamour was raised at the time on the allegation that the Deputy-chairman did not, before requesting Mr. NEWBOLD to leave the House, give him an opportunity of withdrawing an expression which, in the mouth of one upholding the dreary stupidities of Marxism, is a particularly venomous epithet.

We do not think the plain citizen will trouble himself very much as to whether the Deputy-chairman did or did not give Mr. NEWBOLD an opportunity for apology to which he was not entitled by the rules. The offence was sufficiently grave to justify the taking of an unusual course, if such a course was in fact taken; and when Mr. NEWBOLD refused to withdraw, and the Speaker was sent for, the obviously right thing was done in the passing of a motion for the suspension of the culprit. The leaders, and a considerable number of the rank and file, of the Labour party abstained from voting on the motion, and it is clear that in all quarters of the House it was felt that the action taken was the only one suitable in the circumstances.

But what we desire most strongly to urge is that this peculiarly disgraceful incident ought to be made the starting-point of a serious effort by the officers of the House to get the disorderly elements in hand. The tradition of Parliamentary discussion cannot withstand for very much longer the incessant defiance of decency by those who have set themselves to bring down debate ‘in the House of Commons to the level of a pothouse squabble. The Postmaster-general, who addressed himself to this subject at Isleworth on Wednesday night, declared quite truly that a number of members of the Labour Party had the definite purpose of breaking down the House of Commons, and were determined to ruin it. Some of them, indeed, were frank enough to say so from the first; and the actions of others are more convincing than any professions of intention. This is a matter that affects us all. It is not merely a question of what this House of Commons thinks due to its own dignity; it is a question of preserving a vital tradition of public life, of which this House and its officers are the custodians. We are very well aware of the reasons which swayed the Speaker and the Committee officers at first in favour of treating with apparent indifference the wild outbreaks of abusive language and coarse buffoonery which have in the course of this Session disgusted and appalled even those who remember the worst days of Irish disorder. To-day it is clear enough that matters are not better, but considerably worse, than they were at the beginning, and that a proportion of the membership of the House has set itself deliberately to wreck the institution of which it is part, in accordance with the policy commended to all earnest revolutionaries by the authority of NIKOLAI LENIN.

This can and must be stopped. The Chair will be supported to the full in taking all necessary measures to protect the House of Commons, and, above all, to protect itself, from hooligan violence. With the exercise of discretion, it should be possible to make examples the justice of which would not be seriously challenged in any quarter; and we are convinced that if this is not done, Parliamentary discussion will become impossible, and membership of the House of Commons will cease to hold out any attraction to men of decent feeling.