The Constitutional History of England from 1760 to 1860 - Charles Duke Yonge

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body; and, with respect to this House, if it had not power over its particular members, they would be subject to no control at all." The answer to this argument is obvious: that a right on the part of the House to control the conduct of its members is a wholly different thing from a right to determine who are or ought to be members; and that for the House to claim this latter right, except on grounds of qualification or disqualification legally proved, would be to repeat one of the most monstrous of all Cromwell's acts of tyranny, when, in 1656, he placed guards at the door of the House, with orders to refuse admission to all those members whom, however lawfully elected, he did not expect to find sufficiently compliant for his purposes. Mr. De Grey's argument was of a different character, being based on what he foretold would be the practical result of a decision that expulsion did not involve an incapacity to be re-elected. If it did not involve such incapacity, and if, in consequence, Mr. Wilkes should be re-elected, he considered that the House would naturally feel it its duty to re-expel him as often as the constituency re-elected him. But one answer given to this argument was, that to expel a second time would be to punish twice for one offence, a proceeding at variance not only with English law but with every idea of justice. Another, and one which has obtained greater acceptance, was, that the legitimate doctrine was, that the issue of a new writ gave the expelled member an appeal from the House to the constituency, and that the constituency had a constitutional right to overrule the judgment of the House, and to determine whether it still regarded the candidate as its most suitable representative.

      The ministers, however, were, as before, strong enough in the House to carry their resolution. But the Opposition returned to the charge, taking up an entirely different though equally general position, "That, by the law of the land and the known law and usage of Parliament, no person eligible by common right can be incapacitated by vote or resolution of this House, but by act of Parliament only." It is remarkable that, in the debate which ensued, two members who successively rose to the dignity of Lord Chancellor, Mr. Thurlow and Mr. Wedderburn, took different sides; but nothing could shake the ministerial majority. The resolution was rejected. And when Lord Rockingham proposed the same resolution in the House of Lords, though it was supported by all the eloquence of Lord Chatham, he was beaten by a majority of more than two to one, and the ministers even carried a resolution declaring "that any interference of the House of Lords with any judgment of the House of Commons, in matters of election, would be a violation of the constitutional rights of the Commons."

      Even these decisive defeats of the Opposition did not finally terminate the struggle. The notoriety which Wilkes had gained had answered his purpose to no slight extent. The City had adopted his cause with continually increasing earnestness and effect. It had made him Sheriff, Alderman, Lord Mayor, and had enriched him with the lucrative office of City Chamberlain; and, as one of the City magistrates, he subsequently won the good opinion of many who had previously condemned him, by his conduct during the Gordon Riots, in which he exerted his authority with great intrepidity to check and punish the violence of the rioters. And when, in 1782, Lord Rockingham became, for the second time, Prime-minister, he thought he might well avail himself of the favor he had thus acquired, and of the accession to office of those whom the line which they had formerly taken bound to countenance him, to bring forward a motion for the expunction of the resolutions against him which had been passed in 1770. It was carried by a largo majority; and though this was as evidently a party division as those had been by which he had been defeated twelve years before, still, as the last resolution on the subject, it must be regarded as decisive of the law and practice of Parliament, and as having settled the doctrine that expulsion does not incapacitate a member who has been expelled from immediate re-election.[12]

      The establishment of this rule, and the abolition of general warrants, were, however, not the only nor the most important result of these proceedings. They led indirectly to an innovation which, it is hardly too much to say, has had a greater influence on the character and conduct of Parliament, and indeed on the whole subsequent legislation of the country, than can be attributed to any other single cause. Hitherto the bulk of the people had enjoyed but very scanty and occasional means of acquiring political education. At times of vehement political excitement, or any special party conflict, pamphlets and periodical essays had enlightened their readers—necessarily a select and small body—on particular topics. But standing orders of both Houses, often renewed, strictly forbade all publication of the debates which took place in either. To a certain extent, these orders had come to be disregarded and evaded. Almost ever since the accession of the House of Brunswick, a London publisher had given to the world an annual account of the Parliamentary proceedings and most interesting discussions of the year; and before the middle of the reign of George II, two monthly magazines had given sketches of speeches made by leading members of each party. The reporters, however, did not venture to give the names of the speakers at full length, but either disguised them under some general description, or at most gave their initials; and sometimes found that even this profession of deference to the standing orders did not insure them impunity. As late as the year 1747, Cave, the proprietor and editor of the Gentleman's Magazine, was brought to the bar of the House of Commons for publishing an account of a recent debate, and only obtained his release by expressions of humble submission and the payment of heavy fees. The awe, however, which his humiliation and peril had been intended to diffuse gradually wore off; the keen interest which was awakened by the ministerial changes at the beginning of the reign of George III., which have been already mentioned, naturally prompted a variety of efforts to gratify it by a revelation of the language concerning them which was held by statesmen of different parties; and these revelations were no longer confined to yearly or monthly publications. More than one newspaper had of late adopted the practice of publishing what it affirmed to be a correct report of the debates of the previous day, though, in fact, each journal garbled them to suit the views of the party to which it belonged, and, to quote the words of the historian of the period, "misrepresented the language and arguments of the speakers in a manner which could hardly be considered accidental."[13] The speakers on the ministerial side in the debates on the Middlesex election had been especial objects of these misrepresentations; and, at the beginning of 1771, one of that party, Colonel Onslow, M.P. for Guilford, brought the subject before the House, complaining that many speeches, and his own among them, had been misrepresented by two newspapers which he named, and that "the practice had got to an infamous height, so that it had become absolutely necessary either to punish the offenders or to revise the standing orders."[14] And he accordingly moved "that the publication of the newspapers of which he complained was a contempt of the orders and a breach of the privileges of the House, and that the printers be ordered to attend the House at its next sitting." The habitual unfairness of the reports was admitted by the Opposition; but the publishers complained of evidently felt assured of their sympathy (which, indeed, was sufficiently, and not very decorously, shown by its leaders inflicting on the House no fewer than twenty-three divisions in a single night), and, relying on their countenance, they paid no attention to the order of the House. A fresh order for their arrest having been issued, the Sergeant-at-arms reported that he had been unable to execute it, by reason of their absence from their homes; on which the House, not disposed to allow itself to be thus trifled with, now addressed his Majesty with a request that he would issue his royal proclamation for their apprehension. And Colonel Onslow made a fresh motion, with a similar complaint of the publishers of six more newspapers—"three brace," as he described them in language more sportsman like than parliamentary. Similar orders for their appearance and, when these were disregarded, for their apprehension, were issued. And at last one of those who had been mentioned in the royal proclamation, Mr. Wheble, printer of the Middlesex Journal, was apprehended by an officer named Carpenter, and carried before the sitting magistrate at Guildhall, who, by a somewhat whimsical coincidence, happened to be Alderman Wilkes. Wilkes not only discharged him, on the ground that there was "no legal cause of complaint against him," but when Wheble, in retaliation, made a formal complaint of the assault committed on him by Carpenter in arresting him, bound Wheble over to prosecute, and Carpenter to answer the complaint, at the next quarter sessions, and then reported what he had done in an official Letter to the Secretary of State. Thomson, another printer, was in like manner arrested; and, when brought before Mr. Oliver,

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