In their efforts to grapple successfully with the ever-increasing mass of business brought before them, modern Parliaments show a tendency to prolong their labours to an ever-increasing extent. Each succeeding session lengthens, as Macaulay said, "like a human hair in the mouth."

In Tudor times the statutes to be passed were few in number, and the time occupied in legislation was consequently short. Members returned by "rotten" boroughs had no temptation to be prolix; their seats did not depend upon their parliamentary exertions, and their speeches were therefore commendably brief. Parliament to-day is often censured for the sterility of its legislative output, but during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries legislation in the modern sense of the word scarcely existed at all. Its time was chiefly spent in the discussion of libellous books and in disputes over constitutional questions of privilege.

October and November were the months fixed for the meeting of Parliament in Hanoverian times, and the prorogation usually took place in April. From 1805 to 1820 it met after Christmas. Since 1820 February has been the month generally chosen. Nowadays, not only have the sessions grown much longer—even the feast of St. Grouse on the 12th of August is no longer observed by politicians—but the hours of each sitting have been considerably extended. The session of 1847 was prolonged over 293 days; the Parliament of 1852 met on November 4 and sat until August 20 of the following year, and during the last two months of that session the House of Commons continued sitting for fifteen out of every twenty-four hours. In 1908, which contained two sessions, the House sat for 253 days, and the session of 1909 lasted from February 16 till December 3, during the latter weeks of which all-night sittings were of the commonest occurrence.

In proportion as the daily labours of the Legislature increased the hour for commencing work became later and later. In Charles I.'s time Parliament often met as early as 7 a.m., and would sit until twelve, the afternoon being devoted to the work of the committees.[371] Later on the hour of meeting was fixed for 8 or 9 a.m., and the House usually rose at 4 p.m., or earlier. The Commons always showed the strongest disinclination to sit in the afternoon, either because the midday meal did not leave them in a fit condition to legislate, or because no regular provision was made for lighting the House when twilight fell. "This council is a grave council and sober," said a member in 1659, and "ought not to do things in the dark," and the Speaker would occasionally regard his inability to distinguish one member from another as a sufficient excuse for adjourning the House.[372] The practice of sitting regularly after dark did not commence until the year 1717, when, by an order of the House, the Sergeant-at-Arms was directed to bring in candles as soon as daylight failed. Prior to that year the employment of artificial light had to be made the subject of a special motion, and Sergeants were sometimes reprimanded for providing candles without the necessary order.

During the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the hours of sitting varied from time to time. Up to 1888 the House of Commons sat from 10 a.m. until 3.45 p.m. In that year the time for meeting was fixed at 3 p.m. and this was subsequently postponed for an hour.Saturday and Sunday have long been recognised as regular parliamentary holidays, and on one other day in the week—either a Wednesday or Friday—the House of Commons has adjourned at an earlier hour than usual. This, however, was not always the case. In Stuart times Parliament sometimes sat on Sunday and even on Christmas Day,[373] and it was on a Sunday—December 18, 1831—that the Reform Bill was read a second time. This, however, was an exceptional instance, the adjournment over Saturday having been initiated by Sir Robert Walpole, who, as a keen sportsman, was always anxious to get away to the country, and believed that, as Dryden says, it were:

In more recent times it became the fashion to adjourn the House on Derby Day, in order to allow legislators to take part in the sport of kings. In 1872, this adjournment was made the subject of a heated debate, and though the division that ensued resulted in a large majority for the holiday-makers, the claims of sport gradually gave way to the more pressing demands of business, and ten years later, when the Prevention of Crimes (Ireland) Act was under discussion, the matter was considered too serious to allow of the usual Derby Day adjournment. The late Sir Wilfrid Lawson once cynically argued that if the Derby Day became a recognised official holiday the Speaker of the House of Commons ought to go to Epsom in his State-coach, "as he did at the thanksgiving for the Prince of Wales's recovery." The game of politics is nowadays treated more gravely than ever, and the most frivolous of modern politicians would scarcely dream of suggesting that the stern business of Westminster should be deserted for the pleasures of Epsom Downs. The House of Lords has always, until a year or two ago, adjourned over Ash Wednesday and Ascension Day, on the ground that if they met they would be taken to Church at the Abbey; but lately they have braved this terror and nothing so serious has happened.

Prior to 1882 the House of Lords met at five o'clock in the afternoon; they now meet three-quarters of an hour earlier.[374] Except under circumstances of special pressure they take holidays on Friday and Saturday, and Sunday is, of course, for them, as for everybody else, a day of complete rest. Occasionally on other days the amount of work to be undertaken in the Upper House is so small as to be accomplished in a few minutes. The Lords, as has been irreverently observed, often sit scarcely long enough to boil an egg, and it is only towards the end of the session that they are compelled to extend their deliberations beyond the dinner-hour.[375]

The labours of the Commons are more arduous, and entail longer hours of sitting. On Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday the House meets at 2.45 p.m. and continues sitting until 11 p.m., unless the day's business has been disposed of before that hour. At eleven o'clock the Speaker interrupts business, after which no opposed matter can be dealt with, but, by a Standing Order, it is permissible for a Minister of the Crown, at the commencement of the day's work, to move the suspension of the eleven o'clock rule. In this case no interruption takes place until the business under discussion is finished.

All-night sittings are not uncommon nowadays, but in former times they occurred but rarely. In 1742, the Speaker once sat in the Chair for seventeen hours at a stretch, and some fifty years later we find the Commons keeping an occasional all-night vigil. Sir Samuel Romilly left the House one evening to go to bed, and returned the next morning to find his colleagues still sitting. He began his speech by saying that he made no apology for rising to address the House at such a time, as seven o'clock was his usual hour for "getting up."[376] In 1877, the Commons sat for a day and night, and again in 1881, the sitting on the latter occasion lasting forty-one hours; and since that day many sittings have been prolonged over the twenty-four hours. In 1909, the House sat after 1 a.m. o'clock on no less than thirty-seven occasions, after 4 a.m. on ten occasions, and once as late as nine o'clock in the morning.

Friday is, so to speak, a half-holiday for the Commons. On that day the House meets at noon, the interruption of business occurs at five o'clock, and, no matter what subject is under discussion, the House adjourns at 5.30 p.m. Before 1902, Wednesday was the day chosen for the short sitting, but the desire of many members to escape from London at the end of the week led to a change, and it is now possible for representatives from the most distant parts of England to pay flying weekly visits to their homes or constituencies.

For a few years recently the House of Commons always enjoyed an evening interval for dinner, but this agreeable adjournment was reluctantly sacrificed in 1906, and the "Speaker's chop" is now nothing but a fragrant memory. The dinner-hour is much too precious to be wasted at any table other than that of the House, for at 8.15 on many days any private business not disposed of at the beginning of the sitting is given precedence of all else, and what is known as "opposed" private business is also taken between that hour and 9.30 p.m.[377]

For the information of members a daily "notice paper" is published in two editions—a blue edition in the morning, and a white one in the early afternoon—containing the orders of the day and all notices of motions. To this is attached the "votes and proceedings," division lists, and an account of the business accomplished at the last sitting. In the "order book" of the House, also published daily, is a list of all future business definitely assigned to any particular sitting; while once a week a catalogue of all Public Bills that have been introduced, and some report of their progress, is also included.

By no means the least arduous of the many labours of Parliament are those which are undertaken by legislators serving upon the various Committees, of which the public knows so little, but whose work is very necessary to the carrying on of public business.

The appointment of Select Committees in both Houses has been practised ever since the earliest days of Parliament. The duties of these subsidiary bodies, which may be appointed for any purpose, are prescribed by the terms of the reference: they may collect facts for future legislation, investigate conduct, or examine the terms of a Bill referred to them, thus saving the time of the House. To them go all opposed Private Bills, when counsel appear to argue the merits of clashing interests.

The system of Committees perhaps originated in the conferences held in former times by the two Houses in the Painted Chamber. There are records of small deliberative bodies, somewhat similar in character to the modern Committees, in the middle of the sixteenth century. By the time Queen Elizabeth came to the throne such Committees were common, and were usually composed of members of one or other House. Select Committees did not exist until the eighteenth century, and were originally semi-judicial in character.

All members of the House of Commons are subject to be called upon to serve on Select Committees, being chosen for the purpose by a Committee of Selection, and the work thus done outside the actual Chamber adds considerably to the daily labours of politicians. No member may refuse to serve, if called upon to do so, and when, in 1846, Mr. Smith O'Brien declined to sit on an English Railway Committee, he was confined in the Clock Tower in the custody of the Sergeant-at-Arms.

The whole House can also resolve itself at any time into a Committee, when its function becomes one of "deliberation rather than inquiry."[378] Every Public Bill not referred to a Grand Committee must be considered in a Committee of the Whole House, and, indeed, the greater part of each session is occupied by this stage of legislation. The Committee of Supply and the Committee of Ways and Means are both "Committees of the Whole House," and are appointed to discuss the financial projects of the Government, the one to supervise expenditure, the other to devise taxation.

A Committee of the Whole House differs in no respect from the House itself, save that it is presided over by a chairman in place of the Speaker, and that the mace is removed from the Table. There are also some changes in the procedure of debate, as, for example, the cancelling of the rule forbidding a member to speak twice on the same question.

The idea of forming the House itself into a committee has developed, like so many parliamentary institutions, gradually and almost unconsciously. In days when the Speaker was too often the spy of the King it was considered advisable to get rid of him, and this could best be done by turning the House into a Committee and putting some other member in the Chair.

The Chairman of Committees in the Lords, and the Chairman of Ways and Means, or his deputy, in the Commons, takes the Chair when the House is in Committee, but it is permissible for either House to nominate any one of their number as a temporary Chairman.[379] As a substitute for Committees of the Whole House in the Commons, two large Standing Committees, sometimes called Grand Committees, numbering from sixty to eighty members, are appointed to consider respectively all Bills relating to Law and Trade committed to them by the House. Besides the smaller committees already referred to there are Sessional Committees, appointed for each session, consisting of from eight to twelve members—as, for instance, the committee on Public Accounts, which meets once a week to look into the department of the Auditor-General—which control the internal arrangements of the House; and joint Committees of the two Houses, which discuss matters in which both are interested.

In the Lords also Standing Committees were instituted in 1889, but these were to supplement and not supersede the Whole House Committee stage, and after an experience of more than twenty years have proved their insufficient utility, they were abolished on June 24, 1910.

In the sixteenth century committees generally met outside the House, in the Star Chamber, in Lincoln's Inn, or elsewhere, but they have not done so for many years, numerous committee-rooms being nowadays provided within the precincts of the House.

At the commencement of every session the House of Lords elects a Chairman of Committees from among its own members. His duty it is to preside over Committees of the Whole House, or over Select Committees on whom the power of appointing their own Chairman is not expressly conferred. He is a salaried official of Parliament, and receives a sum of £2500 a year for his services. Similar duties are undertaken in the House of Commons by a Chairman of Committees and a Deputy Chairman, at salaries of £2500 and £1000 respectively.

The Crown usually appoints by commission one or more Lords to supply the place of Lord Chancellor, should that official be unavoidably absent. On emergency it may be moved that any lord present may be appointed temporarily to sit Speaker. In the House of Commons the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Deputy Chairman are similarly empowered to replace the Speaker when absent.

The problem of providing a substitute for the Speaker was not settled until 1855, prior to which date no steps seem to have been taken to fill the Chair in the event of a Speaker's sudden illness or absence. It appears to have been considered inadvisable to frame any scheme of relief which should facilitate his frequent absence. It was, further, the general sense of the House that no temporary president could command that implicit acquiescence in the rulings of the Chair which is so necessary for the maintenance of order in debate.

To the Chairman of Committees, whom one would regard as a natural substitute for the Speaker, the House has never been willing to accord the complete consideration to which the Chair is entitled; the fact that he is liable at any moment to sink again into the body of the House robs this official of much of his authority. In the reign of James I. we find a Chairman complaining that some member had threatened to "pull him out of the Chair, that he should put no more tricks upon the House." And in 1810 another member, Fuller by name, who had lost the Chairman's eye and his own temper, called that official a "d—— insignificant puppy," and said that he didn't care a snap of the fingers for him or for the House either.[380]

The question of replacing the Speaker has, therefore, always been a delicate one, and for many years no attempt was made to solve it. In 1656, owing to the illness of Sir Thomas Widdrington, another member occupied the Chair for a period of a few weeks, and, during the next few years, several Speakers complained of ill-health and were temporarily relieved. From 1547, when the Journals commence, to 1660, the Speaker was only absent on twelve occasions, and during the next hundred years the records of the House show only six cases of absence. The inconvenience caused by the rule which necessitated an adjournment on such occasions—curiously few in number though they were—can readily be imagined. On the death of Queen Anne, in 1714, the whole proceedings of Parliament were delayed, and the sittings postponed from day to day owing to the Speaker being away in the country and taking a long time to travel to London. The duty of being ever in his place at times involved great hardships. Addington was obliged to take the Chair three days after the death of his father, persevering by a painful effort in this stern adherence to the path of duty.[381]

In the year 1640, a prolonged session was the cause of many members absenting themselves from their places in the House of Commons. In order to ensure a more general attendance it was then determined that the Speaker should not take the Chair unless there were at least forty members present in the House. This rule still holds good, and to-day, if a quorum of forty is not obtainable before four o'clock, the sitting is suspended until that hour. Should the same difficulty arise after four o'clock, the House is adjourned until the next sitting day.[382] An exception is made in favour of the hour between 8.15 and 9.15, but if a division be taken during that hour in the absence of a quorum, the business in debate must be postponed and the next business brought on. When, too, a message from the Crown is delivered, the House of Commons is held to be "made" even though forty members are not present. On such an occasion the business of the day can be proceeded with so long as no notice is taken of the absence of a quorum.

It is not the Speaker's (or Chairman's) duty to notice the absence of a quorum, but if his attention is drawn to it by a member he must at once rise in his place and proceed to count the House. There is a well-known story of a prolix member speaking to empty benches in the Commons who referred sarcastically to the packed audience hanging upon his words, and was interrupted by the Speaker, who at once proceeded to "count out" the House, and put an end to the sitting as well as to the member's oration. The Speaker's inability to count the House out of his own accord has occasionally given rise to inconvenient situations. Lord George Gordon once rose and requested permission to read from a book, which was granted. He then proceeded to read the Bible until the House dwindled from upwards of four hundred members to two, namely, the Speaker and Lord George himself, who had the indecency to keep the former in the Chair till the candles were "fairly in the socket."[383]

In the House of Lords three peers form a quorum. If, however, thirty lords are not present on a division upon any stage of a Bill, the question is declared to be not decided, and the debate is adjourned until the next sitting. Lord Rosebery, in 1884, recalled an occasion when a noble lord, Lord Leitrim, addressed a quorum of the House, consisting, besides himself, of the Lord Chancellor and the Minister whose duty it was to answer him, for four mortal hours. Another instance of the same kind is supposed to have occurred when Lord Lyndhurst was on the Woolsack and a noble lord spoke at considerable length to an audience of even smaller proportions. After a time the Chancellor became very weary and could scarcely conceal his impatience. "This is too bad," he said at length, "can't you stop?" Still, the peer prosed on, showing no sign of reaching his peroration. Finally, Lyndhurst could stand it no longer. "By Jove," he cried, suddenly inspired with a brilliant idea, "I will count you out!" As he and the speaker only were present in the House at the time, the Chancellor was able to do this, and the long-winded nobleman was effectually silenced.

In early times the daily sittings of Parliament were preceded by Mass held in St. Stephen's Chapel. Later on it became the custom for the lords to repair to the Abbey, and the Commons to St. Margaret's Church, for a brief morning service. In the Parliaments of Queen Elizabeth the Litany was read daily, and a short prayer offered up by the Speaker at the meeting of the House. Prior to 1563, no regular daily prayers were held, but on the first five days of any Parliament "an archbishop, bishop or famous clerk, discrete and eloquent," preached to the House.[384] This practice long continued, and we read of "Dr. Burgesse and Master Marshal," preaching to Parliament on a fast day in the year 1640 for "at least seven hours betwixt them"[385]—an occasion when their eloquence seems to have outrun their discretion.

Nineteen years later Richard Cromwell appointed the first regular chaplain to relieve the Speaker and the discreet and eloquent prelates and clerks of their duties. This official enjoyed no fixed emoluments, but was upheld and nourished by the consciousness of duty nobly done and the hope of subsequent preferment. His counterpart to-day is appointed by the Speaker and paid by the House, and his duties consist in reading the three brief prayers with which each daily session of the House commences.[386] In the Lords this task is undertaken by the bishops in rotation.

When prayers are over in the Lower House any "private business" that has to be taken is called on, and Private Bills pass through the initiatory stages of their career. The procedure in this case is, as a rule, purely formal, and lasts but a short time.

The dispatch of private business is immediately followed by the oral presentation of petitions by those members who have informed the Speaker of their intention to do so.

In these days of open courts of justice, a free Press, and wholesale publicity the need for petitions is not so great as it was in times when the voice of the people could not always obtain a hearing. To-day the papers are only too ready to lend their columns to the airing of any grievance, real or imaginary, and politicians are not unwilling to make party capital out of any individual instances of apparent injustice or oppression that may be brought to their notice.

A hundred years ago all petitions were read to the House by the members presenting them, and lengthy discussions often ensued. Much waste of time resulted from this practice, and the frequent arrival at Westminster of large bodies of petitioners caused great inconvenience, and sometimes led to rioting. In 1641, a huge crowd of women completely blocked the entrance of the House. They were led by a certain Mrs. Anne Stagg, "a gentlewoman and brewer's wife," and their object was to present a petition directed against the Popish bishops.[387] The Sergeant of the Parliamentary Guard appealed to the House for advice as to how he should treat these women, and was told to speak them fair and send them away. This he accordingly proceeded to do, but not without much difficulty.

Two years later three thousand other "mean women," wearing white ribbons in their hats, arrived at Westminster with another petition. "Peace! Peace!" they cried, in a manner which was little calculated to gain that which they were seeking. "Give us those traitors that are against peace, that we may tear them to pieces! Give us that dog Pym!" The conduct of these viragoes at length became so unruly that the trained bands were sent for, and the order was eventually given to fire upon the mob. "When the gentle sex can so flagrantly renounce their character, and make such formidable attacks on the men," says a contemporary historian, "they certainly forfeit the polite treatment due to them as women"—and in this case their forgetfulness cost them the loss of several lives.[388]

To-day, under the provisions of the One Mile Act of George III.—the result of an attack made upon the Regent on his way from the opening of Parliament in 1817—no assembly of petitioners or public meeting is allowed within a mile of the Palace of Westminster. Petitions themselves are treated in a summary manner which permits of little time being wasted. No debate is permitted upon the subjects raised by petitions, and the formal method of presentation has given place to a more satisfactory (if somewhat perfunctory) fashion of dealing with them.

Behind the Speaker's Chair hangs a large bag. In this a petition may be placed, at any time during a sitting, by the member in charge of it. Thence it is sent to the Committee on Public Petitions, and presumably never heard of again. Petitions sometimes contain so many signatures, and are consequently so bulky, that no earthly bag could possibly contain them. In 1890, for instance, a petition eight miles in length, in favour of the Local Taxation Bill, was presented to Parliament, and in 1908 another, almost as voluminous, provided a material protest against the Licensing Bill. Petitions of such proportions are carried into the House on the shoulders of stout officials, and, after reposing for a brief space upon the floor, are presently borne away to be no more seen or remembered.

When petitions have been disposed of, motions for unopposed returns are taken, and other formal business; and then follows question-time, perhaps one of the most important hours of the parliamentary day, when a hitherto languid House begins to take some interest in the proceedings.

Politicians would appear to be among the most inquisitive individuals on the face of the globe; their thirst for general information is as insatiable as it is amazing. The time spent by various Government officials in pandering to this craving for knowledge on the part of legislators is very considerable: it has even been hinted that the clerks at the Irish Office are employed exclusively upon the task of answering conundrums set by members of the House of Commons. Nothing is too insignificant, no matter is too sacred, to be made the subject of a question in the House. But, although any member has a perfect right to apply for a return, or to ask any question he pleases, within certain bounds, a Minister of the Crown may always refuse to supply the return, or decline to answer the question; nor need he give any reason for so doing. This rule provides a loophole for a Minister who is confronted with an awkward question to which it would need the powers of subtlety and casuistry of a Gladstone to find a non-committal reply.[389]

A member of Lord Aberdeen's Ministry in 1854 was attacked for not rendering a certain return that had been applied for. He made no comment at the time, but on a subsequent occasion produced and laid on the Table of the House a huge folio volume weighing 1388 lbs. and containing seventy-two reams of foolscap. The compilation of this return, as he informed the House, had caused the dispatch of 34,500 circular letters and the cataloguing and tabulating of 34,500 replies. The result of the figures mentioned therein had not been arrived at, the Minister went on to explain, as it would have taken two clerks a whole year to add them up. Further, he added, the return, if completed, would afford no information beyond that which the House already possessed.[390] Ever since 1902, a written instead of an oral reply can be rendered to all questions that are not marked with an asterisk by the member who asks them. No questions may be asked after a certain hour, and the answers to those that have not been reached at that hour, as well as to those that are not marked with an asterisk, are printed and circulated, thus saving a great deal of valuable time.

Questions must be brief and relevant. No member may ask an excessive or unreasonable number, nor may he couch them in lengthy terms. They may not be framed argumentatively nor contain personal charges against individuals. The Speaker is empowered to disallow any question if he thinks fit, and often interposes to check supplementary questions which are not relevant, or which constitute an abuse of the right to interrogate Ministers; and the latter are always at liberty to refuse an answer on the grounds that a reply would be contrary to the public interest. Whenever our relations with foreign Powers are in any way strained, certain members seem to take a delight in asking questions calculated to hamper the movements of the Foreign Office, or to provide other nations with all the secret information they desire. And it is not always expedient or easy for Ministers to refuse to satisfy the thirst for knowledge of their friends or opponents, or to try and choke off the inquisitive or importunate with evasive answers. It was always said that "Darby Griffith destroyed Lord Palmerston's first Government," by asking perpetual questions which the Premier answered with a "cheerful impertinence which hurt his parliamentary power."[391] And the amount of patience and tact displayed by modern Ministers in replying to frivolous or petty queries is always a subject of admiration to the stranger.

Members no doubt feel it their duty to provide their constituencies with some material evidence of their parliamentary labours, and no easier method can be imagined than the asking of questions on subjects in which they possibly take not the slightest interest. Some politicians openly confess that their secretaries have orders to make out a regular weekly list of conundrums which they can hurl at the heads of unoffending Ministers, with no other purpose than that of showing their constituents that they are taking an active interest in the affairs of the nation. The criticism made by a parliamentary writer fifty years ago is equally applicable to-day. "It would seem to be the chief amusement of some members diligently to read the newspapers in the morning, and to ask Ministers of State in the afternoon if they have read them too, and what they think of them."[392]

The growth of this yearning for information is very clearly shown by a glance at the parliamentary statistics for the last hundred years. In 1800 not a single question was put during the whole of one session. In 1846 the number of questions asked with due notice was sixty-nine. In 1850 the number had risen to 212, in 1888 to 5000; in 1901 over 7000 questions were put, and to-day the number is still steadily increasing.

At four o'clock, or earlier if questions have been disposed of, the House proceeds to the consideration of its public business and the "orders of the day," and the real business of Parliament begins.