House of Commons is from having exhausted improvements of the simplest and most inoffensive nature in its own proceedings; but the question of questions, in comparison with which all others sink into comparative insignificance, is the question of the disposalof the time of the House. It is the most valuable thing the House possesses, but as to any property or control over it the rules of the House are silent. It must be assumed that it is infinite in quantity, since everyone is permitted to take, and I may say to waste, just as much of it as he pleases. This omission to make provision against the waste of time probably arose from the cause already indicated, the fear that advantage might be taken by the Crown of restrictive rules to cramp the freedom of debate. That reason exists no longer. What, then, is the rule as to time in the House of Commons? simply that a member must not speak twice on the same subject with the Speaker in the chair. It is from the strange omission of any rules with regard to time that all these rivers of bitterness flow. I cannot believe that this enormous omission, as mischievous in practice as it is anomalous in theory, will much longer be allowed to exist. Be lavish if you will of your money, for that you may recover, but be thrifty of irretrievable time. What, then, shall we do with it? To whom shall we give the right to dispose of it? It is really time that the question should be answered. My answer would be- The time of the House is the property of no private person, it is the property of the House of Commons, and it is the absolute right of the House of Commons to dispose of as it thinks best for the public service.' It is little less than a crime to allow the wanton waste of this most valuable of human possessions. It remains, then, to consider what use the House should make of this priceless treasure. Shall the House throw its time open to be seized by the first comer and applied as his dulness, his ignorance, or his vanity may direct? Or shall it not rather keep the key of this treasure in its own hand, and reserve to itself the right of seeing that it is properly expended? The question then remains, by what machinery shall the House of Commons exercise that power over the time of the House which it undoubtedly possesses. Had it not been for the Speaker's rule requiring a majority of three to one, I should think the right of the House to decide by a simple majority how long a debate is to last was too clear for argument. The rule that the majority shall decide is adopted not because the majority is necessarily in the right, but because we must decide somehow, and the question is not what is right, but what at a given moment is the will of the assembly. The counting of members is not a sure way of ascertaining truth, but a perfectly sure way of ascertaining what we want to know, the will of a certain body of men at a certain time. It merely says that the strongest party shall prevail, leaving the question open for fresh discussion. The claim of the majority being thus established on this perfectly fair and reasonable basis, can anything be more absurd than to refuse the House the liberty of closing the debate when such is the will of the majority? I can understand saying, as we do when not under the clutches of urgency, that a debate must go on as long as there is anyone tiresome enough to speak; that is, that the House ought to have no power over its own proceedings. But to say that it ought to have that power, but that it shall not be exercised unless a majority of three to one agree to it, passes my comprehension. How can we, without falling into the grossest contradiction, act on the rule that the majority shall prevail, and then pass a law placing the majority under the minority by saying that 299 members shall be outvoted on a division by 100. The inference which I wish to draw from this argument is of great importance, and it is this-that whenever the Clôture is applied, the question shall be put as on any other question and the majority shall carry it. This, in my opinion, is the key of the whole position. Do this, and the House of Commons is master in its own house. Omit it, and the House will be, as it has been hitherto, at the mercy of every self-complacent bore, or of every professed obstructor, who degrades himself in order to degrade it. It may be said that if we restore to the majority that natural right of which it ought never to have been deprived, the right of disposing of its own time, we are placing the minority utterly in the power of the majority. I apprehend no illusion can be more groundless against such an abuse. The absolute ubiquity of parliamentary proceedings, as secured by railway and telegraph, is a perfectly adequate remedy. A party in a minority could desire nothing better than that the majority should use their power to prevent their adversaries from using arguments which they were unable to answer. The press would take care that nothing was lost. Besides, it is not the interest of either party to introduce a practice by which, if once introduced, they would be sure to suffer in turn Debita jura vicesque superbæ Te maneant ipsum. Precibus non linquar inultis. From a somewhat long experience of the House of Commons I should say that it is the last assembly in the world that would give any countenance to an attempt to stifle fair and bonâ fide discussion; and that when the time arrives in which the Parliament of England is not willing to hear both sides, it will be, not a question of rules and orders, but of a complete change of the machinery of Government, that will have to occupy the attention of the nation. SHERBROOKE. THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. No. LI.-MAY 1881. THE SILVER STREAK' THE 'silver streak of sea' is a phrase that has grown familiar to us, and often repeated by our statesmen it soothes the public ear. It appears but a picturesque expression without much political significance, yet taken with all it involves and implies, it is the most momentous expression of a fact unique in the world's history, or of a delusion as dangerous as any which has deceived a nation. Briefly the phrase embodies an Englishman's belief that, thanks to the 'Silver Streak' which surrounds his shores, he alone of the earth's inhabitants need never fear foreign invasion. Strange that the great highway of nations' should for his enemies be impassable! Yet if such be the fact and the 'Silver Streak' is the Palladium and the charm which guarantees us from the worst of calamities-if it be the sufficient substitute for colossal armies, conscription, a fortified metropolis, and a war establishment in peace time, it is an unspeakable blessing, and worth the trouble of understanding, were it only to avoid giving foolish reasons for our national belief. But what if the supposed immunity be a delusion, and the Silver Streak' one of those fatal phrases which, like the invincible army' of France, lull a nation to such sleep as preluded the catastrophe of 1870 and the infinite humiliation of Sedan? Without prejudging the question whether the 'Silver Streak' be passable or not for a foreign invader, it is at least certain that the reasons usually given for thinking it so are worthless, and will not bear examination. Let us briefly review the most usual and important of these reasons. VOL. IX.-No. 51. 3 D The first assigned will probably be the superiority of our Navy'superior,' to use the words of a leading journal, 'to any other navy or any two other navies combined-practically superior to all other navies united.' This is a very bold statement, or rather it embodies three statements, but the first is doubtful, the second untrue, and the third an absurd exaggeration. Our navy may or may not be superior to that of France; experts like Sir Spencer Robinson' hesitate to decide on that point; but so far from its being superior to any two navies, if we add one navy-say the Italian-to that of France, they would be vastly superior to the British-intrinsically superior in strength, but still more so strategically for two reasons. England cannot concentrate all her forces for defence, having to protect her communications, commerce, and colonies, whereas France could concentrate her whole fleet for attack. It may therefore be fairly assumed that strategically, as the assailant operating against one point, while we must cover many, France by herself would have a great naval superiority for attack. This, as will be shown, is a simple fact, and, considering the official theory, that our navy ought to be equal to any probable combination of navies against us, a very important fact. That so many persons should in the present day, in the teeth of facts and figures, assume such a superiority of our navy above others united, is a singular instance of a belief surviving the facts in which it originated. For it was once well founded, that is towards the close of the great 1 Admiral Sir Spencer Robinson (see Nineteenth Century for March 1880) writes with the experience of several years as 'Comptroller of the Navy,' the department charged with the construction of our fleet. As such he was necessarily acquainted with the nature and value of every ship in our service, but he acquired from official and other sources full details of the French navy also. He puts the actual serviceable line-of-battle force at 24 English to 22 French (in 1880). This proportion varies slightly from time to time, but we may expect henceforward to see the French navy maintained on nearly a level with our own. France has discovered the secret of her own vast and unsuspected resources, and possibly gauged the weakness of our naval system. The following statement gives the efforts making by both countries to increase their fleets :- At the present moment England has eight ironclads either on the stocks or launched and being completed for sea-namely, the "Inflexible,” 11,406 tons; the "Ajax" and " Agamemnon," each of 8,492 tons; the "Colossus" and "Majestic," each of 9,150 tons; the "Conqueror" and "Collingwood," each of 6,200 tons; and the "Polyphemus," an armoured ram of 2,640 tons; while two armoured cruisers, each of over 7,000 tons, are to be shortly begun. France has twelve ironclads either launched and being completed for sea or on the stocksnamely, the "Amiral Duperré," of 10,486 tons, the "Amiral Baudin" and "Formidable," each of 11,441 tons; the "Turenne," "Duguesclin," "Vauban," and "Bayard," ironclads of the second class, each of 5,880 tons; the "Caiman,” “Requin," "Indomptable," and "Terrible," armoured coast-defence vessels of the first class, the first-named of 7,239 tons, the other three of 7,184 tons each; the "Furieux " -also an armoured coast-defence vessel of the first class, but of 5,695 tons only; while four ironclads of the first class-the "Hoche," Marceau," "Magenta," and "Neptune "-are to be immediately begun. Italy has three ironclads building or completing for sea-namely, the " Dandolo," of 10,570 tons, and the “Italia" and "Lepanto," each of 13,700 tons; while another armoured ship of about 12,000 tons is to be taken in hand this year.'-St. James's Gazette, March 2, 1831. war with France, and the superiority of our fleet over the aggregate fleets of Europe may be said to have lasted up to 1830 or a few years later. At two epochs since then, when France built the first successful screw line-of-battle ship, the Napoleon,' and a few years later invented ironclads, she for a time took the lead and actually possessed a temporary superiority at sea, but our faith in the Silver Streak' was unaltered. Not less unfounded is the belief that individually our ships are superior to all others. As a fact about which any man may satisfy himself, Italy possesses two ships, the Dandolo' and 'Duilio,' far more powerful for offence or defence than any we possess, and is engaged in building two more, to surpass those above named. Two or three years at least must elapse before we could produce ships of equal force. Compelled then to admit, as any one who takes the trouble to inquire must be, that our ships are neither collectively nor individually superior to all others, the believer in the Silver Streak' theory will perhaps rely upon the supposed superiority of our sailors. Now what is a sailor? Primarily a man employed about sails and sailing, a man pursuing his vocation Poised in mid air upon the giddy mast. But sails are abolished in our new navy, and ships no longer sail-they steam, owing nought to the sailor's art, and this involves a vast change in his relative value. He never goes aloft in the new ironclad which has no masts. In the olden time the qualifications of an A.B.' (Able Seaman) were briefly summed up in the formula Can hand, reef, steer, and heave the lead.' The first two have no place in our modern navy, and ships now are steered even by steam-power, while as to heaving the lead a young landsman learns it in a month. But that is far from being all the change in the value of a sailor. The sailor of the olden time was not only the mover and conductor of his floating citadel, he was in a great degree its constructor; spiderlike he wove his own web. The inert hull alone was the work of the shipwright, but all that wondrous superstructure above the deck was created and maintained by the sailor's skill. Day by day, and in very few days, he raised those towering masts, securing them so skilfully by shrouds and stays, all his own handiwork; then he got up those huge yards, he bent those sails, he gave wings to the ponderous hull, and his skill managed those wings. It used to be said that the French built better and faster ships than we did, yet they rarely escaped us when chased. Why? Because we were better sailors, could sail our ships better, get more speed out of them, by that nice adjustment of the sails and trim of the ship which may be compared to jockeyship in racing. But much more was our sailors' skill shown in repairing with surpassing ability the havoc made by an enemy's fire in this ingenious fabric. Upon that |