‘To avoid heat against the order of the House’

Hatsell’s contribution to the preceding discussion began with the ‘con­stant notion and language of Parliament’ that ‘every Member is equally a

Representative of the whole’.⁴⁷ For this proposition Hatsell relied, as he did on 40 other occasions, on the wisdom of Speaker Arthur Onslow.⁴⁸

The equal chance of any given member to make his voice and vote count arose at least three times in the course of a successful traversal of a bill, that is, on each of three readings.⁴⁹ It was this equality that was subject to distortion, if Hatsell’s observation about the majority’s ‘weapons’ is to be taken at face value.

On the 24th of April, 1621, Sir Francis Seymour offering to reply, inter­rupted by Mr. Speaker, because against the order of the House to speak twice in one day; which is for avoiding replies, and spending of time, and to avoid heat.⁵⁰

We have the natural desire to ‘check the time’ when some activity drives us to distraction. Commons’ practices likewise valued efficiency. The ‘order of the House’ served as a measure of members’ time which might be saved; members were urged to abide by the pathway marked out by such an order.

A singularity serves to measure how much time is left in which mem­bers might expend energy. In a parliamentary sitting a clock-face ticks off the minutes and hours remaining to members.

‘Assembly time’ operates by fracturing singularities: sitting, session and Parliament. These translate across the North Atlantic into sitting, session and Congress. Time could be subdivided but not supplemented. Once a fraction of time was expended the loss was irretrievable.

Parliament, session and sitting were not the only singularities available for time-fracturing. Parliamentary assemblies fractured time (to be con­sumed) by means of canonical events that marked off significant intervals. In the Appendix: Parliamentary Model, I have listed these in Segment 2. The canonical events are First Reading, Second Reading, Third Reading, Committal/Re-Committal, Petitions/Motions for Leave to Bring in a Bill,

‘The eternal rules of justice and reason’ 65 Orders of the Day, and Adjournment. As modelled, merit outcomes are reduced to the limited formal possibilities Ordered or Resolved; negatives are implied. The assembly might take no action or reject action along the canonical pathway. The Parliamentary Model frames the construction of well-formed formulas that supply an inventory of motions and motion prac­tice, once a proposition has been moved to the floor. Of course, before any proposition is considered the assembly must have basic infrastructure in place. The Parliamentary Model presents these pre-commitments in Seg­ment 1.

In theory such an assembly might conduct its affairs as an instance of the Parliamentary Model, even if it were to reject every bill or resolution brought before it. Such an assembly might deliver no goodness or fair­ness benefits, taken as merit outcomes. Nevertheless, if an investigator can make - on favourable terms - a comparison of the describable behaviour of members with the canonical ideal, then members’ behaviour - abstractly observed - may be regarded as fully modelled.

Hatsell understood that word choices were optimisable. Legislation con­sists of sentences in the English language, with preference given to semi­regimented phrasing. Any given sentence is presumed to invoke ideas worth talking about and talking about correctly. There are only five things that can be done with words. These are: add, delete or substitute words and phrases within the text, as the members gather the necessary energy to ballot the proposition to final adoption or rejection. In the place of words, other types of data may figure in the foregoing such as numbers, dates or persons.

The following anecdote appeared as no. 7 in Hatsell’s Members/Speaker, under the heading ‘Rules of Proceeding’. He subtitled this vignette ‘As to Putting Questions’. It illustrates the finitude which frames word-management in an assembly.

On the 6th of February, 1740, words proposed to be left out of a ques­tion, in order to introduce other words instead of them; the first words are accordingly left out, but on a question to insert the others, it is carried in the negative. And on the 7th of February, 1743, there is a question and division on inserting other words, and carried but by a majority of one.⁵¹

There is another finitude to be taken into account when considering mem­bers’ options when managing words into place within semi-regimented sen­tences.

Acclamation, lottery and tribunal also offered avenues for driving discourse forward and energising members. Acclamation occurred when the House declared its corporate will without a member objecting on the record. The Latinate ‘Nemine Contradicente' was the signal indicating that the question had been resolved by acclamation. Parliament employed lottery in Grenville's Act (Parliamentary Elections Act) when panels of members were selected by lot. A random process was put to work when ‘pieces of paper' were drawn from a ‘glass or box' to determine the order in which election petitions were to be taken up (6 December 1774). Tribunal occurred when the House tried a member for disobedience. The election panels (resolving disputed elections) offer another instance of tribunal employed as a mode of proceeding.⁵²

Secondment to a select or special committee typically included mission­specific instructions to the committee as agent of the House. For example, the House appointed committees to search precedents on its behalf.⁵³ I have already discussed how local residents were tasked to adjudicate claims when canal building triggered taking and damage claims. In the case of the Trent-to-Mersey Company lottery (as a process) was nested within mission specific instructions: ‘any Seven' of the named residents may serve as ‘Commissioners' charged with ‘settling, determining and adjusting all Questions' that might arise between the Company and landowners, for example. 6 Geo. 3 c. 96, Section VI.

Bargaining-and-auction also drove word choices forward, especially when members gathered in a special or select committee, that is, behind closed doors. Members voting to commit a bill to a select committee expected that the committee members, in recommending text back to the House floor, had agreed on some purpose by which the legislative text could be valued. Re­committal might take place after the chamber had refined the bill, thereby giving committee members their second chance at debate-and-ballot and bargaining-and-auction inside the committee room. If the chamber voted down re-committal, this negative signalled to members that a majority wished to ballot the bill up or down without further attention from a com­mittee outside the chamber. The assembly might also vote to re-commit the bill to the committee of the whole House; this permitted members to speak more than once to the same question.

Bargaining was likewise recorded in agreements reached between Lords and Commons. This occurred when negotiations resolved their differences in bills each House had passed.⁵⁴ These instances of bargaining were ordinarily placed on the record and reported to the respective bodies. Bargains reached in committee proceedings were also recorded when matters were settled; these deal points would reach the House as merit action recommended to the consideration of the House of Commons in formal proceedings.

These six drivers enabled members to code prescriptions. Because the choice of drivers was entirely within their control, resort to different drivers energised members. The flow of action - as one driver dominated and then receded, yielding events to the next driver - produced a one-off work of col­laborative art for which the assembly was entirely responsible.

The six drivers offered members of a legislative assembly diverse opportu­nities to take stock of their personal hopes and fears. That is, each member could know (in idiomatic English) ‘where’ he stood as each day’s parliamen­tary events unfolded.

Hatsell devoted detailed attention to the intersection between members’ acquisition of energy through law-making, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, members’ expenditure of energy. He gathered examples in his analysis subtitled ‘On a division of the house’ under his heading ‘Rules of Proceedings’. In 19 pages in his Members/Speaker - and through 39 anecdotes - Hatsell enumerated the reasons which governed the ‘noes’ going forth from the chamber. Tellers would then count members as they returned to the chamber. Teams of tellers also went to work when the ‘ayes’ went forth from the chamber, counting those members moving through the divi­sion lobby and those remaining in the chamber.⁵⁵

Hatsell had two purposes in presenting this taxonomy, one tucked into the other. On the surface Hatsell drew attention to time consumed by this public ballet. If it served any purpose at all, it permitted a member to locate the colleague whose lead he followed and to trail his leader’s footsteps through the division lobby. Hatsell would not be impressed by this pur­pose. In a deeper sense Hatsell’s 19 pages point out that algorithms cannot solve all human problems. Even today there is no realistic hope that all of the choices arising from the question ‘who should go forth’ can be coded to deliver reliable answers. ‘The instance of the 31st of January, 1767, is a mistake’, Hatsell reported in Members/Speaker. ‘The Noes ought to have gone forth’.⁵⁶ The utility of coding human behaviour is subject to the con­straint of diminishing returns. If a sprawling taxonomy of choreographed behaviour required a John Hatsell to score hits and misses, it was time for the House to rethink the process itself. On this and other points, economic analysis must be brought to bear for the purpose of determining the practi­cal range of values assignable to any variable at work.