Every large assembly is, moreover, a fluctuating body; it is not one house, so to say, but a set of houses; it is one set of men to-night and another to-morrow night.  A certain unity is doubtless preserved by the duty which the executive is supposed to undertake, and does undertake, of keeping a house; a constant element is so provided about which all sorts of variables accumulate and pass away.  But even after due allowance for the full weight of this protective machinery, our House of Commons is, as all such chambers must be, subject to sudden turns and bursts of feeling, because the members who compose it change from time to time.  The pernicious result is perpetual in our legislation; many Acts of Parliament are medleys of different motives, because the majority which passed one set of its clauses is different from that which passed another set,

But the greatest defect of the House of Commons is that it has no leisure.  The life of the House is the worst of all lives—­a life of distracting routine.  It has an amount of business brought before it such as no similar assembly ever has had.  The British Empire is a miscellaneous aggregate, and each bit of the aggregate brings its bit of business to the House of Commons.  It is India one day and Jamaica the next; then again China, and then Schleswig-Holstein.  Our legislation touches on all subjects, because our country contains all ingredients.  The mere questions which are asked of the Ministers run over half human affairs; the Private Bill Acts, the mere privilegia of our Government—­subordinate as they ought to be—­ probably give the House of Commons more absolute work than the whole business, both national and private, of any other assembly which has ever sat.  The whole scene is so encumbered with changing business, that it is hard to keep your head in it.

Whatever, too, may be the case hereafter, when a better system has been struck out, at present the House does all the work of legislation, all the detail, and all the clauses itself.  One of the most helpless exhibitions of helpless ingenuity and wasted mind is a committee of the whole House on a bill of many clauses which eager enemies are trying to spoil, and various friends are trying to mend.  An Act of Parliament is at least as complex as a marriage settlement; and it is made much as a settlement would be if it were left to the vote and settled by the major part of persons concerned, including the unborn children.  There is an advocate for every interest, and every interest clamours for every advantage.  The executive Government by means of its disciplined forces, and the few invaluable members who sit and think, preserves some sort of unity.  But the result is very imperfect.  The best test of a machine is the work it turns out.  Let any one who knows what legal documents ought to be, read first a will he has just been making and then an Act of Parliament; he will certainly say, “I would have dismissed my attorney if he had done my business as the legislature has done the nation’s business”.  While the House of Commons is what it is, a good revising, regulating and retarding House would be a benefit of great magnitude.