Great Britain. Parliament; Great Britain. Parliament -- History; Representative government and representation
This is by no means the only instance of a momentous question such as
the life of a Government being decided by a single vote. The Second
Reading of the Reform Bill in 1831 was carried by a majority of one;
the House on that occasion presenting a sight which, as Macaulay said,
was to be seen only once and never to be forgotten. "It was like
seeing Cæsar stabbed in the Senate House, or seeing Oliver taking the
mace from the Table." When the tellers announced the majority the
victorious party shouted with joy, while some of them actually shed
tears. "The jaw of Peel fell; and the face of Twiss was as the face of
a damned soul; and Herries looked like Judas taking his necktie off
for the last operation." In 1854 Lord Russell was defeated and Sir
Robert Peel returned to victory on the crest of an equally diminutive
wave; and a century earlier Walpole's administration was overthrown by
a small majority of three.
A minority of one is more unusual, but not altogether unknown. At the
end of the eighteenth century, when the Duke of Somerset divided the
House of Lords on a question of war with France, he walked alone into
the Opposition division lobby. The same fate befell Dr. Kenealy in
1875, when his motion on behalf of the Tichborne Claimant was defeated
by 433 votes to 1. On July 16, 1909, when a division was taken on an
amendment to reject a Bill prohibiting foreign trawlers from landing
their catches at British ports, the Noes numbered 158 while there was
but a solitary Aye. And on July 18, 1910, on a motion for the
adjournment of the House, there was but a single No.
No secrecy is maintained as to the voting of peers or members in
divisions. In the old Journals of the Lords the division lists used
always to be entered, but in 1641 this practice was abandoned, and the
minority could only record an adverse vote by a formal protest of
dissent.[405] Division lists were not regularly printed in the Commons
until 1836, and the Lords followed suit about twenty years later.
[405] This right of protest recorded in the Journals of the House is
still occasionally exercised.
Divisions provide legislators with plenty of exercise, combined
occasionally with acute mental anxiety. The latter they share with
those hardworked and hardworking individuals, the "Whips" or
"Whippers-in," whose duties are at all times heavy and become
especially onerous with the approach of a division.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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