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after he has heard all the sides and proceeds to give his ruling, then, that ruling you must accept as sacrament. No matter how wrong that ruling is. I have been in parliamentary institutions from 1926 to 1946 with a very short break. I have known speakers of different varieties, good and others but we have observed the ruling. You can move a motion that a certain standing order to be amended.
It is unfortunate that you have no opportunity of what I call ‘visual institutions’ of how parliaments work. If you get a chance to go to Paris and see the actual session there or to London and see the House of Commons or go to the U.S.A. and see the House of Representatives, you will see wonderul difference between all these three bodies. In Paris you will see a wonderful assembly. Once I went to the Lower House in Paris on two or three successive days. I could not distinguish that August Assembly from the Crawford Market. People were moving from one place to another, from one corner to another, there was no order, nobody was listening to the Speaker, the poor Speaker had a big log of wood on his table and big hammer also of wood. He continuously hammered, there was no attention paid to him. But just the opposite was the condition in the House of Commons. There is a rule that no member can stand in the chair when the Speaker is standing. Every member must sit. When one member is standing no other member can stand in the chair. He must sit and listen. No member can begin to speak in the House of Commons unless the Speaker calls on him. There is no duty nor obligation on the Speaker to call upon any particular individual to speak. There is a phrase “That the Speaker calls upon such person as are able to catch his eye.” That is a very delusive phrase A Speaker may catch an eye and may deliberately wink at it. The reason is obvious. The Speaker having been in the chair for a number of years knows every individual, knows his good points, knows his bad points. As that he does is now known as his family history. He rarely, allows a man to speak who is tedious and who speaks but says nothing.
We have today what is called Parliamentary Democracy. Let us know that word. It is a very singular insititution. It differs from autocracy or unlimited monarchy because in autocracy or