Questions in the House : the history of a unique british institution.

Door: Howarth, Patrick John Fielding.

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• Uitgever: London : The Bodley Head, [1956]. Hardcover. Dustjacket. 220 pp. 23 cm. Dustjacket bit chipped. Owner's stamp on title-page. Conditie: goed
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• Details: Conditie: goed. RECHT
• Extra informatie: From the publisher : A question was asked in Parliament as long ago as 1721, yet the history of the unique British institution of question time, on which we are more dependent for our liberties than most people realize, is recorded in detail here for the first time. The first question put in Parliament of which there is any record concerned the activities of an absconding cashier who was deeply involved in the affairs of the South Sea Company, and the story of the development of the practice, at first almost an accidental growth, brings to light many of the most fascinating issues which have attracted the attention of Parliament. Fox and Barré developing the technique of the question to discredit Lord North's Government during the war with the American colonies; Castlereagh admitting in an answer that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and landed in France; Palmerston describing the Suez Canal project as a bubble scheme "founded in hostility to the interests of this country"; Disraeli warning Prussia of the consequences of violating Belgian neutrality-these are a few of the questions and answers that are examined in this absorbing study. Then there are the questions about private individuals; the mysterious affair of the seaman who was put ashore by a drunken captain on a barren rock in the West Indies and was never heard of again; the thirteen-year-old girl who was sentenced to fourteen days in prison and four years in a reformatory for stealing a geranium; the Bishop of Peterborough's problem of what to do about a clergyman who had formed "a criminal connexion" in Paris. Patrick Howarth, distinguished social historian and novelist, has produced in Questions in the House a work of profound scholarship, which is also a witty, entertain ing and highly original contribution to our knowledge of our past and of one of our country's most valuable institutions.
• € 28.00