§ MR. HUMErose to move the Resolutions of which he had given notice relative to the mode of transacting Private Business. It was impossible that the present system could be allowed to continue for another year. The Committee appointed last year agreed to certain recommendations; and it was to carry out their suggestions that he had prepared the Resolutions which he now submitted. During the last Session no less than fifty Members were employed in taking proof that the Standing Orders had been complied with. He proposed that a tribunal should be appointed, before which that should be for the future proved. The Committee suggested that to save expense the Standing Orders for Scotch Bills should be proved in Edinburgh, and for Irish Bills in Dublin; but by the Resolutions he should move, this would be left with the Speaker in each case to determine. He did not propose to remove from the House any portion of the control which it now had over the proof of Standing Orders; but by the plan proposed, the attendance of a number of individuals would be dispensed with. In one case as many as 200 witnesses had been in attendance, some of them fourteen days or three weeks, at an expense of 10,000l.; while by the plan the Committee suggested, little expense would be incurred at this stage of a private Bill. At present the private Bills now in operation for the good of towns, varied in every town; and there were often several in the same town with powers clashing with each other. He proposed that on proof of the necessity of a Bill to effect improvements, commissioners should be sent down to make inquiry, on whose report a model Bill should be adopted, without coming to Parliament at all. Many private Bills would be in this way taken out of the hands of Parliament. From the period of the Union to the present time, the number of private Bills amounted to 9,400, while the number of public Bills was only 5,300. The private Bills were introduced by interested parties, and they were opposed also by parties interested, so that it was difficult for Committees to know, on the repre- 547 sentations made to them, what was really best for a town. Undoubtedly if the Committees had been properly informed upon this point, many Bills would never have been passed. As a means of remedying the evils arising from this cause, he proposed that every private Bill brought in should be under the responsibility of some public department, which might send down a commissioner to inquire into the real circumstances of the case, and to report thereon to the Board of Trade or the Woods and Forests, as the case might be. As every department was responsible for the public Bills which came under them, so he proposed to make them equally responsible for all private Bills, which were often of equal public importance. No evil could arise from a trial of the Resolutions he proposed; and he hoped there would be no objection to them. There was another point of some importance. Every Bill at present had to pass the Standing Orders' Committee of both Houses; but it would be sufficient, he thought, to have one proof of the Standing Orders; and he hoped that arrangements might be made with the other House, so that one proof of the Standing Orders for both Houses might suffice. This would save great expense to parties. The Report of the Committee also suggested the consolidation of the various police and private Bills relating to the same towns. There were at present no less than sixty private Bills in operation in the town of Liverpool alone, many of them at variance with each other. The hon. Member concluded by moving a series of Resolutions, which were agreed to.