RESOLUTION. (Hansard, 11 February 1873)

§ LORD JOHN MANNERS
rose to move, "That the House do meet on Tuesdays at 2 p.m., and rise at 7 p.m." The noble Lord said, he had given Notice last year that he would take an early opportunity of calling attention to that subject. He proposed that alteration in the interest of two classes of persons—first, the private Members; 284 and next, the Officers of the House. In respect to private Members, the present system of Evening Sittings on Tuesdays was found to operate in the following way:—About Whitsuntide, or at whatever time of the Session the Government fixed for holding Morning Sittings on Tuesdays in addition to the Evening Sittings, either the House continued to sit to a late hour of the night, with comparatively few Members present, and great exhaustion was naturally felt towards the end of the Session by those servants and officials of the House who had to attend throughout all these long Sittings; or else, as not unfrequently happened, there was no House made in the evening, or the House was counted out soon after 9 o'clock, whereby private Members were prevented from proceeding with their Motions. The inevitable result was that angry recriminations occurred, the private Members accusing the Government, who had taken all the fresh hours of the House for their own business, of not fulfilling their implied pledge to make and keep a House in the evening; and the Government, perhaps not unfairly, retorting that more official Members than private were in attendance when the House was counted. Last Session the House was counted out no fewer than seven times on Tuesdays, though on two of those occasions the House had sat some hours, and a considerable number of private Members were deprived of the opportunity of bringing forward and discussing the Motions in which they were interested. Three of those "counts-out" occurred after Whitsuntide, immediately on the re-assembling of the House at 9 o'clock after a Morning Sitting. Now, his present Motion would provide an effectual remedy for that grievance. Under it the House would regularly meet at 2 o'clock on Tuesdays and sit till 7. The sitting would be devoted to the Motions of private Members, and if the Government thought the state of business was such as to require an Evening Sitting, that Evening Sitting being then at their disposal they would be responsible for the making of a House, and there would be fewer of those counts-out which had been seen of late years. With regard to the Officers of the House, he was sure every hon. Member felt that the more they could do to shorten the hours of these gentlemen's labours the better it 285 would be for them and for everybody connected with that Assembly. In the Wednesday Sittings they had now a limit exactly analagous to that which he proposed for the Tuesday Sittings; and the result, according to the testimony of all who remembered the former system of Wednesday Evening Sittings, had been greatly to improve the tone and character of their debates as well as of their legislation. He believed that a similar effect would be produced by the change which he now suggested. Moreover, as the House by its Rules could not be counted before 4 o'clock, and as everybody would look to 7 o'clock as the natural termination of the Tuesday Sittings, by the adoption of that Motion a moral and almost absolute security would be given to private Members that the hours nominally assigned to them would be actually at their disposal.

§ MR. CRAWFORD
said, he hoped, in the interest of private Members, that the House would not accede to the proposal of the noble Lord. He belonged to a class of private Members who had occupations to pursue in the day. Many hon. Gentlemen were similarly situated, not to mention the professional Members of the House; and they found it very difficult to attend the Day Sittings on Wednesdays. They would be put to great additional inconvenience if the House sat at 2 o'clock on Tuesdays. Again, Tuesday happened to be one of those days on which Committees almost invariably sat; and he need not say it would be most undesirable that hon. Members acting on Committees should be called down suddenly to vote in divisions on questions of the merits of which they had no knowledge. For these reasons he must oppose the Motion of the noble Lord.

§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON
said, that the proposal of the noble Lord, instead of increasing the privileges of private Members, would really curtail them. It was true the noble Lord would give private Members the hours between 2 and 7 o'clock on Tuesdays to discuss their Notices of Motion, but he forgot that he deprived them of the unlimited time on Tuesdays when they met 286 at 4 o'clock and sat on until their business was all disposed of. The proposal only showed how necessary it was to have the whole question of the conduct of business properly considered instead of being dealt with fragmentarily. He was of opinion, he might add, that the question of Morning Sittings and the "counts-out" sometimes consequentupon them, to which the noble Lord had alluded, was one of those questions which might very properly be dealt with by a Committee, who could pronounce an opinion on the expediency of having those sittings on the days of which the nights were at the disposal of the Government, who would have no difficulty in keeping a House for their own purposes. In that way the Government might practically, he believed, secure more time than they had at present; while the business of private Members would not be interfered with. All those points, however, might, he thought, be referred to a Committee, who would deal with the subject not by scraps, but as a whole.

§ COLONEL BERESFORD
asked the Prime Minister, whether Public Business might not be fixed to commence at a quarter instead of half-past 4 for the future?

MR. GLADSTONE
said, it might be left with the Government to determine at what time Public Business should commence. It was sometimes suggested by them that it should begin at a certain time; but he should not like to make any suggestion on the subject at present without making full inquiries at the Table of the House, and he doubted whether, taking into account the immense mass of Private Business, the time now set apart for its transaction could at this period of the Session be curtailed. Whenever it could be done he should be ready to act on an intimation to that effect. As to the question raised by the noble Lord (Lord John Manners), the view of the Government was that they should observe the feeling of the House with respect to it and hold themselves prepared to recommend, if it was deemed desirable, a course of action in accordance with that feeling. Very few hon. Members, however, had risen to speak on the question; but he was glad to see how the hon. Baronet the Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) and others were turning their attention to the best mode of utilizing the 287 time at the disposal of the House. One thing must, however, be borne in mind, and that was that practically the aggregate of time available for the transaction of Public Business was a fixed quantity, and not an elastic quantity which could be diminished or extended at pleasure. The necessities of the country kept it up to a certain point, while it was kept down to a certain level by the physical and moral necessities of human nature. Questions such as that raised by the noble Lord required, therefore, to be very carefully examined, and he concurred with the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) that unless the proposal was one which immediately commended itself to the general approval of the House the best mode of proceeding would be to deal with the subject as a whole. But while he gave full credit to the noble Lord for the motives by which he was actuated, he did not think his proposal seemed to recommend itself to the general feeling of hon. Members; and under those circumstances he would suggest to him, whether it would not be well to avoid taking any opinion of the House on it that evening, reserving to himself the liberty of bringing it forward, if he thought proper, on a future occasion.

§ MR. OSBORNE
suggested that an opportunity was now open to the Government of referring the whole question to a Select Committee. There was evidently a feeling against dealing with it by scraps, and he was very much fortified in the vote which he had given on the previous evening by what had just occurred. If, he might add, it was competent for him to do so, he should move, by way of Amendment to the Resolution of the noble Lord, that the whole subject of Parliamentary procedure be referred to a Select Committee.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The House last night, on the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), refused to entertain the proposal that the mode of conducting the Business of this House should be referred to a Select Committee, and it is therefore out of order to propose now, by another Amendment, that such a course should be taken.

§ LORD JOHN MANNERS
said, his object in bringing the question forward was to elicit the opinion with regard to it of the mass of private Members, and 288 that he gathered from what occurred that there was a general impression that it would be unwise to proceed piecemeal, and that the rules and regulations relating to Public Business had better be dealt with en masse. After what had fallen from the Chair, however, he supposed that the opinion of the House could not now be taken on the Amendment suggested by his hon. Friend the Member for Waterford. Under these circumstances, he felt some embarrassment as to the course which he ought to pursue. He should like to test more accurately the feeling of the independent Members of the House with respect to his Resolution.

§ SIR ROBERT ANSTRUTHER
wished, without any feeling of disrespect to the Chair, to doubt whether it was not competent for the hon. Member for Waterford to move his Amendment. On the previous evening the Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for West Essex put in opposition to the Motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was lost; but he did not understand that those who voted against it thereby declared themselves to be opposed to the appointment of a Committee. So far as he was concerned, he should have been glad to vote for the Amendment as well as for the proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer if it were possible; and if the hon. Member for Waterford were now allowed to move his Amendment the discussion and settlement of the question would, in his opinion, be greatly facilitated.

§ MR. SPENCER WALPOLE
said, that if the noble Lord pressed his Resolution, he had no alternative but to vote against it. The effect of it would be that, throughout the whole Session, the heads of Departments would be taken away from the discharge of their duties in the public offices on Tuesdays, while hon. Members, who had private business to attend to, would find their time considerably interfered with. The Resolution would, therefore, he thought, work very inconveniently in the case of official, as well as of many unofficial Members.