Mr. B. Cooperrose to propose the resolution of which he had given notice, respecting Private Committees. The adoption of this resolution he thought necessary to give effect to the excellent regulations prepared by the hon. member for Staffordshire, to whom the House and the country were much indebted for having taken up the subject. To render those regulations more complete, the privilege of voting on Private Committees should not be allowed to every member of the House. The consequence of such a privilege was, that members who did not attend the committee, and therefore knew nothing of what passed in it, were induced by the solicitation of friends to go and vote at the termination of the inquiry. Such a proceeding was manifestly unjust and mischievous, and ought not to be allowed to continue. It also happened, that some members who had a great deal of local information upon the particular subject of inquiry, were often omitted in the appointment of the original committee; but it was not, however, his intention to deprive a committee of the advantage of their assistance. He would only restrict them to the necessity of a special application to the House, to allow their names to be added to the committee.
The hon. member then proposed the following resolution:—"That after any committee on a petition for a private bill, or on a private bill, shall have been formed according to the new distribution of counties, individual members may be added thereto upon special application to the House, and that no member shall have a 591 voice in such committee, unless he shall have been originally included within the new lists, or have been so specially appointed afterwards."
Mr. Mundyseconded the motion. The greatest inconvenience and mischief had, he said, arisen from members voting on private bills who had not attended to the details in the committee. He had himself on one occasion been requested to vote on a private bill, respecting which he knew nothing whatever. He refused to do so, and had expressed what he could not consider an improper indignation at such a request having been made to him. It was, in his opinion, an insult to a member, to ask him to vote under such circumstances.
§ The resolution was agreed to.