§ Lord Althorprose and said, it was the understood intention of the House to proceed that morning (at the twelve o'clock sitting) with that important measure, the Irish Church Temporalities' Bill. Hon. Gentlemen, he thought, would agree with him, that it was necessary to devote the mornings, excepting only two days reserved for petitions, to the business actually in a state of progress, in order that the labours of the Session might be finished in moderate time. He would suggest, that these morning sittings should be confined solely to the Orders of the Day, and the passing of Bills, that not only might the public business proceed more rapidly, but such Gentlemen as had Bills in charge might be enabled to prosecute their completion. He would suggest, that that clay should be appropriated, as was appointed, to the Irish Church Temporalities' Bill.
Mr. Wynnwas sure it was the duty of every Member to afford every facility to the progress of public business. Whether hon. Members agreed to the measures to be brought forward or not, all must agree, that it was of the highest importance that every means should be adopted which were calculated either to carry those measures through, or to have them rejected. A new proposition was now brought forward; and would it not be proper and necessary, that upon the days on which the public business was to be taken at twelve o'Clock, the sittings of the Committees should be suspended? Whatever the measures might be, it would be extremely unsatisfactory to have them disposed of, while hon. Members were necessarily engaged with other public business? They were now at the usual period at which the Session closed, and yet there were three of the greatest questions to be considered which had ever come before the House, and upon which 116 Bills had not yet even been introduced—namely, the Batik Charter, the East-India, and the West-India question. He (Mr. Wynn) thought, that if the Government would consent to consider those different measures one by one, and carry the one commenced to a termination, before they began another, they might get through the business sooner, and with greater satisfaction to themselves. But if hon. Members were to come down to the House, as at present, without knowing which of the measures was to be brought forward, they could not possibly be prepared for the discussion; and the business would ultimately be delayed instead of accelerated by the present plan. He would, therefore, propose to the noble Lord, that the sittings of Committees should be suspended on those days.
§ Lord Althorpentirely concurred with what had fallen from his right hon. friend. He had thought, at the commencement of the Session, that that would be the best system to adopt, although it had certainly not been attended to hitherto. It was the system by which business was the most likely to be got through; and he would assure the House, that hereafter one subject should be taken up, and that that should be gone through with, as far as was practicable, before any other question of importance was touched.
Mr. O'Connellwas sure, that had the noble Lord been really of opinion, at the commencement of the Session, that the system now proposed would have been the most desirable, it would not have been objected to by the House. Indeed, he remembered, that when the Irish Coercion Bill was brought in, the Irish Church Bill was introduced at the same time, and it was said, that the latter was to be carried forward, pari passu, with the former. Hon. Members, however, soon found that exclusive attention was given to the Coercion Bill, until it was carried into a law, while the Church Bill was allowed to go, he might say, entirely to sleep. Still he hailed the present proposition as the beginning of an era, when a sounder system was to commence than that which had hitherto been acted upon. It had been only a system of scrambling night-work—an effort to see whose physical strength was the greatest, and would endure the longest. Now, however, they were about to begin business at ten or eleven o'clock, when all other properly constituted bodies 117 did begin their work, and that system should have all the assistance to maintain it which it was in his power to afford.
§ Sir Robert Inglisdid not think, that the system now proposed would either facilitate the progress of business, or shorten the Session, or enable the House to break up any earlier of an evening.