§ Order for Committee read.
§ MR. HUMEsaid, he must complain of the want of time for considering this measure, and said that he would move that the House do now adjourn.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that although the hon. Member was unwilling to proceed with this Bill, that was no reason why they should adjourn the House; because there was other business to come on afterwards. At the same time he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) would not have moved a stage of the Bill that night if he had understood that there would be the slightest opposition. No person could be compromised in allowing the Bill to pass, because it had been introduced provisionally, and accepted by the House provisionally, and he had understood that hon. Members would give every facility for the carrying of it. The hon. Gentleman had said he could not assent to the measure proceeding, unless he bad a distinct understanding from Her 414 Majesty's Government that they would undertake to carry out the policy of free trade. That was a very extraordinary condition for the hon. Gentleman to impose. He hoped that the Bill would be permitted to go into Committee, to enable him the (Chancellor of the Exchequer) to move that the assessments for Schedules A and B remain the same as they now are for the current year.
§ House in Committee.
§ The CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERthen submitted a new clause providing that the assessments of the last year in the case of Schedules A and B be allowed to remain in force for the present year, so that there should be no new assessment.
§ MR. BRIGHTsaid, he understood the proposition in fact to amount to the same as if the Bill had last time been renewed for two years instead of one.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ House resumed: — Committee report progress.