THE ADJOURNED DEBATE—FALL OF KARS. (Hansard, 1 May 1856)

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
having move that the Orders of the Day be postponed,

§ MR. DUNLOP
said, he did not rise to oppose an arrangement which had been come to between the leaders of both parties, but he could not help protesting against its injustice to private Members, having charge of Bills. The day before the Easter recess he proposed that on Thursdays Orders of the Day should have precedence over Notices of Motion; but his proposal was, on the suggestion of the Government, postponed. This was the first day on which Orders of the Day would have precedence, and on the faith of that, the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (the Marquess of Blandford) had fixed it for the second reading of his important Bill; so had several other hon. Members; and as, after the 29th, Government Orders would have precedence, the result of the proposed arrangement would be to throw over those Bills for the Session. And, he would ask, for what object? The hon. and learned Member for Enniskillen (Mr. Whiteside) and his friends had declined to go on with the debate, the other night, after twelve o'clock; the noble Lord (Viscount Palmerston) had not thought it consistent with the public service to give up a public day, and now it was proposed to throw over the Bills of private Members simply in order that they might listen to five or six speeches. The practical result of the hon. Member's Motion was known, and all interest had gone after the division on Tuesday night. Excellent, therefore, as the speeches they were to hear would no doubt be, he could not help thinking that they might have been kept for another time.

§ VISCOUNT PALMERSTON
Really, Sir, I don't think I am the person the hon. and learned Gentleman ought to appeal to. We on this side of the House were perfectly willing, at whatever inconvenience, to have gone on with the debate to any hour of the morning to which it might fairly have lasted. But who was it that stopped us? It was the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. After the House had affirmed, by a large majority, that it would not adjourn the debate, the hon. Gentleman moved that the House should adjourn. Really, I must say, however disappointed the hon. Gentleman may be, I consider that the question before the House is one of great importance, otherwise 1803 the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Enniskillen would not have brought it forward. Hon. Gentlemen must therefore take their chance of another day.

§ MR. CRAUFURD
must add his remonstrances to those of the hon. Gentleman against this course of proceeding. He was himself a sufferer by it, but he would not have alluded to it on any mere personal ground. He had put a notice on the paper for Thursday, the 17th of April, but when he came down, ready to bring forward his Motion, there was no House. The next time he had an opportunity of bringing it on was at one in the morning, and as it was an opposed Bill, it was of course out of the question to do so at that hour. He had, therefore, postponed it to this day; and he was now encountered by one of those Scyllas and Charybdises, an adjourned debate—an adjourned debate upon a factious Motion, adjourned factiously. He did not see why he and other private Members should have their Bills thrown over in this way, especially as it was no benefit to the Government of which he had the honour to be a supporter.