§ SIR JOHN PAKINGTONsaid he would beg to repeat his question of the other evening and ask to be informed by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury whether any change had been made in the rule with respect to the supply of Reports and evidence taken before Committees to hon. Members, and winch operated as a most inconvenient restriction? The rule was to the following effect, that reports and evidence should only be furnished to such hon. Members as applied for them, and the result very frequently was that many hon. Members, who were not aware of the importance of the contents of these Reports, or of the printed evidence, were not furnished therewith, and were therefore not prepared to discuss questions-relating thereto in that House.
MR. WILSONsaid, that the Printing Committee had not yet considered the subject; but he had communicated with thorn on the subject, and he had no doubt that at the earliest possible day their decision would be made known.
§ MR. WALPOLEsaid, he was Chairman of the Printing Committee in 1855, and the reason why the present rule was framed was that many Reports were laid upon the table of which a great portion was never read, such as appendices to Reports which sometimes consisted of several volumes. The Printing Committee, after considering the Report of the Select Committee which had sat on this subject, recommended that in every instance the Report and evidence should be circulated among all the Members.
§ MR. HENLEYremarked, that he apprehended it would be found that the expense was not so much in the number printed as in the setting up the type, and that the cost of any excess in the number of copies printed would be little more than the value of the paper. He doubted very much whether there would not be a saving effected in the end by ordering in the first instance such a number to be published as would meet the wants of every hon. Member; for cases might occur of a hon. Member not finding in the Vote-office the paper he wanted, coming down to the House and moving for the re-printing; of more copies. 296 He thought that very often the appendices to a Report were of more value than the Report itself. The House were frequently enabled from those documents to form a judgment as to the conclusions which the Committee had drawn from the evidence. The tables and other matters in the appendix were also extremely valuable to those who paid attention to the subject before a Committee. He feared that on the whole the House would, under the new rule, get its information in a less complete manner. It ought not to be left to the chance information that a hon. Member might get, but any matter deserving of being printed ought to be circulated among all the Members.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, that the rule under discussion only applied to papers presented by command of Her Majesty, and did not extend to papers ordered by the House. It had been found by experience that many of the papers printed at the instance of public Departments, although valuable, were not of such a nature as to interest the House generally, and it was suggested that a considerable expense would be saved if, instead of circulating them among the whole of the Members, those hon. Members who might desire them were left to procure a copy from the Vote-office. For example, he might mention that every year a Meteorological Report from the Board of Trade was laid before Parliament. Now, this was, no doubt, a useful matter and one interesting to a particular class of persons, but he very much doubted whether every individual Member would desire to be furnished with a copy of it. The matter, however, was to be referred to the Printing Committee for consideration.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he might probably be allowed to make a suggestion to the Committee. If they were to follow the system pursued by the Senate of the United States, and the French Legislative Chamber they would find at the commencement of every Session a well-selected number of statistical papers submitted in the most complete form, and brought down to the most recent dates, for the use of the Members. Such a system would preclude the necessity of seeking afterwards in a broken shape the information which hon. Members required. It was well worthy of the consideration of the Government whether the great improvement which had taken place in statistical returns might not be carried still further; and whether all 297 reasonable information upon commercial and statistical subjects might not be furnished in the early part of every Session in convenient form, which would preclude the necessity of any of the Members requiring sectional returns, which necessarily entailed much trouble upon different Departments. He hoped that the Government would forgive him for thus recommending for their adoption the practice of the United States and the French Chamber, which contrasted most favourably with the system adopted in the British Parliament. He hoped at all events that the Printing Committee would consider the suggestion.