§ MR. SPEAKERBefore I call upon the noble Lord (Lord Robert Montagu) to move the Resolutions of which he has given notice I wish to mention to the House that there is an objection in point of form to the Resolutions as they stand upon the paper. The noble Lord proposes to move two Resolutions, the second of which is as follows:—
That the 26th Clause of the Appropriation Bill, which was first introduced into the Act of 1846, and which unsettles the appropriation of all the grants of the year for the Naval and Military Services, be expunged from the Appropriation Act.The House will at once see that it would be irregular to discuss the clauses of a Bill which has not yet been presented to the House. Again, as relates to the first Resolution —That the Appropriation Bill be printed and distributed in time for consideration before the Bill passes through Committee of the House,I must remark, that when the Appropriation Bill is introduced, any question about the printing of the Bill, its distribution, and the time for discussing it, ought then to be brought under the notice of the House, and can then be settled. But anticipating discussion on a Bill, which must come in the course of the present Session under the notice of the House, is, in my opinion, irregular. I have therefore privately intimated to the noble Lord that the mode in which he proposed to bring the subject under consideration would not be in conformity with the rules and orders of the House.
§ LORD ROBERT MONTAGUsaid, he rose on a question of order. He wished the right hon. Gentleman would instruct him as to the course which he ought to pursue. Two years ago he brought the same subject under the consideration of the House, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Wilts (Mr. Sotheron Estcourt) both concurred in the opinion that he ought to bring the question forward at the beginning of the Session. In obedience to those high authorities he had done so, and he now understood that it was out of order. 730 He would act in obedience to the decision of the right hon. Gentleman (the Speaker), but he wished to know the course which he ought to pursue; for the state of the case was this:—The Appropriation Bill was not printed, nor was it in anybody's hands, until it became the law of the land, and the matter was past remedy. For the last seventeen years most objectionable matter bad been introduced into the Bill without the knowledge of the House — matters which he would undertake to prove lay at the very root of the abuses of their financial system. He would undertake to prove that it had "infistulated"—if he might use the expression — the whole financial system of the country. He would therefore beg leave to ask the right hon. Gentleman what course he ought to pursue.
§ THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, as far as regarded the second of these Resolutions, it contained matter of very considerable public importance, and, in its substance, was well worth the attention of the House. He would fain hope the noble Lard would, through the help of the right hon. Gentleman, find means of bringing the substance of that Resolution under the consideration of Parliament. But as respected the first Resolution, be would submit to the consideration of the noble Lord, whether it was hardly necessary to trouble himself or others to discuss the mode of bringing it into proper shape, because it was not customary for the House to occupy itself with discussing whether a particular Bill should be printed or not. What he wished to point out was, that there was nothing in the matter which the noble Lord had in view which required him to submit a Motion to the House, even if formal. The present state of the case was this:—The Bill was prepared by the Government and printed for the use of the House, and he freely tendered to the noble Lord the assurance on the part of the Government that the Bill should be carefully revised, and he had no doubt the same thing would be done by those who might succeed them. The Bill should be revised by the Government in time to be printed before it went into Committee. It was not for him to say that the Bill should be printed; it was for the House to determine that. But, so far as the Government was concerned, he could assure the noble Lord that no impediment should be thrown in the way of having the Bill printed before going into Committee.
§ MR. SPEAKERI had the pleasure 731 of informing the noble Lord, when I thought it my duty to object to the form of his Motion, that I should be very happy to give him my assistance in drawing up a general Resolution to accomplish the main object be has in view. But I was not able to undertake to do so under the pressure of public and private business now on my bands. I must, however, inform the noble Lord and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that for some years past it has been customary to print this Bill; the only difference is, that instead of a large number of copies being circulated through the body of the House, a hundred copies are printed, and are at the disposal of hon. Members in the Vote Office.
§ MR. HADFIELDsaid, he wished to call attention to the fact that there were other Bills of the same description. For instance, the Indemnity Bill was passed annually without being printed—
§ MR. SPEAKERIf the hon. Gentleman will communicate with me in private, I shall be happy to give him every assistance on the subject.