QUESTION. (Hansard, 18 June 1863)

§ MR. LOWE

The words, Sir, in these Articles were not those of the Committee of Council originally, but were part of the compromise effected by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Walpole). It was our duty, before accepting that compromise, to consider these words, and to put a construction upon them. On the faith of that construction we accepted the compromise, and have continued to act upon it ever since. I am afraid I cannot make that construction clearer than I did the other night, but I will endeavour to repeat what I then said. I will take Article 151 first. The words are these— In the event of such revision or material alteration as mentioned in the last foregoing Article, it shall not be lawful to take any action thereon until the same shall have been submitted to Parliament, and laid on the table of both Houses for one calendar month. 1043 That I take to mean, that when we make any revision or material alteration in any article of the Code, that revision or material alteration must be laid on the table of the House for one month before the Committee of Council are at liberty to act upon it. Article 150 is as follows:— In January of each year, if the Code be revised, or any material alteration in it be necessary it shall be printed in such a form as to show separately all articles modified or cancelled, and all new articles. The words "in January of each year," with which that clause begins, appear to me to belong to the middle of the clause: both grammar and sense forbid us to read them in any other position. The article amounts to this—that all the changes in our Minutes which have been introduced in the course of each year shall in the next January be gathered together in one copy, and be printed in a manner showing separately the articles cancelled or modified. The meaning of the two articles appear to me to be—first, that we shall not act on any Minute till it has been laid for a month on the table of this House; and secondly, that Parliament and the country shall have an opportunity of reviewing not only what we did separately on each Minute, but, in the aggregate, when the alterations are collected, printed, and laid before Parliament. That I take to be the construction and the whole meaning of those articles. I do not find in them anything like the meaning which the right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply the other night—namely, an undertaking that the Committee of Council should be prohibited from making any new Minutes except in January of each year. Such a clause would be attended with great inconvenience. The operation of all these clauses would have to be deferred for another year if they could not take effect until January. I will give an instance. We had occasion to make a Minute in May last, giving assistance to certain of our Inspectors. If we had not been in a condition to make that Minute until January, we should have been left for half a year without proper machinery, and great inconvenience would have ensued. The right hon. Gentleman asks me also what is the proper time for taking exception in Parliament to a new Minute. Those Minutes so made by the Privy Council have no force or validity, except so far as they meet with the implied assent of Parliament, and therefore it is competent to any hon. Member to take exception to any 1044 Minute at any time, and it can never be improper for any hon. Member to do so. But if an hon. Member wished to prevent a Minute from coming into force altogether, the proper time to take exception to a Minute is within a month after the Minute has been laid on the table, and has no more reference to the period of January than to any other period in the course of the year.