§ SIR GEORGE GREY moved that Standing Order 193 should be suspended, and that this Bill should be committed to a Select Committee of ten Members, five to be nominated by the House and five by the Committee of Selection. The Bill was a Private Bill to amend a Private Act of Parliament, the object being to place this school under the general provisions of the Reformatory Act. The result would be 487 that the school would be entitled to receive a considerable amount of public money, in which case the usual course was to refer the Bill to a Select Committee of the kind he had proposed.
§ MR. CAVEsaid, he thought that the object of the Bill ought to be accomplished, if at all, by means not of private, but of public legislation, applicable all over the country. If the principle were conceded, and schools like these were to receive public grants, the result would be a considerable annual addition to the Estimates.
§ COLONEL WILSON PATTENsaid, he desired to point out that inconveniences frequently arose in connection with the way in which his right hon. Friend proposed that this Committee should be appointed. The Members whom the Committee of Selection should nominate would not be obliged to attend, and if the Committee of Selection should happen to select Members to whom it would be inconvenient to attend, the services of the selection would be entirely inoperative. He wished, therefore, to suggest that it would be very desirable if the Members appointed by the Committee of Selection in cases like the present were subjected to the same rules as were applied to Private Bill Committees, on which the attendance of Members was obligatory.
Ordered, That Standing Order 193 be suspended in the case of the said Bill, and that the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of ten Members, five to be nominated by the House, and five by the Committee of Selection:—Five to be the quorum.—(Sir George Grey.)