§ Order for Committee read.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE, in moving that the Order of the Day to go into Committee on this Bill be discharged, said, he had hoped up to a late period that the Bill might have been more fully discussed. He fully understood that it was to have been put down for Tuesday last, which would have given him an opportunity of carrying it through Committee; but by mistake another Bill was put down before it, and it did not conic on at all. He might have found a later day, but he had previously said that Tuesday was the last day he could bring it on; and the noble Lord the Member for Taunton (Lord William Hay) had left town on the understanding that the Order would be discharged. Apart from that, he doubted whether he should be justified in proceeding with the measure, seeing that several points of considerable importance remained to be discussed. He was not sorry, however, that he had brought forward the measure, as an opportunity had been afforded to the House of expressing a decided opinion upon two material points of the Bill with respect to 1871 the status of the present members of the Council. The House should understand that the Act of 1858 merely enacted that in the event of any change being made the; members of Council should not be entitled to compensation until they bad completed ten years of service, and therefore when the matter was re-opened next year the, only difference in the state of affairs would be that those members of Council who bad completed their tenth year of service during the present year would be entitled to compensation. He thought that the best plan would be when the Bills were introduced next year that they should be referred to a Select Committee. Under these circumstances he begged to move that the Order of the Day for going into Committee upon the Bill should be read and discharged.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ Order discharged. Bill withdrawn.