QUESTION. (Hansard, 17 July 1871)

§ MR. TOMLINE
said, he had placed on the Paper the Notice of a Question in the following terms:— To ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he is still prepared to affirm 'that the Revised Statutes published by the Queen's printers, by authority, in 1870 to 1871, were authoritatively given to the people in accordance with the Report of a Royal Commission appointed by the Lord Chancellor, are now the binding Statute Law of the land"— but as he had to make an explanation he should move that the House adjourn.

§ MR. SPEAKER
intimated that the House would doubtless permit the hon. 1881 Member to make an explanation without requiring him to move the adjournment of the House.

§ MR. TOMLINE
said, that the Question he intended to put to the right hon. Gentleman was not that which stood in his name on the Paper. The Question had been changed by the clerks, and the change annoyed him, because the Question was now made to appear discourteous and like the question of a cross-examining counsel, who asked a witness whether he was still prepared to affirm that which he had before stated. He had not the least wish to be discourteous to the right hon. Gentleman. He had been for many years, together with the right hon. Gentleman, a follower of Sir Robert Peel, and, though his support of the right hon. Gentleman's policy might now be called discriminating, he should be sorry to be thought capable of putting a question in a taunting style to the right hon. Gentleman, who himself set an example of courtesy which perhaps in time all his Colleagues would follow. The right hon. Gentleman, before he answered the Question the other night, probably consulted the Statute Law Commissioners, one of whom was Sir Erskine May, who could confirm the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman that the Statute of Edward III., which had been referred to, was still the binding law of the land.

§ MR. SPEAKER
said, he felt bound to say that the hon. Member's observations extended to such a length that they could not property fall within the compass of a Question.

§ MR. TOMLINE
said, he would more the adjournment of the House.

§ MR. SPEAKER
said, that if he understood the case, it might be disposed of in two minutes. The hon. Member's Question was drawn in a certain form of words, and a slight alteration had been made in those words, leaving the substance entirely unchanged. As to the point whether the hon. Member is in Order in moving the adjournment of the House on such a matter, that must be left to the hon. Member's own discretion. There were certain Orders of the House which were distinctly contravened by the course now pursued. One Order was that on Mondays Orders of the Day should have precedence of Notices of Motion; and if the hon. Member chose to move the adjournment of the House and 1882 raise a discussion on a Notice of a Question, he contravened that Order. Another Order was that on Mondays the Government should have the right to place at the head of the list of business such Orders as they thought it necessary to bring forward; but that rule would be contravened if, by moving the adjournment, an hon. Member gained precedence for a Notice he had put down on the Paper.

§ MR. TOMLINE
said, it was quite clear that by the decision of the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair he had a right to move the adjournment.

§ MR. TOMLINE
proceeded to say that, according to the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, the two volumes of Revised Statutes contained the law of the land; and the Attorney General admitted that the Statute of Edward III. was binding, when he said that it should be inserted in the Bill brought in to repeal certain existing statutes and parts of statutes. As had been remarked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the law should have no favourites, and, least of all, ought it to favour lawyers. The Attorney General said he meant to introduce a Bill to repeal that which he admitted to be a statute; but until he did so, in what position were those hon. Gentlemen whose sitting in the House was a breach of an Act of Parliament? But the object of his Question was to appeal to The Speaker, as the guardian of the privileges of the House, if the Clerks at the Table were allowed to do what they liked with the Notices which Members placed in their hands. The results of such a usurpation might become serious, and therefore it was that he addressed himself to The Speaker, who inherited the traditions of the Chair he occupied, that the practice ought to be checked before it became so common that it could be claimed as a right. He had been referred to Lord Brougham and Sir John Rolt with respect to the other Question which he had raised; but they were not charged with the care of the privileges of that House.

§ MR. PEMBERTON
rose to Order. He wished to know whether an hon. Gentleman was in Order in stating over and over again as a fact a disputed question of law, and by which it would 1883 seem that he (Mr. Pemberton) committed a breach of the law by sitting in that House as a Knight of a Shire?

§ MR. SPEAKER
The House has not delegated to me any power of preventing hon. Members repeating the same argument over and over again.

§ MR. TOMLINE
, whose observations were rendered inaudible, concluded by calling the attention of The Speaker to the fact that the terms of the Question of which he had given Notice had been altered by the Clerks at the Table without his consent or knowledge.

§ MR. SPEAKER
I should be very unwilling to believe that the hon. Member put his Question on the Paper with the view of moving the adjournment of the House, and thereby introducing a discussion of the merits of a Question which has already been considered. I think that would have been a great invasion of the Rules and practices of the House. I understand that the hon. Gentleman objected to an alteration which has been made in certain words of his Question. I hold in my hand the Notice in its original form as given in to the Clerks. It appears that the only alteration made is by striking out a reference to a past debate by substituting for the words "whether he still adheres to the statement officially made by him in the House of Commons" the words "whether he is still prepared to affirm." It is the duty of the Clerks to follow the Rules of the House, and these provide that in Questions all reference to past debates shall be avoided; and on the present occasion they have altered the Question of the hon. Gentleman with the view of keeping it within the Rules. I cannot but much regret that the House has been occupied with this subject.

MR. GLADSTONE
I rise, Sir, to answer the Question of my hon. Friend, and to thank him for the courteous terms in which he has been pleased to refer to me. With regard to the subject relating to the Clerks at the Table, I trust I do not go too far when I state parenthetically for myself, after long experience, in regard to Motions which have been put in by myself and others, that nothing more affects my admiration than the extraordinary precision, as well as rapidity, with which the miscellaneous Questions handed in to the Clerks are reduced to order and circulated all over London nest morning in a manner that 1884 forms a perfect masterpiece of Parliamentary machinery. As to the other point of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, I believe the case is this—that the point on which his Question turns is one of those points which, as a legal question, must be considered to be doubtful. My hon. Friend is perfectly right in stating that I represented to him, acting on the best information I could obtain, that the volumes to which he referred contained the binding Statute Law of the land. The Commissioners who compiled these volumes have, of course, no authority to rule doubtful questions. All they could do was to act to the best of their judgment; they were not armed with any legislative power. No doubt they so acted; but in determining the question whether any statute or ordinance should or should not be printed that would not affect the legal question, which must remain for the decision of the proper authority, whether the statute is law or not. My hon. Friend has given his opinion upon it, and I am extremely sorry that any remark of mine has caused him any trouble; I gave him the best information. I could, but I have no power to deliver an irrevocable judgment ex cathedrâ.

§ MR. SPEAKER
The hon. Member has said that he would move the adjournment of the House, but he sat down without doing so.

§ MR. G. BENTINCK
I rise for the purpose of seconding his Motion.

§ MR. SPEAKER
I understand that the hon. Gentleman sat down without moving. I hold it would be the wish of the hon. Member, as well as of hon. Members generally, that the matter should now conclude.

§ MR. G. BENTINCK
said, he understood the hon. Member to move the adjournment of the House, and he himself had risen for the purpose of seconding the Motion, when the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government rose to answer the question of his hon. Friend (Mr. Tomline). If he was in Order he would second the Motion; if he was out of Order, he would be glad to hear the grounds of his being held to be so. He would not detain the House long; but he wished to make a few remarks. He would merely say in reference to this statute—[Sir EDWARD COLEBROOKE: The statute does not exist.] If that was the case nothing 1885 further could be said on the question; but with regard to the other point, the alteration of Notices by the Clerks, it was one of which the House should take some account. He was the last man to impugn, and he was the first man to inquire into the way in which the Business of the House was conducted. He maintained that no man had a right to alter any Question which was put into the hands of the Clerk to be inserted in the Orders of the Day.