§ MR. CHARLEYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he considers that the Select Committee on the Ecclesiastical Titles Act Repeal Bill is fairly constituted, considering that of the eleven Members only two, and of the seven legal Members only one, object on principle to the repeal of the Act, and that all the honourable Members who voted or paired against the Bill have been excluded from the Committee?
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, in reply, that he did not hold himself responsible for the constitution of the Committee on that Bill as a whole, but merely for the suggestion, subject to the pleasure of the House, of the names of those of its Members generally who sat on that (the Ministerial) side of the House. There were only five Gentlemen sitting on that side who voted in the minority on the second reading of the Bill; and one of them—the hon. and learned Member for Marylebone (Mr. T. Chambers)—was a gentleman who had taken a leading part on the subject, but he declined to serve on the Committee when asked to do so, as did also the right hon. Member for Kilmarnock (Mr. Bouverie). Considering the extremely small number of those who voted in that sense, he did not think it was the duty of the Government to take any further step in the matter. He felt bound, however, to say he did not see that any great blame was to be attached to anyone in regard to the formation of that Committee. The object of the Commitee was not to fight the principle of the Bill, but to consider its language when its principle had been affirmed. The numbers voting on the question that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee were, 73 for it and 10 against it. As a Committee ought to be constituted so as to represent the feeling of the House, he did not think there was any good ground of complaint against the constitution of this one; but he would remind the hon. and learned Member that the proper time for questioning the fairness of its composition was when the names were proposed.