§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, that he would recall to the recollection of the Speaker that, at the termination of the Business of the House that morning, he had moved that the second reading of 21 the Monastic and Conventual Institutions Bill be postponed from the Orders for that Day (Friday), till the House should meet at 2 P.M. on Tuesday next; but that, on a division, it was found that there was not present Members enough to constitute a House. His Motion, therefore, for the postponement of the Bill till 2 P.M. on Tuesday next, stood recorded upon the Votes and Proceedings of the House. He had not made that Motion inconsiderately, but, after consultation with several of the senior Members of the House, for the purpose of raising the following Question, which he desired to put to the Speaker:—Whether there exists any Standing Order or Resolution of the House, or any ruling or decision of any Speaker in the House, whereby a Member, not connected with Her Majesty's Ministry, was precluded from placing any Bill, of which he might be in charge, as the First Order for consideration when the House may meet at 2 P.M. on Tuesday, or to put the same question in other words, using the familiar phraseology of the House—whether an independent Member can appoint any stage of a Bill of which he may be in charge as the First Order of the Day for consideration, when the House meets at 2 P.M. on a Tuesday?
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member having been good enough to give me Notice of the Question, I have thought it my duty to look into the matter, and I do not know that I can do better than quote the decision given by the Speaker on the 26th of June, 1851. The point now submitted by the hon. Member was raised on the 24th of June, 1851, and again on the 26th, when the Speaker made use of these words—
The practice of the House—for no rule existed on the subject—had always been, since he had the honour of sitting in that Chair, that at the morning sittings the Government Bills took precedence over other Bills; but other hon. Members were not precluded from putting down their own Bills for the morning sittings, and if they were put down, they would come on in the regular order, after the Government Bills, if there were any."—[3 Hansard, cxvii., 1254.]There has been no departure from that ruling, nor could any departure from such ruling be sanctioned without the express authority of the House itself.