§ MR. ASSHETON CROSSasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a list of the names of the first Twenty-eight Ordinary Members of the University Council which the Government propose to insert in the Second Schedule of the University Education (Ireland) 600 Bill before the Second Reading of that Bill?
MR. GLADSTONE,in reply, said, it would not be in his power to lay the names in question on the Table before the second reading of the Bill. The practice had been various as to placing the names of persons about to exercise authority in an Act of Parliament. In the case of the Oxford University Bill the names were introduced at a tolerably early period, and printed on the second reading of the Bill, the functions to be discharged being functions with regard to general principles on which no difficulty was likely to arise, there being no objection, therefore, to ask the persons named, on the introduction of the measure, whether they could consent to act or not. In the case of the University of Cambridge, which was much simpler, the names were printed on the Bill as it was originally introduced. In two other cases which occurred since, in that of the Reform Bill of 1867, the names of the Boundary Commissioners, who had to perform duties which were not perhaps of great difficulty, were not submitted to Parliament till they reached the 24th clause of the Bill in Committee, and in that of the Irish Church Bill the clause in which the names were to be inserted was postponed from the 19th of April to the 4th of May. In the present instance, where the functions to be discharged were of considerable difficulty, the gentlemen whom the Government had solicited, or might have to solicit, to serve on the Council of the University of Dublin might, he thought, fairly ask that the judgment of the House should be pronounced in some of the leading provisions of the measure in Committee before finally committing themselves to serve. The intention of the Government was, therefore, not to lay the names of the Council on the Table until a certain amount of progress had been made in Committee. Reasonable notice, however, would be given as to the names to be proposed.