HC Deb 27 March 1873 vol 215 cc227-48
MR. NEWDEGATE

Sir, the Motion which I now venture to make is for the appointment of a Committee to consider certain points connected with the procedure of this House. It will be in the recollection of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, and of the House, that I moved this same notice by way of amendment to the Resolution proposed by the hon. Member for Walsall (Mr. C. Forster) on the 25th of February, whereby, had that Resolution been adopted, Parliament would have been convened in November and sat on to Christmas each year. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, then accused me of great ingenuity; an accusation which I felt conveyed a high compliment, coming as it did from that right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman said that I had managed to put two speeches into one; a speech against the motion of the right hon. Gentleman for Walsall, and a speech in support of my own amendment. I do not see myself how otherwise I could have spoken on that occasion; but the right hon. Gentleman suggested that it would be better if a Committee of the House were moved for on the whole question of Public Business, probably not being aware, or not remembering, that, by the decision of the House against the Amendment made by the hon. Baronet the Member for Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), at an earlier period of the Session, when the hon. Baronet moved for a Committee on the Despatch of Business, as an Amendment to the Resolution proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it was not competent to me to raise that question in its fulness again, either by an Amendment or as a substantive Motion. Such, Sir, is the position which I had to meet. The right hon. Gentleman the leader of the House suggested that a Committee should be appointed, and the Notice which I have given goes as far in that direction as I understood from you, Sir, when I privately consulted you, that it is competent to me to move. I therefore ask the House to adopt this Resolution as the only means by which the desire, expressed by many hon. Members of this House, can be accomplished; that desire being that a Committee should be appointed to consider the subjects connected with the procedure of this House, which have on various occasions recently been agitated. On the part of the non-official Members of the House there is a distinct feeling of uneasiness with regard to the position in which they are now placed; and I think that a glance at the Order Book of the House must satisfy every hon. Member that the state of Business is such as must inevitably lead to a dead lock, and that the result of a dead lock can only be the sacrifice of an enormous number of the Bills which have been introduced by hon. Members, and that without, by far the greater part of these Bills, having been considered by the House. But, Sir, the mischief does not stop there. Undoubtedly, among the Bills which have been brought in by hon. Members not connected with the Government, there are some which the House would be very glad to consider; but the state of facts is this. Before I gave this Notice on the 11th of March, I had examined the Order Book, and I found that every Wednesday, the day specially appointed for the consideration and decision of the Orders introduced by non-official Members, was filled by Notices of one or more Orders up to the 16th of July. When I came to inquire at the Public Bill Office on that day, I found that, of the Bills for which leave had been given by the House to nonofficial Members, not less than 16 were unprinted. Several of those which were not printed at that time have since been printed and delivered to hon. Members; but what is the result? As long as the number of notices of Bills stand on the Book for Wednesdays, there is no probability of any decent number of the Bills introduced by non-official Members going through their subsequent stages. Among the many questions which are involved in the consideration of the present position of the Business of the House, this is one. Ought it to be competent to any hon. Member of the House on the 1st of March to put a Notice down for the 10th or 16th of July? Because if this practice is to prevail, it will become—indeed it is already—perfectly possible so to fill the Notice Paper that the Bills which stand for second reading early in the Session cannot be carried through their subsequent stages, owing to the manner in which every Wednesday is occupied up to the close of the Session. This, then, was the immediate cause of my giving this Notice. The House is aware of the rule with respect to Notices of Motion; no hon. Member can give a Notice of Motion beyond a month from the day on which the Notice is given; this arrangement keeps the Business, so far as notices of Motion are concerned, something within compass; but, with respect to Orders—that is, the notices of Bills—no such rule prevails; and this is one subject which I think a Committee of the House might well inquire into; because, before touching upon any further points connected with the conduct of Business by the Government, I wish the House to consider this, that the opportunities for transacting business which remain to the non-official Members—that is, the great body of the House—have been very greatly contracted. Ever since the Report of the Committee of 1861 was received, and to a considerable extent adopted by the House, step by step the opportunities for the transaction of their legislative business by the great body of the House— that is, by the non-official Members—have been greatly diminished, until, as I think I can show the House, we are approaching a point when the legislative functions of the House will be absolutely delegated to Her Majesty's Ministers for the time being. Such a consummation, Sir, would be totally at variance with the original Constitution of this House; and I am anxious that a Committee should be appointed for the purpose of considering how we, the non-official Members, the great body of the Members of the House, can, by the aid of some regulations adopted by the House, adapt our business to our present straitened position; or to use a familiar phrase, cut our coat according to our very much diminished cloth—that is, how we can get on with the business which, after consultation in a Committee—for arrangement among ourselves seems impossible—may be deemed essential. In other words, how we can fit that business into the restricted hours which remain to us each week. The matter is the more urgent because we are approaching the period when we may expect the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government to evoke the Resolutions of 1869, and propose morning sittings; and when once the House has adopted these Resolutions, so that it will meet at 2 o'clock instead of at a quarter to 4, thus beginning sitting in the mornings on other days than Wednesdays; when I say this arrangement has been adopted, the effect of this, taken in conjunction with the rule against proceeding with opposed Business after half-past 12 at night, upon the position of the non-official Members comes to this, that they will only have Tuesday evening from 9 till half-past 12, and a short six hours' sitting on Wednesday, for the purpose of advancing through their several stages, whatever Bills they may have in their charge. In other words, while the House will be sitting fully 60 hours a week, the nonofficial Members will literally have but 92 hours for the transaction of the whole of their legislative business. I do not wish, Sir, to make any unreasonable complaints; I make no suggestion of my own; but what I ask is this—that inasmuch as we, the non-official Members of this House, are divided by party, or separated by the floor of this House; and inasmuch as we have not the power of appointing a Committee among ourselves, that this House should itself appoint a Committee, before and in which we may consider these difficulties in which we find ourselves placed, and which may consider any means by which the time remaining to us may be best appropriated. With your permission, Sir, I will advert for a moment to some statistics relating to last Session, in illustration of what I have said. What was the state of things, then, last Session? I find that the total number of Bills introduced into the House of Commons, including Bills brought from the Lords, during the Session of 1872, was 240, of which number 120 were introduced by or on the part of the Government, and 120, the like number, by nonofficial Members of the House. Of the Bills introduced by Her Majesty's Government, 92 were passed into law, 27 were withdrawn or discharged, and only one rejected on a Division. Therefore, of the Bills introduced by the Government, three-fourths were passed, one-fourth, or nearly one-fourth of these Bills were withdrawn, and only one rejected. Of the 120 Bills introduced by non-official Members of the House only 30 were passed, 47 were withdrawn or discharged, 24 were dropped; that is, in all, 72 were abandoned; 18 were rejected on Divisions, and one was laid aside. Thus, while three-fourths of the Bills introduced by the Government were passed into law, the total number of their Bills being 120, not one-fourth of the 120 Bills introduced by the non-official Members of the House passed into law, and out of the 120 three-fourths were practically laid aside. I do not wish to be in the least unjust to the right hon. Gentleman the leader of this House. I do not blame him for the Government he leads in the least, because the House has placed in the hands of the Government so enormous a proportion of its legislative work, has virtually to this great extent abandoned its legislative duties to the Administration. Lord Palmerston, when he was recommending the House to adopt a Resolution of the Committee on Public Business in 1861, emphatically declared that the legislative functions of this House constituted its primary duty, and that for the discharge of that function, for the due performance of this duty beyond all others, this House was responsible to the country. He (Lord Palmerston) then proceeded to touch upon the importance of the financial duties of this House, and afterwards dwelt with considerable emphasis upon the other functions of the House, to act as the great inquest of the nation, in hearing and seeking to remedy and demanding an account for any grievance that may be felt in any part of the country; but he treated the financial function of the House, and its function with respect to grievances, as subordinate and secondary to its great function, the function of legislation. Well, Sir, it appears to me that no Government ought to desire a monopoly of the legislative power of the House; but suppose it is to be granted further than it has been already granted, what will be the result? Her Majesty's Ministers are not, as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday—at the Mansion House Banquet—said, they do not constitute merely a Committee of this House. They represent another power. They represent the Executive power of the Crown and of the nation. I should deeply lament if Her Majesty's Ministers came to be considered a mere Committee of this House. I should deprecate any evasion of, or any forfeiture of the peculiar prerogatives and functions of the Crown; but take the case, as I suppose it may become, for the sake of argument that the whole legislative power of this House were in addition to their other functions vested in the Government of the day. By the constitution of the country, the Government of the day must possess the confidence of a majority of this House, and it is therefore inevitable that they must be in this House the representatives of a party. What then would result of their monopolizing the legislative power of this House? The legislation approved by one party would, during the administration or tenure of office of that party be predominant. Then would come reaction, and when that administration leaves office their successors would be found to be their political opponents, and the legislation of this House would be forced into a direction altogether opposite to its former course; thus we should get into that seesaw, which has been found to work so much mischief in the United States of America. It might come to this, that the official Members of the House would be held to be a separate class apart from the other Members of this House; that they were not merely the organs of this House, but they formed an administration, in fact, superior to and therefore irresponsible to Parliament. I think it evident, from the expressions used by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, upon a recent occasion, that he sees this danger and feels this difficulty; that the leader of the House is practically the organ of a party in this House; that if he became invested with the whole legislative power of this House, he could carry legislation only in one direction, and that thus we should have legislation all in one direction, as emanating from one party during their tenure of office, and that by reaction we should have legislation swaying back again in an opposite direction. I beg pardon of the House for having touched upon this subject, which is a somewhat grave one; at the same time I would that the House should consider that, in watching the progress of changes in the practice and organization of this House, we are watching a great legislative machine, which, now that the House of Lords has practically yielded its independent judgment so often to this House, does in itself possess a supreme legislative power, in other words, has become the supreme legislative power of the State. I cannot see any disorder in this House of which I have been so long a Member, without feeling deep regret. Humble Member as I am, I have never, during the 30 years I have been here, sought any object more anxious than to uphold the credit and character of the House of Commons. I have laboured to this end. I have made sacrifices for it; and I liked not the disorder which characterised the conclusion of the last Session; and it shall not be my fault if, for want of suggestions at all events, however humble may be their source, the House fails to consider its proceedings, with a view to their better regulation. I am unwilling to detain the House, but there are one or two other observations that I wish to make. What is the number of Bills which have been introduced into this House by non-official Members in the present Session? I am afraid it is almost as large as the number introduced last Session. Now the objection to this is that by the introduction of such an enormous number of Bills the non-official Members of this House obstruct each other. In short it becomes a game, not of legislation but of obstruction, and nothing can be more unwholesome than this. It wastes both the time and the energies of the House. I have observed that, since the adoption of the restrictions which recent standing orders have placed on the opportunities for moving Amendments in Supply, the tendency of hon. Members has been to multiply the number of Bills before the House; and I feel convinced, when I see a notice for the second reading of some Bills given at the end of February for the 16th of July following, that that Bill stands there without any hope whatever, on the part of the hon. Member who introduced it, that it can pass into law, but that he merely means to treat it as a kind of Notice of Motion, as a kind of peg upon which to hang a statement or declamation. The more this practice prevails, the more our proceedings must be crippled, and the less capable must the House become of acting, to any degree, independently of the administration of the day in the discharge of its first function, that of legislation. During the last Session there were certain occasions on which the energy of the leader of this House prompted him on Friday night to convene the House unexpectedly to sit on Saturday, and this without notice, save that given the night before. One of the subjects which a Committee might consider is what notice should be given of any proposal to change the hour appointed for the meeting of the House, and what notice should be given of any alteration in the order of business appointed for each day. The object of Committee would be to make suggestions that may be worthy of the consideration of the House, for regulating its Business, and for so economising the time allotted to the great body of this House, the non-official Members, that we may be able to transact the business committed to us in a more orderly, a more expeditious, and a more efficient manner than last Session; for the House should not forget that some of Her Majesty's Judges have expressed many strong opinions with regard to the slovenly manner in which statutes, sent down to them for their guidance, have been passed through Parliament. I trust that I shall be excused for having enlarged upon this subject. I will conclude by expressing a hope that the right hon. Gentleman the head of the Government and leader of the House, will carry out the expectation which I, not without reason, have hopefully entertained, by sanctioning this proposal for the appointment of a Committee of this House to consider those points in the procedure of this House, which are comprised in the Resolution.

SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON,

in seconding the Motion, said, he believed that the general sense of the House was very much in accord with the views of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) who had brought forward this Motion. For his own part he agreed in the main with what his hon. Friend had said respecting the limitation during the last two years of the right of private Members to bring forward their Bills. He perhaps did not attach so much importance as the hon. Member to measures initiated by private Members. He was of opinion that the usefulness of private Members depended more on their action in bringing forward Motions on subjects in which their constituents were interested—bringing these Motions forward not, perhaps, with the hope of their resulting in immediate legislation, but with the view of giving a spur to the Government and the House by showing them what the feelings of the constituencies were upon various subjects, and thus paving the way for legislation. But it could not be denied that private Members were very much limited as to their opportunities for action even in that respect, and he quite agreed that it was desirable that something should be done to improve their position. The Business of the House increased from year to year. Tuesday morning sittings were becoming more frequent; the Tuesday night sittings were practically the only times private Members had of bringing forward their Motions; and on Tuesday nights private Members were often counted out. If the power of private Members to raise discussions were a valuable one, the curtailment of it ought to be carefully guarded. He did not think the Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire was sufficient to meet the necessities of the case, for in any change in the mode of conducting the Business of the House, it should be dealt with as a whole and on the broadest possible basis. He was afraid that the terms of the Motion might, unless some facility were given to hon. Members for moving instructions to the Committee, very much limit the scope of the inquiry. He should, therefore, like the inquiry to be enlarged, and certain points which had only been hinted at thoroughly thrashed out. Among these were the appointment of Grand Committees for certain Bills, the alteration of Notices of Motion with private Members' Bills on Wednesdays, which would obviate the temptation to talk out private Members' Bills on that day, and, the securing of Fridays to private Members. He thought that the best mode of dealing with the whole Question was to refer it to a Committee, and he trusted the instruction to the Committee would be enlarged so as to secure the consideration of these points.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the time of the day at which the House should assemble, the hours during which the House can most conveniently sit for the transaction of Public Business, when the Business introduced by Her Majesty's Ministers should have precedence, and what Notice should be given of any proposal to alter the time at which the House will assemble, or the distribution of Business."—(Mr. Newdegate.)

MR. DODSON

said, he quite agreed with the hon. Member for North Warwickshire that it was most desirable that the Government should not monopolize too much of the time of the House, whilst he also agreed that it was most desirable that Motions brought forward by private Members should have ample opportunity of being discussed. Discussions of this kind were exceedingly useful. They expressed public opinion from different parts of the country, and discussions in the House helped to form a sound public opinion out-of-doors. It was also desirable that there should be sufficient time for the consideration of the principal Bills of private Members when introduced. He could not, however, agree with the hon. Member in thinking it desirable that the Bills introduced by private Members should be greatly multiplied.

MR. NEWDEGATE

The right hon. Gentleman has quite misunderstood me. I deprecated the number being increased.

MR. DODSON

was glad to hear the hon. Member say so. But the hon. Member, while deprecating the lack of time for the due consideration of the Bills of private Members, used a curious illustration, for he referred to the comments of Judges on the vagueness of certain Acts which he complained had been hurried through the House, and it so happened that they were Government and not private Members' measures. A Notice which had been put on the Paper by the right hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt) seemed to offer a short cut to the end the hon. Member for North Warwickshire desired to obtain. The effect of it would be to give Fridays to private Members; and if they had Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays—three days out of five—it would be as much as could possibly be accorded them. The House would dispose of that Motion after discussion, and without the intervention of a Committee, and the new rule could come into effect during the present Session. He (Mr. Dodson) had before suggested that the Business of Tuesdays and Wednesdays should be transposed; that Orders of the Day should stand first on Tuesdays, and Motions on Wednesdays. Private Members' Bills would not then be exposed to their present risk on Wednesdays of being "talked out;" but they would run the risk of their Bills on Tuesdays being counted out. If a Bill attracted so little interest that 40 Members would not be found willing to come down to support it, the probability was that it had better be counted out. This arrangement and the making Friday a Motion night would give more time to private Members, and might facilitate the passing of their Bills, and both these were among the objects which the hon. Member had in view. Neither of them, however, would come within the terms of reference of the hon. Gentleman's Motion, which applied only to hours, and not to the nature of Business. As far as he was concerned he had very little hope of any good resulting from the appointment of another Committee. A great number of Committees had already sat, and if the hon. Gentleman wanted the recommendation of a Committee there were numberless recommendations lying in the library which he might take up. He believed that the Committee now proposed would be of less use than any of them, and he thought the object of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire would be better attained by the proposition of the right hon. Member for Northamptonshire (Mr. Hunt).

MR. BAILLIE COCHRANE

said that the great loss of time occurred through the House being counted out on Tuesdays. He was very nearly being a sufferer himself last Tuesday, when the Prime Minister suggested that he should go on with his motion on the Suez Canal. He, however, felt certain that the House would be counted, which happened as soon as an hon. Member opposite (Mr. Chadwick) rose to bring forward a Motion on the Income Tax. Between 8 and 10 o'clock on Tuesdays the House was almost always counted. If, however, the Government would put down Supply or some other Government business on the Paper, the House would then be safe to be kept. As the right hon. Gentleman had been so kind in advising him to go on last Tuesday, perhaps he would give him the assurance that he would be in his place next Tuesday and keep a House for him.

MR. COLLINS

thought that if a question brought forward by any hon. Member would not attract forty Members, its fate could hardly be deplored; and he thought it would be well to lay down the rule that if an hon. Member were once counted out he should not be allowed to bring on the same Motion during that Session. It was no offence to the Colonies when an hon. Gentleman opposite was counted out, but only an intimation that the House did not think any good object could be gained by the discussion of the subject. When, however, that hon. Member was counted out, a great injury was inflicted upon the next hon. Member, who might have a sensible Motion on the paper, because the first Motion not only stopped the way, but emptied the House. The other night the hon. Member (Mr. Chadwick) was counted out in moving for a Committee on the Income Tax. The House knew very well that the tax could not be modified, but that it must either be got rid of or retained, and, therefore, the House knew it was only a waste of time to go on. He thought the House showed great good sense in refusing to entertain Motions of this kind. Out of the three recommendations of the Committee of last Session two had been adopted to the satisfaction of the House—one that Mondays should be given to the Government, and another that no opposed business should be taken after midnight. The third—that a quarter of an hour's grace should be allowed before the Speaker counted, when the House resumed at 9 after a morning sitting—had not yet been adopted.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, the subject was now being discussed, partly on the Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) and partly upon a suggestion made by his right hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson) for improving the conduct of the Business of the House. It was difficult to deal satisfactorily in debate with these proposals, and it was hardly possible to bring them to a state of maturity until after they had passed through the ordeal of a Select Committee. These matters required to be looked at on different sides, and it was conversation rather than speeches which enabled them to undergo the thorough sifting which they required before they were adopted. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Dodson) had made a suggestion which had been received with more than common favour, that there should be an exchange of the Business of Tuesdays and Wednesdays. A great deal might be said in favour of that Motion, but he doubted whether it would be safe to adopt it without carefully examining it from every side, because it clearly involved casting a weight in the scale in favour of Notices of Motion as compared with the legislation undertaken by private Members. It gave to Members who moved Notices of Motion six hours of an absolutely certain House. [Mr. HUNT dissented.] Yes, practically it did, because from 12 to 4 the House could not be counted. [Mr. HUNT: But will you make a House?] Sometimes there might be half an hour lost before a House was made, and there was that deduction between the hours from 12 to 4, but when London was full there was no difficulty whatever in keeping a House between 4 and 6 o'clock. That would give, practically, five or six hours certain to those who had Notices of Motion. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to repay the promoters of private Bills by giving them Tuesdays—which would be subject to risks. That was a change of great importance which required to be carefully weighed because the interest of these two classes was very distinct one from the other. He thought it would not be imprudent to say that the whole of these suggestions required to be turned over and examined on every side. It had been charged upon the Government of the day that it had of late years made encroachments upon private Members. He questioned the truth of this assertion. If hon. Members went back 20 or 30 years, he was ready to affirm that, apart from morning sittings, the Government 20 or 30 years ago had a much larger proportion of the aggregate number of hours than at present, and that the encroachment had not been by, but upon the Government. In 1867 or 1868, when the rule was made for morning sittings, the inequality was so far removed as to bring matters back to the state in which they formerly were. While private Members squabbled with the Government and the Government with private Members, the cardinal difficulty lay in the quantity of business and the fixed quantity of time to do it in, and it was to the economical distribution of that time to which the House would have to look, rather than from any great advantage to be gained by private Members at the expense of the Government. He thought it would be worth while to appoint a Committee of the House to consider the subject anew, but there was no use in raising the question if hours were to be spent in debating it and in withdrawing the attention of the House from other business. He thought there would be no advantage in agreeing to this motion, and that for two reasons. In the first place, as had been said by the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) it would be impossible to limit the Committee in the manner proposed by this Motion. It had been suggested that, not by one but by a series of instructions, the scope of the Committee should be made wider. But that showed that the form of the Motion was a wrong one, and if a Committee were appointed, it ought to be appointed with much greater confidence in its discretion than the Motion showed. In the next place, he ventured to say that this was not a time of the Session at which such a Committee could be appointed with any advantage. A Committee on the Business of the House ought only to be appointed at a period of the Session when hon. Members of the House were so free from engagements that the members of the Committee could be chosen unrestrictedly from the Members of the House. It ought to have the power of bringing together all those hon. Members who had been most responsible for the conduct of the Business of the House, and who had had the longest experience. If a Committee were appointed after Easter when a large majority of hon. Members whose assistance was most desirable were already so occupied with previous engagements, they would not be able to do justice to the inquiry. His hon. Friend the Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. B. Cochrane) had complained of the request which was made to him to proceed with his Motion about the Isthmus of Suez on Tuesday night, but he (Mr. Gladstone) believed that if his hon. Friend had stood in the breach he would have kept a House. The hon. Member had also suggested a change by which the Government Orders should have precedence on Tuesday nights. [Mr. BAILLIE COCHRANE: Should not have precedence.] The hon. Member's proposition amounted to this—that the Government, without any hope of bringing on their Business, should place it on the Paper, in the hope that official Members would would be bound to keep a House. The hon. Member for Boston (Mr. Collins) had proposed that they should make a slight change with respect to the Rule that was to be enforced when the House recommenced its sittings at 9 o'clock, and stated that a quarter of an hour's grace should be given. He (Mr. Gladstone) did not know whether it was wise to have a Rule that on such occasions no Motions should be made to count out the House before half-past 9, instead of a Rule permitting the making of a Motion to count-out at a quarter-past 9; but the House had experienced the advantage of requiring a pause before a Motion for a count-out could be made on such occasions. As to the general subject, he hoped the hon. Member for North Warwickshire would not ask the House to Divide on his Motion.

MR. R. N. FOWLER

said, he was doubtful whether it would be desirable to transfer to Wednesday the business now transacted on Tuesday evening. If that had been done before last Tuesday, the consequence would have been that the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Crawford), and other mercantile Members, would not have been able to be present at the important dis- cussion on the currency question. He thought it deserved consideration whether the present system was not better than the one now suggested. One of the results of the deliberations of the last Committee was the adoption of the half-past 12 o'clock rule, which stood in the way of private Members, and seemed to him a change of very doubtful advantage. Another change recommended by the Committee was that at the evening sitting the House should not be counted out before a quarter-past or—as subsequently suggested by the Government—half-past 9, and of that proposal he approved. With regard to the Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate), he trusted that it would not be pressed to a division.

COLONEL BARTTELOT

asked the hon. Member for North Warwickshire not to divide on the question. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that it would be much better to have an inquiry at the commencement of a Session, when the whole subject could be gone into. As to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Boston (Mr. Collins), he thought that at 9 o'clock a quarter of an hour's grace might be fairly allowed; but he should object to any extension of that time.

COLONEL WILSON-PATTEN

said, he was afraid they were attempting an impossibility. Looking at the number of Bills before the House, he did not think that any Committee or any change of system would facilitate legislation to the extent imagined by some hon. Members. The other day he counted the number of Bills awaiting discussion which had been brought in by hon. Members. He found there were no fewer than 66 Bills on the Order Book. Each of those Bills would be discussed three times, and upwards of 190 days would be required for that work. He had not counted the Notices of Motion, but they were very numerous. It was clearly impossible that all of them could be considered and passed through their various stages in the time at the disposal of the House. The truth was, that the measures introduced by private Members impeded each other, and would continue to do so under any system that had been suggested. The only thing that would facilitate the passage of a portion of them would be the withdrawal of the rest. He did not think that a Committee could, with advantage, be appointed at the present period of the Session, nor did he think that it would be desirable to appoint a Committee at all until they had before them some more definite proposition than they had at present. No hon. Member had made a better suggestion on this subject than the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson). He concurred with the Prime Minister in thinking that a House would have been kept on Tuesday if the hon. Member for the Isle of Wight (Mr. Baillie Cochrane) had proceeded with his Motion. The reason why the House was counted out was that nobody took an interest in the Motion of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Chadwick). He did not see any use in the Committee proposed by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. Numbers of hon. Members would be deprived of the opportunity of taking part in discussions if Wednesday were made the day for Motions. If, however, a substantive proposal were made to that effect, it might be discussed and decided by the House without the intervention of a Committee, as to the undesirability of appointing which, he agreed with the Prime Minister. Business had so increased that its discharge was almost impossible under any rules unless, as he had stated, hon. Members, whose Bills had no chance of passing, would at once withdraw them—a course, however, which it was hopeless to expect, every hon. Member naturally thinking his own Bill an important one.

MR. CHADWICK

trusted the hon. Member for North Warwickshire would not withdraw his Motion, and urged that the main point should be to check the gross waste of time occasioned by the hon. Member for Boston and others, who appeared to think the House was burning to learn their sentiments on every subject. The Committee should be instructed to consider some mode of limiting the speeches of hon. Members to subjects which they understood, or could give some information upon. With regard to the count-out on Tuesday night, the income tax was a subject which he had studied for years, and he had intended to combat the heresies of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer respect- ing it. There was scarcely any subject which they could not count-out between the hours of 8 and 10. He could himself have counted out the House 20 times during the past Session when important questions were under consideration. When it was considered that they printed and published the names of hon. Members who voted for or against any Motion, he saw no reason why they should not print and publish the names, not only of those who were present when the House was counted, but of those hon. Members who moved a count. Why should they conceal the name of any hon. Member who thought the exigencies of the public service required a count? He trusted the Committee would be appointed, and that the main question for their consideration would be how they could restrict the large amount of useless talk which was at present indulged in by hon. Members.

MR. SCOURFIELD

thought that, unless the Committee had particular instructions as to the object with which they had to deal, they might meet 20 times without being able to form any definite plan. He was afraid that if they were required to solve the problem of how the Public Business could be best despatched, and, at the same time, secure unlimited liberty of debate for hon. Members, they would be placed in great difficulty.

MR. CRAWFORD

pointed out that Friday nights would be more available to private Members but for the rule against more than one division on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply. He thought that a good deal of the inconvenience which now existed would be removed if the House fell back on the old rule of moving that the House, at its rising, should adjourn until Monday. With regard to the project for bringing forward Motions on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays, he wished to remind the House that it was quite impossible for those hon. Members who were engaged in the City or professionally occupied to come down to the morning sittings.

MR. MONTAGU CHAMBERS

said, he was not in favour of the form of Motion now brought forward, because he thought they were too much in the habit of submitting matters to Select Committees which ought to be taken into consideration by the House itself. He could not avoid saying, however, that there were a vast number of Resolutions brought forward unnecessarily, and simply for the purpose of airing eccentricities, or with the intention of showing persons outside that their authors were attempting to do something. If hon. Gentlemen would read through the lists from time to time of the Resolutions to be proposed, they would not say they were nonsense, because that would be un parliamentary language; but some censorious person would say that the House of Commons, which ought to be engaged in most important business, was occupied too frequently in discussing that which might be occasionally instructive, sometimes extremely amusing, but which almost always ended in nothing. If hon. Gentlemen—acting upon the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Member for Lancashire (Colonel Wilson-Patten)—would be considerate enough, when there was Public Business to be done, to withdraw the advocacy of their conundrums, the House would be able to make progress with and to facilitate real business. He had frequently heard the expression "free discussion" used, but he thought the liberty of free discussion might be carried a little too far when important Public Business was waiting to be transacted. Perhaps it was complimentary, or perhaps it was not complimentary to that House, but he was of opinion that kindly forbearance on its part with reference to the agitation of unimportant questions was a little too indulgent. Some time ago a novel was published bearing the title of Thinks I to Myself, thinks I, and very often in the course of a debate he had said—"Thinks I to myself, thinks I, what a pity it is that the time of the House is wasted in this manner." There were many hon. Members who were in love with their own ideas, and who insisted on inculcating them in the House of Commons, and the consequence was that at the end of the Session but little real business had been transacted. He had made these observations in the hope of "showing ourselves up to ourselves," and he trusted that hon. Members would take them to heart. He wished to hold up the mirror to those hon. Gentlemen who were the habitués of the House of Commons, and knew what the Rules were. The proceedings at a count-out could not be de- scribed as "disgraceful," because that also was not a Parliamentary expression. He was in the House the other evening when he was informed there would be a count-out on Mr. A, B, C, or D's Motion, and upon asking why, he got no answer. He however saw the exhibition. One hon. Gentleman rose up and observed that there were not 40 Members present. What did the hon. Gentleman then do? Why, he walked out at the door, and a number of other hon. Gentlemen trooped after him, and through that glass door were certain eyes peeping, all anxious that the count-out should be successful. It struck him as a most extraordinary proceeding that the very man who said there were not 40 Members present should be the first to run out of the House. That sort of thing was not only known out-of-doors, but it was ridiculed and condemned, and it was condemned with perfect propriety. It was very desirable, in his opinion, that a Rule should be made to the effect that after an hon. Member rose to draw attention to the fact that there were not 40 Members present, no hon. Gentleman should be allowed to leave the House until after the count had taken place.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

agreed that the question of counting-out the House had attracted the attention of the public, but he thought it was not desirable that an impression should go abroad which should make hon. Gentlemen appear worse than they were. The speech of the hon. Member for Macclesfield (Mr. Chadwick) was calculated to produce a false impression, because the hon. Gentleman had put it forward broadly that there was no business, however important, upon which the House could not be counted-out between the hours of 8 and 10 on any evening. Undoubtedly it sometimes happened that on Government nights there were not at a certain hour of the evening 40 Members in the House; but if an attempt were made to count-out it would be found that there were plenty of Members within the walls of the building, and who would come in and make a House to prevent such an attempt being successful. It must be understood that Government business ran no risk of being got rid of by a count-out. The Government always could and always did keep a House for really important business; and if the business brought forward by private Members sometimes suffered from a "count," it was generally because there was not a sufficient number of hon. Members interested in it to keep a House together, though sometimes the result, as was the case the other night, was due to accident.

MR. NEWDEGATE,

in reply, said: Sir, there is a modern invention connected with railways, the application of which has conduced much to secure the public safety, and it is known as the "block signal." And to day, I think I have at all events shown the House a block signal with respect to its own proceedings and business. I regret that it does not appear to be the inclination of the House, by a majority, to adopt the Resolution which I have proposed with a view to considering how the Public Business may be liberated. I feel the truth of what has been so ably stated by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, that whatever may be the value of any suggestion made for the improvement of the proceedings of this House, unless it has first been sifted by a Committee, it will not ultimately be adopted by the House. For years past no suggestion has been adopted by the House with reference to its procedure that has not been first recommended by a Committee; for this reason I acted upon the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman by proposing the appointment of a Committee. But, as he conceives that the terms of the Motion, limited as they are by the circumstances of the case; by the fact that the proposal for the appointment of a Committee on the whole subject of the Business of the House, has already this Session been negatived, and that I am precluded by the Rules of the House from renewing that Motion, I suggested the proposal which is now before the House, fully convinced that, unless the discussion which has taken place has some influence upon hon. Members, the "block" in the business of the non-official Members of the House, which I have endeavoured to describe, must continue, and many of the Bills they have introduced, probably some of those most worthy of consideration, must lapse for this Session, because their course is obstructed by other measures that have far less claim upon the attention of the House. I will not risk again, and more finally, precluding the House from entertaining the propriety of appointing a Committee to consider the state of its business, and the necessity for effecting some alteration in its proceedings, by taking a Division. With respect to an observation which has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Dodson), I would say that I hope he will not make his suggestion for an improvement in the proceedings of this House, without submitting it to a Committee, unless he is very confident that he has secured a majority in his favour beforehand. Few Members are more competent to deal with this subject than that right hon. Gentleman; but great as his authority may be, and however valuable may be his suggestions, I fear that, unless it be backed by the recommendation of a Committee, he is not likely to attain his object. I will no longer detain the House than to ask its leave to withdraw the Motion, lest, by its rejection on a Division, the House should find itself obstructed in consideration of the question hereafter, as it becomes more pressing with the advance of the Session, and I believe that it will become more pressing as the Session advances.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.