§ MR. LABOUCHEREwished to ask the Speaker a Question with regard to an observation that had fallen from him last night. Last night the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), who had given Notice that it was his intention to bring forward a Resolution with regard to the House of Lords, being prevented by the Forms of the House from moving that Resolution on going into Committee of Supply, asked the Speaker whether he should be in Order in moving his Resolution on the Appropriation Bill being brought in. He gathered from the reports which appeared in the public journals of this morning that the Speaker ruled that the hon. Member could not do so. He now desired to ask whether the ruling of the Speaker was in accordance with the rights and privileges of the Representatives of the nation; because—and he said so with the greatest submission—-he believed that any hon. Member was entitled to bring forward a grievance before money was voted to Her Majesty. With regard to the Resolution of the hon. Member, which met with the support of many hon. Members on both sides of the House, and which he intended to second, he thought that the continued existence of the House of Lords in its present form was a grievance such as an hon. Member was entitled to bring before the House before money was voted. 472 ["Order!"] He was perfectly in Order. He wished to point out to the Speaker that certain moneys were voted by the Appropriation Bill for the maintenance of the House of Lords, and to ask, Whether the hon. Member for Galway was not, therefore, strictly within his right in bringing forward his Resolution, and taking the decision of the House upon it, at any stage of the Appropriation Bill?
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member asks me whether an Amendment or a Motion, involving the continued existence of the House of Lords, can be brought forward on any stage of the Appropriation Bill. I can only answer that I have no hesitation in saying that it cannot.