HC Deb 17 May 1881 vol 261 cc695-709
MR. DILLWYN

rose to move the following Resolutions:— That the present Standing Orders be abrogated, altered, or amended, in so far as they may be inconsistent with the following New Orders:— 1. That Debate on a Bill shall be confined to the following stages: second Reading: Committee; Consideration of Report; Third Reading. 2. In the course of any Debate it shall be competent for any Member, the consent of Mr. Speaker having been first had and obtained, to move that the Question be put forthwith, and the decision of the House shall be at once taken without further Debate: if resolved in the affirmative, the Question before the House shall be put forthwith; if resolved in the negative, no similar Motion shall be allowed on the same Question before two hours have elapsed. Provided always that not less than 150 Members shall vote in the majority. 3. It during any Debate a Motion be made for Adjournment, Mr. Speaker may decline to put the Question thereupon, if in his judgment the Motion is made for purposes of obstruction: or if he think fit to put such Question, he may put it from the Chair forthwith. 4. When a Motion is made for the Adjournment of a Debate, or of the House during any Debate, the Debate thereupon shall be strictly confined to the matter of such Motion. 5. Mr. Speaker may call the attention of the House to continued irrevelance or tedious repetition on the part of a Member, and may direct the Member to discontinue his Speech. 6. On Motion made, the House may decide that any Bill shall be resumed in the ensuing Session of the same Parliament at the same stage at which it stands at the end of the current Session. 7. Any Member suspended from the service of the House, in accordance with the Order of February 28th, 1880, shall be suspended from Moving and Speaking for a week at the first offence, and for the remainder of the Session at the second, but shall retain the power of voting. It shall nevertheless he in the power of the House upon Motion made to reinstate such Member in the full service of the House, but such Motion in respect of any Member shall be made only once in the course of the Session. Paragraphs 2, 3, 4, and 5, shall apply, mutatis mutandis, to proceedings in Committee of the whole House. In Committee. S. Amendments not on the Notice Paper shall only be moved by a Member in charge of the the Bill. In commending the Resolutions to the House, the hon. Member said, that there was an impression abroad, and even among Members, that year after year the House of Commons was growing less and less able to grapple with the accumulation of Business upon it, and a feeling was getting up in the country that the House of Commons was becoming incompetent for the work put upon it. He regretted that feeling should exist with regard to this Legislative Chamber, in which he had spent the best part of his life. Various suggestions had been made with the object of affording the House some relief in the discharge of its duties. Among other proposals that had been made was one by which the Business was to be apportioned under certain heads and handed over to Special Committees; but that was an objectionable course, in his opinion, because he thought that the Business of the country should be done by the Representatives of the nation, and not by mere Committees. He was satisfied that by a mere alteration in the old Standing Orders of the House, which had remained unchanged for years, they would be able to get through their Business easily. The hindrances to satisfactory legislative progress arose, in his opinion, from three main causes—first of all, that they had too many unnecessary Forms in which they allowed questions brought before the House to be debated; second, useless and unnecessary discussion, due perhaps to the increased interest taken in Parliamentary proceedings by the constituencies, and Members being anxious to show that they were "somebody" in the House; and, third, and paramount of all, the abuse of the Rules instituted for the purpose of protecting the rights of private Members. Instead, however, of those Rules being used to enable the minority to protect their own rights, they had enabled the minority to prevent the majority carrying out measures which they deemed to be necessary, and, in fact, to wage war with the country through the Forms of the House. He admitted that he had on occasions taken part in obstructive tactics; but that was at the end and not at the beginning of the Session, because, in his opinion, that which was Obstruction at the beginning and at the middle of a Session sometimes became a duty at its end, when Bills could not be properly considered. Tracing the recent development of Obstruction, he referred to the "All-night" Sitting in 1877 over that very important question, the Confederation of South Africa—a measure which his hon. Friends the present Under Secretary for the Home Department (Mr. Courtney), the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Sir Charles W. Dilke), and his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain), did their best in assisting the Irish to obstruct. If they had succeeded in throwing out that Bill, he believed that many of the evils which had since arisen in South Africa would have been prevented. He and they, however, did not then carry Obstruction to the extent of going on with it all night; and he believed that the angry feeling engendered by the obstruction of certain Members who persevered in it prevented the fair consideration being given to the objections urged against that measure which they would otherwise have received. The course of procedure which was adopted in that Session resulted in the appointment of a Committee to reconsider the Rules which regulated the procedure of the House. This Committee made several suggestions, some of which were adopted; but they had not proved sufficient to restore perfect order to the debates in that House. Notwithstanding the fact that the House in the present Session had been sitting since early in the month of January, hardly anything had been done in the interest of the country; indeed, no measures had been passed except such as were, speaking in general terms, thoroughly and heartily disliked. The Government had proposed certain measures in reference to the state of Ireland, and he had great faith in the wisdom of the Government; but he saw little chance of their measures passing at an early period as long as the present method of conduct- ing the Business of the House was maintained. For the reasons which he had stated he asked the House to pass a series of Resolutions, the first of which would have the effect of limiting the occasions on which any measure could be discussed and, if any hon. Member thought fit, obstructed by the methods with which the House had become acquainted. The second Resolution was an important one. If passed, it would enable any hon. Member, with the assent of the Speaker, to move that the question should be forthwith put and the decision of the House be forthwith taken; and it provided that, if resolved in the affirmative, the question should be then put, provided that not less than 150 Members should vote in the majority. He put the number at 150 with a view to prevent a small majority at the end of the Session, when the House was weary and few Members were in town, being possessed of undue power. The requirement, however, that 150 at least should vote in the majority would, he thought, secure a sufficient expression of opinion to justify the carrying out of the Rule. The next three Resolutions had already been in operation. They had been framed by Mr. Speaker as "Urgency" Rules, and he thought they might well be incorporated with the Standing Orders of the House. The sixth Resolution might be regarded as an innovation; but he thought its adoption would load to a practical and important improvement in their procedure. His principal object in framing that Resolution was to enable Bills to be passed which never could be carried in any other way, at least as perfect measures—he alluded to Bills relating to Law Reform, to Merchant Shipping, and such like. Measures such as these were either dropped altogether, or were hurried through the House at the end of the Session without much consideration. The House would, he thought, agree with him that it would be far better that such measures should receive full and free discussion before they were passed, and that could not be secured without some such provision as he suggested in his Resolution. It would, he was sure, lead to better legislation than they were able to secure under the present system. The seventh Resolution provided that a Member suspended from the service of the House should be suspended from moving and speaking for a week at the first offence, and for the remainder of the Session at the second, but should retain the power of voting. It was, he considered, unfair to his constituents to deprive an offending Member of the power of voting. The Resolution then provided for the re-instatement of the Member in the full service of the House upon Motion made and carried, such Motion, however, in reference to the same Member to be made once only in the course of the Session. The eighth and last Resolution provided that Amendments in Committee which did not appear on the Paper could only be moved by a Member in charge of the Bill. Its adoption would prevent the passing hurriedly and without due consideration of Amendments in Committee. There would he some guarantee obtained that the Amendments of which no Notice had been given were really improvements of the Bill if the hon. Member who had the Bill in charge approved of them. Such were the Resolutions he proposed; and he did not doubt that the result of their being agreed to would restore to the House the power of prosecuting the Business of the country which they had, he might say, lost. They were now, practically, unable to carry out the views of the majority in the country, because it was in the power of a small minority to thwart their efforts to do so. He trusted the Government would accept the proposals he made. They had the power in their own hands of doing so. He did not say that the Resolutions were perfect; but this he could assert—that he had heard far more objections to their not going far enough than he had to their going too far. He was convinced that if they could restore to the House the power it formerly exercised over its own Business, they would have done a good and an important work.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That Debate on a Bill shall be confined to the following occasions: Second Reading; Committee; Consideration of Report: Third Reading."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)

MR. RYLANDS

, in rising to move the adjournment of the debate, said, the House would no doubt be of opinion that the subject of the alteration of their Rules was one of serious consequence, and ought not to be agreed to without very grave consideration. He had al- ways been of opinion that any alteration of the Rules of the House should be the subject of careful inquiry by a strong Select Committee, or that Her Majesty's Government should take upon themselves the responsibility of recommending alterations of the Rules to the House. He moved the adjournment of the debate for this reason—that he thought the Government in such a case as the present might reasonably and properly be looked to to guide the House; and that, if they saw the necessity for alteration, it was for them, after due consideration, to propose to the House such Rules as they thought were required for the better conduct of their proceedings. A short time ago, in reply to the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), the Prime Minister truly said that there had been a number of Committees on the subject, and that in their Reports and the Evidence they had taken there was all the information that was required for dealing with it. He gathered from the answer that, when the pressure of Business was somewhat diminished, the Government were prepared to submit some proposals; and he therefore moved the adjournment of the debate, in order that they might wait to hear what the proposals of the Government were. He was, however, surprised at the transformation exhibited by the hon. Member for Swansea, recollecting the course he pursued on this subject when sitting on the opposite Benches. He was disappointed that the virtue of the hon. Member had not been sufficient to resist the disposition to give to a Liberal Government and majority powers he refused to concede to a Conservative Government. For himself, he did not look at the question at all in that light. It was a curious psychological study to watch the hon. Member coming forward as the apostle of Rules far more stringent than had been proposed before, bat occasionally betraying that leaven of sympathy which still existed in his mind with the usages of an active minority in Opposition. In his Resolutions he had taken a course entirely different from what might have been expected of him. It might have been. supposed that he would have based his Resolution on the Report of the last Select Committee, which had only one fault, and that was that it was too representative of the Front Benches. But they had the advantage of hearing the views of the Speaker and of the Clerk at the Table, and they recommended various modes of improving the Business arrangements of the House. The hon. Member had adopted the recommendations they did not make, and had ignored those they did make. Therefore, to adopt his proposals would be to vote want of confidence in the Committee and in preceding Committees. Immediately after the inquiry of the Select Committee of 1878, the Leader of the present Opposition submitted several Resolutions which, for the most part, followed the recommendations of the Committee, and exhibited patience under criticism and Obstruction, one of the main Obstructionists being the hon. Member for Swansea. He said he would not offer Obstruction at the beginning of the Session, but it was justifiable at the end. But the right hon. Gentleman submitted his Resolutions at the commencement of the Session. The object of one of them was to prevent Motions on going into Committee of Supply, which often interfered with the progress of Public Business; but the hon. Member for Swansea objected strongly to it, and he had not included it among his proposals. The hon. Member, however, had submitted what he called a qualified clôture; but, if it were a qualified clôture, he should like to know what an unqualified clôture was. In the Committee of 1878 it received the support of two Members against 13, the two being Mr. Knatchbull - Hugessen and Mr. Sampson Lloyd. If it had been proposed in the last Parliament, he would answer for it that the hon. Member for Swansea would have sat up all night opposing it; and he would have done the same, but he had not altered his opinion because he sat on the other side of the House. He could not understand such a change of opinion on the part of Members who appreciated the fact that great questions had to be fought out by minorities—[Mr. BIGGAR: Hear, hear!]—and that the public mind had to be educated by discussions, often of interminable length, such as occurred in the struggle for Free Trade. His hon. Friend asked the House to pass a Resolution which would, in fact, strangle minorities. Now, why did his hon. Friend propose these Rules? Because they had in their midst Mem- bers who were amongst them, but not of them. So long as the Forms of the House were used by Members representing English and Scotch constituencies, subject to the public opinion of this country, there was no danger of those Forms being pressed beyond the point which could be considered as justifiable; but there were on the Benches opposite a number of Members who did not represent the public opinion of England. They represented the public opinion of Ireland; they came here as a hostile body; they were prepared to stretch the Forms of the House because they were not concerned in maintaining its reputation and arrangements; it was a House they had no sympathy with, and, therefore, they were prepared to abuse its Forms as far as they could. A great part of this Session had been spent in withdrawing the liberties of the people of Ireland and in accordance with the desires of the Opposition. Could it be wondered at that a minority of Irish Members, representing a people uncontrolled by English public opinion, had strained the Forms of the House to resist what they considered an attack on their liberties? As coercive measures went on, we should have still further evidence of the fact that we had exasperated a hostile class in Ireland. But let the House be careful lest to meet a temporary emergency they sacrificed arrangements and Forms which had been shown by years of experience to be the safeguards of the rights and liberties of minorities. His hon. Friend urged that the Business of the House was increasing; but was it not worthy consideration whether it was not increasing in a way which could be remedied? Centralization had increased, was increasing, and ought to be diminished. It was telling materially upon the time of the House, and he should be glad when they had the opportunity of considering a definite means of decentralization, so as to relieve their shoulders of a large amount of the work at present cast upon them. His hon. Friend seemed to think that the House had lost the respect of the people; but there never was a greater mistake. The greatest attention was paid to their proceedings. There were even, in some towns, mimic Parliaments held, in which those who took part in the debates assumed the names of favourite Members of that House. One was known, for instance, as the Member for Woodstock, and, no doubt, some sturdy, independent representative would call himself Member for Swansea; but after his present proposals he feared he would have to call himself by some other constituency. The proposals of his hon. Friend wore not the only alternatives to be considered by the Government. There was the proposal of Grand Committees. A large Committee would, no doubt, much abridge the time devoted to the Civil Service Estimates, and be of great advantage to the country. He also thought the American rule as to the length of speeches might be usefully adopted. In great debates there might very well be some limitation as to the length of speeches. Though he was willing to consider any proposal for saving the time of the House which would not unfairly press upon the rights of minorities, he hoped that the House would resist any means intended to meet a temporary emergency which would have the effect of removing the security of those rights. He moved the adjournment of the debate.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

, in seconding the Motion, observed that the House had just witnessed a painful scene. The hon. Members for Swansea and Burnley had formerly long stood shoulder to shoulder in defending the rights of private Members, and carried on in more than one hard-fought battle the work of scientific Obstruction; but their long political union appeared at length to have ended. The nearest parallel he could find to this tragic breach of friendship was when, in the House of Commons, Mr. Fox and Mr. Burke finally separated in regard to a great question of public policy. On this occasion he was bound to say that his sympathies were entirely with the hon. Member for Burnley. He had kept in a straight path, and the hon. Member for Swansea had been the back-slider. He had been a little puzzled during part of the speech of the hon. Member for Swansea to know whether he was attacking or defending Obstruction. He dwelt with obvious gusto on all the means of Obstruction, and he specially recommended Obstruction at the end of a Session. But he remembered that no longer ago than the end of last Session they looked in vain for the assistance of his hon. Friend to put some term to the efforts of the Government to pass legislation, at a time when, by his own admission, no legislation should have been allowed. With reference to the Resolutions themselves, his main objection to them was that they threw too great a burden upon the shoulders of the Speaker. The responsibility of closing the debate was too great to be thrown on the Speaker. The experience of last Session showed that even the duty of naming a Member was difficult to exercise. The modified clôture would practically rest entirely with the Speaker and the time might come when the minority, however much in the wrong, might accuse the Speaker of lacking in that impartiality which had always distinguished the Chair. No doubt, the power of moving adjournments at Question time was greatly abused; but could any one doubt that in a great public emergency it was most important that it should be exercised? it was not always sound policy to remove a right because it was abused, or was liable to abuse. These Rules, whether good or bad, ought not to be entertained by the House unless they were brought forward by the Government of the country. He therefore deprecated coming to any decision upon them at present, and begged to second the Motion for the adjournment of the debate.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Rylands.)

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

Whatever may be the opinion of the House as to the consistency of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), who has been so severely attacked, but who is quite capable of defending himself, and whatever the opinion of the House as to the Rules which have been moved by my hon. Friend tile Member for Swansea, I think there can be no doubt that he is entitled to the thanks of the House for the care and attention he has given to the subject. I do not desire, for reasons I will shortly state, to discuss the Resolutions of my hon. Friend in great detail. I think, perhaps, my hon. Friend, if he wished to introduce an effective change in our proceedings, would have done better if he travelled over a less wide field, and had confined himself to one or, at most, two or three, important alterations, instead of presenting what really amounts to a whole new code of proce- dure. As to the 1st Resolution, it seems to me that, practically, it would make very little difference in the existing state of things if it were adopted as it stands on the Paper. But my hon. Friend has explained that he proposes to alter the Resolution in such a way as to exclude discussion on the bringing in of a Bill. Though, like other things, the right of debate on the introduction of a Bill is very often abused, it would, in my opinion, require a great deal of consideration before the House should adopt the Resolution. There may be occasions when the most legitimate mode of dealing with a Bill, the character of which the House is perfectly acquainted with, is upon its introduction in the early part of the Session, when the House has not much Business before it, instead of waiting until the second reading at a later period, when the House may be very fully occupied. Besides, legislation may be proposed which ought not to be embodied in a Bill at all. I will pass over, for a moment, the second and most important of the Resolutions—that which deals with the power of closing a debate. Upon the 3rd and 4th Resolutions I only wish to say that I think they are entirely in the right direction; and when the House has time to take up this question it will probably be disposed to adopt some proposals of the nature pointed out by my hon. Friend. As to the 5th Resolution, I also entirely agree with my hon. Friend that the power possessed by the Speaker under the Rules of Urgency was not attended by any inconvenience; and I think, after some further experience of its working, the House may very properly be asked to consider the adoption of the Rule. The 6th Resolution seems to me to open a rather wider question—a question which appears to go beyond the scope of the proceedings of the House with which my hon. Friend proposes to deal. It is hardly a question of procedure with which it deals, but with some more vital principles which affect our legislation. As to the extension of the Order of the 28th of February, 1880, several of my hon. Friends near me and I myself expressed our opinions, when the Order was passed, that if anything was to be done at all the Resolution should be made more effective. We did express our opinion that the Resolution as proposed was not sufficiently strong, and would fail of any satisfactory result. I am, therefore, entirely in. agreement with my hon. Friend as to the principle of the Rule which he proposes. But the most important of the Resolutions is, no doubt, the second, which gives the majority of the House the power of closing a debate. It is a question entirely open to doubt whether, as stated by my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley, any alteration of a restrictive character, such as is now proposed, would really meet the evil of which we have complained during the last few years. The inconvenience to which the House may be subjected, as was pointed out by the hon. Member for Burnley, does not rise altogether, or even mainly, from the deliberate Obstruction to which the House is sometimes exposed. Besides the inconvenience from that cause, it does sometimes suffer from having a great deal more work to do than under the present regulations it can perform. I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley that we ought not to look only to legislation of a restrictive character; we should also see whether some proposals with regard to Grand Committees and other proposals of that kind which would assist the House could not be made, and whether the House could not be relieved of some of the Business which it now takes up. But, while I entirely agree with my hon. Friend in that proposition, speaking for myself personally and not as representing the Government, I hold with equal conviction that the converse proposition is true, and that whatever proposals we may make they will not be sufficient until the House does take into its own hands a greater control over its own proceedings and its proceedings in debate than it now possesses. My hon. Friend referred to the proceedings of the Committee which sat upstairs on the Business of the House, and stated, I think, somewhat too broadly that the question. of the clôture was considered and altogether rejected by that Committee. My hon. Friend ought to have mentioned that the decision of the Committee was couched in very guarded terms, and certainly did not amount to a rejection of the principle of the clôture. A Resolution was proposed by Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen that the power of formally closing the debate was one which, with certain restrictions, might be beneficially exercised by the House. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Dodson) who sits near me moved as an Amendment that the proposal of formally closing a debate is one which the Committee is not prepared to recommend for present adoption by the House. A division was taken on the word "present," and the word was adopted. The Resolution as finally passed was that the power of closing a debate was one which the Committee was not prepared to recommend for the present adoption of the House. That is a Resolution which could not be fairly said to amount to an absolute rejection of the proposal for closing a debate. Speaking my own opinion on this question, I have held for some time very strongly that the arguments in favour of some such power are, on the whole, convincing and conclusive. Such power, no doubt, may be open to abuse; but I should like to know what power the House can assume which, in certain circumstances, may not be liable to abuse. No doubt it is conceivable that an intolerant majority might make use of such a power to suppress the rights of a minority. But, in the circumstances in which on now find ourselves, an intolerant minority is practically able, not only to prevent the House from discussing particular questions, but to prevent the majority of the House from discussing a great number of questions at all. By absorbing the whole time of the House in discussions upon one or two subjects, it is quite possible for a minority abusing its powers to prevent the majority from discussing any question whatever except those immediately before it at the moment; and if a tyrannical use is to be made of the Forms of the House I must say that it is more reasonable and the evil would he less if arbitrary power should be exercised by the majority who might be assembled at the time, and who probably represent the majority of the people, than that such intolerance should be practised by a minority. These are my own opinions; and I have no doubt that, sooner or later, the House will be compelled, in some form or another, to adopt this power. Almost every Legislative Assembly in the world has been compelled to adopt it; and I do not know why we, who have at least as great an inclination as other Assemblies fully to discuss Public Business, should alone be able to dispense with it. It think that, sooner or later, the great power of the cloture will have to be placed in the hands of a simple majority; and I believe that, with one exception, no restrictions will have any practical value. The only restriction required is that the power shall be exercised by a certain quorum of the House; and it must be borne in mind that in placing this power in the hands of a majority you place upon them at the same time a great responsibility, the sense of which will make the abuse of power exceedingly rare. I have thought it possible to express my own opinions on this subject, but I am not prepared to commit my Colleagues to the adoption of this principle; and I must point out that all proposals affecting the conduct of the Business of the House are shown by experience to be measures of a very important character—measures which the House has never been disposed to adopt without very full discussion, and which have always demanded far greater consideration than we can give to them tonight. Such proposals naturally involve much debate; but it has often struck me that they have generally produced more discussion than was absolutely necessary. The fact is that some hon. Members interest themselves in one subject, and some in another; but every hon. Member who takes a prominent part in the Business of the House thinks himself a great authority on the subject of our procedure; and it is quite true that there are many hon. Members whose experience does make it desirable that we should hear their opinions. This circumstance alone makes it quite impossible that any change should be effected without the most careful deliberation. We may assume, then, that these proposals of my hon. Friend require for their consideration much more time than he has at his command. Speaking for the Government, I have to say that they cannot find time for the discussion of these questions, and that, if they promised their support to the Resolution of my hon. Friend, the only practical result would be to aggravate the pressure of the Business of the House. Still, both we and the House generally must feel grateful to my hon. Friend for the attention he has paid to this subject, and must sympathize with him in his endeavour to facilitate the progress of Business, and to improve the pro- cedure of the House. Personally, I agree with many of his conclusions, and hope that some of the changes he advocates limy some day be carried into effect; but the Government cannot, in the present state of Public Business, undertake a task that is too considerable to be successfully accomplished in the course of this Session. 1 should be inclined to vote for the Motion of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), which is in some respects preferable to the Previous Question as a way of disposing of a subject. I am glad that my hon. Friend has called attention to this matter, and I hope that the House may have another opportunity of resuming the discussion before the end of the Session; but at this moment I must support the Motion for the adjournment of the debate.

MR. DILLWYN

said, he had always considered that this question ought to have been brought forward by the Government; but he had thought it his duty to prevent it being lost sight of. Thanking the noble Marquess for the kind reception he had given to his proposals, and hoping that the Government would be able to bring the subject before the House themselves, he would ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

MR. DAWSON

observed, that the Irish Members could hardly overlook the pointed reference that had been made to them in the course of the discussion. Arguments had been used in favour of the clôture; but the Papers on the subject that were in the possession of the Government had not been laid on the Table, because they showed that outside the British Empire countries in the position of Ireland had separate Assemblies of their own, and the Imperial Assemblies had not under their consideration a vast mass of topics to make confusion worse confounded. Ours was the only Assembly that had to deal with so incongruous a collection of subjects as Ireland and India, Tunis and Telegraphy, Bradlaugh and Basutos. Home Rule was the real remedy for this state of things; and he could only recommend the noble Marquess to consider whether a better way could be found out of the difficulty.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

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