HC Deb 13 November 1882 vol 274 cc1329-95

Order read, for resuming Further Consideration of the New Rules of Procedure.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, it was his duty, as a matter of order and regularity, to move the 2nd Rule, as follows:— That no Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall he made before the Orders of the Day, or Notices of Motions have been entered upon, except by leave of the House; the granting of such leave, if disputed, being determined upon Question put forthwith; but no Division shall be taken thereupon unless demanded by forty Members rising in their places, nor until after the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of. The Resolution had been recast and put in a less stringent form than when it was first presented to the House, in order to meet what might be called cases of Urgency, and to allow a competent number of Members to raise the question for the decision of the House, whether a Motion for Adjournment should be taken or not. The first condition laid down was that a Motion for Adjournment should not be made during Question time, as had often been done to the great inconvenience of the House and the prejudice of Public Business; and the second was that the number of Members desiring such a Motion to be made should be a competent number. The Government did not wish to make the number too high or too low; but they thought that the number which was competent to transact the Business of the House—namely, 40—would be a reasonable number. They were not absolutely wedded to that number, and, if there were any desire on the part of the House to reduce it, they would not object, even if it were reduced to the number of 20, for which there was a precedent in the number required to call for a Division in Urgency. That was all he would say on the subject, because this was a question entirely within the knowledge and experience of the House, even if it was not crowned by the experience of that evening.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That no Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall be made before the Orders of the Day, or Notices of Motions have been entered upon, except by leave of the House; the granting of such leave, if disputed, being determined upon Question put forthwith; but no Division shall be taken thereupon unless demanded by forty Members rising in their places, nor until after the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of."—(Mr. Gladstone.)

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

said, he rose to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice—that the Rule should operate "on days when Government Orders have precedence." The alteration, he thought, should command the sympathy of the Government. The Government appeared, in submitting the Resolutions, to overlook the fact that one great cause of obstruction or delay was the enormous amount of Private Business which was brought forward by private Members, whose Bills and Motions were generally of a useless character, and seldom came to fruition. In the present Session there had been no fewer than 170 private Members' Bills against 70 Public Bills. The Amendment would do some good if it only prevented private Members bringing forward Bills on subjects which should be left to the Government. Further, he would be glad to see some Rule introduced to give really good Bills, brought in by private Members, ample time for discussion and amendment, and also to leave time to the Government to carry forward their Bills at leisure. It appeared to him, also, that the rights of private Members should be consulted rather in the matters of urgency than of these Bills. The object of Members being sent to the House was rather to remedy griev- ances than to assist in debates on abstruse matters which often required no legislation at all. He agreed with the Government that restriction should be, perhaps, placed on constant Motions for Adjournment; but he did not think that that restriction should be imposed on nights devoted to private Members. Very often the subjects brought forward urgently on Motions for Adjournment were of far greater consequence to the public than the Bills or Resolutions with which they interfered. They were often of a nature so urgent and transitory that the opportunity for discussion must be taken off-hand; for if Members had to wait for the opportunity of discussion it might not come until too late, and thus a grievance might pass without redress. He hoped the Government would show some indulgence in this matter. They had carried their 1st Resolution by a very large majority; and he believed that, by showing a certain desire to compromise and come to an understanding, they would probably carry the remainder of the Resolutions much faster than if they drew a hard-and-fast line and said they would listen to nothing which came from the Opposition side of the House.

Amendment proposed, After the word "That," to insert the words "on days when Government Orders have precedence."'—(Sir H. Drummond Wolff.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he thought the hon. Gentleman would admit that the Government were not at present chargeable with any unconciliatory disposition with respect to this Resolution. The Government had already, without waiting for any prompting, greatly mitigated and altered the form of their original proposal, and had intimated their willingness to make a concession in the matter of numbers should there be such a desire on the part of the House. Hon. Members would see that this was not a case in which he had to stand up for the interests of the Government. It would be convenient for the Government that Motions for Adjournment should be excluded on Government nights. It was assumed that no other Party was interested in excluding them; but that was a fundamental mistake. Independent Members had just as much interest in the passing of this Rule, and in the Amendment they had an exclusive interest. That Amendment would leave private Members entirely undefended, because a Motion for the adjournment of the House at Question time on Tuesday night, when made without any restriction, might occupy the whole evening, and preclude a private Member from bringing on a Motion for which he had previously obtained precedence by ballot. Down to the present moment the Motion for Adjournment had never had any sanction at all. He would not say it had been censured by the Chair; but it had been spoken of from the Chair as an unauthorized and inconvenient practice, and it had been, to a considerable extent, discountenanced by the general sense of the House. Now, however, they were going to legislate about it, and to devise a plan which would give Motions for Adjournment an entirely different character from unauthorized and inconvenient Motions as heretofore. They would be as legitimate as the original Motions of private Members, provided they were made in the terms of the Resolution; and, that being so, it would be impossible for the Government and most unfair to private Members to surrender to the mercy of uncontrolled action the right of setting aside on Tuesdays and on Wednesdays the regular Business of the House. Private Members often had measures in hand which were not interesting to the great majority of the House, but keenly interesting to some section of the House; but if this Amendment were agreed to, attempts to bring on such subjects would be regularly met by Motions for Adjournment.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, that the Prime Minister had taken a view of the Amendment which he had hardly anticipated. As he understood his hon. Friend (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), his object was to reserve some kind of right on particular occasions to bring subjects of great urgency before the House; and he had been willing to make a concession on this point to the Government that on the days when Government Orders had precedence such. Motions should not be made. It was clear that Government Business was Business of the greatest importance to the country—Business in which the country at large was interested—but private Members' Business, in 19 cases out of 20, was Business in which the private Member alone was interested. His hon. Friend, therefore, had suggested a very great concession to the Government, and was preventing hon. Members from interfering with the Government Business in an unauthorized manner. Hon. Members balloted for the priority of their Motions; but it often happened, as the Prime Minister would agree, that a very unimportant Motion might, on a Tuesday, block the way of a Motion of the greatest importance, and prevent it from coming on. That was constantly happening, with the result that the House was counted out on the unimportant Motion, and the important Motion had no chance of coming on at all. He had an Amendment on the subject on which he should produce some startling figures to the House. He would, however, suggest, if the right hon. Gentleman would not accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, that he might consider whether a more satisfactory arrangement of Business could not be made for Tuesdays and Fridays, and the House allowed to select for itself out of the Motions put down the Motion which it deemed of the greatest importance. "Counts out" being almost the rule on Tuesdays, he thought it reasonable that the Government should allow this power of moving the adjournment of the House to be reserved for private Members' days. It did not follow, because the power was reserved, that it would be constantly used, and it would not do the least harm. In proof that the proposal which he made was reasonable, he pointed to the fact that in the arrangement of the Paper for Government nights the most important Business was always put first.

MR. DODSON

said, he thought the noble Lord had called attention to a difficulty which would not be met by the Amendment. Even if, as indicated, uninteresting Motions sometimes had precedence of interesting Motions on Tuesdays, it was obvious that the power to move the adjournment of the House would not help the discussion of the interesting Motions. N either would the preservation of the power of moving the adjournment help the noble Lord in cases of "counts out." The question, too, of whether the House should have the power of departing from the ballot which now regulated the order of private Members' Motions was quite independent of the Resolution, although it might be one well worthy of consideration. Under the circumstances, he suggested that the hon. Member should move an Amendment in some other form.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, he entirely agreed with the right hon. Gentleman and his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) that some reconsideration of the order of Business was desirable, for he believed that great inconveniences often arose from the system of balloting. He was, however, afraid that the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) would rather tend to increase the present difficulty, and lead to some unfairness to private Members. He hoped his hon. Friend would not think it necessary to divide the House. The Amendment of his noble Friend was in an opposite sense to that of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, and he thought it met the case better.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, he had hoped, when the Prime Minister introduced the Resolution, that there would have been some discussion, in order that the House might express an opinion on its principle, because until they knew what the Resolution meant they could not discuss any Amendment which might be made upon it. The Prime Minister said that he would make a concession by changing the number 40 into 20; but, in his (Lord George Hamilton's) opinion, the Resolution as it stood meant that, no matter what answer was given to any Question, no Member could move the adjournment of the House, however great might be the number of Members who held his views, if there was a single person in the House who objected to that course. That was the argument—[Mr. GLADSTONE: The first part.] He (Lord George Hamilton) presumed that it meant by leave of the House. But he wanted to know what was meant by "leave of the House?" The "evident sense of the House" had been interpreted to mean the evident sense of the majority of the House. As, therefore, there was much confusion as to the way in which this word "House" was used in the different Resolutions, he thought, if this Resolu- tion was to be passed, that they ought to clearly indicate whether what was meant was the unanimous consent of every Member in the House. If one person could stop the Motion for Adjournment being employed, what concession was the Prime Minister going to make? The great mass of the House, he thought, was strongly against an improper use being made of this power; but, on the other hand, there were times when it facilitated Public Business by the discussion of matters of paramount importance. With regard to Questions, the present Government had a great advantage over their Predecessors. In the late Parliament the House insisted upon every Member reading his Question; whereas in the present Parliament the House would not allow any Member to read his Question, but required him simply to name the number of it, and the Government could give almost any answer they chose. But, surely, there ought to be some remedy against answers which were either improper or evasive. He asked the House to consider whether they would assent to this principle, or that there should be some limitation in it. It seemed to him that if a certain portion of the House was in favour of a Motion for Adjournment, that Motion, under certain conditions, should be possible; and he initiated this discussion in order that there should be a clear opinion as to what must be the wish of the House, so that when they got further down the Resolution they should not be told that they could not raise the principle.

MR. GORST

said, that the privilege of asking Questions of Ministers was one of the most valuable possessed by Members of that House, and the power of moving the adjournment of the House was a great means of compelling the Government to give full and satisfactory answers. If, however, that power were taken away, the House might expect a large number of answers from the Treasury Bench practically refusing the information asked, for. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government was very fair in giving answers to Questions addressed to him; but he had Colleagues who would not scruple to evade Questions put to them if the power of moving the adjournment were taken away. What they wanted was a day on which they could put Questions with the certainty of being able to force an answer from the Treasury Bench. If that power were allowed them on Tuesday, it would practically re-act on the other days of the week. Tuesday was selected for the purpose, because Tuesday's Sittings were almost in variably wasted in their Parliamentary Business. By the ballot a string of Notices were placed on the Paper which Members did not care about, and therefore they sanctioned the rising of the House at an early hour. By giving the right of moving the adjournment of the House on Tuesday, in the event of an evasive reply being given, they would insure that, throughout the week, Ministers would reply to the Questions put to them. He hoped that the House would not part with this valuable power altogether.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

said, he thought that the House hardly appreciated the very grave and great importance of the 2nd Rule. There could be no doubt that the Rule must be of great importance hereafter, particularly after the 1st Resolution had been passed. They had to consider the Rules in regard to the Resolutions. He admitted that great abuses had taken place with regard to Motions for Adjournment; but they should not in consequence consent to give up the power entirely. He might state that he had attended a long time in the House, and he had never once moved a Motion for Adjournment; but on one occasion he had seconded one on a Question with regard to the Afghan War, when the answer was of a most unsatisfactory character, given to one whom ho regretted was no longer alive (Sir William Palliser). He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) seconded the adjournment simply in order that his hon. Friend might receive a fair and proper answer from the Government on a very important question. What he wished to put before them was this—Would not the Government allow an Amendment to be introduced to the effect that a Motion for Adjournment might be made in case of a certain number of hon. Members rising in their places in favour of it. He said that a certain number of Members, and not the majority, should determine the question when it arose. If otherwise, the Government would always be able to prevent an adjournment. In his opinion, the House would I be most unwise to part absolutely with such, a right. Unless some such concession as that he had indicated were made, he feared the Resolution would be debated at great length.

MR. BERESFORD HOPE

said, he thought the House should consider that the power under discussion, much as it had been abused, was the only safety-valve existing in all their proceedings, and therefore ought not to be abolished under colour of the comprehensive reformation with which they were confronted. This was a power which secured everything moving evenly and seriously, because the Government knew that if the Questions put were not properly answered the remedy would be resorted to. They knew that emergencies arose in the life of Parliaments as of nations, and, knowing that, they must not sit down on the safety-valve of their Parliamentary system. That which the Government was no w proposing proved they hardly understood the nature of the proceeding. What they proposed was that those who were on their trial should be called upon to decide whether or not they would hear and disprove the charges brought against them. The persons accused were those who were to say whether they would shut the mouths of their accusers and so acquit themselves untried. For any one Member to be able to jump up and move the adjournment when he was a little mortified was, he admitted, excessive; but, at the same time, he did not think the Parliament of England should be altogether deprived of that old freedom. If, however, that were done, something would happen one day that would make them regret the levity with which it had parted with its undoubted privilege.

MR. LABOUCHERE

thought that the suggestion of the hon. and gallant Baronet the Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was an exceedingly practical one. On both sides of the House there was a feeling that the Resolution as it stood was somewhat strigent, and a little too much to the advantage of Ministers. He did not say that Ministers absolutely tried to evade answering Questions, but the House knew that sometimes a Minister did not answer a Question very clearly; and if, when he did that, there was no appeal except to a majority of the House, it was, practically, an appeal from Pontius Pilate to Caiaphas—that was to say, from the Government to the Government's mechanical majority. Of the numerous Amendments to the Resolution, that of the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) was about the worst, because the practical outcome of his proposal was that Tuesdays should be devoted to Motions for the Adjournment of the House. The most practical Amendment was that which stood in the name of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler); but he could not, and would not, enter upon a discussion of the merits of it. The effect of it was that if 40 Members wished that the Motion should be proceeded with, it should be allowed without there being any subsequent appeal to the House. He would not stand upon 40 Members; but that number seemed to him to be a reasonable compromise, which many hon. Members were inclined to support. It would much simplify matters if the Prime Minister would say that such an Amendment would be accepted.

MR. J. R. YORKE

said, he thought the Prime Minister, in bringing forward these Resolutions, might have done what was usual on the Motion for reading Bills a second time. He might have given a general sketch of the Amendments which the Government were prepared to accept, in a modified form or not, and also of those to which they would give a determined opposition. In his opinion, the right hon. Gentleman was himself mainly responsible for the desultory character of the discussion that had arisen. It was his (Mr. J. R. Yorke's) intention to support the Amendment. It was perfectly true, as the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had said, that the condition of private Members had long been getting worse and worse. The term, "private" Members was altogether a misnomer. It would be much more exact to speak of them as "unofficial Members." When he first came into the House those Members had their fair share of the public time, and it was always held private Members could advantageously bring forward the manifold grievances which arose from time to time. Now, however, all that was changed, and the Government almost monopolized the time of the House. As it stood, this Resolution was a second edition of the clôture. He should sup- port the Amendment for the reasons urged by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst)—namely, that if the power of adjournment were taken away, as proposed, great temptation would be given to Members of the Government to give evasive and discourteous replies to Questions. The Amendment would put a considerable screw on the Treasury Bench, and that would have a very good effect. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had also expressed a very true opinion when he said that the Rule was altogether too stringent. He (Mr. J. E. Yorke) thought that if the Government would intimate their consent to the acceptance of the principle that 40 Members rising in their places could demand that a Motion for the Adjournment should be moved, it would do much to simplify the passage of the Resolution.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that the complaints of the hon. Member as to the course taken by the Government were most unreasonable. It was impossible for the Prime Minister to have made a statement with reference to all the Amendments upon the Paper in introducing the Resolution. Such a course would be most irregular and most inconvenient. When an Amendment was reached which raised the point referred to by the hon. Member, then the Government would state the reason why the Amendment could not be accepted. At present the Prime Minister had stated what modification he was disposed to accept—namely, a change in the numbers. That was the only change which the Government upon reflection was disposed to accept on the Resolution. If it were not irregular to raise the discussion on the present Amendment, he could inform the House why the proposal for allowing 40 Members to move the adjournment would defeat the object of the Resolution altogether. There would be no room for anybody to bring forward those grievances of which the hon. Member (Mr. J. E. Yorke) spoke; but there would always be some eloquent patriot who would come down and move the adjournment of the House. What they had now to consider was the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, which had not been as yet supported by any Member of the Opposition. Indeed, the hon. Member who had just sat down spoke against it. What would be the effect of it? The private Member who had, he would say, the greatest amount of assurance would move the adjournment, and then it would become impossible for any hon. Member to put a Question of which he had given Notice until that Motion was disposed of. It was quite plain that if they recognized the right of moving the adjournment at the beginning of Business, they would disorganize the whole conduct of Business in the House. They could have no arrangements which would not be broken up by Motions for Adjournment, whether on private Members' nights or on Government nights. It was said there might be an emergency when there ought to be an opportunity of making such a Motion; but hon. Members appeared to forget that they had such an opportunity every day at the close of the Sitting. [Murmurs.] He knew that some hon. Gentlemen would prefer the hours between 5 and 8 o'clock in the evening for those Motions for Adjournment, which would disarrange Business; but if there was some great national emergency when the Government must be asked for an explanation and some statement should be made, it would involve too great a sacrifice for hon. Gentlemen to come down in white neckties at 11 o'clock at night. He trusted that the House would not assent to the proposal that on Tuesdays and Wednesdays any Member should be at liberty to occupy as much of the time of the House as he pleased by a Motion for Adjournment.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down had promised to confine himself to the question immediately before the House; but he had given the House clearly to understand not only that the Government did not agree to the very wise and prudent suggestion of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), but that they would yield to no proposal, and would insist on carrying the whole scope and spirit of the Resolution intact. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had sought to justify that determination on the part of the Government by an argument which hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House must, he thought, feel to be unworthy of his position. The right hon. and learned Gentleman told them that the privilege, which, he admitted, in great emergencies might be usefully employed, of moving the adjournment, might always be had recourse to at the end of the Sitting—that was to say, at 2 or 3 in the morning, on a great national or international emergency, some hon. Member, when the representatives of the Press had retired and Mr. Speaker and everybody else were exhausted, might rise and exercise that privilege. Yet that was the deliberate advice which the right hon. Gentleman, speaking on the part of the Government, gave to independent Members on both sides of the House. He protested against the view the right hon. Gentleman had taken of the whole of that Resolution, and also against the suggestion he had made with reference to it. He was not disposed to deny either that during recent years the number of Questions put at the commencement of Business had greatly increased, or that the exercise of the privilege of moving the adjournment had also, to some extent, but to no very great extent, increased. But why had that increase taken place? Simply, he maintained, because the time at the disposal of private Members had been so restricted by the action of the Government that matters which formerly formed the subject of distinct Motions had been put down in the form of Questions, very much, he thought, to the saving of the time of the House, and much, also, to the convenience of the Government. But if the present Resolution passed as it was introduced, what, he asked, would be the value of those Questions? Under the present system an hon. Member who received an unsatisfactory reply to a Question addressed to a Member of the Government was able to make himself disagreeable to the Government by moving the adjournment, and so obtaining the information that he desired; but if an essential modification was not made in this Rule there would be absolutely no guarantee that a question, perhaps of the greatest interest and importance, would receive an adequate answer from the Ministers of the day. The House and the country would thereby be deprived of that information which they had a right to demand, and they would be left at the mercy of a powerful Minister with a mechanical majority at his back. He deeply regretted that the Government should have devised that scheme for rendering the Questions, when put, less useful than they were now, and also that they had not assented to the reasonable and moderate proposal of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton for amending it.

MR. WARTON

said, he had never himself moved the adjournment of the House, and he believed that the privilege of doing it had been often grossly abused; but he complained that the Government now sought to take advantage of that fact to inflict on the House a grievous wrong, and to deprive them of a resource which was frequently of much importance. He wished that, on the contrary, they would lend their ear to the request of the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), and condescend to enlighten the House as to their ideas with respect to the proposed Rule; but instead of that they maintained a studied reticence, all except the Home Secretary, who was as flippant as his Colleagues were silent. That was not the way they should deal with a question of this vital importance. He wished to hear—and the Conservative Party, who were never flippant or reticent, wished to hear—from them what was intended by the phrase "the leave of the House." Was that to be ascertained by a division, or by a certain number of Members getting up in their places and declaring their opinion that an hon. Member should be allowed to move, the adjournment of the House? In his opinion, the only merit of the Amendment was that it limited the operation of the Resolution. The Resolution itself seemed almost unnecessary after the clôture Resolution which had been passed. In presenting this and the following Resolutions to the House, the Government must bear in mind that, as they had taken their stand upon the clôture Resolution, hon. Members on this side of the House were far less disposed to consider the remaining Resolutions, which he, for one, was prepared stoutly to oppose.

MR. GIBSON

said, he attached very high importance to the Resolution before the House, and hoped that the Government would take an early opportunity to make some reasonable concessions to wishes which were not confined to one side of the House. The Prime Minister, in moving the Resolu- tion, had adopted a conciliatory tone; but what he undertook to do practically came to nothing. It had, no doubt, often happened that Motions had been made of a wholly immaterial character, prompted sometimes by temper and sometimes by vanity; but, nevertheless, occasions might arise of some important crisis in home or foreign affairs, when the Opposition, who differed strongly, resolutely, and conscientiously from the Government, would have a right to present their views to the House and the nation by moving the adjournment. It was no answer to say that hon. Members could ballot or might wait until 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. It was no answer to say the Opposition could, if they pleased, by framing a Motion of Want of Confidence, practically compel the Government to grant them a day, for it might be that the question was one upon which the House ought to have immediate information. Within the four corners of the Resolution now before the House, even with the very moderate suggestion to substitute 20 for 40, no power was given to any Member of the Opposition, or to any section of the Opposition, however respectable or powerful, or to the Leader of the Opposition, even if supported by a section of the Ministerial side, to rise to move the adjournment without the leave of, perhaps, the very Minister whose conduct was at stake. This was little short of a gross scandal. In short, whether leave was to be granted or not depended upon the will of the Minister of the day; but it was not to be expected that hon. Members could rely upon the consideration of Ministers as a sheet-anchor. He, therefore, urged the Government to reconsider their attitude, and to make a modification of the Rule which might be acceptable to the House generally. He did not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) with pleasure, because he had no desire to interfere with the already limited time of private Members. But there was no alternative. If the Government refused to give them public time, they must ask for a portion of the time of private Members. Should a reasonable concession be made, he did not see why the discussion on this Resolution should occupy a considerable time, as, no doubt, in various instances the right of moving the adjournment of the House at Question time had been abused, and some remedy was necessary.

SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKE

said, he considered that they had now before them a most important question dealing with a practical evil; and he thought the Government were responding to the sense of the House when they afforded a means of relief against a tyranny under which they had been groaning for several years past. The evil was one which they felt so much that they would go almost any length in order to bring their proceedings into something like order, and make the transaction of their Business fairly efficient. It was perfectly intolerable that when the House had arranged the Orders of the Day in a certain way any one Member might get up and propose a Motion on some grievance, and so lead to a discussion that might last for three or more hours, and prevent the Orders coming on. Still, he felt some difficulty in going the whole length of this Resolution; and he should be glad if the Government could see their way to some middle course. They might put a check on the objectionable practice, without absolutely forbidding a Motion for Adjournment on an occasion of extremity and urgency. For his own part, he was much inclined to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), which would subsequently come on for consideration. Whatever was done at present must be experimental and tentative; and they ought, therefore, to be careful, lest they went to such an extreme that a reaction would result.

MR. R. H. PAGET

said, that, as the Rule stood, no hon. Member could move the adjournment of the House for any purpose, or however urgent and important, without the consent of the Government. If such a Rule were adopted, hon. Members knew what they had to expect. He, however, ventured to appeal to Her Majesty's Government not to make this Resolution a Party question, as the first had been; and he was certain that any concession which the Government might make in reference to it would be hailed with general applause by the House. As one who was anxious that the House should be enabled to prevent the scandals which had been occurring of late years, he was ready to make any reasonable change in their Procedure; but the present proposal was too drastic, and was far beyond the necessities of the case. He hoped the Government would not alter their Procedure in such a way as would do violence to the feelings of moderate men—a course which would result in an agitation that would necessitate the withdrawal of the obnoxious Rule.

MR. DILLWYN

said, he trusted that Her Majesty's Government would not accept as the law of the Medes and Persians the dictum of the Home Secretary, who had chosen to express his opinion prematurely upon the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), an Amendment which was not before the House. He (Mr. Dillwyn) also ventured to hope that the House would not be detained much longer on the Amendment now under discussion.

VISCOUNT SANDON

said, the tone of the Home Secretary showed them what they bad to expect. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had told the House in so many words that the Government would not accept any Amendment which would seriously modify the provisions of the Resolution, and had set down his foot in advance upon the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. But unless that were accepted the House would have no safeguard at all. The fact was, that in this as in many other of the Resolutions Her Majesty's Government had been too prodigal of their words. To carry out their intention the Resolution should have run—"No Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall be made at any time without the consent of the Government of the day." If this Resolution were agreed to in its present form, hereafter it would be in the discretion of the Prime Minister of the day whether any pressure should be put upon him or not in respect of any particular subject.

MR. JOSEPH COWEN

said, there were two points on which the House was agreed—first, that the power of moving the adjournment at Question time was a very valuable privilege; and, second, that it had sometimes been abused. Members were willing to assist the Government in regulating the exercise of that power, but they were not willing to aid them in abolishing it. The Rule as it stood, however, would abolish it. If it passed, it would place the House absolutely at the mercy of the Ministry for the time being. It might be convenient and agreeable for the present Ministers to be freed from the annoyance of impromptu debates on Egypt or Ireland. Doubtless, some of these discussions were disturbing and a source of trouble; but they had better submit to them than part with a power that they themselves would find, when once again in Opposition, the value of. If the Government would consent to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), the discussion might close there. It was not all that Members wanted, but it was an improvement on the Ministerial proposal, and as a compromise the House would be willing to agree to it. But as the Government did not seem disposed to accept it, he would offer another suggestion. His proposal was even less than that of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, and it was simply this. If a Member asked a Question, and did not get a satisfactory answer, he might have the power of explaining his Question. It might be said that if he had such power he would abuse it. He might take a lengthened time—half-an-hour, an hour, or two hours—to make his explanation. That certainly would be an abuse of the privilege; but, to provide against that, the time at which he was at liberty could be restricted. He was very much opposed to the practice of restricting speakers, as it was highly objectionable; but they had introduced the system of measuring out speeches, and this would only be a development of the same idea. If they allowed the Member who wished to move the adjournment to make a statement, and they allowed a Minister to make another in reply, the matter in many instances would end there. The House would be satisfied, the aggrieved Member would be satisfied, and no further discussion could take place. If any discussion did take place, then it would only be with the sanction of the House. But by this plan, the power of explaining a Question and getting a detailed reply would be retained. He might add that the plan was in operation in France and America, and he believed worked satisfactorily in both countries.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

admitted that the suggestion of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) would be an improvement on the proposal of the Government, but it would be a very small improvement. He thought that too much emphasis had been laid on the necessity of moving the adjournment in order to compel the Government to give a civil answer. He had a higher reason, which was that the right might be required to enable the House at some grave crisis to discuss some important question relating to affairs at home or abroad. If they took away the power to move the adjournment, except with the assent of the Government—[Mr. GLADSTONE: The assent of the House.] He assumed that the Government might have a mechanical majority in the future as they had in the past, and therefore he substituted the word "Government" for "House." If some important question were suddenly to arise, the Government would be able to put pressure upon their followers to prevent the Motion for Adjournment from being accepted. That was the reason why the House should be in possession of some provision by which large minorities might be enabled to force a discussion when absolutely necessary upon the Government. He could not make out what the Government meant to do on this question, for the Home Secretary certainly did say that no Amendment that would put it into the power of the minority, however large, to interfere with the Government Business would be accepted—["No, no!"]—but he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) believed that if the Government would accept some such Amendment as that of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), the discussion on this Resolution would be greatly facilitated.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, that the words of the Home Secretary had been very much misunderstood. His right hon. and learned Friend did not say that the Government absolutely refused all Amendments to this Rule, but that on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) it would be irregular to bring forward arguments with regard to other Amendments. And his right hon. and learned Friend added that when they came to the Amendments of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), the Government would be prepared to state why they had made their original proposal and their objections to those Amendments. Nothing had fallen from any Member of the Government to show that there was an inflexible determination on the part of the Government to force their views on the House. It might have been convenient if his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) had made a statement when moving the Resolution with regard to the Amendments on the Paper; but when the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth was once moved, it was impossible for the Government to make a statement with regard to the other Amendments.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, there were Amendments on the Paper before the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton which might take days to discuss, and, in his opinion, nothing would facilitate the discussion more than a statement of the views of the Government with regard to that and the other Amendments. The position taken up by independent Members on one side and the other was that it would be immensely to the public danger that any Government should have it in their power to say to their majority—"Refuse to listen to the Motion, which is one that impugns our dignity and which demands information which it is of vital consequence to us not to give." He put aside Party considerations when he said that it would be dangerous that any Government, Liberal or Tory, should be able to say, "You shall not raise this question," though it might be of the highest importance in relation to matters at home or abroad. He believed it would be disastrous to deprive the House of this power, which had often been exercised to the advantage of the State, and he therefore hoped the Government would be disposed to come to a compromise on the subject. He was convinced that if some such proposal as that which had been shadowed forth by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton were adopted by the Government it would meet with general acceptance. He confessed that he should hesitate before voting for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, because that Amendment contemplated the abolition of the power of moving the adjournment of the House at Question time on Government days; and it was to be remembered that to- wards the end of the Session the Government took precedence on almost every day of the week. In the public interests, therefore, no matter what Government was in power, it was desirable there should be the power of asking the attention of Parliament and the country to matters of grave interest and pressing emergency, and that it should not be in the power of the majority behind the Government to refuse them that liberty.

MR. GLADSTONE

asked permission to say that the Government wished to meet the Opposition in an equitable spirit, and he would therefore observe this much, that although the Government could not accept the terms of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), yet, if the sense of the House was generally in its favour, they would be prepared to entertain the principle of it in preference to that which they themselves preferred—namely, the reference to the vote of the majority.

SIR HENRY TYLER

said, he was in favour of retaining the present power of calling attention to urgent affairs on any day.

MR. THOMAS COLLINS

appealed to the hon. Member for Portsmouth to withdraw his Amendment after the statement of the Prime Minister.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

moved to insert, after "that," in the first line of the Resolution, the words "while the Committee of Supply is open." The principle of the Amendment was that while Committee of Supply was open, Members had proper opportunities of bringing questions before the House and ventilating grievances; but they had not such opportunities when Supply was not before the House, which was in the opening and closing weeks of the Session, and his Amendment was designed to meet that case. The importance of the Amendment was relative to others to come after, about which he hoped the Leader of the Opposition would express as favourable an opinion as he had about this. If the Government were resolved to carry the Rules in the exact words in which they had submitted them, the Rules would not have much validity, because they would be carried in the teeth of the Opposition, who would be tempted to change them when they could; but it would be otherwise if the Government accepted Amendments without caring from which quarter of the House they came.

Amendment proposed, after the word "That," to insert the words "while the Committee of Supply is open."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he confessed that he sympathized with the Government in their objections to making the Motion for Adjournment during the time set apart for Questions. He had himself been obliged to move the adjournment in the early part of that evening, because the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) attempted to prevent him from completing the remarks he desired to make; but he (Mr. Newdegate) had sufficient respect for the House to withdraw the Motion immediately after he had an opportunity of setting himself right. He must, however, say that this habit of putting a mass of insignificant Questions in the House ought to be curtailed. The hon. Member for Northampton had spoken of the House as having degenerated in recent years, and he (Mr. Newdegate) ascribed this apparent degeneration more to the habit of putting Questions to the Government than to anything else; because, although those Questions were put in the presence of the House, the House itself had no power whatever of expressing an opinion either upon the matter of Questions or upon the matter of the answers. In fact, hon. Members sat there as so many lay figures during this questioning and very questionable process, and the only escape they had was by moving the adjournment of the House, which often led to excessive debate, and, at the same time, precluded the House from expressing an opinion by means of a division upon any of the subjects thus anomalously brought before it. He thought, then, that the Government would do the House a service in endeavouring to put a check upon this horrible mass of Questions, which, so far as their importance was concerned, were not worthy of the attention of the Local Government Board, or, in very many cases, even of a parish vestry. He had heard hon. Members say that the time of the House had been so monopolized by the Government that it was impossible for them to bring forward subjects which interested their own constituents, and might interest the country, otherwise than by putting Questions. He admitted that the extravagant action of a certain section of the Irish Members during the last four or five years, and the kind of monopoly which they had been allowed to establish for Irish Questions and for their own views, was a course of proceeding unjustified by the importance of the country they represented, and apparently attributable to nothing but their own view of their own self-interest.

MR. SPEAKER

reminded the hon. Member that the Question then before the House was the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he thought that the Amendment, no matter by whom moved, had reference to the Resolution before the House; but he would beg pardon if he had transgressed. He had thought that he was entitled to speak to the Resolution as a whole; but if he was limited to the Amendment—which was a mere modification of one of the proposed Rules, intended to limit the time during which the Rule was to operate—in that case he could only say that he did not wish for a limitation of the Rule at all; and he assigned as his reason that, while he knew that he differed from many hon. Gentleman on his side of the House, he was in favour of the principle of the Rule as proposed by the Government. He had no wish to trespass on the time of the House; and if he had infringed the Rules of the House in speaking upon the Resolution generally he hoped the right hon. Gentleman (the Speaker) and the House would forgive him, because his only desire was to express the strong opinion he entertained against the present system of questioning the Government with the view of eliciting from the Government absolute opinions on subjects upon which, according to its present Forms, the House had no opportunity of expressing its opinions. The great body of the House were thus treated as a set of mere lay figures. This practice seemed to him (Mr. New- degate) unjustifiable. He knew that it did not tend to promote the dignity of the House, and he believed that it did not advance the interests of the country.

MR. DODSON

was disposed to agree with much that had been said by the Mover of that Amendment. He would, however, remind the House that his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government had promised to accept the principle of the important Amendment which the hon. Member for Wolverhampton intended to move. That being the case, he thought it would be better if the present Amendment were withdrawn, and the Government would consider how best to deal with the question at a subsequent stage.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

said, he was glad to hear the views of the Prime Minister confirmed by the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken; but he did not know how these speeches were to be reconciled with that delivered by the Home Secretary a quarter of an hour ago. He was glad to hear that there was some prospect of concessions being made; but he thought the time had come when the Government might go further, and tell them at once how far these concessions were to go. Were they going to accept his own or the hon. Member for Wolverhampton's Amendments? Though he admitted that the Amendment was being met in a conciliatory spirit, it would be pressed to a division unless some more definite statement were made by Her Majesty's Government.

SIR HENRY TYLER

said, he concurred in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)

said, that a discussion was being raised on Amendments yet to come. The Prime Minister had said that the Government would be disposed to consider Amendments when they came to them, with a view of seeing what concessions could be made. But it was absurd for the right hon. Gentleman to ask them what concessions they were going to make on Amendments which had not been discussed. If hon. Members thought the Amendment a right one, and that they could not trust the Government to deal fairly in the matter, let them vote for the Amendment. After Supply was closed on the Appropriation Bill, Members had many opportunities for bringing questions forward. Supply, too, was always set up early in the Session. There was really no reason for giving exceptionally large powers of moving the adjournment at such a time. The House met to transact Business, and it was a large power for Members to move that no Business be done and the House adjourn. The privilege was an abnormal one, and ought only to be used on grave occasions.

MR. E. STANHOPE

said, this was all very true of ordinary Sessions; but he reminded the Solicitor General that at present the House was sitting after the Appropriation Bill had been passed; and though they had before them a matter of the importance of the Egyptian Question, they had no opportunity of discussing it except through the courtesy of the Government. This being the case, he thought that hon. Members would, in view of the increased restrictions, hesitate before allowing that Bill to pass out of their hands again in the same way, with the opportunities it afforded for the discussion of grievances.

MR. J. R. YORKE

said, that a great deal too much had been said about the abuse of the custom of putting Questions to Ministers. That abuse was, in a great measure, due to the fact that the Government had been appropriating more and more of the time of private Members. If the Government would give some clear indication of the course they proposed to take, they would very much facilitate the attainment of the object in view; but he believed they had not made up their minds, and were fishing for a policy, anxious to regulate their concessions by the amount of support they were likely to receive.

COLONEL STANLEY

said, that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General had not produced any reason why the noble Lord should not persevere with his Amendment, or why, in view of the New Rules, private Members should not be chary about parting with the limited opportunities for the discussion of grievances which they now possessed. The argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman cut both ways, for, if this power was only made use of on rare occasions, it might be all the more necessary to retain it. He quite agreed with what had fall a from his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope(. It would be quite possible for a future Government to get rid of Supply earlier than they did in past years, and thus to shut out from hon. Members one of the legitimate opportunities of bringing grievances forward.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that the two Front Benches appeared to be engaged in an anti-Irish plot. By requiring 40 Members to support a Motion for Adjournment, the majority of the Representatives of the Irish people would be shut out from making such a Motion. For another reason he thought the proposal a bad one. If an hon. Member had the opportunity of explaining the cause of his moving the adjournment, he might get 100 or 200 Members to support him; but the proposal was that 20 or 40 Members should rise to support the Motion before they had heard the hon. Member's reasons for making it. With the grand measure of reform which the Government had just obtained, they had now no excuse for preventing the exercise of the privilege of Members in cases of grave necessity, for they possessed the power to shut up the debate by using the clôture. This Rule, if passed in its unamended form, far from checking the abuse of interrogatories, would add to it, for hon. Members and their Friends would multiply Questions in order to obtain, in a tort u ous way, information which might easily be brought out in a three minutes' speech. The only time when the Rule ought to apply was on an occasion when Public Business was declared urgent. He renewed his protest against the little anti-Irish conspiracy between the two Front Benches and their expressed readiness to accept the 40-Member provision, both well knowing that until the Irish franchise had been extended the people would continue to be misrepresented by a majority of the Irish Members. He should support the Amendment of the noble Lord; but, in his opinion, it ought to go much further.

MR. GORST

said, he thought that unless the Amendment were carried, when Committee of Supply was closed Members of the House would be actually muzzled. The Government would be absolute masters of the situation. They could stifle every complaint and every murmur, and reduce the country to a condition of discontented silence. The Government was really in the hands of the permanent officials, who were all men of far greater experience than the Members of the Government with the exception of the Prime Minister. Take the Home Secretary. The permanent officials in his Department were all men of far greater experience than he was, and their opinion was intrinsically worth far more than his on all matters relating to the Home Department. But the reason -why the Home Secretary had really more weight than they had was because he had to defend the action of the Government in the House. Instead of having the Home Secretary sitting on the Bench, they might as well have phonographs at the Table to grind out the answers which had been inspired by the permanent officials of the Home Office. But the reason why the people of this country submitted to all kinds of petty tyranny in every Public Department was because every act of every Department could be called into question in this House by means of the Motion for Adjournment, and that kept the people contented with the bureaucracy under which they were governed. For that reason he intreated independent Members to join the noble Lord in forcing from, the Government such a concession as would enable any grievance which existed to find expression in the place where it ought to find expression—on the floor of the House.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that he should not discuss the principle of the Resolution; if any material change were desirable in it, the question could be raised by an Amendment. At present, he would confine himself to the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), which, he maintained, ought not to be adopted, for it was intended to allow Motions for the adjournment when the Committee of Supply was not open. The speech they had just heard was wholly foreign, with the exception of the last few words, to that Amendment, which would primarily apply to the remainder of the Session; and if it were adopted, Motions for the adjournment of the House might be made without limit. This might lead to a great prolongation of their Sittings, and a large amount of time would be expended at a great inconvenience to the House. That important operation of the Amendment was one which, in their view, constituted a strong practical objection to its acceptance. Let him observe that there was not the slightest likelihood in the future, any more than in the past, but that Committee of Supply would not be closed till shortly before the Appropriation Bill was brought in, towards the end of the Session. To close it before was so rare and inconvenient, that it was on all sides admitted to be a process that ought only to be resorted to under extraordinary and pressing circumstances; and he would put aside the question of its being prematurely closed. They would, therefore, only have to consider the question when Committee of Supply was set up and closed at the usual times. The Committee of Supply was set up immediately after the Report in Answer to Her Majesty's Most Gracious Speech, and was not closed till shortly before the passing of the Appropriation Bill; consequently, there was practically no time during which this Amendment could have any operation. But, in ordinary times, there might be a few days when the Committee wasclosed—namely, the days when the Appropriation Bill was in progress. Those were the days when there was no occasion or opportunity for preliminary Motions for the adjournment of the House, because, on those days, the Business of the House did not last more than two three hours, as the Appropriation Bill was almost the only Business on the Paper, and Motions for Adjournment could be made at the close of the Notices without any inconvenience. He submitted that the Amendment of the noble Lord was not applicable to ordinary times, whereas, at other times, it would inflict cruel inconvenience on many hon. Members of the House. He, therefore, regarded it as unnecessary.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, that the natural and only inference which could be drawn from the Prime Minister's speech was that he had considerable dread of the result of the Motions for Adjournment; and it was naturally to be concluded also, that there were subjects which the Government did not wish to be discussed during the present Session. They knew that private Members had no ordinary means of bringing forward Motions; and it must be taken for granted, then, that the right hon. Gentleman looked with dread upon any unusual opportunity being afforded to any Member to bring forward a Motion, the discussion of which might prove to be disagreeable. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that in ordinary Sessions there would be no opportunity for moving the adjournment, even if the Amendment were adopted, and that he did not imagine that in future Autumn Sessions would be the rule of the House. If that was so, he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) failed to understand his great reluctance to accept the Amendment. If the Amendment were carried, it would have very little effect during the course of an ordinary Session. But there was no security that there would be no Autumn Session, and during an extraordinary Session like the present the Amendment would have an important and powerful operation. The argument urged against the proposal by the Prime Minister appeared to him to be the strongest argument in its favour. He thought every Government should be made to understand that it could not call Parliament together with impunity, in order to carry through exclusively Government Business, without giving it power to discuss, while in Session, such matters as it might think proper. The right of moving adjournments before Supplies were asked for, and after they had been granted in ordinary Sessions could have, as the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had pointed out, only a limited operation; but it would come into powerful operation if the Government called Parliament together for an Autumn Session, not for the purpose of general legislation, but for the sole purpose of carrying some Government measure which they were unable to carry during the ordinary Session. Consequently, the noble Lord's Amendment would act as a check upon the practice of the abuse of Parliamentary Procedure which the Government bad initiated, and which future Governments, following their pernicious example, might perpetuate, and would make it impossible for the Government to call Parliament together in order to pass Government measures, and, at the same time, gag the mouth of Parliament so that it could do nothing else. That argument alone was sufficient to induce him to vote for the Amendment.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 50; Noes 87: Majority 37.—(Div. List, No. 364.)

SIR HENRY TYLER

moved, as an Amendment, the insertion, after the opening word of the Resolution "That," of the words "unless, as it shall appear to Mr. Speaker, in conformity with the evident sense of the House." The hon. Member said, that the words which he sought to introduce would govern the whole of the remainder of the Resolution, and that whatever words might hereafter be adopted, in the spirit of conciliation indicated by the Government, would not be affected by their insertion. Moreover, the words were those for which the Government themselves had warmly contended in the 1st Resolution.

Amendment proposed, After the word "That," to insert the words "unless, as it shall appear to Mr. Speaker, in conformity with the evident sense of the House."—(Sir Henry Tyler.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, be objected to the Amendment, on the ground that it introduced the discretion of the Speaker, and thereby placed a serious burden on that right hon. Gentleman in this matter, where there was no necessity for it whatever. They were all agreed, he thought, that a restraint ought to be put on the present licence in moving the adjournment, and that it ought to be put on, either by referring the matter to the judgment of the House, or of a certain portion of the House. It was, he thought, equally agreed, that they ought not to make a gratuitous addition to the burdens of the Chair, which had been always serious, which were at present great, and which were not likely to be lighter in future. Under the 1st Resolution a burden was laid on the Speaker, because the matter was one of considerable difficulty and delicacy, and the Government did not see any other mode of proceeding that would not import the element of Party feeling.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, he would admit that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, while rejecting the Amendment, had at least done so in a conciliatory spirit. He (Lord George Hamilton), therefore, was emboldened to point out to him that, as there was generally a fuller attendance of Members at Question time than during the rest of the evening, it would be easier for the Speaker to ascertain what was the "evident sense of the House" then than at any other time. The Government, however, had intimated that they were prepared to consider some Amendment which would, to some extent, mitigate the objections almost universally felt to the Resolution as it stood; and he would urge, in compliance with a feeling which he thought was prevalent throughout the House, that no words should be left in the Resolution which were capable of a double construction. There was no question, whatever, but that the words "by leave of the House" should be interpreted in the sense that the leave given should be universal; and to make it certain, he now gave Notice that he would by-and-bye move an Amendment requiring that the "leave of the House" should be that "of the majority of the House."

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

said, he agreed very much with the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, that it would not do to put that duty on the Speaker; and he was glad also to acknowledge the fair and conciliatory tone in which the right hon. Gentleman had spoken. That was not a Party question, and it ought not to be dealt with in the spirit of Party. They all agreed that only on matters of great importance should that privilege be exercised; but nobody would deny that cases arose now and then in which it was absolutely necessary for the public interest that a question of great importance should be brought forward in the House, and that Ministers should give an answer or an explanation. The question might be a very inconvenient one, and one which the Government of the day desired to stifle, and was the reason why in the public interest, the minority of the House should be able to have the question discussed, when they showed that there was a real desire for its discussion. He was inclined to ask his hon. Friend (Sir Henry Tyler) not to press his Amendment.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he thought it would be useful, in connection with the Amendment, if they could have an authoritative declaration from the Chair of what was meant by "the leave of the House." Did it mean an unanimous leave, or the leave of a majority? Sometimes it happened that when a Bill was considered as amended, the Member in charge of the Bill proposed to read it a third time immediately. That could be done by the leave of the House, and it had been done once or twice in that Parliament. He had, in the case of some minor Bills, objected to its being done, and had been informed that the leave of a majority was sufficient. But he understood that, in regard to leave, there was a difference between a Bill being read a third time and the case under the present Resolution, and it would be highly desirable to have an authoritative statement from the Chair as to what "leave of the House" meant.

MR. SPEAKER

I may say, in answer to the noble Lord's Question, that the understanding with reference to the leave of the House is that it involves unanimity on the part of the House. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Unanimity.] Whenever the Question is put from the Chair, "Is it your pleasure that so and so be done?" if there is a single dissentient voice, the leave of the House is not given.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he wished to ask the further Question, Whether the reading of a Bill the third time, immediately after its consideration as amended, was by the leave of the House? He asked the Question because of the fact that on a recent occasion, when he had objected to the third reading of a Bill immediately after consideration of the Bill as amended being taken at one Sitting, he had been told by the Speaker that the leave of the House, meant the leave of the majority.

MR. SPEAKER

The case mentioned by the noble Lord is not a case of question as to the leave of the House being obtained. Occasionally two stages of a Bill are taken at one and the same Sitting, and more especially is that the case when the end of the Session is near, and when urgency is pleaded, and that is done not by leave of the House, but by vote of the House.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. SHEIL,

who had an Amendment upon the Paper, to insert, after the word "made," in line 1, the words— Unless such Motion is made in consequence of a reply to a Question, when, on the demand of fifteen Members, it may be debated, said, that for the convenience of discussion, he would postpone it.

MR. O'DONNELL,

in moving an Amendment for the purpose of preserving the right of moving the adjournment of the debate when Urgency had not been voted, said, he could, under those circumstances, understand that there might be a reason for interfering; but he could not see the object of curtailing the valuable Privileges of the House when the state of Business was not urgent. He did not suppose the Government would accept his Amendment; but, considering the number of times the Motion had been resorted to with benefit to the country, he thought the right of making it ought to be preserved.

MR. SHEIL

seconded the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, after the word "That," to insert the words "when Public Business has been declared urgent."—(Mr. O'Dnnnell.)

Question proposed, "That those words b here inserted."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he felt bound to compliment the hon. Member opposite (Mr. O'Donnell) on his sagacity in discerning that the Government would not accept the Amendment; at the same time, he must be allowed to consider that far less than the hon. Member's sagacity would have sufficed to convince him of its hopelessness. It introduced a fundamental innovation, and invited the House, without Notice, to take upon themselves to legislate upon the subject which at other times was based upon the decisions of the Speaker. Why the Speaker was to legislate upon it in general, while they were to take that particular point into their hands, did not appear. The Amendment would involve the most inconvenient consequences, and, under the name of preserving the liberties of private Members, would throw the whole Business of the House into chaos and confusion. It was totally unsuited to the period of Urgency, and there was already a Rule for Urgency of a far more stringent kind. The Amendment was simply a negative; in short, he did not think it would be possible to concentrate it to many points of objection, and he therefore opposed it.

Question put, and negatived.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL,

in rising to move, as an Amendment, in line 1, to leave out all the words after "made," and insert— Until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of; and, if such Motion be decided in the negative, no other such Motion shall be made until the Orders of the Day have been entered upon, said, he believed that it was one of the most important Amendments proposed to the Resolution, as it went against its whole principle, and it would also give the Government an opportunity of explaining the reason why they introduced the Resolution. There might be an overwhelming reason for it; but, at present, the Government had not taken the trouble to state any at all. There was an opinion widely spread that the power belonging to individual Members of making Motions for the adjournment of the debate had been abused; but it was entirely an erroneous impression. It was a wonderful thing sometimes to watch how a belief of that kind was passed on from one person to another; but he had taken the trouble to look over the Records of the whole of the last Parliament, and his astonishment had been rather at the small number of times it had been, compared with the large number in which it might have been, used. The whole basis of the Ministerial argument was that it was a monstrous thing to place this power in the hands of Members, because they would be apt to use it frequently. But before the House parted with a power which was almost as old as the House itself, and which was the only hold which an Opposition had upon the Government, they should see whether it had been abused. Let them take the present Parliament, and see whether they had had many Motions for Adjournment. How many times did the Prime Minister suppose it was moved during the first Session of the present Parliament, from the commencement in May to the end on the 7th of September? Only six. In fact, the first instance in which it was employed was when the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) moved the adjournment, he must confess with a very trivial and ridiculous object, in order to call attention to Lord Byron's Indemnity Bill. It was only once employed by the Irish Members, and that was when the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) had made a violent attack on the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), in consequence of a speech he made at Kildare, and the hon. Member for Tipperary was obliged to employ this method of vindicating himself. With regard to the second Session of that year and the first of this Parliament, he must say that hon. Members were placed in a peculiar position, for the Prime Minister came down one day in June, and requested the House to give him the remainder of its time; and from June till the 7th of September every single day was devoted to the measures of the Government.

MR. GLADSTONE

I should like to have your dates; the question is one of fact only.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

No doubt it is, and the Prime Minister is as good a judge of fact as I am.

Mr. GLADSTONE

I think so.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, that the Government had monopolized every day of the Session from the 7th of June to the end of the Session.

MR. GLADSTONE

Do you mean to say that we appropriated every day?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he did not mean to include Sundays. His allegation was that, to all intents and purposes, from the 7th of June to the end of the Session, the Government monopolized the whole time of the House, and that, therefore, Motions for Adjournment, in such circumstances, were not only permissible, but were actually forced upon hon. Members. What happened in the second Session of this Parliament? Undoubtedly there was an increase in the number of Motions for Adjournment in that Session, for they amounted to 19. It must be remembered, however, that the House met in January, and did not separate until the 27th of August. During the whole of that period, this frightful abuse of the Forms of the House, so scandalous and so unconstitutional, as described by Her Majesty's Government, was exercised only 19 times in eight months. How many times did the Irish Members move the adjournment? [Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL: How about the Fourth Party?] Well, as a matter of fact, the Fourth Party moved the adjournment exactly four times during the Session. The Irish Party moved the adjournment 11 times out of the 19 times the Motion was made. But what was the state of Ireland at that time? Her Majesty's Government were then engaged in alternately fomenting disaffection in Ireland when it suited their own purposes, and in suppressing it when it did not. Every day there were arrests being made, evictions were being carried out, Members of Parliament were being sent to gaol, and murders were being committed. In such a lamentable state of things, the only wonder was they had so seldom exercised their privilege; and he was astonished that, instead of 11 Motions for Adjournment being made by the Irish Members during a long Session, such Motions were not made every day. Moreover, of those 11 Motions, more than two-thirds were brought about by the unsatisfactory and evasive character of the answers which were given to the Questions put by Irish Members by the then Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. Had that right hon. Gentleman recollected the maxim, that "a soft answer turneth away wrath," he might have prevented most of those Motions for Adjournment. The right hon. Gentleman, however, must have forgotten it, for he, time after time, deliberately went out of his way to provoke the wrath of the Irish Members. And, again, in that Session the time of the House was monopolized by the Government. The Prime Minister had devised his beautiful Rules of Urgency, which remained in force up to the end of April, during the discussions on the Arms Act, and from that date to the end of the Session, the Government appropriated the whole time of the House, the result being that no private Member had an opportunity of calling the attention of the House to any subject whatever. Was it a matter of surprise, then, that the power of moving the adjournment was resorted to in exceptional circumstances, considering the provocation that Irish Members were daily receiving? He hoped these facts would dispel the assumption that the power of moving the adjournment had been abused. In the first part of the present Session the Motion for Adjournment had been made 13 times, and again Government monopolized the time of the House from the middle of April to the end of August. From the time when the Government introduced their Prevention of Crime Bill to the end of the Session, the rights of private Members had been entirely set aside, and no private Member could bring any matter before the House except by leave of Her Majesty's Government. Of the 13 Motions, only seven were made by the Irish Members, who were held up to reprobation as the cause of all that trouble; and yet during two Sessions, notwithstanding the very great provocation they received, they exercised the privilege only 18 times. One of the most important occasions on which the Motion for the Adjournment was made was that in order to elicit some light on the transactions arising out of the "Kilmainham Treaty." Supposing this Rule were in force, and they had parted with that right, would it have been possible to have brought to light that most disgraceful transaction—a transaction so obnoxious that its precise terms had never been made know down to this day? On another occasion, the Leader of the Opposition moved the adjournment in reference to the resignation of the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, the right hon. Member for Bradford. Everybody knew that that most extraordinary occurrence was looked upon as an indication of the complete break-up of the Liberal Party. ["Oh, oh!" and laughter.] Hon. Members appeared to have lost either their minds or their recollections. Why, the right hon. Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) had got up, and had denounced the circumstances that had led to the resignation of the right hon. Member for Bradford. What subject could have been more important to the country than that? But, under this Rule, the Leader of the Opposition could not have brought that matter under the Notice of the House without the leave of the Prime Minister. On the whole, in this Parliament, which had sat more days and hours so far than any other Parliament, there had been only 38 Motions for Adjournment, and for the majority of those the greatest excuses could be alleged, for several of them might have been avoided if Government had been more courteous in their replies. He ventured to say that, if another Government, more happy and more fortunate in public affairs, came into power, even the very small abuse of this power of moving the adjournment which could be pointed to would disappear. But what had been the conduct of hon. and right hon. Members opposite when they were out of Office? Going back to the last Parliament—that elected in 1874—he found that these Motions were nearly as common as they had been during the present Parliament; but not a word was then said by the hon. and right hon. Gentlemen now sitting on the Treasury Bench, who were then in Opposition, as to this frightful abuse of the Forms of the House, which they declared required instant and extraordinary remedy. In the first Session of the Parliament of 1874, the Motion was made four times; and on one occasion, most extraordinary to say, it was made by the present Prime Minister, and why—because Mr. Disraeli made a statement on Public Business. On the 21st of July, 1874—a time when the Liberal Party were very active—the hon. Baronet the present Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Charles W. Dilke) moved the adjournment, because of a statement made on behalf of the then Government in relation to the Fiji Islands. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) did think that was an abuse of the Forms of the House. In the second Session of that Parliament, the Motion was made eight times, nearly always by Liberals. In the first place, it was made by Mr. Lowe, who brought forward the case of Dr. Kenealy. On the 19th of July, 1875, the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) made the Motion, in order to bring before the House the state and progress of Public Business; and on another occasion it was moved by an Irish Member, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry)—the only time Irish Members made it during the Session. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) had said just now that Motions for the Adjournment were made only by "pushing patriots," and, assuming all the airs of a burly Democrat, something like Mr. Wilkes, he added, "who possessed a suit of evening clothes." Was the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India a pushing patriot who possessed a suit of evening clothes? Was the Prime Minister? In the third Session of that Parliament the adjournment was moved only nine times—on one occasion by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, and on two occasions by the present Postmaster General (Mr. Fawcett). In the fourth Session it was only moved seven times; and here he found the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Border Burghs (Mr. Trevelyan) and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford asserting themselves of their privilege. And it should be remembered that in these Sessions of the late Parliament there was no monopolizing of time by the Government, who plodded along as best they could. And the late Government had carefully cultivated the art of polite answers to Questions, and did not produce the scenes with which the House had for some time past been familiar. In the fifth Session the adjournment was moved nine times, once by the Postmaster General, and another time by that pushing patriot, the noble Marquess. In the sixth Session it was moved altogether 14 times, once by the Postmaster General, and on two other occasions, once by the Prime Minister, and once by another pushing patriot, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain), who, as they knew, originated those unfortunate scenes of Obstruction which had led to these Resolutions. In that Session, on the 5th of March and on the 11th of March, the adjournment was moved by two right hon. Liberal Members, one of whom was the ex-Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), and the other the Vice-President of the Committee of Council for Education (Mr. Mundella). So that in less than a week, these two pushing patriots moved the adjournment of the House on very futile and frivolous subjects. The result of all these figures went to show that the Government had not made out a case for this Resolution; and, so far from the assumption on which they based their case, that there had been an abuse of this privilege, being true, he maintained that there had been no abuse. It was quite true that, on more than one occasion, hon. Members moved the adjournment when the general "sense of the House" was against them; but there was no such case of abuse as would warrant the House in passing this Resolution. The House had parted with its power of initiating a debate on presenting Petitions, and of continuing debates at great length; and now they were asked to part with this one power which, far beyond every other, kept a check, not only upon the Government generally, but upon individual Ministers, and prevented them from trampling upon private Members who really had cases to bring before the House. In the Parliament of 1859—Lord Palmerston's last Parliament—the privilege was comparatively frequently exercised. In the first Session the adjournment was moved three times—on one occasion by that eminent Member of the House, Sir George Grey; in the second twice, one of which was by Mr. Kinglake when he brought forward the question of the cession of Savoy and Nice; in the third, only once; and in the fourth, only twice. In the fifth Session it was moved nine times, once by one of the most respected Members of the House—the senior Member for Oxfordshire (Colonel North)—and another time by Mr. Ayrton. It was moved three times in the sixth Session; on one occasion by Mr. Hennessy, when it led to the resignation of the right hon. Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld), in consequence of his relations with Mazzini. In the seventh Session it was moved three times, and during the whole of that Parliament 23 times. That was no such great disproportion, considering what Parliament was then, before the late Reform Bill, and what it was now. But there was one conclusive argument against giving Government the power which this Resolution would confer, and that was that they had carried the 1st Resolution. He could not conceive a more legitimate use of the clôture—if there were any legitimate use of it—than for the Speaker to put it in force when a Member moved the adjournment against the wish of the whole House, when he had concluded his speech and the Minister had replied. But by adopting the clôture, the Government had put themselves out of Court. His Amendment did not meet the Government's proposal with a direct negative, though it had very high authority in its favour. He wished it was in his power to mention that authority; but he might say it was one to which the House was accustomed to pay very great attention. The effect of the Amendment was that no adjournment could be moved until all the Questions on the Paper had been put and answered. The object of that was very clear. Hon. Gentlemen often moved the adjournment in a moment of bad temper or excitement, resulting from what they might consider to be the unsatisfactory nature of the replies they might have received; and if they had time to reflect on those answers, and to consult their friends, they might feel disposed not to persevere with their original intention. He also proposed that, should the adjournment be negatived, it should not be competent for anyone to move the adjournment again until the Orders of the Day had been entered on. He doubted whether it was in the power of any Member of the House to overvalue that privilege, and he hoped the Opposition would not part with it, without putting on record one of the most obstinate stands that could be made against the tyranny of a Ministry. He begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name.

Amendment proposed, After the word "made," to insert the words "until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of; and, if such Motion be decided in the negative, no other such Motion shall be made until the Orders of the Day have been entered upon."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that they were sometimes told from the other side of the House, that Party considerations and Party topics ought not to be introduced into these discussions. He did not remember to have recently heard anyone on that (the Ministerial) side introduce Party topics; and he was further bound to say that the great majority of hon. Members on the side opposite had abstained from doing so. But the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill) had, with the most perverse ingenuity, and without the smallest necessity or pretext, introduced, only on hearsay, into his speech two of the most offensive and personal charges he (Mr. Gladstone) had ever known made in the House of Commons. In the first place, the noble Lord, who was not in the House in May last, spoke of what he chose to call the "Kilmainham Treaty" as a most disgraceful transaction. There was no Kilmainham Treaty. [Mr. J. R. YORKE: Oh, oh!] He challenged the hon. Member for East Gloucestershire, who scoffed at him for that assertion, which he (Mr. Gladstone) seriously made, to move for a Committee of Inquiry into the matter.

MR. J. R. YORKE

If the right hon. Gentleman will grant me a day, I will do so.

MR. GLADSTONE

I will agree to that inquiry without granting any day. As I have answered the hon. Gentleman's question, he has evaded answering mine. ["No, no!"] Most certainly I understand the hon. Gentleman to say that he will move for an inquiry, if I grant him a day. I say, I will agree to the inquiry without granting any day. The hon. Gentleman flinches from answering me.

MR. J. R. YORKE

I will move for it as an unopposed Return. I will move for a Committee of this House.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he would not oppose it. Let the hon. Member make a Motion, and pledge himself by that Motion to prove the existence of that Treaty. He would repeat there was no such Treaty; and he said further, that those who made these allegations without proof, instead of fastening disgraceful transactions upon their opponents, brought the disgrace upon themselves. He was sorry to have been obliged to deviate from the path of legitimate discussion, for the purpose of noticing an imputation to which he would attach no epithets, though it deserved them—except to say that it was one which the noble Lord himself would feel that it was absolutely impossible to pass by without a word. Then the noble Lord went on to attack his (Mr. Gladstone's) right hon. Friend the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), and said that he had, time after time, deliberately gone out of his way to provoke the Irish Members by his answers.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Hear, hear!

MR. BIGGAR

It is perfectly true.

MR. GLADSTONE

That was not an unnatural thing for the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to say, and he did not find fault with it; but he must say that, to bring a personal charge of that kind against his right hon. Friend, without Notice and in his absence, was a course totally unworthy of any Member of that House.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I have brought it often before now.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that as he knew something of the answers given by his right hon. Friend, he would at once say that he was of opinion, though his right hon. Friend had the misfortune to differ on many and most serious points, which could not be mitigated, from the Irish Members, or what the noble Lord chose to call the bonâ fide Irish Members, he was careful, in a degree beyond almost any Minister he (Mr. Gladstone) had ever known, to supply full and detailed information in his answers. In fact, the spirit and character of his right hon. Friend formed a sufficient answer to the imputations of the noble Lord as to the purpose his right hon. Friend had in view. He would now pass from that very offensive part of the noble Lord's speech and come to the arguments of the noble Lord, as to which he (Mr. Gladstone) must say the noble Lord, upon that occasion, had had his usual infelicity in many statements of fact that he had made. The noble Lord had obligingly referred to an occasion on which he (Mr. Gladstone) had been guilty of moving the adjournment of the House, but had not the good taste or courtesy to refer to the reason for which it was made. He said it was after a statement regarding the Business of the House. Yes; but he omitted to state that that was a most important occasion, when it was necessary to make a declaration of a most important change of policy of the Government of the day in regard to a Bill which had been long and hotly contested, and which absolutely required Notice from the House.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Like Arabi's trial.

MR. GLADSTONE

It was a subject which required Notice, and in regard to which he did not hesitate to say that, if there had been a Rule in operation requiring it, not 20 or 40 Members, but 100, had it been requisite, would have risen in their places to sanction the Motion. The noble Lord ought to have had the common candour to have made that explanation, and to have noticed that it was the occasion, and the only occasion, on which he (Mr. Gladstone) had moved the adjournment before Business had begun. But if that was the noble Lord's way of conducting Business, some day he would probably be sorry for the example he had set; but he would pass on from that, only remarking further that 18 Members showed the importance they attached to the occasion by taking part in the debate which ensued. Then the noble Lord made a complaint that in 1880, practically and to all intents and purposes, every day from the end of June or beginning of July, was monopolized by the Government. Now, he found that what happened in 1880 was this—on Fridays Motions by private Members were brought forward on Supply on every day when it was put down up to the 20th of August. So much for the noble Lord's allegation about the end of June or the beginning of July; but in that year it was not until the 14th of July that priority was taken on Wednesdays; on the 20th of July that priority was taken on Tuesdays; and yet, with those limits of the 14th of July, the 20th of July, and the subsequent 20th of August, the noble Lord said that the Government took, practically, every day from the end of June or the beginning of July. So much for the accuracy of the noble Lord when he ventured to instruct them on matters of fact, a proceeding on which he (Mr. Gladstone) had before tendered him some friendly admonitions. Perhaps it would be rash of him to suppose that the noble Lord's other figures were right; but, supposing they were, they seemed in a great measure to prove their case. This practice of moving the adjournment of the House before the commencement of Public Business was one which, 20 or 25 years ago, was absolutely unknown to the House; and he thought he was quite correct in saying that, until about 10 years ago, it had not become a serious fact for the contemplation of the House. He was himself responsible for the conduct of the Business of the House between 1868 and 1874, and he certainly could not recollect that, in any period during the existence of that Parliament, that matter of preliminary Motions for the Adjournment became a burning serious question for consideration. He did not recollect any occasion on which it was made use of. The noble Lord gave four times in 1874, and then he proceeded to give eight, seven, and nine times.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I said in 1874 the number was the top one.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he would point out, as a fact, that last Parliament, unless he was very much mistaken, was the first in which it had become a serious evil; and it was quite evident that in the present Parliament it had become a very serious evil indeed. The adjournment was moved 19 times in 1881, and 13 times in 1882. He said nothing about Irish Members in the matter—he looked at it apart from either England, Ireland, or Scotland—but one of these Motions represented a serious invasion of the time of the House. Moreover, he believed it would be found that, out of those Motions, at the very least five-sixths, and probably more, were on evenings of Government Business; and their consequence was to take away from one-third to one-half, and sometimes even the entire evening. The noble Lord said that though it had been slightly abused it was a valuable privilege. His answer to that was that the occasions were very rare on which it was a valuable privilege; and he confidently said that not I in 10, and he thought not 1 in 20, of the occasions on which those adjournments had been moved were occasions on which the "general sense of the House" would ratify the arrangement. But they were not going to propose the extinction of the privilege, but only its stringent and effective limitation. The noble Lord proposed that they should only be moved once; but the phraseology which he used was rather singular. He proposed that if the Motion should be decided in the negative it should not be competent to make the Motion again; but he (Mr. Gladstone) need hardly point out that if it was decided in the affirmative it was totally unnecessary to make any provision, because the House itself would have disappeared. The noble Lord further proposed that no second Motion of Adjournment should be made until the Orders of the Day had been entered upon. It was not under double Motions of Adjournment the same evening that the House had suffered. They had been exceedingly rare.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Take to-day.

MR. GLADSTONE

He knew it. He had not forgotten it. The occasion was entitled to commemoration in the annals of the country. The noble Lord's Amendment cut off a secondary inconvenience, and the possibility of what he might call the extravagances of the abuse. The noble Lord proposed to continue the body of the abuse. He thought it good; whereas the contention of the Government was that, in the main, the power was not good. No doubt, he did not admit it to be an abuse; but the Government regarded it as the one thing which, with the smallest justification, had cruelly invaded the Business of the House, curtailed its time, disturbed its Order, and dissapointed Members as to the Business which was to come on; and it was, in fact, an abuse that loudly called for correction. The noble Lord thought the general practice good, and the rare exception bad. The Government, on the other hand, thought the general practice bad, and the rare exception good. They were prepared to give space for the rare exception, and to ask the House to cut up the general principle by the roots. That was the general principle on which they were quite willing that provision should be made for rare exceptions in which the practice might be necessary. He hoped the House would reject the Amendment.

MR. GIBSON

Sir, there is one thing very apparent in the speech just delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, and that is, that the Government had not, until they had the statistics given by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), themselves examined the figures bearing on this question. Certainly, it is very surprising to find a very grave and serious change, that may be a necessary one, proposed without a single figure, or a vestige of a statement relating to figures, being submitted to the House by the Government. The House had a right to expect—I do not say from the Prime Minister, as he has so many important political matters to which to give his attention, but certainly from one of the subordinate Members of the Government, who has more leisure than the Prime Minister to look into details—some statement showing on how many occasions the adjournment has been moved. It has been given by the noble Lord; but, then, we should have had more full and complete details. The figures should have been produced to show how many of these adjournments have developed into debate; how often they have lasted for hours; and how often for only two minutes and a-half, the time that the Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) lasted to-night. The Motion of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire lasted only two minutes and a-half, and the Motion of my noble Friend lasted well under the hour; and if we went into details we should find that the figures that have been given are susceptible of great reduction. The Prime Minister used the term "invasion of the time of the House;" but we have no figures to indicate how often on these occasions there has been a real invasion on the time of the House. Then, again, on how many occasions was the Business of the Government interfered with; and how often was the adjournment moved on Government nights, as distinguished from those nights when the business of private Members was before the House. The Prime Minister seemed not to have clearly present to his mind the fact that he had himself moved the adjournment of the House. He said, however, that he had only done so once. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Circumstances required it.] Quite so; and that fact was important. Of course, the Prime Minister, who is a man of great Parliamentary position, would not have taken that step and appealed to the majority of the House unless he did think it was necessary. That goes, of course, without saying; but the proof that the Prime Minister gives that his judgment was sound was shown by the fact that 17 speakers in different parts of the House followed him. But there is no provision, under the Rule, that if 40 Members wished to follow the Leader of the Opposition, he should be excluded from it. The Prime Minister, at the close of his speech, said that the Government were anxions for the extinction of this—I do not call it right or privilege—but existing power. The right hon. Gentleman, however, thought a rare exception sometimes to be attended with good. I do not discuss the point in detail; but I re- peat that, in the Rule as it stands, the rare exception, as well as the wide abuse, is absolutely shut out from the smallest chance. He says he will not accept the Amendment of my noble Friend the Member for Woodstock; but I would suggest that, consistent with his entire argument, and consistent with the drafting of the Rule, it must fall in with the views of the Government to take out all the words down to "and" in the 2ndline, so as to put at the end, instead of at the beginning, what ought to be the general condition, instead of its being dragged in as an after-thought. It may be a matter of some importance, particularly as I hope there may be something to say on the part of the Government. It will be found, if the right hon. Gentleman will look at it, and those, also, who have considered the construction of the Rule will look at it, it will be found that to put first the general condition, that no such Motion shall be made until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of, will simplify the matter enormously when it comes to accepting what are really Amendments, though the Government may describe them as modifying somewhat their primary ideas.

MR. GLADSTONE

I fall in with the view of the right hon. and learned Gentleman.

MR. BUCHANAN

said, that he would furnish the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) with some of the information for which he asked. Out of 14 times in which the Motion for Adjournment was made in the Session of 1882, only three times was the Motion made on private Members' nights. All the other Motions interfered so far with Government Business. One occupied six or eight pages of Hansard, another four, and another 28. So far as he had examined Hansard, there had been 40 of these Motions in the last three Sessions—22 by Irish Members and 12 by Conservatives, of which six were by the followers of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill)—namely, one by the noble Lord himself, two by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), two by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) and one by the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour). There were six occasions on which it was moved by Liberal Mem- bers. Two Motions by Irish Members occupied each a whole Sitting of the House that Session. He did not wish to minimize the opportunity which hon. Members representing Ireland should have of ventilating their grievances, or those of their constituents; but he questioned whether the debates on these Motions had tended very much to the settlement of the questions raised, and ho would further ask whether Irish Members, upon questions of the sort they raised, had not ample opportunity of obtaining information by means of Questions addressed to Ministers? ["No, no!"] Out of 45 Questions on the Paper that evening, 20 related to Ireland; they were mostly of a personal character, and had been adequately answered. Of the two occasions on which the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock and his followers had raised debates on Motions for Adjournment, one was on the 16th of May, when the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) raised a debate which lasted a whole Tuesday afternoon on what he described as the Kilmainham Treaty; and in that discussion he applied the term "infamy" to the conduct of the Government, and showed thereby that he alone, with the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), thought such an epithet a legitimate one in Parliamentary debate. ["Order!"]

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

asked if the hon. Member was in Order in referring to debates of the House in the present Session?

MR. SPEAKER

ruled that the hon. Member was in Order.

MR. BUCHANAN

said, he was endeavouring to supply the information that seemed to be wanted by the Front Opposition Bench. The other occasion on which a Motion for Adjournment occupied a great deal of time was at the end of July, when it was moved by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) on the subject of Egypt, who had every opportunity, just as Irish Members had, of obtaining adequate information by putting Questions to Ministers, in which respect he (Mr. Buchanan) admired the assiduity of the hon. Gentleman, for he had a Question on Egypt every day on the Paper, and he generally asked three or four verbal Questions in addition.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, that, in his opinion, the House was to be congratulated that the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan) had confined himself to the present Session, for if he had gone over other Sessions at equal length the whole night would have been taken up. He was not quite sure that the Government had gained much by what the hon. Member had said; for he admitted that only on four occasions had any material part of a day been taken up by those Motions for Adjournment. On two of those occasions the subjects were Irish; and, considering the engrossing character of Irish questions during the Session, two nights were not an extravagant length of time to have been taken up with those Motions. On two other occasions, as the hon. Member for Edinburgh had said, the adjournment had been moved by Gentlemen whom he absurdly described as followers of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock. But what were those occasions? The first was when the adjournment was moved by himself. He did not wish to refer to the Kilmainham Treaty, as he believed that the hon. Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke) had been given a day for bringing on a discussion on that subject. [Mr. Gladstone: I consented to the inquiry, but not to give a day.] Then the right hon. Gentleman did not mean to give a day. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] Then the offer of the right hon. Gentleman was assuredly the vainest offer that had ever been made; because it would be impossible for any private Member to bring forward any Motion on the subject during the present Session. What was the value of the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman unless he intended to offer facilities for its acceptance? On the second occasion to which the hon. Member for Edinburgh had referred, the adjournment was moved by his hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), and the subject was the bombardment of Alexandria. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) could hardly conceive of two more proper occasions for making such a Motion; and he thought they furnished the best argument for refusing to accept the proposed alteration, more particularly the former, when taken in connection with the language which had been used on the subject by the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), and which more than justified the challenge thrown down to the Government by his hon. Friend the Member for East Gloucestershire. If he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had to select the statistics on which to rest his objections to the Government proposals as they now stood, he should select the statistics which, for a very different object, had been given to the House by the hon. Member for Edinburgh.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he wished to explain, with reference to the suggested inquiry into what had been described by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) as the "disgraceful transactions at Kilmainham," that he(Mr. Gladstone) stated that he would offer no opposition to a proposal for such an inquiry; but to interrupt the present course of Business for the consideration of such a subject was a thing he could not at all agree to.

MR. J. R. YORKE

said, he proposed to move for the inquiry as an unopposed Return—a Return including the Correspondence.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, perhaps the hon. Gentleman would be good enough to communicate with them in the first place.

MR. J. R. YORKE

assented.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, with regard to the Kilmainham Treaty, that though he was not in the country when that document was completed, he thought that no transaction in the career of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), or in the career of the Prime Minister, did greater credit to either of them than what was known as the Kilmainham Treaty. ["Hear, hear!"] He did not quite understand those cheers. If hon. Gentlemen on that side were prepared to take upon themselves the responsibility of allowing appalling crime and heartrending eviction to continue, he did not envy them that responsibility. The Prime Minister had remarked that no Minister had ever given fuller information than the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster); but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) could say that he could not remember an occasion of controverted points in which that right hon. Gentleman gave any information that was accurate. In fact, it was his opinion that the tone and manner of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland were direct incentives to Motions for Adjournment. ["Oh!" and "Hear, hear!"]

MR. SPEAKER

called the hon. Member to Order, and said it could not be allowed on a Motion of that kind to make an attack on the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR,

continuing, said, nothing could be more dexterous or delusive than the reply of the Prime Minister to the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). It was that noble Lord's main point that Motions for Adjournment had been abused by right hon. Gentlemen now sitting on the Treasury Bench; but to that point the Prime Minister made no allusion whatever, and though he was accompanied by the loud bassoon of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella), he never attempted to justify the occasion on which the Vice President of the Council moved the adjournment. Nor had they had any explanation of the conduct of the hon. Baronet the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Charles W. Dilke) in moving the adjournment on another occasion with respect to the affairs of Fiji. The Prime Minister had merely contended that circumstances justified making Motions; but that was the justification they all relied upon. He believed that by passing this Resolution the House would be surrendering one of its most useful and valuable privileges. As the Resolution stood, according to the interpretation put upon it by the Speaker, a Motion for Adjournment could be prevented by the objection of a single Member of the House. That meant the taking away from Members of the entire control over a large portion of the Business of the country, and chiefly the foreign policy of the Government. In that Session they had had abundant examples of the manner in which the foreign policy of the Government was conducted. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had almost invariably declined to give any information in reply to the interrogatories addressed to him on the subject of Egypt. They had, therefore, this fact—that while Questions were the only means of getting information which was left to the House, they were absolutely futile unless they were accom- panied by the power of moving the adjournment of the House in case of an unsatisfactory answer. If the right of discussion on the Motion for Adjournment were abolished, it would be absolutely in the power of the Government to prevent any discussion of their foreign policy, either by refusing an opportunity or by the refusal of the materials. It was said that that House was being gradually reduced to the position of a Continental Assembly; but if that Resolution were carried, he submitted that they would be reducing it to a far lower level when they took out of the hands of Members this great and useful power of checking the Ministry when necessary. All that a Member of the French Assembly had to do in order to raise a debate upon foreign policy was to place a Notice of interpellation on the Table, and the Government were bound to find a day for its discussion. But under the proposed Rule no such opportunity of discussion would be afforded to this House.

COLONEL MAKINS

said, he wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that the speech which he had made a short time ago furnished the strongest possible argument for the opposition to that Rule. The right hon. Gentleman had expressed a considerable amount of indignation, and had repudiated, with some warmth, the implied censure which had been cast against him by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) in charging him with having, on one occasion, moved the adjournment of the House. The right hon. Gentleman justified his action on the occasion in question by saying that it was in consequence of the Government of the day having announced a vital change in their policy with regard to a Bill which was then before the House. The right hon. Gentleman further said that the course he took was justified by the fact that he was followed by 18 other speakers. But the right hon. Gentleman appeared to forget that, if this Rule had then been in force, and if the Leader of the House (Mr. Disraeli) had used his majority as it was feared on the Conservative side of the House the right hon. Gentleman the present Prime Minister might use his, the House might, upon the occasion in question, have denied to the right hon. Gentleman the right of moving the adjournment of the House, and he would not have been able to call attention to the change of policy which he accused the late Government of having made, and he would have had no opportunity of expressing his views upon it. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman had given a very strong reason in favour of the question of adjournment being left as it was, or, at any rate, to the general feeling of the House at large. If a certain number of Members—he (Colonel Makins) was indifferent whether the number was fixed at 20, 40, 50, or 60—rose in their places in support of the Motion for Adjournment being made, it would afford a guarantee that a considerable section of the House were of opinion that there was a justification for moving the adjournment. But if it was in future to be in the power of the majority to put an end to a simple Motion for Adjournment, the rights of the minority would, in his opinion, be seriously jeopardized. He hoped the Government would be prepared to make some concession in the matter. He gathered from the right hon. Gentleman that they were prepared to consider in principle the Amendment proposed from their own side of the House by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), although they would not agree to the precise words on the Paper; and he hoped some Member of the Government would state distinctly how far their concession would go.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, that a great many speeches had been made, including the speech of the hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down (Colonel Makins), entirely in ignorance of the statement which had been made by his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister a short time ago. They all seemed to proceed from the assumption that the power of raising a debate at short notice, by moving the adjournment of the House, was to be abolished altogether. Now, Her Majesty's Government did not propose that at all; they only proposed to impose certain restrictions upon the use of the time of the House by Motions which, it was generally admitted, had been for some years, to a certain extent, abused. The Government, by the present Resolution, proposed to limit this right in a certain manner; but his right hon. Friend had stated some hours ago that, although he refused to accept the precise words, he was not indisposed to adopt in principle the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). The Government were willing to accept the first words of the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock) (Lord Randolph Churchill)— That no Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall be made until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of; and having announced their willingness to accept that part of the Amendment, would it not meet the views of the House generally, and save a great deal of time, if they were to dispose of that part of the Amendment of the noble Lord, and then proceed to consider the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), which, in principle, the Government had already announced their intention of accepting? The debate hitherto seemed to have proceeded on the assumption that the power of moving the adjournment of the House was to be done away with altogether, or, at all events, that it was only to be exercised at the will of the majority. That was not so, and the Government had, a long time ago, announced their intention of accepting an Amendment which appeared to him to concede all that was desired by hon. Gentlemen opposite.

VISCOUNT SANDON

said, the difficulty in which the House was placed was that they were unable to induce the Government really to tell them what they meant to do in regard to the Resolution. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington) had repeated again that the Government did not intend to hold by their original plan, and adhere to their original proposal for preventing Motions being made for the adjournment of the House. It was manifest that the first intention of the Government, in submitting the Resolution now upon the Paper, was to provide that no Motion for the Adjournment of the House should be carried without the assent of the majority. That appeared to him to be proved to demonstration. All the House had since obtained from the Government was a statement that they would be prepared to assent, somewhat in principle, although not in words, to the proposal of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). Then, why should lot the Government be frank with the House on this occasion, and tell them what they meant to do—seeing the extreme anxiety manifested by the House upon the matter? He would remind the House of a difficulty which occurred upon this very subject in the year 1881—at the time of the disastrous negotiations about the French Treaty, and when the Chambers of Commerce and the commercial community of this country, with which he (Viscount Sandon) was closely connected, manifested—and, as events subsequently proved, justly—a great anxiety to know what the effect of the negotiations would be. At that time, Returns of various kinds were laid upon the Table of the House. The Prime Minister would probably recollect the case, which was one of great interest. The Returns had relation to Foreign Tariffs, and he (Viscount Sandon) suggested, at the time, that they should be placed upon the Table in English. But, instead of being presented in English, they were persistently placed upon the Table in the French language. It was in vain that he tried by the ordinary means, putting Questions to the Government, and by adopting other courses, to persuade the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade to give these Returns, which the commercial community demanded, and were largely interested in, in English At last he was compelled to move the adjournment of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister considered the matter of so much importance that he answered the Motion himself, and replied in these words— I make no complaint of the noble Viscount moving the adjournment of the House, because I think that, under the circumstances in which he stands, he having no other means of bringing forward the matter in any other way is perfectly right in taking that course. Now he (Viscount Sandon) ventured to say that that was a case in point. A Member of the House, who had been connected with a former Government asked that certain Returns, which were of great importance to the English commercial community which he represented, should be laid upon the Table in the English language. This reasonable request was refused. He tried by Question and Motion, and so on, to get these Returns in English, and he was persistently thwarted by the Minister of the day blocking his Motion, so that it could not be brought on after half-past 12 o'clock. The only means left him of bringing the matter before the House was by moving the adjournment of the House, and he had read the words of the Prime Minister, in which the right hon. Gentleman said that he was perfectly justified in taking that course, because he had no other means of obtaining his object. He thought that was a very good case in point. He was sorry that it was one in which he should have been personally concerned; but he regarded it as a matter of interest, and that they should all contribute their quota to the discussion, in elucidating the principle which should guide them in dealing with the Resolution.

MR. GORST

said, he thought that as the debate proceeded, the greatest possible encouragement was given to hon. Members on that side of the House to continue the discussion. He had been present in the House throughout the night, and he had witnessed during the course of the evening the most remarkable development which the mind of Her Majesty's Government had undergone. In the early part of the evening, they had a speech from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt), who had probably now left the House to enjoy himself in evening attire. The right hon. Gentleman, in the most sarcastic tones he could command, supported the Rule as it stood, and spoke of those who had felt it their duty to move the adjournment of the House as "pushing patriots;" and he added that when the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) was brought forward, the Government would state the reasons which would prevent them from adopting it. Hon. Members on the Conservative side of the House were somewhat cast down by the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman; but still they persevered, and they were rewarded for their perseverance. Later on, the Prime Minister said the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton would receive consideration at the hands of Her Majesty's Government, and they would not pledge themselves not to be converted by the arguments which might be addressed to the House. That announcement raised the drooping hopes of the Opposition; and now the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) informed them that the Government were prepared to accept in principle the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, although they would not pledge themselves to the exact details. If Her Majesty's Government would now go a step farther and tell the House what it was they really meant to do, and what it was they really meant to accept, he thought they would be able to make much more rapid progress with the Resolution. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had been good enough, in his speech, to describe the Motion for Adjournment as one which had been making continual inroads upon what he was pleased to call the Business of the House. But what was the Business of the House? The idea of Her Majesty's Government seemed to be that it was to pass the Government Bills and to vote the Government Supply; but there was a large part of the Business of the House which, no doubt, was not so pleasant to the Government, and probably they were fully prepared to forget it—and that was the Business of criticizing the conduct of the Executive Government—not only criticizing their policy on great matters, but criticizing the administration of the various Departments in the minutest details. If the Prime Minister would tell the House what proposals he intended to make for enabling the House to discharge that part of its duties so that hon. Members might not be deprived of a full opportunity of criticizing the administration of the Executive Government, then a considerable portion of their opposition to the further progress of this Rule would probably cease. But he should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the various powers and privileges which Members of the House had enjoyed for criticizing the conduct of the Government had been gradually taken away from them; and it was only by discovering fresh methods and fresh means of calling the Government to account that they had been able to do their duty. Up to the year 1861 there was a Motion made every Friday that the House at its rising should adjourn until the following Monday. That Motion was always, on that day, the first Business of the House; and upon that Motion it was the weekly custom and the weekly opportunity of the non-official Members of the House to bring forward any grievance against the Government of the day. That custom was done away with in 1861, and in substitution for it was introduced the present practice of putting down Supply as the first Order of the Day on Friday, with the avowed object of enabling Members, on the Motion for going into Committee of Supply, to bring forward these Motions. But that arrangement had this fatal defect—that the House had no power over the Motions to be brought forward. They were reduced to the necessity of resorting to the ballot; and any Member by gaining priority, by means of the ballot, could, introduce a Motion of comparatively little importance, and prevent much more important Motions from being brought forward at all. The result was that the House, when it met on a Friday, might have many important matters down on the Paper for discussion; but it was, as a rule, prevented from discussing anything beyond the first and second Motions which had secured priority by the ballot. There was another thing which the Government had done of late years—they had adopted the practice of not setting up Supply again, after the first Motion had been negatived. The consequence was that no further Amendment could be moved, and the Government now-a-days attempted to utilize Friday night by getting money in Supply, and the effect was to deprive private Members of the advantage they ought to possess of being able to bring forward matters in which they were interested on the Motion for Adjournment on Friday night. At present no one with any skill in Parliamentary tactics ever thought of putting down an important Motion for Friday. And here he would ask, what it was that gave rise to these repeated Motions for the Adjournment of the House? It was the failure of the old Motion for Adjournment on Friday, and the substitution of Supply as the first Order of the Day. It was in 1861 that the Motion for the Adjournment on Friday was abolished; and he found that, as early after its abolition as 1863, the number of extraneous Motions for the Adjournment of the House had risen to nine. If he recollected rightly, from 1863 down to the present year, 1882, the number of annual Motions for Adjournment had grown from 9 to 13. He thought it would be admitted by the House that these figures showed there had not been any very great growth of the so-called abuse of the Privileges of the House. Would the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister tell the House what provision he intended to make for the discharge of that most important function of the House, the criticism of the administration of the Executive Government of the country in all its details? And then, in all probability, the Opposition would be prepared to allow the Resolution to go forward. He thought the right hon. Gentleman, unintentionally no doubt, had misunderstood the argument of his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). The right hon. Gentleman was extremely angry with the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock for having mentioned the adjournment which he (Mr. Gladstone) himself had moved some years ago. That Motion, said the right hon. Gentleman, was a matter of absolute necessity. No one had attempted to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of having made an improper Motion. The simple object of the noble Lord was to show that an instrument which the right hon. Gentleman had himself found it necessary to use when the Conservative Government were in power was an instrument of warfare which ought not to be improperly got rid of. If the proposed Rule had been in existence the right hon. Gentleman could not have made that Motion in the manner in which he made it in the last Parliament; at least, he could not have made it without having, in the first instance, obtained the leave of Mr. Disraeli, who was then the Leader of the House with a majority at his back. He (Mr. Gorst) did not know enough of the circumstances of the case to know whether Mr. Disraeli would have given leave or not; but, if it had been a matter on which the majority of the House was disposed to use its power, the right hon. Gentleman would have had to go as a suppliant to Mr. Disraeli, and ask him to allow him to move the adjournment of the House for the purpose of enabling him to attack the policy of the Government. Surely it was a far more proper position for the Leader of the Opposition to occupy, not to be placed in the humiliating position of having to go to the Leader of the House, and ask the leave of his political opponent, but to be able to get up, of his own free choice and from his own sense of right, challenge the policy of the Government and of the majority of the House. Then, again, the right hon. Gentleman entirely misunderstood the argument of his (Mr. Gorst's) noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) about the Government having taken up the time of the House. It was not a matter of dates, nor a question of particular days, but the broad fact which the noble Lord asserted; and although the right hon. Gentleman contradicted some of the noble Lord's dates and figures and criticized the form of his expressions, ho (Mr. Gorst) did not think the right hon. Gentleman would venture to contradict the broad fact referred to by the noble Lord—namely, that during the existence of the present Parliament Her Majesty's Government had taken more of the time of the House and had monopolized more of the time of Parliament than in any other Parliament which ever sat in modern times. The Government, therefore, ought not to be surprised if, when by so taking up the time of the House, they suppressed the opportunities of non-official Members, those non-official Members seized other opportunities in a legitimate manner, and made Motions for the adjournment of the House more frequently than formerly, in order to bring important questions under the notice of the House. He regretted that his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock had made use of the expression "Kilmainham Treaty." He (Mr. Gorst) imagined it was because his noble Friend was not in the House in the early part of the Session that he had made use of that unfortunate expression. He (Mr. Gorst) never spoke of "the Kilmanham Treaty." He always spoke of the "understanding" or the "alleged understanding" which had taken place between the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister and the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The right hon. Gentleman thought that an imputation had been made against him. He (Mr. Gorst) did not impute to him the slightest wrong in the matter; but, nevertheless, he still wondered—he perpetually wondered from day to day—what that curious understanding was. And his wonder had been greatly increased that night by the speech of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), who spoke of a document which was completed before the hon. Member's return to England. Now, that was the first time the House had ever heard that there was a document, and he should like very much to know what it was. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would consent, in the shape of an unopposed Return, to lay on the Table of the House a copy of the document, which was now said to have been completed. With regard to the observation of his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock about the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, he (Mr. Gorst) did not think that his noble Friend intended to make any attack upon the right hon. Gentleman in his absence, beyond stating that, of which there could be very little doubt, the right hon. Gentleman, in the answers he gave to the Questions addressed to him, was singularly provocative of Motions for Adjournment. [Cries of "Oh!"] Well, he would not advert to that matter further. He would only say, in defence of his noble Friend, that what he intended to assert, and what in point of fact he did assert, was that the manner of the right hon. Gentleman was singularly unconciliatory. Before the House consented to part with the Amendment of his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock, which was an Amendment which would very much alter the present system of moving adjournments, he thought it should be clearly understood what the Government intended to substitute in place of the Resolution which already stood upon the Paper. The Amendment of his noble Friend was an Amendment which ought to meet the views of many Members of the House; because he (Mr. Gorst) had often heard it recommended by eminent Members of the House that they should first try the experiment of not allowing Motions for Adjournment to be made until the Questions had been first disposed of. Personally, he thought it would, be a very useful experiment to see whether the privilege, which had hitherto proved so useful, even in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister himself, would still find favour with the House in a modified form. He certainly thought that before they parted with the Amendment and committed themselves to the scheme of the Government, they ought to know what it was Her Majesty's Government intended to do, and precisely what course they intended to take in regard to the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). Indeed, he thought, as the usual hour for adjourning the debate had now been reached, that it would be a wise course for the House to adjourn, so that the Government might have an opportunity of thinking over the matter, and explaining their intentions when the House re-assembled to-morrow.

MR. R. H. PAGET

said, that, before the House went to a division, he should like to call the attention of the Prime Minister to the position in which the matter stood. They had had it intimated to them by the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) that Her Majesty's Government were not unwilling to accept the leading words of the Amendment now proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). Having had that intimation made to them, he wished to know what would be the effect of the division about to take place? The first Question which would be put by the Speaker from the Chair would be to leave out the words of the Resolution after the word "made." Was he to understand that Her Majesty's Government would assent to that as the first Question Mr. Speaker would put from the Chair, and that subsequently they would propose themselves to amend the noble Lord's proposed Amendment by substituting other words after the word "and?" He understood the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India virtually to intimate that to the House as the decision at which Her Majesty's Government had arrived; and it would be convenient, before they proceeded to a division, that there should be no mistake upon the point. If he was right in his reading of the statement made by the noble Marquess, there would be no objection on the part of Her Majesty's Government to the first Question which would be put from the Chair.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that perhaps the House would allow him to explain what it was that the Government proposed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had been good enough to point out that he thought an improvement might be effected in the drafting of the Resolution by bringing forward certain words which now appeared in the Resolution and dovetailing them in with the beginning of it, leaving the remaining part to stand distinct by itself as the concluding portion. He (Mr. Gladstone) thought the most convenient mode of raising the question would be this. He would propose to amend the Amendment of the noble Lord now before the House by leaving out the latter part of the words which the noble Lord proposed. Therefore, with the permission of the House, he would submit an Amendment in this way. The noble Lord proposed, after the word "made," to insert the words— Until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of; and, if such Motion be decided in the negative, no other such Motion shall be made until the Orders of the Day have been entered upon. He proposed to retain all the words down to the word "and," exactly as had been suggested by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin; and after the word "and," he proposed to put in the words, "and no such Motion shall be made." If hon. Members would read that Amendment in connection with the Resolution, they would see that it met the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He would, therefore, move to amend the Amendment in the way he had proposed.

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

said, he failed to see how the Resolution, as proposed to be amended by the Prime Minister, would work.

Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment, by leaving out all the words after the word "and," to the end of the proposed Amendment, in order to add the words "no such Motion shall be made,"—(Mr. Gladstone,)—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the said proposed Amendment."

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

asked how the Resolution would read if the words of the right hon. Gentleman were adopted amending the words of his noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill)?

MR. GLADSTONE

, in reply, said, that, if his Amendment were adopted, the Resolution would run thus— That no Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall be made until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of, and no such Motion shall he made before the Orders of the Day or Notices of Motion have been entered upon, except by leave of the House.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, that, as far as he could make out, the adoption of the alteration suggested by the right hon. Gentleman would make very little difference.

MR. WARTON

said, he rose, with great submission, for the purpose of suggesting a course to the Prime Minister, which he thought would tend to simplify the matter very much, and would probably end the discussion at once. The noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) had given an intimation that the Government would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), and, by slightly altering the words of the Prime Minister, the Resolution might be made to read in this way—"That no Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall be made"—those being the first words of the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill)—"until all the Questions on the Notice Paper shall have been disposed of." He (Mr. Warton) would strikeout the words "shall have been disposed of," and insert in their place the words "and shall not then be made, unless demanded by 40 Members rising in their places." That would very much simplify the whole matter, and carry out the intentions of the Government in regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. ["Oh, oh!"]

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 79; Noes 113: Majority 34.—(Div. List, No. 365.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'no such Motion shall be made,' be there added."

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

said, he thought the time had now arrived when the House should adjourn, and he would therefore move that the debate be now adjourned.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Sir H. Drummond Wolff.)

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he was quite prepared to consent to the adjournment if the House would, in the first instance, adopt the Amendment he had submitted.

MR. WARTON

said, he had no desire to present himself obtrusively upon the House, after the howls with which he been received from the Liberal Benches. He understood the Government to say that they would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), which would make the Resolution read thus— That no Motion for the Adjournment of the House shall be made until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of, and no such Motion shall be made before the Orders of the Day or Notices of Motion have been entered upon except by leave of the House; the granting of such leave, if disputed, being determined upon Question put forthwith; but no division shall be taken thereupon.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, the Government had never committed themselves, except that he had said they were quite ready to discuss the principle of the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler). They maintained their own views; but if there was a general desire on the part of the House, then they were quite open to proceed upon the principle of that Amendment.

COLONEL MAKINS

expressed a hope that, in deference to what the right hon. Gentleman had said, the House would not only be ready to discuss that principle, but to discuss it that evening and settle it.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Question, "That the words 'no such Motion shall be made' be there added," put, and agreed to.

Question, "That the words 'until all the Questions on the Notice Paper have been disposed of, and no such Motion shall be made,'—(Mr. Gladstone,)—be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Main Question, as amended, proposed.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. Gladstone,)—put, and agreed to.

Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.