MR. GLADSTONE,in rising to move the 5th Resolution, said, that it was the revival of an ancient law of Parliament which many people believed to be now in existence; but it was one which, from its nature, the Speaker or the Chairman would be slow to put in force except in very clear cases. He thought it wise that the Rule should be inserted in the Code of New Regulations.
§
Motion made, and Question proposed,
That Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of a Committee, may call the attention of the House, or of the Committee, to continued irrelevance or tedious repetition on the part of a Member; and may direct the Member to discontinue his Speech."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
§ MR. SPEAKERsaid, he was bound to inform hon. Members that the Amendment to the Resolution, which stood in the name of the hon. Member for North Shropshire (Mr. Stanley Leighton) and also that of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage), could not be put, as they were in the nature of substantive Motions, and not of Amendments relating to the Resolution before the House.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, that, in the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), he begged to move an Amendment which stood in his name. The Amendment was not contrary to the spirit of the Resolution, but merely proposed to put certain limitations on the use to be made of it by the Speaker or Chairman. The general effect of the Amendment was, that the rights of the individual Member would be hedged round with precisely the same provisions as the rights of the minority. As the Government had already sanctioned the principle in the one case, they might, perhaps, accede to it in the other. The chief objection that might be urged was, that the House might come to a conclusion different from the Speaker, and so undermine his authority; but if that argument were valid at all, it was valid against the Rule itself. He would conclude by moving the Amendment.
§
Amendment proposed,
To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "when it shall appear that the Member addressing the House or the Committee is using expressions which are offensive to the general sense of the House, or is speaking with continued irrelevance or tedious repetition, or for the purpose of obstruction, or that it is the evident sense of the House or of the Committee that he should discontinue his Speech, Mr. Speaker may so inform the House or the Committee, and, if a Motion is made, 'That Mr. Speaker or the Chairman do direct the Member to discontinue his Speech,' Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall forthwith put that Question, and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall direct the Member accordingly: Provided, That such Motion shall not be carried in the affirmative if a Quorum of the House be opposed to it."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words 'Mr. Speaker' stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) had said that he considered everything at stake in these Rules, and yet such was his opinion of his own Amendment that he was not in his place to support it. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour), however, had discovered the foundling, and had performed the parental office in a manner which did him the highest credit. If there was a disposition on the part of the House to accept the Amendment, it would be better to give the quietus to the Resolution at once. What was to constitute continued irrelevance or repetition that was to be deemed as requiring interruption? Was the speaker to go on until they were clear as the sun at noonday? By that time he would have got through the greater portion of his material, having only a few remaining shots in his locker; and the 15 or 20 minutes that would be cut off the tail-end of his speech, and would suffice to conclude it, was to be spent in taking a division on the question whether it was relevant or not. Then if 40 Members voted against the Motion the whole process would be completely thrown away, and the speech would be resumed in circumstances which would justify the Member, for the sake of clearness, in giving a résumé of all that he had said before.
MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he would submit that the Rule itself was irrelevant, because the Speaker had, and was to retain, the power of dealing with irrelevancy. The Rules against Obstruction gave him additional power.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL (for Sir H. DRUMMOND WOLFF)rose to move the omission from the Rule of the words "or the Chairman of a Committee." He said the Amendment was the continuation of the protest against the Chairman of Committees being invested with the same power as the Speaker; but the necessity for the protest might disappear if the status of the Chairman were to be altered, and he were to be made an officer elected by the House. The public had been impressed by the minute investigation that had been made 1598 with these discussions as to the position of the Chairman of Committees. His (Lord Randolph Churchill's) attention had been turned to the subject by an unfair attempt made by the present Chairman (Mr. Lyon Playfair), in the first Session of this Parliament, to silence the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver). The attempt was objected to by the House at the time, and primarily because it was unfair, and was not called for. The Prime Minister came in afterwards and naturally supported the Chairman; but the feeling of the House was strong, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Walpole) expressed a strong opinion against the Chairman of Committees. If the Chairman could so act before this Rule was passed, what would he do under it? He (Lord Randolph Churchill) wished the Prime Minister could hold out an idea that the Office of Chairman was open to reconsideration, and would say whether the new Rules did not render it almost imperative that the Chairman should be an officer of the House, elected by both sides of the House in a bonâ fide manner, so as to possess its confidence. He had heard many opinions expressed that such a change would be desirable. If the prospect of such a change were held out, he would not press the Amendment he now moved.
§ Amendment proposed, in line 1, to leave out the words "or the Chairman of a Committee."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he did not find any fault with the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill) for renewing his protest against the Chairman having the same power as the Speaker; but he understood him to do so on this occasion with the view of eliciting an opinion as to the position of the Chairman. Well, on that point, he (Mr. Gladstone) was ready to indicate to the noble Lord what he thought was an important fact in connection with this Parliamentary Procedure, and likewise to make to the noble Lord an admission. The fact was this—that the Office of Chairman of Committees had, within the last 10 or 15 years, undergone great 1599 changes, all leading to elevate it. So long ago as the time of the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel, fresh duties were imposed upon him by the placing of certain Billls in his charge; but the most important change took place when he was made Deputy Speaker; and at present the House was in this position, that he was liable to be called upon to take the place of the Speaker in the event of the Speaker's illness. He was not sure, however, whether the present Speaker had ever fallen back upon that assistance, except on the occurrence of All-night Sittings. Since that important change took place, there had been a further change, as the salary of the Chairman had been considerably increased. The admission he was disposed to make to the noble Lord was this—the mode in which the Chairman of Committees was at present appointed was, perhaps, hardly worthy of the dignity which the Office now possessed. It was true, indeed, that the Chairman was elected by the House; but he was elected in an off-hand way, without Notice; and he was informed, not that he had been elected Chairman of Ways and Means and Deputy Speaker, but simply that he was to take the Chair, and the announcement sounded as if he were only to take it on that particular occasion. He was, therefore, rather disposed to admit to the noble Lord, although the Government had not yet considered this matter very particularly, that a more formal and regular appointment should he made. It would be a very suitable sequel to the changes which had been thus far made. The House had shrunk from the serious innovation of placing the Chairman of Committees, when the House was in Committee, upon a level of greater weakness than the Speaker in the House. He would not discuss that question now, as the House had already discussed it; but he trusted the noble Lord would be content with the expression of this general view that the mode of appointment should he more substantive and particular, and that the Government would endeavour to comply with it on a future occasion. In view of that declaration, he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.
SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he was glad the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph 1600 Churchill) had elicited from the Prime Minister this statement about the election of the Chairman of Ways and Means. No doubt, that official was elected by the House, though the question was never in practice put to the vote, and did not appear on the Votes. He had looked carefully into the Proceedings of the House, and he found that of late years the record had simply been that the Chairman (Mr. Lyon Play-fair) reported on such and such a Bill. The Motion that he should take the Chair was not entered on the votes at all. There was no doubt, however, that he was elected, and there had, in recent times, been divisions taken as to who should take the Oh air. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Oh, certainly.] There was, nevertheless, no doubt that, of late years, the question was put from the Chair without any Notice to the House, and that the nomination was practically in the hands of the Prime Minister. Looking at the dignity and responsibility involved in the Office, the matter deserved serious consideration, and the Chairman ought certainly to be elected in a more formal manner than he was under the existing system.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, this was really an Amendment of his own which his noble Friend had brought forward in his absence. He quite agreed with the Prime Minister as to the election of the Chairman of Committees; but he thought it ought to be an understood thing that the Chairman of Committees should not take part in a division; and that, while he held the Office, he should keep himself as much aloof from Party politics as the Speaker.
MR. GORSTsaid, he had heard with the greatest pleasure the statement of the Prime Minister, but considered that a mere alteration in the mode of election would not attain the end desired by the House. The Chairman of Committees ought to have the same kind of official permanence as the Speaker, and his position ought not to be dependent on a mere Party vote.
MR. MAC IVERsaid, that, with regard to what had fallen from the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), he wished to say how entirely he felt that the Chairman of Committees had wished honestly to do his duty on the occasion to which allusion had been made. He (Mr. Mac Iver) had no personal cause of 1601 complaint. What arose was simply a consequence of the false position in which, under the present system, the Chairman found himself placed; for while presiding over the deliberations of the Committee, he was, at the same time, a quasi-Member of the Government. The practical question was not whether the present Chairman of Committees intended to be impartial, but whether his position was one in which absolute impartiality was possible. Accidental circumstances, the chance overhearing of a remark in the Lobby, had placed him (Mr. Mac Iver) in possession of the right hon. Gentleman's own view of the subject; for he (Mr. Mac Iver) had caught words to the effect that the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) had, on the occasion to which the noble Lord referred, been out of Order, but that the Chairman of Committees could not very well stop a man in his position. It appeared to him (Mr. Mac Iver) that the Chairman of Committees took a perfectly reasonable course on that occasion, considering his own position as a quasi-Member of the Government. Not only the personal support of the hon. Member for Berkshire, but the support of The Times newspaper, was very valuable to the Government. For that reason the Chairman of Committees, while, no doubt, wishing to be impartial, had his duty to his Party to consider as well as his duty to the House. He was glad to hear that the Prime Minister accepted the principle of the noble Lord's (Lord Randolph Churchill's) Amendment; and he hoped that the Chairman of Committees would in future be placed in a position of absolute and unqualified and unquestioned impartiality.
§ MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid he felt bound to protest against the very unfair attack which the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver) had made upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Committees (Mr. Lyon Playfair) in his absence. He ought not to have done such a thing without Notice. If the hon. Member for Birkenhead had any charge to bring against the Chairman of Ways and Means, he ought to have brought it forward as a substantive Motion and taken the judgment of the House upon it.
§ MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, that the Resolution before the House was the most penal of all, except, perhaps, the 1st Resolution. As the Resolution stood, the Speaker or any Chairman of a Committee would be able, without the judgment of the House, to exercise the function of stopping a Member from continuing his speech, who might, as he imagined, be guilty of continued irrelevance or tedious repetition. He would move that instead of the words "Chairman of a Committee" the words "Chairman of Ways and Means" be inserted.
§ Amendment proposed, in line 1, to leave out the words "a Committee," and insert the words "Ways and Means," instead thereof.—(Mr. J. G. Talbot.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLasked leave to withdraw his Amendment in favour of the one proposed by his hon. Friend (Mr. J. G. Talbot).
§ MR. SHEILsaid, it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman who was their Chairman of Ways and Means for some years now (Mr. Lyon Playfair) should not be thrown overboard, but that he should be given an opportunity of denying the accuracy of the charge just made, if it was untrue; and if it was true, he (Mr. Sheil) thought it should be followed up, and that it was the duty of the Prime Minister to test it. He thought the House ought to remember that the same right hon. Gentleman who occupied the Chair on the occasion referred to suspended 15 or 16 Irish Members, some of whom were not present during the night. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes; hon. Members might groan if they pleased; but it seemed to him (Mr. Sheil) that the charge which was then attempted to be brought—they were not allowed to make it—was now made by the accusation made by the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver). And that charge having been brought, it seemed clearly to him to be the duty of the Prime Minister to ascertain what truth there was in the charge; and if that charge was true, to call upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means to resign his position.
§ MR. THOROLD ROGERSsaid, that the power of stopping Members who spoke irrelevantly was one which was 1603 inherent in the Chair, and had long ago been emphatically affirmed.
§ Amendment (Lord Randolph Churchill), by leave, withdrawn.
§ Amendment (J. G. Talbot) agreed to.
§ Words inserted accordingly.
MR. GORST (for Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)moved an Amendment to provide that the irrelevance of speaking should be wilful and persistent, instead of continued, as mentioned in the Resolution. He thought the Rule as it stood would operate against Members who, from inexperience, and quite innocently, were speaking irrelevantly.
§
Amendment proposed,
In line 2, to leave out the word "continued," in order to insert the words "wilful and persistent."—(Mr. Gorst,)
—instead thereof.
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'continued' stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he thought the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gorst) hardly understood the meaning of the Rule. The words in the Resolution were words having prescription and authority attaching to them; and, as he (Mr. Gladstone) interpreted the Resolution, it contemplated two things which the Speaker or Chairman of Committees might do. He might call the attention of the House or of the Committee to continued irrelevance or to tedious repetition, and he might direct the Member to discontinue his speech; but that might be a separate and ulterior proceeding on the part of the Speaker or Chairman, whose duty it would be to judge whether the irrelevancy or repetition was of such a character as to cause him to discharge both functions at once, or be content, in the first place, to deal with the minor interruption, and to reserve the second for the persistent, wilful, and disobedient repetition of the offence. The hon. and learned Member seemed to think that the action of the Speaker in all cases must be one and the same, and that the first warning must be the last. He (Mr. Gladstone), however, thought the matter was one which might well be left to the discretion of the Speaker, and he should not like to bind the Speaker to stop the speech of a Member when he called attention to its irrelevance.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERconsidered that words embodying the Prime Minister's interpretation of the spirit of the Rule ought to be introduced into the Rule itself. If that were done it would remove difficulties. In that case, perhaps, the right hon. Gentleman would be prepared to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), which was lower down on the Paper—namely, to insert the words "if the warning be unheeded." That would meet the view both of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gorst) and of the Government.
§ MR. DODSONsaid, the insertion of those words would not be consistent with the interpretation which the Prime Minister had placed on the Rule, and which the Government attached to it. The Resolution as it stood was optional; but by inserting the proposed words the presiding officer would have no option; he would be required to call on the Member to discontinue his remarks.
§ MR. J. R. YORKEsaid, he could not admit that the construction placed upon the Resolution by the Prime Minister was a correct one.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsupported the Amendment.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 143; Noes 68: Majority 75.—(Div. List, No. 374.)
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he wished to make one more effort. He would propose to omit from the Resolution the words "tedious repetition." He had not much hope of persuading the House to consent to the omission of those words; but he did not think they were necessary in order to give the Speaker or Chairman of Ways and Means the powers that were essential to stop an obstructive speech. He fancied that the object of the Prime Minister was to provide that speaking might, to some extent, be checked, and that speeches of an obstructive nature should not be allowed to be carried on, as a rule, for the purpose of Obstruction. But he thought it would be very dangerous to allow the Chairman of Committees to be the judge whether a speaker were guilty of tedious repetition or not. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) had often heard speakers deliver speeches which appeared to him to enter into a very great deal of detail indeed, and such speeches 1605 were not at all confined to private Memters. Both of the Front Benches were equally guilty; but the Prime Minister would remember that Mr. Speaker or the Chairman of Committees hardly ever considered it his duty to check the speech of a Minister delivered from the Front Bench. Generally speaking, the occupants of those Benches were allowed an enormous amount of latitude in regard to their speeches, which was not the case with regard to a private Member. He, therefore, thought it would be better not to retain these words, "tedious repetition." An hon. Member might be perfectly honest and bonâ fide in repeating the same thing once or twice over, because he desired to impress it more clearly upon the attention of the House, and without the slightest wish to obstruct the progress of Business. He hoped the Government would consent to modify the Resolution in the way he suggested, though even then it would remain a pretty strong one. He begged to move the omission of the words he had referred to.
§ MR. SPEAKERasked if the noble Lord proposed to leave out the words which followed "continued irrelevance?"
§ Amendment proposed, in line 2, to leave out the words "or tedious repetition."—(Lord Randolph, Churchill.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the Government were of opinion that the progress of Business in the House was delayed at the present moment not only by continued irrelevance, but by tedious repetition; and he could not see why the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) took one offence out of the category and not the other, or why the offence of continued irrelevance should be treated with greater favour than that of tedious repetition. His (Mr. Gladstone's) own opinion was, that continued irrelevance might sometimes be much more difficult to discern in the line which marked Obstruction than tedious repetition. The power of deciding whether these offences were being committed might be safely left in the hands of the presiding Officers pf the House; and he saw no reason 1606 whatever for making a distinction between them by omitting one of them from the Resolution in regard to the exercise of the power by the Chairman of Ways and Means. He had no doubt that such men would always be chosen who would know how to exercise the power with proper discretion.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) wanted to strike out these words for the same reason that the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had moved the last Amendment. If the House had inserted the words which the hon. and learned Member wished to insert in the last Amendment, there would only have been one offence, which could easily have been dealt with, and one in regard to which there would have been no difficulty, no matter who might be acting as Speaker or Chairman of Committees. It was quite true, as the Prime Minister had stated, that tedious repetition was one of those offences which the House had always dealt with, and, perhaps, not with too strong a hand. If a Member spoke with tediousness, the Speaker was fully entitled to remind him; and although it might be a difficult matter to decide what constituted continued irrelevance, he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) apprehended that the Speaker or the Chairman would have very little difficulty in satisfying the House as to the tediousness of an argument; but as there had already been one division on this matter, and there was a great probability that the result would be exactly the same if they went to another division, he hoped the noble Lord would be satisfied with his protest, and would not put the House to the trouble of deciding it again.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
MR. GORSTmoved, as an Amendment, in line 3, to amend the Resolution by leaving out from the word "Member" to the end of the Resolution, in order to add the words—
And, if a Motion be made that such Member do discontinue his speech, Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, shall forthwith put such Motion; and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, the Member shall discontinue his speech accordingly.The effect of his Amendment would be to make the Resolution as a penal Reso- 1607 lution analogous to the Procedure with which the House was now familiar in the case of Obstruction. The right hon. Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) said that the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees already possessed the power of stopping a tedious speech. That might be an old usage of the House, but it was not one which had been much practised in modern times. The principle upon which the Government had acted had been to give the Speaker or Chairman the power of punishing a Member of the House; but the Speaker or Chairman was not to act until the Member guilty of the offence had first been Named to the House or Committee, when it was left to the House or Committee itself to impose the punishment of stopping the speech. No doubt, in the present temper of the House, the decision of the Speaker or Chairman of Committees would be universally, as a matter of course, supported by the House. That had always hitherto been the case when a Member had been Named. The House, by a large majority, had invariably supported the authority of the Chair. But still the Speaker or Chairman had to appeal to the House for its ratification of his decision; and that, to a certain extent, rendered him more cautious in coming to a hasty conclusion. If a Speaker or Chairman was empowered to stop the speech of an hon. Member by his own motion, the result might be, in the case of a reckless Chairman of Committees, that he would be less cautious in the exercise of that power than if he had to appeal to the House to ratify his action by its vote. As the House well knew, it did not require many arguments to induce the House to support the Speaker in Naming any hon. Member who was guilty of an offence; but if they did not allow the Speaker or Chairman of Committees to Name a Member, without calling on the House for its sanction, why should they allow him to require a Member to discontinue his speech, without also requiring the sanction of the House? He wished to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice, with one alteration. By some act of inadvertence it now read—And, if a Motion be made that such Member do discontinue his speech, Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, shall forthwith put such Motion; and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, 1608 by a majority of not less than fifty, the Member shall discontinue his speech accordingly.The words "by a majority of not less than fifty" had crept in through inadvertence. All that he desired was that the decision in support of the action of the Speaker or Chairman should be affirmed by a majority of the House.
§
Amendment proposed,
In line 3, to leave out from the word "Member" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "and, if a Motion be made that such Member do discontinue his speech, Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, shall forthwith put such Motion; and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, the Member shall discontinue his speech accordingly."—(Mr. Gorst.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'and' stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) might have told the House that when his hon. Friend who sat near him, the Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour), moved the Amendment which stood in the name of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), he used all the arguments which had been employed by the hon. and learned Member now.
MR. GORSTsaid, that he was not present when his hon. Friend (Mr. A. J. Balfour) moved that Amendment.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that fact showed the inconvenience of the method of relays which appeared to have been adopted by hon. Gentlemen sitting upon that opposite Bench, seeing that, in this particular instance, it had kept the hon. and learned Gentleman out of the House at a very interesting moment. Consequently, he had simply repeated, as nearly as possible, although, perhaps, not in the same words, the speech of the hon. Member for Hertford in support of a Motion which, although differing in form, was substantially the same. He (Mr. Gladstone) would not, however, imitate the example of the hon. and learned Member, and repeat the speech he had made on the previous occasion. He did not think it would be fair to the House if he did; and he hoped the House would pardon him if he left the hon. and learned Member without a detailed answer, and simply said that the House had already decided the question by declining to entertain the former Motion. The House had already arrived at the conclusion that the matter was one 1609 which, ought to be left in the hands of the Speaker and Chairman of Committees, and it would only be a waste of time to divide the House again.
§ MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, that in this, and in several other of the Resolutions, it was difficult to know how to vote without knowing what the mind of the Government was in regard to other Amendments on the Paper, because such a knowledge might materially modify the view hon. Members entertained. He should certainly vote against the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), if he thought that Her Majesty's Government would accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), and still more that of his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). This was a repetition of an old law of the House, and he did not think that the power of punishment should be included in it. If an hon. Member resisted the authority of the Chair and disputed the warning given him, the House would have brought before them presently, by the 9th Resolution, the mode in which that Member should be punished and what was to happen to him. It seemed to him (Mr. Sclater-Booth) to be a mistake to import punishment into the 5th Resolution; and if he thought the Government would favourably consider the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), he should not be inclined to support the proposal now made by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). He certainly thought that one Resolution on the subject of punishment by the Chairman was enough.
§ MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, that his right hon. Friend at the head of the Government had stated, somewhat inadvertently no doubt, that this was the same Motion as that which had been moved by his hon. Friend the Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour); but the right hon. Gentleman forgot to notice the fact that the Motion of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), which his hon. Friend the Member for Hertford undertook to move, imported into this Resolution the action of one of the new mental quorums. Now, such a quorum of the House 1610 involved a new principle, and there was no such principle in the Amendment now submitted by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). In fact, it was nearly identical in scope with the Amendment which stood in his (Mr. Beresford Hope's) name lower down on the Notice Paper; and in supporting the present Amendment he was, therefore, really supporting his own proposal. He submitted that the proposition made by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), and by himself, followed on all-fours with the famous Resolution which they had hammered out after so many weeks' labour. Indeed, he had picked and chosen the phraseology of his Amendment from that Resolution. The Resolution left the closing of a debate to the decision of the House; and he did not see why, if the clôture of a debate was ultimately to be thrown upon the House, the clôture of a private Member should not take the same course. In the latter case, the offence would be a very trifling one. It might be simply that of falling into irrelevant argument, or having a rambling way of talking, which might not be the poor Gentleman's fault, because he might have been born with it. Why, for such an offence, should the Member be exposed to the extremely penal infliction of being ordered to sit down like a naughty boy in a board school? With all the additional powers which were to be given to the Speaker and the Chairman in future, why should they give them this one in addition? If a Member was really flagrantly irrelevant, and it was considered desirable to stop his speech, the Question ought to be put to the House. The Prime Minister had dwelt very much upon the question of loss of time; but he (Mr. Beresford Hope) would, point out that in the case of flagrant irrelevance, probably the first mention of the matter would be quite sufficient to impose a check on the offender. The Member would be hardly courageous enough to challenge a division in his own behalf if the "Ayes" sounded loud enough. There would, therefore, be very little loss of time; but that loss of time would take away the idea of oppression, and the House should not forget that the Member who was silenced, however righteously, would before the end of the Session take 1611 out his punishment tenfold from the House.
§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKsaid, he thought that, at that hour of the night, it was a great pity that Her Majesty's Government did not tell the House what they intended to do with regard to the Resolution. By their halting and wavering, they had already spoilt the dinners of many hon. Members with the other Resolutions; and now the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government refused to answer the question, which had repeatedly been put to him, as to what the alterations were which he intended to propose in the last paragraph of the Resolutions. It was quite impossible for hon. Members who sat below the Gangway on the other side of the House—the Paladins of the liberties of the House—such as the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) and the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn), to ever think of leaving it in the power of the Chairman of Committees, at any time, to order a Member to discontinue his speech. He (Mr. Cavendish Bentinck) had no wish to address any argument to the House upon that subject. [Cheers from the Liberal Benches.] Hon. Members opposite cheered that sentiment; but he should like to see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Bright), who was now sitting among them as what had been called by the late Lord Beaconsfield "an extinct volcano," rise in his place, and tell the House what he thought of the power proposed to be conferred by this Resolution upon the Chairmen of Committees. He should like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman approved of it or not? He was quite sure that the remarks he was now making would receive the assent of hon. Members who belonged to the Radical Party. Her Majesty's Government had already been requested by his hon. Friend the Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. J. R. Yorke), and also by his right hon. Friend below him (Mr. Sclater-Booth), to state what the intentions of the Government really were; and he thought that a clear explanation of those intentions would save the time of the House, and be a great convenience to hon. Members. All of them wished to get rid of this Autumn Session as soon as they could, and they would be able to do that more easily if the right hon. Gentleman at the head of 1612 the Government would make up his mind and tell the House what it was he wished to do.
§ MR. JOHN BRIGHTOne thing, Sir, has struck me very forcibly during the course of the discussion upon these numerous Amendments. It seems to me that hon. Members have generally proceeded on an extreme and, I think, altogether unjustifiable and absurd suspicion of the conduct of the Speaker. [An hon. MEMBER: Or the Chairman.] Well, or the Chairman. The basis of all their arguments, as far as I can learn, or of nearly all of them, is that the Speaker will do something foolish, or that the Chairman of Committees will do something foolish. Now, you had a Gentleman who was Chairman of Committees for many years, and who has just now left the House (Mr. Raikes), simply for a short time, some people hope, but for a much longer time others hope; and I think no one ever made a complaint of the conduct of our proceedings when he was Chairman of Committees. The hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. MacIver), in the improper statements which he has made in the House to-night, did not dare to charge the Chairman of Committees with intentional impartiality or injustice. I do not mean to say that the Chairman of Committees or the Speaker is absolutely infallible; but if there is one thing more certain than another, and which we can rely upon more firmly than anything else, it is the absolute impartiality of the Speaker of the House of Commons, and also of the Chairman of Committees. I have here a volume of Hatsell's Precedents, and I find here, under the date 1604, a passage which I will read to the House. I am not always in favour of things that are very old, because they are old; but here is a Resolution upon the conduct and office of Speaker, and his duty of keeping order in the House. In the second paragraph, under the date April 17th, 1604, it is laid down as a general rule that—
If any superfluous or tedious speech be offered in the House, the party is to be directed and ordered by Mr. Speaker.[An hon. MEMBER: Ordered to do what?] There was apparently no appeal. It was fairly understood what the order meant, and the Speaker would have little difficulty in knowing what to do. If we are to lay down a Rule now in regard to the Speaker, we should clearly 1613 lay down what, it is his duty to do. What the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) proposes is, that the Speaker having come to a certain conclusion with regard to a particular speech—namely, that it was irrelevant, and consisted of tedious repetition, all he is to do is to call the attention of the House to the fact; and if, for instance, the hon. and learned Member for Chathan (Mr. Gorst) was called to Order as the offender, no doubt the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) would immediately rise and move an appeal to the House. The Speaker's decision might thus be set aside, and there would be a division. Nothing would be more easy then to promote delay in that way all the night through, because the hon. Member who was so disorderly as to be called to Order would be almost certain to have someone sitting at his elbow who would be ready to ask the House to decide the question. It therefore seems to me that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman is one that will destroy the value and efficiency of the Rule altogether; and I can only deplore that these repeated Amendments are made in pursuance of the course which these Rules are intended in future to condemn and prevent. That is my feeling in regard to the matter. I am as much in favour of freedom of speech as anyone, and also that everybody shall say what it is proper to say in this House; but I am persuaded that if the course recommended by the hon. and learned Gentleman and his Friends is agreed to, we may as well sweep these Resolutions away altogether and allow things to go on just as they have gone on, and have been condemned. I hope my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government will not consent to the proposition of the hon. and learned Member, which would make all our proceedings with regard to the matter a complete absurdity and an absolute farce.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. John Bright) had thought fit to introduce an illustration into his speech which he must have known would be offensive. Whatever might be thought of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), no one could accuse him of being 1614 guilty of repetition. ["Oh, oh!"] He dared say that his hon. and learned Friend often made remarks which hon. Gentlemen opposite did not like; but he was never guilty of repetition. The right hon. Gentleman had further, and in the most direct manner, accused Members on his side of the House of putting down Amendments for the purpose of Obstruction; and the right hon. Gentleman had thought fit to instance, as one of them, the Amendment they were now discussing. Now, he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) desired to point out two things to the right hon. Gentleman. In the first place, he would point out that many Amendments proposed from his side of the House had been accepted by the Government, and great and beneficial had been the modifications of the Rules which had resulted from the action of Members on his side of the House. In the second place, he would point out to the right hon. Gentleman, in regard to this Amendment, that it had been put down upon the Paper, in substance, by three hon. Members—by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope), and by the hon. Gentleman behind him the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—three Members of the House of great experience, and who were emphatically more entitled to be heard on all questions connected with Procedure than many hon. Members who voted with the Government for these Rules, as having been in the House and taken part in its debates for a very much longer period. He desired, further, to remark to the right hon. Gentleman that, while he quite admitted the force of the argument used by the Prime Minister when he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) was moving the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), that it would have the effect of prolonging their debates, he did not admit that there was any force in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), that the House was to place implicit reliance on the discretion of the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees, whoever they might be. The Government had already themselves established a contrary precedent, by deliberately fencing round the clôture by pro- 1615 viding that the Speaker should not act solely upon his own authority, hut that he must support that authority by a deliberate declaration of the will of the House.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he wished to reply to an observation which had fallen from the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour), who had mentioned his name in connection with the Amendment placed upon the Paper on this subject. All he wished to say was, that his proposition was identical with the provision of the 1st Resolution adopted by the House, in regard to the clôture, which neither of the other Amendments was. In regard to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright), he had only one word to say. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to have changed his position, and, from having hitherto attached exaggerated importance to the doctrine of self-government, he had now become the advocate of a mere Party. The quotation which the right hon. Gentleman had read to the House from Hatsell's Precedents had no application to the present state of things, because at that period, 1604, in which the Order was made, the House of Commons was accused of being blindly submissive to the Crown; and the consequence was that in 1640 a state of things, which he did not wish to see recur, was brought about in a very opposite sense.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ MR. GIBSONmoved, as an Amendment, in line 3, after the word "and," to insert the words "if the warning be unheeded." He wished to explain that this Amendment stood on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for the City of Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), who was now absent. The present structure of the Resolution had been before the House for a considerable time, and it was, he thought, open to considerable criticism. It proposed that the Speaker or Chairman might call the attention of the House, or of the Committee, to continued irrelevance or tedious repetition on the part of a Member, and might direct such Member to discontinue his speech. It did that without indicating to the House that the House had any function whatever in relation to the matter. He thought if the right hon. 1616 Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) had borne that fact in mind, he would have seen that it was entirely in point to put an Amendment on the Paper, suggesting that the House should have some function, because the earlier part of the Rule expressly pointed out that the attention of the House was to be called to the matter. If the attention of the House was to be called to the matter, he assumed that the object was to call the attention of all the Members to the way in which the time of the House was being wasted, and also to call their attention to what, as a matter of fact, ought to be their function in such a case. What he proposed to do was to treat that calling of the attention of the House as a distinct and public warning to the Member that if he did not mind himself and mend his courses he would expose himself to the penalty inflicted by the latter part of the Resolution, which gave the Speaker the power of proceeding to a further development by directing the offending Member to discontinue his speech. But, from the special way in which the Resolution was drafted, the Speaker or Chairman of Committees might get up in the middle of a debate and announce to a Member who had not been much on the alert in guarding against irrelevancy or tedious repetition that he was guilty of irrelevancy or repetition, and that he must at once discontinue his speech. He did not think that it would be fair or in accordance with our English methods to take so extreme a course without having given some warning in the first instance. The right hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment.
§ Amendment proposed, in line 3, after the word "and," to insert the words "if the warning be unheeded."—(Mr. Gibson.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the Government could not agree to the Amendment. They had already stated their view of the Resolution, which was this—that in certain cases repetition or irrelevancy would have reached a certain point before it could be well interfered with by the Chair, and when it was interfered with, the matter would be fully ripe for effective action. The interference ought to be decisive and take effect at once. 1617 There would be very little use in the Resolution; indeed, it would be completely emasculated by any Amendment of this character. There might be other cases in which it would be right for the Speaker or Chairman of Committees to give a preliminary warning; but the Speaker or Chairman of Committees would always be in the Chair, watching the course of the debate, and would be in a position to judge whether the freedom of debate required to be treated in a more severe or in a more lenient manner. In any case, it was not likely that there would be interference except where the irrelevancy or the repetition had been very serious; and it would be very safe to leave the matter to the judgment of the Speaker or the Chairman. The Amendment proposed to give a Member one more life, which he might well afford to throw away.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was so anxious to avoid laying himself open to a charge of tedious repetition that he had abstained from taking notice of the very strong arguments which he himself had used an hour or two ago in favour of the very proposal just made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had pointed out, in opposition to the previous Amendment, that it must not be assumed that the Presiding Officer of the House for the time being would determine the Resolution in the strictest sense. [Mr. Gladstone: He would not do that always.] He would not always determine the Resolution in a strict sense? In saying that the right hon. Gentleman was assuming that the interpretation which he placed upon the Resolution would be always that which would be placed upon it by the Presiding Officer of the House. But already that afternoon they had had a direct exemplification of the fact that the interpretation placed by the right hon. Gentleman on words of his own composition was not always identical with that placed on them by the Presiding Officer of the House of Commons. It must also be remembered that they were now dealing with the Presiding Officer of the future, who would not even have had the advantage of hearing the right hon. Gentleman expound his views of the proper interpretation to be 1618 placed upon his own words. Under those circumstances, it was not unreasonable for the House to ask that there should be inserted in the body of the Resolution some definite expression of opinion on the part of the House as to what the Resolution meant. He imagined that the right hon. Gentleman meant the same that hon. Members on that side of the House meant, and that there was no difference in substance between them. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I am afraid there is.] He was in hopes that there was not, for the right hon. Gentleman had distinctly said the probability was that the Presiding Officer would interpret the Rule in the same sense which hon. Members on that side of the House suggested. [Mr. GLADSTONE: In the best sense.] The right hon. Gentleman most distinctly added an expression of his own opinion that the probability was the Presiding Officer would not interpret the Resolution in a strict sense. That was certainly the impression left on the mind of the House by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman; and he (Mr. J. Lowther) hoped, under those circumstances, seeing the danger or probability that there might be from time to time an interpretation placed upon the Rule by the Presiding Officer which was not entirely in accordance with that of the right hon. Gentleman himself, neither the Government nor the House would object to the introduction of the words which had been proposed by his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson).
§ SIR. R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he wished to point out that, in this matter, it had been the invariable practice, under the Rule by which a Member might be suspended, for the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees to give warning. That had hitherto been the invariable practice, and the result was that an hon. Member was not taken by surprise; but he was warned that, if he persisted in the course he was pursuing, he would suffer the punishment which had been provided. The particular Rule to which he referred was very much of the same character as the Rule now proposed, seeing that it prevented the Member who was suspended from taking any further part in the debate; and the proposed Rule would be equivalent to the suspension of a Member from sitting in the House, or taking part in its proceedings, until the time came for him to 1619 record his vote. He was bound to say that he could not see why that invariable practice of the Speaker and Chairman of Committees should not be put into this Rule, by saying that it was only after due warning the punishment would be inflicted. Therefore, if his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) went to a division upon the Amendment, he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) should certainly support him, because it was only putting into the Rule that which had been the invariable practice of the House hitherto.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he could not but think that the proposed Rule was either surplusage, or mere offensiveness. It was surplusage, because already the presiding authority had got power to call a speaker to the question who was not speaking to the question; and, as far as that was concerned, there was really no necessity whatever for strengthening the hands of the presiding authority. If a Member, when addressing the House, declined to pay attention to the remonstrances of the presiding authority, he would justly lay himself open to a charge of disregarding the authority of the Speaker, or the Chairman of Committees. But, besides the objection of surplusage, it was decidedly open to the objection of offensiveness and partiality. It was a Rule that would only be brought to bear against the younger Members of the House, who might very often be struggling against mere natural embarrassment in their endeavours to express their arguments. He also wished to point out that by making this entirely depend upon the opinion of the presiding authority, he was afraid it became open to this objection. A Member of the House who might know the subject upon which he was speaking thoroughly well, and might be thoroughly well acquainted with all the bearings of his argument, might easily be misapprehended by the presiding authority; and there was no guarantee that the presiding authority would always be perfectly calm, perfectly un-flurried, and perfectly impartial. The presiding authority might mean to act justly; but, not knowing what was in the Member's mind any more than anybody else would be supposed to know, lie might deal with an argument which, in the Member's mind, was a most relevant one, as altogether irrelevant; 1620 and the Member, through awkwardness, or density of conviction, might desire to argue the matter out; whereupon he would be met at once by being required by the presiding authority to discontinue his speech. What was it that had occurred to himself personally? Although he believed that on every occasion the presiding authority meant to act justly towards him, he was perfectly satisfied that on three or four occasions, in the heat of past debates, the presiding authority, from natural ignorance of what was passing in his (Mr. O'Donnell's) mind, had told him that he was irrelevant in his arguments, and that they had no bearing upon the question; whereas he was perfectly aware that if he could have had time to express those arguments, the presiding authority would have recognised their perfect relevancy. Under the Rules, as they stood at present, there was no serious harm or injustice done to him, or to any other Member in his position, because he was liable to the punishment of being called upon to discontinue his speech merely because the presiding authority misinterpreted him; but, if this Rule passed, the mistake of the presiding authority would be followed by conseqences which could not be recalled; and, therefore, this Rule was a double trap—a trap for the feet of the Member, and a trap for the feet of the presiding authority. The presiding authority might be led on in a well-meaning manner to use this Rule, and might then find that he had committed a serious mistake; there would, however, be no power of remedying the mistake. He would recall to the memory of the House that, on a former occasion, the presiding authority not only considered that he (Mr. O'Donnell) was guilty of continued irrelevance, but that he was actually wilfully refusing to obey the authority of the Chair. The circumstance occurred in Committee of the Whole House; and on that occasion he was not merely told to discontinue his speech, but he was actually suspended; and yet, a few weeks afterwards, the House had, practically, to withdraw that suspension. He contended that there was no necessity whatever for this Rule. If a Member was really refusing to obey the authority of the Chair, he could be punished; he could be warned and then suspended; but this childish way of dealing with a full-grown man, 1621 and offensively ordering him to discontinue his speech, was a sort of punishment that was unworthy of the House. A Member addressing the House was supposed, in every Constitutional respect, to be equal to the presiding authority, as far as his knowledge of the relevancy of his argument was concerned, and his knowledge of his duty to his constituents; and as long as the presiding authority was not able to say that a Member was wilfully disobeying the authority of the Chair, in which case a distinct offence would arise, it was altogether too much for any Member of the House, or any of their hon. Colleagues, or the presiding authority, ten times over, to tell a full-grown man, who was the free-elected Representative of a constituency, that he was next door to an idiot, and must discontinue his speech. He looked upon the Rule as not only offensive and ridiculous, but also dangerous. Probably, if it were passed, it would remain a dead letter. If it were ever brought into force, he would lay the odds of 100 to 1 that it would be exercised at the wrong time.
§ MR. WADDYsaid, it appeared to him that the arguments he had heard from various Members on the other side of the House were based on this—the Speaker was supposed to be lying in ambush, prepared on the first opportunity to stop some unfortunate Member, who might have wandered unwittingly into some slight irrelevancy. Hon. Members who entertained that view seemed to have forgotten that there were two or three words in the Resolution which, would prevent that, because the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees was to call the attention of the House or of the Committee to continued irrelevance or tedious repetition on the part of that Member. It was therefore provided that the irrelevancy should be continued, and that the repetition should be tedious. It was evident that it was not a first offence that was contemplated; and where there was continued irrelevance and tedious repetition, he thought the Speaker would be amply justified in directing the offending Member to discontinue his speech. He desired to say that, in another respect, the Rule was not strong enough. If it could prevent some hon. Members from speaking for more than 25 times a night, it would effect an advantageous and de- 1622 sirable change. At any rate, it might provide that out of the 25 times an hon. Member thought fit to address the House, he should, at all events, on one occasion, say something.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he thought the greatest fallacy came from the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Waddy) himself. If the irrelevancy was continued, and the repetition tedious, why did the Government object to introduce so obvious an Amendment as that of the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson)? Why did they refuse to the offending Member the right of having a warning from the Speaker or Chairman that he was transgressing? The Resolution conferred upon the Speaker arid the Chairman of Committees very dangerous power, and there ought to be some limitation imposed upon it, to prevent its being used in an arbitrary and unjust manner. The Chairman of Committees might act as a partizan, and might be desirous of closing an awkward speech, and under this Rule he would have the power of doing so absolutely. That, as the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had pointed out, was a dangerous and an offensive power. What valid grounds could the Government allege for objecting to the insertion in the Resolution of a clause which, whilst it would not impair the real efficacy of that Resolution, would insure that an hon. Member who was anxious to keep himself in Order should have fair warning before being told to discontinue his speech? The Government could give no such grounds; and he, therefore, appealed to the Prime Minister to adopt the Amendment.
§ MR. BUCHANANsaid, the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) had disputed the Prime Minister's statement as to the probability of Mr. Speaker or the Chairman of Committees giving warning before putting this Rule in force. But they had some experience to go on. When the Rule was in force in 1881, it was used four times; three times in Committee, and once by Mr. Speaker. On each occasion warning was given.
§ MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he did not dispute the fact that it had been the practice of Mr. Speaker and Chairmen of Committees to give warning before putting the Rule in operation, or the 1623 probability that it would be in the time to come. But why should they not put it on record that warning must be given? The hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan), who was a man of culture, research, and learning, knew that it was not the custom of deliberative Assemblies to trust to declarations by Ministers, but that it was their practice to put on record what they desired to be the law of the land, and of the Houses in which they sat. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no!] He believed, in spite of the Prime Minister's negative, that that was the practice of Parliament—to take care to embody in Acts of Parliament that which it wished to be done, without trusting to the declaration of Ministers. However much they might value the ability of independent Members, they should put in the words of the Rule what they desired to be done. He appealed to the Government, if they were really honest in this matter, and desirous that the Rule should be administered in accordance with their declarations, to embody words in the Rule, providing for the manner of its administration.
MR. BRODPICKhoped the House would have some explanation from the Government of the reason which had induced them to keep up what seemed to him to be an altogether unnecessary debate, on a point on which all Parties were agreed. Hon. Members were only proposing a form of words with which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister perfectly agreed. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No, no!] He had certainly understood the right hon. Gentleman to agree that the practice should be such as was provided in the Amendment. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Oh, dear, no!] In that case, then, it was necessary that the House should argue the matter out. If an hon. Member who rose to address the House, from some aberration of intellect, wandered away into paths he should have avoided, surely it was desirable that he should receive some warning before the supreme step was taken. He (Mr. Brodrick) felt very strongly on this point, because he was in entire sympathy with the Government upon it. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson), a short time ago, appeared to be on the point of rising to reply to the arguments of hon. Members in support of the Amendment; but since then he had 1624 abandoned the intention, and that fact itself spoke volumes for the reliability of the contention put forward by hon. Members. It seemed to him (Mr. Brodrick) impossible for anyone who had occupied the Chair in the House not to feel the absolute necessity for the putting in force of some such restriction as that proposed, even if it were not stated in the Rule. Bearing in mind what had been said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot)—namely, that it was the custom of the House to settle what should be the law by distinct enactment, and not by the declarations of Ministers—he sincerely hoped his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) would go to a division.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 52; Noes 120: Majority 68.—(Div. List, No. 375.)
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he wished to move to leave out, in line 3, all after "on the part of a Member," and insert "and may put the Question to the House that such Member be not further heard; which Question shall be decided without Debate, Amendment, or Adjournment." He had a very strong feeling that the House, in rendering its Rules more absolute than they were, and substituting these absolute Rules for the action of the wholesome public opinion which used to prevail in the House of Commons and govern its Members, was stamping itself of a lower type than the Houses which had preceded it. He had another feeling. They had heard how freely the conduct of the Chairman of Committees had been canvassed in debate. He thought some injustice had been done to the right hon. Gentleman. Mr. Speaker's name had been coupled in this Resolution with that of the Chairman of Committees; and although experience had taught him (Mr. Newdegate) to place implicit confidence in Mr. Speaker's impartiality and right feeling, and though he had scarcely ever known that right hon. Gentleman to err, he could not undertake to place the same confidence in those who might succeed the right hon. Gentleman. With one exception, he would not have placed the same confidence in the right hon. Gentleman's Predecessors. "Well, he asked, how could their labours to reorganize the Business of the House be advanced 1625 by their Rules if there was a loss of confidence in the Chair, and in the administration of the Chair? So strong was the feeling and apprehension of the House of this danger, that when the majority passed the clôture it insisted that the decision of Mr. Speaker should be supported by a majority of the House. Had the Members of that House fallen so low that they were to be silenced, like school-boys, by the Chair, in order to restore their self-respect, which he feared they had somewhat lost? He feared that, far from this silencing of Members tending to restore their self-respect, it would have an opposite tendency—that it would tend to a still greater loss of self-respect, and to the loss of the first element of order, an element far more powerful than any authority that they could introduce. He, therefore, moved that Mr. Speaker's authority should always be supported by a majority of the House. Everything which separated the right hon. Gentleman from the House weakened the authority of his position—any suspicion that he was not one of them would weaken his position. It would destroy the principle of self-government, of which that House should be the type, and the House would lose the power of a popular Assembly, however they extended, the suffrage. They had an example of that in the United States. There they had extended the suffrage, until they had collected such an anomalous Assembly that they were from year to year placing greater and greater power in the hands of extraneous authorities. That was an example of the present day. He was unwilling at this hour of the night to detain the House.
§ MR. SPEAKEROn examining the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), which was lately negatived by the House, I am bound to say that it is substantially the same as that which the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) now proposes; and, in that view, I shall have to rule that the Amendment now being moved cannot be put.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he bowed to Mr. Speaker's opinion. If he had known he would be out of Order, he would not have given the right hon. Gentleman the opportunity of correcting him.
§ MR. GIBSONrose to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member for Evesham (Mr. Dixon-Hartland) has placed an Amendment in my hands; but he is not in the House.
§ MR. WARTONI should be happy to move it, Sir.
§ MR. SPEAKERI was about to observe to the hon. Member for Evesham, if he had been in his place, that his Amendment was really substantially the same as that of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), which the House has just now negatived; therefore I must call on the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, the Amendment he wished to bring under the notice of the House was a very short one. If the Government passed the Resolution as it stood, it would give Mr. Speaker the final power of directing the hon. Member in possession of the House to discontinue his speech. Bearing in mind that this was a Resolution aimed at continued and possibly unintentional irrelevance, and tedious but probably not obstructive repetition, it was, he thought, too severe a punishment to say that Mr. Speaker might, without a caution against such a course of conduct, direct the hon. Member to discontinue his speech. It seemed to him that the reasonable course would be to give Mr. Speaker the power of directing a Member to discontinue the conduct that had brought him under the notice of the House, and called for the right hon. Gentleman's intervention. That would be not only reasonable, but sufficient; because, if a Member had had brought to his notice that he was offending, and had been distinctly ordered by Mr. Speaker to discontinue repetition and irrelevance, if he was then guilty of similar conduct, he could be at once Named as violating the orders of Mr. Speaker. The disciplinary power would be ample, bearing in mind that the Member would be erring more from constitutional infirmity or weakness of mind than anything else. That result he (Mr. Gibson) thought would be found to be quite sufficient.
§ Amendment proposed, in line 4, to leave out the words "his Speech," in order to insert the words "such irrelevance or repetition."—(Mr. Gibson.)
1627§ Question proposed, "That the words 'his Speech' stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman stated that his Amendment was a very short one. That was true; but there was a shorter one still, to the same effect, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman might have moved or uttered; and that was an Amendment which would have been signified by saying "No" to the Resolution. That word "No" was the whole meaning of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's Amendment. The Amendment, if adopted, would make the Rule, in his (Mr. Gladstone's) judgment, not worth the paper it was written on. In all the less grave cases, Mr. Speaker would give warning before bringing the Rule into operation; but the Amendment would make the House suffer before the warning and after the warning; and, as a climax, the offending Member could only be directed to discontinue his tedious and irrelevant observations.
§ MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, the speech just delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister was a very good example of the sort of argument to which the House was constantly treated on these Resolutions. The right hon. Gentleman, who, over and over again, had refused to listen to the appeal to allow a clause, providing for a warning to be inserted in the Rule, now made the fact that a warning might be given the ground for refusing the Amendment. It should be distinctly understood that not only had the power of clôture been imposed on a bare majority, but, in addition to that, power was being conferred on the Presiding Officer of the House absolutely to close the speech of an hon. Member. That might be agreeable to some hon. Members who were able to express themselves consecutively and clearly in the House; but, however it might be viewed by those hon. Members, it was a most grave and serious, and a most novel power to confer. It was a power which had never been known in Parliament before. If the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) was accepted, it would enable Mr. Speaker to put down that which he ought to put down—namely, irrelevance and tedious 1628 repetition; but the Rule, as it stood, would allow the Presiding Officer of the House, without warning, to compel an hon. Member to cut short his speech. In whatever light hon. Members might regard the remarks he (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) was addressing to the House, it was certain that what the Government proposed to give was a very great and serious power to the Presiding Officer of the House.
§ MR. GIBSONasked the indulgence of the House to say that the proper course would be not to put the House to the trouble of a division. He should have preferred the Amendment of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson); and, under the circumstances, he felt bound to accept the last division as practically governing this. He should indicate his opinion when Mr. Speaker put the Question, but would not trouble the House to divide.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§
Main Question, as amended, put.
(5.) Resolved, That Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman of Ways and Means, may call the attention of the House, or of the Committee, to continued irrelevance or tedious repetition on the part of a Member; and may direct the Member to discontinue his Speech.
§ Further Consideration of the New Rules of Procedure deferred till Tomorrow.
§ House adjourned at One o'clock.