MR. GLADSTONErose to move the 9th Resolution, which he said consisted of a recital of the present Standing Order, together with certain Amendments introduced into it. It was necessary to read the Standing Order to understand the nature of the Amendment. The Standing Order was passed more for the purpose of removing all the scandals in the conduct of Public Business than as an effective instrument for securing despatch; but he did not think that any penal or restrictive measures ever could attain the whole, or the main part of the object that the House had in view in dealing with its procedure. He regarded this as a penal Resolution, intended to provide for a particular class of cases, and, viewing it in that light, he did not find fault with the original framers for having drawn it in a mild form; but it was quite plain there ought to be a considerable enhancement in the amount of penalty in the shape of suspension. At present, in the case of a first offence, the House had to go through the operation of a division; and if the offence had occurred in Committee, the process was still more elaborate, because then the Question had to be put twice—once in the Committee and once in the House. Thus the House was compelled to spend almost as much time in deciding the Question—or the two Questions—as the offending Member would be suspended for, if he were only suspended for the residue of the evening. Looked at from the point of view of the House, and not of the guilty Member, the process was needlessly and unreasonably cumbrous. No doubt, suspension was a serious thing; but in common practice it was preceded by one or more warnings. The warnings were not required by this Resolution, as there 1753 might be inconvenience in requiring them. As to the second offence, nothing could be more manifest than that it ought to be followed by a greater penalty than that proposed by the present Resolution, which treated the first and second offences exactly alike. The enhancement of the penalty with a view to the greater efficiency of the Resolution was the substance of the Government proposal, and it would be for the House to consider whether the Rule which they had framed was a fair one. When the grave character of the offence was considered, and when it was remembered that the punishment was only inflicted by the deliberate act of the House, he thought the punishment stated could not be regarded as excessive. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving that the Standing Order be now read.
Standing Order of 28 February 1880 read as followeth:—
That, whenever any Member shall have been named by the Speaker, or by the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House, as disregarding the authority of the Chair, or abusing the Rules of the House by persistently and wilfully obstructing the business of the House, or otherwise, then, if the offence has been committed in the House, the Speaker shall forthwith put the Question, on a Motion being made, no amendment, adjournment, or debate, being allowed, 'That such Member be suspended from the service of the House during the remainder of that day's sitting;' and, if the offence has been committed in a Committee of the whole House, the Chairman shall, on a Motion being made, put the same Question in a similar way, and if the Motion is carried shall forthwith suspend the proceedings of the Committee and report the circumstance to the House; and the Speaker shall thereupon put the same Question, without amendment, adjournment, or debate, as if the offence had been committed in the House itself. If any Member be suspended three times in one Session, under this Order, his suspension on the third occasion shall continue for one week, and, until a Motion has been made, upon which it shall be decided at one sitting, by the House, whether the suspension shall then cease, or for what longer period it shall continue; and, on the occasion of such Motion, the Member may, if he desires it, be heard in his place: Provided always, That nothing in this Resolution shall be taken to deprive the House of the power of proceeding against any Member according to ancient usages.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he differed from the views of the Prime Minister, because the proceedings under the existing Standing Order had had great effect in accelerating Business. He 1754 had always regretted that more attention had not been paid to that Order, which made the offender suffer; whereas by the 1st of the New Rules the whole House was punished for the offence of a small number. He regretted that more Rules of that kind had not been introduced. The Standing Order which had just been read had been used with great effect and sledge-hammer force by the right hon. Gentleman himself, and had enabled him to carry one measure which he would not otherwise have been able to carry. But the Prime Minister said the Rule was not stringent enough, and could only be applied after divisions; and divisions of 300 or 400 Members took a long time. But the Government seemed to forget the Rules already passed, one of which, in many cases, made a division unnecessary. If the offender was manifestly wrong, he would not find 20 Members to support him. He did not say that the Rule should not be strengthened: but to propose that the first offence should meet with a week's suspension, the second with two months', and the third with suspension for the remainder of the Session, was one of the most monstrous proposals he had ever heard. If the punishment was too severe the Speaker or Chairman would be very careful in applying the Rule. The House must, moreover, recollect that under the existing Rule it had scarcely ever happened that a Member had been Named a third time. That showed that the penalty already imposed had the very effect now sought—namely, to prevent a Member from offending a third time. Why, then, was it necessary to inflict suspension for a whole Session? The proposed Rule would also act unfairly in punishing not only the offending Member, but also his constituents. If it rested with the Speaker to enforce the penalty, it would be different. But the Speaker was only to take the initiative, and then, probably, after a heated discussion, the House would rise against the offending Member and enforce the Rule simply because it was angry. So that there would not be that deliberate action of the House of which the Prime Minister had spoken. The time for proposing such an extension of power was singularly ill-timed, considering that there were outcries throughout the country as to the powers of suspension pos- 1755 sessed by Judges; and the Prime Minister himself had promised to introduce a Bill next Session dealing with that subject. He predicted that if the Resolution passed in its present form, and was acted upon, the Government would be called upon every Session to repeal it.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORrose to Order, and asked whether other Members would not be allowed to follow the example of the Prime Minister and the late Home Secretary? Otherwise, the moving of an Amendment would preclude Members from discussing the general Question.
§ MR. SPEAKERStrictly speaking, there is no Question before the House. The right hon. Gentleman has moved that the Standing Order be read, and it has been read by the Clerk at the Table.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he hoped he would be within the indulgence of the House in following the example of the two right hon. Gentlemen.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsubmitted that the two right hon. Gentlemen could not have spoken as they did unless it was in Order for every Member to speak in a similar manner.
§ MR. SPEAKERIf I am to adopt a regular course on this occasion, I should desire some Question to be before the House before the debate proceeds.
§ MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONasked if he would be in Order if he moved that the Standing Order be not read?
§ MR. SPEAKERThat obviously is not regular. If any hon. Member desires to move an Amendment at a point previous to that of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham, he is at liberty to do so.
MR. GORSTsaid, the chief question, in the opinion of the Prime Minister, seemed to be that of time; but in a matter of this kind, where penalties were concerned, time could not at all compare in importance with justice. The question then was, whether this Standing Order was just and fair, and whether it would redound to the reputation of the House if put in force? It was now proposed to make the Rule more consonant with justice by adding the word "indi- 1756 vidual" to "any." The case of each offending Minister ought to be judged by itself, without being mixed up with that of any other Member, thus following the principle adopted in Courts of Justice of trying by itself the case of each individual prisoner. On one occasion several Members of the House had been Named collectively; but that was because the same evidence applied to the whole. But another instance had happened in which the Chairman Named several Members collectively when the evidence in each case was separate and distinct. He believed that in that instance the Chairman acted entirely under a misapprehension as regarded one particular Member, and that that Member was wholly innocent of any offence whatever. It therefore seemed to him that in order to save the reputation of the House for justice they ought to amend their Standing Order so that the case of each Member should be individually dealt with. In order to secure that in future, in the exercise of that judicial power on the part of the presiding authority, and also on the part of the House, the case of each offending Member should be separately dealt with, he now moved to insert in line 1 of the proposed Rule the word "individual" after the word "any."
§ Amendment proposed, inline 1 of said Standing Order, after the word "any," to insert the word "individual."—(Mr. Gorst.)
§ Question proposed, "That the word 'individual' be there inserted."
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that the question raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman was one of very great importance; but he greatly doubted the expediency of discussing it upon this Amendment, because the phrase which the hon. and learned Member proposed to introduce was either ambiguous or quite null and void. Every Member was, undoubtedly, an individual; and if they said that when any individual did so and so he should undergo such and such consequences, that did not prevent any number of individuals being included in the same sentence. He, therefore, recommended the withdrawal of that Amendment, and that the question which the hon. and learned Member desired to raise should be raised in a different and more distinct manner.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he thought there could be no doubt that that particular application of the Rule on the two occasions mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham was certainly not contemplated by the late Chairman of Committees (Mr. Raikes), when he was examined before the Select Committee on Public Business in 1877, although it was in consequence of the evidence then given by Mr. Speaker and Mr. Raikes that the Rule was subsequently passed. Mr. Raikes distinctly laid down that no Member could be suspended for the sins of another, and that no body of Members could be suspended together. The possibility of the application of the Rule in the way in which it was afterwards applied—namely, to cumulative or to constructive Obstruction, and also against a large number of Members, and against Members some time after they had committed the alleged offence, having presented itself to his own mind while Mr. Raikes was under examination, he had asked him several Questions bearing on those points. In Question 1,113 he asked—
Then, in fact, the proposed Rule would give the power to a Member to rise and charge any number of Members with Obstruction?Mr. Raikes replied—That is not quite an accurate representation. The objection would have to be taken during the particular speech of the particular Member, and the Question submitted to the Committee would have reference to that Member only.Again, he said—It would only be competent to call attention to the subject in the case of and at the time of the Member committing the offence.And lower down he said—It would not be open to a Member to go back to the case of any Member who had addressed the Committee half-an-hour before.But the House knew well that in the application of the Rule on a remarkable occasion during the present Session, when a number of Members were suspended who had not taken any part whatever in the proceedings of the Sitting during which they were suspended, and who had not been present in the House for many hours before, the House knew that the considerations then urged by Mr. Raikes were entirely thrown overboard and disregarded. It was, therefore, of the greatest importance that the question should be raised 1758 and fully discussed, that they should discuss it by the light of the experience which the working of the Rule had thrown upon it, and by the light of the experience which the interpretation of the present Chairman of Committees had afforded. The Rule had been used in such a way as to suspend and deprive of their rights on one occasion so large a body as 35 Members, and upon another occasion a body of 25 Members were deprived of their rights, and expelled from the House for the remainder of the Sitting. But now the Government went still further, and, notwithstanding the experience the House had had of the manner in which the Rule might be used, proposed practically to give the majority the right to suspend any number of Members for the rest of the Session. They might thus, at some future time, get rid of the Front Opposition Bench and all their followers, and deprive them of their Constitutional rights during the rest of the Session. Now, he should have very much liked to have heard the Prime Minister inform the House as to whether there existed any example or any precedent in any foreign country, or any Assembly, for a Rule of this kind, under which a whole minority—a whole Party—of the House of Commons might be suspended, and kept out of the House for the rest of the Session? He had not heard of any such an example, and he did think it was a matter which had become of very great importance in view of the way in which a Rule had been exercised. This, in fact, was what the Government now asked them to do. They said—"Give us the power to suspend not one particular Member for any particular offence committed at any particular time, but give us the power to suspend all our opponents, if we want to do so, if we can obtain a Speaker or a Chairman of Committees sufficiently pliable to our hands." They did not know that such a Speaker or Chairman of Committees might not arise hereafter—because, looking back, they found that they had had Speakers who had been subservient, and who had been pliable—and there was no reason in the world why they should not again have Speakers who might be subservient, and who might be pliable. Then, where was the necessity for such a power? Could it he shown that any time had ever been 1759 gained by the application of this Rule during the three years in which it had existed? Could it be shown that Public Business had ever been appreciably put forward by the use of this Rule? Was it going to enable them to pass a single Bill very much sooner? By all means, if an individual Member wilfully obstructed the Business of the House, let him be suspended; if he repeated the offence, let him be suspended for three months; and if he transgressed again, let him be suspended for the rest of the Session. But that was not what they were asked to do. They were asked to give the power to the Government—for that was really what it came to—of suspending a whole body of Members for the sins which might be committed by some of them, if the Chairman chose to think that they were acting in combination with other Members, or that they approved of their proceeding. Never before had any Minister or responsible person come forward with such an extraordinary proposal; and he was much disappointed to find that, so far from being modified in the direction which experience suggested as right and proper, it should have been made more stringent and more destructive of the rights of minorities in that House. It was not a Rule under which they could make their Business progress any more quickly than it did at present. They had used it against the Irish Party twice, and they might be able to use it hereafter against the Conservative Opposition. It was not to be supposed that in these days of Radical progress the Conservative Opposition would always continue as numerous as they were at present. It was possible that they might find the right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford North-cote)—who was absent at present, he regretted to say, through ill-health—with no greater following than 50 or 60 Members; he might be in exactly the same position as the Irish Party were in on one occasion, when their numbers did not deter the Government from forcibly expelling them; and the Conservative Opposition, numerous as they were now, might regret the day when they drafted a Rule of this kind, which was capable of such extraordinary use in the hands of a Chairman of Committees, and which had paved the way for such a further extraordinary demand as that now made by the Prime Minister.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsympathized with the object of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham, but declined to support his Amendment, on the ground that it would not have the desired effect.
§ MR. CHAPLINsaid, he thought it would have been more satisfactory if the Prime Minister had given the House an intimation as to the views of the Government upon the manner in which the very important question under discussion should be decided. It could not be denied that there was a strong feeling in favour of some Amendment like that of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). The original Order never contemplated the suspension of Members en masse. If that Rule were seriously adopted, there was no reason why he himself should not have been included in its operation on that famous occasion when the Irish Members were suspended, if the Chairman had taken it into his head to think he had obstructed the Business of the House, although he was not, and had not been, present for some days. The House certainly ought to know whether individual or collective Members were intended. So far as the punishment of individual Members was concerned, he did not agree with the right hon. Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) in condemning the penalties suggested as too severe; on the contrary, he regarded them as not more weighty than the nature of those offences demanded.
§ MR. WARTONregretted that they were precluded from a general discussion of the Resolution. He was, however, in no apprehension as to the future fate of the Conservative Party suggested by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), inasmuch as they had just won another seat at Salisbury, making the twelfth since the General Election, while the Liberal Party had only secured two. He was sorry to see in the New Rule that the penalties were more stringent than hitherto; and therefore it became more imperative that an explanation should be given, whether it was intended that those penalties should be applied to individual Members, or to Members in a body.
§ SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, that the introduction of this Amendment would not, in the smallest degree, advance the purpose of its proposer, and 1761 he suggested that the Amendment should be withdrawn. He wished the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gorst) and the House to consider whether they should not really arrive at the object he had in view by considering the terms of the Resolution generally, rather than by looking at the words in particular. If they were to increase the penalties in the severe manner proposed, he should be very much inclined to examine very stringently the terms of this Resolution, because, as they were at present framed, they were of the largest and vaguest kind. He had great hesitation about giving to the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees such a tremendous power as was proposed, if it was to be applied to cases of what the Speaker or Chairman might consider wilful Obstruction of the Business of the House. He was as much at sea now as he was at the beginning of these discussions as to what Obstruction meant. It might be applied by very virtuous persons, as well as by persons who wished to interfere with the real Business of the House.
§ MR. SALTfeared that if the present Amendment were inserted, it would have an effect upon the clause different from that which was desired; but the hon. and learned Member, no doubt, might attain his object by an Amendment introduced in the sixth or seventh line. He would suggest that there was a wide difference in the character of the action of the Chair when directed against an individual and when directed against a Party. When applied to an individual for offending against the Rules, he was perfectly satisfied that the Chair would always be supported by 99–100ths of the House; but when directed against a Party, the effect would be a more solid, desperate, and determined resistance on the part of that Party. He thought that in matters of that kind the House should be unanimous in its support of the Chair.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORmust say that the tone of the Conservative Party on this occasion, and the tone of at least two Members on the other side of the House, contrasted, he thought, agreeably with the tone of the Government with regard to this Resolution. He must say that he was perfectly at a loss to understand not merely that the Prime Minister proposed the penalties of this Rule, but that he proposed the imposition of this 1762 Rule at all. There was not a single power of curtailing debate or suppressing anything like irrelevant observation on the part of a Member or a Party that the right hon. Gentleman had not already. He defied the right hon. Gentleman to give a single instance in which the Business of the House could be delayed or disarranged which was not already quite sufficiently provided for without this Rule at all. The right hon. Gentleman, instead of doing away with this Rule altogether—and he submitted that he would be perfectly entitled and justified in doing away with it—proposed exactions which, he might say, shocked hon. Members on both sides of the House. Was the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman, or something like it, unnecessary in the face of the notorious fact of the earlier portion of this Session? Was not the use of this Rule on a former occasion—of course, it would be altogether out of Order for him to say a scandal—but was it not notorious that it gave a large amount of dissatisfaction and apprehension on every side and quarter and section of the House—Liberal and Tory and Radical? The House, of course, would naturally support the Chair as against an individual Member; but did the Prime Ministsr think they were such slaves of words as to call that the deliberate judgment of the House? This Resolution appeared to him to be described by one adjective and one adjective only—it was the anti-Irish Resolution of these Procedure Resolutions. To most Members it would be a great relief to be ordered to give up their Parliamentary labours; but it would be a deprivation to the constituencies, and he was surprised to see the right hon. Gentleman give his sanction to such a mischievous and ridiculous proposal.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he might state that when his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) first brought forward this Rule it was not his intention that it should be brought info operation in globo, but that it should act on Members individually. He (Lord John Manners) thought it best, under the circumstances, to make clear the will of the House that this Rule should not be brought into operation in the first-mentioned way. He considered that that was a favourable opportunity for some Members of the Government to come forward 1763 and say whether they were generally in favour of the words suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gorst) or not, or whether they were prepared to introduce some other words at the proper place in order to effectuate his intention.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that when the issue which the hon. and learned Member for Chatham desired to bring forward was raised, the Government would be prepared to state the course they would advise the House to take. It would be inconvenient to discuss at great length a general question upon an Amendment which it was generally admitted would settle nothing at all. He did not propose to go any further into the general question except to say that the observations of his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister seemed to have been somewhat misunderstood. They did not say that it might not be possible to consider some modifications of the Rule; but his right hon. Friend had never committed the Government to the proposition that the power existed of applying the Standing Order to several Members for the offence of one.
§ MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he thought that the Government would save time if they took the earliest possible opportunity of stating their intentions with regard to the Resolution. It would be inconvenient that they should resume the consideration of the Amendment without knowing the intentions of the Government with regard to the applicability of the Rule to such proceedings as took place earlier in the Session. He came down to the House one morning, and, finding the authority of the Chair in question, without having any opportunity of mastering the details of what had been going on, no debate or explanation being permissible, he voted in support of the authority of the Chair. He confessed that he was much astonished to find that some of the hon. Members whose names were mentioned, who he thought during his absence had been guilty of some direct challenge to the authority of the Chair, had only been enjoying slumber as he had for many hours. A recurrence of anything of that kind would be much to be regretted, and would greatly impair the dignity of the House. He hoped the Government, when in their judgment the proper time arrived, would be prepared to offer to the House some 1764 proposal which would prevent the recurrence of such proceedings.
§ MR. C. S. PARKERsaid, he hoped that before the Government committed themselves to any course with regard to this Resolution they would direct their attention to the fact that two questions of a different character were raised by it. Up to this point the debate had turned mostly on the question of Obstruction. He confessed in dealing with that he thought, in general, it would be well to punish the individual offender and not many collectively. At the same time, he remembered that soon after the present Rule was adopted by the House, the Speaker was understood to hold that a case might arise for applying it to a collective offence. But, besides the offence of Obstruction, the Rule dealt with the offence of disregarding the authority of the Chair. They had had an instance where that authority had been deliberately disregarded by a number of Members collectively. On one occasion 28 Members of the Irish Party, feeling themselves aggrieved by the course taken by the Speaker, refused to vote, in defiance of the authority of the Chair. It was possible that such an occurrence might happen again; and, unless the Rule could be applied collectively, it might be necessary to go through some 25, or, if it happened in Committee, even 50 divisions.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, he could not help thinking that the debate had taken a new departure since the speeches of the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India and the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Parker) had been addressed to the House, and that it would now appear that the Rule was to be used for collective punishment. If collective offences were punished collectively, it should be made clear that there were to be several offences and collective offences to be punished in different ways. It ought not to be left in doubt. The real difficulty with the Rule was that it had been misapplied. He could perfectly well recollect the extraordinary occasion to which reference had been made. He was many thousand miles away in a foreign country, amongst a foreign people. He had to consider how best he could justify the action of the Representative of the House of Commons, and he was totally unable to do so. The Rule was plainly intended 1765 by its author and by the House as an instrument to be used cautiously and against individuals; but it had been used incautiously and against bodies of Members. The Government ought to state plainly whether they wished the Speaker or Chairman to retain the power to sentence Members collectively. The justification of what had taken place on the occasion of the suspension of the Irish Members had never yet been uttered. It had been excused, it had been palliated; but it had been regretted by all. It had been regretted universally on all sides of the House. ["No, no!"] He heard some utterances now from behind the Treasury Bench, which showed that there were Ministerial Members of the House who delighted in the fact that on one occasion some 30 Members were sentenced to be banished from the House in the absence of three or four of them.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, one thing was plain, that they had been sitting there at great inconvenience for a month, and the Government must have found that whenever they had shown a disposition to be conciliatory they had made the best progress, and no impediments had been thrown in their way. [A. laugh.] The Home Secretary laughed, as he always laughed at a truism, and was prepared to deny it; but he could not have been in the House, or he would know that good progress had been made. If the Prime Minister wished to make progress now, he must take care that no injustice was done to any Party in the House. There could be no doubt for a moment that the Resolution as it was drawn was aimed at the Irish Party, and the Irish Party alone. The Prime Minister said that none of the Resolutions were framed against any Party; but he could not but say, looking at this Resolution as proposed to be amended by the Government in the light of past occurrences, that it was aimed against the Irish Party. Whatever might be thought of some of the proceedings that Party had carried on, there was one thing he held most dear, and that was that any Member should have justice and fair play. Whatever might be the voices that expressed dissent from behind the Treasury Bench, no one would deny that the proceedings the Chairman took on a recent occasion had left a rankling in the minds of Members which he should be sorry to have renewed. He said nothing against 1766 the Chairman, for he had the greatest regard for the right hon. Gentleman. It would be a gross abuse of power to place this Rule in the hands of any Chairman, this Rule allowing him to deal with the conduct of Members collectively, except with the greatest safeguards. When the Committee was heated, and a certain number of Members, for reasons they considered amply sufficient, placed themselves in antagonism to the majority, how easy it would be to say the whole of this number should be suspended, though some amongst them might not have acted actively. It would be fatal to the liberties of the House; and he humbly, earnestly, and energetically urged the Prime Minister to declare how far he intended to go with this Resolution, so that the House might know how to deal with the present Amendment.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that Her Majesty's Government were engaged in an attempt to mystify the House. It was for them to make their meaning clear and beyond the possibility of mistake. The Government must remember that there had been the very greatest division of opinion as to the construction put on the Standing Order by the Speaker and the Chairman on two particular occasions, and it was clearly the duty of the Government to make the understanding clear as to whether they meant the Rule to apply individually or collectively. He challenged the Attorney General to deny that if the Rule were passed as it stood, and were administered by a Judge, it would not be construed as meaning a collective application. He asked the Prime Minister if he was prepared to insert in the Resolution, after "Member," the words "or Members?" If that were done, the House would have a distinct issue before it; and till the intention of the Government were made clear, there need be no surprise if much valuable time were lost before they came to a decision on the point.
§ MR. NEWDEGATEwished to remind the House that on the night of the suspension of the Irish Members those Members left the House in a body.
§ MR. CALLANdenied the statement, and said that the Chairman had suddenly produced his list of Members, and that not one of the Irish Members left the House. Several of those Members 1767 had been in bed many hours when the suspension occurred. He had consulted the reporters of four daily papers, and they informed him that the name of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin McCarthy) was never read out by the Chairman, and the vote suspending him was not put to the House. Then the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum) was also suspended; but even the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds), who voted for the suspension of them all, would hardly get up and say that that hon. Member had been properly suspended.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he had listened with some attention to what had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), who anticipated the statement of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), that if this were an Act of Parliament, it would not be read collectively. That was not so, because, under the Act generally known as Lord Brougham's, words in the singular number were allowed also to be read in the plural. He was astonished to hear hon. Members opposite say that the Government ought now to mitigate the severity of the action of the House towards private Members; because when the Government proposed the 1st Resolution they were told that they ought not to interfere with free discussion, but ought to punish private Members for acting obstructively. And the noble Viscount (Viscount Sandon), whom, he regretted to think, they would no longer hear in that House, said—"I would increase the penalty upon private Members." Butnow the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) stated that this Resolution was drawn against the Irish Members. Why, the Resolution was drawn by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), and not by the Prime Minister. [Sir WALTER B. BARTTELOT: The Amendments.] The hon. and gallant Member's assertion was that the Resolution as it stood was directed against the Irish Members. [Sir WALTER B. BARTTELOT: As proposed by the Government.] The Resolution was the same as that drawn and passed by the right hon. Member for North Devon at the time he was Chancellor of the Exchequer. The hon. and gallant Baronet did not say the Amendments were drawn against the Irish Party, but the Resolution.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, that that was not his statement. He spoke of the Resolution as amended by the Government, and it was with regard to the Resolution so amended that he made his statement.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, that the hon. and gallant Baronet's statement was that this Resolution was drawn against the Irish Members. And the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Lowther) now said that he voted as to the action of the Chairman without inquiring what took place. Was the right hon. Gentleman in such a state of ignorance that he concluded something had taken place which had not? But now all the responsibility for this conduct was thrown off, and right hon. Gentlemen representing the Opposition were objecting to the action of the Government, which on a former occasion they supported and the responsibility for which they shared. The Amendment raised a very small point, and it would be far more convenient to wait for the Prime Minister's statement till the question, as a whole, came before the House in a practical form. The matter could not be discussed now, for the Amendment, as he had said, did not raise the whole question. The Government would undertake, when the time came, to make a statement on the entire subject.
COLONEL STANLEYsaid, that the Government objected to the time of the Amendment, and asked the House not to demand explanations till they came to another Amendment which might or might not be moved. He might contend, however, that the point now raised was one of considerable importance, with respect to which the House had a right to press for an answer. The hon. and learned Gentleman had said that the Resolution was originally framed by the Leader of the Opposition. That might be so in form; but since the Resolution was first submitted to his right hon. Friend circumstances had occurred which had altogether altered the construction put upon it, and it was now necessary, in order to prevent misapprehensions, that the House should know whether the Government intended the Rule to be applied individually or collectively. The sole question was whether, according to the Rule, an offending Member should be Named to the House, or whether the 1769 Rule should be the means of taking action against a Party?
§ MR. DODSONobserved that hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed anxious to convey to the House that they were not responsible for the Rule in its present shape.
§ MR. DODSONaccepted, and was glad to hear, the correction of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. As to the interpretation of the Rule in a collective sense, he would draw attention to the debate of the 31st of January, 1881, when they had an All-night Sitting. The late Home Secretary (Sir R. Assheton Cross) then said, appealing to the Speaker—
I put it to you, Sir, whether all these speeches, if they he taken, not one by one, hut in combination, do not show that there is a decided combination for the purpose of wilful and persistent Obstruction? I would ask further, whether, under this order of the House, you have not the power of putting a stop to these proceedings?"—[3 Hansard, cclvii. 1943–4.]That was inviting a collective application of the Rule. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon rose later in the Sitting, endorsed what the right hon. Gentleman had stated, and went on to ask for some expression of opinion on the part of the Government in order to strengthen the hands of Mr. Deputy Speaker to put down what he was fully convinced was nothing short of Obstruction. He thought the instance he had given was sufficient to show that the Rule had already been applied to collective Obstruction, the initiative having been taken by right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, it was not unusual on Bills in Committee to move Amendments for the sake of eliciting opinions from the Government. The proceeding on that occasion was analogous to that, their object being to get an expression of opinion from the Government. The right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down seemed entirely to have missed the point. He quoted cases which had nothing whatever to do with the question at issue. He really believed that if the Speaker's attention had been drawn to the fact, the right hon. Gentleman would have been called to Order on the ground of irrelevance. They wished that the Speaker or the Chairman should deal with each particular case, and give the 1770 House an opportunity of judging of such case. No other course would e tolerated for a moment in a Court of Justice; and it was to secure the ends of justice that they supported the Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend. It would be unsatisfactory to leave the question to be dealt with subsequently by a Proviso, for the Government might then be able to shelve the question altogether.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he did not altogether agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir R. Assheton Cross) in the remarks he had made upon the speech of his right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson). The right hon. Gentleman said that the passages quoted from previous debates by his right hon. Friend were altogether irrelevant to the present issue. Of course, the question raised by the Speaker in 1881 distinctly pointed to the question of combination. He (Sir William Harcourt) did not wish, however, to press that matter too far; but he certainly did remember that in the particular instance in question, when the objection was taken and referred to the Speaker, the ruling of the right hon. Gentleman in regard to that particular action of the Chairman of Ways and Means was a justification of it in view of there having been a combination. Consequently, the Speaker did on that occasion, in his ruling, distinctly regard it as being germane to the action of the Chairman of Committee. But, as he had said, he did not wish to push that point too far. Certainly, if it were asked, as a general proposition, whether the action ought to be against Members singly or collectively, he should say that it ought to be singly and not collectively; but, at the same time, he feared that there might be occasions when the action was really of a collective character, and therefore all the Government wished was to have something to carry out the penal operation of the Rule in both cases. As a general principle the Resolution would be applied to Members singly, but it would not altogether exclude particular cases where there might have been a collective action which ought to be dealt with as a whole. That was a fair statement of the case; but he could not agree with the right hon. Gentleman opposite that it would be a convenient course to take the 1771 discussion at that point upon an Amendment which did not meet it at all, but he thought it would be better to take it upon an Amendment which distinctly raised the point. In a case of this kind it was undoubtedly the desire of the Government to collect the opinion of the House for the discussion which took place, and he hoped when the Government had collected the opinion of the House, that they would endeavour to carry that opinion out. It would, however, be highly improper to state what the views and intentions of the Government were before they had had an opportunity of collecting the opinion of the House and of endeavouring to meet the views of the House upon the subject. So far as he gathered from the course the discussion had taken, it seemed to him that there were two points which had to be met. First of all the general and governing principle was that there should be single action, but that they should not exclude collective action, if it was necessary. The Government would be prepared, although they would not bind themselves to the actual words, to introduce an Amendment something to this effect—
Provided also, That no more than one Member shall be named at the same time, unless several Members present together have concurred in an act for which they are named.The object, in the first instance, would be to provide that as a general rule the Speaker should only Name a single Member; but if a number of Members were palpably acting together, then they might be dealt with collectively. As he had framed the Proviso, it would obviate the objection which had been taken, that any Member who was not present could be Named. It required that the Member Named should be present, and also that if there were a number of Members present who were concurring in a particular act, that they might also be Named if occasion should arise. He had felt it right to explain the intentions of the Government, but at the same time he had no desire to encourage hereafter a practice of discussing an Amendment which could not be decided. The Government submitted this Amendment now, but they entertained the hope that the House would refrain from discussing it until the time arrived when it could be properly proposed. He trusted that the announcement he had now made would 1772 have the effect of shortening the discussion upon the Amendment at present before the House.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that the words which had just been read by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, no doubt, altered to some slight extent the effect of the Rule. He did not know whether the Government considered it proper that the House should proceed to criticize those words now. There were only two courses open: either instantly to proceed to criticize the words, because they were words skilfully framed and involving a secondary meaning which might not easily be discerned; or, in the second place, to take the more convenient course of adjourning the debate until tomorrow, in order to enable the House to ascertain what was the real meaning to be attached to these words. The utmost range of the concession made by the Government was this—that only one Member should be Named at the same moment, but that any number of Members, if they were believed by the Speaker to have concurred in any act for which a Member was Named, might also be Named and suspended on the same occasion. Now, what was concurrence? How was concurrence to be determined? Concurrence might be manifested by speech or by act, or it might be merely a determination in the mind of Mr. Speaker. The right hon. Gentleman now in the Chair, or the Speaker of the future, versed in the thought-reading of which the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had spoken, might convict a number of Members of concurrence in an act simply because he supposed them on general grounds to be in sympathy with the Member Named. There were two great points to which hon. Members on that side of the House attached importance. In the first place, that a Member should only be suspended because of an event immediately arising, and not on account of something which had taken place at a previous Sitting; and, secondly, that the Members suspended should be suspended singly and not en masse. In those respects he did not think the words proposed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman afforded any very great security to the House. The case of the Government was wretchedly bad before the House were favoured with the speech of that great logician the President of 1773 the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson); but, bad as it was, the right hon. Gentleman had succeeded in making it infinitely worse. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, conscious of the weakness of his own arguments, was not prepared to take upon himself the additional weakness of the arguments of his right hon. Colleague, and he simply slid, by the speech of the President of the Local Government Board by declaring that the quotations he had read were not irrelevant. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had risen in his place, and, brandishing a volume of Hansard before their faces, by way of showing that the Conservative Party were responsible for the monstrous reading given in this Parliament to the Conservative Rule made a few years ago, he had cited what? Not a declaration of opinion by the Leaders of the Conservative Party, but an appeal made to the authority of the Speaker by two right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench, as to the construction of a Standing Order. The Speaker was asked on that occasion by the late Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether or not a certain course of conduct pursued by certain Members of the House might or might not be brought under the operation of the Standing Order. The same question, although in different words, was put by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). Now, in the first place, neither of those right hon. Gentlemen made any declaration as to the meaning of the Standing Order, but both of them simply submitted a question to the Speaker, and if the Speaker had resolved that question in the affirmative, it still could not have been asserted that the Rule could have been applied to long past affairs. The principle would still have been maintained that the Rule was only applicable to events and circumstances immediately arising. Even if the Speaker had replied in the affirmative, it would actually have been necessary, in accordance with the original interpretation of the Rule, to proceed separately against each offending Member. The questions put by the two right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench did not authorize or support in any way the subsequent 1774 action taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means (Mr. Lyon Playfair). It would still have been necessary to proceed separately against each offending Member. The Speaker on that occasion gave the ruling which had been quoted as an evidence of the right hon. Gentleman's opinion that collective action might be taken upon the Rule; but how was it the right hon. Gentleman really acted? Did he act upon his own ruling, and suppress whole bodies of Members of the House? Not at all; rather than act upon his own ruling and his own view, the right hon. Gentleman resorted to an act unprecedented in history. He chose to interpose his personal will between a certain Party in that House and free speech, and the right hon. Gentleman had preferred to take that course rather than put upon the Standing Order the interpretation which the Government now put upon it. In such a state of facts, how could the Government have the intellectual audacity—although, perhaps, intellectual was a bad word to apply to it—how could the Government have the audacity to come to the House and place upon the Standing Order an interpretation which the Speaker had refused to apply to it, although ruling in its favour? The Attorney General had appealed to the application of the Rule with very had success. He had referred to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Viscount Sandon), who had expressed his willingness to apply the Rule, however severe it might be, against any Member who was guilty of Obstruction in the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman next alluded to the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot), who spoke of the Rule as being directed against the Irish Party, and the Irish Party only. The hon. and learned Attorney General professed to find an inconsistency between these two speeches, but there was none at all. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool said he was willing to assent to the punishment, however severe, of a person guilty of wilful Obstruction. So did the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex. But what the hon. and gallant Member objected to was that the Rule passed in the late Parliament, and consistently applied to that purpose only by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North 1775 Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), should have been taken up by a Liberal Government and enlarged and misapplied and misused, according to that ancient rule of Whig Governments which induced them to take great delight in burnishing up all the weapons of offence which were handed down to them by the Tories. What Member in that House knew the merits of the case? The merits were wrapped in an impenetrable veil, which even the Day of Judgment would not remove. On one occasion 16 Members of the House were suspended. And for what? The House had been for weeks and weeks debating an obnoxious Bill which put an end to trial by jury in Ireland, which created a batch of new offences, which legalized nocturnal visits to the dwellings of the people, which enabled the police to clear away all strangers, which authorized the suppression of the Press and the liberty of speech, which enabled the Lord Lieutenant to swamp whole districts with a blood tax, and which, in point of fact, destroyed every vestige of liberty in Ireland. The House had been for six weeks engaged in debating that Bill. At various times they had received an acknowledgment from the Head of the Government that the Opposition had not transcended the bounds of reason. At what point could the Prime Minister say that they had transcended the bounds of reason? It would be beyond the bounds of reason for any man to decide. The Attorney General was hardly justified in the attack he had made upon the right hon. Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) for desiring to become acquainted with the intentions of the Government. What the House wished was that they should hear those intentions now, and not have to wait for them for an indefinite time. It was said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary that this was not an Amendment which showed the merits of the Standing Order. He (Mr. Sexton) contended respectfully that it did. They wanted to know on the threshold of the Resolution what it would mean when in working order. The Resolution said "any Member;" but, so far as its operation had hitherto gone, it might as well have said "any or every Irish Member," because the English Members had been practically exempt from its working. He believed there was an English Mem- 1776 ber (Mr. Whalley) who was at one time the moral Colleague of the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) in protecting the interests of the Protestant religion in that House, who fell nominally under the operation of the Standing Order. But the hon. Member on that occasion did not suffer any inconvenience from it, and ever since then it had been directed against Irish Members and Irish Members only. Therefore, the Irish Members needed no suggestion from the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Bartelott) to assure them that the Standing Order was directed against them. But if it was to be used against them, they had a special reason for demanding from the Government on the threshold of the consideration of the Resolution, which was the pivot upon which everything was to turn, a statement of their intentions. The Amendment of the Government proposed to multiply the punishment. Instead of a day's suspension for a first offence it was to be increased to a week; instead of a week's suspension for a second offence it was to be increased to a month: and instead of a month's suspension for a third offence it was to be increased by suspending the offending Member for the rest of the Session. There was another and a significant penalty to which the Prime Minister had not alluded. At present, a Member threatened with suspension was allowed to rise in his place and defend himself. But the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, in the resolute pursuit of the policy of the gag, already so fully exemplified in the 1st Resolution, had so amended the Standing Order that hereafter a Member threatened with suspension would have no opportunity of defending himself.
§ MR. SPEAKERI must point out to the hon. Member that he is now debating the Standing Order at large. He should confine himself to the Amendment before the House.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, he would not further refer to the Standing Order at large. He would simply explain that he was endeavouring to point out that the action of the Irish Members on the Amendment now before the House, and in regard to subsequent Amendments, would be governed by the explanations they had now received from the Govern- 1777 ment. He hoped he had said enough to convince the Government that the Irish Members had special reasons for desiring a full explanation, as they did not know in what manner the Rule would be used against them. They would be glad to be convinced that the Standing Order would be used against individual offenders and not against Members collectively; and although the explanations offered by the Government placed the Resolution in a different light from that in which it appeared at first, the Irish Members could not consent to proceed further with it until the Amendments of the Government had been placed upon the Paper. The Government would only have to blame themselves if the progress of Business was delayed in consequence of their having refused to make reasonable concessions.
§ MR. JACOB BRIGHTsaid, that throughout the discussion there had been one remarkable feature in it, and it was this—that there had only been one discordant voice against confining the Resolution to individual suspension. Every Member who had spoken during the last two or three hours had been against collective, and in favour of individual suspension. The only hon. Member who had spoken in a different sense, and he did not think the opinion of the hon. Member was very strong, was the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. Parker), who had referred to certain circumstances which occurred in the House some time ago. Those circumstances, however, in all probability would never occur again; and he thought that to frame a Resolution in regard to that single event would be a most irrational proceeding. He trusted that when the Government declared their opinion they would take into consideration the views which the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) had expressed. He (Mr. Bright) thought it was a most odious thing to ask the House to suspend half-a-dozen Members in a batch. If he were asked whether a Member ought to be suspended or not, he could, if he were present, say "Yes" or "No," because he could judge of the conduct of that Member; but if he were asked to form a judgment on half-a-dozen Members—and he undertook to say that hon. Members sitting on those Benches would be better informed as to the character 1778 of any action taken by Members in the House even than the authorities of the House—if he were asked to pass judgment upon the conduct of half-a-dozen men, in all probability he should feel inclined to say that one or two deserved to be suspended, but that one or two others did not; and rather than vote for the suspension of the entire number, he would prefer not to vote at all.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, he had listened very carefully to the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, and in his opinion his right hon. and learned Friend had expressed the views of the Government with perfect clearness. At the same time, he was bound to accept the complaints of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) and the hon. Member for Manchester (Mr. Jacob Bright), who seemed to be labouring under some misapprehension; and he would endeavour to make the position of the Government more clear than it was at present. Most of the observations made by hon. Members applied to the Standing Order as it was, and not to the Standing Order as amended by the Amendment which had been read to the House by his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary. As the Standing Order stood, and as it had been construed by the Chairman of Committees, it amounted to the creation of a new offence under certain circumstances—namely, the offence of constructive Obstruction; and it had been called constructive Obstruction, or conspiracy, to obstruct the Business of the House. It was upon that view of the Standing Order that certain hon. Members had been suspended en masse some time ago. Hon. Members opposite spoke as though the only question was the infliction of punishment, and as though all that they desired was that the punishment should be inflicted singly |and individually. That left the offence of constructive Obstruction unt touched, and it might be possible for a future Chairman of Committees to declare a number of Members who were not present at the time to be guilty of constructive Obstruction. All that was necessary to meet the views of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite would be to provide that the punishment should be put separately to the House, so that the House might order punishment in some cases and reject it in others. The Govern- 1779 ment, however, in the Amendment they had proposed, intended to go further than the right hon. Gentleman the late Home Secretary (Sir R. Assheton Cross). So far as they were concerned, they gave up in future, at all events, all idea of constructive Obstruction. That, he thought, was perfectly clear; but he would read once more the Amendment as it had been read by his right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary; and he would add, further, that if it did not carry out the intentions of the Government, they would be ready at the proper time to accept any Amendment which might be suggested for the purpose of making its meaning clear. What they said in the Amendment was—
Provided also, That no more than one Member shall be named at the same time, unless several Members present together have concurred in an act for which they are named.The Amendment, by providing that the Members Named must be present, did away with any question as to a Member being Named in his absence. Then what was the kind of act which the Government had in their mind? It would be in the recollection of the House that last Session a number of Members were ordered by the Speaker to leave the House, and they refused collectively and together to do so. They were, consequently, all of them at once suspended for what was a collective act.
§ MR. PARNELLThey were suspended for disregardiug the authority of the Chair.
§ MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that was so. They were supended for disregarding the authority of the Chair; but it was quite clear that in such a case the punishment ought to be inflicted en bloc, and it was not necessary for such an offence that the House should be put to the trouble of dividing in each individual case. But it was only in such a case—namely, where a number of Members concurred in disregarding the authority of the Chair, that the Standing Order would be put in force in that way. In all other cases he agreed with previous speakers that the punishment should be individually inflicted.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, that after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain), the House, probably, might not feel disposed to prolong the conversation at the present moment, be- 1780 cause the right hon. Gentleman had intimated that if the words he had read did not carry out the promises he had made, the Government would be willing to alter their Amendment. Now, there was just one word in the Amendment to which he wished to direct the attention of the Government. It was the word "concur." The Amendment read—
Unless several Members present together have concurred in the Act for which they are named.He thought the words "have committed an act" would better convey the intentions of the Government. It would be easy to determine whether an act had been committed by hon. Members acting together; but it would be very difficult to determine whether certain Members present had concurred in an act.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he had listened to the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman that the Government meant to exclude the idea of constructive Obstruction; but he would beg to point out that the preceding Government never contemplated the idea of constructive Obstruction when they passed this Rule; and yet, notwithstanding the fact that constructive Obstruction was not contemplated by the preceding Government, constructive Obstruction was discovered in the Rule by the Presiding Authority. If the present Government wished to exclude constructive Obstruction from the proposed Rule, it would not at all do to exclude it in intention. Let them exclude it in words, and he did not see that the present form of words at all excluded constructive Obstruction. It excluded a marvellous stretch of constructive Obstruction which suspended an absent Member; but he thought he might say with tolerable certainty that the probabilities were extremely remote that that stretch of constructive Obstruction would ever again make its appearance in Parliament. There were some things that could only happen once, and he thought that constructive Obstruction, leading to the suspension of Irish Members of Parliament for certain acts, could only happen once, and even that once was too often. The provision read by the Home Secretary specified that only one Member was to be Named at the same time, unless several of the Members present had concurred in an act for which they were Named. Were they to concur in a permissible act, and 1781 were they to be Named notwithstanding; or were they only to concur in an act of disobedience to the authority of the Chair? If it was necessary that they should have concurred in an act of disobedience to the authority of the Chair, why were not those words introduced? Let the Government amend their proposed Amendment by inserting, after the word "act," the words "disobedience to the authority of the Chair;" and, furthermore, if there was to be any real protection, he ventured to suggest that there ought to be such a thing as a warning given. Before a Member was excluded from the House for a week, or a month, or for the entire Session, there ought to be some distinct assurance that an explicit warning should be given. On the last occasion of constructive Obstruction there was no warning whatever given; and, whatever the intentions of the Government might be, no warning might be given next year or the year after. He understood that Her Majesty's Government had given the assurance that if this Rule was not found to carry out their intentions, they would be prepared to consider the Amendment. Well, he ventured to think that if half-a-dozen Members had been turned out of the House on a reading of the Rule, contrary to the express intentions of Her Majesty's Government, it would be a little too late to introduce an Amendment. As they had a special Autumn Sitting—although it was promising to become a Business Sitting—for the discussion of the Rules, they ought to take advantage of it to introduce all the necessary modifications of the existing Standing Orders forthwith. The present form of words, looking at it with a somewhat experienced eye, he pronounced to be totally inadequate to prevent the abuses of which so many hon. Members complained.
§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYpointed out that what had taken place justified the House in entering into the discussion of the question. For his own part, he freely acknowledged the value of the assurances which had been obtained from the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) and the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt). He understood that the House had obtained two assurances from the right hon. Gentlemen opposite. First of all, the Government 1782 proposed to abolish once and for ever constructive Obstruction; and if their Amendment did not carry out that intention other words would be introduced. The only doubt or difficulty he felt was whether these words did at all carry out the intention which seemed to be the desire of the Government. He was inclined to doubt whether they were sufficient for the end they had in view. He would suggest that the Amendment now before the House should be withdrawn. There would then come an Amendment upon which the Government might give effect to the first part of the intention they had indicated. But, as it was impossible to discuss the matter at the present moment, he thought the best course would be to adjourn the debate. The Government would then have an opportunity of placing upon the Paper the Proviso they intended to introduce; hon. Members would know what to support and what to oppose, and the House would be able to arrive at a satisfactory decision.
MR. GORSTsaid, that, with the permission of the House, he would now withdraw the Amendment on the understanding that the debate would be adjourned, and that the House would have an opportunity of seeing the words proposed to be introduced by the Government upon the Paper before the question was again discussed. He begged to ask the leave of the House to withdraw the Amendment. ["No!"] Then he should certainly divide the House.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. and learned Member is desirous of withdrawing his Amendment?
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned." —(Mr. Gladstone.)
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, they had on that side of the House been frequently taunted by hon. Gentlemen opposite with not showing a spirit of independence towards the Prime Minister. He proposed that evening to show hon. Gentlemen opposite that they were independent when they had opinions of their own. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had proposed that the debate be now adjourned. It was only 10 minutes after 12 o'clock, and it 1783 appeared to him that that was an exceedingly early hour to break off the debate. The House had been called together at an inconvenient time in the Autumn of the year for a specific purpose. That purpose had been much complained of by hon. Gentlemen opposite; but the Prime Minister had stated, as he understood him, before the close of the last part of the Session, that he intended to limit the Business during the present Sitting to the discussion of the Rules of Procedure, and any other Business of immediate importance. They had now been sitting for more than a month, and they had only arrived at the 9th Resolution.
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONrose to Order. He wished to call the attention of the Speaker to Resolution No. 5, and to ask whether the hon. Gentleman was not contravening it?
§ MR. SPEAKERI understood the hon. Member to be giving reasons against the adjournment of the debate, and, so far as he has already gone, I have seen no reason for my interposition.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he was quite sure the noble Lord had not read the Resolution to which he referred. Looking at that Resolution—["Question!"] If the House would not allow him to refer to the Resolution, he must point out, with all respect, that it would be exceedingly difficult to know precisely how far he might go in moving or in debating an adjournment. They had had as yet exceedingly little experience of the New Rule. Of course, it was not his intention in any way to violate that Rule. He had been in favour of its being passed—["Question!" "Order!"] Well, then, he would refer to the immediate Question before the House, and that was the question whether they were to adjourn the debate at this early hour. He had stated as one of the reasons why they should not adjourn that they had been called together at a late period of the Autumn for the purpose of discussing certain Rules.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLrose to Order. He wished to draw attention to Resolution No. 5, which provided that the Speaker or Chairman of Committees might call the attention of a Member to continued irrelevance or tedious repetition.
§ MR.LABOUCHEREsaid, he thought that the most tedious of human beings could not be considered tedious when he had only been for three minutes on his legs. He would go back again to what he had been saying when the noble Lord interrupted him. They had been called together—["Question!" "Order!"] That was the whole point of the question. They were there to discuss specific Business, and why were they asked to adjourn the debate at the present moment? He supposed it would be within the scope of the Question to consider whether they should adjourn—for there was no mincing the matter—in order that the Motion of the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Gloucestershire (Mr. Yorke)should not be brought under the operation of the Half-past Twelve o'clock Rule. Now, he considered that that was not immediate and important Business. He had no intention of going into the question involved in that Resolution—namely, the liberation of certain hon. Gentlemen opposite from Kilmainham. But he must say, for his own part, he considered that that Resolution was a direct insult to the Prime Minister.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is not entitled to enter into that question.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he would not say another word about it. The House had 17 Resolutions before them. They had already been four weeks discussing those Resolutions, and they had only reached the 9th. Some of the Resolutions still remaining to be discussed were most important; and he gathered from hon. Gentlemen opposite that they would strongly oppose the appointment of Grand Committees. It seemed to him that as time was a most important matter they ought not to waste a moment of the time of the House upon vague historic discussions, when that time might be employed to much greater advantage in continuing the discussion of these Resolutions. Besides these Resolutions, they had also a most important question coming before the House—namely, the question whether these Resolutions should be made Standing Orders. He also gathered from hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was their intention to oppose the proposition for making the Resolutions Standing Orders. ["Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERI must call upon the hon. Gentleman to apply himself to the Question before the House which is that of the adjournment of the debate.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he would confine himself to the immediate Question before the House. He thought that if they did adjourn the debate, they ought not to adjourn it before 1 o'clock, and he would state the reason why. On Thursday or Friday last, a debate took place upon the question whether they ought to break off all Business at 12 o'clock, and it was decided that they ought not to do so. Many very able arguments, no doubt, were urged by hon. Gentlemen opposite in favour of breaking off at 12 o'clock, but the House decided that they should go on later. The Question then that was really before the House was at what hour they ought to adjourn this debate. It was known that there was a Resolution down on the Paper to follow the present debate, in regard to the imprisonment of certain hon. Members below the Gangway on the other side of the House. ["Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Gentleman is distinctly out of Order in referring to any other Question upon the Paper.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he was desirous as far as possible of keeping within the Rules; but he had very great difficulty in knowing how he was to discuss the Question without infringing the Rules. The whole thing was the limit of time—whether they were to adjourn now, or to adjourn a little later—and it must be involved in that question whether they were at that late hour of the night to go into a lengthened and protracted debate. He thought they ought not, but that it was more reasonable they should go on with the Resolutions for another quarter of an hour, and that then they could do as they usually did on such occasions, adjourn the House. He certainly took that view, and he should therefore oppose the adjournment of the debate, and, if it became necessary, he should take the liberty of dividing the House upon it.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, he was of opinion that the House would do better to hasten forward the Business with which they had been specially 1786 called upon to deal, rather than adjourn the debate at that unusually early hour. They were in ordinary Sessions in the habit of Sitting until 3 o'clock in the morning, or even later, when their time was occupied by Business of several kinds; but there had never been an intention of taking any other Business during this adjourned Session than that of the Procedure Resolutions now before them, and, therefore, he thought the discussion should be continued for at least an hour longer. If the debates were to be suspended as early as was now proposed, he could see no guarantee that the end of the Session would be reached before Christmas. Many Members wished to get back to their homes, and he hoped hon. Members opposite would not be appealed to in vain to allow the discussion of the Resolutions to proceed without interruption. Under the circumstances, he should feel it his duty to vote against the Motion of the Prime Minister for the adjournment of the debate.
§ MR. MELLORsaid, he hoped the adjournment would not be agreed to. The discussion of the Resolutions was the sole purpose for which they had assembled, and he was certain that any interference with that object would be unsatisfactory to their constituents. Hon. Members, he thought, could hardly be aware, when they supported the adjournment, that to this Resolution alone there remained 30 Amendments to be disposed of; and, under the circumstances, he sincerely trusted the House would not assent to the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman. It could not, of course, be denied that the adjournment of the debate might properly be agreed to in order to admit of the discussion of some question of immediate importance or great political interest; but no such pressing reason had been given for the adjournment on this occasion, while certainly on that side of the House there was a very strong feeling against it. That being so, he contended that the Resolutions should be proceed with without interruption until they were finished, in which case there was a prospect of their being concluded in a reasonable time; but if the discussion were to be suspended at that hour in order to make room for other Business, it would be used as a precedent on other occasions, and so many questions would crop up 1787 that the Resolutions would not be got through by the end of the year.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, he believed that hon. Members on both sides of the House would recognize the validity of the arguments which had been urged against the adjournment of the debate. He would remind the House that the words proposed by the Government to be included in the Resolution were of great interest, and that the revision of them which had been suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) had brought about a near approach to an agreement upon the subject. It seemed to him, under these circumstances, most lamentable to have to adjourn the consideration of a question which every hon. Member would admit to be deserving of attention, in order to enter upon Business which certainly had no such claim upon them. For that reason, and because he regarded the Business proposed to be taken up as frivolous and vexatious, and moreover calculated to disturb the growing peace of Ireland, he should vote against the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. CAUSTONappealed to the Government not to adjourn the debate at that hour for the purpose of entering upon the Motion of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Yorke). He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that many hon. Members, amongst them himself, had had Notices on the Paper which for months past they had in vain sought opportunities of discussing. He considered it unreasonable that, having been summoned to deal with the Resolutions on Procedure, they should be called on to adjourn at half-past 12 o'clock in order to enter upon unimportant Business. For his own part he was strongly against the proposal, and he hoped the Prime Minister would rise in his place, and, recognizing the general feeling of the House, withdraw his Motion for Adjournment.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, before the Prime Minister replied to the appeal of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Colchester (Mr. Causton), he wished to draw attention to the "wonderful unanimity" of the Liberal Party in opposing its Leader. ["Order!"]
§ MR. SPEAKERI must call upon the hon. Member to confine his observations to the Question before the House.
§ MR. LEWISwould at once submit to the ruling of the Chair. They were, it appeared, to be prevented in the satisfactory disposal of the Motion of the hon. Member for East Gloucester (Mr. Yorke) because of the action of several Members opposite who opposed the adjournment of the debate on the ground that, in the opinion of the Liberal Party, the Motion of the Prime Minister was totally unworthy of support. It might have been expected that, having regard to the convenience and Business of the House generally, the Liberal Party, at any rate, would have supported the Motion of the Prime Minister; but, notwithstanding that the right hon. Gentleman had risen in his place to move the adjournment of the debate, in order that other matters might be discussed, hon. Members in favour of the Motion were told by those who sat around the Prime Minister that the right hon. Gentleman was entirely wrong, and that he must submit to defeat on division.
§ MR. CALLANappealed to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), seeing that his object had been attained, to save the House the trouble of dividing on his Motion for the adjournment of the House.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, he also would appeal to the hon. Member for Northampton to withdraw his Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Original Question put, and agreed to.
§ Further Consideration of the Standing Order (Order in Debate) 28 February 1880, deferred till To-morrow.
§ House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before One o'clock.