§
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Main Question [20th February],
That when it shall appear to Mr. Speaker, or to the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House, during any Debate, to be the evident sense of the House, or of the Committee, that the Question be now put, he may so inform the House or the Committee; and, if a Motion he made 'That the Question be now put,' Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, shall forthwith put such Question; and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, the Question under discussion shall be put forthwith: Provided that the Question shall not be decided in the affirmative, if a Division be taken, unless it shall appear to have been supported by more than two hundred Members, or unless it shall appear to have been opposed by less than forty Members and supported by more than one hundred Members."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
§ Main Question again proposed.
§ Debate resumed.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF,in rising to move, as an Amendment, in lines 1 and 2, to leave out the words "or to the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House," said, he hoped that in moving this Amendment it would not be understood as implying anything derogatory to the right hon. Gentleman who then occupied the Chair, as he merely brought forward this Amendment on public grounds. Nor had he wished, when he called attention to the right hon. Gentleman having voted in a Division on a Bill while presiding in the Chair, to do anything but to mark the 75 incongruity of the position in which the Chairman of Committees would be placed when he presided over the discussion of a Bill in which he was himself personally interested, and to prevent the Chairman from being exposed to any suspicion of partizanship. There had been for many years an increasing desire to pay respect to the authority of the Chair. Of late there had been no contest for the Office of Speaker. In the days when contests for the Office were the rule the decision of the Speaker had on more than one occasion been challenged and overborne by the House. The last instance occurred during the early years of the Speakership of Mr. Shaw Lefevre; but there had been no such occurrence since the time when the Speaker was first elected by the general consent of the House for qualities recognized generally by the House. In former times Speakers occasionally performed acts which called forth remonstrance. In a work written by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, full both of literary interest and political knowledge, they read that Sir Fletcher Norton gave offence in a debate on the Royal Marriages Bill. The writer said of him—
In the dearth of oratorical courage which seemed to endanger the Bill, Mr. Speaker Norton was induced to descend into the lists; but he was no sooner hack beneath his canopy than he found himself pelted with sarcasms.The more a Speaker was a partizan the less was the authority which he possessed. The more impartial the Speaker, the more was he respected, and the more was the House inclined to accept his decisions. The Speaker might be placed in a very anomalous position by being made the initiator of the clôture. History told them that in the days of Mr. Speaker Lenthall or Finch the occupant of the Chair was an instrument of the Court. They all knew how the Speaker interrupted Sir John Elliot, saying that he had received a command to interrupt anyone intending to throw aspersions on the Ministers of State. In these days such conduct would be impossible, but hereafter might not Speakers be chosen who should resemble the Speakers of the past? If a partizan Speaker were elected, how could they prevent collusion between him and the Government of the day? No future Speaker would act like the Speaker of Charles I., and desire a Member addressing the House to stop; 76 but, in collusion with the Ministers, he might accept their cries of impatience as the evident sense of the House, and then intervene between the House and the Member about to impugn the Ministers. It appeared to him, therefore, that the introduction of the Speaker's name into the Resolution was likely to damage the high position which he held. It should be remembered that high position and character did not always preserve exalted functionaries from imputation. There was not a Member of the House who did not know that imputations had, rightly or wrongly, been levelled against Judges with regard to the trial of Election Petitions. The objections to a trial of an Election Petition by only one Judge had been recognized by the House, which a few years ago passed an Act making it necessary that two Judges should sit together to try an Election Petition. With regard to the relative position of the Speaker and that of the Chairman of Committees, the House had already established a very great difference. In that book of which they had all heard, but the authority of which had been a little shaken by the proceedings of last night—namely, the work of Sir Erskine May, it was stated that there was a distinct difference between the powers of the Chairman in Committee and the powers of the Speaker in the Chair. When a sudden disorder arose, the Speaker, without any Motion, was enabled to resume his place in the Chair and to quell disorder that had arisen in Committee; and when there was a count he had to come and verify the number. Therefore, it was perfectly plain that the Chairman of Committees of Ways and Means had not yet been recognized by the House as the actual substitute of the Speaker. When subjects were argued before the Speaker, all the questions that were dealt with were questions of principle; details were matter of accident. The Speaker had precedents to go upon for the length of a debate. When measures had occupied a certain length of time, the Speaker was able to say when the limit ought not to be exceeded. But by what precedents could the Chairman of Ways and Means decide? Details, which with the Speaker were matters of accident, were the principal part of the discussion in Committee. There were more than 1,000 Amendments on the Land Bill. Suppose the 77 Chairman of Committees, with the best will in the world, had to declare closure on all those 1,000 Amendments, and not only on them, but on every Motion to report Progress, by what criterion was he to decide that the time had arrived for him to make use of his powers? Would not his declaring closure on many of those matters produce the very Obstruction that the House was trying to avoid? There was a great difference between the position occupied by the Speaker and that occupied by the Chairman of Ways and Means. The Speaker was surrounded by every guarantee of neutrality. He was invested, not only with the Office of Speaker, but with other offices of very great importance—such as Trustee of the British Museum, Controller of the National Debt, and member of very important Boards; and, altogether, his position was perfectly different from that of a mere Member of the House. At one time the Speaker could not be replaced; and in order to replace the Speaker it was necessary to bring in a new Bill, and before that Bill could be brought in, it was necessary to obtain the assent of the Sovereign. When the time came for the retirement of the Speaker from his Office, he was rewarded with the highest dignities by the Crown. Means were given to him to support his new dignity. But what was the case with regard to the Office of Chairman of Committees? He remained in the ranks of combatant politicians. There were now two ex-Chairmen in the House—one his right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes), another now a Member of the Cabinet (Mr. Dodson). A Chairman of Committees might, perhaps, be proceeded against for bribery; he might make speeches in the House; he might look to the Government for a reward, or he might accept the Chiltern Hundreds. He presumed that the right hon. Gentleman who now acted as Chairman of Committees received the usual Government Whips, and that he was an enthusiastic Member of the meetings in Downing Street to decide whether clôture was to be adopted or not; and he would not wonder even if the right hon. Gentleman should vote on this very Motion, which conferred upon him these large powers. He spoke on Bills, he divided on Bills, and sometimes his name was on the back of Bills; and he observed 78 that when the name of the right hon. Gentleman was on the back of a Bill, it was usually in company with that of a Member of Her Majesty's Government. When the Speaker was in the Chair he was removed, from the whispers of the Front Benches; but the Chairman of Ways and Means was within ear-shot of any hint which might be given to him by the Government, who were, practically, his Colleagues. He hoped that these powers would not be given to the Speaker; but, if they were, his position formed no analogy for giving them to the Chairman of Committees. He (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) did not think that the House should confer upon one of its Members, who was really in no much greater position than anybody else, powers so extensive, and which he might use to the detriment of freedom of debate. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
§
Amendment proposed,
In lines 1 and 2, to leave out the words "or to the Chairman of a Committee of the whole House."—(Sir Henry Drummond Wolff.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words 'or to the Chairman of' stand part of the Question."
MR. GLADSTONESir, the principal part of the speech of the hon. Member was occupied by matters to which this Amendment has no reference whatever. He discussed at great length, with many unquestionable, and perhaps few questionable, propositions the position of the Speaker of the House, and with respect to which there is no matter at present before us, and I will part from that portion of the speech of the hon. Gentleman with this single observation—that while it is quite true that a Member of Parliament does not, by becoming Chairman of Ways and Means, forfeit his title to serve his country in other ways than in his political Office, that is also true, which the hon. Gentleman seems to have forgotten, of the Speaker of this House. A very distinguished man, one of the most distinguished men who attained to the high Office—I mean Mr. Grenville, afterwards Lord Grenville, and Mr. Addington, afterwards Lord Sidmouth—in one instance became Secretary of State, and in the other case became first Prime Minister, and afterwards Secretary of State.
§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFBut not an inferior officer depending on the Government of the day.
MR. GLADSTONEI beg pardon. A Secretaryship of State depends on the Government of the day just as much as the Secretaryship of the Treasury. But, Sir, there was one portion of the remarks which occurred in the relevant portion of the speech of the hon. Gentleman—in the part of the speech which had reference to the subject-matter of the Motion—in which, undoubtedly, he raised a question of great importance. The question of the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means in this House is a question of great importance, and perhaps I had better remind the House that we have nothing now to do with it—at least, I wish to separate that important part of the question touched upon by the hon. Member—namely, what provision ought to be made with respect to those Gentlemen who, not holding the responsible Office of Chairman of Ways and Means, are occasionally put into the Chair. That question has been raised during the present Session in a cursory manner; but it is a very important question, and it has become of additional importance since the very large extension which has been given to the Office of Chairman of Ways and Means, because within my own recollection, and within the recollection of other Members, the Chairman of Ways and Means had a responsibility merely limited, I think, to the title which he bore, and was not expected to take the Chair upon all Bills passing through this House. Undoubtedly, the Government are of opinion that it is desirable that a more strict rule should be laid down than now exists with regard to the appointment of persons to take the Chair when the Chairman of Committees of Ways and Means, from any cause, is not able to take the Chair; and we are under the impression that it will be possible, by a simple regulation enough, to provide for that part of the case. But the hon. Gentleman has argued the case particularly with regard to the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means, and so I will argue it. It is undoubtedly, I think, a very serious question whether the Chairman of Ways and Means is to be invested with the powers that he now possesses—namely, the same powers—I believe I am correct in say- 80 ing—the same ordinary powers as the Speaker of the House, subject to those appeals to which he is now subject. I am not now dealing with the question whether there should be any appeal in this matter; the question is, whether the Chairman of Ways and Means is to be deprived of the power appertaining to the regulation of debate, which power the House, it is assumed for the moment by the hon. Gentleman, is about to have constituted for its ordinary Procedure. Now, with regard to some depreciatory remarks which the hon. Member has offered with regard to the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means, he has quoted, for instance, the fact that the name of the Chairman of Ways and Means appears on the backs of Bills in concert with those Members of Her Majesty's Government, as an imputation that a certain element of partizanship enters into his character, and that consequently he should not be intrusted with the exercise of powers of a difficult and delicate character. The hon. Gentleman has either forgotten or does not happen to be aware that the appearance of the name of the Chairman of Ways and Means on the backs of Bills is a matter of pure form ordered by the House, and has nothing whatever to do with his inclination or with his supposed partizanship. His name appears on the back of Bills, I believe, in cases where there is a preliminary Committee, and there is an order for that Bill to be introduced; in which case he, as Chairman of the Committee, is technically supposed, and formally supposed, to be the person presenting the Bill, though in reality he has nothing to do with it, and though it sometimes happens that the Chairman of Ways and Means is of the Party opposed to the Government proposal. Now, Sir, the Motion of the hon. Gentleman involves this important proposition—that upon those occasions it is desirable to depart from the established general rule of the House which gives to the Chairman of Ways and Means the same powers, speaking generally and subject to appeal, to be exercised in the conduct of debate as the Speaker of the House in the debates of the House. The hon. Gentleman says with perfect truth that the Chairman of Ways and Means is a person who has less dignity than the Speaker, and who is not only of less dignity, but who is not so com- 81 pletely detached from Party action in this House as the Speaker. I think the hon. Gentleman is quite right in the reference he has made to the vote given by the Chairman of Ways and Means on a Bill in the present Session of Parliament—a vote given in Committee on the Bill, I think it was, while he himself was presiding in that Committee. Well, Sir, I rather believe that that vote, if I remember rightly, was due to the purely accidental circumstance of his happening to be out of the Chair and happening to be inclosed in the Lobby without being aware of it. Therefore, if that be so, that is a subject which had better not be introduced into this debate; but, at the same time, I am by no means prepared to allow it to be tacitly assumed that the Chairman of Ways and Means forfeits the right to vote by sitting in the Chair; and for this reason, that the Speaker undoubtedly does not forfeit his right to vote. We have heard the Speaker of this House assert from the Chair his right to vote if he thought fit in respect to his opinion, and not merely in respect to the form of the House when he came to give a casting vote; and I have known a case—I remember a case early in my own day—when the Speaker of that day, Mr. Manners Sutton, afterwards Lord Canterbury, voted in Committee on a Bill; and so, coming down later, it was also done by Mr. Denison and Mr. Shaw Lefevre. I recollect a speech made by Mr. Manners Sutton, in which he distinctly asserted his right to vote in Committee—whether he did vote or not I am not certain—but he certainly expressed his right to vote. However, this is a case which we ought not to take into our view at the present moment. It is enough to consider the general proposition of the hon. Gentleman, which I admit—namely, that the Chairman of Ways and Means is a person of less authority than the Speaker; and, therefore, he is a person not so widely removed from Party action as the Speaker. But now let us consider who is the Chairman of Ways and Means. In the first place, he has always been, as I have said, endowed with powers in Committee—certain powers in Committee substantially corresponding to those of the Speaker in the Chair; and the House has, by a recent most important arrangement, given its opinion upon the general 82 character of the Chairman of Ways and Means in a sense directly opposite to that which the hon. Gentleman has now set before us, and I wish to point out to the House what would be the effect of adopting the Motion of the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Gentleman says that upon the ground of presumed unfitness the Chairman of Ways and Means, when he sits in the Chair of the Committee, shall not be authorized to exercise the power which is proposed to be constituted by the present Resolution. Well, Sir, supposing the House adopted the Motion of the hon. Gentleman on account of this supposed unfitness, the Chairman of Ways and Means would be prevented from exercising this power when he was acting as Chairman of Ways and Means; but when, in the event of the indisposition of the Speaker, or from any other cause requiring the absence of the Speaker, the Chairman of Ways and Means took the Chair as Deputy Speaker, he would then in respect of his fitness be authorized to exercise that very power which on account of his unfitness had been taken from him by the Motion of the hon. Gentleman. That is what is proposed by the Amendment which is now before us—an Amendment which the Government cannot consent to support. Generally speaking, I admit the question to be one of great delicacy, and of great difficulty, as well as of great importance; but let me point out this to the hon. Gentleman, that the necessity for very stringent powers is even greater in Committee than in the House, because the debates are less formal, and because there is a rapid succession of speeches, and a sharp competition to speakers; and if the House adopt the principle of giving less power to the Chairman of Ways and Means in Committee than is now enjoyed for that purpose and exercised by the Speaker in the Chair, I am afraid the House will really suffer in consequence. It is quite true the Chairman is a person of less authority than the Speaker; but I presume, and I believe it will be found to be the fact, if the Chairman is of less authority than the Speaker, that that will exclude the Chairman from laying any undue stress upon the weight of his Office, and make him aware that his judgments will not be accepted with the same implicit reliance as those of the Speaker, and consequently, as a general rule, will pro- 83 duce a proportionate carefulness in the Chairman of Ways and Means in not straining his authority, which might break down in his hands, and which, if it did break down, would do so to his own discredit as well as to the discredit and inconvenience of the House. This subject is hardly to be discussed now in a satisfactory manner, because I think that if the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means in relation to the Chair of the House is to be altered, it ought to be altered upon a comprehensive consideration of the whole question, and of all the powers which he possesses, and that whatever is done it would be most unsatisfactory to take away from him, as Chairman of Ways and Means, on account of supposed unfitness, a power which, as Deputy Speaker, he might in the very same evening be called upon to exercise. I am convinced that it is desirable and necessary, and for the advantage of the House itself—which is the whole matter here—that we ought to contemplate that for the purpose of immediate action, whatever provisions of appeal you may think are proper, the Chairman of Ways and Means requires to be armed with all the powers belonging to the Speaker for the maintenance of Order, which is yet more difficult and yet more necessary in Committee than in the House; and, therefore, I must object to the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that the Prime Minister, in the concluding portion of his observations, had taken exception to the time and mode in which the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had introduced this question to the notice of the House; but the right hon. Gentleman had not pointed out any other time or mode in which it would have been open to the hon. Member to raise the point.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that if the right hon. Gentleman stated that he did not make those observations, he had nothing more to say on the point. It seemed to him that every step they were taking in what he might call the high revolutionary policy of the Government, showed the difficulty, the delicacy, and the danger of the course which the Government invited and persuaded the 84 House to pursue. The right hon. Gentleman himself now seemed to argue that because these enormous powers were to be conferred on the Speaker, therefore, of necessity, they must be conferred on the Chairman of Committees of the Whole House. But it appeared that the right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with the Resolution as it stood, for he had told the House, in rather mysterious language, it was true, that further Regulations might have to be prepared regulating the appointment of a temporary Chairman—
MR. GLADSTONEI said nothing about a Resolution for the guidance of the temporary Chairman, but of a plan to be submitted to the House for the appointment of these temporary Chairmen.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSThen, was that plan to be submitted as part of the present scheme, or in an ensuing Session of Parliament?
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSIf so, why had the right hon. Gentleman introduced the subject? Surely the right hon. Gentleman was not going to set the first example of Obstruction by introducing totally irrelevant matter? He (Lord John Manners) was giving the right hon. Gentleman credit for addressing himself to the arguments of the hon. Member for Portsmouth; but it seemed he was in error. It was difficult to argue with the right hon. Gentleman. [Cheers from the Ministerial Benches.] Yes; he (Lord John Manners) was not ashamed to confess that in ordinary circumstances he should feel great difficulty in contending in argument against the extraordinary ability and magnificent eloquence of the right hon. Gentleman; but that difficulty was increased on the present occasion by the right hon. Gentleman rising in his place and making depreciatory comments upon his own speech. The Prime Minister took exception to the fact that the hon. Member for Portsmouth, in the earlier part of his speech, made some reference to the position which the Speaker would in future occupy; and the right hon. Gentleman complained that that was not germane to the matter in hand. But his hon. Friend was merely illustrating his argument, and that was evidently the view of the Speaker, who, if the 85 matter had been irrelevant, would have interposed. What the hon. Member for Portsmouth urged was that if these difficulties would be felt in the case of the Speaker, how much more would they be felt if those powers were granted to the Chairman, who was not so safeguarded as the superior officer. The right hon. Gentleman had adverted to the possibility of the inconveniences which would arise by the Speaker exercising his right of voting. On past occasions in the history of this country the Speaker had not been so safeguarded from political considerations as at present; and the right hon. Gentleman had pointed out, in language that was rather suspicious, that the Speaker had not always abstained from taking part in political questions; and he instanced the case of the Speaker (Sir Charles Manners Sutton), a distinguished relative of his (Lord John Manners). But it was well known that in that case, notwithstanding the anxiety of the Government of the day to secure his valuable and experienced services in the Chair, they were obliged to forego them in consequence of his being suspected of taking part in political affairs.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSThen who rejected him?
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSBut by whose guidance? The case was as historically well known as could be. There was no doubt that in those days the Speakers of the House did exercise a far greater political influence than had been the habit in more recent times. But were they to look forward to a recurrence of what the right hon. Gentleman would probably call those good old practices? For the right hon. Gentleman was vindicating the right of the Speaker to take part in political questions. He now came to the last part of the argument of the right hon. Gentleman. He said that if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth were carried, they would be in this absurd position—that, under the new system, if the Speaker were incapacitated by temporary illness, and his place were taken by the Chairman of Ways and Means as Deputy Speaker, the result would be that the very man who was unable to wield those gigantic powers 86 as Chairman would be able to exercise them when elevated to the Speaker's Chair. But the right hon. Gentleman had missed the point of his hon. Friend's argument. His hon. Friend had carefully pointed out that the circumstances that surrounded the Speaker's Chair would separate the Chairman, sitting as Deputy Speaker, from the Rules that guided him as Chairman of Ways and Means. His hon. Friend's objection to the Resolution as it stood rested, not on the personal or accidental, but on the official and moral differences between the two positions, and that when the Chairman became Speaker of the House for the time he was more guarded and less liable to temptation than he was when occupying his own position as Chairman of Committees. There was another point. The right hon. Gentleman seemed most anxious that some of the important functions of the House should be relegated to Grand Committees, and that they should, practically, take the place of Committees of the Whole House.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he was willing to admit that was so; but he could come to no other conclusion than that the intention of the Government was as he had stated.
MR. GLADSTONEI am not sure that I gather the purport of the speech of the noble Lord. Does he mean to ask whether it is our intention that the Chairman of Ways and Means shall be, by virtue of his Office, Chairman of the Grand Committees?
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that was not his intention; but, as it had been suggested, he should be truly delighted to have an answer to it. His point was this—as he understood the scheme, its object was to confer on these Grand Committees all the functions of the Committee of the Whole House. If the Grand Committees were to take the place of Select Committees, cadit quœstio; but he did not think the right hon. Gentleman had any intention of that sort, but that it was his intention to vest in Grand Committees the powers of Committees of the Whole House. Were the Government prepared to confer on the Chairmen of these Grand Committees the same powers as would be conferred on the Chairman 87 of Ways and Means? If so, it might happen that gigantic power might be conferred upon a person of whose impartiality and capacity the House could form no opinion. If the right hon. Gentleman said he had no such intention, and that the Chairmen of these Grand Committees were to have no higher power than that possessed by the Chairman of Ways and Means at the present moment, what became of the importance of the new system of Grand Committees as a means of expediting the Business of the House? Every one of the 60 Members of a Grand Committee would be left free to speak 40 times on every subject that was before them; and he failed to see in these circumstances where the alleviation of the labours of the House of Commons was to be found, or that any addition would be made to the convenience of the House or the dignity of its proceedings. On the whole, the arguments of the Prime Minister ought not to be allowed to prevail against the clear case which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) had made out. Without saying a single word in derogation of the qualities of any Gentleman who had hitherto filled the Office of Chairman of Ways and Means, or of its present occupant, and admitting that it was in the highest degree difficult and delicate to argue a question of this sort without seeming to over-sensitive minds to trench upon personal questions, he still hoped and believed the question might be thrashed out without giving needless offence to anyone; and he was quite convinced that the House would do wisely to accept the Amendment.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, he was quite sure that the majority of the House would be opposed to the Amendment, because they were determined to find a remedy against Obstruction in Committee; and it was clear that the proposal of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, as well as the speech of the noble Lord, left them without any such remedy.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, the last speaker forgot that part of the existing Procedure under which the Chairman reported to the Speaker the occurrence of Obstruction in Committee of the Whole House. Why should not the power to be conferred upon the Chairman of Committees be used only by reference 88 to the Speaker? In such an arrangement a key to a friendly settlement of the question might, perhaps, be found. Whoever the Chairman of Committees might be, he would be a political partizan, often appointed because his seat was safe. It was bad enough to have these new powers conferred upon the Speaker; but it would be ten times worse to confer them on the Chairman of Committees.
§ MR. CHAPLINsaid, it was not the fault of the supporters of the Amendment if the original Resolution did not provide a remedy for Obstruction in Committee. He did not believe that if the Rule were carried in its present form it would be an effective remedy, although it might give the Government power to close the mouths of the Opposition. The observations of the Mover of the Amendment were conclusive, and they were not met by anything that had been said by the Prime Minister; on the contrary, his remarks strengthened the speech of the hon. Member. The general result of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was that the most necessary and most frequent use of this formidable power was to be intrusted to a person who, on his own showing, was a person of less authority than the Speaker. That being the case, the House would do very well not to accept the Resolution proposed by the Government. Two questions had been raised by his noble Friend (Lord John Manners) to which it was necessary that explicit and authoritative answers should be given. The position, up to that time, was incomplete, because they really did not know whether the power proposed to be intrusted to the Chairman of Ways and Means was also to be given to the Chairmen of the Grand Committees. The Prime Minister told them that the Government felt the difficulty connected with the temporary appointment of Gentlemen to the Office of Chairman, and that they had a plan which at some time they were prepared to divulge. It was absolutely necessary that the House should know what the plan was before deciding whether it was desirable that these powers should be intrusted to Chairmen of Committees. The proposals of the Government were incomplete until their intentions on these two points were made known; and although he would not move the adjournment of 89 the debate in order to give the right hon. Gentleman the power of making a statement, he hoped some hon. Member would pursue that course in the event of no announcement being made.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he did not think that the demand made was a reasonable one, or that the argument of the noble Lord opposite was well founded. If the noble Lord had taken the trouble to read the terms of the Resolution, he would have found an answer to his question, because the Resolution was strictly limited to the Chairman of a Committee of the Whole House. It was impossible that any statement could be more definite, and yet two speeches had been founded on a contrary assumption. He ventured to say that was not the way to save the time of the House.
§ LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that he had argued it both ways.
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTmaintained that the noble Lord had said that the Resolution would give this power to the Chairmen of Grand Committees, and when the Prime Minister stated that it would do nothing of the kind, the noble Lord assumed an air of virtuous indignation, and said it was in the Paper. Now, it was not in the Paper, but the very reverse was there. The Government had said that they meant to give these powers only to the Chairman of Committees of the Whole House, and they meant what they had said. Then the noble Lord had said that the Standing Committees were to be invested with all the powers of Committees of the Whole House. That, also, he had evolved out of his inner consciousness. It would be time enough when they came to these Standing Committees to discuss what should be their powers and those of their Chairmen. It was a mere waste of time to import a discussion on these points into the present debate. Another red herring had been drawn across the scent in introducing the question of the appointment of occasional Chairmen in the absence of the regular Chairman of Ways and Means. That had been mentioned by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), and the Prime Minister had said that if there were any objection to the system of appointing occasional Chairmen of Committees of Ways and Means, that question might properly require 90 time for systematic consideration. But that was entirely a bye-point, and had nothing whatever to do with this part of the discussion. Of course, it was in the power of the House to determine that such and such persons only should be Chairmen of Committees of the Whole House, as the law was in a somewhat imperfect and vague condition as to the substitution of other Gentlemen for the regular Chairman. But hon. Members might as well say they would not discuss the present question until they had reviewed the collateral question of the position of Deputy Speakers. The question really was—"Do you mean to have the same power of controlling Obstruction in Committee as you have in the Whole House?" Everyone would see that that was the substance of the matter. Everybody would also see that if they dealt only with the House, and not with the Committee, they would have done nothing at all. When the House affirmed the clôture by the division which was taken in the earlier part of the Session, it intended to affirm the principle as much for Committee as for the House. That was perfectly notorious and clear, and it could not be got rid of by any side operations. The business of Obstruction had been carried on much more successfully in Committee than in the House, and the whole arena of the campaign of Obstruction would, if the hon. Member for Portsmouth succeeded in his Resolution, be transferred to Committee. As the most important Bills had necessarily a long life in Committee, it would be possible for those who desired to obstruct Business to carry on the science of Obstruction in Committee. Those who wished to stop this kind of thing would stop it in Committee, while those who liked this kind of thing would endeavour to prevent it being stopped in Committee.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he must congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman upon so strongly taking up the view he at present held, for there must have been some serious conversion in the right hon. and learned Gentleman's mind on this subject. They had not always heard such language from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The late Government when in Office brought forward certain Motions in order to check Obstruction; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman then 91 interposed as many difficulties as he possibly could. In 1879 his right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote) proposed a very moderate and proper Resolution—namely, that the Government should have the power of going into Committee of Supply on Monday without any previous questions being raised. That was a very harmless proposition. Indeed, the Prime Minister proposed yesterday that the Rule should be applied to Thursdays as well. Who was the great opponent of that plan when it was proposed by the late Government? Why, the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, who said—"You are attempting to check all due debates in the House of Commons;" and he told an amusing story of a friend of his who, after in vain attempting to dam up a Highland stream, which flooded his grounds, remarked—"There are only two things which I have not been able to conquer—namely, a Highland stream and a woman." And the right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to observe that there was one thing which you could not dam up, and that was the House of Commons. He now had to congratulate the right hon. and learned Gentleman on his sudden conversion. It was a common experience that perverts were very often more persistent in their new faith than those who were brought up in that faith, and he had no doubt that before these discussions closed the House would have some still stronger speeches from the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The argument of his noble Friend (Lord John Manners) about Grand Committees was as clear as possible. If, his noble Friend contended, this Rule were to apply to the Chairmen of Grand Committees, hon. Members ought to know what a Grand Committee was to be and how it was to be appointed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman asserted that the Rules said nothing about the Chairmen of Grand Committees at present, and that it would be sufficient to discuss that question when they came to the subject of Standing Committees. He maintained, on the contrary, that they ought to have the information now. They ought to know whether there was any intention on the part of the Government to invest the Chairmen of these Standing Committees with anything like the authority which they now proposed 92 to give to the Chairman of the Whole House. If this were the intention of the Government, this was the time when they ought to be told of it.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he would take one side of the argument first. He would take it now that it was not proposed that any powers of this kind were to be given to the Chairman of a Standing Committee. Then came the other form of his noble Friend's argument. His noble Friend said—"If you look at the composition of your Standing Committees you will find that you are giving them, in respect to the Bills referred to them, all the powers which Committees of the Whole House at present exercise."
§ SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTasked where this was stated in the Resolutions?
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSWhy, it was proposed—
That all Bills comprised in each of the said classes shall be Committed to one of the said Standing Committees, unless the House shall otherwise order, and, when reported to the House, shall he proceeded with as if they had been reported from a Committee of the whole House.His hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) had pressed upon the Government a point upon which they were perfectly entitled to insist before going to a division. The Home Secretary had spoken of someone's having drawn a red herring across the path, which the Government would not follow. But if anyone had drawn a red herring across the path it had been the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman had made this admission. He admitted that the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means was very different from that of the Speaker in the Chair—first, because the Chairman had not the same authority as the Speaker—not having been elected in the same way, and not possessing the confidence of the House to the same extent. Secondly, because the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means threw him and kept him in active political life to a much greater extent than the Speaker. Those were important admissions on the right hon. Gentleman's part; they were, no doubt, too obvious to be denied; but having been made, they made it absolutely ne- 93 cessary that the fullest and fairest discussion should take place before the House intrusted such large powers to the Chairman of Ways and Means. But the Prime Minister went on to say there could be no doubt of the wisdom of giving such powers, because they could be accompanied by an appeal to the Speaker. But the argument showed clearly that there was some doubt in the Prime Minister's mind as to the propriety of intrusting such large powers to a man who was in a position so totally different from that of the Speaker. But the right hon. Gentleman then went on to use an extraordinary argument. Granting that the Chairman did not possess the high authority of the Speaker—that he was more actively engaged than the Speaker in political life; that the method of his election rendered him more open to suspicion, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Chairman might still be intrusted with those large powers, because he would be all the more careful in exercising them, as the less the authority given to a man the more likely he was to decide wrongly. That was a strange kind of argument, for it amounted to this—the weaker the man and the less the authority, the more careful he would be, and therefore he might be intrusted with these great powers. Then his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire bad raised another question. The Prime Minister had said that at some future time he would lay before the House some proposition in respect to the appointment of those Chairmen who would sit on days when the Chairman of Ways and Means could not be present. Now, be would like to know what that proposition was before voting on the question. The House knew the Speaker, and knew the Chairman of Ways and Means; but they knew nothing of the man who might take the place of the Chairman of Ways and Means on those occasions. They were entitled to know how such a Chairman was to be elected, and what were the guarantees that he might be safely charged with these important functions before going to the vote. It would be well for the Government to know at that early moment that hon. Members at least on the Opposition side were quite determined to have that information before they could vote on the proposition to give such enormous powers to an unknown Member of that House.
§ SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he had been glad to listen to the remarks of his right hon. Friend (Sir E. Assheton Cross) who had just sat down, because he had clearly shown that whatever the Government might think, or whatever they might say, the occupants of the Front Opposition Bench were determined to know the exact nature of the Rules that were to be placed before the House, for the guidance of the Chairman of a Grand Committee before going to a division. It was idle for the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary to say that a red herring had been drawn across the path of the House. If a red herring had been drawn across their path, it was the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself and the Prime Minister who had performed that piece of strategy, because the Home Secretary had got up and repeated what had been said by the Prime Minister—namely, that some Rules were absolutely necessary to be drawn up for regulating the action of those who were to take the Chair on certain occasions, when the proposed Grand Committees were to discharge the functions that would be imposed upon them under the New Rules, so that the House should have some guarantee that those Gentlemen were fit and proper persons to occupy such a position. This was, in his opinion, one reason why the House ought not to allow this question to be passed without obtaining some definite proposal on the subject; but the main question for the House to consider was this—and he would admit to hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was an unpleasant one to deal with, because in all such matters personal considerations were sure to be brought more or less to the front. He would at once say that while entertaining the highest respect for the right hon. Gentleman who occupied the position of Speaker, yet when it came to the question of the appointment of Chairman of Ways and Means there was hardly a Member of the House—and it certainly was heard with great frequency from the Liberal side—who when outside that House was not in the habit of making remarks on the way in which the Business of the Committees of the House was conducted by the different occupants of the Chairman's seat, the comments not being made as between 95 them and the Speaker, but as between the Gentlemen who happened to fulfil the functions of Chairmen of Ways and Means. If they were about to put into the hands of a man who was selected as the Chairman of Ways and Means the powers proposed to be conferred on the Speaker, they must remember that the mode in which the selection was commonly made was most faulty. The House at present had only a nominal voice in the selection of the Chairman; but if it was intended to arm him with all the authority of the Speaker, the House ought to exercise as much control over his appointment as it did in the case of the Speaker. How, he asked, was the selection generally made? The Prime Minister rose and intimated that Mr. So-and-so would take the Chair, and this being seconded by another occupant of the Treasury Bench, the Chairman was in the Chair before a remark could be made by anyone else. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister shook his head; but he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) appealed to the House to say whether this was not what it saw over and over again? Without going further into the question, he would appeal to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary whether the selections of the Prime Minister had always been the best that could be for the interests and dignity of the House? He was sorry to be obliged to go into questions of this kind; but they were questions the House was obliged to meet, and he ventured to say that there was not in that House a more important position, next to that of the Speaker, than that of Chairman of Ways and Means. Yet, as things were, the Office was given to a supporter of the Government for whom it was necessary to provide, and who was not thought quite good enough for the Cabinet ["No, no!"] If hon. Gentlemen opposite were satisfied that this was not the fact, let them get up and say so. But the truth was that everyone in that House knew what had happened in regard to these appointments, and what had been the consequences. This being so, he wished to ask the House whether it was not constantly the case that in Committee on important questions, when hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House rose to express their views, they were howled down 96 by the large numbers of Gentlemen sitting on the Ministerial side? When, however, men below the Gangway, who would brook no control, or who cared nothing for the Regulations of the House, and were determined to have their say, got up and insisted on being heard, in that case the large majority of the House bowed to those men, simply because they exhibited their full intention to assert their will and independence, and allowed them to proceed without saying one word against them. He would put it to the Conservative Party, whether it was not the fact that when the Party opposite had the power, they did howl down Conservative speakers and prevent questions in which they were interested being properly discussed? He would give the House an instance of this. On the first day of the discussion of the Arrears Bill it would be remembered that when the discussion had got into a state in which it was not quite so quick and lively as it might have been, the Prime Minister got up and said he was quite certain there had been sufficient discussion, and he was surprised that any adjournment could be required in regard to such a Bill as that, which, however, in his (Sir Walter B. Barttelot's) opinion, was one of the most important Bills that had ever been introduced into that House. Well, if a Bill of such a character was to be treated in such a way, how was the Opposition likely to be treated when the House had before it a measure for County Government, or the Bill for lowering the County Franchise, in which the Conservative Party was especially interested? Why, they would not be allowed to say what they wished to say. When the Government needed the support of the Conservative Party that support was ungrudgingly given. When, therefore, those great changes were being brought forward there ought to be ample opportunity of free speech and discussion, and the absence of such opportunities was a state of things which that House ought not to tolerate. Under these circumstances, and because he objected to be placed in such a position, he should give his vote in favour of the Amendment moved by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff).
§ MR. DODSONsaid, that the demonstrations which attended some of the sentences of the hon. and gallant Mem- 97 ber who had just sat down showed, at all events, that if, unfortunately, the carrying on of the debates in the House should ever be reduced to a question of howling down, the exercise of that power would not be confined to the Ministerial side of the House, but that there was a corresponding power on the Opposition side of the House. The hon. and gallant Member had spoken of the manner in which the Chairman of Committees was selected, as if he was simply nominated by the Prime Minister; but the Chairman of Ways and Means was just as much an elected Officer of the House as the Speaker. The election of a Chairman of Ways and Means might be contested absolutely and entirely in the same way as the election of a Speaker; and, like the Speaker, he was elected for the duration of a Parliament. No doubt, his election had not been usually contested. In very rare instances had the proposal of the Ministry been disputed; but it was not less the fact that it was open to the House to challenge the nomination, and to decide the question by vote. The late Home Secretary (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had made an extraordinary speech; for it consisted of telling a story which was not his story, and addressing himself to a Resolution which was not before the House. He had insisted upon knowing what were to be the powers of the Chairmen of Grand Committees, or Standing Committees, as the Government called them. Answer had been given that they did not propose to invest the Chairmen of Standing Committees with this power of closure, which they were now proposing to give, by this Resolution, to the Chairman of the Whole House. The noble Lord (Lord John Manners) and the late Home Secretary had then said how very illogical it would be if this power were not given to them. If the noble Lord thought the Chairmen of these Standing Committees should be invested with the same powers as the Chairman of the Whole House, it would be open to him to propose this, and the House would, no doubt, consider it. It was necessary that the Chairman of Ways and Means should be clothed with the same powers as the Speaker on this subject. That was an opinion deliberately formed by the Government, and to it they adhered. The Prime Minister had pointed out that the 98 House might feel some hesitation as regarded the intrusting these powers to a casual Chairman of Committee of the Whole House, and that the manner in which a temporary Chairman took the Chair was not on the same footing as that of the regular Chairman. His right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes) had got an Amendment which would exclude from the exercise of those powers the temporary Chairman of Committee of the Whole House. On the other hand, it was absolutely necessary to provide for relief for the Chairman of Ways and Means; and if the Chairman of Ways and Means was, through fatigue or illness, obliged to leave the Chair to some other person, the Committee ought not then to be exposed to risks of evils of Obstruction, from which it would be preserved if the regular Chairman were in his place. The Government, however, felt the difficulty and the force of the argument as regarded the exercise of these powers by a temporary Chairman; and his right hon. Friend had stated, not with reference to this Resolution only, but with reference to the general question of temporarily filling the Chair, that it was desirable that the House should arrive at some arrangement as regarded the mode of appointment of the persons who might temporarily fill the Chair. When the House proceeded to the consideration of the next Amendment—that of the right hon. Member for Preston—the Government would be prepared to make a proposal in regard to these Chairmen which they ventured to hope would meet with the approval of the House.
§ MR. E. STANHOPEremarked, that the further this discussion proceeded the more it became obvious that the House had not before it adequate materials even for judging of what had taken place with regard to the previous Amendment. As far as he understood the matter, nothing could have been more clear than the action which the Government had formerly intended to take with regard to the position of the Chairman of Ways and Means in reference to the clôture. As far as he had understood the language of the Prime Minister some months ago, nothing could be more certain than that the Government were then willing to accept, without any qualification, the Amendment of the 99 right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes), limiting the powers under the clôture in Committee to the Chairman of Ways and Means.
MR. GLADSTONEobserved, that although, as far as his recollection went, he did not remember that his language had gone quite as far as the hon. Gentleman believed that it did, still, if the matter were within the recollection of the hon. Gentleman, the undertaking given should be fulfilled.
§ MR. E. STANHOPEfelt satisfied that if the right hon. Gentleman would make inquiries on the point he would find that his statement as to the nature of the undertaking given on the part of the Government was accurate. But, if so, it entirely disposed of the speech of the President of the Local Government Board. Before Members of the House could consent to abandon any of the safeguards that now existed for free discussion they must be satisfied that the right of free debate would not be unduly restricted, and that they would obtain some concession on the point on the part of the Government. Nothing was more remarkable in the progress of these debates than the change which had taken place in the view of the Government with regard to the 1st Resolution. When the subject had been first introduced the Government had stated that they did not rely upon this Rule specially to put down Obstruction, because they had other Rules in their quiver which would be still more useful in getting rid of Obstruction. They had got beyond that now, and the clôture appeared to be regarded, both by their supporters in the country and by the Government, as a means of putting down Obstruction. He believed that he would be able to show that this cumbrous procedure was utterly unsuited to Committees of the Whole House, especially when Supply was being taken; and the Government themselves seemed to share that view, because they did not propose to give the power it conferred to the Chairmen of the Grand Committees. Yet to these bodies the Prime Minister proposed to delegate the functions of the House, and Obstruction was as likely to occur in the one place as in the other. Again, the Government thought it right that in this matter the powers of the Speaker and of the Chairman of Committees should be similar. He should like to know why? They were not 100 similar at present. There were occasions, as they all knew, on which the Chairman did not act on his own responsibility, but reported the matter to the House in order that the Speaker might take action. But, it was urged, the Chairman of Committees was Deputy Speaker, and as such could exercise the ordinary duties of the Chair, and ought, therefore, to have similar powers. Again he asked, why? He could only say that upon the present proposal he looked with very great alarm, as being one calculated to degrade the Office of Chairman of Committees. The general tendency of the House in later years had been to remove the Speaker as far as possible from active political life; but it was otherwise with the Chairman of Committees. The latter was engaged in active political life, and looked to the Leader of the Party with which he was connected for advancement. There were, therefore, special temptations for him to fall in with the views of his Party. The certain effect of the Rule now proposed would be to make the Chairman abandon his impartiality and take a partizan position. They had been told that the object of this Rule was to enable the Government to pass certain measures upon which the majority of the House was determined. Supposing that majority thought that those Bills were not advancing rapidly enough, the Chairman of Ways and Means would be subject to influences which he did not now experience, both from the Government and from the constituencies outside; and if these influences were not sufficient they had that unfailing means for bringing recalcitrant Liberal Members to a sense of their duty—a little friendly advice from the Home Secretary. He ventured to think that, in these circumstances, the position of the Chairman of Committees would become absolutely intolerable, and that the Resolution now proposed, unless surrounded by safeguards not yet suggested, would be disastrous to the honour and dignity of the House.
MR. GLADSTONEThe position of Chairman is the same as that of Speaker except in certain cases, when there is a power of appeal.
§ MR. E. STANHOPEobserved, that any power of appeal clearly expressed would, to some extent, qualify the Resolution. If, however, the Resolution was to be submitted to the judgment of 101 the House in its present form—that was to say, in a form giving the Chairman the same powers as the Speaker—he would offer it his most strenuous opposition.
§ MR. HICKSasked the indulgence of the House for a short time, whilst he endeavoured to show why the Amendment now before it should be accepted. He was fully sensible of the danger they were in of unwittingly saying something that would be offensive to the Chairman of Ways and Means; and, therefore, at the outset, he wished to say that he was desirous of doing justice alike to the good intentions of the present and the past holder of the Office. It was the Prime Minister who had forced this discussion on them. Many of them, he had no doubt, would have been pleased if the Amendment had been accepted, or some promise given that the Rule would be modified; but, as nothing of the kind had been done, it was incumbent on independent Members to stand forward in defence of the rights and privileges of the Members of the House, and by defending the right of free discussion to maintain the liberty of the people of England. He contended that the Rule was not properly applicable to Committee of Supply at all, and that, if it were, the manner of its application was faulty. The great evil in Committee generally was not too much delay, but too much haste—measures being occasionally passed with defects which at the time escaped notice. As an example of this, he would refer to the Parliamentary and Municipal Voters Act. That Act would never have passed if the House had known its real character; but it was left to Revising Barristers to discover what really the Act had done. Again, by 13 & 14 Vict., c. 99, owners of small tenements were made responsible for poor and highway rates. This was repealed by 38 & 39 Vict., c. 66. At the same time it was re-enacted as far as regarded poor rates; but the question of highway rates escaped the notice of the draftsman and the Committee. The attention of the Committee was not drawn to this by those in charge of the Bill, great inconvenience arose, and the time of Parliament had to be taken up in passing another amending Act. Then the Bill of the late hon. and learned Member 102 for Cambridge (Mr. Marten) amending the Public Health Act would not have been allowed to pass so easily had its real object been understood; and in the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill of last Session was a clause taking away from taxpayers a protection they had long enjoyed, which had to be fought obstinately in Committee before the Prime Minister consented to amend it. Passing to another point, he would ask whether the Chairman of a Committee of Ways and Means was an officer who ought to be intrusted with tyrannical powers in all the discussions which might take place while he occupied the Chair? They had heard a good deal in praise of those Gentlemen who had occupied the position filled by the Speaker—Minister after Minister had spoken in terms of eulogy of the manner in which those duties had been fulfilled—but the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means had not even been "damned with faint praise," for his conduct had been passed by in total silence. The President of the Local Government said—"The very object of raising the Speaker to the Chair was to insure his impartiality, and to remove him above all Party feeling." Now, the right hon. Gentleman had been himself Chairman of Ways and Means; but he said not one word in defence of that officer. Then the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) spoke very strongly on the subject of the Speaker's position, holding that the acceptance of such an Office was equivalent to a pledge that he would be impartial. He did not say that those arguments applied to the Chairman of the Committee of Ways and Means; indeed, they were arguments against intrusting the same powers to an officer who was not placed in the same impartial position. Moreover, it was an Office which Members of the highest position and greatest experience were not desirous to accept. Not only was this so at present, but year after year the difficulty of finding Gentlemen of sufficient standing and experience increased, and the tendency of constituencies to change their Representatives was becoming more and more marked, and increased the difficulty. During the last few years, moreover, they had placed new powers in the 103 hands of the Chairman, and he would ask the House whether they had been exercised on all occasions to their satisfaction? He would give the Chairman credit for entire impartiality; but had he not made mistakes? There was the case of the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver), which was submitted to the Speaker, and it could not be said that the House on that occasion was quite satisfied with the judgment of the Chairman. Then, secondly, there was the case of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), who was suspended for a second time, after which it was found that the suspension was not in accordance with the Rules of the House, though, had he been suspended once more subsequently, he would have been precluded from addressing the House for the rest of the Session. The House, however, was not sufficiently generous to strike the record out of the Proceedings of the House, although it disapproved of the decision of the Chairman. A third case was that of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), who was stopped while addressing the House upon the Irish Estimates, although it was afterwards found that the line of argument he was pursuing was perfectly right. Now, if a Gentleman of the ability and talent of the present Chairman made these mistakes, how much more might they dread the repetition of mistakes when they got less experienced officers, and temporary Chairmen, who might be selected from a House largely consisting of new Members, many of whom were returned at the dictation of a Caucus? ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite were impatient when an independent Member spoke, as he had noticed over and over again—["Oh, oh!"]—but would they deny that a large number of them had been returned at the dictation of a Caucus? Aye, or that their speeches and votes were dictated by the Caucus? Already attempts had been made to interfere with discussion. Independent Members had been met with cries of "Name him!" and at the end of last Session, upon the third reading of the Irish Land Bill, cries of "Obstruction!" were raised before that great and important measure had been three hours under discussion. Surely that was not an unreasonable time to give to the discussion of the measure. So far from the discus- 104 sions which took place in the House of Commons being too long, in many instances they were too short; and what was to prevent a Minister, who had his Friends in reserve, coming down at any moment he pleased and putting an end to the discussion altogether by applying the majority Rule? The effect of this Rule would be to do away with the old Constitutional safeguard, that redress of grievance should precede the Vote of Supply; and, therefore, the Members of the House, whose interests it affected, were justified in asking for a short time to consider the question in all its bearings. He would, therefore, support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth.
MR. GLADSTONEI wish to explain more fully what I said across the Table to the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Stanhope) in consequence of his appeal to me. He stated that I had agreed before the adjournment to accept the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes). I said my recollection did not go to that extent; but that if it was perfectly clear that I made that promise it should be fulfilled. We shall be prepared to fulfil the pledge to accept that Amendment, and to propose a plan under which no Member, without the authority of the House, should take the Chair, reserving to ourselves to consider, when we propose that plan, whether we should ask that a Member so appointed should be invested with the same powers as the Chairman of Ways and Means, or not. That, however, is not the main question now before us, and it will have to be held over and dealt with separately.
§ SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEsaid, he hoped the House, before coming to a division, would bear in mind what the real nature of the question was. So far as it went, he regarded the proposal of the Prime Minister as a very important and very necessary check, for a large majority of the Members of the House were determined that the abuses to which they had been subjected should he put down. There were other means of putting this power into force without using the authority of the Chair. It might be exercised by a Minister of the Crown, or by a private Member, or by a certain number of Members rising in their places to put it in operation; but, 105 rely upon it, however it was to be employed, there was an earnest desire to suppress the nuisance of which they had to complain. In his opinion, the intervention of the Speaker was the best mode of putting an end to this; but he confessed there was something to be said as to the difference between the Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means. The danger in giving this power to the Chair was not in the Chair, but in what lay behind in the power of the House to put an end to a debate by a bare majority. He thanked the Government for putting this question fairly before the House; and the only doubt he had was whether they had not gone beyond the necessity of the case in providing that a bare majority should be able to stop a debate. That question would come on for consideration after this Amendment had been disposed of. The question now, he thought, was, whether it was injurious to the position of the Speaker or the Chairman to have to stand up in their places and give power to the House to put the Rule in force. He should like to have some further check than that. As it now stood, the responsibility which rested with the Chair was to determine whether a bare majority was in favour of putting an end to a debate or not. He did not consider that sufficient. The Prime Minister had indicated that a debate would only be terminated by a preponderating majority. If that were so, let them come to some understanding upon that point. Even with the intervention of the Speaker or Chairman of Ways and Means, if the question were only to be decided by a large and preponderating majority, then that was a power which might be put in force by any individual Member of the House. He did not see why they should not come to a vote on the issue now before the House, and then decide the more important question.
§ MR. BERESFORD HOPEremarked that the speech which had last been delivered was most valuable because it appealed to the reason and not to the emotions of the House. The question before them was one which went to the very root of Parliamentary Procedure. Parliament as it was, not in its formal Constitutional aspect, but as the working, living thing which they knew, was the growth of a long tradition. All 106 long traditions must be anomalous, theoretically inconsistent, and, it might be, grotesque; but wise men accepted those anomalies and inconsistencies for the sake of the value of a thing which had not been dictated, but had grown into life and vigour. The Prime Minister now proposed, instead of that tradition, a code; and could there be any more inconvenient way of dealing with such a proceeding than by submitting it in little bits and snips? The Notice Paper, with its figures down the side of the 1st Resolution, resembled a spelling-book for infants of four or five years old. When his noble Friend the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners) asked a very reasonable question, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, clothed in official ignorance, most admirably misunderstood the point raised by his noble Friend. His noble Friend had asked a question about the Standing Committees, and that subject was pooh-poohed as if it were an attempt to draw a red herring across their track; but if they looked at the Resolutions they would see the relevancy of the question to the matter under consideration. Let them refer to the last of the Prime Minister's Resolutions. The postscript of the series was like a lady's letter—it was the be-all and end-all of the thing. It was that the discussion of a Bill in one of the proposed Standing Committees should be tantamount to its discussion in Committee of the Whole House. And what were the Bills which were to be submitted to those Standing Committees? Were they the small waifs and strays of the Session—the philanthropic projects which might tend to effect some social improvement? Nothing of the kind. No doubt, many of the Bills which came before the House might be dealt with in a more expeditious way than they were now; but, according to the proposals of the Government, the Bills which were most important, difficult, and delicate were those which were to be referred to Standing Committees. They would include measures for the amendment of the law and measures relating to trade and commerce. They would be referred to Committees composed respectively of Gentlemen of the long robe, and of Gentlemen of that branch of the Legal Profession who had no robe at all, or else to hard-headed 107 men from Manchester; and these, by way of helping on Business, were still to be allowed to speak as often as they pleased in Committee on the questions which were their crazes. Ten barristers might speak 30 times each, and five solicitors 97 times. The great and important Bill for the codification of the Criminal Law would, he supposed, go to a Standing Committee, so would the French Commercial Treaty; and if Business was to be expedited by leaving these to the old machinery, the hypocrisy of the new project stood confessed. The object of these new-fangled inventions, so the House was told, was to expedite Business. The idea of their inventors was, he might venture to guess that experience showed, that the comparatively free and easy procedure of the Committees, such as they knew them, had the effect of helping Business on; but these sagacious Gentlemen forgot that in old-fashioned Committees Members spoke sitting, as they could hardly do in Standing Committees—and that was a main secret of their efficiency and convenience. Could it be supposed that the same methods of doing Business would be followed by large Standing Committees of 60 or 80 Members? Would not they rather look to the etiquettes of Committees of the Whole House? That being the case, as he felt assured it was, the whole 1st Resolution stood convicted in face of the Grand Committees of political unreality, and the Grand Committees themselves of being instruments of Obstruction; and unless the Prime Minister, or the Home Secretary, or the President of the Local Government Board, or even the Junior Lord of the Treasury, could give satisfactory assurances as to the intended handling of an innovation so full of dark, but important consequences, the House would be justified, if not in rejecting the Resolution, at any rate in deferring it to a more convenient opportunity. One word more. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arnold) had seemed pleased with himself when he discovered that if the Chairman of Committees were left out of the Resolution there would be no means of overcoming Obstruction; but the hon. Member had failed to perceive that there were other ways of putting down Obstruction, embodied in a later Resolution, which would injure neither Party. He would do him the justice of supposing he had never read the 108 Resolutions; and he felt sure the Home Secretary would agree with him that voting without reading was the duty of a good Party follower. The British Parliament was, he believed, the only Parliament that had a standing Chairman of Committees; while in other Assemblies the President continued to rule the deliberations of that which corresponded to Committees of the Whole House. Let them take care that they did not lead people to ask what was the use of a Chairman of Committees. In his opinion, the existing arrangement worked well; but the institution, though practically a good one, ought not to be strained beyond its strength. But, finally, it could not be contended, even if it were undesirable to intrust the powers in question to the Chairman of Committees, that that officer, when acting as the Speaker's Deputy, ought not to possess the attributes of the Office of which he was the actual, though provisional occupant.
§ MR. WALTERsaid, he could not pretend to rival the diffusive eloquence of his right hon. Friend (Mr. B. Hope); but he would briefly state the difficulties which seemed to him to surround the Amendment, and compelled him to abstain from voting upon it. To be plain, he held that it was like putting the cart before the horse to decide in whose hands certain powers should be placed, and by what persons they should be exercised, before the House had clearly determined the nature of those powers and their proper limits. If the Resolution left the House, as he hoped it would, amended in the terms proposed by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), the effect of which would be that both to the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees would be accorded the powers they both required, then both those officials would rightly be intrusted with the exercise of them. If, on the other hand, the Resolution left the House in its present form, which he deemed to be one of the most objectionable—because undoubtedly it did clearly and distinctly lay down the doctrine that in a House of more than 400 Members a debate might be stopped at the will and pleasure of a bare majority—he had rather see the odium of exercising the power thrown upon the Minister of the day than upon two official person- 109 ages, who were both supposed to be the very beau ideal of impartiality and fairness. For this reason, until he knew what the powers in question were to be, it was impossible for him to say in whose hands they might most properly be placed.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURremarked that only three speeches had been made that afternoon by non-official Members of the Liberal Party, and two of them had been decidedly hostile to the Rule in its present shape. He did not know whether that gave them fair reason to infer that the Government stood on very uncertain ground in this matter; but he rather thought he might take it as an indication that in their hearts the majority of the House disliked the proposal quite as much as they disliked the whole substance of the 1st Resolution. In the characteristic speech of the Home Secretary he seemed to accuse those who wished to cut out the Chairman of Committees from the operation of this Rule of being anxious to promote Obstruction when the House was in Committee; but he assured the right hon. and learned Gentleman that they who sat on the Opposition side of the House were quite as anxious to put a stop to Obstruction as any Party could be; but they desired to stop it in a different manner, and believed it would be better stopped by individual rather than by general clôture, and in that way the Business would be better carried on. When they were, at the early part of the Session, discussing the general principle of the clôture, the chief argument against it was that it would injure the prestige of the Speaker, and that, in the long run, it would succumb to Party influences; but, if so, how much stronger would that apply to the Chairman of Committees? The Speaker's position was one of ancient and admitted weight and authority; and although the Prime Minister had pointed out that some Speakers had become Prime Ministers, yet he had to go back for an instance to Mr. Addington, 80 years ago. In modern times it had been agreed by all Parties in that House to take the Speaker out of the political atmosphere and raise him to the position of a functionary who was quite above it and a person possessed of more than ordinary qualifications. Such, however, had never yet been the position of the Chairman of Committees, who was 110 almost always a Member of the Government before his appointment as Chairman of Committees, and who, when he resigned that Office, usually rejoined the Ministry. The President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson) had said that the appointment of the Chairman of Committees rested with the House itself. Technically, that was so; but he would appeal to the House whether the Chairman of Committees was not a mere nominee of the Prime Minister? When a Prime Minister came into Office and considered how he would dispose of his patronage, did he not put down among the places he had to give away the Chairmanship of Committees? Was it not clear that a Chairman of Committees was dependent on the favour of his Party, while the Speaker was not dependent on the favour of any Party? If, therefore, it ever should be the fortune of this country that a Prime Minister should use the Chairman of Committees as a lever to forward his own objects, the results might be disastrous. They were always told that the Government would lose very much in the opinion of the country by an improper use of this power, and that no Government would make an improper use of it. That safeguard was of the most flimsy description. If it were at the suggestion of the Government that the Chairman of Committees misused his power it would be their bounden duty to support him, not only in the House, but in the country. And the supporters of the Government would do the same. It would be a part of their brief to go about the country and say that what was called an abuse of power was only its legitimate exercise. And that would be done, not before a tribunal really acquainted with what had gone on within the walls of Parliament, but before people who gathered all their information from newspaper reports, which, however accurate, could never give the spirit of what had been done. How was it possible under a system of that kind that the people of this country should act as an impartial tribunal by which the use of this power was finally to be judged? The House ought not to come to a decision on this subject until they knew what the Government were about to do respecting those Grand Committees. Three Members of the Government had spoken since the question was 111 asked from the Opposition Benches, and yet no answer was given to it. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Nine times.] Well, he had listened with particular attention to the speech of the Home Secretary, and the only conclusion he could come to was that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not taken the trouble to understand even the elements of the question. And with regard to the other eight answers, there had not been found eight speakers to support the Government Resolution. Therefore, unless one of the speakers on the Treasury Bench had repeated himself several times, or unless his arithmetic was at fault, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was greatly in error as to the number. He trusted the House would not consent to carry out a provision which must strike deep at the dignity of Parliament, without, at all events, knowing the full scope of the proposal which the Government laid before them.
§ MR. EDWARD CLARKEsaid, that the speech of the Prime Minister afforded some of the strongest reasons for supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Portsmouth. The House had been told that they might trust those whom the President of the Local Government Board had, with his usual felicity of expression, called "casual" Chairmen. The position of the matter now stood thus. It was said that the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes) would be accepted; that the Resolution would include the Chairman of Ways and Means only; and that, at some future time, a scheme would be brought before the House, and, if it were accepted, Her Majesty's Government would ask that the same powers should be given to those Chairmen as to the Chairman of Committees. The Prime Minister, in answer to the hon. Member for Portsmouth, had, with singular ingenuity, repeated the same thing in three different forms. First, he said that it would be invidious to deprive a Chairman of Committees of the power given to the Speaker; next, that to take this power from the Chairman of Committees, while giving it to the Speaker, would be to depart from the established rule that he should be equal to the Speaker in authority; and, thirdly, he said that the effect would be to disable the Chairman of Committees 112 from exercising a particular power. Now, he ventured to say that this phrase did not represent the state of the question before the House. This was not a disabling, but an enabling proposition; because it proposed, for the attainment of certain objects, to give special and most remarkable powers to the Chairman of Committees. Surely the House might well pause before delegating those powers to an Officer whose status was very inferior to that which the Speaker enjoyed, and with regard to whose decisions a great many Members of the House would have a well-founded distrust. He agreed with the hon. Member for North Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Cole-brooke), and the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter), as to the difficulty of dealing with the question now. If the House had decided that there should be a two-thirds' majority, it would not much matter who had the power to put the Rule in force. Although the hon. Member for Berkshire looked forward to the Resolution being modified before it left the House, they on the Opposition side had to deal with it as it came before them. It was admitted that the Chairman of Committees must be a political partizan, and, though selected with the approval of the House, he must necessarily be the representative and instrument of the Prime Minister. [Mr. DODSON dissented.] He was sorry that a right hon. Gentleman who had himself filled that post should have dissented. But experience ought to have shown that the Chairman of Committees could not carry on the Business of the House unless he was in intimate relations with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister admitted the inferior position of the Chairman of Committees, and urged that by reason of his lesser authority he would be careful not to strain a despotic power. But in practice there would be no such safeguard, because a Government Whip would convey to him the information that a majority of the House was not only ready, but anxious to close a debate; and the only place where the decision could be challenged would be, as the hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) suggested, in the constituencies. And although there might be great respect in the House for the Chairman of Committees on account of his long services and personal character, that would not be felt outside the House. The country had great respect 113 for the Office of Speaker, because for 80 years it had been dissociated from Party. But the country knew little or nothing of the Chairman of Committees; and, consequently, the country did not invest him with any authority. If the House were forced to vote upon the Amendment, he hoped that it would refuse to give to the Chairman of Committees the power of closing a debate with the aid of a bare majority, and would therefore strike out his name from the Resolution.
§ MR. RAIKESsaid, that it was with great reluctance he found himself compelled to make a few observations in reply to speeches delivered on his own side of the House. Had not the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson) already exhausted his right of speech, he should have left it to him to vindicate the honour of the Office which he had so worthily filled. He thought it would mislead the country, and be injurious to the reputation of the House, if the hypothesis of the political relations between the Chairman of Ways and Means and the Government of the day, which had been so frequently asserted, went out without a contradiction from those who had held the Office. It would be impossible, he thought, for any Member of that House, with perfect self-respect, hereafter to accept that Office, if it were to be supposed that he was merely the creature of the Minister of the day, and that he occupied towards him a position which he did not with regard to any other Member of the House. During the period he filled the Office it was his duty—and he hoped he succeeded in performing it—to cultivate with Gentlemen who sat on the left side of the House precisely those confidential and friendly relations that subsisted between him and the occupants of the Treasury Bench; and he thought no one who had seen how Business was conducted in the House could fail to understand that it would be impossible for any Chairman to conduct the Business of the House if he were so far to forget himself as to be merely in friendly and confidential relations with one side of the House. He did not wish to enter into the larger question of intrusting a power which they might see devolving on the Speaker to the Chairman of Committees; but he wished to point out that, as far as he 114 could understand this Rule in connection with the other Standing Orders of the House, and the Act relating to the Deputy Speaker, supposing the Rule passed in its present form, with the omission of the Chairman of Ways and Means, it would then be competent for that Gentleman in the absence of the Speaker, filling the Chair as Deputy Speaker, to exercise a power which could be denied to him in the performance of his ordinary duties. He did not intend to take any part in the division upon this question. He could fully understand the unwillingness of many Members to extend in any way the exercise of a power which they regarded with great distrust, even in the most modified form; and he hoped nothing he had said would in any way prevent any Member giving effect to the conviction he might entertain as to the propriety of conferring this power. At the same time, he hoped that those who were in future called to the Office of Chairman of Ways and Means might continue to enjoy that confidence which in former days the House had, in the most unstinted manner, bestowed upon them.
§ MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, he thought it behoved them to be careful lest future Chairmen of Ways and Means should become entangled in all sorts of political arrangements. They ought also to remember that impartiality might not always be the chief characteristic of the occupant of the Chair. He was disturbed by some words that had fallen from the Prime Minister. Those words caused him to fear that the new powers would be placed by the Government, in the absence of successful opposition, even in the hands of Chairmen of Grand Committees. It was said that the House was such a bad one that New Rules were necessary; and it was argued that the House, when in Committee of Ways and Means, was even worse than at other times. Surely such arguments were a little unjust. He had always thought that the House was the purest, most honest, and most talented House that had ever been brought together. The presence of discarded Cabinet Ministers on nearly every Bench on the Ministerial side of the House showed that the House was one boasting extreme purity. It was very hard that the Prime Minister, who usually sat between two right hon. Gentlemen (Sir William 115 Harcourt and Mr. Dodson), whose malpractices had led to their temporary absence from the House not so very long ago, should revile the House as he had done. They should pause before giving the Chairman of Committees greater discretionary powers than he possessed at present. Whatever a Chairman might do, the Government, of course, would be bound to support him. The position of the Speaker was essentially different from that of the position of Chairman of Committees; and the willingness of the House to allow this great power to be in the hands of the Speaker was no reason why they should allow it to be in the hands of the Chairman of Committees. They all knew that as long as the Judges were removable at the pleasure of the Crown there was no security that the law would be purely administered. The only security for that was obtained by giving independence to the Judges. The same might be said of the Office of Chairman of Committees. The Speaker was the first Gentleman in England, and he looked for no promotion, or ought to look for no promotion or honours from the Ministry. The Chairman of Committees stood on a much lower level than the Speaker. He remained to fight political battles long after he had left his Chair.
§ MR. PELLsaid, he thought the position which the Government appeared to have taken at the commencement had already been shaken. Propositions had been laid before them by the Prime Minister which required time for consideration. An hon. Member (Mr. Walter) had said, with great truth, that the Government on this occasion had put the cart before the horse. Hon. Members would have considerable difficulty in voting on this subject until they knew more about the proposals of the Government with reference to the Chairmen of Grand Committees. The Speakers of that House had obtained their position almost invariably by the service of a long apprenticeship. By a long continuance in the House, and by having frequently accepted Offices which required great skill and dexterity, they had acquired a position in the House which had enabled Members, irrespective of their politics, to perceive that they were best fitted for the Chair. But the apprenticeship of Chairmen of Committees had been very short indeed, and naturally 116 Members would not attach to their decisions the importance which they attached to the decisions of the Speaker. The Government had not explained what their proposals were with reference to the Chairmen of Grand Committees. If Grand Committees were appointed to save the time, the valuable time, of the House, it was necessary that the powers of that functionary should be like those conferred on the Chairman of Committees of the Whole House. He remembered that the hat of a gentleman who visited the Zoological Gardens fell into the pit; the gentleman incautiously descended into the pit, where he was embraced with great fervour by a bear. He was saved with great difficulty, and when he came out of the pit he said—"I did not know the nature of the animal I should have to encounter." Neither did he (Mr. Pell) know the powers or dangers that would attend the Chairmen of Grand Committees. He should support the Amendment.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLThe right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes) has received the very rare compliment of being cheered twice by hon. Gentlemen on the opposite Benches; but I am sorry that, after having had the courage to speak upon this occasion upon the duties of the Chairman of Committees, he has had the modesty to run away the moment he made his speech. Had he remained, I should have liked to have asked him one or two questions with respect to the nature of the communications he made. He stated that during the whole of the time he filled the Office of Chairman of Committees he was on the most intimate relations with the opposite Parties. Now, I should have thought that that was not at all a part of the functions of a Chairman of Committees; and I am sorry he is not present, because if he had been I should have told him that I had long suspected him. What we want to know is where we are. I have listened with a great deal of attention to the different speeches that have been made, but I have received no information. It is extraordinary; but it seems absolutely impossible for any Member of the House to say where the Government are leading us: and after listening for some hours I am constrained to say that the Government do not know their own minds, and, what is more, they do not 117 care a pin about it. Positively, for a long time the Government Bench was left in the hands of the President of the Local Government Board; and although the state of the House is such that it was necessary to violate the Constitution to consider this question, yet the first day it comes on for discussion the Treasury Bench is left for a considerable time in the sole possession of one Member of the Government, and that Member the President of the Local Government Board. It is quite inexcusable that the Government should propose to deal with questions by means of Grand Committees. The Prime Minister has stated that if there was one question more important than another it was that of Grand Committees. Now, I want to know if the Chairmen of those Grand Committees are to go up to the Table and be placed in the same position as the Chairman of Committees? I do not know why it was thought necessary to bring us up from all parts of the country, at great inconvenience, when it is quite impossible to get anything more than a vague statement from the Government. I have been for some years a Member of this House, and I cannot think why we should have been called together to discuss anything, except, perhaps, the hon. Member for Carlo w (Mr. Gray's) imprisonment, which everybody, one would think, might have discussed. We have heard that there are several supporters of the clôture dying to speak upon the question; but no one can explain the extraordinary phenomenon why it is that when we have been summoned here to discuss a great Constitutional question the command has evidently been passed round to the other side to hold their tongues, and they have obeyed with an obedience which does them credit. It is very hard upon the Opposition, and, more than that, it throws a doubt upon the sincerity of the proposals of the Government. Another difficulty seems to be this—that it is quite impossible for Members on the other side to say anything new on this question. Perhaps so; but if they would only make an effort, some good might arise out of it. They are always charging those who sit below the Gangway with Obstruction; but if the right hon. Gentleman opposite would only get up and tell us how he shapes his proposal, and what are its objects, 118 we should know how to deal with it, and, perhaps, he would find the Opposition a good deal more contented with it than he might think. Surely it is time to inform the House what is their solution of the extraordinary problem which has been put before it. We ought to be told whether or not the Chairmen of the Grand Committees are to have these powers; and surely it is high time for the Government to get up and make a statesmanlike explanation. In its absence, it does not seem to me that the Opposition can pursue any other course than to express its discontent, and support the Amendment.
§ MR. DAWSONsaid, he was very sanguine that before long the Irish Members would be relieved from attendance in that House; and, therefore, he did not take the deep interest in this question which was evinced by the noble Lord who had just sat down. He wished to make two remarks at this stage of the discussion, one of which applied to the House and to its Procedure, and the other to the Party to which he had the honour to belong. The Government had afforded the House an opportunity of inspecting the Rules of Procedure in force in foreign countries and in the Colonies; but during the whole of this debate he heard no reference whatever made to these documents. He was certainly prepared for that, because there appeared to him to be no analogy whatever between the Foreign and Colonial Assemblies whose Procedure they had examined and that for which the present Rules were sought to be introduced. He challenged the Government to point to any one of these Foreign Assemblies where there was transacted the legislation of two nations separated so much in feelings, in instincts—separated so much physically and politically—as the two nations whose Representatives formed the principal portion of that House. Could they show him any Colonial or Foreign Assembly where the Representatives of one nation stood in the same relation to the Representatives of another as did the Irish Members to the Representatives of the British nation in the House of Commons? But there was a still more extraordinary want of analogy if they looked at the representation of Ireland in that House. That was a representation of the people of one country by a minority the most unconstitutional and unpa- 119 ralleled that he had ever become acquainted with. Therefore, the Rules of the Foreign Assemblies which the Government had issued for the purpose of substantiating the demand they were now making on the House were entirely inapplicable to the case before them, and referred to a very opposite and contrary state of things. There was one matter which affected the Party to which he belonged to whom the Prime Minister had overtly and covertly alluded in the course of the debate. It was said that the raison d'être of this measure was the action which the Irish Party had felt it their duty to pursue in the House. If there were prolonged debates, and if the Irish Members, as had been alleged, were guilty of Obstruction, they should ask what were the nature of the debates, and the questions they interfered in, and what were the nature of the debates and questions in which they had no participation. He came into that House in 1880, and in a very short time from that there were carried for the English people eight of the most important Acts of Parliament that the House of Commons ever passed. The Budget was carried, which revolutionized the taxing system of the country; the Employers' Liability Act was passed, which involved financial questions and changes affecting the incidence of profit, greater even than those touched upon by the Land Act. The Burials Bill, which would be looked upon in Ireland as a sentimental grievance, was introduced and passed; the Ground Game Bill, which was the thin end of the wedge in English Land Reform, was also passed; and what was the action during the discussion of these great and extensive measures of the Irish Representatives? Did they stand up to waste the time of the House? Did they stand up to oppose those great and wonderful reforms? No; during their discussion they did not enter a protest—
§ MR. SPEAKERI must point out to the hon. Member that he is not addressing himself to the particular Amendment now before the House.
§ MR. DAWSONsaid he was under the impression that when an Amendment was before the House he could speak to the Resolution to which that Amendment gave rise. If he was wrong, of course he should bow at once to the correction of the Chair.
§ MR. SPEAKERWhen the House has disposed of the Amendments, the Resolution will be put as a whole to the House, and then any observations on the Resolution at large would be in Order. The House is now considering the Amendment to the Resolution.
§ MR. DAWSONsaid, that with respect to the Amendment there appeared to be very little indeed in it. If the Chairman of Committees was to decide all matters, and to be the arbiter of the House, it would seem that his Deputy ought to have the same jurisdiction vested in him.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTESir, I cannot help thinking that the House has some cause to complain of the conduct of Her Majesty's Government. The circumstances under which we meet are very peculiar circumstances. An exceptional and special Session has been decided upon, at the cost of very great inconvenience to Members of this House, for the purpose of considering what we are told is an extremely important Code of New Regulations for the conduct of Business. We have come up, though we strongly object to some of the leading principles in this Code of Procedure, and though we find that very serious questions are involved in its discussion. Yet we have endeavoured, as far as we could, and as consistently as we could with our duty, to expose the objections we feel. We have endeavoured to conduct the Business for the transaction of which we have been summoned in a manner that shall be reasonable, and not involve waste of time. The least we had to expect from the Government was that they would pay us the compliment, if nothing more, of taking part in the discussion of a vital and important proposal—that they should not absent themselves during a great part of the time, more especially when we find that the word of command to keep silence was passed through their ranks. ["No, no!"] Well, if that is not so, I congratulate hon. Gentlemen upon the silence they have observed. But whether there be grounds for it or not, we have felt the difficulty of our position in exactly the same way as if a word of command for silence had been passed, because we have been shut out from full and fair discussion of questions which demand settlement. You are now about to introduce a wholly new principle into 121 the way in which the debates of the ancient House of Commons are to be conducted. This is the most serious change that any of us can recollect, and is one not to be taken lightly without reasonable discussion. The Government have special interest in matters of this sort. They desire, of course, to shorten the Business, and get on as rapidly as possible with the measures they have in hand; but we have a right to know what independent Members of Parliament on both sides of the House feel with regard to proposals so made by the Government, and the only single word that has yet been spoken by an independent Member on the other side of the House has been the few words spoken by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold).
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEMention any other Gentleman who has spoken.
MR. GLADSTONEThe hon. Member for North Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke) and the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter).
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEThose were the two Members I was about to cite as having spoken against the Government; but for the moment I thought it was more correct to mention first the hon. Member for Salford, because he did speak in favour of the Government proposal, and all he said was that, unless we accepted the clause as it stood, we should shut ourselves out from the power of preventing Obstruction in Committee. The hon. Member for North Lanarkshire said that, so far as he was concerned, he thought we were putting the cart before the horse, because the real question to be settled was by whom the ultimate decision to close should be given; and he intimated that if the Government proposal of the decision being taken by a bare majority were enforced, he should be opposed to it, and the hon. Member for Berkshire said something to the same effect. These are the kind of supporters of whom the right hon. Gentleman is so proud. But, independently of the fact that the discussion has been left almost entirely to certain Members of the Treasury Bench—not including the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India, who had apparently always taken such an interest in this 122 question—who have made their speeches and then gone out of the House to do other business, we find, to our great surprise, that the right hon. Gentlemen themselves had not even taken the trouble to come to an understanding of their own plan. Now, considering that this plan has been in their minds during the whole of the present year, and has been brought constantly forward since the beginning of February, and has been from time to time the subject of communication between both sides of the House, and considering that there have been two months' rest in which to arrive at some decision, I did think they would have come forward with some clear plan to lay before the House. I said just now that hon. Members opposite had kept silence since this question had been brought forward, and I would suggest as a reason for this that they really did not know what it was they were to support. Even now, in the present Sitting, we have had a modification of the Resolution of the greatest importance. Let me remind the House that last night, when the Government came forward and asked us to give precedence to the discussion on the Rules of Procedure, the right hon. Gentleman introduced his Motion by making a statement which was extremely fair as far as it went, and seemed to be of a satisfactory character—making a statement of the course they intended to take and the alterations they were prepared to make in the Resolutions; and we had every reason to believe, when we came together this morning, that we were in possession of the latest mind of the Government. Well, let us consider what is the question we have been debating to-day. It is a question of the very highest importance. A great deal has been said about the comparative position and independence of the Speaker who rules over our deliberations and the Chairman of Committees of Ways and Means, or other Gentlemen who may act as Chairmen in Committee, and many observations have been made upon them, not in an offensive spirit, but more or less of a personal nature; but I wish to put the matter to the House independently of considerations of that kind; I wish to remind the House that the question is not as between the comparative independence of yourself, Sir, or any distinguished Predecessors and Succes- 123 sors and the position of the Chairman who may from time to time be selected. The question we have to consider divides itself into this—What Rules ought to be enforced when the House is acting as a Whole House; and what Rules ought to be enforced when the House is in Committee? There lies the difference. The difference, it appears to me, does not he as between the Speaker and the right hon. Gentleman who is Chairman of Committees, but as between the House constituted in one way and the House constituted in another way. Unless that distinction is kept in mind you will get into inextricable confusion—indeed, you are getting into such confusion already. I am not putting a frivolous or captious contention before the House; I have a high authority, and I wish the House will be good enough to consider that authority. I refer, Sir, to yourself. Last year—1881—the House, for sufficient reasons, voted that the conduct and control of Business, that the powers of the House, should, for a certain limited time, be transferred and placed in the hands of the Chairman. In consequence of those powers having been so placed in your hands, you were good enough to frame certain Rules for the conduct of the House, under which Rules the House proceeded so long as Urgency continued. Those Rules were received with very great respect, and also great admiration, from all parts of the House, and also from the Members of Her Majesty's Government. I hold a copy of those Rules in my hand. The first thing I see is that those Rules divided themselves into two wholly different sections—first, Rules to be observed by the Speaker; and, secondly, Rules relating to the procedure of Business in Committee of the Whole House. In framing those Rules, you, Sir, distinctly laid down what appeared to you to be the proper regulations for the conduct of Business while the House was acting as a whole body, and these were followed by regulations adapted to very different circumstances—to the case of the House sitting in Committee. If, then, in the present instance, this distinction is kept in view, the House, without much confusion, might come to a decision with regard to them; but instead of that we have here a Rule which mixes up the powers to be given to Mr. Speaker and those to be given to the Chairman of Committees, and we are 124 called upon to apply them equally to both those functionaries. The great difficulty that is suggested by the hon. Member for North Lanarkshire (Sir Edward Colebrooke) and others is that we do not really know what is to be the actual power which you are going to give to somebody; but when we have to give it to somebody, we must consider to whom that power ought in reason to be given. With regard to Mr. Speaker, we understand what it is we are asked to do. You propose that when Mr. Speaker is of opinion that the question has been adequately discussed, and there is a disposition in the House to close the debate, Mr. Speaker shall put the Question, and in that way it is assumed that the Business of the House, as a whole, will be forwarded and advanced; but what are you going to do when the House is not sitting as a Whole House? You do not know yourselves, or, if you do, you did not at the beginning of this Sitting, and have kept us in the dark up to the present moment. I say you did not know at the beginning of the Sitting, and that is a remarkable statement to make; but it is literally true. The important question was raised months ago whether this important power should be confined to the recognized and duly appointed Chairman of Ways and Means, or whether it should also be exercised by those who have been spoken of as casual Chairmen. The Prime Minister told us, some time before the Adjournment of Parliament, that he was prepared to accept the proposal of the right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes); but now the Prime Minister has quite forgotten that; he discussed the question on the assumption that that was not the case; and when he was reminded of it, he said, with a light heart—"If I said so, of course I stand by it," as if it did not make the slightest difference; but it does make a very serious difference. The whole question is whether we are to provide exhaustively for the two conditions of the House—the first being when it is fully constituted with the Speaker in the Chair, and the other when the Chair is occupied by somebody else. In providing for the one the Resolution does not provide for the other, except in the ca9e of the Chair being occupied by the recognized Chairman of Ways and Means. Unless something else were to be proposed, this does not exhaust the con- 125 ditions with which we have to deal. And, let me remark, this is not a matter of little importance. The right hon. Gentleman talks of the distinction between the Chairman of Ways and Means when called upon to act as Deputy Speaker and the Chairman in his capacity of Chairman of Ways and Means. That is a case which does not often arise, and is not likely to arise when there is a probability of these powers being exercised. But these casual Chairmen—when are they to be called in? Generally at the time of these prolonged Sittings, which are difficult times; and here you are going to deal with cases of Obstruction, but are leaving out altogether the case of these casual Chairmen. While Mr. Playfair is in the Chair he will have power to end a debate; but if he is exhausted by the length of a Sitting, and some other Member—perhaps a Member of the Government—takes the Chair, he will not be able to exercise such power. The hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) said it was absolutely necessary to prevent Obstruction in Committee, which may occur when the Chair is occupied by one of these casual Chairmen, who will not be able to exercise these powers. That being so, I say the scheme of the Government will not hold water; it does not cover the whole ground, and it is an un workmanlike proposal. Am I alone in raising this difficulty? The Government have themselves recognized it, and say they will meet it; if only the House will give them a cheque in blank in favour of somebody not decided upon they will make a proposal by-and-bye as to the person in whose favour it is to be drawn. We were distinctly told that if we will pass this measure, so far as to carry the words giving power to the Chairman, the Government will make a proposal to the House, and then let us see to whom it is we give the powers. I can understand that there may be supporters of the Government who, with such blind faith in their Leaders, are perfectly ready to say—"We will give you this cheque and leave you to fill it in at your own pleasure;" but we, who are naturally a little more sceptical, would like to know in whose favour this is to be drawn, and I think it would be but reasonable that we should be allowed to discuss that question fully, and with greater know- 126 ledge of what we are about to do. With the Resolution in its present shape the Speaker is called upon to carry the Chairman of Committees on his back. Nobody supposes that if you had this Resolution in the shape in which it would stand without having the Speaker's name mentioned in it, it would be supported as it has been. A large number of Members support the Resolution, and others, though they object to it, see less objection than they otherwise would to its being accepted, because they have confidence in the character of the Speaker; but it is not fair that we should be called upon, on account of our confidence in the Speaker, to let him carry on his back some unknown Chairman of Committees. We are told with regard to the Grand Committees that we are very much in the wrong, and are altogether unreasonable, because we raise a question as to what is to be the position of the Chairman of these Committees. We are told that we are impertinent to inquire—[Mr. GLADSTONE: I answered the question.]—but the House must remember that these Grand Committees, if the Resolution is adopted as it stands—on which I say nothing, but reserve my opinion—involve a most important and vital change in the constitution of the House, as the House will be, when it is not fully constituted with the Speaker in the Chair, and your proposals ought to have reference to that character which the House will then bear, and not to that which it will bear if your scheme comes into operation. It cannot be said that we are to put out of sight a matter which is an essential part of the whole scheme. We were told by the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) that Committee is just the stage at which Obstruction is most rife, and when it is most important it should be dealt with. But then you are going to alter entirely the constitution of your Committees by the appointment of these Grand Committees; and we want to know, have you a scheme, or have you not, which shall deal with the conditions of the House under all circumstances, when it is acting otherwise than as a Whole House? We are bound to insist on some clear and explicit answer upon the subject. I will not go into the question as to whether this form of clôture is the right way of deal- 127 ing with Obstruction. We were told distinctly by the Prime Minister that he did not intend this for dealing with Obstruction, and that was a statement which took exceedingly well in February; but now it has become obsolete, and it now appears that it is intended to check Obstruction. I believe the statement in February was the true one, and that the Rule will not have any effect in reducing Obstruction. I am as anxious as anyone else to deal with Obstruction; but it must be dealt with in a very different way than by these measures. With regard to Committees, I venture to say you have not half thought out your plan, and it is an insult to the House to propose a plan which has not been thought out and digested. We have heard that we may trust to the Chairman because, having this authority, he will be more careful; but if we are to have arguments of that kind put to us, and are expected to swallow them, we shall be putting ourselves in a curious position in the eyes of the public. I have made these remarks because I think they are called for and are just, and what I wish to press upon the Government and the House is, that we should insist upon seeing the whole plan of the Government put before us. I will go further, and say this by way of my own suggestion. I do not believe there would be any better method, and, perhaps, there could be not so good a method, of proceeding as by following the lead set by the Speaker when he drew up the Resolutions on Urgency—that is to say, of defining your Resolution, and applying what you think fit—that is to say, following the Speaker's whole system upon the position which ought to be taken up when the House is constituted as a full House, and then by separate Resolutions endeavouring to apply the Rules, with more or less modification, to the case when the House is in Committee. I believe you would save time by doing so, and you would not only avoid confusion, but you would place the House in a condition more intelligible, and more satisfactory in relation to the proper discharge of its important functions.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he had had no intention of rising to reply to the right hon. Baronet; but as he had been appealed to by name by the right hon. 128 Gentleman, he would answer as far as he could the questions that had been put to Her Majesty's Government. The right hon. Baronet had assumed that some order had been given by the Government to hon. Members who supported the Government not to take part in this discussion. He would remind the House that the right hon. Gentleman gave no grounds whatever for that statement. Possibly it might not have occurred to the right hon. Gentleman that those Members who thought that there was a great deal too much discussion in the House would consider they would best remedy the evil which they had assembled there to encounter by not speaking so much as hon. Members opposite, but rather by letting a few speakers deal broadly with the subject. He must, however, say that he should not have thought so small a matter worthy of the attention of the House if the right hon. Gentleman had not himself made allusion to it. If the present Amendment were carried, there would be no power of control vested in the House at all when it was in Committee. In fact, the House would, when in Committee, be left without any check on its debates. The right hon. Gentleman said he did not take part with those who had drawn a personal distinction between the Speaker and the Chairman of Committees.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he did not rest his argument upon that.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, it was true the right hon. Gentleman did not rest his argument on that; but he drew a distinction between ordinary Sittings of the House and Committees of the Whole House. He was disposed, to some extent, to agree with the right hon. Gentleman; but what was the difference between the two conditions of the House? In ordinary Sittings every Member could only speak once; whereas, in Committee, every Member could speak as often as he thought proper. In which condition of the House, therefore, was an abuse of the liberty of discussion most likely to occur? The right hon. Gentleman agreed that when it was in the power of an hon. Member to speak once some check should be placed on the exercise of that power; but, strange to say, he did not think 129 any such check was necessary when hon. Gentlemen could speak as often as they pleased without restriction. That was the distinction that had been drawn by the right hon. Gentleman; and did not such a difference show the necessity rather of imposing restrictions in Committee than in the Whole House? Then the right hon. Gentleman, so far as he (the Attorney General) could gather from his remarks, passed from that point to another argument. He said—"Look at the condition of things that you will arrive at when you have agreed to accept the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston." Well, he must confess it was not very encouraging for the Prime Minister and those in immediate charge of these Resolutions to accept any Amendment, if the concessions made by such acceptance were dealt with as the right hon. Gentleman had dealt with them. But the right hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes) moved, not as a substitution, but as an Amendment to the proposition before the House, that the power, the application of which they were now discussing, should be conferred on the regular Chairman of Committees, and should not be placed in the hands of the individual who had been described by some speakers that afternoon as the casual Chairman. The right hon. Baronet, following, as he sometimes did, the lead of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), turned on the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston, and attacked it, it should be observed, when it had been accepted by the Prime Minister. He questioned if, in the event of the Amendment not having been accepted by the Leader of the House, it would not then have received the support of the right hon. Baronet. What the right hon. Gentleman who led the Opposition said really amounted to this—"You are going to give this power to the ordinary Chairman of Committees; but it is to the casual Chairman that you should really give it. He is the man whom you should always invest with this power, because he generally sits in troubled times, when a great deal of unnecessary discussion is going on."
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEI did not say that; I said that if you decline to give it to him, you leave out 130 exactly the kind of Chairman who most needs this power.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he was quite ready to accept the explanation; but, as he understood the right hon. Baronet, he advanced that as an argument why these powers should be conferred on the casual Chairman, and why he should not be left out. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes) proposed to strike out the casual Chairman from enjoying such powers, and he certainly thought at the time the argument of the right hon. Baronet was intended to show that he should be kept in. He (the Attorney General) admitted the right hon. Baronet was right in saying that, at the present time, and under the existing Rules, they had to seek the aid of casual Chairmen in troubled times, because the physical powers of the Chairman of Committees did not enable him to continue his labours; but it was precisely in order to get rid of that state of things that the Government brought forward their proposals. The proposed Rules ought, therefore, to be looked at as they would apply to the new state of things. The right hon. Baronet said he was going to vote for the Amendment now before the House, because, at the present moment, he did not know how the Government were going to deal with the powers of Chairmen of Grand Committees. Was there much connection between the two questions? When they were asked to take away from the House when in Committee all power of terminating undue debate, was it worthy of this discussion to say—"I will vote for the absence of that power, because I do not know what will be done with regard to Grand Committees?" It was in order to get rid of the present unsatisfactory state of things that the Rule was proposed to the House. It would give to the regular Chairman of Committees power to check unnecessary Obstruction. There would be a termination of unnecessary debate, and consequently a termination of that great drag on the Chairman's physical powers which was the only reason why he could not perform his duties at present.
§ MR. J. G. HUBBARDsaid, he would vote with all his heart against the Resolution proposed by the Government, unless the Prime Minister would accept 131 the wise and Constitutional Amendment of the hon. Baronet the Member for the University of London (Sir John Lubbock). He was unable to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), because his doing so would practically imply that he was satisfied to give to the Speaker a power which, in his belief, would be detrimental to the freedom of discussion and destructive of the character of the House as a deliberative Assembly. The closing of debates by a simple majority would be tantamount to vesting absolute power in the hands of the Chief Officer of the Crown.
§ VISCOUNT FOLKESTONEsaid, that if hon. Members opposite had not received the order to hold their tongues, he did not wonder at their wishing that the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government should be carried, for on this occasion it must have been with great difficulty of persuasion that they induced themselves to maintain silence. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition adverted to the absence of Members from the Treasury Bench. He presumed the silence of the Members of the Government was self-imposed. Having imposed the clôture on themselves they now wished to impose it upon the House. His right hon. Friend had put a distinct question to the Government, whether any scheme had been framed with regard to the proposed Grand Committees? The only answer the Attorney General gave was that in due time the Prime Minister would formulate a scheme. That was no answer at all, and in order to give the Government an opportunity of reconsidering the question he should conclude by moving the adjournment of the debate.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Viscount Folkestone.)
§ MR. CHAPLIN,in supporting the Motion, said, that his right hon. Friend the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the close of his observations, had made a proposition which had met with universal approbation on the Opposition Benches, and which was that there should be two separate Resolutions—one applying when the Speaker was in the Chair, and the other when the House 132 was in Committee. No answer had been given to that suggestion.
§ MR. LEWISsaid, he thought the Leader of the Opposition was entitled to some answer to his suggestion that they should first deal with Regulations for their proceedings when the Speaker was in the Chair, and then take up the consideration of the Regulations for proceedings in Committee. He did not wish to talk the Resolution out, but thought it better to adjourn until they had the two separate Motions.
MR. GLADSTONEI confess when the Leader of the Opposition coolly invited us to divide this Resolution into two Resolutions, I bethought myself of the disparaging reference he had made to certain arguments on this side of the House, and of the fact that he gave us credit for less than the average amount of intelligence that is to be found in any assembly of Englishmen. Now, Sir, I will answer the question. A number of Gentlemen have given us Notice, including the very Gentlemen who now complain of us for not answering this question, that they intend to oppose every Resolution allowing a closing power to a majority, not merely by discussion and reasoning, but by a resort to all the Obstructive Forms of the House. That being so, the right hon. Gentleman recommends that we should divide this Resolution into two separate Resolutions, in order that not once, but twice, these Obstructive tactics should be adopted. I do not think that any hon. Gentleman will fail to understand why, in these circumstances, we have not given a better reception to the suggestion of the right hon. Baronet.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 136; Noes 199: Majority 63.—(Div. List, No. 344.)
§ And it being past a quarter before Six of the clock, the Debate on the Amendment stood adjourned till To-morrow.
§ House adjourned at five minutes before Six o'clock.