[ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [TENTH NIGHT.]

HC Deb 30 October 1882 vol 274 cc386-458

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Main Question [20th February], as amended, That when it shall appear to Mr. Speaker, or to the Chairman of Ways and Means in a Committee of the whole House, during any Debate, that the subject has been adequately discussed, and that it is 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 be 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, as amended, again proposed.

Debate resumed.

MR. GIBSON

said, that the first verbal Amendment on the Paper which stood in his name in regard to the discretion to be vested in the Speaker having been rendered unnecessary by an Amendment which the Government accepted the other evening, he would not move it.

MR. BRYCE

proposed as an Amendment, in line 4, to leave out all after "may" to "put," in line 5, and insert— Upon the request of a Minister of the Crown or of the Member in charge, either of any original Motion then under discussion, or of any Amendment thereto, give leave to such Minister or Member to move 'that the Question be now put,' and if such Member shall so move. He admitted that the Amendment was not, in his judgment, the best that could be proposed. In his opinion, and in the opinion of others, it would be better if the Speaker or Chairman had no function in the matter whatever, and the initiative was allowed to rest entirely upon the Ministers and other Members of the House, and also if the functions of the Chair had bee nentirely confined to in- terposing its veto where it was obvious a Motion was made merely for vexatious purposes or Obstruction. It would, however, be in the recollection of the House that when the vote was taken on the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Brighton (Mr. Marriott), the House ordered the words "when it shall appear to Mr. Speaker" to stand part of the Question. Therefore, the Chair was now necessarily concerned in the matter, and all that could be done was to take the next best course, which was indicated by his Amendment. In the first place, he believed it would be of great advantage to the House and the country if the impartiality of the Chair, which had been one of the oldest and most priceless Parliamentary treasures, were removed from all possibility of question. He was far from saying that he entertained the view, if the Resolution were passed, that the power it gave to the Speaker would be abused during the present generation. On the contrary, he thought it would be used too rarely, and that the Speaker would regard it as too exceptional a power for anything like ordinary occasions. But though their feeling might be that it would be impossible for the present Speaker and his immediate Successors, in whose time this power was conferred, to unduly exercise it; yet they could not tell what might be done and said in a new generation which was accustomed to see the Speaker invested with power of this kind, and ultimately the Chair might suffer that degradation which it had unhappily suffered in the United States of America. They should, therefore, endeavour to minimize the function of the Chair in this matter, and that could only be done by dividing the responsibility with a Minister or with the Member in charge. At present the responsibility rested entirely between the Chair and the House, and, after all, mainly with the Chair, because the Chair took the initiative. The Amendment he proposed would change the position of the Speaker and shift it into the background, and the responsibility of initiating this power would attach in the first instance to the person who made the Motion. The newspaper reports would show to the country that the Motion was that of Mr. So-and-so, and the position of the Speaker, instead of being initiative, would be merely a moderating function. He was well aware that it would be said that under a provision like this there would be danger of exposing the Chair to pressure. But, knowing how impartially both sides of the House had been dealt with by the present Speaker, he could not think that the exercise of a veto of the kind proposed would be likely to be controlled by the Ministry of to day. Even supposing this danger to exist, it was one that existed under the Resolution as it now stood. It had often been said that the Speaker in taking action would do so on suggestions from the Ministry, and after endeavouring to ascertain what the Ministers' wishes were, and if the power at present provided were exercised, persons would be found in the House, and still more out-of-doors, to say that the Speaker had done it as the result of pressure put upon him by the Ministers. He could not see, therefore, that the danger would be much greater under the Amendment than under the Resolution. On the whole, if there was an advantage it was under the Amendment, by which what was done would be done openly on the appeal of a Minister or a Member. Further, the result of an error on the part of the Chair would be less serious. It was thought that the authority of the Chairman would receive a certain shock if a mistake was made, and that he would be rather less willing to exercise his power in the future. That evil would be much less under the Amendment than under the Resolution. It would be, in fact, a more trivial mistake for the Chairman to suppose that the time had come for closing the debate when the Rule applied on the Motion of a Minister or a Member, than it would be for him on his own proper Motion to come before the House and say so, and subsequently to find that the evident sense of the House was not that which he had supposed it to be. Lastly, though its observation might tend to deprive him of some support, he would say that it would improve the Resolution by strengthening it. Many Members on that side had come to the conclusion that some more drastic measure was needed than that before the House to stop the needless loquacity and endless prolixity which they witnessed in the proceedings of the House. He was afraid the Government had made the machine so cumbrous that it would not work, and that the Chair would hesitate to use its power except on extraordinary occasions, and Business would progress as badly as ever. They must trust to the good sense and good feeling of the House in that matter. But he ventured to hope that the Government would take the proposal fairly into their consideration, and accept, if not its actual terms, at least some modification of them, because he believed it would immensely increase the preventive operations of the Resolution, and, therefore, carry out the objects of the Government.

Amendment proposed, In line 4, to leave out the words "so inform the House or the Committee; and, if a Motion he made 'That the Question he now put,'" in order to insert the words "upon the request of a Minister of the Crown, or of the Member in charge, either of any original Motion then under discussion, or of any Amendment thereto, give leave to such Minister or Member to move 'That the Question he now put,' and if such Member shall so move,"—(Mr. Bryce,)

—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the words 'so inform the House or the Committee; and, if stand part of the Question."

MR. GLADSTONE

said, his hon. Friend had argued this question with his customary clearness. He had also, with his customary candour, admitted that this was not the Amendment he would have moved if he had had his choice; but they need not occupy the time of the House in discussing an Amendment he would have liked to move if he could. He (Mr. Gladstone) considered the Amendment in two points of view. His hon. Friend, agreeing with them in feeling the necessity for a strong measure of reform, was of opinion that their measure was not strong enough, and wished them, to use a homely expression, "to put more powder into the charge"—to strengthen the Resolution, and to insure either its more rapid and effective action, or at least by giving a prospect of that to increase its preventive force. It was clear that in the interests of the supposed majority of the House they had no reason to complain; but he must consider it in two points of view—in its bearing on the Speaker, and in its bearing on the position of the minority of the House. He owned that he was not prepared to accept it when he viewed it in its bearing on the Speaker. They did not disguise that they were asking the House to impose on the Chair, and asking the Chair to assume, very weighty and delicate functions, and a great responsibility; but they had done that believing it to be the course that was attended with the least amount of difficulty, and open to the least amount of objection; but, manifestly, if they were to impose this delicate and difficult office on the Chair, it was quite plain that they must sedulously preserve the Chair, in the discharge of this office, from anything that would be like interference with its high dignity. He was sorry to say that he was of opinion that this Amendment would impart a kind of aggression on the dignity of the Chair—he would not say of its impartiality, because his opinion of the Chair was such that he did not believe its impartiality would give way; but he must say he thought it would hardly be consistent with the dignity of the Chair to place it in a position in which it would stand if the Amendment were carried. Because it was not a question of relieving the Chair from the difficult duty of considering the condition of the House and the state of a debate. The Speaker had to make up his mind on two points of the greatest importance. First of all, he had to satisfy himself that the question had been adequately debated; further, he had to satisfy himself that it was the evident sense of the House that the Question should be put; and then he had to exercise his own discretion as to whether, in those circumstances, it was, upon the whole, expedient that he should move the House in a particular manner. That was a very serious matter to put in the hands of the Speaker; but if he were to have a matter so serious in his hands, he (Mr. Gladstone) did not think it ought to depend either on the Member in charge of a Bill, or still more, on a Minister of the Crown, whether the Speaker was to move or whether he was not. He should rather say that this Amendment hampered the Speaker without relieving him. It did not take out of his hands any of the duties that were proposed to be put upon him; but it introduced a pressure from without to be exercised upon him in a manner which he (Mr. Gladstone) thought tended to disparage his high position, and the influence he ought to exercise. There were those who thought the impartiality of the Chair was in danger from the Resolution as it stood. If it were in danger from the Resolution as it stood, he was afraid it required no argument to show that it was in danger from the Resolution as proposed to be amended. Therefore, he did not think that as regarded the Speaker the Amendment was satisfactory. He must say, also, that in the interests of the minority, Her Majesty's Government were not prepared to accept the Amendment. He had expressed his own sincere opinion that the Speaker's impartiality would not be affected. He believed the effect of an Amendment of this kind would be to leave the occupant of the Chair, or the Chairman in Committees rather, to assume a certain stiffness and rigidity in order to prevent his impartiality from being interfered with by an appeal made to him from a political quarter. The hon. Member had stated that the decision of the Speaker and of the Chairman of Ways and Means was sometimes influenced by the wish of Ministers.

MR. BRYCE

said, he had not stated this. He had referred to one of the objections to his Amendment—namely, that in future the Speaker might, if it were carried, be influenced by the wish of the Minister.

MR. GLADSTONE,

resuming, said, he was glad to hear this explanation, for, after a pretty long experience, he could not recollect to have heard of a single case of a judgment upon Order or Procedure in this House, either of the Speaker or of the Chairman of Committees, being given after endeavouring beforehand to ascertain what was the opinion or wish of the Minister of the Crown. But what he did feel was, that the Speaker ought not to be put under a political pressure. His belief was that the Speaker would resist. Many thought he could not resist; but he (Mr. Gladstone) thought political pressure ought to be altogether excluded from this matter. Even Gentlemen opposite, in good faith, were afraid of the strong political action of the Resolution. The Government, in actual good faith, dismissed altogether that apprehension; but certainly he could not for a moment deny that the minority, if the Amendment were adopted, would so far be put in this unjust position, that obviously a political element would be admitted as part of the iufluence that was to act in the case. It would mean that the desire of the Minister, as the organ of the majority—he need not argue it with regard to a Member in charge of a Bill, because really this was the most important part, of the question—was to count for something. That was the mildest and most moderate statement of it. In his opinion, it ought to count for nothing at all. The desire of the Minister had no place in this. It was an illegitimate element, and ought to be thrust out, and the Government were not prepared to move a single inch in this direction; and he hoped the hon. Member would not press, or the House accept, this Amendment.

MR. RAIKES

said, that the Speaker, whose duty it would be to observe the evident sense of the House, could not but regard the Minister as the organ of the majority. A Minister, indeed, who was responsible for the conduct of Public Business might as legitimately give expression to the evident sense of the House as the voices of irresponsible private Members. There was probably great difference of opinion on the subject of the Amendment, and he might remind the House of the debates in the last Parliament in Committee on the Irish Sunday Closing Bill. That Bill was in charge of a private Member (The O'Conor Don), and was the cause of several very late Sittings of the House, and of much controversy among the Irish Members themselves. One of those Sittings was continued till past 8 o'clock in the morning, and afforded an occasion on which, had the proposed Rule of Procedure been then in force, the clôture would certainly have been demanded by the Member in charge of the Bill. It would have been difficult for the Chairman, having regard to the majorities by which the Bill was being pushed through, to resist such an application; but he was sure that the bulk of hon. Members, when they returned at 4 o'clock, would have been dissatisfied at such a result, and that the suppressed minority would have thought themselves deeply aggrieved. Although, therefore, he did not regard with any very great favour that part of the Amendment which related to the case of an individual private Member taking the initiative, yet he thought there was a good deal of value to be attached to the principle of the Amendment, and to its application to the case of a Minister of the Crown. It seemed to him that, whether a Minister was to remain mute during an embarrassing debate, or was to make himself heard, if not by his own voice, by his servitors on the Treasury Bench, it would be wise to remove the impression that, whenever the clôture was applied, it would have been applied in the interests and at the wish of those who sat on the Treasury Bench. They must make up their minds for that. It was all very well for Members brought up in the tradition that the Chair was above human frailty to have no suspicion; but outside on platforms, in debating societies, pothouses, and Provincial newspapers, it would be said that the Chair had yielded to the solicitation of the Treasury Bench. Whether that was true or false, it would be impossible to prevent the spread of the belief. Would it not be better, in the interests of the Treasury Bench, that the thing should be done in the open, and should not be left to private hints or confidential suggestions? It might not be done even by the recognized subordinates of the Goverament; but it might be left to some of those convenient Friends who sometimes sat behind the Treasury Bench. He thought it would be well to make up their minds, if they were to have this form of Procedure forced upon them when it was most repugnant to their minds, if they were to give up all freedom of debate, to do something to preserve the respect, authority, and independence of the Chair, which, he believed, next to freedom of debate, was the most important function of the House. While he saw difficulties in accepting the Amendment, while he thought it might increase the number of occasions on which the clôture would be applied—sad as the sacrifice and difficult as the alternative might be—yet, on the whole, he would be inclined to support the Amendment, with the object of maintaining that absolute confidence in the impartiality of those who occupied the Chair without which it would be impossible to conduct the Business of the House of Commons.

MR. WHITBREAD

said, the Amendment boldly raised the question whether the initiative in asking the sense of the House was to rest with the House or with the Chair; and there was much to be said for relieving the Chair from the initiative, but not for the limitation now proposed. If it had been left to a Member of the House to move, the Speaker or the Chairman would frequently have been exhibited as befriending the minority and the continuance of debate; but if the Speaker or the Chairman took the initiative they would be exhibited in a contrary light. On the other hand, the effect of the initiative being vested in the Speaker or the Chairman would operate very much in favour of the minority in this way—they would have to satisfy themselves more conclusively than under the other plan that it was the wish of a preponderating majority that a debate should be closed. Looked at in this way, it appeared to him that the proposal of the Government was much more in favour of minorities, and that the clôture would be less often applied than it would be if the initiative were taken by a private Member or by a Minister of the Crown. If it was to be open to any at all to make an appeal to the Chair, it should be equally open to all. In analogous matters there was equality between Ministers and other Members. It would give an enormous advantage to a Minister to leave it to him alone to take the initiative, because he would choose the moment most advantageous to himself, perhaps after a telling speech from one of his Colleagues or Followers; whereas the Speaker or Chairman might not act at a time so convenient to the Ministry.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, it was not quite accurate to say, as the hon. Gentleman who spoke last had said, that there was at present absolute equality between Ministers and private Members, because it was only Ministers who could move that Orders be postponed or that Members be suspended. In reply to the expression of fear that the Rule would be used to oppress a minority, the Secretary for India said no Ministry would dare so to use it, because they would lose ground with the country by highhanded proceedings. It was then pointed out to the noble Lord that it was not a Minister who was to put the Rule in force, but the Speaker, and that, therefore, the responsibility must rest upon the Speaker. The safeguard which the noble Lord promised them against abuse by a majority really fell to the ground. Admitting that there was much to be said against the Amendment, he felt it had this one great advantage, that it would directly cast responsibility on the Ministry. If a Minister made a tyrannical use of the power, the Opposition would be able to point to him directly as having put the clôture in motion and being responsible for its operation. That argument weighed with him (Mr. A. J. Balfour) so much, that if the Amendment went to a division he should support it.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

thought the first part of the Amendment ought to be accepted, because the Leader of the House was the person who, above all others, was accustomed to the exercise of responsibility. He was not responsible to his Party alone, but to every Member of the House; and he was bound to show sense, feeling, tact, temper, and moderation. He was, therefore, decidedly in favour of this power being exercised by the Leader of the House. He would suggest, however, that the second part of the Amendment should be omitted. A private Member in charge of a Motion was not always interested in bringing the debate on it to a close. In such a case he might absent himself from day to day, and then, if the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) were carried, there would be no authority in the House to follow the suggestion of the Speaker, and to apply the power of closing the debate.

MR. R. N. FOWLER

said, that he was as much opposed to this Resolution as any Member of the House; but the position in which they stood was that a majority were anxious to adopt some system of clôture. The question now was whether the power of closing a debate should be left with the Speaker or with the Leader of the House; and he thought that the responsibility should be left with the Chair, who ought to exercise an impartial judgment upon the whole matter. The Speaker might be a Party man in future days, but the Minister was sure to be so. Therefore, while regretting to differ from some of his hon. Friends, he should vote against the Amendment.

MR. ASHTON DILKE

said, he was of opinion that the Amendment would give more freedom to the House in Toting on the question of the clôture than it would enjoy under the Rule as it at present stood. If the clôture were proposed by the Speaker, the House would be exceedingly unwilling to deal a blow at his authority by showing that they differed from him. The House, he thought, would feel no such reluctance in dealing with the Motion if it proceeded from a Minister of the Crown or a private Member.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he could not arrive at the same conclusion as his hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Ashton Dilke), because before the matter could be put to a vote of the House the Speaker must have decided that the question had been adequately discussed, and that it was the evident sense of the House that the debate should close. Therefore, the House, in coming to a vote against the clôture, would be just as much contravening the opinion of the Speaker as in the other case. The hon. Member for Hertford (Mr. A. J. Balfour) was in error in saying that the responsibility of closing debate would rest with the Minister of the Crown. That responsibility would really rest with the House; and it was quite certain that if a majority tyrannically exercised this power, they would suffer in the estimation of the country.

MR. CHAPLIN

said, it was no doubt true that the responsibility of closing a debate rested with the House; but the distinction was that the responsibility of enabling the majority to exercise that power rested with the Speaker. As far as the Amendment related to a Minister of the Crown he differed entirely from his right hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes), who thought a good deal might be said for it. For his own part, he was opposed to giving Ministers of the Crown any privileges in addition to those they now enjoyed. He did not see any difficulty in placing this partial power in the hands of independent Members. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) said that the Government were to be blamed for not making their proposals strong enough. That this proposal would not be effective in stopping Obstruction, he (Mr. Chaplin) entirely admitted; but it would be ineffective not because it was not strong, but because it was a clumsy and awkward weapon not fitted to deal with the evil with which they had to cope. So far as the vast majority of the House was concerned these Resolutions were not required at all. He should support the Amendment, and if it were agreed to he would move to omit the words "or a Minister of the Crown." The effect then would be to place in the hands of any Member, including Ministers of the Crown, the power to request the Speaker to put clôture into force.

MR. THOMASSON

said, he thought that there would be some advantage in giving private Members in charge of Bills, which were often of a very important character, the power of asking the Speaker whether a question had not been sufficiently discussed.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

said, he and others who had taken part in these discussions had not thought that it would be out of place at this stage to discuss the question of whether or not the Speaker was the proper person to take the position which had been alluded to. It had been said by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) that the Prime Minister or any Minister of the Crown would be placed in a very invidious and improper position if they did so; but he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) should like to direct the House to the great question of Urgency. The question of Urgency could alone be introduced by a Minister of the Crown, clearly laying down that such important questions as Urgency, and analogous questions to that which they were now discussing, could only be raised by a Minister of the Crown; and the Rules relating to Urgency had been almost unanimously approved by the House. As in Urgency, so in clôture, the responsibility ought to be thrown upon that Member who had the greatest interest in passing the Bill before the House, and who would feel a deeper responsibility than private Members possibly could feel. Again, if the Minister of the Crown wished that the clôture should be put they bad an impartial authority in the Chair, who, considering all the circumstances, and looking at the condition of the question, would be in a position to say when the time had arrived at which the clôture should be put. That being so, the power being vested in the Chair, the Minister of the Crown would be much less likely to put the Question to the House than he would under the condition in which matters stood now. This was not like a Bill before Parliament; it was a question that could only be raised in a particular way. It was a question which proposed to deal with and alter their proceedings. Upon other questions of less vital importance they would have the opportunity, upon the second reading, upon going into and in Committee, and upon the Report, as well as the third reading, of discussing it over again if they thought there had been error in the judgment of the House; but here they were to have only one opportunity, and he confidently asked them to pause before deciding upon it. If the responsibility were thrown upon the Minister of the Crown it would be so grave that he would be loth to exercise it, being fully aware of the grave responsibility it entailed.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

said, the Opposition desired an amended Procedure as much as the supporters of the Government. The question was not whether the power would be exercised often or seldom, but whether it would be exercised wisely. The best course was to divide the responsibility between a Minister of the Crown and the Chair. If they had a timid Speaker he would be afraid to apply the Rule, while a rash one might apply it too frequently. By dividing the responsibility these two extremes would be avoided. Under the Rule, as proposed by the Government, they feared that the Speaker would become simply a placeman and official of the Government. A placeman and official might yet be respected, if his position was acknowledged and defined—self-respect and the respect of others was compatible with partizanship. But a partizan whose functions were such that he could not be impartial, should not be obliged to affect an impartiality which he had not. Let the Speaker of the future in the interests of the majority permit the Minister to enforce the clôture,but let the responsibility of enforcing it be confined to the Minister. The criticisms which otherwise would be levelled at the Speaker would be then levelled at the Prime Minister, and some shred of dignity would still be preserved to the future occupants of the Chair.

MR. WARTON

said, he supported the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, because it would relieve the Speaker of an invidious responsibility. It was strong in the interests of truth, and he did not suppose that any Minister, whatever might be his position, would, by taking the initiative, stifle a debate upon any subject in which the people of this country took a deep interest. He believed that the Amendment was necessary, because all the proposals of the Government were nothing else than attempts on the part of a tyrannical Minister to crush the Tory minority; and he should say, therefore, let those who want dirty work to be done do it themselves, and not place it in the hands of one in so high a position as the Speaker of the House. He must appeal to the House not to throw on the Speaker a duty which, in his opinion, belonged to a Minister of the Crown. The Amendment was in the direction of decency, for the alternative was the dictation of a howling mob.

MR. BERESFORD HOPE

desired, in a few words, to say why he could not vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets. He desired to look upon the question not merely in its immediate effect upon the House, but as affecting its future position in relation to the country and its effect upon public feeling and public morality. His objection to the Resolution of the Prime Minister was heightened by the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, for its effect would be to make the clôture more objectionable than it was at present. How would the creation of the new power contained in the clôture affect that enlightened public opinion which ultimately decided every question in this country, and chrystallized it into what was known as Constitutional principles? It was never to be forgotten that what were called Constitutional principles in all countries, and especially in progressive countries, were the gradual growth and outcome of public opinion and public morality. The Amendment would in a very marked way increase the power of the Minister of the Crown, and, indeed, give him a new power. The hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton), with that generous appreciation of human nature which always characterized him, believed that a Minister of the Crown would never be found to take an unfair advantage of the power with which this Amendment would endow him; but he seemed to forget how conventional was the popular estimate of minor morals, so that what was now regarded as unfair might gradually be evolved into a new Constitutional principle, and that what would now be stigmatized as unfair and immoral might, under the stimulus of the new Procedure, come to be regarded in another century as legitimate policy and wise strategy. One thing was certain—it gave to Ministers of the Crown a legal right to obstruct debate; and all that could be said of that new privilege, if this Resolution were agreed to, would be that Parliament had given to Ministers the power. Then there would at once be introduced that system of government from the official Benches which was the great danger of Constitutional government elsewhere. The Office of Prime Minister would be strengthened by a perfectly novel attribute. It might be said that there was the same danger from the Speaker obtaining the attribute. He admitted that there was such danger, and, with all his respect for the Speaker and for his impartiality, he did not wish to see him endowed with that new power. He, however, saw far less risk of danger from the exercise of such power by the Speaker than by the Prime Minister. He could well conceive the case of an interesting debate on a private Member's Motion or Bill running great risk of closure, from the desire of a Minister to promote Government, at the cost of Private—in its popular sense—Business, and to bring forward his own projects; while the Speaker would more naturally be of opinion that the special private Members' Business was more for the public good than the proximate proposals of the Government. It must be recollected that a Minister owed a duty to more than one—in the first place, he owed a duty to his Sovereign; in the second place, to his country; and, in the third and most important place, to his Party; and, therefore, he could never pretend to exercise the impartiality with which the Speaker would be endowed.

MR. JOSEPH COWEN

said, he had only one remark to make, and that was induced by the observation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University, who had just sat down. He quite agreed with him that the entire drift of modern legislation and the animating object of the Rule before the House was to establish government by Cabinet, instead of government by Parliament. It was also to convert Parliament into a Caucus. No one could have listened to the speeches that had been made in favour of the clôture and the spirit that characterized its advocacy, without becoming sensible that such was the end to which they were drifting. They were Americanizing, in the worst sense, British institutions. It was because such was the direction in which events were tending that he had been led to support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce). The Amendment was not entirely to his satisfaction; but in the circumstances in which they were placed it was the best that could be done. It was certainly, in a literal sense, an amendment upon the Rule. There were two Parliamentary axioms which they had heretofore all assented to—the responsibility of Ministers and the impartiality of the Speaker. The Rule, as it stood, would destroy both. Let the House consider how the clôture would have to be put in operation, and the part the Speaker would have to take in enforcing it. Suppose they were engaged in a discussion on any question that excited partizan warmth or social animosity. Take, for example, the question of the Permissive Bill. There were a large number of Members who believed that all that could be said either for or against the measure had been said. Anyway, they did not wish to hear any more in respect to it. And if a debate on the subject was initiated under the clôture, it would be quite possible—or, rather, he would say, it would be very probable—that its opponents would clamour for its close before it had fairly started. The Speaker would be compelled to yield to the clamour. ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen said "No, no!" but he said "Yes, yes!" There was no other means, according to the Rule, of getting at the evident sense of the House except by clamour. Members who wished to make their desires known would have to shout, and the Speaker would have to yield to their shouting. Suppose that the Speaker had closed a discussion on the Permissive Bill, what would be the consequence? His name, his character, his position would become a subject of popular contention. Let them imagine the outburst of indignation that would greet the mention of the Speaker's name in the Free Trade Hall in Manchester at the annual meeting of the United Kingdom Alliance if he had stopped a debate on Local Option. Those who knew the kind of meetings that were accustomed to gather there—their enthusiasm and earnestness—could easily picture to themselves the sort of language that would be used against the highest Officer in that House if he had been the instrument of depriving the temperance advocates of a hearing. But they might take another case. What would the Nonconformists say if a Disestablishment discussion was closed by the clamour of the Cloturists who forced the Speaker to act at their instigation? And such things would certainly occur—as certainly as anything contingent could be certain. The Speakership of the House of Commons—whatever it had been in the distant past—had been in the immediate past above debate. The character of the distinguished men who had held the Office had been so far above suspicion that no one had questioned the course they had pursued. They had made mistakes, because they were human; but their general impartiality had never been called in question. If, however, the Rule passed in the form in which it now stood, the conduct of the Speaker would be a point over which Parties would squabble as they now squabbled over the character of Ministries and Party Leaders. If they allowed the Speaker to be attacked, they must allow him to defend himself; and if the Speaker was to be forced upon the stump in defence of his position, his judicial attributes would be destroyed. No one could seriously contemplate the possibility of such a consequence with satisfaction or equanimity. The majority was not only evidently bent on recasting the arrangements of the House, but breaking in upon its cherished traditions. He was desirous, whatever else might befal, that the Speakership should be rescued from the wreck they were so busily making. Hon. Members in that part of the House either did not or would not see the end of the policy they were supporting. They imagined that the House of Commons was created for the purpose of making Laws and passing Estimates—the Laws to be proposed and the Estimates to be prepared by the Government. They would turn Parliament into a legislative spinning mill, where statutes could be spun as they spun yarns—by the yard. Such, however, was not his conception of Parliament. He regarded it as a Tribunal before which popular grievances could be redressed, where great political principles could be propounded, and the interests of their vast and varied Empire defended. But in the estimation of some hon. Gentlemen grievances Were but nuisances, and principles the playthings of philosophers and patriots. Philosophers were dreamers to be shunned, and patriots enthusiasts to be distrusted. This, he regretted to say, was the mode of thought of too many hon. Gentlemen on that side; but it was not the mode of thought which was once prevalent there. Although he knew it was in vain, he would stand up on every occasion to maintain the Constitutional principles under which their country had prospered and Parliament had won its renown.

MR. W. FOWLER

said, he felt bound to vote against the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets on the ground that in his opinion the Speaker should possess the power of deciding when a subject had been sufficiently discussed. The Amendment, however, required that after the Speaker had decided that a Motion had been adequately discussed, someone else was to come in, without whose aid the opinion of the Speaker could not be carried out. That would very much diminish the power and the responsibility which should rest with the Speaker, and with no one else. It was clear, from the difference of opinion which prevailed on the opposite side of the House, that it was injudicious to go beyond the simple proposition of the Government. It had been said that this Resolution would tend to render the action of the Speaker liable to be influenced by political feelings; but he did not think that there was any such danger to be apprehended. He was surprised to hear some hon. Gentlemen contend that to leave this power in the hands of the Speaker would tend to stop free discussion. If he thought that it would have such a tendency, he should vote against it, and should do all he could to prevent its passing. But he did not think so, and therefore he should vote for it. The object of the Resolution was not to stop free discussion, but merely to close the debate when the Speaker was of opinion that it had proceeded far enough. He believed that its tendency would be to increase free discussion, inasmuch as it would save the time of the House.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

rose to Order. Was the hon. Member at liberty to discuss the whole scope of the Resolution on the Amendment before the House?

MR. SPEAKER

said, that the hon. Member would see the necessity for confining his observations to the question of the Amendment before the House.

MR. W. FOWLER,

continuing, said, hehad made these observations in answer to the remarks of hon. Members who had preceded him on the other side. He would, however, remind hon. Gentlemen on his own side of the House that agreeing to the Amendment would very much increase the difficulty of carrying the clôture by a bare majority, for it would be argued that if once a Minister of the Crown or a private Member were to co-operate in imposing the clôture, the danger of a bare majority would be greatly increased. He had no fear that any future Speaker would become a mere political partizan, because he thought that the Speakers of the future would be very much like those of the past. He hoped, therefore, they would abide by the Resolution as it stood and reject the Amendment.

MR. DALY

said, he wa3 of opinion that the arguments of hon. Members upon this Amendment were based upon their estimate of the present occupant of the Chair and its past traditions; but he believed that the Speakers of the future under the clôture would be very different from those who had gone before. Let them look at how the Speaker was elected. He was elected by the majority of that House—that was to say, by a majority of men who happened to be in power. The clôture was a temptation that had never yet been applied to the Chair, and there was no pretence for saying that any future occupants of the Chair would be other than human, and subject to human influences; and there was no more certain thing than that a despotic power once placed in the possession of one who would be likely to abuse it, it would be abused. On a Government coming into power their first duty would be to select a man for the position of Speaker with the most intimate knowledge of the Forms of the House, and a man of calm judgment; but would he be selected apart altogether from political considerations? He should vote for the Amendment because he believed that clôture was but another name for the despotism of a majority, and that despotism might be wielded sometimes by a man whom, however eminent, he should not like to see intrusted with the liberties of the country—he meant the present Prime Minister. He held that future. Speakers would be a very dogmatic class, indeed, compared with the Speakers of the past. After the Session had concluded a partizan Speaker might retire on some reward or be promoted to the Upper House; but the Prime Minister had still to face public opinion, and could not refuse any minority an opportunity of expressing their views fairly in the House. Hence the importance of putting on his shoulders some part of the duty of taking the initiative. Radical Members below the Gangway were enamoured of the clôture, because they believed it would be used to crush the Irish Members; but it was quite probable that at a time not far distant it might be directed against themselves, and a Minister on the Treasury Bench would ram his measures down their throats. Indeed, it was a question whether they were not now, in the words of an Irish proverb, "Cutting a stick to beat their own backs."

MR. EDWARD CLARKE

said, he thought that the hostility which hon. Members evinced towards the Amendment arose from a misapprehension as to what the Rule meant as it stood, and what it would mean if the Amendment should pass. The hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler) could not have read the Resolution when he spoke against the Amendment. The proposal of the Government was that the Speaker should make up his mind—first, that the subject had been adequately discussed, and then that the evident sense of the House required a division; next, he was to inform the House that he had come to that conclusion, and then a Motion was to be made that the Question be put. The hon. Member for Cambridge could not have remembered that the Resolution as it stood required that some Motion should be made. The hon. Member spoke as if the Amendment would extinguish the authority of the Speaker or Chairman of Committees in the matter. But the House had already decided that the Speaker or the Chair- man of Committees should, before anything was done, make up his mind that there had been adequate discussion, and that the evident sense of the House wished the debate to be closed. The question was what was the best way to impose the clôture, and, in his opinion, the Amendment superadded an important guarantee to the authority of the Speaker—namely, the responsibility of the Minister of the Crown. They had been told that if the Minister made an improper use of this weapon there would be an appeal to the constituencies. He was anxious that the appeal should be a direct one. With the Resolution as it stood all the Minister would have to say was that it was the Speaker who had brought the clôture into operation, and he only acted upon the Speaker's authority. He himself would vote against the clôture in every form, because he was hostile to it. The Government hoped by the clôture, to establish a sort of Radical septenniat, and they hoped by it to pass measures which they otherwise would not be able to do; but if the clôture were to be adopted, he would support any Amendment which would tend to place it in the most straightforward way before the House.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he could not support the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, and his chief reason was that in the operation of this Rule to which they were driven, their object ought to be to make it in its operation as much as possible the action of the House, and not of any Party. He therefore greatly preferred that the initiative should rest with the Speaker, as the guardian of freedom of discussion and of the Privileges of the House; while it would rest with the House whether they would support his decision or not. He had one or two other objections to the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce). He thought it a somewhat clumsy arrangement. The hon. and learned Member who had just spoken said that the hon. Member for Cambridge could hardly have read the Resolution. But the Resolution ran to the effect that when the Speaker thought the subject had been adequately discussed he might inform the House that such was his opinion. The Speaker or Chairman would first tell the House or the Committee the opinion that he had arrived at, and that was a perfectly intelligible course to take. The Speaker or the Chairman might have an impression as strong as possible that a question was adequately discussed, but, according to the Amendment now before the House, unless a Minister of the Crown or the person in charge of a Bill rose, the Speaker would not be able to take any account whatever of the state of the discussion. He (Mr. W. E. Forster) did not think that the Amendment in this respect would be any improvement, because it would not give the Speaker the power of saying what his opinion was until a Minister of the Crown interfered.

MR. BRYCE

said, his Amendment did not go so far as that.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he had two other grounds for opposing the Amendment. He thought it really would be unfair to the minority, and he entirely agreed with the Prime Minister with what he had said on that point, for it would put it in the power of the Leader of the majority, and of the majority itself, quite independent of any action of the Speaker, to insist upon the clôture upon their own responsibility. That, he considered, would be an unfair and an unnecessary action against the minority; but, more than that, and this was a very strong objection, to his mind, it would be unfair to the Speaker. What might happen would be this—that the Minister of the Crown would not be informed that Mr. Speaker had come to the conclusion to stop the debate, but would be guessing that the Speaker had done so. The Minister would act upon this supposition, which might or might not be a mistake. Then, either the Speaker acceded to the Motion or he did not. If he did not accede to it, it was a very disagreeable position to put him in, for the Speaker would then be in antagonism to the Leader of the Government or the Minister who had moved in the matter. If the Speaker did accede to the Motion, then he (Mr. W. E. Forster) was afraid that the minority would be rather free in their remarks upon the pressure that had been brought to bear upon the Speaker.

MR. J. LOWTHER

thought that as the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down wished that the power of closing a debate should be the action of the House, and not of any one Party in the House, he might fairly expect that the right hon. Gentleman would support the Amendment that would be brought before them by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). Anyone who wished that the clôture should be the result of the action of the House should be careful to see a provision inserted in the Resolution necessitating an expression of opinion on the part of a large proportion of the House. With regard to the Amendment before them, he should vote for the omission of the words which the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) proposed should be omitted; but in their stead he should move the insertion of words differing much in meaning from those of the hon. Member. A Minister in charge of a Bill or of certain Estimates was never a person inclined to view with equanimity the exhaustive discussion of his proposals, however legitimate that discussion might be. He could not imagine a less impartial authority than a Member charged with the advocacy of one side of a question. In the event of the omission of the words which it was proposed to leave out, he should propose other words which would, he thought, meet the merits of the case.

MR. DODSON

wished to point out to the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down that the omission of the words proposed to be left out by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, without other words being substituted, would leave the Resolution in a state in which it would have no meaning. The right hon. Gentleman had said he would move the insertion of other words; but he had not told the House what those other words would be. Such a practice was contrary to the spirit of the Rules of the House, and he, therefore, hoped the House would not be beguiled by the right hon. Gentleman.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, he thought the House need be under no apprehension of sinning against the spirit of its Rules by acceding to the views of his right hon. Friend (Mr. J. Lowther). He was glad, however, to observe so much veneration on the part of the right hon. Gentleman opposite for the spirit of the existing Rules of the House, and he hoped they would now have the support of the right hon. Gentleman in their endeavours so to alter the New Rules as to bring them more into harmony with those already existing. He was inclined to view the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite with favour, for, if it were adopted, the steps preceding the closure of a debate would gain in solemnity and dignity. The hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) was, he believed, not justified in assuming, as he had done, that a Minister of the Crown would expose himself to the charge of having invited the Speaker to violate his primary duty and close the debate before being himself satisfied that the proper time for closure had arrived. Upon the whole, he was disposed to think that the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, so far as the introduction of a Minister was concerned, would afford some slight additional check or safeguard upon the Resolution proposed by the Government, and, therefore, he should support it.

MR. MONTAGUE GUEST

said, that, having had an Amendment on the Paper throwing the responsibility for clôture on a Minister of the Crown, and which was ruled out of Order at the same time as that proposed by the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), he should, of course, vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce). On the 1st of May there was a division on an Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) to the same effect, which Amendment he supported, as also did right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench, including the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Mr. Beresford Hope). From the remarks which had just fallen from that right hon. Gentleman, however, he feared he had changed his mind, and was now going to vote against this Amendment, and he hoped that other right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite would not now vote against that which they had already voted for on the 1st of May. In his opinion, it was desirable that the onus in using the clôture should be upon a Minister responsible to the country, and not upon the Speaker, who was only responsible to the House.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he intended to vote for the omission of the words proposed, and he would also support the Amendment of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) so far as it endeavoured to throw the responsibility upon a Minister of the Crown. But he had an Amendment on the Paper proposing to exclude ordinary Members from asking for the clôture. Such a demand by a private Member would be unavailing, unless he made it in collusion with the Government, who might, in order to avoid the odium of the clôture, place a Ministerial Bill in the hands of a private Member. It was unfortunate that the Rules of the House made it necessary to come to a decision upon this Amendment before deciding the important question of whether the initiative should be left to the Speaker. He would suggest that the Government should withdraw the Resolution in order that a division might be at once taken on the question of the Speaker's initiative. An honourable understanding could then be arrived at that the debate should be resumed at that exact point.

MR. H. H. FOWLER

observed, that this Amendment linked together the Chair and the Leader of a political Party. In his opinion, the exercise of the clôture should be in the hands of the Chair as a judicial matter, to be used with judicial impartiality; and he objected to its being linked with the political action of a Minister.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

remarked, that he had turned to the proceedings of the House at the earlier part of the Session, which he was ashamed to say he had forgotten, and he saw that on the 1st of May an Amendment was proposed upon this Resolution by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), and an Amendment had also been proposed by his noble Friend the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton), and a division was taken, with the result that the proposal was defeated. But it seemed to him that the whole of this question had been already decided by the House, and he did not know that it was in Order that they should discuss it over again. He would certainly not have allowed the debate to proceed in this way if he had been aware that this had taken place; and he now ventured to submit whether, having regard to the Motion and Amendment which had been voted upon on the 1st of May, it was in Order to put this Amendment?

MR. SPEAKER

The question raised by the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon has not escaped my attention. When my attention was drawn to the terms of this Amendment, it struck me at first that it raised the same question as that of the hon. Member for Dungarvan; but the House will observe that the Amendment now before the House proposes to give the initiative not only at the request of a Minister of the Crown, but also at that of any Member in charge of a Motion or Amendment under discussion, and of any Amendment thereto. It proposes to enlarge the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, and, therefore, I thought it right to allow it to be brought before the House.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

I made that very Motion to add the words to the Motion of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, and it was rejected by the House.

MR. SPEAKER

The words were withdrawn, and the vote of the House was not taken.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 152; Noes 100: Majority 52.—(Div. List, No. 353.)

MR. HINDE PALMER,

in rising to move, as an Amendment to the 1st Resolution, to insert, in line 4, after "if," the words Such information of Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall be confirmed by not less than twenty Members rising in their places and, said, that its object was that when the Speaker or the Chairman considered that the subject of debate had been adequately discussed, and that it was the evident sense of the House that the Question should be now put, the Speaker or the Chairman should be immediately fortified by the action of the House itself—that was, by at least 20 Members of the House. That met the objection of the Prime Minister, who had said that the effect of the last Amendment would be to hamper the Speaker; but the present Amendment not only did not hamper the Speaker, but, on the contrary, fortified, and very considerably relieved him of a certain portion of his responsibility, because, whenever he saw what was the evident sense of the House, he would be immediately strengthened by at least 20 Members rising to sanction that view. His Amendment said, "not less than twenty Members;" but there was a Resolution lower down on the Paper of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage), which proposed that the sense of the House should be taken by not less than 40 Members. Of course, he (Mr. Hinde Palmer) was not wedded to any particular number; but he felt strongly convinced that it would be a satisfaction to the Speaker and to the Chairman and protection to the House, that the House itself should take an active part in the initiation of the clôture, nor would that in any way detract from the dignity of the Speaker or of the Chairman. In every foreign country where the clôture was adopted, the initiative invariably proceeded from the House itself. That supported his view as to the desirability of Members of the House themselves taking part in the initiation of the clôture In Belgium 12 Members were required to put the clôture machinery in motion. In France five were sufficient; but, generally speaking, their requests were to be handed in in writing. In Germany the request in writing of 30 Members was also necessary. He did not wish to substitute the action of Members of the House for the Speaker, but to show the House that it was the practice in other countries, where the clôture had prevailed, that Members of the House should themselves take an active part in any proceeding under which the clôture was to be applied. These Resolutions would affect the conduct, and perhaps the character, of the House for generations, and it was the duty of all Members to make them as perfect as possible. His Amendment would, he thought, be a most beneficial addition to the proposed Rule, and, therefore, he now begged to move it.

Amendment proposed, In line 4, after the word "if," to insert the words "such information of Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall be confirmed by not less than twenty Members rising in their places and."—(Mr. Hinde Palmer.)

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

Mr. GLADSTONE

said, he agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Lincoln (Mr. Hinde Palmer) in two of his propositions. He concurred in the view that it was the duty, in a rather special manner, of hon. Members to assist in bringing these Resolutions for the conduct of the proceedings of the House to a satisfactory conclusion by making suggestions which they deemed worthy of consideration. He also shared the opinion of the hon. and learned Member that the Amendment was perfectly distinct from the one with which they had previously been dealing, and that it was not open to the same class of objection, nor did it introduce into the Resolution the same amount of change, because the previous Amendment entirely shifted the responsible initiative of the Chair to the Minister of the Crown, or to the Member in charge of the Motion; but he feared he could not carry his agreement with his hon. and learned Friend any further. It was true, as his hon. and learned Friend had said, that, in various foreign Assemblies where a closing power existed, the action of a portion of the Assembly itself was called in to put the closing power into motion; but he thought that both the Government who had framed these Resolutions and those who had framed Resolutions for regulating proceedings abroad were agreed in one thing—namely, the choice as to initiative really lay between the President and some portion or fraction of the Assembly. The example of foreign Assemblies did not, however, support the Mover of this Amendment in mixing the two methods—namely, the method in which the Speaker made himself responsible for the exercise of the initiative, and the method requiring a certain proportion of Members to support him. For his own part, he did not see that the Speaker would in any way be strengthened by the support of these 20 Members rising in their places. The Speaker was necessarily a person accustomed to watch the House almost more than any other person within its walls, and had probably more than any other person the faculty of appreciating the currents of Party feeling in the House from time to time; and it was hardly conceivable that a case could occur in which he could not find 20 Members to support him when he arrived at the conclusion that a subject had been sufficiently debated, and that the "evident sense of the House" was in favour of putting the Question. If that were so, it followed that the rising of the 20 Members would not in any degree add strength to the proceeding of the Speaker, whose judgment would stand upon its own merits. The adop- tion of the Amendment was also liable to this inconvenience. The 20 Members might, unfortunately, through accident, present some appearance of a section; they might be Gentlemen who had recently come into the House, or they might be Gentlemen known to be connected with some particular view described under the familiar term of "crotchet." In fact, the House was susceptible of division into so many sections, according to the different views entertained, that it was impossible almost to say in what strange company the Speaker might not find himself, and there would be a presumption that there was a latent sympathy between the Speaker and those 20 Members. Being desirous, therefore, of keeping the Speaker out of those relationships with a limited body of men, and thinking, on the whole, that the plan of mixing the two proceedings would not improve the Resolution, he hoped that the Amendment would not be pressed.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, that, of course, a good deal might be said against mixing the two kinds of Procedure; but, in point of fact, the two had been mixed already in the Resolution as it stood upon the Paper; because there was first the action of the Speaker or Chairman, who had to inform the House that he was of opinion that the House was prepared to come to a conclusion, and then they had the action of some other person who was to get up and make a Motion. The only question, therefore, raised by the Amendment of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hinde Palmer) was whether it would not be better and more convenient, and whether it would not strengthen the position of the Chair itself, if there were some further action on the part of the House to show what the real feeling of Members was. Now, he must once for all enter his protest against the way in which, while considering all these questions, almost everyone described the responsibility of exercising that power as one which rested with Mr. Speaker, making no mention whatever of the Chairman of Ways and Means. It had been decided that what was laid down for the Speaker was laid down also for the Chairman of Ways and Means. They must remember that the mode of testing the strength of a chain was by taking the strength of its weaker link; and the Chairman of Ways and Means must necessarily be regarded, without disrespect, as the weaker link in the chain. Nor was it a fair way of conducting the argument to rest so much upon the high character of Mr. Speaker, when they were told over and over again that it was in the case of Committees that that action would be most frequently had recourse to. Let them consider what was the position of the Chairman who took the Chair on going into Committee on a Bill for the second reading of which he had probably voted. He had a recognized and known opinion on the merits of the question or Bill on which he would vote or had voted already; whereas the Speaker was supposed to have no decided or recognized opinion, and was considered as impartial. The Chairman was, therefore, exposed more than the Speaker could be to a great deal of inconvenience in the conduct of Business, even from having his place at the Table instead of in the Chair; and also from the greater freedom of Committee. Therefore, he could not help thinking that if the Chairman were to get up and say it appeared to him to be the "evident sense of the House" that the time had come when the debate might close, it would be a very great support to him to know that he would not be alone in taking that view, nor taking it entirely on himself, but that he was to be supported by not an inconsiderable number of Members who would maintain his judgment. Without saying that the question was one of first-rate importance, it seemed to him that the Amendment was an improvement, and deserved not only the consideration, but the acceptance of the House.

MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

said, he thought, in spite of the objections taken to it by the Prime Minister, that the proposal of the hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Hinde Palmer) was one of considerable value. With regard to the interpretation of the "evident sense of the House," the proposal was of great advantage. Under the clôture Rule, as proposed by the 1st Resolution, the "evident sense of the House," or rather, the process of its manufacture, would soon become a fine art. When the Government were hard pressed, and anxious to close a debate, the Whips would organize "the evident sense of the House," on a plan similar to that already adopted by hon. Members opposite. Hon. Members anxious to earn distinction by shouting would be found ready to distribute themselves in a judicious and artful manner throughout the various Benches, and the Speaker might well find himself deceived by their clamour, and imagine they represented a larger section of the House than they did. Indeed, they had already witnessed attempts to close debates by an informal clôture when hon. Members opposite did not happen to like the subject before the House. If, hovever, those who clamoured for the clôture were compelled on each occasion to stand up and exhibit themselves to the House, it would be made much more difficult for a small body to impose the clôture upon the House. The argument of the Prime Minister against mixing the two methods did not appear to be of any great weight. Why should not the two methods be mixed, if a better result was produced? The Prime Minister proceeded on the assumption that both the Speaker and the Chairmen of Committees were infallible; but both might be deceived. His (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett's) own impression was, that had the Rules now proposed existed on the night when the right hon. Gentleman introduced his Motion censuring the conduct of the House of Lords, so important was it in the interests of the Premier to stifle criticism, and such was the impatience of his Followers that the debate might have been prematurely closed the same night. He had very little doubt that the clôture, as passed by the Government, would deteriorate the high Office of Speaker; and he thought, on that account, that it was very important that some attempt should be made to relieve both the right hon. Gentleman and the Chairman of as much responsibility as possible. If, therefore, he was in Order, for the purpose of safeguarding their position as far as possible, he would propose to substitute 40 Members for the 20 Members provided by the hon. and learned Member's Amendment.

SIR HENRY TYLER

seconded the Amendment.

Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment, to leave out the word "twenty," in order to insert the word "forty,"—(Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett,)—instead thereof,

Question proposed, "That the word 'twenty' stand part of the proposed Amendment."

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he thought that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Eye (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett), to a certain extent, met one of the objections of the Prime Minister, who laid stress upon the fact that 20 Members were not sufficient for the purpose contemplated. If that was so, it surely could hardly be considered that 40 Members were an insignificant portion, of the House. For himself, he did not approve of this system of obtaining the decision of the House by the informal method of Members rising in their places. He remembered, some 12 years ago, how Mr. Bouverie proposed that no division should be taken unless 10 Members rose in their places to support the call; and the Prime Minister had, with some Variation as to number, adopted the substance of the proposal in one of the present Resolutions. On the occasion in question, he (Mr. J. Lowther) ventured to object to the proposal, and though then a very young Member, by drawing attention to the serious departure, which was involved in the proposal, from the old Constitutional practice, and which view was endorsed by the House, had succeeded in defeating Mr. Bouverie's Motion, which was ultimately withdrawn, and he (Mr. J. Lowther) very much regretted that any occasion had arisen to suggest a recurrence to any such plans, but the fact was, the Prime Minister was afraid to let it be known who it was who took the initiative. He (Mr. J. Lowther), however, approved of the plan of making those who professed that they represented the "evident sense of the House" stand up in their places, in order that they might individually be made known to the House and to the public out-of-doors through the ordinary channels, which was quite a different thing from interfering with the right of challenging divisions. If the House determined that the freedom of speech should be brought to a close, the least they could do was to see that the action of the Chair was supported by a certain number of Members. He thought, also, that it would be a great assistance to the Speaker, who would be able to judge whether the desire to close the debate came merely from a small coterie, or was the general opinion of the House supported by a fairly representative body of hon. Members on both sides. The House would, therefore, do well to accede to the proposal of the hon. Member for Eye, and to recollect that any such request as the closing of the debate ought to be openly and boldly supported by those who desired it.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he was afraid the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther), in consequence of his absence in the earlier part of the evening, had not understood what portion of the Resolution had been debated on by the House. The right hon. Gentleman thought this proposal would assist the Speaker; but if he would take the trouble to read the Resolution—

MR. J. LOWTHER

I have read it.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

If he would take the trouble to read the Resolution, he would find that it could have no effect upon the Speaker's mind, because he had already determined, as far as his judgment went, before he made the intimation that was necessary to the House.

MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT

No.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

thought the hon. Member for Eye had better read the Resolution too. How could the Speaker, who had already decided in his own mind that the "evident sense of the House" was in favour of closing the debate, be strengthened in his view by finding that so insignificant a number as 20 Members rose in their places to support it? He (Sir William Harcourt) would esteem it a very small compliment if, when in his Office, he took any decision, he was told by one or two of the junior clerks that, upon the whole, the Home Secretary was not very far wrong. He could imagine nothing less dignified for the Speaker, or less convenient for the House, than that Members should stand up in their places, and that a division should thereupon be taken. The Amendment, as it seemed to him, would place the Speaker in an absurd position, if it appeared that, in the division, some 200 or 300 Gentlemen did not in the Lobby support him, and thus confirm the demand made for the clôture by the 20 or 40 Members who rose in their places; and, in any case, it would waste the time of the House. The real test was the division which would follow, and all the country would then know who voted for closing the debate, and who voted against it.

MR. WARTON

said, the Prime Minister spoke of sections of the House, as if he had to deal with a few crotcheteers, instead of with opponents scattered all over the House; while he forgot that there might be a section afterwards by whom the clôture might be applied. In spite of what had been said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, there was all the difference between names appearing in a Division List and Members standing up in their places. It was desirable that the country should have distinct information of every step taken in applying the clôture, and those who wanted it to be so applied should have to stand up boldly and say so. In principle, he could not see there was any difference between the Amendment and the 4th of the proposed Rules, which required 20 Members to rise in their places to challenge the decision of the Speaker before a division was taken.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND

said, he could not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) in what had just fallen from him. It had now been decided that the initiative in these clôture proceedings was to be taken by the Speaker or Chairman of Ways and Means, and thereby a grave responsibility was thrown upon those Officers. He (Sir Henry Holland) would be very glad, in any way, to lessen that responsibility, and the difficulty of the task thus imposed upon them; hut, after listening to the speeches on this question, he confessed he was quite at a loss to understand how that responsibility and difficulty would be lessened if this Amendment were adopted. He could not see how the proposed confirmation by 20 or 40 Members would assist the Speaker. The Speaker would have declared that, in his opinion, the matter before the House had been sufficiently discussed, and that it was the "evident intention of the House" that the debate should be closed. If he was right, as shown by the division which was immediately to follow, how would he be relieved by the fact that 20 or 40 Members had, previously to the division, jumped up to show that they agreed with him? If he was wrong, as shown by the division, what comfort could he derive, or how would his error be less grave, because that small body of Members had previously confirmed his view? It appeared to him (Sir Henry Holland) that it would make no difference, though some speakers seemed to think it would, whether these confirming Members all rose from one part of the House, as representing a certain section of the House, or whether they rose from different parts of the House. Their confirmation would neither strengthen the Speaker in the opinion of the House if he was right, or increase confidence in his judgment in the future if he was wrong. He (Sir Henry Holland) could not, either, agree with the hon. and learned Member for Bridport as to his construction of the 4th Resolution. That Resolution referred to a different class of divisions, and did not affect the case provided by the 1st Resolution when the Question was to be put at once. For these reasons, he must oppose the Amendment.

Question put, and negatived.

Question, "That the word 'forty' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

Question, "That the words 'such information of Mr. Speaker or the Chairman shall be confirmed by not less than forty Members rising in their places and,' be there inserted," put, and negatived.

CAPTAIN AYLMER (for Sir HENRY TYLER)

moved to amend the Resolution by substituting the word "Debate" for "Question" in line 5. The object of the Amendment, he explained, was to provide that after the "evident sense of the House" had been ascertained, the vote to be taken should only have the effect of limiting subsequent speeches to five or ten minutes in duration. It was a provision already existing in the American House of Representatives, and he thought it would be preferable to a summary closing of debate altogether. If accepted, it would enable distinguished Members of the House to avoid the total exclusion from the debate which they would experience if this, or something of a like nature, were not accepted.

Amendment proposed, in line 5, to leave out the word "Question," in order to insert the word "Debate,"—(Captain Aylmer,)—instead thereof.

Question proposed, "That the word 'Question' stand part of the Question."

SIR HENEY TYLER

(who had just returned to the House) hoped the Amendment would commend itself to the judgment of the House. In the American House of Representatives there was a limit as regards time, in order to prevent the debate extending to too great a length, no Member being allowed to speak for more than one hour; and there was an additional Rule under which, when a decision of the House had been taken to that effect, the duration of speeches was limited to five or ten minutes. If Her Majesty's Government did not wish to stop debate, but only to stop Obstruction, which he took for granted was their object, he thought they would welcome this Amendment, for the greatest difficulty the House had to deal with was the extraordinary length of some speeches, and his Amendment would allow of a debate being continued without any possibility of Obstruction taking place.

MR. DODSON

said, the proposal could not be accepted, for it was of an entirely novel character, and would completely alter the nature of the proposal which the Government had submitted to the House, and which they had been so long discussing. The object of the Amendment was to put in place of a closing power that which was known in America as "the gag law." [Sir HENRY TYLER: A modified gag.] That law existed in no Assembly except the American House of Representatives, and, possibly, some of the State Legislatures. There was, indeed, a similar law in one Chamber of the Italian Legislature; but it applied only to speeches which were read, and not to those which were spoken. A law limiting speeches to 20 minutes, on being proposed in the New Zealand House of Assembly, was rejected. Apart from its merits, his objection on the part of the Government to the Amendment was that it was a complete alteration of their proposal.

MR. MACFARLANE

opposed the Amendment, and said, he could not see in it any element of equity or justice. He did not see why Members who were not fortunate enough to catch the Speaker's eye before a certain time should be limited to 10 minutes, while those who went before them were subjected to no such restriction. He believed it would be much fairer and more equitable to limit the time for which any Member should be allowed to speak during the whole debate. Supposing that a debate were to spread over three nights, there would be about 20 hours for discussion. Under the existing system, half of those 20 hours would ordinarily be occupied by speakers on the two Front Benches; and it would be an equitable proposal that no speaker in a debate should, without express permission, address the House for a longer time than half-an-hour. He would, however, except the Mover of a Bill or of a Budget, or any other important subjects of that kind. He was sure most Members would be glad to see such a Rule introduced, for there was, in his opinion, more loss of time in one Session from excessive speaking than there was from all the Obstruction that was ever invented. If a half-hour glass was placed upon the Table, and turned up when every speaker commenced, it would be an immense relief to Members to be able to pull out their watch and say—"If I leave now and come back in 29 minutes there will be an end to this." There were very few men who could not say all they really had to say in half-an-hour.

MR. R. N. FOWLER

said, that, while he approved of its principle, he could not agree with the Amendment to its fullest extent, when he saw the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the Attorney General sitting on the Treasury Bench. He should not like to place a limit upon their speeches, for he always listened to what they said with great pleasure, though he did not often agree with them. Neither could he agree with the President of the Local Government Board that there would be any fear of 60 speeches of 10 minutes each. There were many Members who would not like to address the House under such a limitation. It was more difficult to make a good short speech than a good long one.

MR. WARTON

said, he had long been of opinion that the length of speeches was the great evil to which the delay in the progress of Business was mainly attributable, and he had often wished to bring forward some proposal dealing with it. He maintained that there was no occasion for any Member to make a speech an hour long, except the Prime Minister, and even in his case the latitude ought to be permitted only on Budget night. The House was really suffering from the inordinate vanity of Members, which led them, in many instances, to take up an hour of the time of the House in saying what could be just as well said in one quarter. If the clôture was the gag, the 10 minutes' Rule might be called the modified gag. He would support the Amendment as going in a direction much needed.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said, he thought it would be a mistake to mix up the clôture with the limit of time. He could not, therefore, support the Amendment in its present form. He agreed that long speeches were the great evil, and he would move, at a future stage, that a 10 minute Rule should also be in operation, in order that they might, as the circumstances warranted, at one time adopt the clôture and at another a modified gag. The 10 minute Rule would only come into force after there had been an exhaustive debate on the subject. For his part, he did not know why two-thirds or three-fourths of the lengthy speeches that were delivered were delivered. Nobody wanted them, and they were not listened to or reported, except in the organs of the "Little Pedlingtons," which the hon. Members themselves represented, and which had them in print before they were delivered. He, therefore, thought that a 10 minute Rule would operate with advantage to the Business and dignity of the House; but the hon. and gallant Member's proposal, as now made, would only muddle the Resolution. He appealed to the hon. and gallant Member to withdraw it, and support his (Mr. Labouchere's) Amendment when it came on.

MR. HENEAGE

said, he remembered one occasion on which hon. Members opposite had taken up four and a-half hours in a discussion, whilst one hour and a-half was occupied by the Front Opposition Bench, leaving only two hours for the rest of the House. He agreed that the question of limitation ought to be dealt with separately, and thought the best plan would be, as he had proposed in his own Amendment, to limit all except certain speakers to half-an-hour. If that Amendment received good support, he would certainly divide the House upon it.

Question put, and agreed to.

MR. GIBSON,

in moving an Amendment, the effect of which was to provide that after the Speaker had declared that it was "the evident sense of the House" that the Question should be put, he should give "such reasonable notice as, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, he shall consider to be just," before putting the Question, proceeded to argue that the Amendment was one of great simplicity, for he considered that it was only reasonable that there should be some sufficient notice before the debate was brought to a conclusion. As the Rule stood at present, the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees might put the Question when he was satisfied the "evident sense of the House" was in a particular direction, and that might be done without any notice whatever. The Rule, as it stood, was, therefore, susceptible of the grossest abuse; and he had not a shadow of doubt but that, if it were passed in its present form, it would be found liable to such abuse, not by Mr. Speaker, who was alive to the traditions of the House, and whose own character was such that the House could rely upon him; but the Rule might be worked by the Party in power in a way that was not fair, and which he hardly thought would be reputable. In the case of a great Party debate, it was eminently reasonable that there should be some sufficient notice given before it was brought to a conclusion. It might well be thought there would be a debate which had occupied from three to four days, with the tacit and direct sanction of the Leaders of both sides, and the approval of the whole House. Would it not be perfectly monstrous, and a positive scandal, that when New Rules had been passed, and when the old arrangements had ceased to be the rule and the custom of the House, that one Party should evidence very strongly to the Speaker or the Chairman of Committees that they desired the debate to proceed no further, and that the Speaker would thus have it brought to his mind, in the most disagreeable way, that the "evident sense" was that the debate should no longer proceed? The Speaker might have very little scope left for independent judgment in the matter. Again, it might also be that the evidence was all on the Government side; and the Opposition, assuming that the division would not take place for, it might be, several hours later, or the day after, would not be present to offer resistance. In these circumstances the Speaker would find himself in a very difficult position, unless he was told, in express terms of the Rule, that it was his duty to consider all portions of the House should have had full notice. Even putting aside what might happen in the case of a great Party debate, when a Motion involving the existence of the Government or of an important Bill was in question, might it not well be that the Government of the day, or those strongly interested in the Bill, would all be present in force, owing either to accident or design, and that the Opposition, taken unawares, would be absent? The "evident sense of the House" would be made already apparent, and the Speaker, or the Chairman of Committees, having nothing in the Rule to indicate that they were to give some notice to the House before applying a drastic Rule, a division might be snapped by a cunning device. Would not such a proceeding be a scandal to legislation? Again, how must the Rule operate upon private Members? Nothing would be easier than for the Government, with the aid of their supporters, to get rid of a Bill brought forward by a private Member. It had been alleged that, in the future, it might be that—collusion was not the word, he would not use it; but, at all events, an understanding expressed, or implied, existed between the Minister interested in applying the clôture and the Speaker. It had been more openly stated that such an understanding might take place between the Minister and the Chairman of Ways and Means, whom he distinctly and really appointed. Taking that into consideration, he (Mr. Gibson) ventured to think it would be a great protection to the Speaker, who desired to do his duty fairly, and to the Chairman of Committees, to be able to apply a portion of the Rule, as provided for by the Amendment, which indicated that there was to be a notice given. He had no desire to put an extreme case, because, at present, they were all speaking under the influence of the old and honourable traditions of the House, and he would not like to make a single suggestion disrespectful to any Member of the present Government; but if they changed altogether the old traditions of the House, and introduced a new order of things in their place, putting an immense weapon like this at the mercy of the sense of justice of the Minister, they could not rely any more upon the Minister than upon the individual that his sense of justice would not occasionally give way to the distinct and powerful motives of self-interest and Party. Neither could they in future rely upon the high character of the Speaker when degraded from the high position of importance—when he was no longer the Representative of the whole House, but had become little better than the creature of a Party. On those grounds, therefore, he (Mr. Gibson) thought it desirable and absolutely essential that the Rule should, in its terms, indicate that it was the bounden duty of the Speaker and the Chairman of Ways and Means to give previous notice of the closure of the debate. In this Amendment, which he had sketched with some care before the House adjourned, he had not sought to lay down any hard-and-fast line as to the length of that notice, nor did he attempt to dogmatize upon the subject. He admitted there might be varying notices required according to the various measures before the House. In the case of any great Motion, involving an important question of Government policy in which the whole country was interested, and upon which the existence of the Government might depend, he thought it should be the bounden duty of the Speaker to give ample and complete notice when the division should be taken, so that all Members should know how to give their vote in a division on which might depend the existence of the country itself. On great Motions of that kind very ample notice should be given; but he did not say what. He left it to the discretion of the Chair. Again, it might well be that in a second class of cases—that of very important Bills—it would be desirable that some hours' notice should be given; while in regard to minor matters a shorter notice might be required, the Speaker or Chairman intimating within a reasonable time when a division would be taken. As the Rule at present stood, there was not a solitary syllable to indicate to the Speaker that he was to give any notice whatever. All he asked was that, in accordance with justice, the Speaker or Chairman of Committees should be told he was bound in duty to give the House such notice as would be adequate to the circumstances of the case.

Amendment proposed, In line 5, after the word "shall," to insert the words "after such reasonable notice as, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, he shall consider to be just."—(Mr. Gibson.)

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

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that of all the Amendments submitted to the House there was not one which he believed was more plausible in the sound which it carried to the minds of its intelligent hearers than that one of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson); but, at the same time, there was not one which, in his opinion, was of a more impracticable or impossible character. He believed that the Amendment was one which was totally incompatible with the Business they had in hand, totally unworkable by any Speaker, and not in the slightest degree required by the justice of the case. He thought he could see a much stronger argument in favour of the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman—namely, in the case where they were going to inflict an actual penalty on an individual; but even in such a case as that, under the existing Rules as to Obstruction, no notice had ever at any time been given, and the House, as he believed right and justly, came down at the moment with the punishment that had been incurred. Really, the most important argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman had no connection with the Motion before them. They had had the old contention trotted out that the Speaker, under the new state of things indicated by these Resolutions, would be no better than the creature of a Party. ["Hear, hear!"] He would not argue the matter; but, with all possible respect, he did not believe that a more baseless dream ever came into the mind of man—namely, that under any system it was in the power of Parliament or of the Government to establish a Speaker who could be made, or who would be, what was meant by the phrase "a crea- ture of Party." That, he maintained, for these reasons, not simply or exclusively because of the traditions of the House, and because he was convinced that the House would always seek to choose for the Chair one of the greatest Gentlemen in the House—he used that word, not only in its social, but also in its highest moral sense—but likewise for the reason that if the Speaker were the creature of a Party, the House under him would be absolutely ungovernable, and not a Session would elapse before that creature of Party would cease to be Speaker. All that it was necessary for him to say was this—that if the Speaker were a creature of Party, he would exhibit himself in that light, by this very affair of notice, by exhibiting an unfairness, and give just the notice that ought not to be given. He would not give some hours' notice, but some minutes' notice, if he were the creature of a Party. The evil, as anticipated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman, was, he believed, altogether visionary; and, supposing it were substantial, the remedy was altogether futile, for it was impossible to suppose that, in directing this creature of a Party to form his judgment on the whole circumstances of the case, and to give such notice as he—the creature of the Party—should, in his creature-like mind, think proper and necessary, they would afford the slightest mitigation of the portentous mischief which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had conjured up. But let them look at the matter from a practical point of view, because he would admit that, after they had dismissed all these horrors from their minds, it was still a practical question. Would it be advantageous, rational, consistent with and suited to the circumstances of the case, that the Speaker should be called upon to give notice, when he had made up his mind on two points—first, that the subject had been adequately discussed; and, second, that it was the "evident sense of the House" that the debate should terminate? Supposing the subject to have been adequately discussed, why should it be more than adequately discussed? Discussion which was more than adequate discussion was waste of time; and why, then, should the Speaker fix a time when time was so valuable, a portion of which must necessarily be wasted? In the next place, the Speaker must have made up his mind that the "evident sense of the House" was in favour of closing the discussion, and that "evident sense" must be something different from, the mere clamour of one side. [Mr. GIBSON: What?] Well, if they were to discuss the different words which had been used, they would not proceed very rapidly with the discussion; he declined to go back on that which they had happily disposed of. If the Speaker had made up his mind on these two points, why was the putting of the Question not to follow? These were not the only objections to the Amendment. It was really an unworkable one. Take the case of a great debate. During the whole of his (Mr. Gladstone's) recollection, it had always been a matter of arrangement of a tacit kind, that the Leaders of the Parties, or some prominent men, should wind up the debate on a certain night. Clearly, the Speaker could not give notice while that was going on, for it would be most outrageous that he should fix a time by the clock at which an important speech must close. In addition to that, there must be some hours' interval before the debate was to terminate—that was to say, if the speeches of the Leaders were prolonged, say, till 2 o'clock in the morning, the House must wait till 5 or 6 before coming to a division. He would not attempt to describe the infinite discomfort of hon. Members during those hours. The fact was, it was impossible for the Speaker to know what amount of future discussion would be necessary, and strange results would follow any attempt to fix any limit beforehand. How was a Speaker to investigate the course a debate would take, or know what new matters would arise? By such notice as that now suggested the House would be doomed to give a certain portion of its time to utter waste, considering how a part of that time might be abused and misused by Members disposed to turn it to their own account, by introducing personal matter, and highly contentious matter, shortly before the hour by which the hands of the clock absolutely declared that the debate must close, and would they go to a division notwithstanding? The House would see that this was an impossible Amendment, and he would ask the House to reject it.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

said, he would not detain the House more than a few minutes; but he must protest against the course the argument generally took on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite. They began with the present occupant of the Chair, for whom they all entertained the highest respect, and then proceeded by an easy step to another Speaker. From that unknown Speaker, the next stage brought them to the Chairman of Ways and Means; but he would remind the House that he admittedly occupied a different position. He (Sir R. Assheton Cross) ventured to suggest that the time would soon come when the authority of the Chairman of Ways and Means would be considerably weakened. With reference to the statement of the Prime Minister, that this Amendment was unworkable, and that some person might get up and introduce new matter at the last moment which would require an answer, he could only say that if that were so, and if new and original matter were introduced, then it only proved that the subject had not been adequately discussed, and the Speaker was wrong in his judgment as to the time for closing the debate. He thought the right hon. Gentleman's remarks were too strong, for he had used the word absurd in criticizing the argument of his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson). The right hon. Gentleman said he had great authorities in favour of his Motion; he (Sir E. Assheton Cross) would like to refer to what Lord Eversley, a former Speaker of the House, said, in 1848, with respect to closing the debate. He advocated the giving of some notice, for otherwise, when there were only a few Members in the House, an unfair advantage might be taken. He was informed that in America no Business could be proceeded with unless a majority of the House were present; and, in that case, there could be no surprise. He therefore proposed that it would be competent to any Member, on the Order for the Adjourned Debate, to move that the debate be no longer adjourned, and that no Member should be allowed to speak after 2 o'clock in the morning, at which hour the Speaker should put the Question. It appeared that what was in Lord Eversley's mind was that at the Sitting of the House some Member might call attention to the fact that the debate ought to be closed; and if the House were of that opinion, and if proper notice were given, the debate must close that evening, or within a certain time. In that case, hon. Gentlemen who otherwise would have spoken would not speak, and those who would be naturally chosen to close the debate would, at the proper time, be called upon. It was quite clear that was what Lord Eversley contemplated, and was discussing, as the clôture was not a matter that was to be constantly used, but a course to be adopted in the case of an adjourned debate. That advice was very well worthy of the consideration of the House, and it thoroughly justified his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) for having brought forward the Amendment.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that no justification was needed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) for bringing anything to the notice of the House. The proposal of Lord Eversley, however, although it justly carried great weight, yet applied to a totally different state of things; and giving the power to any private Member to apply the clôture, as suggested by it, was open to the objection that it would be liable to great abuse. They all admitted that it was liable to great abuse; and, therefore, it was on that account that Her Majesty's Government proposed to place the decision in the hands of the Speaker. As Lord Eversley proposed to place the power in the hands of a private Member of declaring that the debate had been sufficiently discussed, it was quite right also to say, as that noble Lord had done, that the clôture should not be so applied without notice to the House. It was a totally different state of things, however, when the power was placed in the hands of the Speaker, who, having been present during the whole of the debate, was in a position to know whether the matter had been Adequately discussed. When he decided that it had been adequately discussed, it would be absurd to require him to say that, therefore, it should be closed four hours hence. Such a proposal would be a contradiction in terms. It would be still more absurd when applied in Committee, where, after an Amendment on a clause had been discussed for three or four hours, and the Chairman decided that the Committee desired to come to a decision, he would have to decide that the decision should be taken three or four hours later. He did not think the House would accept any such contradictory proposition.

MR. BERESFORD HOPE

said; he had been much struck by the admission of the Prime Minister, that there was an old and efficient system of clôture already in operation in the House; for the general argument used against the Amendment of his (Mr. Beresford Hope's) right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) was, how was his Rule to be applied on one of those great nights of a protracted debate, on which an arrangement was made that five or six speeches were to be delivered, and the division was then to be taken? If that system of clôture was not efficient, the Prime Minister's argument was worth nothing. In a moment of forgetfulness, the right hon. Gentleman had appealed from clôture to clôture; he admitted that there was an efficient clôture already in existence, and had cited that old and efficient system as the reason that the crude proposal of the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin was not for a moment to be entertained, because it would bother, disconcert, and ruin the old traditional clôture of the House. His (Mr. Beresford Hope's) reason for not accepting the new clôture of the Government was that he stood on the old and mature form of clôture as being legitimate, efficient, and full of vitality. He objected to the former as being a clôture of surprise. The whole argument of the Secretary of State for the Home Department had been directed against the grammatical absurdity of the Speaker declaring that the time had come for closing the debate, when what was meant was that it would come three or four hours afterwards. But declaring the time had come was a mere form of words, which would be used with an intention perfectly well understood of fixing a future time at which the debate must close. And there would be no absurdity whatever in the Speaker's declaring that the time had come when, after the lapse of a quarter of an hour or more, the debate should close. Supposing the virulence of the Rule to be mitigated by the Amendment of his right hon. and learned Friend, the Speaker might pronounce that the debate should close at 2 in the morning, or at 7 or 8 in the evening, and then arrangements could be made that the Leaders on both sides should speak. The argument of the Secretary of State for the Home Department had neither spirit nor strength in it; while that of the Prime Minister left the conviction that they had the clôture now, and had had it for a long time in its best form, and that the Resolution of the Government would only give them a clôture much inferior in form to the old institution.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

said, that there was a vice which ran through the logic of the Prime Minister from the beginning to the end of the debate, and that was that he begged the question, and confidently asserted that Speakers would be so perfect in the future that they could do no wrong. The right hon. Gentleman, in addition to his other great powers, assumed the function of a prophet; but where was his inspiration? He (Mr. S. Leighton) held that, just as the Division Bell was now rung, in order to summon hon. Members to vote, so should ample notice be given before applying the clôture, in order to enable all Members in London to come down to the House and vote for or against the suspension of the functions of Parliament.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that the right hon. Gentleman had misunderstood the object of the Amendment of his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson). It was not that the Speaker at any hour should say—"I consider this debate should be closed," at, say, 12 o'clock to-night, and that then the notice should be given that at the stated hour the Main Question would be put; but the proposal before the House was that the Speaker should give due notice in the course of the evening that at a given hour he would submit to the House not the Main Question, but the Question that the debate be closed. When the time named should have arrived, it would still be in the power of the House to decide that new elements had been introduced into the debate which justified its protraction. It was most important that no snap decision should be arrived at. His right hon. and learned Friend had avoided going into undue details, and he had not indicated the method in which the sense of the House should be determined. He merely left it to the judgment of the Chair, of which due notice should be given; and he hoped, therefore, that the Amendment would be accepted.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 149: Majority 61.—(Div. List, No. 354.)

CAPTAIN AYLMER,

in moving in line 6, after the word "affirmative," to insert the words "in a Committee of the Whole House," said, if this Amendment were carried, he would further move to insert in the next line of the Resolution, after the word "forthwith," these words— And if so decided in the full House, then the next Notice or Order of the Day shall he forthwith proceeded with, after Mr. Speaker has named an hour at the sitting next but one to be holden, when the Question on which further discussion has been prohibited shall be put without Debate. In the case of Committee of the Whole House he did not propose to amend the Resolutions under which the division would be taken forthwith. He maintained that the adoption of his Amendment would save as much time as the proposal of the Government. The Prime Minister had stated that under existing Rules it was now generally known which was to be the closing night of a debate. The Whips of both sides were accordingly able to secure a large attendance for a division. That could not be done if a division were taken unexpectedly in a thin House at an untimely hour, but when, through the impatience of hon. Members, the Speaker judged it to be the evident sense of the House that the subject had been adequately discussed. If divisions on great and important measures or great questions of policy were taken in that manner, as might well happen, unless his proposal were adopted, a strong feeling against such procedure would arise in the country. There was no way to obviate that possibility but, as he proposed, to have some delay before the division, though the precise duration of the interval was immaterial. He concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed, in line 6, after the word "affirmative," to insert the words "in a Committee of the whole House."—(Captain Aylmer.)

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

MR. GLADSTONE

said, that, though he appreciated the object the hon. and gallant Member had in view, he thought the very great change he proposed was not one calculated to attain that object, and that it would, moreover, entail most serious inconvenience on the House. The object the hon. and gallant Member had in view was to avoid snap divisions, and the answer to that was that he thought the evil which was anticipated, if it could happen, would be a very grave and serious one; but he would say that any Speaker in whose hands such miscarriage could arise would be a man altogether beneath the lowest average level of sense and intelligence which Nature had formed in perfectly civilized races. The Speakers of that House had generally been, not only choice specimens of a civilized race, but choice specimens of the Members of that House; and he felt himself removed by a gap almost immeasurably wide from the conclusions of the hon. and gallant Member. He thought that if the Speaker were such a being as had been suggested, he would predict that such a Speaker would encumber the Chair for but for a short time. He would not say it would be too hot to hold him; but the Speaker would find the House would become ungovernable in his hands, for the House would not consent to be governed by a man of such mental calibre. Now, let the House look at the other side of the question. The hon. and gallant Member proposed to insert an interval of two days between the suspension of the debate and the putting of the Main Question. He thought that such a system would do much towards diminishing the attendance at a debate. Under the present system, in all great debates, the last four or five hours, which were often the most important, were attended very largely by those who would take part in the division; but if it were known that the division would not take place until two days afterwards the attendance during the latter part of the debate would be but small. Then, again, much public disappointment would be created at the decision on some great question being long delayed. It was, moreover, important that a Vote should be made the subject of immediate action; for instance, a Vote of Credit such as was asked for on the 27th of July last. To have proposed to delay it until the 29th would have been a most serious evil. Take the case of a Tax Bill. It was most important that it should be disposed of within certain dates, and it was often most difficult to bring it within those limits. If in such a case they were to insert an idle interval between the debate and the decision on the Main Question, it would entail great public inconvenience, and it would be a matter of great difficulty to conform to the provisions of the law. For these reasons he hoped the hon. and gallant Member would not press his Motion. He thought that if any further precautions were to be taken in the direction indicated by the hon. and gallant Member they must be something very different from those he had proposed.

MR. E. STANHOPE

thought it hardly worth while for his hon. and gallant Friend to press his first point; but the second point—namely, that as to giving due notice before the Question was put—was very important, and well worthy of consideration. He thought it would be an improvement if it were left to the option of the Speaker either to put the Question at once or to put it the following day.

MR. R. H. PAGET

said, he thought the Amendment would have the effect of preventing a snap division being taken, and would lay down a distinct and definite method of giving the House notice that a division was about to take place. If the Amendment were altered so as to insure the division being taken next day, he thought it one worthy the attention of the House. He thought good reason had been shown for supporting the principle, at least, contained in the Amendment, although its present wording might be advantageously changed.

SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL

said, he thought there was much worthy of consideration in the suggestion which had been thrown out by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope). In the United States, from which he (Sir George Campbell) had just come, after a Bill had been discussed in a large Committee, the Member in charge of it might move that it be taken into consideration a few days subsequently. He thought it would be an advantage if something similar to the American practice were adopted. It might be placed in the power of the Speaker to say that he thought the debate had been continued long enough, and to warn the House that after a certain time he should think it right to announce its close, the speeches made during the interval being limited to a certain length.

MR. RAIKES

said, he thought the House had no right to quarrel with the manner with which the Prime Minister had met the Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman having expressed himself rather favourably to its object, though he had deprecated the machinery proposed by the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) for its attainment. What the right hon. Gentleman had said on the subject would have been conclusive had it not been that they had unfortunately got in the Resolution those unlucky words "the evident sense of the House." He had been induced to rise by the re-appearance of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell), because he had a vivid recollection of an occasion when in Committee of the Whole House there were at least 300 Members clamouring against the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy, who was then anxious to be heard; and it would then have been exceedingly difficult for anyone occupying the Chair to have withstood the impression that that manifestation was the evident sense of the House. Yet no Scotch Member would have been justified in believing that that debate terminated in a satisfactory manner without that hon. Member having been heard. He remembered another occasion when Mr. Auberon Herbert in that House supported the present Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in an attack on Her Majesty's private revenue; and no one who was then present would forget the scene which ensued on that occasion. Indeed, the Speaker had said it was a very painful scene, and not creditable to the House; but it would have been still less creditable if the occupant of the Chair had been compelled by "the evident sense of the House" at that time to terminate the debate, and refuse the two Members who then held those peculiar opinions the opportunity of being heard. The House would, he thought, do well to pause before they rejected the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone. That Amendment stood on the Paper in a form, perhaps, not altogether convenient or acceptable; and he should prefer the suggestion of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope), who pointed out that it might be convenient to leave the Speaker the option of fixing a certain hour or the next Sitting for the division to be taken. That would give a protection to the House, because without some such protection they might be sure that as the House proceeded in the course which the Prime Minister had so much deplored in the last few decades it would become a practice to organize "the evident sense of the House" in a way that would prove most disastrous. The right hon. Gentleman said that it might be inconvenient to press that a decision should be postponed. But that was arguing on the assumption that all important debates in the future were to be closed by the clôture, and unless that was so he could not see the force of the argument. The Amendment proposed that the vote was to be taken forthwith, and, therefore, some objection might be raised with respect to Votes of Credit. But there would be no difficulty in passing the first portion of the Resolution, and the ingenuity of hon. Members would easily provide some alteration which would exempt Money Bills from its operation. In the interest of the transaction of the ordinary Business of the House, he trusted the Government would see their way to accept, at any rate, the Proviso of the Amendment.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the right hon. Gentleman desired the Government to accept an Amendment, providing for the postponement of putting the Question when it had already been decided that the Question should be put forthwith.

CAPTAIN ATLMER

explained that his Amendment applied to the putting of the Main Question, and not to that relating to clôture.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he had understood the arguments of hon. Members opposite had been directed towards the clôture proposal. If they were not, he could not understand why they displayed a greater anxiety, as they had done in all their arguments, with respect to these Rules for the majority by which the clôture was to be enforced than that which sufficed to carry the Main Question. He however, thought that the same protection ought to be afforded to the one as the other. What ever delay, whatever preparation was made for one ought equally to be made for the other. He did not understand how it was that the hon. Member had come to the conclusion that the world was getting steadily worse. Why could not the Speaker's discretion be trusted? It seemed to be argued that the Speaker was under compulsion to put the Question, at a time when he knew that the House was not so constituted as that a fair division could be taken; but the Speaker was not compelled at the moment the moral conviction entered his mind that the question had been sufficiently discussed to put the Question. It was inconceivable that a Speaker of ordinary intelligence and fairness would put the Question of the clôture or the Main Question during the dinner hour, or when the House was not so constituted as that a fair division could be taken. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin had withdrawn his Amendment. What, then, was to be done? [An hon. MEMBER: Wait till next day.] He thought that enough had been said against the next day being chosen.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, that he had especially excepted the next day, and proposed the next Sitting but one.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that all who had spoken on the other side of the House had condemned that proposal, so that it was unnecessary for him to deal with it. Everybody admitted that they should be on their guard against snap divisions; but the question was, whether they were to wait two or three hours for the division on the Main Question? In his opinion, it would be highly inconvenient for the House so to wait; and the matter would best be settled by leaving it to the discretion of the Speaker, who would take care that the Question, whether it were of the clôture or the Main Question, was put at a time which was fair and convenient to the House.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, it always seemed to him, when he heard the Secretary of State for the Home Department argue any point in connection with the Resolution, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman argued somewhat as if he did not like the whole business, and that he was speaking against the grain, because they happened to be Government Resolutions, rather than in support of the object and aim of the Resolutions, which he (Sir Stafford Northcote) certainly imagined to be highly distasteful to one who had distinguished himself so much in debate in that House as the right hon. and learned Gentleman. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman had, of course, to fight the battle which he was put up to conduct, and he did it in the best way that he could. The impression which the right hon. and learned Gentleman made upon him (Sir Stafford Northcote) was, that he looked as little at these things as he possibly could, until the moment came for making a speech, and then he made it without having very carefully studied either the Resolution or the Amendment. On the present occasion, he (Sir Stafford Northcote) really did not see where the difficulty lay in understanding what the object and spirit of the Amendment moved by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) was. It was, to him, perfectly clear that there were two matters which the House had to consider. They had first to consider the debate, and they had, in the second place, also to consider the vote on the Question that might, at any time, be before the House. These Resolutions for stopping debate were Resolutions which, on that side of the House, they did not like, and which they would be very glad either to defeat or materially to modify. But, assuming that they were to have Resolutions which were to limit and cripple debate, he wanted to know if it was necessary also to spoil the fairness of a division upon the Main Question? Because two things might happen. They might have a debate stopped by the intervention of the Speaker in a thin House at 8 o'clock in the evening, or some hour of that kind, the effect of which would be to conclude any discussion upon the subject; but that might be done without preventing hon. Members who had fully expected that the discussion would run on for some hours, and who were likely to be present at the time of voting, from taking part in the division upon a question in which they took considerable interest. By closing the debate, unless some provision of the kind suggested by his hon. and gallant Friend were made, such hon. Members would be excluded from taking part in the division upon the Main Question, and they would run the risk both of stopping debate which ought not to be stopped, and, still more, of shutting out hon. Members from voting who ought to be allowed to vote. What his hon. and gallant Friend said was, that if they could alter their Resolution in such a way as to say that when the Speaker had put the Question "That the Question be now put," then, in regard to the Main Question—the question under discussion—being also put, should be a matter at the discretion of the Speaker, who should have full liberty to name the time when the division on the Main Question should take place. Such an Amendment of the Resolution of Her Majesty's Government would greatly modify and mitigate the severity of that part of the Rule relating to the vote being taken on the Main Question. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department spoke as if that were so very novel an idea that it was quite impossible to entertain it; but it was not a very novel idea at all. Surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman had had some experience, within the last year or two, of a course similar to that proposed by the Amendment under the Rules of Urgency. He (Sir Stafford Northcote) certainly recollected two instances in which, under those Rules, it had been decided to close a debate at a given hour. In the first instance, the Motion was made by the Prime Minister himself—he believed in Committee upon the Bill for the better Protection of Person and Property in Ireland—that on that day, at 12 o'clock, the remaining clauses of the Bill and any Amendments and New Clauses should be put forthwith. In the second case, the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington), at 7 o'clock, gave notice that at 12 o'clock the time of voting should take place. Therefore, there could be nothing extravagant in such an idea; and if they were prepared entirely to trust the Speaker, as he presumed they would be disposed in such a matter to trust the Speaker, then they could trust him to take a division at some convenient hour. There would be no insuperable difficulty or objection to the adoption of such a course as that; and if the House desired to avoid a snap division, he thought it would do well to accept the spirit of the proposal of his hon. and gallant Friend. It might be convenient to alter the wording of the second part of the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend by merely leaving out the words "at the sitting next but one to be holden." That would leave it entirely to the Speaker to say when the Question should be put. There could be no confusion between the two questions. The question under discussion having been debated, the Speaker would take notice that the debate had been exhausted, and he would put the Question for stopping further debate. Perhaps that might be done in a thin House, and in that case the thin House would decide that there should be no more debate. But that would not necessarily decide, unless the House chose that it should be so, that the vote should forthwith be taken upon the question under discussion. What his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) asked was that a further time should be named at which the vote on the question under discussion should be taken, and the demand was only fair and reasonable.

MR. DODSON

said, the proposition which the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) had made to the House was a very singular one, and was one which had considerably perplexed his own supporters, who all of them found themselves unable to support it in the form in which it stood upon the Paper. But the speech of the right hon. Baronet who had just sat down (Sir Stafford Northcote) would lead the House, if possible, to greater perplexity still; for what was it that the right hon. Baronet proposed? He proposed that the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member should be modified. And what was the effect of the modification which the right hon. Gentleman suggested? Why, it was this—that the Speaker should, or might, put a Motion for the closure of the debate at an inconvenient hour, and then that at a convenient hour the division should be taken on the Main Question, or Question under discussion. He (Mr. Dodson) should have thought that it would have been better to trust to the Speaker to put both Motions—namely, that for closing the debate, and then the Question under discussion at a convenient hour. The right hon. Baronet complained that his (Mr. Dodson's) right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department had not read either the Resolution or the Amendment; but the right hon. Baronet had evidently not read them himself. The right hon. Baronet appeared to think that there was to be one Motion for the clôture distinctly and another for the Main Question. That was not so. The House would observe that the words they had already agreed to were these— That when it shall appear to Mr. Speaker, or to the Chairman of Ways and Means in a Committee of the Whole House, during any Debate, that the subject has been adequately discussed, and that it is the evident sense of the House, or of the Committee, that the Question be now put, —the Resolution then proceeded to say— he may so inform the House, or the Committee.; and, if a Motion be made 'That the Question be now put,' "— that was, the Main Question—[Cries of "No, no!" and "Hear, hear!"] It certainly was the Main Question; and the Resolution further said— 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, Then the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) proposed, after those words, to add— And if so decided in the full House, then the next Notice or Order of the Day shall be forthwith proceeded with, after Mr. Speaker has named an hour at the sitting next but one to be holden, when the Question on which further discussion has been prohibited shall be put without Debate. The effect of the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member, which the right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford Northcote) favoured, was to say that the Question, which the House had decided "should be now put," should be put at some future time; in fact, that the word "now" in the Resolution should mean "the day after to-morrow." No wonder the Motion of the hon. and gallant Member did not appear to approve itself to his own Friends; while the modification which the right hon. Baronet had recommended, and which all the speakers sitting on the same side of the House as the hon. and gallant Member had spoken in favour of, was nothing more nor less than a clumsier form of the Amendment moved in an earlier part of the Resolution by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), and negatived by the House. The right hon. Baronet failed to see that a decision under the words already agreed to, "That the Question be now put," required that the Main Question be put forthwith, and not at some other time. He (Mr. Dodson) certainly thought, after the speeches which had been made by the supporters of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer), even including that of the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), it was not necessary for the House to discuss the matter further.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

said, it seemed to him that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson), who had just addressed the House, did not quite understand the situation or the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman had certainly stated three, if not six, times that the phrase "the Main Question" meant "that the Question be now put." Well, that certainly was not the Main Question, and the phrase "that the Question be now put" simply meant "that the discussion be now ended." ["No, no!"] If it did not mean that, then the Resolution was nonsense; because, in the next sentence, it went on to say, "and if the same be decided in the affirmative"—that was, "that the Question be now put"—"the Question under discussion shall be put forthwith." Consequently, the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) dealt, not with the question "that the Question be now put," but with the question under discussion, which was the Main Question. [Mr. DODSON: Precisely so; "that the Main Question be now put."] He was delighted to find that the right hon. Gentleman had at last been induced to agree with him. He had thought that a few minutes ago the right hon. Gentleman expressed a strong dissent from the statement made by his (Lord George Hamilton's) right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), which he was now only repeating. He thought everyone must admit that his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maidstone had hit a blot in the Resolution. There was no hon. Member who would deny that. ["No, no!"] Then, if it was not a blot on the Resolution, let them recollect what it was that the Prime Minister had said. His hon. and gallant Friend asserted that under the Resolution a Speaker might put the Question during the dinner hour, and that a small quorum of the House might thus decide a most important question; whereupon the Prime Minister said—and it was a curious remark to make—that if such a thing occurred, and the Speaker literally obeyed his own Resolution, he would be below the average common sense and intelligence accorded by Nature to mankind. Consequently, they were asked to elevate the House of Commons, and preserve its dignity, by making a Resolution a Standing Order, which, if the Speaker of the day implicitly obeyed, it would place him below the average common sense and intelligence of mankind. The Secretary of State for the Home Department had admitted this. He said that, even in their present difficulties, there was one thing on which they might implicitly rely. What was that one thing? It was the ordinary common sense and intelligence of the Speaker. But how would the Resolution look if words to that effect were inserted in it? What would be thought if they made the Resolution read—"The Question shall be now put, provided that Mr. Speaker has the ordinary common sense and intelligence not to observe the Resolution?" It was quite evident that Her Majesty's Government dared not embody their own argument in the Resolution; and if they could not do that, when the Resolution became a Standing Order, the Prime Minister's argument would be forgotten. Surely, the House ought to do something to remedy the evil which his hon. and gallant Friend had unquestionably hit; and it seemed to him (Lord George Hamilton) that a remedy might be applied in a tolerably easy manner. Suppose that, in the second Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend, they inserted after the words "and if so decided in the full House" the words "of not less than two hundred Members," the Resolution would be made to run in a manner which would meet the views of the Opposition, and he was inclined to think would meet the views of Her Majesty's Government themselves. He understood the Government to say that they were not averse to the sense of the Amendment, but that they could not agree to it because they did not understand it. The Resolution would then read— And, if a Motion be made 'That the Question he now put,' Mr. Speaker, or the Chairman, shall forthwith put such Question; and, if the same be decided in the affirmative, in a Committee of the whole House, the Question under discussion shall be put forthwith, and if so decided in the full House —after which word he proposed to insert the words "of not less than two hundred Members"— then the next Notice or Order of the Day-shall be forthwith proceeded with, after Mr. Speaker has named an hour at the sitting next but one to be holden, when the Question on which further discussion has been prohibited shall be put without Debate. Let them for a moment consider what the objection was which the Prime Minister had made. The right hon. Gentleman said it would be inconvenient to Members to be required to attend afterwards, and decide the question whether the Main Question should be then put. But the question under discussion might be a most important question, and a considerable number of Members might be away during the dinner hour; and if the Speaker considered it necessary to put the Question, unquestionably the House would have a grievance against the Speaker, and they would be glad to show the interest they took in the question by coming down to vote. Of course, if the question was simply a matter of no importance, nobody would come down, and the decision previously arrived at would be adhered to. It therefore seemed to him that the very slight Amendment he had suggested in the earlier part of the second Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend would meet all the difficulty, without in any way invalidating the efficacy of the Resolution.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

said, that he had placed an Amendment on the Paper which was constructively the same as that now before the House; and as it might be ruled out, after that of the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) had been discussed and decided, he should like to explain to the House what the object of it was, and what his idea was of the way in which the matter ought to be dealt with. The discussion which had taken place had certainly thrown the whole matter into a state of such con- fusion that he confessed he was hardly able to recognize his own proposition, in the interpretations which, had been put on the Amendment before the House. He would, therefore, read his Amendment. It came in in this way; at the end of the Resolution to add— Provided also, That the intervention of the Speaker at any stage of a Bill shall he subject to confirmation, by such Question being again put without Debate at the next Sitting of the House as a matter of Privilege, under the conditions hereto before provided as to the requisite majority; and, unless confirmed, the Debate shall in due course be resumed as though the Speaker had not intervened. His object was to provide that there should be an appeal—an appeal from a passionate and agitated House to a House which had had some little time for considering the matter. Surely, the question of appeal was not one to be thrown aside as quite unworthy of the consideration of the House. There was an appeal from the decision of every Judge to a Superior Court, and no discredit was thrown upon the Judge whose decision was appealed against. So, also, in the case of the Speaker, it would be no discredit to Mr. Speaker that his decision should be appealed against, and afterwards overruled by the House; and for this reason—that it would not be so much the decision of the Speaker as it would be of the House itself that would be overruled. They knew, over and over again, of instances in which the Prime Minister insisted that decisions which the House had arrived at should be overruled by a subsequent vote. An instance occurred during the present Session, in regard to the admission of Mr. Brad-laugh. Therefore, the argument that an appeal would throw discredit upon the Speaker fell to the ground at once. All that was asked was that the decision of the Speaker should be subject to reversal by the Whole House; should, in fact, be subject to confirmation by requiring the Question to be again put without debate at the next Sitting of the House; and if it were not confirmed, then the debate would be resumed as though the Speaker had not intervened.

MR. WARTON

said, he only rose for the purpose of recalling to the memory of the House two incidents which had occurred in the progress of debate since the present Government had been in power. One of them was an incident which occurred last year, and the other happened during the present Session. On the 25th of April last year, the day put down for the second reading of the Irish Land Bill, after some months had been allowed for studying the provisions of the measure, shortly before dinner, an attempt was made by clamour on the Liberal side of the House, by shouting out "Divide!" and by other annoyances, to have the second reading of the Bill, which was the most important measure of the Session, carried at once without discussion or debate. The most conspicuous person who called out "Divide!" on that occasion was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain); and if it had not been for an hon. Member on that (the Opposition) side of the House rising in his place and moving the Adjournment of the Debate, a division would have been snapped at that time. It would, therefore, be seen that, even under the existing arrangements, the House ran the risk of having snap divisions. The second incident to which he wished to call the attention of the House was one that occurred in the present Session; it was on the second reading of the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill, as amended. The Bill was introduced for the first time on a Friday, and distributed on the Saturday morning; and the Opposition were charged with Obstruction because, at 12 or 1 o'clock on the Monday night, they wished to have a second day for the consideration of the second reading of that most important Bill. When they went into the Lobby, the majority against them was slightly over two to one—290 to 140—and they were told by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) that that was an overwhelming majority, to the decision of which they were bound to submit. If the New Rules had been in force, it would have been said that the "evident sense of the House" had been manifested by the division, and all discussion upon the second reading of that important measure would have been stopped. He mentioned these incidents as two reasons why he, for one, was exceedingly anxious not to allow the Ministry to have the chance of taking advantage of a single snap division. When it was argued by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department that the Opposition asked for the divison upon the clôture to be taken carelessly, and the division on the Main Question to be taken carefully, he (Mr. Warton) would remind the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Resolution itself provided that the Question should not be decided in the affirmative, if a division were taken, unless it should appear to have been supported by more than 200 Members, or unless it should appear to have been opposed by less than 40 Members, and supported by more than 100 Members. In that way there would be security against any carelessness. He thought that a considerable amount of confusion existed, as manifested by the course the debate had taken in regard to the use of the word "Question." Even the Secretary of State for the Home Department himself had been misled; and when they came to the 7th line of the Resolution, which now read—"Provided that the Question shall not be decided in the affirmative," unless they inserted words to explain clearly what the Question was, the House would find themselves involved in some difficulty. He thought it would be found necessary to amend the Resolution by making it read—"Provided that the Question, 'That that Question be now put' shall not be decided in the affirmative." Unless that were done, they would have this curious result—"That the Question under discussion be put forthwith, provided that the Question"—that was the question under discussion, which might be the clôture or the Main Question—"shall not be decided in the affirmative." He pointed out this defect in the Resolution for the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

MR. H. S. NORTHCOTE

said, he did not propose to detain the House for more than a few minutes. He only desired to say that there appeared to have been a slight misunderstanding on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Dodson) as to the argument which had been used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). All that he (Mr. Northcote) understood the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon to say was, that he wished to provide, in the event of the Speaker putting the vote for the clôture at an unreasonable or inconvenient hour, that he should not have the power of acting with further inconvenience and irregularity by putting the Main Question. There was one thing which appeared not to have occurred to Her Majesty's Government, and it was in regard to the character of a possible future Speaker. Hitherto, the House had had represented to it only two characters in which to regard the Speaker—in the one case, a perfectly immaculate Speaker; and, in the other, a Speaker who would be the thorough partizan of the Government of the day. He apprehended that, in either of those two cases, it would be of very little importance what Rules the House adopted. If they had a perfect Speaker, he might be fully trusted not to abuse the powers placed in his hands. On the other hand, if they had a Speaker who was a thorough partizan of the Government of the day, he quite agreed with the Prime Minister, that that would be the surest way of insuring the downfall of any Government he might happen to support. But there was another case—namely, that of a Speaker who might occasionally, in the course of the discharge of his duty, give a decision which might appear doubtful to the Party against whom he gave it; and the object of adopting an Amendment somewhat on the principle of that proposed by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) was, in his (Mr. Northcote's) judgment, to diminish, as far as possible, the friction which might arise between the Speaker and the Party against whom he might decide. If an Amendment similar in principle to that which had been proposed by the hon. and gallant Member were adopted, they would have at least the practical consolation of knowing that the minority would have the fullest opportunity given to them of mustering their forces, and bringing all the weight they could to bear against the decision which had been given in the first instance. He hoped the House would agree to the Amendment.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 89; Noes 145: Majority 56.—(Div. List, No. 355.)

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the next Amendment upon the Paper stood in the name of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley). As he did not see the hon. Member in his place, and as the Amendment raised rather a curious point, he (Lord Bandolph Churchill) proposed to move the Amendment himself. The Amendment was, in line 7, after "forthwith," to insert "but no such Question shall be put so as to interrupt a Member while speaking." He asked for the attention of the Prime Minister, for a moment, upon this point. He was not quite sure that it would be necessary to move the Amendment at all; but he wished to know whether the Speaker could, except under a subsequent Resolution which referred to relevancy of speaking, gather the "evident sense of the House" and apply the clôture during an hon. Member's speech? If that were so, he should be strongly prepared to resist such a proposition, that any speech might be interrupted by the Speaker in order to bring a debate to a close. Such a power would, he was satisfied, greatly encourage every man who sat on the Liberal Benches in shouting down his opponents.

MR. SPEAKER

Do I understand that the noble Lord is now proposing to take up the Amendment of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley)?

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Yes.

MR. SPEAKER

I have already pointed out to the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) that the Amendment could not be put, because it is already the Rule of Debate that no hon. Member shall be interrupted by the Chair when speaking to a question except on points of Order.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

In that case, I will not move the Amendment.

MR. HICKS,

in rising to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice, said, that when he first placed the Amendment upon the Paper, the general impression of the House was, he believed, that the Resolution of the Government was intended to apply simply to cases of Obstruction. But since then a new light appeared to have dawned upon Her Majesty's Government; and the Rules, prepared with such great care, were to be made applicable to vain and frivolous speeches. The House, however, was still in the dark as to the force which was to be applied to these words; because it was very possible that speeches which were delivered by one side of the House might be held to be vain and frivolous, which would not be held to be vain and frivolous when they came from the other side of the House. Again, they might be held to be vain and frivolous at one hour, when at another hour they would not be held to be either vain or frivolous. But, were that so or not, it had never yet been announced that there was any intention to put a stop to all debates; and, that being so, he thought he might fairly ask the support and acceptance of Her Majesty's Government to his Amendment; and if they would not give him their support and acceptance, then he would ask the support of independent Members in all quarters and upon all sides of the House. Surely four nights was not an unreasonable period of time to devote to the consideration of great measures; for the House would observe that the Amendment which he proposed was not directed, and did not provide, that all debates should extend to four days, but simply that this arbitrary power should not be put in force when the subject-matter of debate should have been, in a great measure, brought on by Her Majesty's Government, and when it had not been debated for at least four nights. It did not follow that every measure brought in by Her Majesty's Government should be held to be a measure of that kind; but his object was simply to provide that this arbitrary power of dosing a debate should not be put in force until such a period of time had expired. If hon. Members would look back to the history of the House, he thought they would find very few occasions on which measures of very great importance had not been debated for at least that length of time. They would have in their recollection the debates upon the Divorce Bill—a measure in which the present Prime Minister took a great interest, and which the right hon. Gentleman thought so objectionable that he considered he was perfectly privileged in using all the rights of a Member of Parliament to defeat it, and prevent it from passing into law. Then there was the Irish Church Bill; that took four nights. The last Reform Bill was debated for four nights on the second reading; the repeal of the Corn Laws was eight nights under discussion, and not the second reading, but the first reading, of the first Reform Bill engaged the attention of the House for 12 nights. Further, he believed that there was hardly any instance in regard to any division having been postponed when it had been previously agreed upon by Parties on both sides that a division should take place. If this Resolution was to be passed in the way it was now drawn, there was nothing whatever to prevent a powerful Minister from coming down to the House at a time of the evening when hon. Members knew very well that the House was generally thin, and carrying the second reading of any Bill he might think proper to introduce, even upon the very first night of the debate. He thought that was a possibility which the Liberal Members below the Gangway would not altogether at all times wish to see realized. Therefore, if there were no real desire to put a stop to free discussion, this Amendment, he thought, ought at once to be accepted; and if it were not accepted, then, he thought, they could come to but one conclusion—namely, that the real object of this Resolution was not the stopping of Obstruction, but the giving of power to an arbitrary Government. There was an old saying that "extremes meet;" and it was rather remarkable that they found the extreme Radical of 1882 pursuing the same course, and aiming at the same power, that the Stuarts aimed at in 1682. The similarity of the events of these two periods was rather remarkable. He found it recorded in Burnett's Own Times that when James, Duke of York, went down to Scotland, these circumstances occurred— Some complaints were also made of the lords of regalities, who had forfeitures and the power of life and death, within their regalities. It was upon that promised that there should be a regulation of these Courts, as there was indeed great cause for it, these lords being so many tyrants up and down the country; so it was intended to subject these jurisdictions to the Supreme Judicatories. But the Act was passed in such words as imported that the whole course of justice all over the kingdom was made subject to the King's will and pleasure; so that instead of appeals to the Supreme Courts, all was made to end in a personal appeal to the King; and by this means he was made master of the whole justice and property of the kingdom. There was not much time given to consider things; for the Duke, finding that he was master of a clear majority, drove on everything fast, and put Bills on a very short debate to the vote, which went always as he had a mind to it, Those were the events of 1682, and here, he thought, they had history repeating itself. Here they had a grievance acknowledged, he believed, by all Parties in the House; here they were promised a remedy; and here, again, the remedy was far in excess of the occasion. Again, they had also a powerful Minister aiming at great power, and trying to force all his measures through the House without discussion. If he went on a little further he came to the time of the French Empire. [Laughter.] No doubt, to some hon. Members, it was a very laughable matter; but, personally, he did not at all think it was very pleasant. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce) told the House that his objection to the Resolution was that it did not go far enough. Perhaps the hon. Member would like to hear the practice that prevailed in France during the Empire. [An hon. MEMBER: Which Empire?] The First Empire. It was this— By degrees all the laws were presented to the Council by the Ministers, and were either changed into decrees, which, without any other sanction, were put in force from one end of France to the other; or else, having received the sanction of the Corps Legislatif, they were passed with no more trouble than that imposed on the reporters to the Council, who had to preface them by a discourse, so that they might have some show of necessity. The hon. Member for Dungarvan, on Thursday, used these words—"As the Premier has undertaken to destroy the constitution of Parliament, the more thorough the ruin the better, as the sooner would come the reaction." He agreed with that opinion; and although it was the duty of independent Members to endeavour to amend the Resolution, still, for one, he had rather see the Minister of this country clothed with the power which Napoleon secured than see the House degraded, as it must be if this Resolution passed in its present form. Under the first state, they might soon see the reaction throughout the country; under the second, it might be years before the House regained those rights and privileges which it had been the work of centuries to secure. He would conclude by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

Amendment proposed, In line 7, after the word "forthwith," to insert the words "Provided, That when the sub- ject-matter of Debate shall be the Second Reading of a Bill introduced by a Member of the Government, a Motion 'That the Question be now put' shall not be put until Twelve of the Clock on the fourth night of the Debate, the Second Reading having been put down as first Order of the Day on each of the four days."—(Mr. Hicks.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he felt sure the House would appreciate the consideration and research which the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks) had brought to bear on the present question; but, having listened to the character the hon. Member had drawn of Gentlemen sitting on that (the Ministerial) side of the House, and his historical reminiscences, he (Sir William Harcourt) could not but hope that it was not proposed to treat them to the same kind of clôture that overtook the First Napoleon, or the first and second generations of the Stuarts. He thought the hon. Member might take comfort, for he should not forget that, from the dangers of the times to which he had referred, society had always found some great deliverer; and he (Sir William Harcourt) doubted not that, in case of need, it could yet look with confidence to the county of Cambridge. But he could not entertain the opinion that a four days' debate would either have kept James II. on the Throne, or driven the First Napoleon from it—some other measures would have to have been taken for these purposes. Practically, the proposal of the hon. Gentleman was, that whenever a Member of the Government brought forward a measure, the debate thereon should not be closed until four days had elapsed. He had truly said that, on great occasions, debates had extended to four days, and even longer. But that would be the case in the future as well as in the past. No doubt, four days would not be too much to devote to the discussion of great questions where strong feelings were aroused, and he ventured to say that this was exactly the view which the Speaker would take on such occasions. But, to put it in the language of the hon. Member, that in the case of the second reading of a Bill introduced by a Member of the Government, the question should, in no case, be considered to have been fully discussed in less than four days, would be seen, from experience, to be laying down a very inconvenient Rule. That would be evident in the case of Money Bills, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Preston (Mr. Raikes) had, in a former Amendment, proposed to exclude.

MR. HICKS

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman appeared to have misapprehended his proposal, which was not that the debates on Government measures should continue four days, but that until that time had expired the clôture should not be applied.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the Amendment, however, laid down the rule that the debate should not be closed by the exercise of this power until four days had elapsed, and that, in the case of a Money Bill, or, to take another illustration, the Mutiny Bill, would be highly inconvenient. In the latter case, the interests of the Public Service might require the Bill to be passed in 24 hours; but if the Amendment of the hon. Member were adopted, the Government would find themselves confronted with the "four-days' Rule;" moreover, if Saturday and Sunday intervened, that period would be extended to six days. In view, therefore, of the great delay which would be opposed to measures that it was absolutely essential to the Public Service to pass in a limited time, he hoped he had been able to satisfy the hon. Member that it was impossible for Her Majesty's Government to accede to the proposed Amendment.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, he entirely agreed with the object which his hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgshire (Mr. Hicks) had in view. But while he shared his apprehension of the dangers which might ensue, he feared it would be difficult to meet them by any words that could be introduced into a Resolution of the kind under notice. The whole scheme embodied in the Resolution was open to great objection, and might lead to very serious inconvenience and protracted debates on subjects of great national importance, for which reason he hoped the House would limit, if it did not entirely reject it. But he was afraid the proposal of his hon. Friend was not one capable of being worked, and would, therefore, suggest that he should be satisfied with having called attention to the subject, without proceeding to a division,

SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF

thought that, in the absence of the Prime Minister, it would be satisfactory to the House if the debate were adjourned.

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

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, the Government would have no objection to the adjournment of the debate when a point of great importance was reached; but he thought they might be allowed to dispose of the present Amendment.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he felt much indebted to the hon. Member (Mr. Hicks) for raising the point suggested by his Amendment. He did not, however, think that the latter was drawn exactly in the words which would carry out his object. But his hon. Friend had succeeded in obtaining from the Government an admission of the leading fact, that the length or, perhaps, the extreme shortness of discussion would, under this Resolution, remain absolutely in the discretion of Mr. Speaker, who would have to consider the wishes of Her Majesty's Ministers. Both Mr. Speaker and the House of Commons would become mere instruments of a majority, in existence under conditions which prevented its being a free agent. He hoped his hon. Friend would not divide the House upon his Amendment in its present form; at the same time, he thanked him sincerely for having pointed out the nature of the Government proposal and its inevitable results upon the position of Mr. Speaker and of the House itself.

MR. R. N. FOWLER

considered that the Amendment before the House raised a question which deserved very serious consideration. His fear—and that of hon. Members on those Benches—was that the discussion of matters of interest and importance to their constituents might be cut short in a way that would deprive them of an opportunity of laying their views before the House. He believed the Secretary of State for the Home Department intended to bring in a Bill next Session, that would affect his constituency, and he supposed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman would move the second reading of it at, say, 5 o'clock in the afternoon. What would follow? The right hon. and learned Gentleman would probably address the House for an hour and a-half; another hour would be occupied in moving the rejection of the Bill; the Metropolitan Members, all of whom would wish to speak on the question, would then have from half-past 7 till 11 o'clock, during which time they would be endeavouring to catch the Speaker's eye. It would then be intimated to the Leader of the Opposition that, if he wanted to address the House, he had better get up at once. The Leader of the Opposition would have no alternative but to rise; the Prime Minister would reply, and what he (Mr. R. N. Fowler) feared would take place would be that the Metropolitan Members who had not been called, upon would be absolutely precluded from addressing the House upon a question of the greatest interest to their constituents. For these reasons, and because the proposal of the hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Hicks) tended to obviate the danger indicated, he should give the Amendment his cordial support.

Question put, and negatived.

Question again proposed.

MR. HICKS

said, he would not press the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Main Question, as amended, again proposed.

Debate arising;

Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock.